Louise Allen – Regency Scoundrels And Scandals (страница 72)
If she had known he was on the look-out for a bride, nothing would have led her to make her outrageous proposition, Bel thought angrily, the low heels of her shoes clicking on the pavement with the force of her steps. He had only needed to pretend to misunderstand her, as he had done at first, and there the matter would have ended. She would have been embarrassed, yet probably relieved once she had time to think things over, and Ashe would have neatly extricated himself from a tricky encounter, as doubtless he had many a time before.
But he had not extricated himself, and she had slept with him. They had made love and while it probably meant nothing to him, Bel told herself, piling on the misery, she was never going to be the same again.
Half an hour ago she had thought her life was perfect. Perfect.
‘It is very nice, my lady. Will you be going in to see if they have it in a different colour?’
‘What?’ Bel found she was standing in front of a milliner’s shop, regarding a hat on a stand, and Millie was waiting patiently at her side.
‘You said it was perfect, my lady. But I don’t think you usually wear that shade of blue, do you, ma’am?’
Now she was talking to herself. Bel took a long, steadying breath. She was a grown-up woman, if a naïve and inexperienced one. Now she knew about Lady Pamela Ashe would not come to her again, not after having found himself in public between his lover and the object of his more permanent attentions. One just had to put it all down to experience. And at least she had experienced physical pleasure. She knew what all the fuss was about now.
All she had to do was to stop aching with desire for Ashe. Surely that would happen naturally after a few days? One simply could not exist as she was now, feeling like this, not without going mad.
Bel pushed open the shop door and stepped in. Shopping as a cure for misery was shallow, but she did not care. Tomorrow she would find something worthwhile to do. Today she was going to buy a hat.
The soothing qualities of a new hat, even an outrageously frivolous one that an unmarried girl like Lady Pamela would not be allowed to wear, were predictably short lived. Bel knew perfectly well that she could shop until she dropped, dance her slippers through, read the most frivolous journals and gossip until she was hoarse—but the empty ache would still be there. It did not help to tell herself that by the very nature of their relationship there could be no emotional commitment. Ashe had made none. What she felt now was too close to that for either safety or comfort—perhaps it was better that it was ending now.
Bel found herself at half past midnight unable to sleep again. She sat up in bed, her arms wrapped round her knees, her books discarded on the table and tried to think.
She was twenty-six. She was never going to marry again and she would never dare entangle herself with another man. That left a considerable number of years stretching into the future to be filled with something other than domestic duties or passion. Bel knew that while she was perfectly intelligent she would never be a bluestocking like her cousin, so retreating into some form of intellectual study was out of the question. Parties and shopping were fun, but hardly the basis of a fulfilling life.
Which left good works. Bel contemplated the idea. When she had been married she had undertaken charitable activities on the estate and in the surrounding parishes as a matter of course, but now there was no estate to provide her with a ready-made supply of children to educate, elderly and infirm persons to support or fathers of large families to find work for. She was going to have to find a cause of her own.
Throwing back the covers, Bel slid out of bed and padded across to the table, the voluminous skirts of the plain cotton nightgown she had chosen flapping about her ankles. She found paper and ink and settled down to make a list of causes. It would need to be something engrossing and worthwhile—she was not going to play with this like so many society ladies did.
Children, widows, animals, the elderly, she wrote, biting the end of her quill. Education? Employ…
The door opened. Bel swung round on her chair and stared. ‘Ashe?’
‘You were expecting someone else, Bel, my sweet?’ He strolled in and dropped his hat and gloves on a chair. Tonight he was elegant in evening dress. ‘Lord, my great-aunt’s parties are a bore, bless her. I love the old darling, but her entourage of geriatric swains is quite another matter. I have just sat through at least six elderly gentlemen telling me how Wellington should have deployed his troops at Waterloo and one who was confused enough to think he had been at Quatre Bras personally.’
‘I was not expecting you,’ Bel said, her pen dropping unheeded and spattering ink spots across her list.
‘Why not?’ Ashe shed his jacket and waistcoat and began to deconstruct his elaborate neckcloth. ‘You sent me a reply to my note.’ He walked towards her, the ends in his hands, then stopped, frowning. ‘Aren’t you well, sweetheart? Do you have a headache? I’ll go, of course.’
‘No, I do not have a headache and I am quite well. Don’t sweetheart me.’ Bel stood up and saw his expression change as he took in the exceedingly chaste nightgown and the sharp tone of her voice. ‘And I replied to your note before I saw you with Lady Pamela. If I had had any notion that you were involved with someone else, I would never have embarked on this…liaison.’
He looked as tempting as sin itself standing there, those gorgeous blue eyes fixed intently on her, the thick gilt of his hair slightly tousled, the neck of his shirt open just enough to give her a glimpse of the skin beneath. And that was precisely what Ashe was: sin. Highly experienced, completely unprincipled sin.
‘Lady Pamela? You think I am in some way committed to Lady Pamela Darlington?’
‘Yes, Lady Pamela. Is there anyone else I have missed? So far she is the only one I have seen hanging on your arm, exchanging little smiles with you, generally behaving as though she has proprietorial rights over you and getting doting looks in return. And as Lady Pamela is a well-bred, single young lady and the leading light of this year’s Marriage Mart, there is but one conclusion to be drawn from such behaviour.’
‘You are jealous.’ Ashe said it with a hint of a smile. She glared and the smile vanished. ‘But that’s ridiculous Bel.’
Bel took two rapid steps forward and jabbed him in the chest with one sharp finger. Ashe swayed backwards a trifle, but did not retreat. ‘Yes, I am jealous, and do not tell me I have no right to be because I know that perfectly well. But don’t you dare tell me I am being ridiculous either; you told me you had no commitments and I would not have dreamed of…of…’ she waved a hand towards the bed ‘…that if I had known.’
‘Ah.’ Bel narrowed her eyes at him. He did not look the slightest bit chastened, not the remotest bit guilty. ‘I have known Lady Pamela since she was six. She is a minx and as much of a hussy as a well-bred girl can be and, despite her father’s adamant refusal to consider the suit, she is head over heels in love with a very good friend of mine.’
‘That makes it worse!’
‘Head over heels,’ Ashe persisted, removing himself to the relative safety of the fireside. ‘And set on persuading me to invite both him and her to a house party.’
‘Which house party?’
‘The one she expects me to host for the sole purpose of allowing her and George to moon about in the shrubbery out of sight of her chaperon.’
‘If that is the case, why was she spreading herself all over you like butter?’ Bel demanded, provoking a grin from Ashe at her language.
‘Because she is one of the prettiest girls in London, used to being the acknowledged star in any firmament and, when she comes face to face with another lovely woman, her instincts are to lay claim to any male in the vicinity between the ages of sixteen and seventy. I happened to be handy.’
‘Oh.’ Bel swallowed, clenching her hands. Lovely woman? Her? ‘I have made a fool of myself, haven’t I?’
‘A bit.’ He smiled affectionately. ‘I suppose I helped. But, given the basilisk eye of your Aunt Ravenhurst, I thought it best to play up to Pamela and to treat you with polite indifference.’ Bel bit her lip and focused her gaze on the point where his shirt opened over golden skin. ‘Were you truly jealous? That is very flattering.’
‘Flattering? It was horrible. Jealousy was a thoroughly reprehensible reaction in the first place, and I know I have absolutely no right to feel it. I felt mean and miserable.’ Bel sifted through her emotions, then added honestly, ‘But it hurt, and I do not like you telling me I am being ridiculous.’
‘I am sorry.’ Ashe stepped over Horace and gathered her in against his chest. Bel gave a little sigh and clung to as much of him as she could get her arms around. ‘I forget you are very new to these intrigues. It is not in your nature to dissemble, but we cannot afford to look at each other and have our closeness show, you know that.’