She blinked, looking up at him, feeling none of the sensations Jesse’s kisses had evoked within her. She felt instead a curious ambivalence. Apparently, the duke mistook her puzzlement for pleasure, because he dipped his head again. This time, he kissed her with more insistence, opening his mouth slightly over hers.
Bella pulled back abruptly, overcome. She’d just been through the most difficult time of her life. She most certainly wasn’t ready to be exchanging kisses in the gardens with a new suitor as though she hadn’t anything more important to worry about than whether or not her hat matched her slippers.
The duke appeared contrite. “I’m sorry,” he said on a rush. “I didn’t mean to insult you, my dear. I quite lost my head.”
If his cool, quick kisses were the result of losing his head, she was a mermaid. And the last she’d checked, she had feet, not fins. Blessed angels, Bella thought they were hopelessly mismatched. She felt utterly horrid, leading him down a path from which there was no return. He didn’t even know who she was. For that matter, Bella didn’t even know who she was any longer. She’d certainly lost every last crumb of her idealism.
“It is I who must apologize, Your Grace,” she told him, her voice laden with guilt. She wanted very much to like him. Perhaps she could like him, given time, but she was too broken now to care for anyone. “You see, my heart has been broken, and while I count you to be a cherished friend, I’m not able to feel for you as I ought. You are a perfect gentleman and have been most kind to me this last week. The truth is that you deserve much more than I can give you.”
He brought her hands, still linked with his, to his lips for a kiss. “You are to be commended for your honesty. I shall treat you to the same. I very much believe in taking on a wife who is my equal in every way. You are intelligent, well-versed in the arts of society, the daughter of a noble family. If I were to tell you I loved you, I would be lying. But I think I can grow to love you, and I hope that you might also grow to love me in return.”
She frowned, considering his surprising soliloquy. “But Your Grace—”
“Pray,” he interrupted gently, “think over what I’ve said to you. Hearts, like crumbling castle walls, can always be mended.”
He still wanted her as his wife. She hadn’t been prepared for such a reaction. She had to admit his reasoning seemed sound, his logic quite pragmatic. She already respected him. Feelings of tenderness for him could surely follow in time. Love, however, was another matter entirely. She needed to tell him as much.
“Your Grace, I am confident that I have lost the only man I shall ever love.”
“And I’m equally confident that I can rival any man for your affections.” He smiled, lowering their entwined hands. “You are yet young, my dear, and young love always hurts the most.”
“With utmost respect, Your Grace, I beg to differ,” she countered. “Love is not ruled by age but by passions and unruly hearts. Besides, you aren’t a great deal older than I.”
The duke raised a brow. “I’m old enough. But let’s call a truce, shall we? I too have been in your most unenvied shoes. I know all too well that a broken heart smarts worse than any broken bone ever could.”
His understanding only increased her sadness. He was almost too good, really. Why did he have to be so understanding? The weariness in her made her want to trust him. She tilted her head, considering him. He didn’t seem especially capable of a grand passion. “I hadn’t realized,” she said simply. “You appear so stalwart.”
The duke’s expression grew shuttered. “Outward appearances hide a multitude of things, Lady Bella. The sooner in life you learn that lesson, the less disappointed you’ll be.”
Unexpectedly, her mind turned to Jesse. He had hidden much from her, it seemed, including his true nature. Otherwise, he never would have disappeared from her life with nary a goodbye. He’d left her alone to face the consequences of their glorious night of passion, alone to face the horrible anguish of losing their babe. He hadn’t even known of its existence. He likely never would. Nor, she supposed, would he care about the tiny life she’d carried within her for almost three months before having it ripped from her body. Their precious babe had been snuffed out as effectively as a timid fire in the grate. To nearly everyone else, the babe had never been real. To her, the babe had been everything. Yes, the duke was right. Outward appearances could hide a vast amount of secrets, some of which would never be made known. Tears stung her eyes.
“Don’t cry, darling Bella.” The duke startled her by taking her in his arms for a comforting embrace.
He smelled rather nice, she thought, a musky blend of man and leather. His coat was fine and soft against her cheek. If only she had loved him instead of Jesse Whitney. Life would have been more bearable, surely. She never would have been alone and stupid, riding her horse in a storm. She never would have lost her babe or the man she loved. The tears unleashed themselves steadily upon her, racking her body with sobs. Had she been herself, she would have been dreadfully embarrassed. But she was a ghost wandering about in the skin of the woman she’d been, and the ghost didn’t give a fig for keeping up appearances.
He comforted her, patting her back as though having a woman crying her eyes out in his arms were the most natural position in the world. “Everything hurts less with time, Lady Bella. You shall see.”
She fervently hoped he was correct in his assertion. She nodded miserably against his lapel, unable to formulate a reply. Perhaps one day she would be capable of functioning as a normal person again. Lately, it seemed she fluctuated wildly from emotion to emotion. The worst was the sadness. It never left her.
“I must return to my estate today, my dear,” he murmured, still stroking her back. “But I should like to return in a fortnight. While I’m away, pray mull over all I’ve said to you. I believe quite firmly that we can make a remarkable match. But I shall leave the decision to you. If you write me, I shall come to ask the marquis for your hand.”
Bella looked up at the duke, tears making her vision blurry. “I w-will think on it, Your Grace. I th-th-thank you for the honor you pay me.”
“Very good, my dear.” He pressed a brotherly kiss to her forehead. “Now dry your eyes. I fear if we tarry a moment longer, your lovely mother will come barreling around the bend to demand I marry you at once.”
She managed a small laugh at the image of the dowager coming upon them in full dudgeon. “Thank you, Your Grace.”
“Any time, Lady Bella,” he said kindly. “Any time.”
Acrid gun smoke stung his lungs. The clash of hand-to-hand combat rattled around him. Bayonets collided with swords and daggers, minié balls whistling through the air as angry hornets. Men screamed. Canisters were emptied into human flesh. Horses whinnied and fell. Fear gripped his heart like a giant’s unrelenting fist. Before him, the bodies of his comrades stretched out, faces twisted into death masks, stomachs and heads blown open, oozing life’s blood as if it were no more precious than water in a stream. The devilish bellow of a cannon blast roared through the din of battle. The howitzer cut down a swath of men to his right. Heads and limbs were torn from bodies.
Jesse fumbled to reload his gun. A Yankee officer rose from the heavy cloud surrounding him, sword poised to run him through. He tried to scream, move, shoot the bastard, but somehow his hands had been rendered powerless. No sound emerged from his throat. The blade arced toward him, dripping in the red blood of the wounded, ready to plunge into his gut. This was it, he thought, his final moment before death. He felt the sword skewer him, the ripping pain unlike any earthly sensation he’d ever felt before…
Jesse returned to consciousness with a start. He stood in utter darkness, and for a moment he wasn’t sure where he was or how he’d gotten there. He was sweating, his breathing heavy, fists clenched and aching. Christ, he must have been caught up in one of his nightmares again. Taking a deep breath, he tried to shake the remnants of the dream from his sleep-fogged mind. Gradually, reality returned to him. After traveli
ng across the Atlantic on a tossing, hellish ride, he had at long last arrived in England with Clara. Now he was in London, in his own chamber.
Thank God.
Slowly, he took a few steps in the direction of what he fancied was the gas lamps. He’d only been here for one night and he’d been sleeping in so many different places that it took him some pause to gather his sense of just where the hell he was. He had arranged for the purchase of a house in Belgravia during his stay in America. It had been dear in price but necessary if he wanted to begin a life with Bella. And he wanted that life more than he wanted breath in his lungs.
The house itself was grand, as befitted a woman of her position in society. He was glad, for he’d bought it sight unseen. While he’d stayed in many fine establishments over the years, he had to admit that there was something about this edifice that had felt different for him the instant he’d walked in the door. This was not merely a shelter but a home, the place where he’d at long last plant his roots.
Blindly, he felt before him until his fingers discovered the ridge of his oak bed. He followed its sturdy lines to the gas lamp and lit it. The room illuminated in a subtle orange glow. He gulped in air, trying to calm his jagged nerves.
The nightmares were getting worse, damn it. They’d been plaguing him with a relentless persistence ever since he’d gone back to Virginia. Hell. In the flickering light, he caught sight of his fists. They were cracked open, oozing scarlet blood. Jesse lit another lamp and made his way through the chamber, searching for what he’d damaged. It wouldn’t be a surprise to learn he’d destroyed something with his fists. For some inexplicable reason, his fits were worse than they’d ever been before.
He stopped dead when he saw the wall.
Damn it all. There was a series of deep, bloody craters in the damask wallpaper. Christ. This wasn’t the first time he’d damaged his surroundings. It had been occurring with alarming frequency of late. What the hell was wrong with him? He looked down at his hands in the faint light, flexing his fingers. They ached with each motion but he didn’t think they were broken.
Jesse went to the washstand and poured fresh water into the waiting bowl. While the house was relatively modern, the bathing chambers still weren’t plumbed. He would have to work on that. Heaving a sigh, he plunged his hands into the bowl and scrubbed as if the act could rid him of the wounds he’d inflicted upon himself. The journey back to England had been a long and arduous one. He hadn’t lingered in Virginia a breath longer than necessary, but still he had been gone for far too long as it was. After Lavinia’s passing, he had needed to see through the selling of her home with the profits to be held in trust for Clara. Afterward, he’d left as if the hounds of hell were on his heels.
And indeed, perhaps they had been.
A hesitant knock at his door interrupted the bout of self-hatred overtaking him. Christ. He looked down to realize he was nude. With a curse, he stalked to his wardrobe and withdrew a thick, quilted dressing gown.
“Enter,” he called, suspecting he knew all too well who was on the other end of the rapping.
True to form, Clara stepped inside his chamber, the door creaking loudly in her wake as she snapped it closed behind her. “Mr. Whitney?”
Ah, no matter how many times he heard her refer to him as though they had no familial connection at all, it still stung. She refused to refer to him as her father. While he did his utmost to uphold the pretense that her insistence didn’t affect him, the plain truth was that he was hurt by her denial of him. He knew she’d been through a great deal of upheaval, and he could only hold out hope that she would accept him in time.
“Yes, daughter,” he murmured, the word still feeling somewhat foreign upon his tongue. “Whatever is causing you distress?”
“I heard a commotion,” she said, sounding hesitant.
She wore a billowing lacy nightdress that he supposed had followed her from home. Lord knew he hadn’t bought her a stitch of dress since he’d met her. He didn’t know how. Indeed, it was his fondest wish that Bella would take over with the girl who had his face but remained a stranger to him. It seemed she wanted to hate him, regardless of whether or not he’d had any control over his presence in her life. She knew he had not, but he could only guess that she suspected there was a hidden motive for Lavinia’s secretive nature. While his daughter had said upon their first meeting that she knew the tale of his relationship with her mother, he’d begun to realize that the naïve girl really hadn’t been given the full story by Lavinia.
“Is anything amiss, Mr. Whitney?” she probed, disrupting his thoughts.
He cleared his throat, at a loss. He couldn’t tell her the truth, that he’d been treating the wall like an enemy soldier. She’d think him mad. “Not at all,” he lied. “I apologize for the disturbance.”
“I feared you were being attacked.”
Jesse stared at the girl who was his daughter. She’d never before shown a hint of concern for his well-being. Her words sent a warm surge through his chest. Was it possible that she cared for him just a bit? He couldn’t be certain.
“I had a dream” he said, deciding to be at least partially honest with her. He little knew how to treat a daughter, but she wasn’t a child. She was old enough to nearly have her first ball. The mere thought of Clara being trussed up in the finest fashion and paraded before a gathering of randy males set his blood to boiling. He knew men. He was one, after all, and he didn’t want his innocent daughter falling prey to any of them.
“What sort of dream?” Clara frowned, her small yet expressive face pinched with what he swore was concern. “I know you suffered similarly on the ship here. Are you well?”
Ah, he thought he understood. She had already lost her mother to a prolonged illness. Now he was all she had remaining. She didn’t want to lose the last bit of permanence she clung to in her life, whether or not she despised him.
“I’m as well as can be expected,” he answered, wiping his clammy palms upon his robe.
She blinked at him, looking for all the world like a little forlorn owl. Her curls were trapped in a lacy cap, her feet shod in embroidered slippers. “Is it the war that’s disturbing you?”
His knuckles ached. “The war has never been far from my side in all these years.”
“Mama had nightmares,” she startled him by revealing. “For many years, she called out in her sleep, even after Papa died. I heard her asking for you by name, particularly after she took ill.”
Her disclosure shocked him. He wouldn’t have expected Lavinia, selfish woman that she was, would have ever thought of him even once. Perhaps she’d possessed some small shred of conscience after all. “I imagine the war had the same effect upon us all,” he offered.
Clara crossed the chamber to him, looking small and incredibly innocent. “Mr. Whitney, I don’t like England very much.”
“You’ll grow accustomed to it,” he assured her. Christ, but he didn’t know how to be responsible for a young girl. He’d been a bachelor his entire life. It was damn difficult to grow accustomed to being a father, especially to a girl who was nearly grown. “I have embraced it as my second homeland, and I have no reason to think you won’t be able to do the same.”
She crossed her arms and sent him a ferocious frown. “But it’s insufferably cold here.”
He shrugged. “It’s winter, my dear.”
“And it always rains,” she continued.
“I lived here for some time before coming to you in Virginia, and I can assure you that it doesn’t always precipitate here,” he said firmly.
Clara fixed a look upon him that was akin to hatred. “The fog is deplorable. It covers everything. Virginia was always bright and sunny.”
“Clara,” he said at length, “I have a suspicion that you wouldn’t care to be in England even if it was declared heaven upon earth. I understand it hasn’t been easy to adjust to the notion of living in another country, but adjust you shall.”
“I hate it in London,” she per
sisted, her tone stubborn. “I told you I had no wish to come here.”
He inclined his head. “So you did, Clara. But you are now my ward, and as such, you must travel where I go.”
“I don’t want to be your ward.” Tears slipped down her pale cheeks. “I never wanted you.”
Well, sweet Christ, he certainly hadn’t wanted her either. He’d been living a perfectly glorious life, about to marry the woman he loved, when he’d first learned of her existence. By God, he had uprooted his entire life for his daughter, only to have her disparage him with every other sentence she uttered.
Jesse sighed. He didn’t think he would ever become familiar with the rapidly altering moods of a young girl. He well understood that she missed Lavinia, that it was a difficult task indeed to weather a mother’s passing. But he had never once raised his voice to her. He had only been all too solicitous in meeting her every demand. He had paid for hundreds of books, dozens of her old dresses, and even a few pieces of—to his mind, anyway—hideous furniture to be transported to their new home in London in an effort to ease the transition for her.
And still she remained despondent. He was beginning to suspect that there was no way he could ever make his daughter happy. “While I understand that you never wanted me in your life, I am nevertheless the only family you have. Like it or not, Clara, I’m your father. I’ve sworn to protect you and take care of you as best as I am able, and I don’t take that vow lightly.”
“Not as lightly, I suppose, as your vow to love Mama,” she hissed, her face twisted with anger. “She told me how you asked to wed her and then ran off with another woman. Thank heavens she found Papa, who was man enough to try to make up for your sins.”
Oh hell. He didn’t even know how to deal with such an unreasonable person. He crossed the room and took his daughter’s arm firmly in his grasp. “While I know it isn’t advised to speak ill of the dead, what I’m about to say to you is nothing but honesty.” He paused, gathering his thoughts. “Your mother lied to you. She claimed to love me, and then she secretly met your stepfather without my knowledge. It was she who betrayed me, and I’m the one who ended up with a bullet in my back.”
Heart’s Temptation Books 1–3 Page 46
