With each beat of her heart that jarred through her, her soul yearned to hear him say the words…I love you, Annabelle. I want to marry you because I love you and want to be with you, and no other reason. But as each heartbeat ticked off the silent seconds, she knew he wasn’t going to say any of that.
Instead, he replied quietly, “A gentleman marries a lady when he takes her innocence.”
Her hands gripped the rock, this time to keep from falling to the cold ground. The pain that bore into her with each tortured breath she took filled her with a wretched anguish, so brutal that she could barely breathe. How did she not shatter from the pain of it, right there among the ruins?
When she’d chased after him into the darkness, she hadn’t expected him to offer marriage, hadn’t expected more than just this moment together. But this—oh, this was so much worse! Because he didn’t want to marry her because he loved her.
He wanted to marry her only because she was an obligation.
“No…you’re going to America,” she reminded him softly. Marrying Quinton only to put an ocean between them—once she’d wanted exactly that, but now she couldn’t have borne it. “You promised your father.”
“I promised my father that I would make a good life for myself, that I would make him proud. I can do that right here. With you.” His eyes turned solemn. “I need you, Belle, I know that now. And you need me.”
How much pride it must have cost him to admit that! But need wasn’t love.
Summoning all the strength she possessed, she forced herself to remain on her feet despite the legs beneath her that had gone numb and weak. Somehow she found the determination to keep breathing as she forced out, “That offer no longer stands.”
He frowned, searching her face. “Pardon?”
“That marriage proposal I made to you—I’m taking it back.” She choked down a sob, thankful that the shadows hid her face and glistening eyes. She’d never felt more alone or more helpless in her life, yet she was doing the right thing for her heart. The pain she felt now at rejecting him would be nothing compared to a lifetime of marriage without his love. “I won’t marry you.”
“Yes, you will.” His eyes flared brightly with frustration. “Marrying is good for both of us, Belle. And it solves your problem.”
It solved nothing. Because now she wanted everything—Quinn’s heart, his laughter, his grins, a home and family they’d make together…his love.
If she couldn’t have that, then she’d rather have nothing at all. Living with the specter of what she might have had if he loved her would be unbearable.
“I’ve made my decision.” All of her shook with the effort of holding back her tears. Her frustration and humiliation. Her anguish. “I won’t marry you, Quinton.”
“Annabelle!” Her name echoed through the darkness as Lady Ainsley called for her from the house, shattering the cocoon of quiet shadows around them. “Annabelle, it’s time!”
A dark desolation blackened her insides. Time. It had finally run out for her.
She tried to pull her hand away, but he wouldn’t let go.
“We haven’t settled this,” he bit out.
Her heart tore. Still no admission of love…She blinked rapidly as the hot tears stung her eyes. “Yes, we have.”
She tugged again, and this time, her fingers slipped free.
Leaving him behind in the ruins, she ran down the path and across the lawn, through the dark night toward the house, where Lady Ainsley stood on the terrace waiting for her.
When she saw Belle hurrying toward her, she held out her hands. “It’s midnight! You have to make your announcement.” Taking both of Belle’s hands in hers, she looked past her to search the dark night. She stiffened, a troubled frown creasing her brow. “Where’s Quinton? Isn’t he with you?”
Belle shook her head, unable to stop a silent tear from sliding down her cheek.
Lady Ainsley’s face fell. “But I’d thought when you both left the party—I thought for certain he would…” She lowered her voice to whisper the hope Belle knew she’d been keeping secret since she invited Quinton to Glenarvon. Perhaps for six years before that. “Ask you to marry him.”
An excruciating pain pierced her. “I’m not marrying Quinton,” she rasped out, her lips so numb that she had no idea how they were able form the words.
Deep sadness distorted the viscountess’s wrinkled features. “No?”
“Quinton and I would never have suited.” She forced a smile through her tears, even in the midst of her own anguish wanting only to comfort the woman who had been a second mother to her. “We want different things in a marriage.”
He wanted to ease his guilt, while she wanted love…or they would prefer never to marry at all. After tonight, they would both get that last wish, at least.
“I’m all right, my lady.” When that didn’t seem to cheer Lady Ainsley, Belle placed a kiss to her cheek and squeezed her hands to cover the lie. “Truly.”
“What will you do about Glenarvon?” Lady Ainsley asked, an expression of grief and regret so raw on her face that Belle felt her heart tear anew, this time for the viscountess.
“What I should have done all along,” she answered in a trembling voice.
“My lady?” Ferguson appeared in the doorway. As Master of Ceremonies, it was his duty to keep the party on schedule. “Midnight has arrived.”
Lady Ainsley wiped her hand at her eyes. “Of course.”
Both women linked arms and walked slowly inside the house, where the crowd of guests were waiting expectantly for the announcement. Including Sir Harold, who snatched two glasses of champagne from the tray of a passing footman and started across the room toward Belle, beaming a smile. He was oblivious to the pain inside her as Ferguson called for the musicians to stop playing.
With the attention of the room on her, Belle inhaled a deep breath. She’d made her decision, and it was for the best. But where there should have been relief that the agony of the past few weeks was finally over, there was only unbearable grief.
“I asked you all to be here tonight because—” She fisted her hands at her sides, so tight that her fingernails dug into her palms. She welcomed that physical pain because it countered the emotional torment inside her. “Because I wanted to announce that I would be…marrying next week, in time for my birthday. I wanted to share with you the name of the man I’d chosen to be my husband.” She forced down her misery. “And master of Castle Glenarvon.”
Soft murmurs and whispers rose throughout the room. Sir Harold proudly stuck out his chest as he arrived at her side. But Belle stepped away, unable to endure being next to him when she announced her decision. She pressed a clenched fist to her chest, as if she could physically push back against the fierce tattoo of her broken heart.
“And so I’ve decided…” The room spun around her, the heat suffocating and the stench of candle smoke dizzying. More whispers, this time louder and more anxious. Her heart pounded so hard that the rush of blood in her ears was deafening. How could the foolish thing keep beating like this, when it had already shattered into a thousand pieces of glass? “I’ve decided…”
“She’s decided on a husband,” a deep voice announced loudly from across the crowded ballroom.
Quinton. He strode confidently into the room with the determination of a man resigned to his fate. Bare-necked, with mussed hair falling rakishly over his forehead, he embodied every bit of the scoundrel his reputation avowed him to be. Belle couldn’t stop the shuddering desolation that descended upon her as she stared at him.
“She’s marrying me,” he stated with such resolve that everyone in the room fell into stunned silence.
Then bewildered whispers arose, followed by scattered applause and puzzled congratulations. And a happy cry from Lady Ainsley so loud that it echoed through the house.
In the momentary confusion, guests craned their necks to stare at Quinton and at Belle—and at Sir Harold, whose face turned scarlet. Spinning on his heel, he stalked from the house. W
hen he reached the stone terrace, he threw the champagne glasses into the wall, shattering both in a hail of shimmering crystal and bubbles.
Quinton’s blue eyes trained on her, blazing for battle as he stalked across the crowded room toward her.
She jerked her arm away when Quinton reached to take it. As she backed away from him, she shook her head.
“I’ve made my decision.” Taking a deep breath, she announced as firmly and loudly as all her strength allowed, “I’m not marrying anyone.”
Chapter Eleven
I wish you would tell me what this is all about,” Belle said quietly to Lady Ainsley as she nervously paced the drawing room. Around them, the house grew quiet as the guests took their leave and the last of the carriages rolled away from the front entrance, the party having ended early on the heels of her surprise announcement. “I’d very much like to retire for the evening.” To her room, where she could undress, crawl beneath the covers, and weep herself inconsolably into sleep. To put this evening behind her and find a way to go forward, without both the home and the man she loved.
“As soon as Quinton arrives,” Lady Ainsley assured her, but her normally unflappable voice held an uneasy edge to it. Although, after the spectacle she and Quinton had just made of themselves in the ballroom, Belle acknowledged that perhaps the viscountess had a right to be anxious.
And to request that Belle and Quinton join her in the drawing room.
But that didn’t explain why Mr. Bartleby was here, or why he seemed just as uneasy as Lady Ainsley. Certainly, he’d witnessed her announcement, and as the family solicitor, he would be carrying out the conveyance of the estate to the Church. But the reason why didn’t concern him.
As for Quinton…Dear heavens, he was the very last person she wanted to face!
He had been right all along about marriage and Glenarvon. This place was her home, and she’d always think of it that way. But she wasn’t willing to purchase it at the price of a lifetime’s imprisonment of marriage to a man who did not love her.
Ferguson opened the door, and Quinton strode into the room, looking just as unsettled as she felt. Right down to the wrinkles in his jacket and the haphazardly tied replacement cravat he’d donned after leaving the ballroom. For once, he was unable to muster the charming grin that he always had for her and Lady Ainsley, giving them both a sober nod instead.
“Aunt Agatha.” His gaze darkened as it landed on Belle. “Miss Greene.” Then he saw the solicitor as the man rose to his feet, and he stiffened in surprise. “Bartleby? What the devil are you doing here?”
“That’s what I’ve been attempting to discover,” Belle mumbled as she walked toward them. “Neither of them would tell me until you arrived.”
She trembled at Quinn’s presence. Why did the rascal have to look so handsome, even all mussed and aggravated? And why did he have to keep looking at her like that, as if he wanted to grab her to him and kiss her senseless?
“Please sit.” Lady Ainsley nodded toward a chair, but she remained standing and nervously wringing her hands. “You will probably want something to drink.” Then she mumbled, “God knows I do.”
Belle looked at her with alarm. To see the viscountess this upset—a warning pricked at the backs of her knees that this summons was about far more than tonight’s party.
The viscountess gestured toward the front of the room. “There’s a bottle of Bowmore inside the card table.”
“Thank you.” Quinn retrieved the bottle and a glass, pausing to refill Bartleby’s glass before sitting. But his every muscle remained tense, his spine straight. His hard gaze flicked to Belle, and finding no answers in her, he looked back to his aunt. “You wished to speak to me?”
“To both of you,” Lady Ainsley corrected.
Oh no. Belle sank onto the settee across the tea table from Quinton as her stomach roiled. Did Lady Ainsley know what happened between them tonight?
The viscountess drew in a deep breath, once more wringing her hands. “It seems that matters concerning Glenarvon—and Annabelle’s future—have now changed.”
Oh no no no no. She pressed her hand against her belly to keep from casting up her accounts and darted her eyes toward Quinn, whose face remained remarkably inscrutable. That Lady Ainsley had figured out what they’d done— She bit back a mortified groan.
“Changed how?” Quinn demanded quietly.
His aunt hesitated, then swung her gaze to Belle, who caught her breath. The last time she’d seen the viscountess so out of sorts was when Lord Ainsley died. Seeing it again now deeply worried her. “Annabelle, are you quite certain that you do not want to marry?”
“Absolutely certain,” she whispered as Quinn stared at her, saying nothing. Thank goodness that the rascal remained silent for once. She didn’t think she could have borne a second argument with him about that in front of his aunt.
“That is a disappointment.” Lady Ainsley’s face fell as she admitted quietly, “I had great hopes that you two would marry.”
Belle’s heart stopped. So did Quinn’s arm as he raised the glass of whisky to his mouth.
He drawled, “Why would you think that?”
The dowager shook her head. “Because I’ve seen the way you two have looked at each other since you were eighteen. Even then there were embers burning between you.” Belle turned away from the viscountess’s gaze, but was unable to stop the telltale blush from rising in her cheeks. Lady Ainsley pressed Quinton, “Why do you think I invited you here to Glenarvon?”
“Because you needed my help to separate the viable gentlemen from the fortune hunters,” he bit out as he continued raising the glass to his lips. He clearly hated the idea of that as much now as he had when she’d first proposed it three weeks ago. “To find Belle a suitable husband.”
She wearily breathed out a defeated sigh. “A husband in you, my dear boy.”
He choked on the whisky. Coughing, he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and stared at her, speechless.
So did Belle.
Lord Ainsley smiled faintly, clearly regretting that her scheme hadn’t worked. “I have learned over the years that the quickest way to make a man want something is by telling him that he cannot have it. So I told you that I wanted you to find another man for her, hoping you’d realize that you wanted to marry her yourself.” She looked hopefully at Quinton. “You did offer tonight, and I’m certain that—”
“I do not wish to marry,” Belle interrupted as firmly as possible, the conversation growing unbearable. Perhaps if she said it enough times, she’d begin to believe it herself.
“Not to anyone?” the dowager pressed.
“No, my lady.” She pulled in a deep breath, refusing to meet Quinton’s stare in case he could see right through that lie. “I wish to remain in your company for as long as you’ll allow me.”
“Then it seems we have no choice.” Lady Ainsley exchanged a questioning glance with Bartleby, who nodded and pulled at his neck cloth as if it were choking him. She took another deep breath. “Your announcement this evening changed everything.”
Confusion struck her. How could that have changed anything? She didn’t have a fiancé and was set to lose Glenarvon anyway. Her announcement simply made that loss final.
A frown creased Quinton’s brow. “How so?”
“When Lord Ainsley set up his will,” the viscountess continued, “he attached the marriage stipulation because he wanted to protect you, Annabelle.”
“From my father,” she whispered.
Lady Ainsley hesitated, paling slightly. “From Marcus Greene, yes.”
Bartleby straightened in his chair, leaning forward on the edge of the seat. “Although Lord Ainsley was your guardian, if Marcus Green ever returned into your life, he would have had every legal right to assume control of your property. The only way to protect you was for the estate to become yours and your husband’s.”
“Yes, I know.” Why were they telling her this? It made not one whit of difference now.
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br /> “But Ainsley and I always thought you’d marry, that you’d make a love match,” she said a bit wistfully. “The stipulation wouldn’t have mattered then.”
“It doesn’t matter now.” Belle’s chest tightened with a sharp mix of guilt and loss. And deep grief. “Glenarvon won’t be mine after all, so my father cannot get his hands on it anyway.”
“He cannot ever now, my dear,” Lady Ainsley said somberly, “Marcus Greene is dead.”
Dead. Numbness flashed through her like an electric jolt. Her heart skipped, one painful, jarring beat. That was all. The moment passed, and she was left exactly as she was before. It wasn’t grief that struck her, but the lack of it.
Her father was dead. And she couldn’t find enough affection for him inside her to muster a single tear.
“Annabelle?” Quinn asked softly, his deep voice filled with concern.
She turned to look at him, and the worry he wore for her pierced her. That made her eyes heat with tears, far more than the news of her father’s death.
“I’m fine,” she whispered, folding her hands in her lap. She had no idea what to do with her hands…She looked up at Lady Ainsley, who was still wringing hers, and a deeper wariness gripped her. “How do you know, for certain?”
“Lord Quinton tasked me with finding your father,” Bartleby interjected.
She swung her gaze to Quinton. “You did? Why?”
“Because I didn’t want any more problems for you,” he explained gently. “I know the hell that man put you and your mother through, and I wanted to make certain he remained on the far side of England, where he couldn’t harm you.”
Her throat tightened. Drat him! Why did he have to be so thoughtful and kind? He made it impossible not to love him when he did things like this.
“I hired a runner who traced him down in Liverpool,” Bartleby added. “He’d gone there after he was released from prison and worked as a porter on the docks, until he was convicted of theft and sent back to gaol. He died there eighteen months ago. The parish records confirm it.” His face fell. “I am sorry, my dear.”
When the Scoundrel Sins Page 23
