She looked absolutely lovely.
After assessing his fencing stance a bit longer, she came up beside him and reached down to slip the foil from his hand. “May I?”
Her bare fingers were warm against his cool skin and he held on a moment longer just to savor her heat.
Testing the blade, she swiped it through the air and stretched as much as her skirt would allow into a better en garde position than he’d achieved.
He frowned. “Who have you practiced with since I’ve been gone?”
Ignoring him, Bella lunged forward and aimed high as if targeting the upper chest of an opponent. “Louisa,” she said on the exhale that came with another thrust. “I usually best her too.” The smile she shot him over her shoulder caused warmth to spill through his veins.
He’d missed her smiles. Especially the ones that held a bit of challenge.
“I know I’ve called quite early,” she said as she lowered the foil and approached to hand it back to him.
“I’m as eager to start on the ledgers as you are. Meg wishes to venture to London, but sorting the accounts comes first.”
“The ledgers. Of course.” She bit her lower lip. “I need to speak with you first.”
The urgency in her tone set him on edge. He imagined there had been ugliness with Hammersley or her mother. “Is something amiss?”
She shook her head. “Not at all. I have an idea.”
That was not surprising. He’d never met anyone with such a fertile mind. “I’d like to hear it.”
“Good.” The smile that bloomed on her full pink lips was too brief. “But what I wish to say will require some explanation.”
“Then let’s do this inside.” He gestured toward the conservatory door and she allowed him to lead her toward his father’s study. He’d come to think of the room as the place where the dreaded ledgers were housed, and it had become such a frequent haunt he was almost prepared to think of it as his own.
When they were both inside the dark-paneled room, Rhys closed the door. Something told him that whatever she’d come to say wasn’t meant for Meg or anyone else to hear.
“I can ring for tea or anything you might wish. Have you eaten?”
“No.” She waved off the question as if it was the least of her concerns. “I couldn’t.” She began pacing the edge of the dark ivy-decorated carpet, behind the settees and tables, making her way around the room. “Maybe tea.”
Rhys strode to the bellpull, tugged the fabric, and waited. Not for the servants, who would be up in minutes with tea and whatever scone had just emerged from the oven, but for Bella.
This ritual of being patient while she thought of how to phrase all that she wished to say was a familiar one. While he could ramble for an hour when an idea struck, Bella preferred to speak when she’d sorted out precisely what to say. She didn’t like to make mistakes and was unforgiving toward herself when she did.
“You make deals in London.” She didn’t stop pacing but she turned her gaze his way expectantly.
“Yes.”
“And you gamble?”
“Occasionally.” He didn’t wish to admit that he’d once been exactly the sort of nobleman who made an enterprise like Lyon’s Gentlemen’s Club profitable. Night after night, he’d find himself leaning on the green baize tables, throwing away money in the foolish hope he could make his pounds and promissory notes multiply into much more.
He was a lucky man, wasn’t he? He’d never placed a bet without expecting to win.
Bella circled the room’s settee and perched on the center cushion. “Will you sit with me?” She gestured to a chair as if she was the lady of the house and he was a visitor.
He kept his gaze fixed on her as he sat, settling back on the cushions. Not a single muscle in his body felt relaxed, but he did his best to feign ease.
“Whatever it is you’ve come to say,” he urged her, “I’m willing to hear it.” Eager was more like it.
“I want to make a deal with you.” Her tone was confident, her voice clear, and yet Rhys was almost certain he’d misheard her.
“You mean a wager?”
When they were children, they’d place nominal bets on things like how far a frog could leap or who between them would win a foot race across the fields. He couldn’t imagine what Bella would wish to wager on now.
“More of an exchange,” she said a little too brightly.
“We already worked out our exchange, did we not?” He slept better knowing she’d agreed to assist him with Edgecombe’s financial mystery, and he was willing to sit at her family’s dinner table or hold her in his arms for as many waltzes as she wished.
“I’d like to change the terms.”
Rhys couldn’t repress a chuckle. “That’s rarely allowed.”
“Rarely means it sometimes is allowed.” She leaned toward him. “Let this be one of those exceptions.”
When she was determined on a course, Bella was the most immovable woman he’d ever known. He liked her determination. Except when he was the object in her way.
“Tell me what you have in mind.” A great many images came to Rhys’s mind. The same wayward thoughts that plagued him whenever she was near. Very little of it was appropriate.
She stared at him and little lines of worry pinched between her brows.
“Bella, just say it.”
“You’re the talk of the county.”
“Am I? I haven’t been here long enough to do anything dastardly.”
“You’re a duke. A bachelor. The highest-ranking unwed nobleman within a hundred miles.”
The way she said it made him want to bolt the doors and cover the windows to stave off the army of marriage-minded mamas that were no doubt planning a march on Edgecombe.
“If you were engaged, it would keep the husband hunters away.” She drew in a long breath. “I suggest we marry.”
He heard the word we and then something that sounded vaguely like marry and after that his brain tripped over itself like a drunk at a ball. No matter how he pushed and pulled at the two concepts, they didn’t fit together.
Nothing made sense.
“I don’t understand.” His tongue had gone as sluggish as his thoughts.
“Not a real marriage, of course,” she said dismissively, waving the prospect away and acting as though what she’d said before hadn’t changed everything. “We won’t get that far. What I suggest is simply an engagement. A very public engagement.”
Rhys opened his mouth and still no words emerged. He rose from the settee and began pacing the perimeter of the room. Speechlessness wasn’t anything he was used to, nor the feeling that his mind had gone blank as a wiped slate. The idea was ludicrous.
“After my parents have departed for Europe, we could call off the engagement.” She spoke as calmly as if she was describing one of her puzzles. “This idea benefits both—”
“Why are you sending your parents away?” What she’d said finally began to sink into his brain. “And why in God’s name would you want to marry a reprobate? A day ago you were horrified at the notion of me playing suitor to you and now it’s your fondest wish?”
She stood and approached to join him where he’d stopped behind the settee. Her expression softened as she looked at him, and he found himself calmed by her amber-green gaze.
“I need your help,” she said quietly. “You asked for my help giving Meg a proper Season and unraveling your ledgers.” She gestured toward the enormous pile of maddening volumes stacked on his father’s desk. “I’m asking you for this.”
“The two are not equal. Sorting out a Season and ledgers versus marriage—”
“Not marriage. Just an engagement. Entirely temporary.” She let out a shaky sigh, the first crack in the calm she’d exuded since arriving. “My parents have an opportunity that I don’t want them to waste. A position for my father at a school in Greece. They’ll only depart if I marry.”
“But you said we wouldn’t marry.”
“Yes, but w
e’ll tell them we plan to.” Excitement flashed in her eyes. “It’s practical, Rhys. You must see that. It will allow me to spend time here assisting Meg and taking a look at the estate’s accounts as you requested. And it will keep you out of the sights of all the village families hoping to match you with their daughters. I’m sure you’ve received many invitations since arriving in Essex.”
“I’m quite capable of refusing invitations.” Unfortunately, Bella had always been harder to refuse.
He moved away from her and headed to the window. But staring out on Edgecombe’s fields didn’t allow him to escape her. Every inch of the estate’s grounds reminded him of the years they’d spent traipsing them together.
“I have questions about this proposed arrangement,” he said to her reflection in the window glass and then turned to face her. “But only one that’s essential.”
“Ask whatever you like.” She nodded eagerly. “I’ll do my best to answer.”
“You realize what this will entail? Such a plan will require us to spend a great deal of time together.”
Chapter Ten
Bella stared into Rhys’s clear blue gaze and felt heat rushing across her cheeks.
Before his question, her thoughts had been laid out as methodically as the pages of her puzzle book. Doubts had welled up as she’d walked to Edgecombe, but they’d faded as soon as she’d seen him. She knew how to rally arguments and he’d always been reasonable enough to listen.
All that lay before her was the challenge of convincing him her idea made sense. And with every word, she’d convinced herself too. This was practical. Her plan could work.
But now all her arguments and rationales scattered like dandelion fluff on the breeze.
Did he think she’d devised this scheme to get close to him again?
How could she admit that she’d come to him because there was no one else? No other man would agree to such a scheme, and she couldn’t imagine feigning an engagement with anyone but Rhys. He was, after all, the only man she’d ever considered marrying.
“I’m not trying to trap you in an engagement if that’s what you fear.” The heat in her cheeks spread down her neck and her pulse began to race.
“No.” He shook his head. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Rhys, this could benefit both of us.”
He stepped closer, limned in golden morning light. He looked achingly handsome with his windswept hair and bright blue eyes, but he also looked exhausted. He glanced back at the pile of ledgers, one brow arched. “You agreed to help me, so I should agree to help you?”
“It does seem a fair exchange.”
He still had the foil in his hand and dragged the tip across a leaf in the study’s carpet design. “Wentworth is still at Hillcrest, is he not?”
“I departed early this morning, but I suppose he is.”
“He seems the most bearable of the lot. Would you not consider a real proposal from him?” He laid the foil down, balanced atop two ledgers. Turning to face her, he rested his backside against the desk’s edge.
“I barely know him.” Even from across the room, the intensity of his perusal made her warm. Her pulse sped. Tapping her foot against the carpet, she willed herself to face him. To maintain the same confidence she’d felt when she walked through Edgecombe’s doors.
“He seems a decent sort of chap,” Rhys retorted.
“I don’t trust him.”
His mouth curved. “But do you trust me?”
“Yes.” The single syllable felt sharp and false on her tongue. Though she was proposing a deception, she hated lying. “No.”
“No,” he agreed. “Of course you don’t. As you know too well, I’m not a trustworthy man.”
There was such wounded bitterness in his tone that Bella felt an urge to reassure him, but she couldn’t. She didn’t trust him, at least not with her heart. But she could believe in him enough to enter into an agreement that benefited each of them.
“Isn’t making deals the sort of thing you do in the Duke’s Den?”
“No. Not like this.”
“I know you well,” she told him, trying to find a way to explain why it would have to be him and no one else. “We’re familiar with each other.”
His eyes glinted when she said the word familiar and his mouth tipped in a mischievous slant.
“We were friends once.” He lifted off the desk and approached. “But you said you didn’t think we could be again.”
“I never said that. Not exactly in those words anyway.” Parting from him last night had left her unsettled and miserable because she’d allowed that single glimpse of hurt to slip out.
“Ah yes, only the implication that we’d never share confidences.” There was an aching wistfulness in his tone. “But if we do this, we’ll share quite a big secret between us.”
Bella clenched her teeth. He was making this far more difficult than she’d expected.
He stepped closer, arms braced across his chest. His gaze was intense, unrelenting. Somehow their positions had changed. She’d come to petition him and now all the questions were directed her way.
She blew out a breath and squared her shoulders. “My parents wish me to marry. I will not agree to that for expedience’s sake to a man I barely know and who does not . . .” She’d been on the verge of confessing all the foolish notions that still filled her head when it came to love and romance. “A man who does not appeal to me.”
“Ah.” His eyes lit up. “So I appeal to you?”
“You did once,” she admitted. “Not anymore.” Never would she let herself tread that path again.
His low chuckle shocked her and her pulse pounded in her ears when he stepped closer.
“That almost sounds like a challenge, Bella.”
“An impossibility, I promise you.” If there was one man in England she would never trust with her heart, it was the handsome scoundrel watching her with a knowing smirk.
“You shouldn’t underestimate me.”
She barely resisted rolling her eyes. He wasn’t simply bold. His confidence had reached epic proportions. Though he’d teased her plenty in the past, it had never been like this. With heat in his gaze.
He was too close. She could see the darker flecks of lapis blue in his eyes and the dusting of blond stubble along his jaw that glinted in the morning light.
This wouldn’t do. She hadn’t come to assess his masculine appeal. This was supposed to be a sensible agreement.
“My parents are familiar with you.” The words tumbled out unbidden, as if her mind had dredged them up to save her from making an utter fool of herself.
“They are, and I admire them both. But what will they think of me after such a deception?”
“It’s a very temporary fib. And for their own good. They needn’t ever know it wasn’t a real engagement, only that we changed our minds.” The truth was that lying to her parents made Bella queasy. But this was necessary. There was no other way. “They worry ceaselessly about my happiness. They wish to see me settled.”
Mention of her parents seemed to unnerve him. He nodded and ran a hand over his chin. A muscle in his jaw began to tick. “They dote on you.”
“And expect a great deal of me.”
He smiled at her again, but not with his usual wolfish charm. This grin was softer. Almost tender. “You’ve never had trouble living up to their expectations.”
“My mother would disagree.” Bella’s mother had probably written a dozen poems about how her only daughter had disappointed her. “My four unsuccessful Seasons are glaring proof of how I’ve failed them.”
“Knowing your own mind isn’t failure.”
No one had ever put it that way. No one had ever framed her refusals in a way that made her seem admirable for making the decision that resonated as the right one, the only one, in her heart and mind.
“Maybe I’m just stubborn,” she confessed.
“You’ve always been stubborn, Arry. But I admire you for wishing to wait a
nd choose wisely.” He took another step closer, his gaze fixed on hers. “Which is why I would be the worst choice you could possibly make.”
“It need only be—” Panic rushed up. He had to agree.
“Even temporarily.” He ducked his head, but she sensed there was more he wished to say. “My reputation is well-earned and that will affect how others think of you.”
“I don’t care.” A worse reputation than being icy and unfeeling? More dire rumors than that she was frigid and incapable of love? None of that frightened her.
“I do. It’s bad enough that my past choices may affect Meg. I won’t let them impact you.”
Bella stepped away from him and headed for the desk where the estate ledgers were piled. Whatever the problem was he wished her to solve, going through the books could take several days. If the mismanagement had begun earlier, the search could take weeks.
She moved the foil from atop the ledgers and opened one. “We will need to spend time together anyway. I’m willing to help you. If you wish to help me, this is the best way. I promise you that.”
There had been a time when they’d asked each other for favors and assistance without a second thought. That was long ago, and they’d changed in the years they’d been apart. But Bella trusted that he could see the necessity of what she was asking.
He lifted a hand and squeezed his nape, staring out the window as if contemplating.
Bella willed him to nod or smile or give him some sign of agreement.
A knock sounded at the study door, and he turned immediately, as if eager for a distraction from giving her an answer.
The moment he twisted the latch, Meg bounded into the room.
“Miss Prescott, what a lovely surprise.” She exuded eagerness like a sweet fragrance that filled the room. Bella found herself smiling despite the tension lingering between her and Rhys.
“You must call me Bella as you once did.”
Meg placed a hand on Bella’s arm. “I’d very much like that. And thank you, Bella, for agreeing to assist me with preparations for the Season. We spent time at finishing school speaking of the day when we’d be presented at court, but doing so seems an entirely different challenge.”
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