The Outrageous Belle Marchmain

by Lucy Ashford

  ‘So?’ Adam had answered mildly. ‘Thanks to your three strapping young sons, there’s no danger whatsoever of our family line running out, Freddy. And it won’t be long before you’ve more brats on the way, I shouldn’t be surprised.’

  Freddy’s pleasant face had coloured with happiness. ‘Well actually, Adam, since you’ve mentioned it, Louisa’s into her third month, but we’re keeping it quiet for now.’

  Adam had patted his brother on the back. ‘Delighted for you. Means I can continue to repel the fortune-hunters with a clear conscience.’

  Freddy grinned. Freddy was always grinning these days, like a cat who’d got the cream. So damned happy, he and Louisa both, with their rural home in Surrey where their three boys, the oldest only seven, could roam happily around the countryside on their ponies.

  That sort of life wasn’t for Adam. The responsibility of the family inheritance—the estates, the businesses and all the people they employed—was his. Though he outwardly bore it lightly, it consumed the majority of his time. And—marriage? To some top-lofty daughter of a noble house who would for ever be remembering that she’d married beneath her rank? Never.

  * * *

  Once, in the school holidays when Adam was ten, he’d heard his parents arguing after some lavish party they’d given at Hathersleigh Manor.

  ‘My friends feel sorry for me—do you know that?’ his mother had bitterly declared. ‘To be married to the son of a miner. My God, everyone laughs at your manners, at the way you speak—’

  Adam was aware of his father replying in a low voice, of his mother speaking more shrilly now. ‘Don’t walk away when I’m talking to you! Where do you think you’re going?’

  Then Adam heard his father clearly. ‘Anywhere. I’m going anywhere, to sleep in the stables if need be, to get away from you. Go off with one of your lovers, why the hell don’t you?’

  So much for wedding vows. Always, when some eligible female sidled up to him with marriage on her mind, Adam remembered his mother’s shrill voice that night. He’d sworn to avoid commitment, and his usually careful choice of mistresses had so far served him well. But—damn it. That woman, Belle.

  He’d accused her of coming to sell herself in return for her brother’s debts; indeed, after Jarvis’s insinuations it was a natural assumption to make. But things had gone disturbingly wrong. Firstly, she didn’t seem like a woman for sale. And secondly, to put it quite simply, she’d found a way past Adam’s rather formidable self-control.

  She was beautiful—that he’d already acknowledged—and so luscious to hold that his loins still tightened at the memory of her soft, slender body crushed in his arms. She’d been delectable and melting as golden honey, and just as sweet to taste. It had taken a huge effort on his part to pull himself away and tell her his offer no longer stood. And she’d looked absolutely stricken.

  A muscle clenched in his jaw as he remembered it. Again, any normal woman out to trick him would have archly referred to the fact that his arousal was still very much in evidence, and would have tried to coax him into even more intimate activity. But Belle Marchmain had backed away at his words of rejection as if he’d struck her.

  And she’d told him she hated Jarvis. Told him Jarvis had made an offer that she’d found obscene... Good grief, he’d found himself almost apologising for making his own offer to her in the first place!

  Had she been right, to accuse him of deliberately punishing her for those insults she’d uttered at Sawle Down? Perhaps. And certainly as far as he was concerned his business with the Hathersleighs was concluded. He was damned if he was going to stoop to pursuing her feckless brother over a flock of sheep.

  But—let Mrs Marchmain dwell on that kiss, because she’d revelled in it as much as he, no denying. Meanwhile it was time for Adam to find himself a new mistress and then, perhaps, he’d take her to buy a new gown or two from Mrs Marchmain’s shop. Condescension, he’d found, was often the sweetest revenge possible.

  * * *

  A week after his encounter with Belle Marchmain Adam was hard at work by candlelight in the study of his Mayfair house. At ten he heard a knock on the door and his business secretary Bernard Lowell came in, laden with papers.

  ‘Here are the letters you asked me to draft, Mr Davenant. And some bills for you to approve.’ Lowell put the letters on the table; Adam looked at them quickly.

  ‘Thank you, Lowell. It looks as if you’ve done an excellent job as usual. Anything else?’

  ‘Two documents need signing tonight. And...’ Lowell hesitated. ‘Have you seen any more of Mrs Marchmain since last week, sir?’

  Adam sat back in his chair and gave his secretary all his attention. Lowell was a thin, mild-mannered clerk whose gentle voice and habit of blinking behind his spectacles tended to disguise the fact that he was sharply intelligent and utterly loyal. Lowell didn’t ask a question like that without good reason.

  ‘You used to know her family, didn’t you, Lowell?’

  ‘I grew up in Bath, sir, as you’re aware, near to her family home. And I remember her—Miss Hathersleigh, she was then—as a young girl, always tearing around the countryside on a horse too big for her, though she didn’t mind how many times she fell off. She’s got pluck, that lady. But her husband died, didn’t he, in the war?’ Lowell shook his head. ‘A blow indeed. I hear she’s still single, though from what I remember she could have had her pick of the Bath gentlemen. Now, if I could just ask you to sign this final letter, Mr Davenant...’

  Adam signed and handed it back. ‘Have you any idea why she’s not married again?’

  ‘There was no obvious explanation, sir. I believe the proposals came from perfectly eligible gentlemen. It is just possible, I suppose, that she loved her husband and still mourns him...’

  ‘Lowell.’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Does Mrs Marchmain look as if she’s a grieving widow?’

  ‘I have to admit she does not, sir.’

  Exactly. Adam leaned back in his chair. ‘Do you know her brother at all, Lowell?’

  ‘Master Edward? I know he’s a year or two younger than she is. And the young gentleman...’ Lowell cleared his throat ‘...is unfortunately haphazard, I hear, when it comes to matters of money.’

  Adam’s fingers tightened round his pen. ‘Explain, if you please.’

  ‘Edward Hathersleigh has debts at White’s, sir.’

  ‘White’s!’

  ‘Indeed. His debts are to the club itself. They are substantial, I believe, for anyone, let alone for a man of straitened circumstances.’

  Adam’s breath caught in his throat. The fool. The idiotic young fool.

  ‘He incurred the debts during his recent stay in town,’ continued Lowell steadily. ‘Because of his family circumstances—he is imminently, I understand, to enter the state of fatherhood—the proprietor of White’s has granted him a month to pay those debts. But someone else is planning at this moment to buy them up.’

  ‘Who?’

  Lowell hesitated. ‘Lord Jarvis, sir.’

  Adam heard the big clock ticking out in the hall, but there was no other sound in the whole of this house. At last he said, ‘How much does Hathersleigh owe at White’s?’

  ‘In the region of five thousand guineas, I believe.’

  Slowly Adam leaned back in his chair. ‘Lowell,’ he said, ‘I’d like you to go there now and buy up that debt in my name.’

  Lowell blinked just once. ‘Buy it up, sir. Yes. Of course.’

  Adam might as well have been telling him to pay for the weekly delivery of coal.

  * * *

  When Adam strolled into his club on St James’s Street at three o’clock the next afternoon, he saw Lord Rupert Jarvis studying stock prices in The Times. On spotting Adam, he got languidly to his feet.

  ‘So you wanted a meeting,’ said Jarvis, a thin smile playing around his lips. ‘But I’m not going to change my mind, you know, about letting you have my land for your railway.’

  He sat d
own and Adam also eased himself into a chair. ‘Not even you can halt the future, Jarvis. And some day your horses and carriages will seem as antiquated as the ox or the coracle.’

  Jarvis poured them both brandy. ‘Horses have been with us for centuries, Davenant, and will be with us for centuries more. Your damned new-fangled steam engines will blow themselves to bits within months.’

  Adam gazed at him thoughtfully. Rupert Jarvis had once had a wife, but she’d died some years ago—a poor little thing, she’d always looked terrified. Adam said softly, ‘I think you’ve already made your views on my railway perfectly clear, Jarvis. I’ve come to talk about something else. Your connection to the lady who visited my house on the day of our last encounter. Mrs Belle Marchmain.’

  Jarvis looked startled, then smiled. ‘Her?’ He steepled his fingers. ‘Ah, she’s selling herself in her own way, flaunting herself round town in her gaudy clothes. What’s she on the hunt for but a damned protector? Though she’s choosy. She wants someone well born and rich, but she had the sheer arrogance to turn me down, Davenant!’

  Just then a waiter brought the meal Jarvis had ordered and Jarvis started to attack his beef steak with greedy relish. ‘You eating here, or not?’

  Adam said, ‘I’m not. But I’d like to know why you were trying to buy up her brother’s debts at White’s.’

  Jarvis’s head shot up from his food. ‘Heard about that, have you? Yes, young Hathersleigh’s got himself into a fine mess—and my thinking is this. I buy up Edward Hathersleigh’s gambling debts—they’ve given him a month, I hear, but he hasn’t a hope in hell of repaying them—and I then make it plain to him that he owes me nothing providing he sends his pretty sister in my direction.’

  ‘But you’ve already told me you made her an offer and she turned you down.’

  Jarvis put down his knife and fork and chuckled. ‘This time, thanks to her brother’s debts, she’ll have no choice. I’m going to bed her whether she likes it or not. Spread stories about her until she’s got little option, by the time I’ve finished with her, other than to sell herself on the street...’

  ‘Before you get too carried away,’ Adam interrupted, ‘I’m afraid you’re just a little too late.’

  Jarvis frowned. ‘Late? What the devil do you mean? I’m going round to White’s later this afternoon—I’ve an appointment!’

  ‘Then you’d better cancel it. Because I’ve bought up Hathersleigh’s gambling debts.’

  Jarvis’s face turned red, then white. ‘Why in hell—?’

  Adam shrugged. ‘A whim. A fancy.’

  ‘Sell them to me.’

  ‘Can you give me one good reason why I should?’

  ‘Because I’ll pay you double the sum.’

  ‘I don’t want your money. I want your land, Jarvis.’

  Jarvis leaned back in his chair, breathing heavily. ‘Give me the woman and you get it.’

  Adam was very still.

  ‘Or,’ went on Jarvis, ‘let’s think this through, shall we?’ He poured himself more brandy. ‘I know that she loathes me. But you, now, Davenant. You can twist any woman round your little finger... I’ve got an idea.’ A reptilian smile flickered round his thin lips. ‘You will have to do what I was going to do to that damned woman.’

  Jarvis leaned forwards, wagging his finger; Adam realised he was more than a little inebriated. ‘You’ll have to enlighten me, Lord Jarvis,’ Adam drawled.

  ‘I mean exactly what I said. You, Davenant, have got the Marchmain woman and her brother utterly in your power thanks to that debt, haven’t you? I also assume you bear neither of them any kindness?’

  ‘About as much as either of them would show to me,’ said Adam flatly.

  Jarvis nodded. ‘Damn it, I did want her, badly. Who wouldn’t? But it strikes me she could be hellish difficult, that Marchmain woman, and I’ve got a far better notion. You do it, Davenant.’ Jarvis swigged back another mouthful of brandy. ‘Yes, you bed the woman, then ditch her—and I’ll give you all the land you want.’

  The club was filling up. A group of men were talking noisily nearby about a new opera singer who’d caught everyone’s fancy at Sadler’s Wells, but Adam was focused on no one, nothing but Jarvis.

  Adam said evenly, ‘An interesting proposal. But I’d like to think you were sober, Lord Jarvis, when you made it.’

  Jarvis clenched his fist and thumped it on the table defiantly. ‘Never more so, believe me. We’ll get it written up. We’ll do this properly. What do you say? Oh, I’d have enjoyed taking the woman down a peg or two myself, but on thinking about it, it would give me just as much satisfaction to see her with her fancy airs in thrall to you, because...’

  His voice trailed away. His pale eyes gleamed. Adam could have finished that sentence for him.

  Because you’re Miner Tom’s grandson. And Mrs Belle Marchmain rates herself above the likes of you.

  Adam said nothing. Jarvis was speaking again. ‘Another idea. On second thoughts, Davenant, perhaps your merely bedding her isn’t enough.’

  Adam waited, not a muscle of his face betraying any flicker of emotion. Jarvis, on the other hand, was agitated, toying with the brandy bottle, with his half-empty plate. At last he slapped his hand on the table.

  ‘Betrothal!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s it! I want you to get her to agree to a betrothal with you. Then you’ll jilt her publicly, Davenant—accuse her of something obnoxious, rutting with one of your servants, perhaps—so the whole of society will mock her humiliation. And after that—I’ll let you have all the land you need for your blasted railway.’

  Adam pushed back his chair and stood up. Jarvis became flushed with anger. ‘You’re not turning me down, damn it?’

  ‘Far from it.’ Adam gave him a chilly smile. ‘I’m going to find someone to witness our agreement, Lord Jarvis.’

  * * *

  Within a short space of time Adam had written out two copies of that agreement in the club’s library, with Jarvis eyeing every word over his shoulder. After that it was a simple matter of finding a mutual acquaintance—the uncurious Sir Gareth Blakeley—to witness their signatures on both documents while the contents were hidden from him; such arrangements were commonplace amidst London’s clubs. Jarvis left with his own copy, but after he’d gone Adam stayed there in the seclusion of the library.

  It was a game, Adam reminded himself. Yes, this was just another episode in the long game he’d played all his life, with every move finely calculated to win. Adam wanted his railway and Belle Marchmain was always going to be the loser one way or another. And didn’t she deserve everything that was coming to her?

  She despised him. She’d insulted him to kingdom come. She gave herself such airs, yet she’d swiftly offered to warm his bed in exchange for him forgetting the sheep business.

  Well, now he was going to offer her marriage—or betrothal, to be more precise; he only had to remind her of her brother’s debts to have her completely in his power. Then, once he’d got her to accept his proposal of marriage, he’d drop her in a matter of weeks.

  Humiliate her, Jarvis had specified. Pictures suddenly seared his mind of the defiant widow melting in his arms. Of her soft, rosy lips parting beneath his questing tongue, her body sweetly pliant against his... No doubt about it, Belle Marchmain still puzzled him. She’d struck him as vulnerable. Inexperienced, even.

  Or very, very clever. And either way, what did it matter to him? It was a case of weighing up the affairs of that arrogant, conceited young fool Hathersleigh and his proud sister against the success of the massive future he envisaged for the quarry. It wasn’t just a matter of pure financial gain either—that railway would create jobs and save lives, no doubt about it.

  Adam left at last, with the signed agreement folded away in his pocket. It looked as if the next phase of the game was about to begin.

  Chapter Seven

  ‘Pardieu, madame, what is wrong with you?’ Gabby teased merrily when Belle dropped her scissors for the third time. ‘Bes
t let me cut that ottoman silk, at four shillings the yard.’

  It was two weeks since Belle’s disastrous visit to Davenant’s house, and now Belle had something else to worry about. Though the Strand was as full of shoppers as ever, her shop was virtually empty.

  Gabby tried to reassure her. ‘We are not as busy as we have been, perhaps—but do not forget that we had an extremely large order from Lady Tindall and her two daughters last week.’

  They were the exception, thought Belle. Whatever Gabby said, their shop’s order book should be much fuller than this. And what really worried her was that there had been another complaint only yesterday. A customer had come in to say that her new gown was an appalling fit.

  ‘The tightness around my arms almost made me faint,’ the customer had declared. ‘I am going to tell all my friends never to use this shop again. My money back, if you please!’

  Gabby was furious. ‘She lies through her teeth. Look at this beautiful gown—the bodice has been taken apart and sewn up again—it was never comme ça when it left our shop. You should have argued with her!’

  But Belle’s suspicions were growing that this was a concerted attempt to ruin her business; so now, as she worked with Gabby on Lady Tindall’s ballgown, she said nothing more, but applied extra care to cutting the precious silk...and tried to put the sardonic face of the hateful Mr Davenant firmly from her mind.

  Easier said than done. Again and again the memory of her visit to him racked her. By proposing that she be his mistress then coldly withdrawing his offer, he’d made her feel quite sick with humiliation.

  He despised her, no doubt whatsoever about that. He would by now have completely forgotten the incident and Belle only wished she could do the same. But every time a smart carriage rolled by outside in the Strand, she wondered if he was inside. At night it was worse, for she couldn’t stop thinking about him. She couldn’t forget his hands, his strong fingers, the way they had touched her. The way his hard lips and his tongue’s possession had sent a surge of dark pleasure to every nerve ending.

  Davenant’s firm mouth on hers had dragged all semblance of sense from her body, implanting instead a sweet languor that flooded her veins. His caressing hands had urged her to surrender to the sensual and deliberately teasing strokes of his tongue and, to her eternal shame, it was he who’d drawn away, not she. Heat surged through her at the memory.