‘Do not worry,’ Ben assured her. ‘I am definitely surprised.’ He looked back at Templeton. ‘How well do you know Miss Arabella?’
‘Well enough that she should not marry anyone but me,’ Templeton said, not the least bit contrite. ‘We were alone at Vauxhall for quite some time.’
‘You did not...’
‘I was on my way to offer for her when you delivered your good news on Bond Street.’ His friend gave a disgusted shake of his head.
‘You should have said something,’ Ben replied.
‘And you could have noticed the obvious,’ Templeton retorted. ‘I’ve spent every spare minute with her since the beginning of the Season. I did not want to state my intentions until I was sure she understood the implications of them. I love her with my whole heart, but I did not wish to rush her into something she did not want.’
‘As I did,’ Ben said, ashamed.
‘But then, when we were alone...’
‘Things got out of hand,’ Ben finished for him. ‘I can understand how that might have happened.’
Templeton nodded. ‘I suspect, by your lack of anger with me, that Miss Amelia was in the vicinity when you learned the lesson.’
‘We are not talking of me and Amy. This conversation is about you and my fiancée.’
‘That is correct,’ Templeton replied. ‘With her sister gone from the house, I meant to act quickly and convince Miss Summoner to run away with me.’
‘I suppose I should be trying to stop you,’ Ben said. ‘And I will, if the lady is not willing.’ He sat down in the chair opposite them. ‘Now it is your turn to talk, Belle. Your father wants you to marry me. But he and I should not be the ones to decide. Who would you like to marry?’
Belle bit her lip, as if the mention of her father made her afraid to answer.
‘It is all right,’ Ben assured her. ‘I promised your father on the Bible that I would take care of you and make sure you were always happy. Who makes you happiest?’
She looked immediately to Templeton. ‘I told Amy that I did not want to marry you. I wanted to marry Guy. She said I could not, because he had not asked.’ She gave him a hesitant smile. ‘And I do not want him to go away. I would be very unhappy if I could not see him any more.’
He looked to Templeton. ‘You understand her difficulties and are not concerned with them?’
‘She needs patience. Nothing more than that.’ Templeton shrugged. ‘And I do not claim to be the cleverest man in London as you do. I am happy with her, just as she is.’
Guy smiled at Belle and touched the tip of her nose, making her giggle. ‘More than content, actually. I am hopelessly in love with you.’
Ben cleared his throat to remind them that they were not alone. ‘I think what I am supposed to do at this juncture is to call you out and put a sword through you.’
‘You can try,’ Templeton replied. ‘But I would rather you didn’t.’
Belle reached out to grab his hand and put her body in front of his, to shield him. Then she gave Ben a militant glare that was every bit as pretty as her smile.
He sighed. ‘It is a good thing for all of us that I swore to Summoner that I would do what was best and make his daughter happy. I cannot do either of those things by marrying her.’ He raised his hands in surrender.
‘We have your blessing, then?’ Templeton put his hands on Belle’s shoulders and pulled her back to his side.
‘You do if you go quickly,’ Ben said. ‘I will give you several hours’ head start before I find the note you will be leaving me. I will be too distraught to go immediately to Summoner and will search without success. But her father will have to be told, eventually.’
‘There will be a scandal, of course,’ Templeton said.
‘Surprisingly, not as big a scandal as I was expecting,’ Ben said, trying not to smile. ‘But the important thing is that Miss Arabella has the husband she really wants.’
Belle smiled at him with the mind-melting brilliance that had attracted all the men in London. ‘Mellie is right. You are a nice man. But I am glad I do not have to marry you.’
‘And I am glad I do not have to marry you,’ Ben admitted. Then he leaned forward to kiss her on the cheek. ‘We can be neighbours instead,’ he said.
‘That will be nice,’ she said.
Templeton rose and offered her his hand, pulling her after. ‘It is all settled then. Give my apologies to Miss Amelia when you see her next.’
‘I will do that,’ he said, wondering if, after Summoner heard the news, he would be allowed to see either of the girls ever again.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Pushing the horses to their limit and travelling through the night, Amy and Mrs Lovell arrived back in London little more than a day from the time she had left Ben’s house. If the older woman had questions about the need to speak to Amy’s father before visiting Ben, she did not ask them. To her, it was but a small obstacle on the trip she had been longing to make.
Only Amy questioned the wisdom of the trip. Suppose her father humiliated the woman with questions about her virtue or tried to pay her to make the truth go away?
As if sensing her worries, Mrs Lovell laid a hand on hers. ‘This must be awful for you, my dear. When scandal rears its head, it is difficult to look the beast in the eye. But you must trust me. No matter what is about to happen, it will be better for all involved than doing nothing. Our secrets have been bottled up for far too long.’ She finished with an encouraging smile.
Amy took a deep breath and answered with a smile of her own. Then she ushered the woman into the Summoner town house and made her comfortable in the receiving room before she went to seek out her father.
As usual, he was in his office when she rushed in without introduction, fearing that delay might make her lose her nerve. ‘Father—’ she leaned over the desk to confront him ‘—you must end Belle’s engagement immediately! I have discovered the unfortunate truth about Mr Lovell. It is all quite shocking. There is a woman here you must speak to, who can verify all I have learned.’
Her father stared across the desk at her, simmering with annoyance. ‘Whatever this woman has to say should remain between her and Mr Lovell, Amelia. It is no longer any concern of ours.’
‘No concern of ours? Of course it concerns us. He is to marry Belle. She will be ruined.’
‘She is ruined already and by her own hand,’ Lord Summoner said with a disgusted sigh. ‘And nothing would have happened if you had not failed in the one task you were entrusted with. Instead of watching over her, you left your sister alone to go chasing stories that I knew long before I spoke to Mr Lovell.’
‘You knew?’ It explained why Ben had been unwilling to break the engagement himself. Her father had been using his past against him.
‘What I knew is immaterial. What I did not know was that your sister would take your unplanned absence as an excuse to elope.’
Amy sat down hard in the chair in front of the desk, suddenly at a loss. When she could manage to speak, she asked, ‘With whom?’
‘Guy Templeton. The very man whose case you were pleading the day I promised Belle to Lovell.’ Her father’s eyes narrowed. ‘Did you orchestrate this disobedience? Because if you knew and arranged this trip simply so you would not be blamed...’
‘What utter nonsense. You know, Father, that if I meant to disobey you, there would have been no subterfuge involved.’
‘I suppose that is true,’ he said, after a moment’s thought. ‘You really are the most contrary creature.’
‘And I did know that Templeton was fond of her,’ Amy admitted. ‘But since the engagement, I have been doing my best to warn her off him. I had no idea that things had progressed so far.’
But she had. Belle had all but admitted the truth to her, and argued for her right to t
hink independently and marry the man she loved. In return she had scolded her and told her the exact thing that everyone else did: that she was not smart enough to know her own mind on the most important decision of her life.
And now Amy did not know whether to be hopeful for Belle or horrified. But she definitely felt ashamed of her own behaviour. ‘Is there no chance we can get her to come back?’
Her father shook his head. ‘Their absence was not noted for some time. Lovell found a note, explaining their intentions. I suppose we must console ourselves that he means to marry her.’
‘Oh.’ In either case, Belle had likely spent more than one night as a woman with no feminine instruction and with only Guy Templeton for company. Surprisingly, the thought did not panic her as it should have. Instead, it seemed more than right. She had a gentle and caring husband to teach her what she needed to know.
Most of her recent advice to her sister had been totally wrong, anyway. Perhaps in this, it would be better to let Belle make her own way. ‘I am sure Mr Templeton loves her, Father. And she is very fond of him as well. It will be all right.’ Having seen the look in Mr Templeton’s eyes as they’d danced, it was obvious that they belonged together, no matter what others might think. Wherever they were now, they were probably quite happy.
‘But I do not want Guy Templeton as a son,’ her father shouted. ‘The man is a ninny. Even worse than that, he is a Whig.’ At this, he held his head in his hands, clearly beyond consolation. ‘Lovell sent a search party after them, as soon as he knew, but they were too quick. He blames himself, since he was the one who invited that damned interloper into his home. But really, it was all your fault.’ He glared at Amy again. ‘If you had left well enough alone and watched your sister instead of abandoning her to search for things that did not concern you, this never would have happened.’
Leaving Kew was far from her greatest sin of the week. But if it made her father feel better to blame her, she would allow it, if only so she didn’t have to explain herself. ‘I am sure Mr Lovell will recover,’ she said, trying not to smile.
‘Thank you so much for your opinion, Amelia,’ he said, sarcastically. ‘But suppose he doesn’t? What am I to do to make amends? I promised the man a future in government and the hand of my daughter. I have no idea what to say to him, now.’
‘You still have the seats to offer,’ she reminded him. ‘And you have two daughters.’ She regretted the words as soon as they were out of her mouth.
‘It is not as if I need to be reminded of the fact. You are standing right in front of me.’ By the look on his face, the information was currently an unpleasant truth. ‘But we live in modern England and not the Book of Genesis. I cannot exactly throw a veil over you and trade one girl for another like Leban tricked Jacob.’
‘You are probably right,’ she said with a moue of feigned disappointment. ‘Especially since it was your trickery over Belle’s engagement that has brought us to this point. I doubt he will trust anything you say, should you try to hand him me as a substitute.’
‘Do not be flippant with me, girl.’
In the past, she might have let the comment pass unremarked. Today, she was in no mood to be bullied. ‘Do not be flippant. Is that what you said to Belle that left her crying on the day we departed for Kew? She told us both that she did not want to marry him. We have got what we deserved for ignoring her.’
‘All I wanted was for her to be safely married,’ he snapped back. ‘It was my perfectly reasonable hope that one of my daughters would obey me.’
‘I will go to him immediately and offer apologies,’ she said. And congratulations as well. His reputation had not suffered the blow they’d both expected. ‘Where might I find him?’
Her father laughed. ‘Am I his keeper? He is not here, if that is what you are wondering. Why would he be? I suspect he has gone back to his rooms to drown his sorrows. The loss of a fiancée to a man who claimed to be his friend was terribly embarrassing, no matter how gracious he pretended to be about it.’
* * *
When she collected Mrs Lovell from the receiving room, she could but hope that their raised voices had not carried down the hall from the office. If the older woman guessed any of what had transpired, she gave no sign of it. Nor was she particularly bothered by the fact that they were to go immediately back to the carriage.
When Amy informed her that their next stop was to be the address on Bond Street where her son might be found, she tensed slightly, as if suddenly afraid to do the very thing she had wanted all along. ‘Does he expect us?’ she asked in a quiet voice.
Amy shook her head. ‘But we will not be the first unexpected thing to happen to him this week.’ And, even after her father’s dire rant on the subject, there was no reason to expect that they would be unwelcome.
* * *
They arrived at the building and climbed the stairs to his rooms. There, they were greeted at the door by a manservant who directed them to a small parlour overlooking the street. Mrs Lovell was so fascinated by the crowds of people on the street below them that she did not notice the arrival of her son.
Ben stood in the doorway, staring at the woman on the sofa as if he could not quite believe what he was seeing. Amy waited in silence to see his reaction. Though he had given her the facts she needed to bring this reunion about, he had not requested that she return with his mother and risk tarring her with the brush of scandal.
The lady shifted in her seat, turning to face the door at the sound of his gasp.
‘Mother.’ For a moment, the reserved façade disappeared and he looked like the young Cottsmoor. He had become a boy again, his desire for independence at war with the urge to return to the comfort of his mother’s embrace. Then the Benjamin Lovell she knew returned and he strode forward, pulling the woman out of her chair and enveloping her in his arms, pressing his dry cheek to her wet one, offering comfort instead of taking it.
As he hugged her, his features contorted in pain. Then the expression faded and he was at peace, his eyes closed tight, as if trying to freeze the moment and keep it for ever in memory.
‘Benjamin,’ his mother sobbed. ‘It has been so long.’
‘I am so sorry,’ he whispered back. ‘Sorry for what I said, when we argued. When I left you, I did not think it would be forever. But there was a reason I could not leave.’
‘The Duchess,’ she said, making a face.
‘No.’ He leaned close to whisper in his mother’s ear.
Her face relaxed in an understanding smile. ‘It is hard for a boy to become a man without a father to teach him.’
‘A boy needs both his parents,’ he said, in a ragged voice. ‘A mother and a father. I never should have left you.’
‘It is all right,’ she said, patting his hand. ‘And look at you now.’ She held him away from her to admire him. ‘Tall and handsome. Wealthy and educated. That is what a mother wants for her son, to see him do well.’
‘But I left you behind,’ he said, sounding again like the boy she had lost. ‘And the things I did to make my future... I am no longer worthy to be your son.’
Amy bit her lip to keep from speaking. He had become so much more than he had been. But, even though he had reconciled with his mother, there were still so many things he could never admit to the world.
‘It is all in the past,’ Mrs Lovell said in a soothing voice. ‘If there is a penance, by now you have paid it tenfold. Forgive yourself as I forgave you, years ago.’ Then she kissed him upon the forehead as one might when putting a child to sleep.
His shoulders slumped, but it was in acceptance, not defeat. Then he straightened again, and he seemed even taller than he had been, as if the shame that had weighted him down was gone. When he turned back to Amy, he looked different, as well. The grim determination behind his smile was gone, replaced by a lightness of spirit that she had not se
en in him before.
She wanted to go to him, to have him hold her and tell her that his mind was as free as his heart. She wanted to know that he loved her and wanted her, just as he had claimed to before. But now he needed to be with the woman he loved, but hadn’t seen in years.
Amy rose to excuse herself. ‘You must have much to talk about.’ As she turned to go, she kept her eyes downcast, not wanting him to see her longing for reassurance.
‘Wait.’ He leaned forward to whisper into his mother’s ear again and Amy saw her smile. Then he rose. ‘Let me escort you out, Miss Summoner.’
She responded with a nod of thanks and an attempt at a smile to hide her disappointment. Was she to be Miss Summoner again?
He laid a hand on her shoulder, shepherding her to the door. ‘Thank you.’ His voice was warm, friendly. But there was no trace of the passion she had heard in it when last they’d parted.
‘I didn’t do it to help you,’ she reminded him.
‘I know. But the reason does not matter. It is the good that that has come from your actions. I, of all people, must believe that. All that has happened has happened for the best.’
‘But your son,’ she whispered. ‘Without knowing, my father might have announced the truth to the world.’
‘I have no son,’ Ben said, the regret returning to his eyes. ‘Cottsmoor did. When he claimed him, I lost all right.’
‘But to live a lie...’ she said, shaking her head.
‘As you did for your sister,’ he reminded her. ‘It was shared guilt that drew us together.’
‘I have no regret,’ she insisted.
‘But perhaps you should,’ he whispered. ‘You know now who I really am.’ He shook his head in amazement. ‘I am sorry for the burden of secrecy I have placed on you, even if it is to one other person. I cannot explain what a gift that it is to have told the truth.’
Words of gratitude were sweet. But they were not what she was seeking from him. Where was the love he’d whispered about in the dark?
The Wedding Game Page 20
