Rebel Love (Heart's Temptation Book 2)

by Scarlett Scott

  Heart’s Temptation Book 2

  By

  Scarlett Scott

  Rebel Love

  Heart’s Temptation Book 2

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2016 Scarlett Scott

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded, or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is punishable by law.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events, or locales, is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Cover Design by Wicked Smart Designs

  Formatting by Dallas Hodge, Everything But The Book

  For more information, contact author Scarlett Scott.

  www.scarsco.com

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

  Preview of Reckless Need

  Other Books by Scarlett Scott

  About the Author

  A determined woman…

  Lady Bella de Vere’s matchmaking mother has vowed to win her a duke and nothing less. But Bella secretly yearns for her brother’s enigmatic American friend, Mr. Jesse Whitney, even if he’s determined to treat her as nothing more than a younger sister.

  A man with a past…

  A Confederate veteran adrift since the Civil War’s end, Jesse’s been through the fires of hell and back. He knows he should stay far away from his best friend’s beautiful sister, but she sees past his façade to the wounded soldier within, and he’s sorely tempted to take what should never be his.

  A love like no other…

  Their kisses are scorching, their passion undeniable. But Jesse’s bitter past refuses to relinquish its hold on him in more ways than one. Is he strong enough to fight the most important battle of all and win Bella’s love forever?

  For Sandy, with infinite gratitude for Chaucer,

  poems, endless rounds of dinner, and so much more.

  Much of Rebel Love occurs within the same timeframe as A Mad Passion since the two stories are told concurrently to each other. As Thornton and Cleo were rekindling their old passion at Lady Cosgrove’s country house party, Bella and Jesse were secretly falling in love.

  England, 1880

  aman wanted to marry her off. There was no kind way of phrasing it, no hope for it. The dowager had tired of Bella’s failure to wed. Her maxims were legion, ringing in Bella’s mind like an endless bell pull in the servants’ hall.

  No lord will wed a bookish miss. Never wear spectacles. Powder is vulgar. Nothing complements an innocent lady’s complexion better than white. Don’t slouch.

  Alas, her mother’s tireless crusade had thus far proven fruitless through several seasons. Bella had no wish to make polite conversation with boring fops in search of fortunes. They were deadly dull, the lot of them. But the plain truth remained in her mind with an attic rat’s gnawing persistence. No man, she feared, could ever compete with the incomparable Mr. Jesse Whitney. From the moment she’d first laid eyes upon his golden good looks and heard his butter-smooth Virginia drawl four years before, she’d been hopelessly, impossibly infatuated.

  “Bella, do pay attention.”

  The dowager’s scolding voice shook her from her reveries, bringing her back to the present with a snap. She turned from the countryside slipping past her carriage window and looked to her mother. “Pray forgive me. My mind is often wont to wander when I’m trapped in carriages.”

  “A wandering mind is simply unacceptable. A proper young lady’s mind should always be empty.”

  Bella tried hard not to smile at the dowager’s pronouncement. “Indeed, Maman. I shall endeavor to always have an empty mind from this moment forward.”

  Her mother pinned her with a glare. “So much cheek. Where did you learn such ill manners? I’m afraid I have failed altogether as a mother.”

  “Never, Maman dearest.” She attempted a smile she could not quite feel. “You have been a boon, truly.”

  “You would call your own mother a baboon? Dear Lord, how am I to find a husband for an uncouth girl such as this?” Her mother addressed the ceiling of the carriage as if she were having a direct audience with the Lord Himself.

  Bella would dearly have liked to offer some choice words of her own on the matter, but she wisely refrained. Instead, she counted to five in her head, took a supporting breath, and attempted to correct the dowager. “Maman, I said you’ve been a boon, not a baboon.”

  “Just so,” her mother huffed, “but how like you to say so now I’ve heard your true feelings. You only seek to abfuscate me.”

  Bella didn’t bother to correct her mother. It wouldn’t do a bit of good and she knew it. She simply remained silent and settled back into her seat as the verdant fields continued their endless undulations outside. They were on their way to the great Shakespearean-themed country house party held by Lady Cosgrove, and Bella knew better than anyone that it wouldn’t do to upset the dowager now. Indeed, house parties quite set her mother on edge. As did life in general, but that was beside the point.

  At times like these, Bella was certain her brother Thornton owed her a great deal. It was just as well he’d finally been forced to do his part and attend this country house party as well as she. Bella didn’t wish to be put on display to the grasping remnants of England’s aristocrats. Many of them had been cast to penury and she was well aware the only positive quality they’d be likely to find in a bookish young miss was the dowry her brother had provided her.

  She wasn’t content to be settled upon as if she were no better than a house with a leaky roof. She’d read a great many novels, and she wanted more than resignation. Bella longed for adventure, love and above all, passion. Of course, she could never tell her mother as much, or she’d be cast to Bedlam for being frail-minded.

  Most importantly, there was a grander plan in her mind. Her brother had written that he planned to bring his friend and business associate Jesse Whitney for companionship. Because her mother despised him, she’d wisely kept that particular gem of knowledge to herself. Until now.

  She slanted a glance at the dowager, who resembled nothing so much as a large bird. She had been wearing gray half-mourning for seven years, and her sole ornamentation was jet and feathers. A stuffed bird, Bella decided, was truly what her mother personified.

  “Maman, did you know Mr. Whitney shall attend?” Bella asked, knowing it was sly indeed of her. Everyone thought her bookish and mild-mannered, but in truth, she had layers. She was a parsnip in reverse, she’d decided some time ago. Thick skin on the inside, sweet and soft on the outside. She preferred it that way, for then, everyone underestimated her.

  “The awful American?” The dowager straightened her posture and raised her nose. “You shan’t know him, my dear. I can’t think why Lady Cosgrove should extend a
n invitation to such a blackleg, truly I cannot.”

  “Certainly not,” Bella concurred, not meaning a bit of it. “I should never know someone so low.”

  “Wise girl.” The dowager wore a satisfied smile. “I despair of your poor brother, with his dabbling in trade with that American vulture. But not my dear Arabella, thank the Lord. For you, I have expectations.”

  Bella was not sure she liked this news. “Expectations, mother?”

  “You’ll have a duchess’s coronet and nothing less.”

  Her stomach cramped at the very thought, and it had little to do with the extra-tightlacing done by her lady’s maid that morning or the stiffness of her travel dress. “Yes, Maman.”

  “I have it on good authority that the Duke of Devonshire will be in attendance,” the dowager announced in a pleased tone.

  Truly, Devonshire had always seemed altogether too proper even if he was handsome. He’d probably never even so much as sneezed at the wrong time of day in his life. But Bella knew it was wiser to smile and concur. It was what the dowager expected. “Wonderful news, Maman. I shall ask after his estate.”

  “Just so, my dear daughter.” The dowager marchioness beamed. “Just so.”

  Because her mother had delayed their arrival over a briefly misplaced trunk, Bella missed the first day’s festivities, but she didn’t mind. After settling into her chamber, she ventured through the immense Tudor revival wing in search of the library. No matter where she traveled, the library was always her home. Hostesses no doubt thought her strange as it was ordinarily considered a masculine domain, but Bella didn’t care. The dowager had settled in for a nap, and while she’d told her mother she would do the same, she had no intention of sleeping when there was a new collection of books to be scoured.

  With the help of a kind footman, she located her quarry. The library was immense, its mahogany walls lined with books. Bella stepped inside and took a deep inhalation of the familiar, comforting scent of leather and paper. She slid her spectacles out of the hidden pocket in her gown and settled them on the bridge of her nose.

  “I wonder,” she mused aloud as she slowly examined the spines nearest her, “if Lady Cosgrove has any Trollope. Likely not. It wouldn’t be my luck. She’s probably like Mother and thinks him too fast.”

  “Interesting,” drawled a deep, familiar, honey-slow drawl. “I wonder if you ordinarily hold conversations with yourself.”

  The book she’d taken off the shelf fell from her fingers to the floor with a loud thump. He was here. She spun about, gaze searching the still seemingly empty room for him. “You have me at a disadvantage, Mr. Whitney. Where in blessed angels’ sakes are you?”

  “Up here.” There was laughter in his tone.

  He was in the second level, she realized, following his voice with her eyes. She hadn’t known she wasn’t alone. Goodness, he must think her an utter featherhead. Of course, of all audiences and much to her embarrassment, it had to be Mr. Whitney. She had not seen him in some time, but even from so far away, she found him as wickedly compelling as ever.

  “I’m quite bemused that you’ve been eavesdropping on my private conversation,” she quipped, striving to maintain the pretense she was unaffected. She very much did not want him to think her a fool.

  “Perhaps I’m the one who should be bemused.” He made his way down the narrow staircase. “I was having a heated debate with myself when you walked in and interrupted it.”

  She snatched the spectacles from her face as he sauntered toward her, two books in his hands. “Indeed, sir? What debate was that? I confess I didn’t hear a single word.”

  “Poetry or fiction?” He grinned as he reached her and stopped with a respectable distance between them.

  Bella couldn’t help but notice the way his grin produced a charming divot in his right cheek. His smile transformed his ordinary handsome charm into melting masculine beauty. After all the time she’d spent with her brother’s friend over the past few years, she was still not immune to his magnetism. He possessed some indefinable quality she’d never seen in another man. It was as if beneath his polite exterior there was a wildness he barely kept contained. Maybe she was fanciful, but she’d always found him fascinating and even a trifle frightening.

  “Who is the poet?” she asked, trying to keep her mind where it belonged. He had no interest in her and he never would. She would ever be his friend’s younger sister and she’d accustomed herself to the unwanted role.

  “Matthew Arnold.” His grin deepened. “I do like your English bards.”

  “Arnold is a wise choice,” she agreed, having harbored a secret love of poetry for years, against her mother’s strict edict. “One of my favorite lines is in Dover Beach. It’s the last stanza, I believe, where he writes, ‘Ah, love, let us be true to one another! For the world, which seems to lie before us like a land of dreams, so various, so beautiful, so new, hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light.’”

  She was aware his stare was suddenly intense upon her and she flushed, wondering if perhaps she’d shared too much. “I beg your pardon,” she hurried to say, “I didn’t mean to wax on.”

  “No need to beg my pardon.” He winked at her, lightening the moment. “I like the sound of poetry on your lips.”

  For some reason, his words sent a delightful heat simmering through her veins. She had an inkling it was caused by his mentioning of her lips. “Thank you. I know the sentiment is a dark one, but I find it terribly compelling just the same.”

  “Life is dark.” There was an underlying emotion in his voice she couldn’t define.

  Her life had not been, but she had a suspicion his past was indeed marred by darkness. Thornton had said his friend had fought for the Confederacy in the War Between the States. She couldn’t even imagine the horrors he’d witnessed in combat. He wore the look of a gentleman well, but she wondered if beneath the polish there hid a deeply tarnished soul.

  “What is the fiction title?” she asked, attempting to return their conversation to its earlier levity once more. She didn’t want to pry, after all, and she feared her curiosity would get the better of her tongue soon.

  “Our Mutual Friend.” He held up the volume for her inspection.

  “Dickens.” She wrinkled her nose. “I must admit I’ve never been partial to his writing. Great Expectations was a vast lot of endless sentences if you ask me.”

  He laughed, a rich, velvety sound. Her heart kicked into the mad gallop of a runaway mare. Goodness, he really was far too compelling for her composure’s sake. Perhaps she had read one too many romantic novels. It was making her maudlin and foolish. She caught herself staring at his mouth.

  “I appreciate a lady who knows her mind,” he said, his tone low and intimate.

  Oh blessed angels’ sakes. What to say to that? Stop staring at him like a duffer, she ordered her wayward mind. “You’re too kind, Mr. Whitney.”

  “I wouldn’t call myself kind.” His tone was wry. “I count myself a number of things, but kind isn’t one of them.”

  Her interest was piqued. She’d always known him to be proper and considerate. A perfect gentleman. “Then perhaps you do yourself an injustice.”

  “If you knew the thoughts in my head, you wouldn’t think so.”

  That intrigued her in a way she knew could be quite dangerous indeed. “What thoughts?”

  His gaze dipped to her mouth. “That you’re one of the loveliest women I’ve ever seen.”

  Her lungs nearly failed her. His pronouncement had a stupefying effect upon her. She wanted to say something flippant or clever but couldn’t find the proper words. Instead, she opted for candor. “That’s rather a kind thing to say, actually. You’ve bollixed it up.”

  “Not truly.” His gaze met hers and for the first time in the years she had known him, she recognized the awareness she felt for him reflected back in his eyes. Or at least she hoped she did. “It’s the thoughts I haven’t said that are the problem.”

  “I’m sure I s
houldn’t ask what they are.” But it didn’t mean she didn’t want to know. Every part of her clamored with curiosity. Oh, how she wanted to know.

  “No, you shouldn’t, Lady Bella.”

  She found she rather liked the sound of her given name in his honeyed Virginia drawl.

  “You’re not playing fair,” she accused quietly. “I do so hate suspense. It’s why I always flip to the last page of a novel before I start reading it.”

  He laughed again and his dimple reappeared. “You ruin each book you read?”

  She’d never confessed her peculiar habit to anyone before and she wasn’t certain why she’d chosen to bestow her secret upon Jesse Whitney just then. But there was no help for it. She’d already said too much.

  Bella tried to keep the telltale blush from her cheeks. It wouldn’t do for him to know the effect his mere presence had on her. She wasn’t fifteen anymore, fresh from the schoolroom. “I prefer to think of it as preparing myself.”

  Jesse took a step closer to her, still holding the books he’d been discussing. He was impossibly handsome. “Ah, I believe I understand you.”

  Bella fought the urge to step back in retreat. He was now too near to her to be observing the proprieties any longer and that made her rather nervous. “Indeed?”

  He closed the remaining distance between them, absconding with her ability to breathe as he did so. “You seek to avoid an unhappy ending.”

  She faltered, as shaken by his nearness as she was by his perception. “Perhaps you’re right.”

  “If it’s a happy ending you desire, I’m afraid you’re doomed to be disappointed in life, my dear.” He startled her by sinking abruptly to his knees and retrieving the forgotten book she’d dropped. “Here you are.”