Belle

by Bancroft, Blair

  Belle

  by Blair Bancroft

  Published by Kone Enterprises

  at Smashwords

  Copyright 2014 by Grace Ann Kone

  For other books by Blair Bancroft,

  please see http://www.blairbancroft.com

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.

  Welcome to The Aphrodite Academy series—Belle, Cecilia, Holly and Juliana. These are stories of the “dark side” of the Regency era, of young women who were not so fortunate in their birth or their experiences as the heroines of traditional Regency novels. They are, however, still romances, and somehow manage that Happily Ever After ending we all love.

  Prologue

  Richmond, 1814

  Lady Juliana Rivenhall sat in the bookroom of Thornhill Manor, a considerably greater estate than the modest name implied, and listened to the droning voice of the solicitor reading the Last Will and Testament of Geoffrey Rexford Rivenhall, her husband. Her late husband. What a hot-headed fool he was, to indulge in pistols at dawn with a man known for his feats of marksmanship. But that was Geoffrey—passionate in all pursuits. Including any reasonably attractive female who did not instantly succumb at the first touch of his hand to her hip. Geoffrey hunted for the challenge, the wit, the repartee, the triumph of a successful hard-won conclusion . . .

  “To my devoted housekeeper, Mrs. Emmaline Thorpe, the sum of . . .”

  Would it never end? The devil take all solicitors and the other ghouls present, each wondering if Geoffrey had remembered them.

  Unfair. Unkind. They had all served well, from the vicar who hoped for a new steeple to the estate steward who had served as long and faithfully as Mrs. Thorpe, who was now sobbing into her handkerchief at the unexpected generosity of her bequest.

  For all his faults, Geoffrey had been a good man. The things he had taught her . . . the adventures they’d had. He had broken her in quite gently to his often startling world, though not without shocking the sensibilities of a properly brought up young lady of twenty. There had been times Juliana vowed to be on the next mail coach back to Mama and Papa. She hid a nostalgic smile behind her black veil. Those days were long gone. She had enjoyed a surprising amount of her five years of marriage. Though a determined effort not to think about society’s reaction to the way Lord Rivenhall and his wife lived their lives—should they ever be discovered—was all that kept her head high, a gracious smile on her face.

  And then there was the child, the babe she so longed to conceive. And now never would. Juliana forced her attention back to the solicitor, Thaddeus Leath.

  “And to my beloved wife, Juliana Augusta Rivenhall, I leave the remainder of my estate. Thornhill Manor in the county of Surrey, the hunting box in Melton Mowbray, our house on the Marine Parade in Brighton, the racing stables in Epsom.”

  For all the stern discipline Juliana had cultivated to hide her emotions, she failed to choke back a gasp. Geoffrey and she had visited all those places, of course, but somehow she had not thought he owned them. At least not all.

  “Also to my wife’s sole benefit, I leave ownership of Rivenhall Shipping, my four mills in the Midlands, and my investments in the Funds.” The solicitor cleared his throat. “The sum invested in the Funds, my lady, should bring you approximately £30,000 per annum.”

  Murmurs of astonishment echoed through the bookroom. Juliana, struggling with shock, forced herself to speak. “Mr. Leath, are you saying that I will have £30,000 per annum in addition to the income from Thornhill, the shipping company, and the mills?”

  “That is correct, my lady.”

  Geoffrey had once told her ninety percent of the population lived on less than a hundred pounds a year, and she was to have . . . Merciful heavens, the sum was staggering.

  They had always lived well, of course. She had, in fact, frequently chided Geoffrey for his extravagance, telling him he would soon have the bailiffs at the door. Never, ever, had she dreamed of wealth on this scale.

  Mr. Leath cleared his throat. “If I may, Lady Rivenhall, there is a bit more.” She offered a negligent wave of her hand, and the solicitor continued. “I name Juliana Augusta Rivenhall sole Executor of my estate. She is to have access to any and all funds once belonging to me and may make any and all business decisions once made by me. I name my good friend and long-time employee, Darius Wolfe, to assist her in these matters of business. Lady Rivenhall, a woman of high intelligence and great common sense, has been an exemplary wife, and it gives me great pleasure to put this power in her hands. Signed in the presence of Witnesses this Fourth Day of the Tenth Month in the Year of our Lord, 1810, by Geoffrey Rexford Rivenhall of Thornhill Manor, County of Surrey, England.”

  Darius? But of course Darius. Who else?

  Beneath her veil Juliana smiled.

  Chapter 1

  London, 1816

  Lady Arabella Pierrepont, a brilliant social smile fixed to an exquisitely aristocratic face, bid her hostess farewell before ducking beneath the umbrella held by a footman and following Lady Margaret Wainwright, her chaperone, to their waiting carriage. A veritable crush, the Chumleigh’s ball had been a highlight of the Season. Lady Arabella, afraid to go home, had stayed as long as she could. At two in the morning, however, the sight of Lady Wainwright’s pale face and drooping shoulders had forced her feet off the dance floor. And now . . .

  Now she would spend the fifteen-minute drive to her home quivering with terror. And praying for deliverance.

  Perhaps she could sneak inside . . .

  Only if the carriage’s wheel were muffled. For the night was warm, if damp from a mizzling rain. Windows would be open, the sound of iron-rimmed wheels on cobbles as loud as the clatter of the Horse Guards on parade.

  Could she beg to spend the night with Lady Wainwright? And have that poor lady, a woman of timid temperament and uncertain years, dead of an apoplexy when Baron Pierrepont came pounding at her door?

  Baron Pierrepont. She could not name him father. If her mother still lived, Arabella would demand to know the truth. Was she truly a Pierrepont, or had her mother played her father false, Arabella the offspring of an entirely different man? For surely no man would treat his own daughter so. How could any man treat a woman so? Most particularly, a man of title, a nobleman. Surely only the lower classes were so depraved. But when she had said as much to her maid, Tess had laughed at her, assuring her men were the same, high or low, white, brown, or yellow. Bastards all.

  No! She would not believe it. While her mother was alive, life had been as fine as anyone could wish. Admittedly, she saw little of her father, living almost solely in a world of mother, governess, and other young ladies of the ton and their mothers. At seventeen she had not yet caught so much as a glimpse of the dark side of life.

  Then Mama was gone, suddenly, tragically, in a fall down the stairs of Pierrepont House.

  And everything changed.

  God help her, how everything changed. Bastards all.

  Surely not. There had to be someone out there willing to rescue her. Someone kind—perhaps a woman—who would not beat her . . . or put h
er on display.

  With a great clattering of hoofs, the carriage stopped. Above the smell of steaming horse, cigar smoke drifted through the open windows of her father’s cardroom. A slight ripple in the curtains as a silhouetted face peered out.

  Agony pierced her soul. She was discovered. Her night was just beginning.

  Arabella was in the midst of disentangling three soggy ostrich plumes from her hair when the knock came. “Lady Arabella?”

  “Tess, you may tell Stebbins I am soaked through, exhausted, and well on my way to bed.” No sense complaining of the footman who failed to appear to protect her from the rain. At one of her father’s evening parties for London’s most debauched gentlemen gamesters, Baron Pierrepont demanded the full attention of his staff.

  “Lady Arabella,” the butler reiterated, putting his foot in the crack Arabella’s maid had opened in the bedchamber door, “I am most sincerely sorry, but you know full well the baron will not allow you to cry off. If you do not appear within the next five minutes, I fear the consequences.”

  So did she.

  Very well, she would leave her damp clothes on, catch her death, and thus escape the baron’s clutches. A definite solution, if not the best she could hope for.

  Indeed, there was no best. Stebbins, Tess, and the housekeeper Mrs. Amory had closely questioned her in the past, only to have Arabella point out a sad lack of relatives on both sides of her family. Or at least any who would dare challenge the wrath of Baron Eustace Pierrepont, a man with friends in high places, even though the ton generally considered him the lead shark in a sea of very loose fish. A salient fact that was queering any chance Arabella might make a respectable match. People didn’t bother to lower their voices when they expressed their opinions or passed along the latest bit of gossip about the inhabitants of Pierrepont House.

  Lady Arabella? No better than she should be, I hear. But what can you expect from a Pierrepont?

  Haymarketware,” declared a dowager countess. “Poor child simply doesn’t know it yet.

  Pierrepont’s gel? Never will she darken the door at Comstock House!

  Arabella Pierrepont?” an earl proclaimed to his enamored heir. “I’d as soon see you wed to a Covent Garden tart!

  “My lady,” Tess hissed, her dark eyes anxious. “Stebbins is waiting. You’d best go with him, or it’ll be the whip again.”

  Grimly, Arabella handed the wilted plumes to her maid. “By all means, if I am to be the evening’s entertainment, let us strive for the full effect, drooping feathers and all.” She lifted her chin, sitting tall and regal while Tess inserted the sad-looking white feathers back into her upswept blonde hair. “A fresh pair of gloves. I fear ’tis impossible to reinsert one’s fingers in damp kidskin.” Eyes full of sympathy, Tess did as she was told. “My paisley Kashmir shawl,” Lady Arabella added as she stared at a reflection of the bedraggled feathers which threatened to fall onto her nose at any moment. “I refuse to encase my bare shoulders in soggy lace!”

  Ah! The Kashmir shawl enveloped her in warmth, giving a small modicum of comfort.

  It wouldn’t last long.

  Arabella stood. “Thank you, Tess. You may go now. And don’t forget to lock your door.”

  Tess curtsied. “To be sure I will, my lady. And . . . God go with you.”

  Arabella nodded. God, unfortunately, would want nothing to do with the goings-on at Pierrepont House. These four walls belonged to the devil.

  “It’s about time,” the baron roared as his daughter stepped into the room that held two hexagonal card tables. Arabella clutched her shawl more tightly about her as a dozen pair of eyes turned in her direction.

  “Gentlemen.” She curtsied.

  “Up, up, up,” Pierrepont shouted, waving toward a small dais, a foot high, installed in front of the empty fireplace.

  “Indeed, my lord, pray excuse me, I have danced all night. I fear I must fall off.”

  Surprisingly, murmurs of understanding came from enough throats that, uncharacteristically, the baron backed down. “Very well,” he muttered, “you may sit until we finish the first round.”

  Shivering, Arabella sank onto a burgundy velvet sofa, set at an angle to the fireplace, and attempted to burrow into its softness, becoming as invisible as possible. Perhaps they would become so absorbed in the game they would forget about her.

  Unlikely. Even though a few of them, mostly newcomers to the baron’s gaming tables, showed some sympathy, she had caught the lascivious looks on the faces of the baron’s cronies, those who knew how the game ended.

  Time passed. Arabella concentrated on moving her mind further and further away from her body. With altogether too much practice lately, she was improving. Perhaps one day her mind would rise to the ceiling, and she would look down on the dais and feel nothing, her soul a stranger to her body.

  Some day.

  A chortle of triumph from one of the baron’s regulars as the game’s first round ended. “Mount the dais, Arabella,” the baron commanded. She did so, standing tall, chin high, proud, though her soul was screaming, No!

  “What will you have, Biddle?” Pierrepont demanded with an evil glee that had Arabella vowing someday, somehow, she would end his reign of depravity. “The earbobs, gloves? The shawl?”

  Adrian Biddle, youngest son of an earl and a connoisseur of the darker delights to be found in London, raked his gaze over Arabella from head to toe, offering a thin smile that indicated he was already anticipating the game’s future moves. “The left glove, if you please, Lady Arabella. And slowly, very slowly.”

  Calmly, looking him straight in the eye as she knew what would happen if she did not, Arabella shoved the elbow-length white kidskin down her arm, then pulled off each finger, one by one. With insolent grace learned during several abortive attempts to remain a lady, she tossed the glove into his waiting hands.”

  A winner’s cry went up from the second table. Arabella’s second glove was soon requisitioned. Her earbobs went on the next round, the gentleman who won them kissing each one before tucking them into what he declared was a pocket over his heart. Belle’s stomach roiled, even as she felt the tension mount, for her shawl was surely next, a loss that would fully expose the décolletage of her ballgown. Unless, of course, someone chose her slippers first. Some men seemed to have a fetish for slippers, though Arabella could only find such tastes mystifying.

  Sure enough, her rose pink dancing slippers were chosen, followed by her clocked stockings. Prickles of disgust shook her as fingers crawled up her legs, rolling down her garters, rolling down the stockings with lascivious deliberation. Arabella gritted her teeth, maintaining her cool façade, refusing to give the men the satisfaction of seeing her revulsion.

  “Pierrepont,” murmured a young gentleman Arabella had not seen at the card games before, “surely this has gone far enough.”

  “Assure you it ain’t her first time, Ashford,” the baron returned. “The gel’s used to it.”

  Arabella shot a swift glance at the gentleman who had spoken up for her. Lord Ashford. She had a vague recollection of seeing him at a few ton parties, though they had never met. A handsome man, with warm brown hair, artfully arranged in the disheveled style currently favored by London dandies. Eyes, an indeterminate shade in the wavering candlelight. Gray perhaps. And not as jaded as the baron’s other guests. A fine figure of a man, she had to admit. So what was he doing here with Pierrepont’s hardened gamesters? Charging down the road to Hell like all the others, no doubt. Arabella’s lips curled in disdain. Suddenly, their gazes locked, and Arabella almost cried out as she saw the question in his eyes. But a call for help to any of these men meant just one thing—exchanging the whims of the baron for the whims of her rescuer. By some miracle she was still a virgin. And that was the price she would be expected to pay for freedom from her father.

  Therefore, although Lord Ashford was sinfully handsome, a man she would have been delighted to meet under the protection of a ton event, she could not risk it. Dropping
her gaze, Arabella obeyed a command to remove her shawl, allowing it to droop into the Earl of Stutton’s waiting arms.

  Applause. May the devil take them all!

  Without her voluminous Kashmir shawl, she now stood fully revealed in rain-dampened primrose silk, which clung to her body with a tenacity the males in the room undoubtedly wished to emulate. Dear Lord, they were practically salivating, even Pierrepont’s eyes were bulging. Nausea swept her. The man could not be her father. Absolutely. Could. Not.

  “Turn around,” the baron barked.

  Fat fingers—from the hands of more than one—fumbled at her hooks and tapes, drifting, touching . . .

  “I say,” a voice protested. Ashford. Though facing the fireplace, in her soul Arabella knew it was he.

  “Devil it, Ashford,” one of the men complained. “Thought you were made of sterner stuff.”

  “She is a young lady of marriageable age, not a doxie hired to do your bidding.”

  “If you’ve no stomach for it, you may leave,” the baron intoned.

  “I’ll stay,” Lord Ashford growled. “Damned if I’ll leave her to this den of iniquity.”

  “Out!” the baron shouted at the viscount, as Arabella turned around, clutching her gown in front of her.

  “No!” Ashford returned in a tone that made Arabella stare. He dared defy the baron?

  The two men glared at each other, with Pierrepont finally conceding to the younger man, “Stay then, but not a peep out of you. My house, my rules, my daughter.”

  A general whoosh of relief as Lord Ashford nodded, albeit reluctantly, and everyone turned back to Arabella, standing on the dais, eyes wide, her bare arms hugging her satin gown to her as if she would never let go. The baron thrust a hand toward his daughter. Biting her lip, Arabella handed over the gown. “Back to the tables,” the baron ordered. During the soft slap of the cards, the murmur of voices from two tables, Arabella stood still as a marble statue, exposed in her damp stays and nearly transparent linen shift for a dozen men to see.