by Nichole Van
More importantly, Miss Heartstone looked sensible.
He was sure if he told her such, she would take it as an insult. Most women would, he supposed. But given how few people—men or women—truly were, being deemed sensible could only be a rare compliment.
Again, that same recognition washed over him. Had they met before at some ton function?
He spread honey on his crumpet before taking a bite, enjoying how the two ladies didn’t feel the need to fill the room with chatter.
“Did you enjoy your evening last night, Miss Heartstone?” he asked after a moment.
“Certainly.” Miss Heartstone fixed him with her warm brown eyes, stirring her coffee. “Lord and Lady Stratton are always accommodating hosts. Are you enjoying your stay, my lord? Or have the marauding misses spoiled it for you?”
Colin gave a reluctant chuckle. “I am far too much a gentleman to offer an opinion on that score, Miss Heartstone.”
“Portraying yourself as kindhearted will only encourage them, my lord. Set their hearts aflutter.”
“Are you suggesting a campaign of cold, ruthless behavior?”
“It would serve you well.”
“Adopt a cruel persona?” he replied. “Like Lord Ruthven from The Vampyre?”
A slow, delighted smile lit her face. “I do appreciate a gentleman who has a thorough grounding in the, uhmm, great classics of modern literature. However, I fear being thought a vampire will most likely only heighten the ladies’ interest.”
“I concede your point.”
“You simply must assure them you are neither a gothic creature nor a hero from a novel by Sir Walter Scott.”
“Perhaps more like a bumbling fool from a Shakespearean comedy?”
“Precisely. Less Ivanhoe, more Bottom, if you will forgive me.” Her eyes lit with mischief.
He laughed in earnest.
Sensible and clever. Yes, indeed.
His heart sped up. A bubbly sense of rightness fluttered through him. It was that tingling sense he got just before making a large business deal. The sensation that he was on the correct path. That this decision was momentous.
Perhaps his phantom sense of recognition was simply one kindred soul meeting another.
“And what about yourself, Miss Heartstone? I understand you have had your own share of . . . pursuers.”
“Do you refer to the Gold Miners?” Miss Rutger interrupted, raising her head from her newspaper.
Colin lifted his eyebrows, catching Miss Heartstone’s spreading blush. “Heavens, Miss Rutger, what will his lordship think?”
His lordship would think you are absolutely charming, Colin wished to reply.
But such extravagant compliments were not his style.
Instead, he said, “I perceive that you and I are birds of a feather, Miss Heartstone. I call my own group of—shall we say, admirers?—the Desperate Debutantes.”
“Desperate Debutantes. I quite like that.” An impish smile danced across her face.
“Gold Miners is clever.”
“Thank you. I had also considered Treasure Trappers.”
“Also excellent. Mob of Marriageable Misses—that was one I rejected.”
She tapped her chin with a finger. “Yes. I can see why.”
“You can take alliteration too far.”
“Agreed.”
She shot him a delighted grin, gold hints popping in her warm eyes.
By Jove, she was lovely. Colin quite forgot how to breathe.
The giddiness rushing through him was decidedly welcome. After everything with Sarah, part of him had worried that his trust in women had been forever tainted. But that was proving unfounded. Distance and eight months of allowing his heart to heal had done the deed.
And now, Miss Belle Heartstone’s presence had him wondering why he had ever considered marrying someone like Sarah Forrester.
They chatted about pleasantries after that. Yes, Lord and Lady Stratton were amiable hosts. The weather was delightful as of late. Naturally he would be joining everyone tomorrow to picnic amongst the bluebells in full bloom in the south fields. Miss Heartstone enjoyed being outdoors.
Through it all, she gave warm, clever answers, wit and humor showing through each reply.
A footman entered midway through their conversation, carrying letters on a silver platter. He presented them to Miss Heartstone.
“Thank you, Thomas.” She took the letters and flipped through them, noting each address before tucking them away in a pocket.
Colin still couldn’t shake the nagging feeling they had met before Miss Heartstone stumbled into him in Hyde Park the month previously. But where?
“I must say, Miss Heartstone. Have we met?”
Was it just his imagination, or did she freeze momentarily?
Breathe. Belle firmly reminded herself. Do not overreact.
It was a simple question. And, given their past interactions, a reasonable one.
How to respond? She had already told him so many white lies; she hated adding another.
So was this the moment then? She would tell Blake now?
Panic choked her. Thoughts scattered.
She wasn’t prepared for this conversation.
Not at this moment. Not this morning.
She had been up half the night, concocting one scenario after another, trying to work out how to get Lord Blake alone to tell him the truth about LHF.
Though as Anne shifted beside her, she realized that the present moment might be her only chance. The entire scenario had been ceremoniously handed to her on a platter.
“Why do you ask, my lord?” she asked, hedging, collecting herself.
She could do this. She could tell him.
“You seem somewhat familiar, that is all.”
She pasted her brightest smile on her face.
“I am sure all young women look alike. We just blend together into a blurry mass—”
“No. ’Tis something else. I’m not quite able to place a finger upon it.”
There was her opening.
Well, you see, my lord, we have met in the past. In fact, we know a shocking amount about one another—
Heart clogging her throat, Belle opened her mouth, willing the words to come out.
“You are too generous, my lord. Perhaps the sense of familiarity comes from—”
A rumble of loud voices outside the breakfast room interrupted her words. Blake turned his head toward the sound.
The door snicked open. Lord Odysseus walked in, clearly having just arrived. The scent of wind and sun whisked in with him, his hair and jacket slightly rumpled. The sight did nothing to detract from his stunning attractiveness. Did Lord Odysseus spend hours simply staring at himself in mute amazement?
Belle’s nerves were strung so taut, she gave a hiccupping sigh at the abrupt reprieve.
Unfortunately, her sigh was not lost on Blake.
He most likely interpreted her reaction much differently.
But . . . the tenuousness of her situation came home. Imagine if she had been in the middle of telling Blake about LHF and Lord Odysseus had walked in? Or anyone else for that matter?
Clearly, she needed a strategy.
Strategy would require some time to organize.
And why did that thought produce such profound relief?
She was a coward of the worst sort.
“Miss Heartstone.” Lord Odysseus beamed at her, motioning for her to remain seated. “It is a pleasure to see you again.”
“Thank you, my lord. Did you have a good journey?” Unfortunately, Belle realized too late that her sense of reprieve caused her answering smile to be absurdly delighted.
Lord Odysseus, however, eagerly basked in it, his own smile stretching wider.
“My journey was as tolerable as could be expected. Though much better for seeing you at the end of it, madam. I truly feel like Odysseus of old, returning home to find my fair Penelope by the fire, awaiting me.” He punctuated his statement with another de
ep bow and a heated gaze.
Oh dear. Belle was quite torn between giggling and fanning herself. Lord Odysseus certainly knew how to deliver a flattering line.
Blake, however, was not so torn. He hastily changed his inadvertent snicker into a cough.
Which meant that Lord Odysseus finally registered Lord Blake’s presence.
His smile freezing in place, Lord Odysseus looked back and forth between Belle and Blake, taking in Anne’s polite expression.
Lord Odysseus was no fool, Belle would grant him that. He immediately understood that Blake had become his competition.
The greatest irony, of course, was that she had actually played Penelope to one of the men in the room, tending to his lands in his absence and deterring would-be suitors.
Just not Lord Odysseus.
Smile still wooden, Lord Odysseus extended a hand, tone polite. “Blake. A pleasure to see you again, my lord.”
Blake shook the other man’s hand, the men exchanging a look. Was it her imagination, or were the gentlemen’s knuckles turning white from the tightness of their mutual grasp? Belle wasn’t sure if the emotion bubbling in her chest was hysteria, hilarity, or genuine alarm.
Fortunately, Georgiana chose that moment to bustle into the breakfast room. “Lord Odysseus. How dreadful of Stratton to not tell me you had arrived.”
Georgiana proceeded to ask a mountain of questions, drawing Lord Odysseus’s attention.
Blake shot Belle an amused smile and took a chair closer to her, ostensibly to resume their previous conversation.
Heaven help her.
Luckily, Blake moved on to discussing the state of the roads between Cambridge and Warwick, making droll observations that set her laughing.
But the tension that had galloped into the room with Lord Odysseus did not dissipate. It didn’t help that Lord Odysseus kept sending furtive glances her way as he spoke with Georgiana, clearly trying to understand the dynamic between her and Blake.
You and me, both.
But Belle had Blake’s full attention and felt no pressure at the moment to confess everything, not with so many others in the room. So she indulged in the sheer delight of his company.
“What are your current plans, now that you have returned to England?” Belle asked Blake.
“I have over seven years of news and problems to sort through.” Blake folded his arms across his chest, his blue eyes meeting hers with charming intensity.
It was all Belle could do to keep stars off her expression. She wanted to devour him with her gaze. Hardly a ladylike thought, but nevertheless true.
“That sounds onerous,” she replied.
Could Blake hear her breathlessness?
From across the room, Lord Odysseus laughed loudly.
Both Belle and Blake hardly noticed.
Instead, Blake smiled. “After I settle my estates and deal with some pressing business issues, I shall be at my leisure.”
His words were straightforward, but the lingering heat in his eyes said that he would love nothing more than to spend his leisure with her.
Belle mentally fanned herself.
She was not slow to pick up the baton he had just handed her.
“What leisure activities do you enjoy, my lord?” She leaned closer to him. “Aside from debutante dodging and gothic novels?”
The question earned her a delicious, low chuckle.
Was it her imagination, or did his eyes flick to her lips?
Heaven help her.
“I say, Blake,” Lord Odysseus’ voice boomed from across the table, “how did you find the roads from Oxford?”
The words worked as Lord Odysseus intended, breaking the spell between Belle and Blake.
Smile turning strained, Blake turned to Lord Odysseus. “The roads were fine if a little rutted in places. And you?”
The men continued their conversation. As Blake spoke, Belle forced herself not to catalog every little thing about him.
The way his elegant long fingers moved as he talked.
The rumbling timbre of his voice, edged with something faintly foreign—evidence of his time spent in India.
How the morning light behind him amplified the gold highlights in his chestnut hair.
Or how his blue eyes animated as he recalled a humorous anecdote from his travels.
Or the weight of his letter—forwarded from Mr. Sloan—burning in her pocket.
Most importantly, she most studiously ignored the painful ache spreading out from her heart again. Stupid hopeful thing.
It was just . . . he was here. Speaking. Talking. Laughing. A voice speaking with the same words and cadence she had long recognized from his letters.
Part of her wanted to clasp her hands at her breast in rapturous wonder, hearts floating across her eyes.
But another part frantically hoisted a flag of distress, knowing she was a floundering ship in dangerous waters.
Yes, unbeknownst to him, Blake was one of her best friends.
Yes, when she told him the truth about LHF, he would assume she had played him. And, perhaps, in a sense she had.
But telling him would surely shatter her. Was such emotional devastation worth the price of his friendship?
She didn’t even have to pause before answering herself:
It was.
Heaven help her, it was.
15
. . . Your continued silence puzzles me. I have called you a friend, and you have always dealt honorably with me. However, it has been nearly weeks without a word from you. I grow weary and frustrated with this dance. I ask you, one last time, to please reveal yourself to me. I will learn your identity one way or another. Stand up and be the man of honor I know you to be . . .
—letter from Lord Blake to LHF, dated June 14, 1823
The bedroom door cracked open behind Belle, causing her to hurriedly stuff Blake’s latest letter into her reticule. His words were already seared into her memory:
I grow weary and frustrated with this dance.
Mr. Sloan’s illness and Blake’s travels over the past few weeks had apparently delayed all of Blake’s correspondence—both coming and going—as letters were slowly catching up with them both. Had Blake received her letter asking him to name a time and place? Or had that been delayed too?
Blake’s opinion of LHF had surely sunk even lower, if that were possible.
She needed to tell him. But even that was proving difficult.
Blake was understandably paranoid about being alone with any of the young, single women attending the house party. He was vigilant in always having someone else at his side.
In general, Belle approved of such caution. However, it had made speaking to him alone in any surreptitious fashion nearly impossible.
She didn’t think that Blake lumped her in the same category as the Desperate Debutantes (she still mentally chuckled over the moniker), but any request for a private audience would certainly appear . . . odd.
Though Belle was honest enough to admit she hadn’t tried too hard.
Turns out . . . it was quite difficult to summon the courage to willingly shatter your own heart.
Particularly when Blake smiled at her.
Or talked.
Or walked.
Or, honestly, simply breathed.
Yes, Belle was sure she could happily pass an hour or two watching him sleep—
Mmmmm.
Perhaps she did consume too much gothic literature—
“Are you ready?” Anne stepped into the room, pulling on her gloves, her abrupt arrival causing Belle to jump.
“Of course.” Belle took a steadying breath, adjusted her reticule, and turned to face her friend.
Anne raised her eyebrows, shooting a cautious glance through the still open door behind her.
“Re-reading that letter, I see.” Anne missed nothing. It was what made her such a dear friend . . . most of the time. “I understand that the sender of your letter wishes a quick reply.”
Belle bit bac
k a sigh.
Ah, my conscience.
“We will discuss it later, you and I,” Belle said, tone cautious and mindful of the open door.
Footsteps echoed down the hall, followed by eager voices. A bonneted head poked into Belle’s room.
“Are you coming, Miss Heartstone? Miss Rutger? We don’t want the gentlemen to start without us.” With a giggle, the young ladies continued on down the hall.
Anne turned back to Belle, a smirk on her face. “And by gentlemen, I think they mean Lord Blake.”
“Poor man. Though Lord Odysseus has also been . . .” Belle trailed off, searching for a proper word.
“Pursued?” Anne supplied on a whisper.
Belle angled toward her. “I was leaning more toward harried.”
Anne laughed lowly. “Tormented, even?”
“Shall we go save them both?” With an evil grin, Belle snatched up her bonnet and hurried out of the room.
Colin hurried down the front steps of Stratton Hall, boots tapping, walking stick swinging broadly, his long overcoat lapping at his heels.
The morning post had arrived just as everyone gathered in the large entry hall, intent on their walk and picnic. Two items from his solicitor required his immediate attention, delaying him from attending the picnic.
There was also a letter from Mr. Sloan’s clerk, firstly informing him that Mr. Sloan had been ill, and, secondly, apologizing for several items that had been misdirected to Colin’s estate in Cornwall. The clerk felt confident that the post would find its way to him shortly, if it hadn’t already arrived.
The man neglected to mention if any of the misdirected correspondence was from LHF. More than enough time had passed for his friend to pen a reply. Colin had nearly run his mind to exhaustion, trying to figure out who LHF might be. But he had arrived at no real answers.
Learning of Mr. Sloan’s illness had taken some of the sting out of Colin’s frustration.
Perhaps LHF had written.
But . . . was Colin’s luck truly so bad that all LHF’s letters had gone astray?
