by Nichole Van
After few more minutes, Blake sighed.
“Thank you for accompanying me, Miss Heartstone. I appreciate you quickly going along with my scheme.” His tone was stiff.
Belle’s heart thundered.
His honest sensibilities wouldn’t allow him to withhold praise where it was due. If anything, her heart broke a little more.
He came to her rescue at great personal risk, even though she had abused his trust. He thanked her for her small kindnesses.
Oh, Blake.
“’Tis the least I can do, my lord,” she murmured. “I have always been sincere in my professions of friendship between us. I still consider you one of my best friends.”
Belle bit her lip, instantly regretting her words.
“True friends don’t keep enormous secrets—like, for example, their very gender—from each other,” Blake snorted.
His words cut, lashing deeply.
Belle blink-blinked, willing the sting in her eyes away.
“Perhaps not, my lord,” she agreed, swallowing back the justifications that crowded her throat. “I can only apologize for my behavior yet again.”
Blake swung his walking stick, lopping the top off several dandelions. He seemed to find the exercise satisfying, as he instantly repeated the motion, attacking a clump of spent poppies.
Finally he stopped, whirling to face her.
“Why did you do it?” he hissed. “Why lie to me for so many years? You knew I assumed you to be a man. You knew that my assumptions about your identity were wrong. And You. Said. Nothing!”
Belle swallowed.
Mmmm.
So kindness aside, he was clearly still a little angry.
Scratch that.
A lot angry.
How could she defend her decisions? He was justified. She deserved his scolding.
“You are right,” she said. “I should have, at the very least, indicated that you were mistaken in your assumptions—”
“Yes, you should have!” He thwacked another dandelion before abruptly turning on his heel and continuing onward.
Belle followed behind. They moved into the deep shade of the woods. A quick glance behind showed Anne strolling far off, barely close enough to chaperone. Sunlight glinted off the lake, sending shards of light through the trees.
Blake went only a short way before he stopped and stomped back to her.
“I trusted you!” His face was mere inches from hers, eyes wide and shooting sparks.
“I know,” Belle nodded.
“I told you things I have never told another soul!”
“I know. I did the same.”
“How could you act so brazenly?!”
Unbidden, Belle felt her own temperature rise.
Enough was enough.
Yes, she had lied to him.
Yes, she had betrayed their friendship.
How many different ways could he call her out on these points?
He didn’t need to devolve into a complete arse over it.
“As I said, the entire situation got away from me!” Belle threw an arm upward. “You weren’t supposed to write me so prolifically. You weren’t supposed to befriend me!”
“You cannot seriously be accusing me of this deception!”
“No, of course not. My actions are my own. But I had not anticipated you wishing to further our acquaintance. And by the time I realized that we were going to be friends in earnest, the point for mentioning my age and gender had long passed.”
“Usually one leads with age and gender, not the other way around.”
“When would you have had me tell you, my lord? After you accepted my bank draft and had set off for India? Would you have thrown my money back in my face at that point? Of course not! That would have left you stranded in Ceylon.”
Blake pinched his lips together, a stern slash in his face.
But he had lit a fire underneath her, and Belle refused to be snuffed out.
“Should I have told you after that first shipment of spices came in? No? Perhaps, I should have derailed your talks with the tribesmen and endangered your life?” Belle snapped her fingers. “No, wait! Maybe I should have told you right before we opened Hopewell Manor. I could have turned scores of veterans and their families out into the street—”
“Enough!” Blake barked.
“I valued what we were doing. I valued our friendship. I didn’t want you to abandon your dreams and goals because of my unfortunate gender.”
Blake scoffed. “That’s a convenient excuse you tell yourself. Your gender wouldn’t have stopped me—”
“Perhaps, but you would have felt honor-bound to refuse my financial capital once you knew. I didn’t want your sensibilities as a gentleman to stop you from succeeding. It’s what a good friend does!”
He reared back, brows drawing down into a solid line, expression flinching as if her words had struck a sensitive spot.
They regarded each other for a tense moment, their breathing loud in the forest hush.
“A true lady would never stoop to such behavior,” he finally spat out.
Blake turned on his heel and stomped onward.
Oh!
Belle barely resisted a hiss of outrage.
His words were a glove-slap to the face.
Arse-headed, imbecilic, stubborn . . . Argh!
The green of the forest rushed by as Belle hurried after him. His long strides and her cumbersome skirts—hems dipping into the damp and mud of the path—made it nearly impossible to catch up to him.
Grrrr. Yet another disadvantage that women faced!
Finally, she stopped and hurled her words at his retreating back, chest heaving, hands fisted. “Over and over, I tried to tell you this past week! You silenced me every time. I would never dream of impugning your honor, my lord. How dare you insult mine!”
That got his attention.
He whirled back to her, stomping closer until she could see the whites of his eyes, the flare of his nostrils.
Belle folded her arms and stood her ground, craning her neck up to meet his gaze.
“You are a woman! You have no honor!” he said.
OH!
“How dare you! I am a person, too! And, more to the point, I have always dealt with you most honorably!”
Blake at least had the decency to slightly flinch at her words. “Miss Heart—”
“Your mother, God rest her soul, would turn over in her grave to hear you say such a thing! She raised you better than this—”
“How dare you bring my mother into this argument!”
“You do not deny my sentiment!”
“My mother did not tell falsehoods.”
“Perhaps.” Belle took a steadying breath. “But from all you have told me, she was a remarkable woman who didn’t stand by tradition. She saw women as people of valuable worth. I do not doubt that she considered my sex to have honor. I thought she taught you to do the same—”
“Don’t you dare twist my mother’s teachings to justify your poor behavior!”
“You yourself all but ordered me to abandon societies niceties that morning in Hyde Park! Now you cry foul when I have done so!”
“That is not the point of my anger, madam. You choosing to manage your own business affairs is admirable. You inserting yourself into mine”—his voice rose again—“and then neglecting to inform me of your youth, gender, and . . . and beauty is not!”
He turned away from her, stomping onward, slashing his walking stick at the brush as he went.
Belle stood, frozen in place, lungs heaving, heart racing, hand pressed to her mouth.
Her poor brain sputtered and spun, trying desperately to understand what Blake had just said.
You neglecting to inform of your beauty . . .
Surely she had simply misheard? Surely he didn’t find her . . . beautiful? Did he?
Did he?!
A glance behind her showed that Anne had stopped, pretending to examine a patch of wild roses nestled in the
trees. When their eyes connected, Anne flapped her hand at Belle. Go on. Follow him.
Dazed, Belle nodded and started up the path after Blake.
Colin slashed another dandelion with his walking stick, throat thick, tongue tangled.
Why was he so furious over Belle’s betrayal? Why did the mere sight of her wide brown eyes and lush mouth set him to raging?
She had no right to be so beautiful.
She had no right to own so many pieces of his soul.
He sliced again with his stick.
That some of her points were true grated even more.
That dry part of his brain pointed out that she was right. If she had told him about her gender early on, he would have pulled out from their joint venture, feeling honor-bound as a gentleman to do so. All their future success would have been snuffed before it ever began.
But . . .
But—
Dammit!
He hated the morass of confused feeling that tumbled through his chest.
All too soon he heard her footsteps closing in on him.
He ignored her as she drew abreast of him again. Not that he could see more than the tip of her nose and the curve of her lips extending past the edge of her poke bonnet.
The fact that it was a darling pert nose and soft-looking lips only stoked his anger.
They strolled in silence, emerging from the trees and beginning to walk around the lake. The rain had swollen the water, causing it to overflow in places. Ahead, the dock where they had launched their boats the week previous was partially underwater now. Fortunately, the path was more or less intact.
“Is it possible to call a truce for a minute?” Belle asked, voice taut and restrained.
“A truce?”
“Yes. There are many items to discuss. Regardless of the problems between us personally, we do hold the lives of thousands of people in our collective hands. It would behoove us to move beyond ourselves for a moment or two.”
Colin grunted.
He didn’t wish to be polite and accommodating. He wanted to fume and slash a few hundred more dandelions.
But . . . as he was an adult, no matter how childish the current situation made him feel or how petulant Belle rendered him . . .
He nodded.
“Let me start with the worst,” Belle grimaced. “I have reports of some improprieties involving the manager of the factory outside Bristol—”
“Who? Michael Brown?”
“Yes. I received a letter last month from the village midwife, and she recounted some disturbing reports regarding Mr. Brown and several of the village girls.”
“Brown has been a most conscientious manager. His reports are detailed and thorough—”
“I do not disagree, but a talent for management does not preclude the man from also being a lech and using his position of authority to demand other services from his laborers.”
Colin frowned. “Why are we to assume the worst of Mr. Brown based on a midwife’s letter?”
“Of course, I agree. I hired a Runner to look into it—”
“You seem quite fond of using them.” Bitterness laced his tone.
If she noticed it, she did not respond.
“I received the report from the Runner last week, and he confirmed the midwife’s words,” she said.
A sick feeling settled in Colin’s stomach. “Mr. Brown preyed on the women under his employ?”
“Yes. Many were not willing participants, but Mr. Brown tied their continued employment to his demands, so most felt they had no other choice.”
Colin closed his eyes. “How despicable. All of our other managers have been men of honor. How did we get it wrong with Mr. Brown?”
A long silence greeted his statement. Long enough that Colin stopped, turning to Belle.
She paused with him, raising her eyes to meet his. She licked her lips.
Briefly, Colin remembered letters in the past, small asides that LHF would mention.
I have found it necessary to change managers for our York investments . . .
The captain of the merchant ship Marigold has decided to seek employment elsewhere . . .
“Mr. Brown is not the first, is he?” Colin asked.
Belle shook her head. “Not even remotely. We actually employ a midwife at each factory who looks for this very thing. I am decidedly determined to keep the women in my employ safe from such harassing behavior. Their lives are hard enough, as is.”
Colin bit back the curse that threatened to escape. His blood roared.
He knew that some men behaved like this. He had heard enough from his mother and sisters, not to mention the atrocities he had witnessed as a soldier. But he vehemently recoiled from knowing that his own agents had been participating in such things.
Worse, Miss Heartstone was a gently-bred lady. That she had to so actively work to protect other women—
He whirled around, not trusting himself to speak for a moment or two. He switched his walking stick once, twice. Belle instantly fell back into step with him. They circled around a flooded portion of the path, hopping from rock to rock in an effort to keep their shoes dry. Colin leaped to drier ground and then turned back intent on helping Belle, but she had already nimbly jumped crossed.
“You shouldn’t even know of such things,” he bit out, “much less discuss them with men—”
“I am the problem in this situation? My reaction, not Mr. Brown’s behavior?”
Yes, why was he fixated on that point? He stopped again, placing his hands on his hips.
“Why was none of this brought to my attention?” he countered, waving a hand. “You never once mentioned these sorts of issues in your letters?”
“It would have taken a year to ask your advice and receive an answer. For items that needed more immediate action, I simply made the decisions myself. That is part of being a business partner.”
Colin ground his teeth. He knew LHF was doing that. Colin had done the same thing himself in India.
But now he knew that it had been a young woman all along dealing with such grim decisions. And somehow that changed everything. He glared down at her.
“I should have known. I should have been the one to write those letters of dismissal, not you.”
Belle gasped, head recoiling. “Why? Because I’m a woman? Because you consider me incapable of dealing with difficult situations?”
“Yes!” Colin practically shouted and then realized what he had said. “I mean, no—”
“You cannot be sincere in your protestations. Are we right back where we started?” She gazed up at him, eyes flaring wide. “You are supposedly a champion of the rights of women, remember?”
“I am!”
He was. It was just . . . somehow he wasn’t quite as progressive when it came to his woman.
Wait—
No.
No, Belle was not his woman.
Damn but she had him so confused!
She continued on. “I must be honest, my lord, your words over the last hour have sounded anything but encouraging of my capabilities—”
“I do not doubt your abilities, madam,” he managed to say through clenched teeth.
He simply needed to find some clarity with regards to her.
Belle was not done. “Do you? Sincerely? I stand by what I said earlier. Remember all those lessons at your mother’s feet?”
He paused, clenching his jaw, nostrils flaring. Belle had struck true.
She read as much in his expression. “Do you still believe the words you parroted back to me that morning so long ago in Hyde Park?” She was ticking points off on her gloved fingers now. “Women are not even persons under the law once we’re married. We are not educated, as a rule. Horses have more legal rights than a married woman.”
“Belle . . . pardon, I mean, Miss Heartstone—”
But she was still talking, arms gesturing wildly. “Women go through horrific pain and uncertainty at every point in their lives, Blake. They give birth to chi
ldren. They raise the next generation and worry and fret. The vast majority of us influence events through the meager indirect means we have, which takes strategy and verve. Women, as a whole, deal with more ugliness than men on a regular basis, but we are not allowed to even own that much because men deem such capabilities ‘unladylike.’”
Belle pulled ahead of him, feet eating up the ground, shoulders heaving.
Colin said nothing, mind a jumbled mess. Part of him knew he deserved her blistering set-down. But another part fumed that she had put herself into situations like this one with Mr. Brown.
But . . . she had called him Blake. He had called her Belle. It seemed this argument was blasting through all the barriers between them.
He started after her, his walking stick swinging.
She reached the partially flooded dock and the large puddle surrounding it. Gathering her skirts, she prepared to leap onto the dry portion of the dock to circumvent the standing water. But the distance was far greater than the one she jumped earlier.
Grimacing, Colin held out a hand to her, offering to help steady her balance.
Belle paused, glaring at his hand before huffing. “I am a woman. I can solve this problem without a man’s help.”
“I’m not offering my help because you are a woman. I offer it because your legs are too short to bridge the gap.”
She sniffed.
“Take my hand, madam. You don’t want to tumble into the lake.”
She ignored his hand and took a hopping jump up onto the dock. Of course, her heavy skirts hampered her movements, causing her to pitch precariously to the side.
Tossing aside his walking stick, Colin instantly leapt into action. He sprang onto the dock, wrapping an arm around Belle’s waist, heaving her backwards just as she stumbled toward the water.
“You stubborn fool.” He pulled her upright and, in the process, ended up with her in his arms, her chest flush against his, her hands resting on his shoulders.
Heat flared between them.
“Of course, I’m stubborn,” she snapped. “It’s what makes me an excellent business woman.”
“I know that! But take my help when it is offered!”
“You are not my master to decree when I should do something. You are not my father or my brother or my husband, so you have no say—”
