Sweet Bargain (16 page)

Her uncle smiled and winked at Bel. To Nick he said, "Yes, it's a shame, my lord, that you aren't meeting Tom today. He's a fine young man."

Nick merely nodded at this. It was apparently the Shaws' refrain.

"Though I must say, Bel," continued her uncle, "I suspect that if Tom were here, he'd be telling your bridegroom a thing or two about you."

"Then thank goodness I'm spared," she retorted. And Nick could not resist a long look at her. She was so easy with her family. He would like very much to hear her speak that way to him.

"Bel spared?" said her Uncle Fletcher, coming up to them at that moment. "Spared what?"

When it had been explained to him, he laughed heartily and insisted that Bel should not be spared.

"I know just the story to tell about you, my fine niece," he declared. "The story of that time you followed Tom and Alan fishing."

Bel shook her head, but Darlington and several more cousins had joined their group, and a roar of laughing assent went up.

"Give us the story, Fletcher," urged a half dozen voices.

"No, really," Bel protested, "it's not fair. The earl will have no one to tell a story about him."

"Has Farre left then?" asked Darlington.

Nick nodded.

"Shrewd fellow. Where did you find a groom of such talents, Haverly?" Darlington asked.

It was neatly done, Nick had to admit, like an unexpected jab to the midsection. He revised his estimate of Darlington's cunning and jealousy up a notch. " 'There is no telling where the light of talent or genius will break out,' " he quoted, fixing the man with a level stare. He turned to Bel then, but she looked away.

"Let's have that story, Fletcher," suggested Charles Shaw, "or we'll get someone else to tell another."

"Right," said Fletcher, "now listen carefully, Lord Haverly. Once upon a time there was a skinny brown urchin of twelve, who followed two great fellows of sixteen everywhere they went, until one day they decided she could no longer fish with them. But did the lass accept their refusal to take her along? No, she stomped her foot, stuck out that stubborn little chin, and said she was free to go where she pleased.

"So Tom, for he was her brother, carried her up to her room and locked her in. Then the two heartless lads gathered their gear and set off without a care in the world.

"Well, the lass watched from her window until they disappeared over the hill. She pulled the sheets from her bed and two more from the chest, tied one end round the bedpost and tossed the other out the open window, and down she went by way of her makeshift ladder and a stout vine.

"She grabbed her gear and followed the boys' trail until they came to the river. She crossed over and, staying on the opposite bank, came up to the pool where they were fishing. Now, she could see them plain as day, but they had no idea she was there."

Nick stole a glance at his bride to see how she was taking the story. Her cheeks were flushed, but her eyes were bright. She did not look at him, but traded remarks with her cousins, who seemed to know the story well and who added details at will until Charles Shaw called them to order.

"Now the boys had it in mind to get a big trout they had seen," Fletcher continued, "and they took turns casting for him, but he was having none of their offers. Then as Tom was stripping his line, the lass stood up on the opposite shore, cool as can be, made a perfect cast, and hooked that big trout under Tom's nose. Seventeen inches at least, he was. Tom swears he never saw a cast like it before or since."

"Well, she's cast her lures for a bigger fish now, and hooked him, too," put in Darlington. There was a burst of laughter at that and several quick sallies about making an earl bite. Someone slapped Nick on the back.

He felt his body tighten. The image of himself as a gaping trout on a carving platter to be mocked and served up for the amusement of the Shaws stirred warring impulses in his breast. He wanted to flee as fast and as far as he could, as he had fled the mockery of his parents and their guests, and he wanted to freeze the Shaws, to annihilate them with cold looks for their thoughtless humor at his expense.

He endured the laughter for another age at least. A similar story was invented on his behalf, full of exaggerated exploits and crediting him with a family he never had. Each cousin seemed to have some detail to contribute. Then the sounds of the musicians hired for the occasion began to draw the Shaws from the terrace to the hall.

Ellen Fletcher came up, a little breathless and flushed, to announce, "Bel, if you and the earl don't come to lead the set, there can be no dancing."

"We shall come," said Bel, turning to him and looking up.

He stared down at her. Her eyes were full of laughter and pleasure. She had enjoyed her family's stories. He would not tell her the truth now for all the fish or all the kisses in Hampshire.

"You go," he said coldly. "You will find partners enough." She was as lovely in the candlelight spilling from the house as she had been in the golden sunset earlier. He kept his eyes cold, his face rigid, as she studied him. He was vaguely aware of others staring too.

"Is this your revenge for my cousins' wit?" she whispered. "I assure you, their wit was directed as much at me as at you."

'Take it as you wish," he said. "I will not dance."

Angry pride darkened her gaze, and she seemed about to make an intemperate remark when Serena Shaw stepped up.

"My dears," said Serena, "such a public disagreement is likely to be remarked by all. Bel, do join your father to lead in the set. Haverly, give me your arm for a stroll in the garden."

Bel turned on her heel and entered the ballroom without a backward glance. Nick offered his arm to his mother-in-law.

It was some two hours later that Bel had the satisfaction of seeing her groom enter the ballroom. She was dancing with Darlington. Her face was aching from the smile she had kept in place for each partner, but she continued to laugh and move down the set until the figure of the dance brought her nearly opposite her husband, who stood just inside the open doors to the terrace. One more turn and she could smile gaily in his haughty face. Dipping and bowing, she entered the turn, and coming around to the outside of the figure, she lifted her gaze to his and found there not pride, but an expression so bleak, so bereft of joy, it made her stumble and lose her smile altogether.

A sleepy footman let them in and disappeared at once up the dim stairs with Bel's light case. The rattle of the carriage heading for the stable faded away. Nick regarded his wife as she stood beside him in the entry. Though her head was bent toward the floor and her shoulders drooped a little, and though she had removed her bright veil and covered her satin gown with a sensible pelisse, she did not seem as remote as she had in the whirl of the dancers. He could not help but feel a surge of hope that at last he might begin to make her his.

"Welcome to Courtland, my lady," he whispered.

She straightened and looked at him, her eyes somber and full of doubt.

"At least here," he said, speaking his thought aloud, "there are no Shaws to come between us." He reached out a hand to touch her cheek, but her eyes flashed, and she stepped back.

"You object to the company of the Shaws, my lord?"

Her reference to his rank stung him. "I object to noise and confusion and self-importance wherever I find it," he replied, letting his hand fall to his side.

"And that is what you found today? That is your opinion of my family's efforts to please you—their civility, their warmth and generosity?"

Once again he'd roused her anger, but to hear her defend her family now goaded him beyond endurance. "The civility of the Shaws," he said with deliberate coldness, "consists in regarding a man as a convenient pair of ears into which the whole history of the family may be poured without any consideration for the listener's feelings in the matter."

"And your civility, my lord, consists in feeling your rank so much that you are above your company and above being pleased."

"My rank?" He closed the distance between them as he spoke. "What is my rank compared with the exalted name of
Shaw
?"

"It is my name, my lord. I am a Shaw," she declared, tilting up that stubborn chin so that she matched him glare for glare.

And suddenly he knew the words that would wound her as he had been wounded. "Not any longer," he said quietly. "Now you are Bel Seymour, Lady Haverly."

"If I am, it is only because you wanted your river, because you blamed my brothers for the attacks on your property, because you refused to free us when you might easily have done so."

Bel was surprised at the effect of her words. They had been face-to-face, separated only by their anger, but at her words his gaze dropped, and he turned away from her.

"It's true. I gave you little choice in the matter, but I can free you now." His voice was low, all anger gone from it.

"Free me now? How can you?" she asked.

He turned back to her, but his eyes when he lifted them to hers revealed nothing. "Be my wife, when you wish to be my wife."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, come to my bed when you are willing and only then. If, after the talk of our hasty marriage has died away, you find you cannot be my wife after all, I will release you."

Bel dropped her gaze from his. His offer dissolved her anger, and she felt again that shaky quiver at the core that his nearness evoked in her. "That seems a wise and generous course, my lord. Thank you," she said.

"Look at me," he ordered, his voice suddenly harsh. When she looked up, he came toward her, speaking slowly and forcing her to step back and back again until she found herself pressed against the wall, and still he moved toward her. "Not
my lord
, not
your lordship
, not
the earl
, not
Haverly
—
Nick
. Say it.
Nick
."

He leaned toward her, his hands braced against the wall on either side of her face, his eyes on her mouth as if he could compel the word, his lips inches from hers.

"Nick," she whispered.

"And I will have my kisses."

"Now? All?"

He didn't answer at once, and she caught a flash of reckless longing in his eyes before he mastered it. "One," he said.

He pushed himself away from the wall and drew her against him. Her hands slid up his arms to his shoulders as he brought their bodies together. Of all the partners in whose arms she had danced this night, none had the lean strength of him, of muscle and will in harmony. He lowered his mouth to hers, his kiss at first demanding, and then unexpectedly yielding.

He released her and stepped back, his breath uneven. "There's a maid waiting for you upstairs," he said. "Good night." He gave her one last burning look and left the hall. She heard his footsteps cross the gravel drive and fade away. With an effort to steady her shaking knees she began to climb the stairs.

Chapter 15

BEL PUT DOWN her fork. It was no use pretending an appetite she did not feel. She stared across the expanse of crisp, snowy linen at the place opposite hers, at the gleaming silver and elegant service. The white, pink-streaked globes of peonies she had picked earlier drooped in a low bowl in the center of the table. A fragrant sauce cooled and congealed about the trout on her plate. He would not come.

She had been pushing that thought aside for days. Restoring the dining room had been her first task, begun the morning after their unhappy wedding night. She had begun a letter to Tom, but found herself unable to finish it. She had regretted her part in the first quarrel of her married life almost at once and had needed something to do to let her husband know her willingness to act as his wife in every way—but the one.

The maid who had brought her chocolate that first morning was Susan, a village girl Bel had known all her life. Susan was inclined to a certain cheerful awe at Bel's new position, and her frequent "ma'am's" and "my lady's" left Bel feeling like a fraud. But Susan showed Bel the musty, threadbare dining room and explained that it was not used, that the earl ate in his library or picked up something from the kitchen to take with him about the estate. "His lordship don't like to trouble the kitchen," she confided.

This, Bel soon learned, was an understatement. Her husband preferred not to trouble his household at all.

No matter how early Bel rose, he was gone. Each day he left her a brief, civil note with the housekeeper to say that he'd be about Courtland somewhere and to encourage Bel to do as she wished. The fears that he had roused with his kiss in the church seemed foolish indeed, and the falseness of her situation as mistress of Courtland made her feel awkward with the servants he had hired to do her bidding.

She began to leave messages for him under his door. On the third morning as she shoved her message under his door, she heard the brush of paper against paper. She straightened and knocked lightly. When there was no answer, she turned the knob and entered. Her messages were lying on the floor, untouched. In a fury she had marched down to his library and dumped her letters on his desk, but when she came the next day, her letters remained unopened. She wondered then if he came into the house at all.

If she did not seem to be a wife by day, she was certainly no wife by night. She did not believe he slept in the room next to hers. Or if he did, she suspected him of coming and going through the windows. She would lie in bed in the dark, listening for one sound that would reveal his presence, but her straining ears would catch only her own heart beating.

Then, when she was sure he had no interest in the running of his household at all, he had ordered the lovely tall clock her parents had given them as a wedding gift removed from the hall and placed in Bel's room. Now as she thought of her attempts to please him and his indifference and childishness, her sense of ill-usage grew.

If he knew about the clock, then he must know about her efforts to restore the dining room. Surely, however pressing the estate business, there was time to have dinner. And surely it would be little trouble for her husband to tell her a time that would suit him.