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The ladies tittered with laughter.
Bel tamped down the irritation rising in her breast. Charity. She was living for charity now, and Lady Violet needed a great deal of it. “To be sure, I can offer you tea. ” She turned to address the room. “Or coffee, or chocolate. Ladies, shall we go in to breakfast?”
As the ladies filed down the corridor, someone clutched at Bel’s elbow. She wheeled about.
“Sophia! Oh, I’m so glad you’ve arrived. ” She wrapped her sister in a warm embrace. “I was beginning to worry you wouldn’t come. Augusta’s in Surrey, of course, and I’m on my own this morning. ”
“Certainly I came. Do you think I’d leave you to face these dragons alone?” Sophia’s blue eyes twinkled. “But before I forget,” she whispered, “I have a gift for you. ” She placed a small, flat package in Bel’s hands, wrapped in brown paper and knotted with twine. “It’s a book,” she explained in a low voice. “But don’t open it now. ”
“Not the book. The one Lucy kept hinting about?”
“Yes. Well, not that exact volume. I had to send a manservant to locate a fresh copy. ” The corner of her mouth pulled in a grimace. “What an errand that was. Anyway, you really ought to have it. These things are meant to be passed on. ”
With a regretful look, Bel pushed the parcel back at her. “I don’t know how to tell you this…
but I’ve already seen it. Your copy, I mean. ”
Sophia clapped a hand over her burst of laughter. “You didn’t. ”
“It was by accident, I assure you. I was looking for a sleeping draught and—” Bel nudged her sister down the corridor, where they could speak without drawing notice. “I scarcely looked at the pictures, I promise. Once I realized … what I realized, I quickly put it away. But truly, I read enough to know I’m not interested in reading the rest. You can take it back. ”
“You didn’t read all of it?”
“Heavens, no. ” Bel pressed the package toward Sophia again, but her sister would not take it.
“Then you absolutely must have this one. ”
Bel shook her head. “I don’t want it. Come now, The Memoirs of a Wanton Dairymaid? It’s ridiculous. ”
“Precisely,” Sophia said. “It’s a ridiculous book, filled with wicked fantasies and silly notions and improbable romance. But you ought to read the rest, just the same. ”
“Why?”
Sophia smiled. “Because it has a happy ending. ”
Too disheartened to argue further, Bel accepted the book and laid it on a side table. With a weak smile, she said, “This morning will end unhappily indeed if I keep my guests waiting any longer. ”
Crumpets dusted with powdered sugar, iced cakes, jam tarts, and macaroons… all these and more weighed down the sideboard in the breakfast room. Bel had been planning this menu for weeks. She held her breath as Mrs. Framingham plucked a glacéed apricot from the apex of an artfully arranged pyramid. When the tower of fruit refused to topple, Bel heaved a sigh of relief.
“I must say,” Sophia murmured, biting into a crumpet, “as social gatherings go, I’ve never seen its like. A ladies’ breakfast party with requisite mourning attire, rife with potential for scandal and innuendo? Remarkable. ”
“Are they really here for the potential of scandal and innuendo?”
“They’re not here for chimney sweeping, I’ll tell you that much. ”
Bel wilted in her chair. With Toby away and in mourning, she thought surely Mr. Hollyhurst’s last caricature would have faded from public memory. If they had wished to see a lust-crazed Bel slavering over her rakish husband, they ought to have known it would not happen today. It would not happen, ever again.
“But they are here,” Sophia continued, “and you’ll see, good will come of it. Sometimes a little scandal is just what you need. ”
“Yes, Toby once told me the same. ”
Toby had told her many things, so very few of them true.
“Lady Aldridge,” Mrs. Breckinridge called, her mouth full of cake. “You must tell me how your cook gets this icing so creamy, so perfectly white. Is it a special recipe?”
“Oh, it’s sweetened with love,” Lady Violet said smugly. “That’s the secret ingredient. This is a honeymoon house, you know. ”
“No,” Bel blurted out. She bit her lip. “I mean, it isn’t the recipe. It’s the superior quality of the sugar. We use only the most refined sugar, imported by my brothers’ shipping company. It’s farmed on Tortola, on a freedmen’s cooperative. ” She perked with inspiration. “If you like, I can give you a list of the merchants who stock it. ”
“Please do,” Mrs. Breckinridge mumbled, taking another bite of cake. “This is divine. ”
Immediately, several other ladies expressed an interest in receiving the same list.
“You see,” Sophia murmured, giving Bel a smile. “I told you good would come of it. And we haven’t even had the demonstration yet. ”
“Speaking of the demonstration, I had better make certain the equipment has been readied. ” Bel ducked into the corridor and made her way back toward the Rose Parlor. Then she stopped short.
A tall, familiar masculine silhouette filled the foyer. Bel’s heart leapt.
“Joss!” she exclaimed, hurrying to greet him. “How good to see you. I’m so glad you’re here. I need a list of the merchants who stock sugar from the cooperative. The ladies are …”
Her voice trailed off as she noticed something odd about her brother’s appearance. He was smiling. Grinning, really. Almost idiotically so. She hadn’t seen him wear an expression like that in nearly two years, not since before Mara’s death.
“Forgive me,” she said. “You obviously have something to say, and here I’m blathering on. What is it?”
“I need to ask you to help look after Jacob. I’ll be away for a month or so. ”
“But of course I will. Are you going to sea?”
“No, no. This is a land journey. ” He took her hands in his. “Bel, I’m getting married. ”
Her mouth fell open. The breath whistled in and out of her a few times before she could convince her lips to form words. “Married? But to whom?”
“To Miss Osborne. ”
“To Hetta?”
He nodded, grinning wider still.
“Married. To Hetta. ” Bel shook her head wonderingly. “I can’t believe it. I thought you—”
“Despised her?”
“Something like that, yes. ”
“I thought I did, too. Fortunately, Hetta’s a great deal more clever than I. ” His eyes lit with pride. “We’ll be traveling north, to see her father and be married from her home. Lord Kendall has generously offered us Corbinsdale for our honeymoon. ” He bent his head, seeking her gaze. “Bel, are you all right? You’ve gone pale. ”
Bel put a hand to her brow. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to act so shocked. I adore Hetta, and I’m happy for you both. It’s just such a surprise. After Mara, I didn’t think you’d—”
“I know. ” He squeezed her hand. “I didn’t think I would, either. But I’ve never been so happy to be proven wrong. ”
“But marriage, Joss? And so quickly? Aren’t you …” She chewed her lip. “Aren’t you frightened at all?”
“Of course I am,” he said, chuckling. “I’m scared witless. That’s how I know I’m in love. ”
The mellow tones of his laughter warmed Bel, deep inside. She hadn’t seen him like this in so long. How cruel life could be. She was getting her brother back and losing him again, all in the space of one morning. “That would explain why I’m terrified for you,” she said. “It must be because I love you so much. ”
His demeanor turned serious. “I’ll never forget Mara,” he told her. “I loved her. I know you loved her, too. And I’ll never forget how devastating it was to lose her. But I can’t let fear keep me from living, from loving. Not anymore. I’ve survived so
me of the worst life can throw at a man, but I’m not going to let that keep me from enjoying the best. ”
She blinked back a tear. “When do you leave?”
“Tonight, on the mail coach. Sophia and Gray are there with Jacob, of course, and his nursemaid. But I know he’d enjoy frequent visits from his Auntie Bel. ”
“Then he shall have them. ”
“Bel?” Sophia called from down the corridor. “I think the ladies are nearly finished with breakfast. ”
“I’ll be right there,” Bel said, sniffing. She gave Joss an apologetic smile. “I must go. I have guests. ”
“I should be going, too. ” He bent to kiss her cheek. “Offer my congratulations to Toby, when you see him next. ”
“Congratulations? On what?”
“On his election, naturally. The polls close today. I heard it from Gray, just this morning. Not that the outcome is in any doubt. ” Joss grimaced. “It’s a shame. I’m certain Toby would rather have won under different circumstances. ”
“Yes,” Bel said, not wishing to make any contrary statement she would then be forced to explain. She was sure Toby would rather have not won at all. He’d gone to such lengths to ensure his defeat. The image of that appalling caricature appeared in her mind, and she felt the stab of his betrayal anew. This, from the man who claimed to love her. Well, she was accustomed to receiving gestures of love and hurt from the same hands. She was a fool to have ever dropped her guard with Toby. And she most certainly should never have entertained notions of loving him in return. Bel knew how to survive the wounds of love, but she couldn’t live with herself for inflicting them. He’d made her feel safe, but it had all been a lie. No one could protect her from herself.
Meeting Joss’s concerned gaze, she willed a smile to her face. Truly, she had no reason for complaint. Toby had been right—now she’d gotten exactly what she wanted. A polite, advantageous marriage to a man with a seat in Parliament, and the funds and opportunity to work tirelessly for the causes of good.
This was her happy ending.
“Please give my best wishes to Hetta, as well,” she said brightly. “She’s won herself the best of husbands. Here—” She snatched the paper-wrapped book from where she’d left it earlier, on the side table. Pressing it into Joss’s hand, she said, “An engagement gift for your bride. ”
Having bid her brother good-bye, Bel returned to the breakfast room and invited the ladies to join her in the parlor for their demonstration.
“Now,” said Lady Violet, settling into the wingbacked chair nearest the hearth, “where is this strapping chimney sweep with his marvelously efficient equipment?”
Laughter rippled through the assembled ladies.
“The equipment is here,” Bel said, waving her hand toward a slender, jointed rod topped with an arrangement of stiff wire brushes. “But there is no chimney sweep. No man, at any rate. I will be the one to demonstrate the machinery. ”
The ladies all stared at her in shock, but Bel ignored them as she threaded her wrists through the armholes of an apron. After the scene at Aunt Camille’s card party the other day, she was not about to bring a man into this assembly to be the target of carnal jibes, or worse—the supposed object of Bel’s lust. Besides, how better to demonstrate the brushes’ efficiency than to show that even a lady could use them?
Her apron donned, Bel lifted the brushes for the ladies’ inspection. “You see, the wires are arranged like a parasol. They remain collapsed as the machine is inserted into the flue. ” She flipped the brushes over. “As they are withdrawn, the bristles expand to scrub the walls clean. Unlike a climbing boy, who has but two arms and one small brush, this machine reaches every corner of the flue at once. ”