Vicar's Daughter to Viscount's Lady. Louise Allen

the shadows of the roofed gate. ‘Lower Leaming is that…way.’ Her voice trailed off.

      Blue eyes regarded her with interest and a sensuous mouth curved into a smile that was—surely not?—appreciative. The man was tall, relaxed, elegant. His riding coat was so plain it had to be expensive and a cabochon ruby ring glowed with sullen fire on his ring finger. He raised the hand that was holding gloves and whip and lifted his hat and she saw brown hair that shone, styled in a fashionable crop, the like of which had never been seen in this rural backwater.

      ‘Thank you, Miss—?’ he said in a voice that sent warm shivers through her chilled body.

      ‘Shelley,’ she managed. ‘My father is vicar here.’ Even as she said it, she cast a harried look down the lane to the vicarage as though her father’s hawk eyes could see through the hedge from the study where he was engaged in writing next Sunday’s sermon.

      ‘Miss Shelley. I am Rafe Calne, Viscount Hadleigh.’ And he bowed, as though she were a fine lady and this was Hyde Park. Bella managed to produce an answering bob of a curtsy. ‘I am staying with my good friend Marcus Daunt at Long Fallow Hall and I must confess to being utterly lost.’

      ‘Yes, well, in that case you do need the Lower Leaming road,’ Bella said, thankful to be able to articulate something sensible. A viscount, for goodness’ sake! ‘It is past the Royal George inn and then you should take the left fork after the duck pond. If you come through the churchyard there is a bridleway that cuts off the corner—over there, by the holly bush.’

      ‘Will you not walk that way and show me, Miss Shelley? I seem to have the knack of getting lost.’

      ‘I—’

      But he had already fetched a big bay horse from where it had been tethered out in the lane. He offered her his arm and Bella took it, lost for the words to refuse.

      ‘You know, Miss Shelley, I have to confess to being somewhat blue devilled. Here I am, supposed to be resting—I’ve been feeling a trifle off colour lately—but I have been so bored I have not been able to relax. Poor Marcus can’t work out what to do with me. So I came out for a ride, got lost and found this charming village and you. And I feel better already.’

      Was she supposed to understand that she was making him feel better? No, of course not, Martinsdene was picturesque, artists had been known to stop to sketch it. Bella took a deep breath to steady her fluttering heart and tried not to notice how firm his arm felt under her hand and how warm he was, between her and the wind.

      Oh dear, she thought. Now when I daydream I will have a real-life aristocratic hero to visualise. The bridleway was short and the pond soon reached. ‘That way, my lord.’ She pointed.

      ‘Rafe, please. You are, after all, my rescuer.’ He lifted her hand and kissed her fingertips. ‘May I know your first name?’

      ‘Arabella…Bella,’ she stammered.

      ‘Bella,’ he murmured. ‘Belle. Beautiful lady.’

      ‘Oh, no,’ Bella retorted, common sense coming to her rescue. ‘Now you are gammoning me, my lord.’

      ‘Rafe,’ he murmured.

      ‘Rafe…this is…’

      ‘I do not think you look in your mirror carefully enough, bellissima.’ Rafe Calne swung up on to the big horse with enviable ease and smiled down at her. ‘Until we meet again.’

      Bella had walked to the butcher’s in a dream, forgot what she had come for until she consulted her tablets and then walked home feeling as though she had been hit on the head. A real viscount, flirting with her. With her. Because he had been flirting—she was not so innocent that she did not recognise that.

      ‘Arabella!’

      ‘Yes, Papa?’

      ‘Where have you been?’ The vicar did not trouble to come to the door to ask, she had to go to the study to account for her actions over the past two hours. She did not mention the viscount. It would not be sensible, Bella told herself as she went to the kitchen to make sure that Cook was doing all she should with dinner. Not that it was easy to spoil hotpot with dumplings, boiled cabbage and stewed apple.

      On Saturday she went to the church to make sure the prayer books had been gathered up after a wedding and checked the vestry to see that all was in order. Another surplice with a torn hem—doubtless discarded by the curate. She might as well take it and mend it along with her father’s, she supposed, gathering it up and putting it in her basket.

      Then, instead of going straight home, she wandered up the bridle path. There were the prints of Rafe’s booted feet, big and masculine next to her small ones. Bella set her foot in one and then the next, wondering at the length of his stride. Those long legs and broad shoulders had troubled her dreams a little.

      ‘Bella.’ He was there, sitting on his big horse, Farmer Rudge’s ducks wandering around its hooves.

      ‘My lord!’ He looked at her. ‘Rafe.’

      Bella glanced around as he swung down from the horse, but no one was in sight. ‘Is something worrying you, Bella?’ he asked, reaching for her hand.

      ‘I—’ She should pull away, but she could not. ‘My father would not permit me to speak to a strange man. I should not be here with you.’

      ‘I am sorry for that.’ He looked sombre and the blue eyes were shadowed. ‘I felt the need to talk with someone and you seemed…But if you must not, then I will go away.’

      ‘Talk? About what?’ She left her hand in his.

      ‘Here, in the country, I am beginning to see my life for what it is. Futile, empty. Pleasure, money—I am a sinner, you know, Bella,’ he said earnestly, tucking her hand into the crook of his elbow and walking slowly off down the lane away from the village, the horse following.

      ‘You are?’

      ‘Oh, yes. And then I look at you—pure, innocent, devoting yourself to your duties—and I see myself for what I am. I wish some of that goodness would rub off on me, Bella.’

      ‘You just need to want to be good,’ she protested.

      ‘And you are satisfied with your life?’ he asked her. She could not answer, but she felt the guilty blush and saw him see it too. ‘Not entirely, I think?’

      And so she had told him, all about how Papa had changed slowly over the years, how Mama had died on a visit to London, how Meg and Lina had run away, and he had brushed a tear from the corner of her eye and kissed her, just a fleeting, chaste kiss of comfort and her world had shifted on its axis.

      He had come to church on Sunday, serious and attentive, head bowed. After that she had seen him every day. He was always careful, always discreet, but the long walks, when she told him about living in the country and confided how difficult Papa was, and sympathised with his stories of London life and how it was turning to dust in his mouth, were like shining jewels in the dull ashes of her existence.

      And on the eighth day he had kissed her, not giving comfort, not seeking it, but with a lover’s passion, and she had clung to him, consumed with his heat and power and glamour.

      ‘I love you, Bella,’ he had murmured against her hair, their breath mingling in the crisp February air. ‘Be mine.’

      ‘You must talk to Papa,’ she had stammered, dizzily aware that her dream had come true. Her knight had come for her.

      ‘I must go back to London,’ Rafe said. ‘And speak to my lawyers. I will have them draw up a settlement so your father can see exactly what I will do for you. And I will bring back a housekeeper to look after him until he can choose one that best suits him.’

      ‘But should we not talk to him first? I do not like to deceive him,’ she protested.

      ‘My darling, he sounds a most difficult man and I, I will