Regency Scoundrels And Scandals. Louise Allen

her teeth.

      ‘How very artistic of you, Lady Belinda,’ Ashe remarked, the first words he had addressed to her since his greeting.

      ‘Miss Ravenhurst is the artistic one, my lord, I am merely helping her choose some images,’ Bel replied, her lips stiff. She made herself meet his eyes. There was not the slightest sign in his expression of anything other than good-mannered interest in what she was saying. How could that be? Bel had felt it would be obvious to everyone who passed—let alone her aunt—that the two of them were lovers; she felt as though it must be emblazoned across her face. But no one seemed in any way suspicious and all Aunt Louisa’s attention appeared to be focused upon Lady Pamela and Ashe.

      And just what was he doing with the lovely Lady Pamela? Why were they smiling at each other like that? Pamela was hanging on to his arm in a manner that was positively clinging and Ashe was doing nothing to distance himself. He seemed to know her well. Very well.

      ‘Belinda!’ She jumped. Aunt Louisa was gesturing to the open carriage door and the groom waiting patiently beside it.

      ‘No, thank you, Aunt, I will walk back, I have my maid with me.’

      ‘Join us, Lady Belinda,’ Ashe suggested, proffering his other arm. Lady Pamela’s smiling lips compressed into a thin line. ‘We are going to Hatchard’s bookshop, so I imagine our ways lie together.’

      ‘Thank you, no, my lord,’ she said coolly. ‘I have more than enough foolish romance to be going on with, just at the present, without buying any to read.’ She bowed slightly to Lady Pamela, smiled at her relatives and set off briskly westwards.

      ‘My lady?’ Millie scurried to keep up. ‘Are you all right, my lady?’

      ‘Yes, of course I am.’ Bel blew her nose fiercely but slowed her pace for the girl’s shorter legs. The smoke and the dust must have got into her eyes, there was no other explanation for the way they were watering.

      How could Ashe be so…? She wrestled for the word. Deceitful. That was it, horrid as it was. He had told her he had no attachments, no commitments, yet there he was, strolling along, giving every indication that he was on the very best of terms with one of the most eligible young ladies in the Marriage Mart. And that was a highly risky thing to be doing if a man was not serious. It led to gossip at best and to interviews with enraged fathers at worst.

      If she had known he was on the look-out for a bride, nothing would have led her to make her outrageous proposition, Bel thought angrily, the low heels of her shoes clicking on the pavement with the force of her steps. He had only needed to pretend to misunderstand her, as he had done at first, and there the matter would have ended. She would have been embarrassed, yet probably relieved once she had time to think things over, and Ashe would have neatly extricated himself from a tricky encounter, as doubtless he had many a time before.

      But he had not extricated himself, and she had slept with him. They had made love and while it probably meant nothing to him, Bel told herself, piling on the misery, she was never going to be the same again.

      Half an hour ago she had thought her life was perfect. Perfect.

       Chapter Ten

      ‘It is very nice, my lady. Will you be going in to see if they have it in a different colour?’

      ‘What?’ Bel found she was standing in front of a milliner’s shop, regarding a hat on a stand, and Millie was waiting patiently at her side.

      ‘You said it was perfect, my lady. But I don’t think you usually wear that shade of blue, do you, ma’am?’

      Now she was talking to herself. Bel took a long, steadying breath. She was a grown-up woman, if a naïve and inexperienced one. Now she knew about Lady Pamela Ashe would not come to her again, not after having found himself in public between his lover and the object of his more permanent attentions. One just had to put it all down to experience. And at least she had experienced physical pleasure. She knew what all the fuss was about now.

      All she had to do was to stop aching with desire for Ashe. Surely that would happen naturally after a few days? One simply could not exist as she was now, feeling like this, not without going mad.

      Bel pushed open the shop door and stepped in. Shopping as a cure for misery was shallow, but she did not care. Tomorrow she would find something worthwhile to do. Today she was going to buy a hat.

      The soothing qualities of a new hat, even an outrageously frivolous one that an unmarried girl like Lady Pamela would not be allowed to wear, were predictably short lived. Bel knew perfectly well that she could shop until she dropped, dance her slippers through, read the most frivolous journals and gossip until she was hoarse—but the empty ache would still be there. It did not help to tell herself that by the very nature of their relationship there could be no emotional commitment. Ashe had made none. What she felt now was too close to that for either safety or comfort—perhaps it was better that it was ending now.

      Bel found herself at half past midnight unable to sleep again. She sat up in bed, her arms wrapped round her knees, her books discarded on the table and tried to think.

      She was twenty-six. She was never going to marry again and she would never dare entangle herself with another man. That left a considerable number of years stretching into the future to be filled with something other than domestic duties or passion. Bel knew that while she was perfectly intelligent she would never be a bluestocking like her cousin, so retreating into some form of intellectual study was out of the question. Parties and shopping were fun, but hardly the basis of a fulfilling life.

      Which left good works. Bel contemplated the idea. When she had been married she had undertaken charitable activities on the estate and in the surrounding parishes as a matter of course, but now there was no estate to provide her with a ready-made supply of children to educate, elderly and infirm persons to support or fathers of large families to find work for. She was going to have to find a cause of her own.

      Throwing back the covers, Bel slid out of bed and padded across to the table, the voluminous skirts of the plain cotton nightgown she had chosen flapping about her ankles. She found paper and ink and settled down to make a list of causes. It would need to be something engrossing and worthwhile—she was not going to play with this like so many society ladies did.

      Children, widows, animals, the elderly, she wrote, biting the end of her quill. Education? Employ…

      The door opened. Bel swung round on her chair and stared. ‘Ashe?’

      ‘You were expecting someone else, Bel, my sweet?’ He strolled in and dropped his hat and gloves on a chair. Tonight he was elegant in evening dress. ‘Lord, my great-aunt’s parties are a bore, bless her. I love the old darling, but her entourage of geriatric swains is quite another matter. I have just sat through at least six elderly gentlemen telling me how Wellington should have deployed his troops at Waterloo and one who was confused enough to think he had been at Quatre Bras personally.’

      ‘I was not expecting you,’ Bel said, her pen dropping unheeded and spattering ink spots across her list.

      ‘Why not?’ Ashe shed his jacket and waistcoat and began to deconstruct his elaborate neckcloth. ‘You sent me a reply to my note.’ He walked towards her, the ends in his hands, then stopped, frowning. ‘Aren’t you well, sweetheart? Do you have a headache? I’ll go, of course.’

      ‘No, I do not have a headache and I am quite well. Don’t sweetheart me.’ Bel stood up and saw his expression change as he took in the exceedingly chaste nightgown and the sharp tone of her voice. ‘And I replied to your note before I saw you with Lady Pamela. If I had had any notion that you were involved with someone else, I would never have embarked on this…liaison.’

      He looked as tempting as sin itself standing there, those gorgeous blue eyes fixed intently on her, the thick gilt of his hair slightly tousled, the neck of his shirt open just enough to give her a glimpse