In place of her vague, innocent and completely uninformed dreams of a lover, of passion and excitement, her night-time visitor had presented her with a flesh-and-blood model of perfection. And some valuable, if highly disturbing, practical information about the male animal. Daydreaming about Ashe Reynard would doubtless be frustrating but…delicious. She flicked over the pages and read at random.
Alfonso, tell me I am yours, do not betray me to the dark evil of my uncle’s plans! Amarantia pleaded, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. Her lover strained her to his breast, his heart beating in tumultuous acknowledgement of her…
Bel gave a little shiver of anticipation and forced herself to consider the realities. She might see Reynard again. He might flirt with her. She might learn to flirt in return. That was, of course, as far as it could go. Actually taking a lover was a fantasy, for she would never dare to go any further than mild flirtation and he showed no sign of wanting to do so, in any case. Why should he? London was full of sprightly and sophisticated feminine company and Lord Dereham no doubt knew exactly where to find it.
No, it was just a game for her to play in the sleepless night hours. A fantasy. Lord Dereham was never again going to strain her to his breast, his heart beating hard against hers as it had last night. She sighed.
‘Belinda!’
Bel gave a guilty start and dropped her book. The spine bent alarmingly. She would have to buy it now. ‘Aunt Louisa!’ Lady James Ravenhurst was fixing her with a disapproving stare over the top of the lorgnette she was holding up. ‘And Cousin Elinor. How delightful to see you both.’ She got to her feet, feeling like a gawky schoolgirl as Elinor retrieved the novel from the floor.
‘The Venetian Tower,’ she read from the spine. ‘Is that a work of architecture, Cousin Belinda?’
‘Er…no.’ Bel almost snatched it back. ‘Just a novel I was wondering about buying.’ Aunt Louisa seemed about to deliver a diatribe on the evils of novel reading. Bel hurried on, knowing she was prattling. ‘I had no idea you were both in London.’
‘As The Corsican Monster chose to escape from Elba at precisely the moment I had intended leaving on a study tour of French Romanesque cathedrals, my plans for the entire year have been thrown into disarray,’ her aunt replied irritably. Her expression indicated that Bonaparte must add upsetting her travel arrangements to the list of his deliberate infamies. ‘I had plans for a book on the subject.’
‘Romanesque? Indeed?’ What on earth did that mean? Surely nothing to do with the Romans? They did not build cathedrals. Or did they? Aunt Louisa was a fearsome bluestocking and her turn for scholarship had become an obsession after the death of Lord James ten years previously. ‘How fascinating,’ Bel added hastily and untruthfully. ‘And you are in town to buy gowns?’ After one glance at Cousin Elinor’s drab grey excuse for a walking dress, that was the only possible explanation.
‘Gowns? Certainly not.’ Lady James trained her eyeglass on the surrounding shelves. ‘I am here to buy books. Our expedition will have to be postponed until next year, so I will continue my researches here. Elinor, find where they have moved the architecture volumes to. I cannot comprehend why they keep moving sections around, so inconsiderate. You have the list?’
‘Yes, Mama,’ Elinor responded colourlessly. ‘Britton’s Cathedral Antiquities of England in five parts and Parkyns’s Monastic and Baronial Remains. Two volumes.’ She drifted off, clutching her notebook. Bel frowned after her. She could never quite fathom her cousin. Elinor, drab and always at the beck and call of her mother, was only two years younger than Bel. At twenty-four she was firmly on the shelf and certain to remain there, yet she neither seemed exactly resigned to this fate, nor distressed by it. She simply appeared detached. What was going on behind those meekly lowered eyes and obedient murmurs? Bel wondered.
‘Belinda.’
‘Yes, Aunt Louisa?’ Bel reminded herself that she was a grown-up woman, a widow who was independent of her family, and she had no need to react to her formidable relative as she had when she was a shy girl at her come-out. It did not help much, especially when one had a guilty conscience.
‘I hear you have purchased a London house of your own. What is wrong with Cambourn House, might I ask?’
What business it was of hers Bel could not say, but she schooled her expression to a pleasant smile. ‘Why, Lord Felsham has it now.’
‘I trust your late husband’s cousin does not forbid you the use of it!’ Lady James clutched her furled parasol aggressively.
‘Certainly not, Aunt. I just do not choose to be beholden to him by asking to borrow it.’ The new Lord Felsham was a pleasant enough nonentity, but his wife was a sharp-tongued shrew and the less Bel had to do with them, the happier she was.
‘Then you have engaged a respectable companion, I trust?’
Bel moved further back towards the theology section, away from any interested ears browsing amidst the novels. ‘I have a mature dresser and a most respectable married couple managing the house.’ And what would you have said if you could have seen me last night, I wonder? The thought of the formidable Lady James beating a drunken Lord Dereham over the head with her parasol while he lay slumped on the scantily clad body of her niece almost provoked Bel into an unseemly fit of the giggles. She had the sudden wish that she could share the image with Reynard. He would laugh, those startling eyes creasing with amusement. His laugh, she just knew, would be deep and rich and wholehearted. ‘I am very well looked after, Aunt, I assure you.’
Elinor drifted back, an elderly shop assistant with his arms full of octavo volumes at her heels. ‘I have them all, Mama. I do like that gown, Cousin Belinda. Such a pretty colour.’
‘Thank you. I must say, I am rather pleased with it myself; it is from Mrs Bell in Charlotte Street. Have you visited her?’
Lady James ran a disapproving eye over the leaf-green skirts and the deep brown pelisse with golden brown frogging. ‘A most impractical colour, in my opinion. Well, get along, man, and have those wrapped, I do not have all day! Come, Elinor. And you, Niece—you find yourself some respectable chaperonage, and quickly. Such independence from so young a gel! I do not know what the world is coming to.’
‘Good afternoon, Aunt,’ Bel said to her retreating back, exchanging a fleeting smile with her cousin as she hurried in the wake of her mother. Lord! She did hope that Aunt Louisa retained her fixed distaste for social occasions and did not decide it was her duty to supervise her widowed niece’s visits now that she was in London.
The afternoon post had brought another flurry of invitation cards. It seemed, Bel mused, as she spread them out on her desk, that she was not the only person remaining in London well into July this year. Perhaps the attraction of the officers returning from the Continent had something to do with it.
She took out her appointments book, turning the pages that had remained virtually pristine for the past eighteen months, and studied the invitations that had arrived in the past few days. Her return to town after the Maubourg wedding had been mentioned in the society pages of several journals and it seemed her acquaintances had not forgotten her now her mourning period was over.
Lady Lacey was holding an evening reception in two days’ time. That would be a good place to start. No dancing to worry about, familiar faces, the chance to catch up on the gossip. Bel lifted her pen, drew her new-headed paper towards her and began to write.
‘Belinda, my dear! Welcome back to London.’ Lucinda Lacey enveloped Bel in a warm hug, a rustle of silken frills and a waft of chypre perfume. ‘We have so missed you.’
‘I have missed you too.’ Lucinda had not written, not after the first formal note of condolence, but then Bel had not expected her to. Lady Lacey’s world was