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‘Bellona. You must be my wife.’ He looked at his boots again. The floor. The crumpled neckcloth. The waistcoat lying beside it, but even they did not make sense to him now. Could she not understand? Did she not know how many ambitious mothers would put their daughters before him—a virginal sacrifice the daughters would willingly become? His wife would be getting the same life of wealth he shared. The same deference from the whole of society. It was the way of the world. He had no more choice in it than they did.
‘I will cherish that request—those words—just as I cherished the words in the books I sold to the sailor.’
‘It isn’t a request as you well know.’
‘And I am not refusing you.’ She swept the cover around her as she turned, her cape of bedclothes swirling, and he realised she was about to walk out of the room into the servants’ area clad as a heathen goddess. He did not think she would walk quickly up the stairs. Oh, no. She would possibly meander. Every servant in the area was going to get to see her dressed like this.
‘I am merely taking a lifetime to decide. You may wait patiently for my answer.’ She opened the door wide and he was suddenly thankful he was mostly dressed.
She pointed to the floor. ‘I will be sending someone for the dress.’ She indicated the clothing he had removed from her body. ‘Please do not let it be misplaced as I will be directing a servant to this room.’ Her eyes. No woman had ever looked at him in such a way.
‘You cannot go about like that,’ he commanded.
The door closed on his words.
The mirror lay at his feet. Unbroken. He picked it up. Hair mussed. No cravat. He looked more heathen than she did.
He slung the mirror on to the bed behind him, put on his boots, kicked the pillow into the wall and looked around the room. Let the servants talk.
For the first time in his life, he was thankful his father was no longer alive.
Chapter Seventeen
Bellona bypassed the servants’ stairs, fearing her covering might get caught in her feet on the narrow climb. In the main stairway, she bundled the covers closer and moved towards the family rooms. She reached the top in time to see the duchess open a door and stand with her hand at her neck, and a bruise on her forehead.
‘I heard such shouting...’ the duchess said.
The woman was not picking good times to leave her room.
Her eyes closed, opened, and then closed again briefly as she spoke the first words. ‘My dear, you appear dishevelled.’
Bellona nodded. ‘Yes.’
‘As if you have been...’ The duchess swallowed, examining her.
Bellona met the older woman’s eyes. ‘I was thinking of taking a bath.’
‘It is always sensible to disrobe on such an occasion.’
‘I should also like a carriage readied...’ Bellona paused. ‘I will be returning to Whitegate.’
‘I agree.’ The duchess nodded. ‘But might I speak with you first?’
The duchess stepped back inside the door, keeping her hand on the wood. Bellona followed and sat, pulling the covering with her, kicking it with her feet to clear it from the pathway.
After shutting the door, the duchess stood across from Bellona. ‘And should I...should I assume you have been walking about my house like this? And perhaps even been seen?’
‘Yes. I heard the butler sputter just now so perhaps he saw me.’
‘Were you bathing alone?’
‘No.’
‘Is there to be a marriage?’
‘No.’
‘My dear. Even being able to read, dance and embroider adequately will not rescue you from such actions if there is not to be a wedding.’ The older woman’s head tilted low, but her eyes remained straight ahead. ‘You have no choice. You rather agreed to that when you decided to bathe.’
‘No.’
‘We must consider all options.’
‘I am only considering the ones which do not include your son.’
She swayed and grasped the wall. ‘It is worse than I feared. Rhys. Rhys saw you dressed such?’
‘I assume he saw me quite well.’
‘In the servants’ quarters? The duke was with you in the servants’ quarters?’ She panted. ‘Well, you certainly made a fine kettle of fish. To trap him into marriage is one thing. But in the servants’ quarters?’ She made a fist. Her eyes narrowed in a way that said she could have easily tipped a boiling cauldron on to Bellona’s head. ‘I should never have let you step foot in this house. You planned this all along.’
‘Not all along. I waited until after I had met him.’
‘So you bathed with a duke and then walked around in view of the whole household?’
