Page 73 of When the Scoundrel Sins

When she saw Belle hurrying toward her, she held out her hands. “It’s midnight! You have to make your announcement.” Taking both of Belle’s hands in hers, she looked past her to search the dark night. She stiffened, a troubled frown creasing her brow. “Where’s Quinton? Isn’t he with you?”

Belle shook her head, unable to stop a silent tear from sliding down her cheek.

Lady Ainsley’s face fell. “But I’d thought when you both left the party—I thought for certain he would…” She lowered her voice to whisper the hope Belle knew she’d been keeping secret since she invited Quinton to Glenarvon. Perhaps for six years before that. “Ask you to marry him.”

An excruciating pain pierced her. “I’m not marrying Quinton,” she rasped out, her lips so numb that she had no idea how they were able form the words.

Deep sadness distorted the viscountess’s wrinkled features. “No?”

“Quinton and I would never have suited.” She forced a smile through her tears, even in the midst of her own anguish wanting only to comfort the woman who had been a second mother to her. “We want different things in a marriage.”

He wanted to ease his guilt, while she wanted love…or they would prefer never to marry at all. After tonight, they would both get that last wish, at least.

“I’m all right, my lady.” When that didn’t seem to cheer Lady Ainsley, Belle placed a kiss to her cheek and squeezed her hands to cover the lie. “Truly.”

“What will you do about Glenarvon?” Lady Ainsley asked, an expression of grief and regret so raw on her face that Belle felt her heart tear anew, this time for the viscountess.

“What I should have done all along,” she answered in a trembling voice.

“My lady?” Ferguson appeared in the doorway. As Master of Ceremonies, it was his duty to keep the party on schedule. “Midnight has arrived.”

Lady Ainsley wiped her hand at her eyes. “Of course.”

Both women linked arms and walked slowly inside the house, where the crowd of guests were waiting expectantly for the announcement. Including Sir Harold, who snatched two glasses of champagne from the tray of a passing footman and started across the room toward Belle, beaming a smile. He was oblivious to the pain inside her as Ferguson called for the musicians to stop playing.

With the attention of the room on her, Belle inhaled a deep breath. She’d made her decision, and it was for the best. But where there should have been relief that the agony of the past few weeks was finally over, there was only unbearable grief.

“I asked you all to be here tonight because—” She fisted her hands at her sides, so tight that her fingernails dug into her palms. She welcomed that physical pain because it countered the emotional torment inside her. “Because I wanted to announce that I would be…marrying next week, in time for my birthday. I wanted to share with you the name of the man I’d chosen to be my husband.” She forced down her misery. “And master of Castle Glenarvon.”

Soft murmurs and whispers rose throughout the room. Sir Harold proudly stuck out his chest as he arrived at her side. But Belle stepped away, unable to endure being next to him when she announced her decision. She pressed a clenched fist to her chest, as if she could physically push back against the fierce tattoo of her broken heart.

“And so I’ve decided…” The room spun around her, the heat suffocating and the stench of candle smoke dizzying. More whispers, this time louder and more anxious. Her heart pounded so hard that the rush of blood in her ears was deafening. How could the foolish thing keep beating like this, when it had already shattered into a thousand pieces of glass? “I’ve decided…”

“She’s decided on a husband,” a deep voice announced loudly from across the crowded ballroom.

Quinton.He strode confidently into the room with the determination of a man resigned to his fate. Bare-necked, with mussed hair falling rakishly over his forehead, he embodied every bit of the scoundrel his reputation avowed him to be. Belle couldn’t stop the shuddering desolation that descended upon her as she stared at him.

“She’s marrying me,” he stated with such resolve that everyone in the room fell into stunned silence.

Then bewildered whispers arose, followed by scattered applause and puzzled congratulations. And a happy cry from Lady Ainsley so loud that it echoed through the house.

In the momentary confusion, guests craned their necks to stare at Quinton and at Belle—and at Sir Harold, whose face turned scarlet. Spinning on his heel, he stalked from the house. When he reached the stone terrace, he threw the champagne glasses into the wall, shattering both in a hail of shimmering crystal and bubbles.

Quinton’s blue eyes trained on her, blazing for battle as he stalked across the crowded room toward her.

She jerked her arm away when Quinton reached to take it. As she backed away from him, she shook her head.

“I’ve made my decision.” Taking a deep breath, she announced as firmly and loudly as all her strength allowed, “I’m not marrying anyone.”

Chapter Eleven

Iwish you would tell me what this is all about,” Belle said quietly to Lady Ainsley as she nervously paced the drawing room. Around them, the house grew quiet as the guests took their leave and the last of the carriages rolled away from the front entrance, the party having ended early on the heels of her surprise announcement. “I’d very much like to retire for the evening.” To her room, where she could undress, crawl beneath the covers, and weep herself inconsolably into sleep. To put this evening behind her and find a way to go forward, without both the home and the man she loved.

“As soon as Quinton arrives,” Lady Ainsley assured her, but her normally unflappable voice held an uneasy edge to it. Although, after the spectacle she and Quinton had just made of themselves in the ballroom, Belle acknowledged that perhaps the viscountess had a right to be anxious.

And to request that Belle and Quinton join her in the drawing room.

But that didn’t explain why Mr. Bartleby was here, or why he seemed just as uneasy as Lady Ainsley. Certainly, he’d witnessed her announcement, and as the family solicitor, he would be carrying out the conveyance of the estate to the Church. But the reason why didn’t concern him.