Page 8 of Bluebell’s Fate

It had been a dream, at least for a moment. Bell herself couldn’t have imagined feeling so wanted, until the dream had turned into a nightmare and Mr. Payne had wanted nothing to do with her anymore. No, his words were too poetic, almost like a line he’d said a hundred times. Maybe he had. The thought of him with a trail of women in his wake made tears prick the back of Bell’s eyes.

Memories of watching bees biting holes in the bottom of a bluebell’s flower raced through her mind. The bees would drink the nectar and then leave without so much as pollinating the plant. They reaped the rewards without any care as to what the flower was created for. Now, Bell was just like one of those unfortunate bluebells, used and discarded without a second thought. She swiped her ungloved fingertips across her lips as if she could remove a smearing of jam. How many women had Mr. Payne kissed, left breathless, and then abandoned? She was suddenly very truly ill.

Lady Dalrymple’s eyes narrowed into slits as she watched Bell across from her in the carriage. Whatever her mother’s competitive friend was thinking was quite obviously not in Bell’s favor—it never was.

Bell didn’t recall being handed down from the carriage. Her mother’s vice-like grip on her elbow pulled her senses to the present. “To your bedchamber, now.” She led Bell inside, yelled to her father about taking care of the problem, and practically pushed her into her room.

The blue and yellow floral papers on the walls seemed to close in on Bell. Her vision swam. Was she crying? Would her father be able to actually solve the problem? Could he possibly find a way to extricate Bell from an unwanted marriage? It didn’t seem likely. Not when Lady Dalrymple was involved; her rivalry with her mother was as old as Bluebell, if not older. She would never let the rumors die. And the Countess Gardner would never countenance her family to be connected with even more rumors than what had started two years ago during Rose’s first season. Bell’s legs barely managed to carry her to her bedside before she crumbled into a heap on the soft coverlet.

How had everything gone so wrong? She’d never been failed by the magic in the woods before. It was as if the dark fairy magic was taking out a lifetime’s worth of debts all at once upon Bell’s soul—a crushing weight that she would never be able to lift. She simply wasn’t strong enough.

“What were you thinking, Bluebell?” Her mother’s voice grated on Bell’s ears like the creaking of wood that was about to snap.

Bell winced. Her mother might as well have asked her the answer to a complicated algebraic equation. She’d never know the answer. “I was just trying to help him find his way back to the road.” She closed her eyes; it was true, if not complete. She could only be thankful that her mother didn’t have a crown of bluebells handy at the moment—surely she would have been found out if that were the case. And the last thing Bell wanted to do was reveal the whole of what had happened in those woods.

“No maid, not even Ash was with you? No matter how pure your intentions, this does not bode well,” Bell’s mother snapped, rubbing her temples. “And after all the work we’ve put in the past couple years. I will be starting all over again with Lavender. There is no possible way for the man to retreat from this situation honorably aside from asking for your hand in marriage.” She locked hardened eyes with Bell. “I could have forgiven it, if it were a man of consequence and title. But he is a nobody, Bluebell. I’d never even heard his name until today. I can only pray that he isn’t a scoundrel or a gamester.”

But Bell had already decided on which of the two possibilities he was. With how well that man had kissed her, he had to be a scoundrel.

“I thought I’d prepared you for London better than this. But I must have given you far too much freedom in those dratted woods. You are obviously not prepared enough to navigate large societal functions. Good heavens, this was a single gentleman in the woods, not even a pack of gentlemen on the hunt for a bride.” Her mother deflated a bit and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Perhaps it is better this way. Rumors will be rampant, of course, but not nearly as bad as they would be if you had been discovered alone with a gentleman in London.”

Bell was listening, but she didn’t have any energy left to respond beyond the constant stream of tears cascading down her face and onto her bed.

“How will Ash recover from ruin like this?” Her mother stood and walked dazedly from the room.

Of course this would come down to Ash, or as his more formal courtesy-title dictated, Lord Winberg. It always did. Anything that anyone in the family did was a direct reflection on him, at least according to their parents. But Bell knew differently. She didn’t doubt that her seven-year-old brother would forgive her. He loved her more than anyone else in the world, and she loved him fiercely in return. He was her friend, her comrade, her fellow explorer. He loved her stories. And soon, she would almost certainly have to leave him and the safety his regard brought to her.

Her breathing stilled. Ash. Could her little brother change her fate? If Ash asked their parents to allow Mr. Payne to go without a betrothal, would they permit it? There was nothing her brother asked for that he didn’t receive. That being said, did she dare be the one to set him up for his first failure? Could she risk the small chance that he succeeded in pleading on her behalf? She opened her eyes and looked at the clock above her dressing table. He would be in the schoolroom now. She gritted her teeth. Living as a spinster couldn’t possibly be as bad as living with a man who did not love her in return. And she didn’t think she could bear the consequences of being tied to a man of loose morals. It would crush her from the inside out. Praying Ash would forgive her one day, she made her decision.

With the energy of a caged animal set free, Bell jumped up and raced from her chamber to the schoolroom. As she passed the recently rearranged family portrait gallery, her heart squeezed. Rose’s painting had been moved to the side of the gallery, far from its former place of glory near the center. It was likely that Bell’s portrait would be taken down altogether and burned if she didn’t find a way out of her ruination.

She took the steps up to the school room two at a time and arrived with her chest heaving. Steadying herself with a deep breath, she forced a measure of calm before opening the door. Putting on her best impersonation of her elder sister, she stepped into the room. Mr. Williamson, Ash’s tutor, would throw her out in an instant if he didn’t believe her errand an absolute necessity. He’d done it before.

“Mr. Williamson.” Bell dipped a curtsey. “I need to speak to Lord Winberg about an issue of utmost importance.” She held her head high, knowing full well that the effect was marred with a tearstained face; Rose wouldn’t wilt under the scrutiny, and neither would she.

Mr. Williamson’s eyes narrowed on her for a moment, but he nodded at Ash who promptly ran to his sister and hugged her about her middle.

Bell nodded to the man. “I will send him back up when we have concluded our business.” She shut the door lightly upon exiting.

Ash slipped his hand into Bell’s as they walked. “What’s wrong, Bell? Am I in trouble?”

Bell laughed lightly. “When in your entire life have you been in trouble?”

He scrunched up his face in thought as they walked briskly back to Bell’s room.

Knowing full well that Ash hadn’t ever been in trouble, Bell allowed him to be silent. It was healthy for him to realize that he was treated quite differently than the women in this house, and this was not the first time she had pointed it out. She believed her honesty with him was one of the reasons Ash was always such a fierce defender of her. She needed every ounce of his defense right now.

When they entered and closed the door to her room, Bell sat on the edge of her bed, and Ash crawled up to sit beside her. “I have a story for you, Ash. One I want you to remember.”

His blue eyes lit up in anticipation.

“I was out in the woods today, checking on my bluebells and fairy friends, when an imposter came into my woods.”

He gasped and covered his mouth with one slightly chubby hand. “What did you do?”

“Well, I made a mistake. You see, I realized that this imposter picked one of the bluebells. He was wandering, lost in the woods. Without me, he may have never made it out alive. He claimed that the magic of the forest wasn’t real. So I hid and followed him as he lost himself even further.”

Ash rolled his eyes. “Doesn’t he know anything? You don’t pick the bluebells unless you have a really, really good reason to.”