Making amends with Bella Prescott ran through his mind unbidden.
She was there at the top of his thoughts. To think of anything else, he’d ruthlessly pushed her aside all morning. Had she always smelled like violets? Had she always had such fire in her gaze?
He shrugged out of his jacket, laid it across a chair, and began rolling up his shirtsleeves. He needed air. To move and put distance between him and Edgecombe’s thick stone walls. A walk would put some heat into his bones and give him an opportunity to examine the outbuildings and elaborate gardens his father had put in the place in the past few years.
Good God, when had he started thinking practically?
He unwound his cravat and began pulling it from his neck but stilled when he heard footsteps in the hallway.
The steward. Finally.
His steps were firm, a loud clatter on the polished hallway floors. Rhys considered going out to greet the man, but he decided it was far better to remain and exude the kind of authority his father would have. The objective was to put the man on edge and get him to confess his misdeeds.
He strode to his father’s desk, settled his backside against the edge, and crossed his arms over his chest. If his father was any example, Claremont ducal arrogance involved pretending you knew everything, puffing your chest out as if you were the burliest man in the room, and laughing at insults as if they mattered not a whit. Rhys could do all of that. He’d always been good at pretending.
As soon as the door latch twisted, he boomed out the man’s name.
“Mr. Radl—” Rhys’s voice faltered and his mouth went dry.
It wasn’t Mr. Radley who stormed into the room.
Bella stepped inside and closed the door behind her. She vibrated with energy, and smelled of lemons and fresh air.
“You walked all the way from Hillcrest.” Rhys was no detective, but her cheeks were flushed a delicious pink.
“Of course.” She caught at a few loose strands of hair and tucked them into pins. “One of us used to walk back and forth every day. Sometimes we even raced each other. Have you forgotten?”
“I haven’t forgotten.” Just like back then, her boots were dirty and the hem of her skirt was dotted with mud. Neither of them had ever minded about such matters. It made him ridiculously pleased to find that she still didn’t.
As he studied her, the blush in her cheeks deepened. Mercy, how he’d missed that.
If she’d blushed last night, he couldn’t tell in the low light of the billiard room. But he found he liked both Bellas. The fierce, sharp woman of last evening, and this one, beautifully disheveled and still breathing hard from her trek across the fields.
“I’m glad you’ve come.” The gladness poured through him like fine whiskey, warming his insides.
She didn’t seem to share his feelings. The determined set to her jaw told him she’d come with a plan. He didn’t know what part he was to play in her schemes, but he suspected he’d agree. He needed her help and after the previous evening’s encounter he feared they’d go back to avoiding each other. After parting from her, he’d felt like a fool who’d mucked up a chance to make amends with the girl who’d once been the most important person in his life.
“I’ve changed my mind.” She lifted her chin a notch after making the declaration as if the words were some sort of challenge.
Rhys waited. There had to be more.
Her confidence gave way to a frown. “You said you’d be willing to exchange favors.”
“I did.” He swallowed hard recalling how he’d given himself away in that moment. Never in his life had he imagined his apology would turn to flirtation. “I am still willing.”
“Excellent.” She rubbed her hands together, and Rhys had his first moment of pause.
“Wait. Tell me what I’m agreeing to first.”
“A visit to Hillcrest.”
Rhys stepped forward, arms still crossed, and gazed down at her flushed face, savoring the excitement in her green-gold eyes. Only he got to see her like this. With others she was always careful. Proper. But when they were alone, he saw this side of her. Reckless, eager, full of ideas. “Tell me the rest.”
She stared at him, assessing. “I’m hoping your presence this evening will dissuade the rest of the suitors Mama invited to the house party.”
“Suitors?” Plural. “How many do you have?”
The notion of her having any made a muscle jump at the edge of his jaw and he wasn’t entirely sure why. Protectiveness, perhaps. He’d failed at it woefully with her but the impulse remained.
“My mother invited four men. Two of whom you saw in the billiard room last evening. Lord Teasdale departed this morning, and I’m hoping Mr. Nix will decamp soon too.” She drew in a sharp breath. “But that leaves two others.”
“And my presence will do what?” Possibilities whirled in his mind. “What is it you wish of me?”
Bella shrugged. “Be yourself. Converse. Tell amusing stories. Dine with us.” She gnawed her lower lip a moment and added, “Perhaps dance with me.”
They’d never danced in all the years they’d known each other. There had been endless days spent together rambling the countryside, confessions of hopes and fears as they explored all the nooks and crannies of Edgecombe, and yet in all those years they’d never stood in each other’s arms and danced.
His pulse quickened, and he wasn’t certain whether it was nervousness or anticipation. Dancing was one of his few talents, and one that he enjoyed. He wasn’t sure of Bella’s opinion though.
“Do you like to dance?” Suddenly he was desperate to know.
She blinked and her eyes widened as if the question surprised her. “Not particularly but it’s expected.”
“Enduring the company of suitors your mother has chosen for you is expected too, and yet . . .”
He’d heard of Bella’s reputation for rejecting suitors. She may deny caring about news of him, but he’d determinedly sought news of her through mutual acquaintances during the Season. A lingering sense of guilt and unease had made him determined to confirm that she was well. The first time he overheard a man at a soiree recount a proposal to her and the cold manner of her rejection, Rhys struggled to reconcile the description with the woman he knew.
“Yet?”
“You’ve rejected a few.”
She tipped her head down and he wanted to take the words back. He’d always appreciated that she knew her own mind and it didn’t surprise him that she’d reject any man who didn’t suit her. But as the only daughter of a viscount, he understood that her parents would not stop until they saw her well matched and happily settled.
“This time, I promised my parents I would try.”
That he understood too. Her parents doted on her and she’d been dutiful despite her independent nature. Which made her request all the more confusing.
“Yet you’re hoping my presence tonight will thwart their plans on purpose.”
He could almost see the conflict inside her, the struggle between acceding to her parents’ wishes and pursuing her own happiness.
“I will need to marry,” she admitted in a begrudging tone. “But not any of these men. Hammersley is too old and stuck in his ways. Lord Wentworth is too taciturn.”