“I’m happy as I am.” Bella felt the hollowness of the claim even as she spoke it. Loneliness weighed on her more often than she liked to admit. She kept busy and there were always things to do. But at moments, just every once in a while, it felt as if something was missing.
“Marriage does have its merits.” It was rare that her father fell into the softer tone he’d used when she was a child, but he wielded it now as he approached to stand next to her mother. His gaze turned soft, filled with warmth. “You are our only child. We wish to see your future secured, with a home and a man who is worthy of you.”
Bella swallowed the protest that welled up.
“Who are they?” Bella had learned long ago that one couldn’t form a strategy without information.
“You will meet them soon enough. Guests have been arriving for the last hour. By six they will all be gathered in the drawing room, my dear.” The smile her mother offered was encouraging, but her eyes gleamed in that way they did when one of her plans had turned to triumph.
Bella’s father stepped forward and offered his arm as if he meant to escort her to the drawing room immediately.
“I will greet them, of course, as visitors to our home. But I make no promises,” Bella told them with the same vein of stubbornness that made her want to bolt from the room. “I saw no names I recognize at those place settings. These men are strangers to me.”
“Arabella, don’t be churlish—”
The moment her mother’s voice began to rise, her father spoke up. “We ask only that you meet them, my girl. Speak to them. Consider that they came here because they wished to make your acquaintance. No different from the young bucks you encountered at all those silly balls during your Seasons.”
“Better not to mention those gentlemen,” her mother added.
With a little grumbling sound, her father came forward and took her hands in his. “You deserve the finest of suitors, my girl. And I’ve yet to convince myself any of them deserve you. But do consider whether any of the lads downstairs might suit you.”
Bella clasped her father’s hands.
They’d been endlessly patient. She knew of parents who arranged marriages with more concern for titles and bloodlines than their daughters’ happiness.
She longed to tell them the truth, but it was one she could barely admit herself.
Clever young women who hoped to publish their own book one day did not allow their heart to be smashed by a man who hadn’t even bothered to send a letter in five years. A man who’d become a duke and probably didn’t even remember her anymore.
“I should prepare to greet our visitors,” she told her parents. Then more softly to her father, “I’ll do my best.”
Perhaps it was time to let go of Past Bella, that silly girl so infatuated with her childhood friend that she’d convinced herself he returned her affection when all he truly wished was to bed as many women as it took to prove his prowess.
New Bella knew better than to trust such a man ever again.
She let out a long breath, trying to release all the tension knotting her muscles. But some deep vein of unease remained and Bella could only think of how appealing it would be to go back to her room and work on her book.
She sensed her parents anxiously watching her and pushed the errant thought of escape away.
There would soon be four gentlemen awaiting her presence in the drawing room, and all of them possessed at least one important quality in their favor.
None of them were Rhys Forester.
Chapter Three
Rhys gave one shove with his bootheel and four heavy volumes crashed to the tiles in a terribly pleasing pile of bent spines and crumpled pages. This corner of the conservatory was blasted cold so late at night, but his mother’s desk and chair in the airy open space were far preferable to the cramped stuffy confines of his father’s study.
His eyes ached, his head throbbed, and he couldn’t make heads or tails of the numbers and notations in the estate’s ledgers. The books were as much use to him on the floor as they’d been after hours of perusing their pages.
He was glad to be rid of them and sank with a sigh into the creaking leather of his chair. Folding his hands behind his head, he stretched his legs out atop his mother’s ormolu desk. He closed his eyes and tried to appreciate the silence, both the stillness of the space and the quieting of his mind.
It lasted approximately fourteen seconds before a frustrated groan rose in his throat.
Who was he trying to fool?
He loathed silence, and he hated being alone. Since coming to Edgecombe he’d encountered a nearly endless supply of both. His sister still hadn’t quite forgiven him and spent most of her time visiting friends in the village or holed up in her chamber.
The single attempt he’d made at a sincere apology had caused her to cry and rush off to the library, her haven as a child and now too apparently.
As if his thoughts had summoned her, Rhys heard her approach.
“When I was little, I used to love lying on the cool tiles to read.” Margaret’s slippered steps sounded behind him. “Though now I don’t think I’d enjoy getting down on my elbows to read.”
“Sounds uncomfortable to me.”
“Not as uncomfortable as those ledgers look. You’ve bent the pages.”
“Serves them right.”
“And why are we angry at the ledgers?” Meg came to stand beside his chair, arms crossed as she stared down at him.
“I’m outnumbered by them.”
“Might I help?” She asked the question softly. Tentatively.
“The responsibility is mine. You have a Season to plan.”
He couldn’t tell her. Rhys had no doubt the answers to every question regarding their father’s indebtedness were between the ledgers’ pages, but it was not a trouble he planned to visit on his sister. She was too prone to worry as it was.
“Speaking of which”—she clasped her hands together and her voice pitched with excitement—“my friend recommended a clever modiste who’s made gowns for several prominent debutantes. She’s in London, so we must make a trip there soon. I will need to order dresses, shoes, hats—”
“I know.” The sigh he let out was tinged with regret. “Why not start in a week?”
She unfolded her arms and began plucking at a ribbon at the wrist of her wrap. “If something’s amiss, you should tell me. Papa never told me anything and I loathed it.”
Rhys looked up at her and noted the lines of worry creasing her forehead. How miserable it must have been for her here alone with their father in a rambling lonely estate. The thought came that he should have visited more often or brought her to London once in a while. But that was foolishness. His reputation would have ruined hers.
“Please don’t worry. I’ll ensure that your first Season is a grand success.” He had no idea how he’d achieve that claim, but he would.
“There were debts, weren’t there?”
When he didn’t reply, she took a step toward the ledgers.
“Leave them, Meg. Trust me. All will be well.” He managed a smile and she gave a little nod of silent agreement that she would press no more. At least for tonight.
The topic would come up again. He had no doubt. His sister was tenacious, if nothing else.