Chapter 22

For someone who disliked sleeping, even at night when you were supposed to, Belle had been peacefully resting, her arm braced against a mound of pillows so she didn’t accidentally jar it. Except then Rufus woke her up by muttering her name urgently and at increasing volume directly into her ear until she stirred.

“Whuzzerat?”

“I need your help,” he said.

“Why?”

“Well, Miss Carswile is in the parlour ...”

“Do we need to run away from her again?”

“No, she’s crying.”

Belle was suddenly a lot more awake. “Crying?”

“Yes. I think it’s my fault.”

“And what does that have to do with me?”

“Nothing.” Rufus perched on the edge of the bed and put his head in his hands. “But I don’t know what to do.”

“The normal things you do when a woman is crying?”

“Which are?”

“Oh, for God’s sake. Help me up.”

Once she’d been helped up, Belle took a moment to smooth the creases from her dress—or at least try to smooth the creases from her dress—and coax some kind of order into her hair because she did not think she could face even a purportedly crying Miss Carswile without some kind of protection. The lady was intimidatingly beautiful and possessed things like virtue and maturity, which Belle had been a stranger to her entire life.

She knocked on the parlour door before entering, which meant she was met by the sight of Miss Carswile posed rather picturesquely upon the sofa, her face turned towards the window.

“Are you sure,” she said, in a rather choked voice, having caught the reflection of Belle’s entrance in the glass, “you want to marry that man?”

“You mean because he prefers other men?”

“I mean because he’s horrible.”

Belle took a few more steps into the room. “He’s not that bad when you get to know him. I quite like him, actually. I like him very much.”

“He is devoid of compassion or remorse.”

“I think,” Belle tried, “he’s been very hurt.”

“And that excuses him from the hurt he causes others?”

“Absolutely not. He’s treated you abominably. Deep down he knows that.”

Miss Carswile was still staring rigidly into the far distance. “It is the ... the”—she paused, to give a rather unladylike sniff—“ cruellest thing to be used as an instrument for someone else’s suffering. Even more so when they would turn you on themselves.”

“I know. And I’m so sorry that happened.”

Another sniff from Miss Carswile before she finally turned away from the window. Her eyes were red-rimmed, though a fading sheen of tears only enhanced their lustre. She lifted her chin haughtily. “What are you doing here, Miss Tarleton?”

“Eloping with your former fiancé?”

To Belle’s surprise, Miss Carswile’s mouth softened with the faintest hint of amusement. “In this room?”

“I came to see if I could help?”

“How?” asked Miss Carswile, not entirely unreasonably.

“I don’t know,” Belle admitted. “Maybe I’m just trying to assuage my guilt for my own part in”—she gave a one-handed flail—“all this.”

“You seem to be injured?”

“Oh yes. I got shot.”

“You got shot?”

“Yes.” Belle nodded eagerly.

“How?”

“With a gun.”

“I had deduced as much. But in what context?”

“In the context of Gil—did you meet Gil—holding up our coach while pretending to be a highwayman because he thought we were someone else.”

Miss Carswile seemed to be doing her very best to make sense of this. “Gil is a highwayman?”

“No, Gil is a bookseller.”

“I see.” Miss Carswile obviously did not see. “And this took place while you were running away with my husband-to-be, having failed to dissuade him from an alliance with me on the occasion you and your brother kidnapped us both?”

There was no good answer to this. “Yes?” said Belle.

A few fresh tears slipped down Miss Carswile’s cheeks, and she bent forward over her knees to shield her face beneath a hand—still, somehow, contriving to look graceful. When Belle cried, she ended up compressed into an ugly ball of misery. Miss Carswile looked like a classical sculpture, a queen temporarily brought low.

“Are you,” murmured the queen after a moment or two, “familiar with the work of William Paley?”

“Maybe?” lied Belle. “Rufus would be.”

“Who is Rufus?”

“Sir Horley.”

A distant expression, half-defeated, half-defiant, settled upon Miss Carswile’s features. “You know, I’m just not going to ask.”

“William Paley?” Belle prompted her.

“Oh yes. He wrote a book in which he uses examples of social and natural order, like a watch or a telescope or the workings of the human eye or the revolution of planetary bodies in our solar system, to argue for the existence of God.”

Belle was not sure she had consented to a religious discussion, so she offered a wary “Mm-hmm.”

“A device as intricate and harmonious as a watch does not occur by accident. It requires a watchmaker. Ergo a creation as intricate and harmonious as the world must also have a Creator.”

The only reason Belle was tolerating this was because it appeared to have stopped Miss Carswile crying. That, and she was looking especially beautiful, her eyes alight with thought, her face animated by conviction. “And this is relevant how?”

“Because,” returned Miss Carswile, “I think if William Paley had ever met you, he would not have written his book.”

“Wait a minute.” Belle wrinkled her nose, unsure whether to be insulted or delighted, and settled on a little bit of both. “Are you saying that I, ipso facto, represent an argument in favour of the non-existence of God?”

“Yes.”

“Well ...” Belle thought about it a little longer. “I suppose that’s fair?” And then, having considered the issue even further, “At least you do not consider me notably on the side of the devil.”

“I do not believe in the devil.”

“How can you believe in God if not the devil?”

“I think it is we who put evil into the world and we who should take responsibility for it.”

“What is evil, though? People like Rufus and me?”

Once again came that enticing hint of a smile hidden in Miss Carswile’s otherwise severe mouth. “I think the worst that can be said of Sir Horley is that he is cowardly and inconsiderate, and not very good at apologising.”

Belle tried to think of something useful to say but had, unfortunately, come unstuck. She had always been subject to the most terrible weakness for a sharp person turned soft. For those who kept their secrets in the flicker of an eyelash or the curve of their lips. It was probably because she had always feared she was obvious. “Would you like to come for a walk?” she blurted out.

“A walk?”

“Why not? It’s not an orgy.”

“Thank you for clarifying that.”

“Sorry. I just meant—there’s nothing untoward in two ladies going for a walk.”

Miss Carswile lifted her brows into perfect little arches. “I suspect you have it in you to make most things untoward, Miss Tarleton.”

“Thank you?” said Belle.

“Should you be walking, though? With your arm?”

“Well, I don’t generally walk with my arms?”

“You know what I mean.”

It was a rebuke delivered as a caress. It travelled down Belle’s spine like the brush of a feather in a lover’s hand. “I do get tired easily. But I also get bored easily. So it’s a rough situation for me.”

“Where are we to walk to?” asked Miss Carswile, evincing absolutely no sympathy for Belle’s travails in convalescence.

“Perhaps a little way past the village? There’s a bridge, I think, and a willow tree.”

“Does it grow aslant a brook?”

“Aslant a stream. And I’m afraid fantastical garlands are off the menu until I’ve recovered.”

“Probably best to keep them off the menu in perpetuity. They do not lead anywhere good.”

Since Miss Carswile was still in travelling clothes—including a dark-green pelisse with military-style braiding down the front and at the shoulders that managed to be at once lavish and austere—Belle hurried to retrieve a wrap, and they left the inn together. Rufus was still hiding from the consequences of his actions, but at the back door they passed Gil, who immediately expressed concern for Belle’s well-being.

“It’s fine,” she told him. “If I feel faint, Miss Carswile has promised to give me a piggyback.”

“You’re tempting me,” began Miss Carswile auspiciously, “to leave you where you fall,” she finished, less auspiciously.

Belle peeped up through her lashes. “Ah, but you won’t. It would be uncharitable .”

“Maybe I would be charitably creating opportunities for other people to do good in the world.”

“Does that count?”

“I confess the theology is tenuous, but I’m willing to take the risk.”

With Belle concluding it was probably best not to push her luck, they made their way through the village. It was a pretty place, mostly just a line of thatched cottages and a few businesses, creating a loose sense of a main street. The blacksmith had found his shirt, which Rufus might have found disappointing, but Belle was just glad to be outside and away from the same set of rooms for a bit. She had, true to form, perhaps over-estimated her strength and, also true to form, had no intention of admitting it. Partly out of pride. Mostly because she didn’t want to be “kindly” escorted back to the inn barely five minutes after escaping it. When she stumbled, however, Miss Carswile merely took her good arm with a gallantry Belle had not experienced from a dress-wearing person in some time. It was the sort of thing liable to give her happy flutters.

It was already late afternoon, the light dripping as thick as honey from the eaves and gables of the cottages, glazing the cobbles beneath their feet with amber. And by the time—at Belle’s reduced pace—they reached the bridge, the sun was setting in earnest, licking scarlet fire across the sleepy stream and the little bridge that spanned it.

“Oh my,” said Miss Carswile, her gaze turned to the horizon, her profile transfigured to gleaming bronze.

Belle was watching Miss Carswile. “Are you feeling better about the watchmaker?”

“I honestly don’t understand how anyone could behold a sight like this and not feel something.”

“I feel plenty of things,” Belle told her. “I’m just not sure any of them are God?”

“Perhaps God is simply the name some of us choose to give to those feelings?”

“Probably that’s what led to the Crusades.” It was Belle’s very sweetest voice. “‘What a lovely view,’ they must have said; ‘let’s go kill some Saracens.’”

“Miss Tarleton, the English have been seizing land and committing mass murder without the inspiration of Christianity for centuries. I am not making excuses for the ills of the past, but the song is not the singer and vice versa.” She turned to face Belle directly. “Did you really suggest a walk so we could debate my beliefs beneath the open skies?”

“No. But I can’t help being curious about them.”

“What is there to inspire your curiosity? The Church of England has been an established part of most people’s lives since the sixteenth century. I think the more pertinent question here is how you managed to avoid it?”

“I didn’t avoid it,” Belle said. “My aunt and uncle made my twin and me go to church with them every Sunday. I just didn’t think anyone saw it as more than a duty.”

“I’m sure many do. But there is a difference between dutiful acceptance and active rejection.”

Belle shrugged. “Society has many ways of rejecting me, and the church is nothing more than another of them.”

“I will say, I do not often feel an equal part of it. But beyond what you might call the cultural ... business of religion, I like the way faith itself makes me feel.”

“Which is what?”

“That the world is worth putting good into.” She paused, almost self-consciously. “That I’m ... loved.”

“Ah,” said Belle.

Miss Carswile was eyeing her with concern. “Why do you look like a cat trying to bring up a fur ball? Do I seem naive to the point of disgusting?”

“No. Not at all. Just ... love and I are on the outs. I’m not sure we’ve ever been on the ins.”

“That sounds as though it could be a tale.”

“That’s the thing.” Belle cast the thought from her like a pebble into the water below. “It’s not. It’s merely something that is .”

“No terrible betrayal? No ill-starred suitor? No broken heart?”

“None. I am simply not made to love.”

“Come.” Miss Carswile took Belle’s arm again. “Let us rest a moment. You are looking tired.”

“I think,” Belle protested, “I’m looking annoyed about love.”

With typical determination, Miss Carswile drew her from the bridge and towards the willow tree that was indeed growing nearby. “You can be both. Perhaps you haven’t met the right person yet. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to say to the lovelorn?”

“I’ve met several right people. It’s me who’s wrong.”

Beneath the lavishly falling fronds of the tree, the light flickered green and gold, all the violence of the orange skies soothed away into softness. They found a spot between the spreading roots and sat down, Miss Carswile with her legs tucked demurely beneath her skirts, Belle in a moody hunch, with her knees pulled up and her ankles showing.

“Wrong for them?” asked Miss Carswile, curiously.

“Wrong in general. Wrong for love.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Do you think I do?” snapped Belle, her voice too loud for the space, cutting harshly over the gentle splash of the stream and the whisper of the willow. And then, in response to Miss Carswile’s startled look, relented. “All I know is that I do not ... I cannot ... fall in love. I have tried. I wish I could. But even the idea of it”—she repressed a shudder of discomfort—“makes me want to crawl out of my skin and die .”

“That seems to me like a strong indication you should stop trying?”

Belle stared at her blankly.

“Well,” Miss Carswile went on hesitantly, “if something makes you uncomfortable, probably you shouldn’t attempt to do it?”

“I shouldn’t love ?”

“Is it mandatory?”

“From the way everyone goes on about it, one would think so.” Belle hugged herself a little tighter. “I do recognise this is probably just the inescapable reality of who I am. That does not change the fact that it is a difficult reality to accept.”

“What makes it difficult?” Miss Carswile could sound surprisingly ... tender when she wanted to.

It was disconcerting. Especially because Belle was at her most pricklesome and strange. “Because,” she tried to explain, “something that comes naturally to me—may, in fact, be integral to me—is so very much the opposite of that to ... well ... practically everyone else. It’s hard not to interpret that as a fault in oneself.”

“For what it’s worth,” said Miss Carswile, “I do not think it is either unnatural or a fault.”

“Is that so? Because even I have difficulty seeing how incapacity to love could be considered an advantage.”

“I said I did not think it was a fault. I do not think it is an advantage either.”

Probably it was an unfortunate quality to take offence when someone tried to reassure you. Unfortunately, it was an unfortunate quality Belle seemed to be stuck with. “How lovely.”

“I think it is probably neutral, like most human qualities.”

“Is it not”—Belle found herself abruptly voicing a long-held anxiety, one she had hesitated to put into words in front of others in case it gave them ideas—“the hallmark of a villain or a criminal?”

“Are you a villain or a criminal?”

“I am not a criminal. I’m sure some would call me a villain.”

“You seem very concerned with what other people think.”

“Well ...” Belle muffled a sheepish laugh against her own knees. “However different I may be in some regards, I am sad and predictable in others, and I wish to be liked.”

“Everyone is sad sometimes, but you are the least predictable person I have ever met.”

That was slightly reassuring. Belle risked a peep at Miss Carswile. “Really?”

“The first time we encountered each other, you kidnapped me.”

“Oh yes.” It had all gone horribly wrong in the end, but the kidnapping part had been fun. Belle felt slightly less like crying. “I did do that.”

“And,” Miss Carswile added, with audible reluctance, “I like you.”