Chapter 33

“I don’t trust him,” said Rufus, not entirely unsurprisingly.

Belle looked up from where she was drying her hair by the fire. “You don’t trust anyone.”

“Yes, but that’s usually because I am a misguided cynic who finds it easier to spurn people than risk caring about them. On this occasion, however, young Mr. Smith has literally stolen from you.”

“Which has left me a poor target for further theft.”

It had been a strange and disorientating day, one Belle had mostly spent—when she had not been interrogating criminals in a disused brewhouse—re-discovering her own home, moving memories around like broken puzzle pieces, and trying not to become utterly overwhelmed by how much had changed, how much had been lost, how much would need to be done. That they should create a habitable space to sleep in had, in the end, been Rufus’s suggestion, offered perhaps out of practical necessity, or because he saw, or sensed, the swirl of her mind and wanted to give her something to focus on. Between stripping dust sheets, sweeping, scrubbing, and salvaging what they could, it had taken them most of the afternoon and a good part of the evening, and they had still only partially succeeded.

Belle gestured around her. “Case in point.”

“It’s better than an inn.”

With a bath still out of the question, Rufus was washing himself at a basin. Having completed this task, he wrapped a towel round his waist and tied it there. While it did not seem appropriate to behold her now only mostly naked, gentlemen-inclining husband with atavistic eyes, Belle hoped it was acceptable to admire him a little. After all, it would be a miserable fate indeed to be wed to someone you could not admire.

“What?” he asked, a hand upon his hip.

“I was appreciating you aesthetically.”

“Oh God”—he actually rolled his eyes—“I suppose you’ve been talking to Gil.”

“About your aesthetics? Yes, we write long letters to each other daily about how handsome you are.”

He blushed, the pink of it slipping down his throat and across his chest, half losing itself beneath the silky red-gold hair there. “Shush.”

“Does praise of this kind truly make you uncomfortable?”

“I’m not accustomed to it.” A smile turned up the corner of his lips. “But I might secretly like hearing it.”

“Even from me?”

“Especially from you.”

Nevertheless, her uncertainties lingered. “You don’t think it’s strange without the possibility of—”

“No. I think it’s different.” He joined her by the fire, and then, because she had begun to braid her hair for bed, “Let me do that.”

His fingers were deft at this, and she enjoyed his touch. There was something easy and light about it, a gentle kind of pleasure, as natural as a summer breeze.

“For what it’s worth,” he whispered, “I value your aesthetics as well.”

“Because I look like my brother.” She had meant it as a joke, but the words came out oddly flat.

“Because you look like you.”

“What if I ate all the cheese?”

“You do eat all the cheese.”

That made her laugh. “If I were a man,” she told him, “I would want to menace you like Gil.”

“If you were a man”—his eyes glinted wickedly in the firelight—“I might want to menace you.”

“Perhaps we could menace each other.”

He tied off the bottom of her braid in a bow far neater than she would have bothered with herself. “Whatever our circumstances, I am glad we would find our way to equity.”

Of course, the thought crept up on her cruelly, if she were a man, she would be able to offer him what he truly wanted. Except no. Whatever shape her body took, she would still be her . Still a cold, lost stranger in the court of love. Always doomed to be somebody’s compromise.

“Bellflower?” Rufus caught her attention again. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said unconvincingly. And then, “I’m just a little tired.”

“Let’s have Fanny Hill another night, then.”

Nodding, she slipped into bed, between the closest that could be managed to fresh sheets. It didn’t feel quite real that this had once been her parents’ room, still less real that it was now hers. Hers for the rest of her life.

“Forgive me.” Rufus shed the towel and joined her. He always said this, despite the fact that she had grown quite used to him on their return from Scotland and had never been particularly perturbed by nakedness.

“There’s nothing to forgive.”

“It’s a little vulgar.”

She snuggled close, resting her head against the comfortable plateau where his shoulder met his upper arm. “Maybe I’m a vulgar person.”

“Next time we run away together, do try to remember to pack some clothes for me.”

“Next time we run away together, do try not to be terribly drunk at the outset.”

“I shall have no cause to be.”

“We’ve barely been married a fortnight,” she said. “I’m sure I shall instil a bad habit or two in you before long.”

“I highly doubt it.”

She reared up slightly so she could peer directly into his face. “Do you think I need you to be perfect?”

“You’ve seen enough of me, figuratively as well as literally, for me to know that you do not. But for once in my life, I intend to make the best of things.”

He had said as much on the road to Gretna Green. And, to give him his due, he had kept his word and never once made her believe that he resented her or was anything less than committed to their marriage, unconventional though it was. Nevertheless—and she knew this was more about her own feelings, rather than his behaviour—it still rankled, no it hurt , to be something someone else needed to make the best of.

She was feigning sleep when he spoke again. “I should probably head to London in the next few days.”

“And leave all this?” she asked, striving to put aside her foolish melancholy. “How could you?”

“Trust me, I’ll be eager to return. But, given the work ahead of us, we’ll have need of your dowry, so I should set your affairs in order.”

“Legally, they are your affairs now.”

“Our affairs, then.” He was silent for a moment. And then, with unusual awkwardness, “Arabella, I’m sorry to ask. But I shall have to ... I shall have ... that is, may I spend some of your money?”

“Please say it is on liquor and whores,” she returned, still struggling, for her husband’s sake, to be normal, and only mildly concerned that this was the sort of observation which apparently passed for it. “I shall feel entirely cheated if I do not have a husband who spends my fortune on liquor and whores.”

“Then you must endure the disappointment, for I have no interest in liquor or whores. I do, however, have a strong interest in not having to beg my aunt for my possessions. And while I’m grateful you packed some necessities for me from Valentine’s things—”

“Actually,” Belle put in happily, “I stole them.”

“You did what?”

“I stole them.”

Rufus groaned. “Oh God, what have you done? Does Valentine strike you as a man who would countenance wanton use of his shaving brush?”

“No,” said Belle, with no diminution of her joy. “And you know what would solve that problem?”

“Are you going to suggest I murder him?”

“If,” Belle concluded, “you murdered him.”

“Bellflower, are you going to spend the whole of our marriage trying to convince me to murder our friend?”

She gave this the consideration it was due. “Yes,” she said, about two seconds later.

“Is your consent to buy myself some clothes contingent upon homicide?”

“Of course not.” She pushed herself sharply to her elbows, peering down at him. “Get yourself whatever you need, whenever you need. The whole of Bond Street, if you like.”

“I shall not require any part of Bond Street. I intend to pay a visit to that tailor of Peggy’s.”

“Are gentlemen allowed to wear anything but Weston?”

“We shall find out. I may well turn to dust in the first ballroom I enter.”

“I hope you know”—only mildly distracted by this exchange, Belle was not quite ready to lie back down—“that you do not need my permission to spend money.”

“I don’t want you to feel taken advantage of.”

“And I don’t want you to feel like you have no power within your own marriage.”

Putting an arm about her shoulders, he drew her back down onto his chest. “You are very good about that, dear heart.”

“I am not your aunt, Rufus. I have no need to keep you beholden to me.”

“I am, though,” he murmured.

She knew he meant it sincerely, even kindly, but gratitude felt wrong. Unearned and uncomfortable. “Please don’t. Even if the law offered me a choice in the matter, what’s mine would be yours.”

“I was not speaking in purely material terms.”

That flustered her, though she didn’t quite know why—if it was hope, or selfishness—so she rushed on as if he hadn’t spoken. “And this house is your home, inasmuch as it is capable right now of being anyone’s home.”

He tsked, clearly finding her ridiculous. “Of course it’s capable of being a home. We have a bed and a roof over our head, ghosts aplenty, and even a resident felon.”

“Maybe,” suggested Belle, suspecting that Rufus would come round to Mr. Smith, as he had to Gil, in his own time, “we could prioritise clearing one of the rooms for you.”

“Are you tired of me already, Bellflower?”

“No,” she said quickly, for she was not, and could not, imagine being so. “But it’s important to have a space that feels truly your own. Not merely ... on loan.”

“It sounds like you’re speaking from experience.”

“The last time I wasn’t a guest was in this very house.”

“When you put it like that”—he spoke to the ceiling—“I have spent my whole life as a guest.”

“No longer,” said Belle. “I give you free rein, even knowing your taste in decor.”

His gaze returned to her. “Pardon?”

“Bonny told me about your hunting lodge.”

Rufus sighed. “That is not my taste.”

“It was your hunting lodge.”

“It was a hunting lodge my aunt permitted me to maintain. And I had it furnished that way to annoy those who needed annoying and shock those who needed shocking.”

“Bonny was neither shocked nor annoyed.”

“He wouldn’t be. Are you aware”—amusement softened his voice—“that the little reprobate took a ... well, a personal item from me? And this after I extended my hospitality to him and his damnable duke.”

“Really?” Belle did her best to sound surprised out of loyalty to her twin. “That was very naughty of him. You should ask for it back.”

“I think he knows I will not.”

“Do you want me to?”

“Under no circumstances.”

While Belle very much enjoyed failing to pick up on hints, she thought it best—for her own sake, if nothing else—to enquire no further into the nature or status of the personal item.

She was just circling sleep, half-soothed, half-anxious, when Rufus said, “Bellflower?”

“Mmm?”

“When I have a room of my own, does that bring an end to ... to this.”

She muffled a yawn against his shoulder. “To which?”

“This,” he explained helpfully. And then, “Will I no longer be welcome here?”

Her eyes opened, though there was little to see beyond shadows and the haze of his chest, rising and falling with each steady breath.

“I look forward to this time with you,” he went on. “The whole day, I look forward to it. Watching you comb out your hair. Holding you in my arms or being held. How it feels to talk in the dark as though we are our own world entire. The truth is, I might have grown”—he coughed—“accustomed. Is there any possibility you might also be ... accustomed?”

“I am more than accustomed,” she blurted out, delighted and abashed and wondering if she was dreaming. “I am”—self-consciousness abruptly dug its claws into her—“more than accustomed. And you will always be welcome here.” She paused. “Unless I am fucking someone else.”

He laughed, sounding relieved, or perhaps she imagined that too. “Thank you for clarifying. Under those circumstances, I will be more than content to sleep alone.”

“You will miss me, though, won’t you?” she asked, sounding—even to herself—greedy as Bonny, if not quite as shameless about it. “Just a little bit.”

“Yes, dear heart.” The night was soft around them. His voice full of indulgence: “Just a little bit.”