Chapter 12

The dinner party was, in the mind of Lord and Lady Collingwood, a rousing success. The morning after, Bella found both her parents in the breakfast room with expectant looks on their faces and knew that there was some plan afoot.

"We are thinking of retiring to the countryside for a week or so," Lord Collingwood began in a casual tone. He did not fool Bella. She could see that he was up to something, simply hiding his real intentions under a veneer of disinterest. "You and Aunt Nellie shall come with us."

"Just the four of us?" Bella asked, taking a seat and beginning to butter a piece of toast. She had not been back to her parents' country home since she'd first travelled to Ireland and could not separate which of her memories about the place were trustworthy. Most, she guessed, were gilded with the magic of childhood.

Lady Collingwood fixed her gaze on the teacup in front of her and, shrugging, added, "Actually, we were thinking of having a house party out. It is just about that time in the Season when people tire of all the excitement and the hectic schedule. I think for a short time it will refresh people to take some time in peace and quiet."

"A house party?" Bella raised an eyebrow. "Peaceful? Quiet?"

"The countryside is peaceful," Lady Collingwood snapped. "You needn't take my words and turn them back on me, Isabella. It is not ladylike."

Bella waited a moment, taking a sip of her tea to allow her mother's defensiveness to dissipate before she continued. "And who is on the guest list, Mother?"

"Our friends, of course," Lady Collingwood said. Then, with an over-acted nonchalance, she added, "New and old. I'm sure I can't keep all their names straight."

"The Lyndons?" Bella asked, a little too quickly.

Her mother looked annoyed, and Lord Collingwood set down his newspaper. "We will of course invite them, but only because their country home is so close to our own. It would be considered rude to leave them off the list of attendees considering our long acquaintance. Miss Lyndon will likely come, I'm sure, but her brother is still away on business and will unfortunately not be expected to accept the invitation."

Bella wanted to ask her parents what sudden dislike they had against the Lyndon family, and Simon in particular, but it was too early in the morning for hostilities—especially considering the way such conversations always ended with her mother and father. Bella would not win, not without James at her side to bolster her arguments.

"And who else?" she pressed.

"Let me see," Lady Collingwood mused, as though searching her mind for a name that Bella guessed was on the tip of her tongue already. "Why, Lord Ramsgate, for one. It was his idea, actually. He and your father chatted about just such an event in the smoking room last night, and our little house party was born from their inspiration."

"Ah, I see." Bella had known when Lord Ramsgate bowed low over her hand at the close of the dinner party the night before that she would slip as easily from his attentions as she had slipped from Lord Bryce's. "What a clever idea you have both had, Father."

"He is bringing a few friends along with him, and we shall have a few of our own in attendance as well," Lord Collingwood said, picking the paper back up to mark the end of the conversation. "I've already communicated with your aunt, Isabella. We shall leave in two days' time—please be at the ready.

The two days passed quickly, in a rush of preparations that swept Isabella up, and kept her blissfully distracted from thoughts of Simon's absence or Lord Ramsgate's presence. The latter always made her ill at ease when she thought of having the pale young man following her around at her family's country estate. It seemed like a ghost trespassing on her hallowed ground.

Grace wrote back accepting the invitation on her behalf only. She said she would send it to Simon; however, she had not heard from him in over a week and did not expect to him to attend. Lord and Lady Collingwood made no attempt to hide their relief, and Bella's confusion about their behavior towards Simon only deepened.

She was relieved when her family carriage at last pulled into the drive at their country estate and she found herself alone with her thoughts in her upstairs room at last. Her maid had disappeared after unpacking her chest of dresses, hurrying downstairs to gossip with the other household staff, and leaving Bella standing by the window to look out at the grounds below.

The lawn was well-kept, extending in an emerald carpet to the carefully curated gardens at the rear of the estate. The beautiful walks of the gardens, complete with hedges and arbors, were familiar to Bella—but not as familiar as the sprawling orchard to the left, and, beyond that, the tangled forest between her family home and the smaller manor where Simon and Grace had grown up. The forest had always been a meeting place for the children. Bella determined to slip away at the first available opportunity and see it again for herself.

She changed out of her travelling garments and into a pale-yellow walking dress and comfortable boots laced up tightly to support her ankles. She shook her hair out of its tight pins and combed her fingers though the soft blond waves, opting to simply tie a bonnet over her hair rather than returning it to the confines of a more elegant style.

Aunt Nellie said a young woman always wore her hair carefully arranged in public, but Bella was not intending to be in public. She would be entirely alone.

She ensured that by slipping down the servant staircase instead of the main hall, out the kitchen doors, and quickly across the grass to the protected lane where she knew someone from the house could not mark her movements. Just a few moments of peace before I must put the mask on… and be Lady Isabella once more.

As she walked, Bella felt the warm breeze giving her life again. She loved the bustling city with all her heart, and yet the people were not as exciting as they had been when she was a child. Now, her circle didn't seem to hold promise and magic as it had when she was twelve or thirteen years of age. Instead, the people surrounding Bella all seemed to need something from her, and their presence made her feel confined and desperate.

She slowed her step when her feet fell at last on the forest path, whispering over fallen leaves and needles as though she were walking an elegant carpet in a throne room. The sounds of the breeze and countryside were muted there, and the light filtering through from above seemed softer and more mystical.

Bella made her way directly to the stream she knew ran through the center of the copse of trees. It was as it had always been, tumbling vigorously over polished rocks and winding between the roots of damp, mossy trees.

One tree in particular stretched nearly across the stream, making a steep bridge of sorts. Bella looked around her to make certain no one from her family estate had followed her, and satisfied of her solitude, balanced carefully on the trunk of the tree to make her way up and over the arched trunk. At the center, she sat carefully down, dangling her legs just above the babbling brook and perching her bonnet on a nearby branch.

"I wondered if I would find you here."

Perhaps it was the sudden voice where Bella had believed herself to be entirely alone. Perhaps it was the fact the voice belonged to Simon. Perhaps it was simply that Bella had been too long out of the habit of climbing trees and did not have the balance she'd once possessed. Whatever the reason, at Simon's words, spoken behind her, Bella gave a little cry. She turned to look and, in so doing, lost her balance and slipped from the tree into the creek below.

She landed awkwardly, slipping off a stone and splashing down to one knee before catching herself on the limb just above and pulling herself back to her feet. Her yellow dress was soaked from the knees down, and clung inelegantly to her shins. Simon was at her side in a moment, helping her struggle out of the creek and to the shore.

"I'm so sorry—" he said, looking stricken. "I thought for certain you had seen me. What is the use of looking all around you if you aren't going to notice a gentleman striding along the path?"

"I was not…I did not…" Bella paused, sputtering from exasperation into all-out laughter. "You startled me!" she gasped between giggles.

Simon's face relaxed into a smile, and he steadied Bella as she collapsed onto the soft green grass to wring out her sodden hem. "I'm glad to see you retained your sense of humor," he teased, "even if you didn't manage to hold on to your natural skill for climbing trees."

"I was balancing quite well, I'll have you know—" she gasped, dissolving into another fit of giggles, "until you came along like a spy and terrified the breath out of me."

Something passed over Simon's face—a wrinkle of confusion, or mild surprise. "Like a spy?" he asked, innocently enough.

"Or a highwayman, or a fox…" she waved her hand dismissively. "You always were a stickler for metaphor." She stifled one last giggle and then took a deep breath. "I didn't think you would be coming. Grace said your business was unexpected, and your return uncertain."

"She was correct on both points," Simon said, easing himself down to the grass at Bella's side. "I only just returned to London yesterday and gave in to Grace's pleading to accompany her to your parents' house party. I was surprised to receive an invitation in the first place."

Bella did not tell him how grudgingly it had been extended by Lord and Lady Collingwood. "Why would you expect anything different?" she asked. "You and Grace are such long-time friends, you might as well be family."

She looked back towards the house. "Are you staying at your family manor, or on the premises of the house party in question?"

"I preferred the manor, but Grace convinced me that the invitation included sharing a home with you and would brook no argument to the contrary," Simon said quietly. "I have already sent our things over, and Grace should be with them. I chose to walk over myself, rather than taking the carriage. I confess I had hoped I would find you here."

Bella's heart leapt into her throat. There was something in Simon's manner that set her pulse to quickening and made it suddenly difficult for her to breathe. "Oh?" she asked, trying to stay casual. "Why? Had you something to say to me?"

"Not precisely," Simon said, looking out towards the brook and the limb from which she'd fallen. "I just knew that if you made your way to the forest and the water's edge upon first arriving then there was something of the old Bella hanging about after all."

Bella pulled away from him, a sharp embarrassment biting at her. "I beg your pardon?"

"I meant no offense," Simon said, shrugging. "Only that I wonder, sometimes, if the girl I knew back when your brother and I and Grace rambled through these woods was forced to stay behind in Ireland. I know I don't have a right to speak to such things…"

"You are correct on that last point," Bella said, stiffening. She wasn't angry at him—not really. She was angry that his words were cutting so close to the way she already felt about her life. Still, she could keep the defensiveness out of her tone. "I am sorry I'm such a disappointment to you, Mr. Lyndon. If it is any reassurance, I am a disappointment to most of the people in my life, and always have been. At least this new Bella, as you call her, gives my parents what they want."

"And what about what you want?" Simon asked. He was wounded by her tone, she could see, but made an effort to hide it.

"I want…" she hesitated, horrified to find she had no idea at all what she wanted. "I want—" she broke off abruptly and stood, shaking out her skirts. "I don't know what gives you the right to ask such questions of me."

"We are friends, are we not?" He stood as well.

She bit her lip, the frustration draining out of her as quickly as it had come. "We are," she said quietly. "Of course we are." She tried to gather the shreds of her scattered thoughts about her. "It is only…you make it sound as though I am a fraud. A shell of my true self."

Simon nodded, understanding creeping into his eyes. "I don't mean to imply any such thing. I only want to be certain you are happy with this new life your parents have fashioned for you."

Bella looked back at him in silence, unsure what to say. If she was honest with herself, truly honest, she could not admit to genuine happiness—not unless she was in the presence of the very man who stood before her now. But what did her happiness matter? She had finally found a way to live life without causing anger and drama in her family's world. The very last conversation she had shared with her parents and James had been the one where they told her she would go to Ireland. It was an argument, and that was the last memory any of them had together before James' death. She hated herself for that, but how to explain it all to Simon?

Instead, she cleared her throat and changed the subject. "We should go back. If anyone were to find us here, they would think it highly improper."

Simon opened his mouth as though he wanted to say something more, and then thought better of it. "May I accompany you back to the house, or would you like for me to stay behind for a few minutes and give you a head start?"

Bella reached for his arm. "Let us walk together. If I know my father's plans for this week, it will be the last quiet moment we share for this entire house party."