Chapter 14

It took Bella only half an afternoon to determine that Lord Ramsgate's attentions, while flattering, were an unpleasant blot on the house party as a whole. No matter where she turned, the pale gentleman was there, hanging on her every word and coaxing her into conversation.

He seemed enamored with her, which confused Bella to no extent. She hardly knew the man, and yet he had latched onto her as though her very being were woven from pure gold. As he was an heir in his own right, and to a far more impressive title than her own, Bella could not see what she added to Lord Ramsgate's future. She could not believe that he really had fallen in love with her at first sight, as his words and actions seemed to imply, nor was she particularly pleased with that option even if it happened to be true.

She found the gentleman's fawning attentions to be insincere or, at the best, na?ve. Lord Ramsgate's presence also meant the appearance of Amelia Lafleche, who made Bella feel small and insignificant, and ensured that Bella saw even less of Simon than she ordinarily would have. Amelia, for her part, seemed happy enough to fill whatever void Bella was leaving in Simon's life. The elegant woman followed Simon around just as Lord Ramsgate followed Bella, and whenever Bella happened to glance over in Simon's direction, she was sure to find Amelia laughing, flirting, or gossiping with him.

The feelings this brought up in Bella were not very savory. She hated how jealous and annoyed she felt, and hated even more that she could not simply focus on Lord Ramsgate and put the whole notion of Simon Lyndon out of her mind.

It was at the end of the third evening of the house party, after a night of dancing and parlor performances had ended at last, that Bella could not keep up the charade any longer. She was exhausted but could not sleep. Instead, she lay in the bed and stared into the darkness with a mind that would not rest.

Weary, she pulled herself upright, lit a candle, and looked for a moment at her wavy reflection in the mirror across from her. Her long, cream-colored nightgown had slipped from one shoulder, and her hair was done in a thick braid over the other. She looked small in the mirror--child-like almost. There was nothing of the grand lady she'd become in her reflection, just a tired girl who didn't want to face all that the world now needed her to be.

She slipped out of bed and wrapped a long rust-colored shawl around her shoulders, balancing the candle in one hand as she tiptoed out into the darkened hallway. It wouldn't do her any good to meet one of the other guests at this time—she needed to be entirely alone with her thoughts, away from the people who required her to wear the mask Aunt Nellie had fashioned for her in Ireland.

Thankfully, the house was quiet. Even the servants seemed to have completed their duties for the evening. As Bella's feet whispered across the marble corridors, she felt blissfully alone for the first time since returning from Ireland.

She chose the library as a refuge, knowing it was a place where her family never went now that James was gone. She pushed open the door and stopped short at the sight of Simon sitting by the fireside. Her thoughts had been so full of him as of late that, for a ridiculous moment, Bella was certain she had conjured him up in her imagination. But after a beat he looked up, jumping a little with surprise at the sight of a nightgown-clad woman standing just inside the doorway.

"Bella." He set aside a quill with which he had been scribbling something on a piece of paper and gestured for her to enter. "It's rather late, isn't it?"

"I didn't think anyone would be here," she mumbled, hesitating. She knew she ought to turn around and go. A lady of fine standing in society had no business spending time alone in a darkened library with a single gentleman who was not her husband.

"I was just finishing up some business," Simon said. He dusted the letter he had been working on with sand, blew it away, and then folded the sheet of paper with deft fingers and tucked it out of sight. "I'm quite finished, though."

"What work requires your attention this late at night?" Bella asked him. She still stood in the doorway, unwilling to commit to the improper surroundings but unwilling to leave Simon altogether.

"Nothing of interest," he said with a casual smile. "Just a bit of dull business for the king."

"I only came to get a book," she lied, looking around her at the shelves. "I can come back in the morning."

"No, allow me." He stood, setting aside his writing utensils and adopting the nasally tone he used to use when playing make-believe with her and Grace. "My dear Lady Isabella," he droned, "welcome to my bookstore. I'm sure I can find a volume worthy of your attention. Just tell me what interests a lady such as yourself."

She gave a weak smile, and relented, stepping into the room and letting the door swing shut behind her. "Do you think you're amusing, Mr. Lyndon?"

He dropped the act long enough to say in his normal voice, "I don't think it, Bella, I know it," before resuming the bookshop keeper's charade. "Perhaps you have an interest in entomology, Lady Isabella? Or a curiosity regarding the great apes of Africa? We have several interesting books on both subjects."

She decided to play along, setting her candle aside on one of the tables and drawing her shawl closer about herself. "Actually, good sir, I was hoping for something more poetic. Have you a recommendation for poetry befitting a lady such as myself?"

"Oh, indeed." He wrinkled his brow in the comical imitation of a scholar. "I find that the best poets for young ladies are those that do not offend the sensibilities. We must find a poet who is not too exciting and not too scandalous. Someone who will teach the young lady a lesson."

Bella rolled her eyes. "You make it sound so enticing."

"If so, then I am doing a bad job indeed," he retorted in the same nasal tones, "for a lady must never encounter anything enticing in her life. She must stick to the straight and narrow way, and only show the briefest interest in the world around her."

Bella laughed aloud, clapping a hand over her mouth to stifle her amusement.

"There." Simon dropped his charade and pointed at her with a grin. "That is precisely the reaction I was hoping to receive." He walked over to the nearest shelf, ran his fingers along a few spines, and then pulled out a copy of William Falconer's poetry. "Here, my lady," he said with an over-exaggerated bow. "A bit of pleasant reading for your evening."

She took it from him, trying to ignore the thrill she felt when her fingers brushed against his, and flipped open to the first page, reading aloud.

"Assailed by tempests, girt with hostile shores

Arise! approach! unlock thy treasured stores!

Full on my soul the dreadful scene display

And give its latent horrors to the day."

She raised her eyes to Simon's and saw amusement sparkling there.

"This is about a shipwreck," she said, scanning the earlier section of the poem. "You think this will help me sleep?"

"I didn't know the lady required reading to help her rest," Simon said, allowing himself a smile.

She tucked the book under her arm and raised an eyebrow. "This is not what I would call pleasant reading, Mr. Lyndon."

"Then perhaps you shouldn't read at all," he said at once. "Perhaps we should talk instead."

She hesitated only a moment, and then followed Simon to the window seat in the corner. There was a curtain concealing the spot, but Simon pulled it back with a shake of his arm and revealed the wide, cushioned spot.

Bella climbed up on the bench, curling her legs beneath her and pulling her shawl modestly about her shoulders. Simon sat at the far end of the window seat, his long legs folded over the side. One knee seemed conspicuously close to Bella's, but she tried hard to ignore the fact.

"Go on then," she said. "Talk."

"Ah, it falls to the gentleman to bring a worthy topic of conversation?" he asked, arching a brow.

"It only falls to you to be more interesting than William Falconer," she teased, "and to speak of something mildly more pleasant than a shipwreck."

He nodded. "Then let us speak of our childhood mischiefs, executed on this very property, all those years ago."

"You were a good deal older than me," she pointed out. "I was merely along for the ride when you were a boy."

"True, but you outstripped both James and me in no time," Simon countered. "You had far cleverer ideas, and you were willing to commit to plots that neither James nor I had the stomach to carry out. Do you remember the milk carton you balanced on the door? It doused your father when he walked into the parlor."

"In my defense," Bella laughed, "I was not intending to attack my father. The milk was destined for James' tutor, who seemed dedicated to the cause of taking him away from me. Whenever I wished to go riding or to walk out on some adventure, the tutor would determine it was time for a lesson in mathematics or Greek and James would be sequestered indoors."

"Ah, so you were only playing the part of a noble sister breaking her brother out of prison," Simon said with a grin. "The persecution of the tutor—which I recall also involved a snake and, at some point, the dipping of his powdered wig into ink—had nothing to do with the fact you resented the fact you could not study mathematics with us?"

Bella was impressed. "How did you guess?"

"Oh, you may be a master at guarding your feelings now, my lady," he teased, "but it was not always so. When you were ten years old you were as transparent as they come. It was clear you resented the path our education took while yours languished in the realm of embroidery and music."

"Exactly!" Bella cried, a little louder than she meant. "It seemed preposterous to me that I was not allowed a study of Greek. I have an interest in the great books as well."

"I see you are still not quite resigned to your fate," Simon said. "It is fortunate that our tutor has gone on to other houses and will not, therefore, risk any more of your mischief."

Bella sobered somewhat. "I am not even sure what mischief I would get up to these days."

"We know from our earlier meeting in the forest that tree climbing is still in your repertoire," Simon pointed out. "Perhaps a repetition of your prank in Hyde Park?"

Bella felt her heart fall like a stone within her. She dropped her gaze and plucked aimlessly at the edge of her shawl. "No," she said quietly. "Not that. I regret that entirely."

"Really?" Simon waited a moment, as though weighing her words. "That surprises me."

"Why would it surprise you?" she asked, raising her eyes to his. The candles lit one side of his handsome face, the moonlight lit the other. "That decision took me out of London. It made me miss James' death. It kept me from…" She wanted to say from you but caught herself just in time, "…from my friends."

He looked back at her with compassion in his eyes. "You were a young girl," he said. "You did not mean any harm with your actions. The choice to banish you to Ireland sits entirely on your parents' shoulders, not on yours."

She could not believe it but found her throat too full of unshed tears to speak. In her silence, he picked up the pieces of the conversation.

"Tell me about Ireland. What was it like?"

"You don't want to hear about that," she said. "It is not very interesting."

"It is a five-year absence in your story that I would very much like to learn about," he corrected her. "That is, in and of itself, interesting to me."

She bit her lip. How was she to put all her experience in Ireland into words? How could she tell him how she'd changed over the years, how broken-hearted she had been, how she'd learned to love her Aunt Nellie, and how her guilt had haunted her ever since James' death?

"I didn't think I would stay at first," she said quietly. "I tried to run away."

"Tried? I'm surprised you didn't succeed," Simon said with a smile. "You were always masterful at getting your way."

"Aunt Nellie is watchful," Bella said with a brief smile. "And she had my parents' disapproval to answer to if she let me slip free. I would have continued all that foolishness as long as it was necessary, if not for James' death. After I heard about him, I lost my will to escape."

"Why?" Simon asked. Bella loved that he didn't shrink away from James' name like others did. He leaned into the moments where Bella wanted to talk about her brother, inviting her to process aloud what people so often told her to simply forget.

"What did London have for me, if he was gone?" she asked. "My parents certainly wouldn't have welcomed me with open arms."

"So, you settled into Ireland then," Simon prodded for her to continue.

"At first everything was so terrible after James' death that I could think of nothing else." Bella felt her eyes stinging with tears at the memory. "Now that I look back, I can see that Aunt Nellie was more supportive than I realized. She had regular schedules and rhythms that I followed, so I knew what to expect each and every day. The rigidity that I detested in London seemed so comforting in Ireland. She had a few classes for me every week with someone outside the home—a dance instructor, a music tutor, an etiquette coach—but those people came and went quietly enough. For the most part it was just Aunt Nellie and me and the open moor."

"Is it very beautiful there?" Simon asked.

"In a haunting way." Bella couldn't help smiling at the memories that crowded in on her as she told her tale. "It has a wild quality that this part of the English countryside does not. One feels as if there are still druids lurking behind boulders and faeries slipping behind trees at every turn in the road. I would ride often there Afterwards, I always returned refreshed."

Simon's forehead wrinkled in mild confusion. "I am surprised to hear you speak so well of your aunt," he said. "In your first letters you made it sound as though she were a jailkeeper."

"I was a young girl and immature," Bella explained. "Certainly, she was the right arm of my parents' iron will, but she exacted their wishes in a far gentler way than I had ever encountered before. She took the time to explain to me the reasons behind what she was teaching me. Instead of mocking me, or belittling me, she showed how society would perceive me and gave me tools to set aside my more rebellious ways." She took a deep breath. "You see, in London I fought every convention because I lacked respect for the people setting the rules—"

"Your parents," Simon interjected.

"Yes," Bella said softly. "But I watched Aunt Nellie treat me with kindness and honor even when she corrected me. I watched her interact with her staff in a manner that preserved their dignity. I watched how much influence she wielded in the village simply because she conformed to social standards."

"And so now you wish to conform as well?" Simon's question held only curiosity, no judgment.

"I wish to set aside my childish ways and behave like a woman instead," Bella said firmly. "I have learned that I have a responsibility to my family to marry well and bring respect to my family name." She hesitated, knowing that she was not telling the whole truth. Something about Simon's face, cast into the shadowed light from the window, urged her toward the truth even if it was uncomfortable. "And, I suppose, I'm just tired of being different. I'm tired of fighting uphill all the time to hold on to a part of myself that everyone else seems to despise."

"I don't despise you," Simon said abruptly. "I don't despise the wild parts of you either. I would even dare to say, if it will not bring wrath down on me anew as it did in the forest, that I hope there is some mischief still left in you."

Bella smiled despite herself. "I did not mean to be wrathful in the forest. Perhaps I spoke too abruptly."

"So… is there?" he asked, tipping his head to one side.

"Is there… what?" she asked.

"Some mischief left in you?"

She looked back at him, unable to keep the corners of her mouth from twitching in what she was certain was a wicked smile. There is when I'm with you. But she could not say that to him, not when they were alone in this darkened library, and his nearness made her want to lean forward and press her lips against his.

She drew her shawl up tightly around her neck and held the book of poetry close to her heart.

"I cannot say," she hedged, standing up from the window seat and looking down on him in the moonlight. "But I do know that I have overstayed what propriety would dictate as regards late-night chats. I should be going."

He let her leave. As she walked out of the room, she thought she saw a wistful look on his face. She wondered what his feelings for her might be. He was difficult to read and seemed to be all friendliness and brotherly affection most of the time. Every so often, she glimpsed something more in his eyes—or at least, she thought she did. It was hard to know what was reality, and what was her own imagining.

She'd learned something about her own heart tonight while sitting across from him on that window seat—something she could not deny any longer.

Whatever Simon Lyndon felt for Bella, she loved him desperately in return. She had first fallen in love with him as a girl through their shared letters. She had thought that after the years of silence, the feelings would fade. Now, she loved him as a woman and the feelings she had for him seemed to have only grown stronger with time.