Secluded with the Rogue

Chapter 4

Four

B elle did not bounce out of bed in the morning. She couldn’t bounce anywhere.

The whalebone stays dug into her skin and she’d been both too uncomfortable and too nervous to move, lest she ruin her gown. The traveling dress had been designed for a sedate carriage ride, not the nocturnal flailing of a restless sleeper. She could not risk rending the fabric. Possessing enough coin to commission a new wardrobe was no help when she couldn’t even rid herself of the dress she had on.

Should she have accepted her handsome new acquaintance’s offer of help? No, definitely not. She could manage on her own. Or rather, with the maid who had promised to send up a hot bath in the morning. Belle’s muscles ached at the thought of a nice long soak.

“Soon,” she mumbled to herself.

What time was it? She glanced about for a clock, but there was none. Blearily, she stumbled to her reticule and fished out her pocket watch. A quarter to seven. No wonder it was still dark. The sun would not fully rise for another hour.

She tugged the bellpull to alert the maid that she had awoken early and was ready for her bath, then pushed open the curtain covering her small window. Most of the glass was etched with frost, but enough light filtered through to recognize falling snow.

Perhaps children would be playing in the square. Did Houville have a square? Belle knew little to nothing about this small village. If Ursula was feeling better, perhaps they could have a stroll after breakfast before heading on to Cressmouth. She and Ursula both enjoyed exploring the parks and gardens of London. It would be heaven to stretch their legs before piling back into the carriage.

Oh, how Ursula would laugh when Belle told her of her troubles! Ursula would say, Now you see how indispensable I am! but of course Belle had always known. They had been inseparable since long before Belle’s come-out. Not just with the arranging of hair and the constant changing of gowns. Ursula was her companion, her chaperone, her friend. Today was the first time Belle woke up all alone. At home, Ursula slept in the adjoining chamber, but here, the only person on the other side of the wall was...

Mr. McAlistair. Whom Belle definitely was not still thinking about.

“I’ll prove it,” she said to the empty room.

No—not to the empty room. She would proceed as if Ursula were here and could hear her, and perhaps then Belle wouldn’t feel so alone and lonely.

“Whilst we await the bath, I’ll paint you a picture.”

She dragged the easel before the snow-fogged window. The building opposite was still just visible.

“We’ll call it... ‘Blank Brick Wall, Obscured by Frost.’ Perhaps this is the watercolor that will make me famous.”

She grinned to herself as she arranged her paper and paints. She hoped Ursula was feeling much better this morning, but if not, at least she would know she wasn’t missing out on an incredible view from Belle’s room.

Once they arrived in Cressmouth, she planned to paint hundreds of picturesque Yuletide scenes. Belle would be visiting her friend Angelica until her brother’s Christmastide party began the following week, but she would still have plenty of free time. Angelica was a talented jeweler, and seasonal tourists composed the bulk of her business.

Belle was of no help in the workshop—Oh, how she longed to be useful!—and took herself off to the castle to paint and stay out of the way. Most of her paintings she donated to the castle, but her very favorites she tucked into the leather portfolio inside her art supplies trunk to carry back home. She had an entire wardrobe filled with scenes of happy moments Belle had glimpsed around her and captured with paint.

She swiped a wet brush across the page. This study of red bricks blurred by falling snow would not win any awards, but at least it would give a chuckle to Ursula. She was the only person who ever saw Belle’s art.

Well, the only person who knew it was Belle who had created it. A few years ago, Belle had worked up the courage to submit her work to several venues. She didn’t seek a showing in the British Museum, but thought she might contribute to theatre advertisements or fashion periodicals or illustrating books for children.

Every one of the men she’d spoken to had laughed in her face without even opening her portfolio. That was, when Belle had procured an audience at all.

Did she fancy herself an artist? Tears of laughter glistened their eyes. She was no creative genius. She was Lady Isabelle, sister to the new Duke of Nottingvale. Of course, they’d find some scrap to print as a favor to His Grace if his ward insisted, but didn’t the young lady have something else she could play at? Something that wouldn’t waste everyone’s time?

It was Ursula who had refused to allow Belle to give up hope. She’d pointed at the basket of dreaded embroidery and asked whether Belle intended to sew handkerchiefs for the rest of her life, or use the cursed things to wipe away her tears of hurt and rage and find some other way to succeed.

That was when they’d dreamt up the first pseudonym. “Lady Isabelle” would never be taken seriously, but “Mr. Brough” was a reasonably skilled recluse, whose housemaid handled his transactions for him. Belle insisted Ursula keep Mr. Brough’s nominal earnings as compensation for her role in the ruse, though she wasn’t certain Ursula had spent so much as a penny. Neither of them wanted for anything.

At least, not for coin. Belle had never managed to spend all of her monthly pin money when her father was alive, and when her brother inherited, his first act had been to double everyone’s wages, including the pin money that Belle and her mother received. Without Father’s gambling expenditures, the dukedom was flusher than ever. He could afford to spoil everyone rotten.

Mother was happy, the staff were happy, Belle was... restless. Painting hot air balloon bills for Vauxhall Gardens and advertisements for Astley’s Circus helped to fill some of her time.

That was, when she wasn’t attending endless Society events and minding her impeccable reputation. As much as Belle chafed at the constraints of the beau monde, it was the world she’d been born into. A flawless reputation was a young lady’s greatest currency, and the one thing over which she had any control at all.

Whatever dubious value Belle ascribed to achieving other people’s idea of “perfect,” she would play the game to prove to herself that at least she was competent in that much. She couldn’t lose her standing in the one place she actually belonged.

A knock sounded on the door. Belle nearly dropped her paintbrush in relief. She pushed the easel aside to make room for the bath and hurried to open the door.

It was not the maid from last night. It was a trio of footmen who looked barely old enough to shave. Though the lads’ movements were in graceful synchronicity, they were clearly in a hurry to be on to the next task.

“Er...” She stepped back as they carried in the bath and filled it with steaming water. “Will the maid be here soon?”

One of the footmen jerked his head up. “What maid?”

“The one that helps with the bath?”

“We just helped,” he pointed out. “Ring the bell when you’re finished, and we’ll retrieve it.”

“But the maid from last night,” she tried again. Oh, why hadn’t she asked for the girl’s name? “Is she still in attendance?”

“Sally?” He shook his head. “She’s in the sickroom with the others. Dorothea seems to be improving, but the doctor says it could be days yet before any of the invalids rise from their beds.”

“ Days? ” Belle repeated, aghast.

Poor Ursula. She would not have a stroll in the square this afternoon after all.

“Days,” the lad repeated. “Not that they’d be going anywhere anyway, what with the snowstorm and all. Mrs. Price says we might not shovel ourselves out of here until the end of the week.”

“Snowstorm?” she echoed faintly.

“Waist high by now, I reckon, with no sign of slowing. Not that there’s a soul to spare for the shoveling. With so many maids ill with influenza, we’re having to clean on top of our regular duties.”

“Duties we ain’t doing, George, with you standing about jawing,” another lad pointed out dryly. “We got eight more baths to deliver, don’t we? Come on, then.”

“Anything else, madam?” asked the third, before all three lads disappeared into the corridor.

Belle’s cheeks flamed, but she shook her head.

She could not possibly ask some strange footman to unbutton her blasted gown. A rumor like that would attract all the wrong attention. Nor had she any intention of sending away a fresh hot bath. She would find some way to get into it.

But how? She cast her gaze about the small chamber with increasing desperation. Three trunks overstuffed with her most fashionable gowns, none of which could be maneuvered without Ursula’s aid, and one trunk of art supplies. Not a single thing that could help in these circumstances.

She leaned over the tub and let the steam caress her face. Was this it? Her secret daydream of one day becoming a wealthy independent spinster ruined forever because she couldn’t even get out of her own dress to take a bath?

Her eyes flicked to the wall she shared with Mr. McAlistair.

No . She couldn’t. Could she? Impossible. Scandalous. Even for a make-believe widow. Wasn’t it?

She bit her lip. No one would know. Who would he tell? He didn’t even know her real name.

Besides, he seemed... genuine. He might look like a dashing, dissolute rake, but hadn’t attempted to manhandle her last night when he’d first surmised her predicament. When she’d said no, he’d respected her decision, shrugged at her obvious folly, and disappeared back into his room.

He must be in his room, mustn’t he? Or at least in the posting house. If the snow was too high for servants to leave, Mr. McAlistair wouldn’t have been able to ride off to wherever he intended to go after this.

Whatever she was going to do, she had to do it soon. The bath was hot now, but it would not stay so forever.

It was just a row of buttons. She would survive this.

She sucked in a fortifying breath and marched next door to knock before she lost her nerve.

Gooseflesh crept up her clammy skin. This was a terrible idea. This was what happened when Belle thought she could think. Her pulse sped with mortification. What if he was downstairs in the dining room and the other guests peeked into the corridor and saw her like this, in yesterday’s dress with her hair wild from the pillow?

She knocked before she lost her nerve.

His door swung open.

“Mrs. Lépine.” The words were even and calm, as though half-hysterical women knocking on one’s door at dawn was a perfectly normal occurrence.

Dear God, it was dawn.

“I’m sorry,” she babbled. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t.”

Of course she hadn’t. Now that she looked at him properly, he was dressed and coiffed to perfection. If a Renaissance painting and a French fashion plate could bear offspring, it would look exactly like Mr. McAlistair. Nobody woke up this distractingly attractive.

All of which caused the words to tangle in her throat. She’d wanted him to be impressed by her, not to pity her, yet here she was, a wild-eyed wilder-haired dandelion puff, on the verge of shattering into a thousand fluffy clocks from the tiniest breath of air.

He crossed his well-tailored arms and leaned against the doorjamb. “May I help you?”