To Pleasure A Duke (The Husband Hunters Club #3)

Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

T erry Belmont glanced sideways at the girl beside him. Lady Annabelle’s face was streaked with drying tears and her mouth was turned down at the corners. Although he would have loved to take her into his arms and comfort her, he didn’t. He knew she wouldn’t want him to. They were friends, companions in adversity, and it would be wrong to cross that boundary. If she thought he was just another rake trying to inveigle his way into her affections—or out of her fortune—then she would no longer turn to him for help. She would no longer trust him.

And Terry found he valued Annabelle’s trust more than anything.

“I can’t bear the thought of marrying Lucius and living in his house in London. I do not say he is a cruel man or—or cruel to me. He is a gentleman, but when I tell him all the things I want to do, he smiles at me as if I am a—a child. There is so much more to my life, so much to do. I never wanted to marry him, but my mother tells me I must and . . . She and Sinclair want me to be someone I do not want to be. Just because they only live for the Somerton name and care for nothing but our position in society, they think I should be the same. But I’m not, and I won’t!”

Her passion spent, she mopped her eyes with her lacy sleeve like a child.

“What can you do?” Terry asked. “You say the wedding arrangements are all in place. Can you really back out now?”

Her dark eyes were almost wild. “I have a friend in Scotland, a girl I knew at school. We write often. She is married now, but she has promised to shelter me, if only I could get to her.” She took a shaky breath, and reached to grasp his forearm, her fingers painfully intense. “Will you help me, Terry?”

Terry felt something major shift inside him. No one had ever asked him for help before. His younger brothers all turned to Eugenie if they were in need of help, while Eugenie never seemed to need help from anyone, especially not Terry. She still saw him as a little boy, someone who needed guidance and scolding, in equal measure. But now Annabelle was asking him for help as if he was the only one in the world she trusted.

“Of course I will help you,” he said, and meant it with all his heart.

Her lips trembled into a smile. “Thank you,” she sighed. “I wish I wasn’t so ignorant of the world and how to make my way in it. I would run off to Scotland alone, but I fear I would lose my way or make some foolish error, and then I’d be captured and brought home to Somerton, and then they’d watch me so closely I would never have another chance.” She gave him a confident look. “You know how to get to Scotland, don’t you, Terry?”

Terry wasn’t sure he did but he wasn’t going to tell her that. He gave a worldly wise shrug. “Of course.”

“Good. I’d better get back to Lizzie before she tattles to my brother.”

Lizzie Gamboni had seemed small and in-significant to Terry, someone who needed looking after rather than someone inclined to cause trouble.

“I’m sure Miss Gamboni wouldn’t tattle,” he said without thinking, and then wished he hadn’t when Annabelle gave him a narrow look. “I meant to say, she seems very loyal to you.”

“Yes, well, I won’t have to worry about her much longer.” She sighed. “I’m so glad we met, Terry. I don’t know what I would do without you to help me.”

Terry felt like a hero—he was the soldier who took the hill fort single-handed, and saved the day. It was only later, on his way home to Belmont Hall, that doubts began to set in. He supposed, when she asked for help, he should have refused. That was the sensible course of action. Helping the duke’s sister could only mean trouble for someone like Terry.

But how could he refuse? She needed his help and he needed to give it. Somehow he would have to get her to her friend in Scotland. Because Terry knew he couldn’t tell anyone else. Eugenie would only scold him and insist he explain himself to the duke. And if he told his father . . . Mr. Belmont would rub his hands together and inveigle him in some devious scheme to make money from Annabelle’s misfortune. No, there was no one he could tell. He must deal with this himself.

As he opened the door to Belmont Hall, Terry could hear the twins arguing interspersed with his mother’s long-suffering wails. Avoiding them, he hurriedly climbed the ramshackle stairs to the room he shared with his brothers. Jack was there with his injured magpie sitting on his shoulder, his head buried in a book on horses.

“Benny and Bertie are at it again,” he said, without looking up. “They decided to decorate the sitting room with some black dye they found in the washhouse. They thought Mama would be pleased.”

They grinned at each other in horrified glee.

“Don’t go down there unless you want to scrub walls,” Jack advised, turning back to his book.

Terry had no intention of getting involved in the terrible twins’ antics. He flung himself down on his bed, and stared up at the ceiling. With Annabelle he had a chance to show what he was made of, to be the sort of man he’d always wanted to be.

“Jack,” he said. “If you were asked to help someone, someone you liked, someone who really needed your help, would you do it? Even if by helping them you might get yourself into lots of trouble?”

Jack thought about it while his brother waited. Although Jack was young, Terry had always thought him the cleverest of them all. “Yes,” he said, nodding. “I would.”

Terry smiled and lay down again. That settled it. He and Annabelle were going to Scotland . . . as soon as he sorted out how to get there.

* * *

Lizzie knew something was afoot. Annabelle made excuses and avoided her eyes, but she’d slipped away for an hour today and Lizzie was certain she’d had an assignation with Terry Belmont.

Surely she wasn’t in love with him?

Annabelle, for all her spoiled and headstrong behavior, was at heart a girl who was very aware of what was in her own best interests. It pleased her to startle and upset her family by declaring all sorts of opinions that weren’t really hers, but beneath all that she was really quite conventional. Or so Lizzie had thought until now.

Lucius was a perfect match for her, and she must know it, despite her declarations that she would die of boredom once married to him. Terry Belmont was not in her sphere when it came to the important decisions of love and marriage. Why, thought Lizzie, he was far more suitable for someone like . . . like herself.

But of course he would never notice her, no one ever did. She was like a little vicarage mouse, in-visible, while all eyes were full of Annabelle. Not that she was resentful—she’d long ago accepted her fate. She just wished that for once in her life a man she liked would see her.

Really see her .