Belle watched with misgiving, as instead of giving a polite nod and carrying on, Crecy stopped in her tracks to stare at the stranger. She looked every bit as rapt as she had with the blasted skeleton, and Belle felt a chill of foreboding.
The man stopped, too, no doubt arrested by her sister’s beauty and her all too obvious interest. Belle hurried to Crecy’s side and took her arm. This close, she could see the man’s eyes were a vivid and rather unusually dark blue. They were also as cold as the bitter landscape around them.
“Hello,” Crecy said, sounding uncharacteristically shy, her eyes never leaving the man, and her tone rather breathless.
Belle gave her arm a sharp tug, praying she would move, but the man was staring at her with equal intensity, a slight frown between his eyes.
“You have me at a disadvantage, madam,” he said, his tone as icy as his gaze, though Belle thought she detected a note of curiosity there too.
“Forgive us, sir,” Belle said, tugging at her sister’s arm. “We did not mean to disturb you.” She gave Crecy a hard pinch, which seemed to snap her out of her reverie, and she glanced at Belle and then blushed, finally following her away from the man. Everything about him had set warning bells ringing in Belle’s ears. He spelled trouble - in every sense of the word. And yet as Belle hurried her up the steps, she realised that Crecy had turned her head to stare at him again, and he watched her retreat in return, with equal intensity.
Belle shoved her sister through the door and turned back to glare at the devilish-looking man, but he had entered his carriage, slamming the door shut behind him. She drew in a sharp breath as she recognised the crest on the door. In white, gold, blue, and sable, it was unusual and disturbing. The two main devices on the shield were notorious, and synonymous with only one name. That name made her heart thud with fear.
Two black crows, shot through the neck with an arrow.
Good God, that was Viscount Demorte.
She turned on her sister, who was wearing an unusually guarded expression, but held her tongue as she discovered the Bridgeford twins chattering together as they came down the staircase. Belle made their excuses, saying with perfect honesty that they were chilled to the bone and must go and warm up and change their boots before luncheon. She needed to speak with her sister, and fast. Crecy was hiding something, and Belle was increasingly concerned as to exactly what that something might be.
Chapter 12
“Wherein our unhappy heroine is forced to take action.”
Belle sat up in bed, staring into the darkness. She had slept little and ill, and now, at barely five am, was very wide awake.
Her conversation with Crecy had been fruitless and had only served to make her more ill at ease. Crecy denied knowing the Viscount Demorte, and from the man’s own words, that would appear to be the truth. He showed no recognition towards Crecy, and heaven alone knew it was not a face that one easily forgot. Belle had the troubling sensation that Demorte would certainly not forget it now. But worse, far worse, than that was Crecy’s obvious fascination with the man.
Oh, her sister had laughed it off and disclaimed, but Demorte was dark and dangerous, and his mind, if the gossips were to be believed, was broken. He was a tangle of troubled thoughts and dark deeds and an outcast from polite society, and if that wasn’t the perfect recipe for Crecy to find utterly intriguing, Belle would eat her best bonnet.
She had never understood her sister’s fascination with the darker side of life, her need to mend and love things that to most people were ugly and beyond repair. But Crecy’s heart seemed drawn to such pitiful creatures, to the point where she had once been very close to serious injury at the jaws of a vicious dog. The poor creature had been so badly injured that it was out of its mind with pain. Its leg had been a broken mess and it could not comprehend that Crecy had determined to save it. All it knew was its own terror and suffering, and it had lashed out accordingly.
If not for the quick-thinking intervention of a passing stranger, who knocked the creature senseless with a riding crop, Belle dreaded to think what might have happened. Crecy simply didn’t see the danger to herself, only the pain and suffering in another fellow creature. And suffering was something her sister could not stand by and view without taking action. When she’d discovered that the dog had been destroyed, she’d sunk into a depression that had lasted for weeks.
It surprised Belle that the marquess had not taken her attention, but then Crecy seemed to have formed the ludicrous notion that Belle was somewhat interested in the man herself, which was ridiculous. It was beyond ridiculous, in fact. She couldn’t be in the man’s company for more than a minute before she was driven to fury, and allowed her temper to throw her good manners to the four winds and give him a piece of her mind. No. The marquess was of no interest to her whatsoever.
Which was why she spent the best part of the following hour thinking about him, no doubt.
Belle cursed with frustration. Tomorrow was their last day at Longwold and the night of the ball. It was her one and only chance to secure Nibley as a husband, and thereby both herself and Crecy a future.
It was unlikely that she would get a better chance, as the man didn’t socialise much, even during the season, and for all she knew, it could be weeks before their paths crossed again. No. One way or another, she had to bring him up to scratch or they were in all likelihood doomed, and that wasn’t being melodramatic, either. Between their dwindling finances, Aunt Grimble’s threats, and Crecy’s disturbing reaction to Viscount Demorte, Belle was desperate. By midnight tomorrow, she would have her marriage proposal, and she didn’t care what she had to do to get it.
***
Edward stalked the ballroom like a caged bear with a bad case of claustrophobia. He knew he should be gracious, smiling, charming ... all of that. But the part of his mind that ought to be connected to such ingrained social graces seemed to have been disconnected. Perhaps that was what had been damaged in the war? Maybe that area of his brain was what lay beneath his scar?
In what he realised was a self-conscious gesture, he touched his fingers to the ragged line of skin that lay beneath his thick hair. His flesh prickled, disturbed somehow, though he wasn’t sure why. All he knew was that when he ought to simply smile and make an inane comment about the weather or give a polite compliment, all that came out was some contemptuous remark or a forbidding scowl that sent everyone scurrying in the opposite direction.