Royal Regard

Chapter Thirty-Two, Part 2

Gasping and gulping concurrently caused a fit of coughing and simultaneous thumping in her temples. Bella had hoped to discourage his sense of immediacy, not invite him to make an offer. She covered her lips with a handkerchief to keep from spraying spittle across her own marriage proposal. He waited for her to recover, smiling smugly. When she narrowed her eyes, he dropped his, presumably to hide the widening smirk.

"Did you have plans to which we mere males were not privy when we so rudely decided your fate?"

"Of course not," she responded, clutching his fingers. "Not really. Only moving away from London, and—" She stopped, eyes darting around the room, finally resting on the grandfather clock, now five minutes from striking.

"And?" He was not going to give an inch.

"And—" She shook her head.

He sighed, then brought her hand to his lips. "Perhaps, then, you will share my fate?" Her eyes grew as wide and round as the ring he took from his waistcoat. "I have had this in my pocket since the day your husband died. It was my mother's. Will you become the Duchess of Wellbridge? Or more to the point, wife to the flawed Nick Northope, who has unfortunately been saddled with a duchy to tend?"

Her mouth opened and closed and her eyes traversed the room, finally settling on the T'ang vase next to the fireplace. "I—I have to—I mean, I am in mourning, Your Grace. I cannot just—"

He kissed her fingertips again. "You may wear black in my house as long as you'd like, though I will miss seeing you in that sea green muslin I love so much. I know you will want to do proper honor to your husband, but I am concerned for your safety, and am afraid—truly afraid—someone will do you harm. Michelle might not be the last of Malbourne's lackeys."

"But I was going to—" He stayed silent while she gathered her thoughts. "I had planned to marry you. I have always planned it, since the day you used your ducal authority to have three barrows of cuttings delivered to me from the King's Gardens. But I cannot yet. I simply cannot."

He dropped her hand, stood and paced the room, finally stopping in front of the brandy, but only staring at the decanter.

"Where will you go, then? Huntleigh Hall?"

"Live alone in one hundred and fifty rooms? I think not. I will rusticate to the house in Saltash. Briarleigh House is small and well-suited, not a huge estate I haven't the first idea how to manage. I won't have to put on airs there, as though I am a great lady."

"But—"

She spoke over his objections, for if he brought up enough of them or found the right ones, he might move her from her purpose, and that she could not allow.

"It has been empty almost ten years, but I seem destined for empty houses, and a small village is a better match for me than a grand manor house. Heaven forfend I should be chatelaine to eleven castles. I would make a poor duchess."

"I beg to differ and as a duke, am better equipped to judge."

Poignant tears prickled at the way his conceit always came firmly to the fore when he was frightened, angry, or confused. Right now, all three. He crossed the room to come back to her, taking up her hand again. A weak smile creased his handsome face, and she looked her fill of his green eyes, sharp cheekbones, and patrician nose, brushing away the blond curl that always seemed to grace his high forehead. Finally, she squeezed his fingers, forlorn and trying to draw strength from his touch, slowly going cold along with his eyes.

As he tried to slide the ring on her finger against her will, she pulled back her hand and fisted it in her lap.

"No, Your Grace—I mean, Nick. No, I..." Droplets fell from her eyes, leaving spots on her skirt, as she said, "I cannot say I will marry you."

She spoke gently, in part because the entire subject was making her head hurt more than she wanted to admit. "I do not feel comfortable making decisions about my future intentions until I have paid Myron proper respect. I am certain he would not want me to be hasty in my—"

His eyes were now as hard as she had ever seen, so hard they froze the words in her throat. Even when Malbourne had attacked her at Vauxhall, Nick hadn't looked this forbidding. He was gathering his ducal haughtiness and preparing to unleash it on her, and for the first time since she had met him, was frightened to be in his company.

"Huntleigh signed a marriage contract with me with one foot in the grave, and he certainly didn't specify a particular mourning period. He, too, was afraid for your immediate safety. No, Bella, as far as I am concerned, you are contractually obligated to—"

"Contractually obligated?! Have you lost your mind?!" She stood up, quickly enough she became dizzy and had to balance herself on the side table, which, thankfully, he didn't see, as he was pacing again before the fireplace.

Once steady, she took a deep breath, rubbed her temple, and moderated her tone. "I am not declining your offer—which, incidentally, you have only just made and not given me time to consider."

He stared at her blankly. "Not given you time to—? It has been more than four months since—" The clock chimed six o'clock, reverberating through Bella's skull, making her head reel even more than the discussion.

"I do not intend to marry anyone else. I am not even saying I do not welcome your attentions—those appropriate to a widow, clearly, and once removed from London. I am only saying that I cannot agree to marry before I am finished grieving my husband. It is entirely reasonable, Your Grace."

At that, he could no longer hold his temper. "Do! Not! Call! Me! Your! Grace!" he yelled. "I cannot believe this! Huntleigh and I made—"

"Oh, no," she started, her voice dangerously low. "Do. Not. Dare. Do not dare start telling me what you and my husband decided for me. I will not be told what to do by you or by a dead man. Nor by the king or the bloody House of Lords!" Her anger gained intensity, as did her headache. "You have given me the megrim again! Go away and stay away until you are prepared to address a woman with a mind worthy of your exalted consideration, not just a fortune you've contracted to inherit!"

He was suddenly contrite. "Bella, I—"

"GET OUT!" She strode to the pocket doors and threw them open, leaning against the door jamb to still the dizziness and sharp shooting pain in her head. "Corbel! Blakeley! Alexander!" Her voice suddenly fell in volume as she lost a good deal of strength. "Someone come remove this awful man..."

John's booted feet came storming up two flights of stairs with a drawn pistol at his side. "What is it? How did someone get by—" He stopped short, looking around the room, seeing only Nick trying to keep her from falling, not the intruder she had led him to expect. "What awful man, sweetheart?"

She pointed at Nick, holding herself up while she gathered a second wind. "This one! I want him to go away and leave me alone!" The shrill tone in her voice knocked her off her feet onto a nearby chair. Finally crying, the headache pounding like military drums, she swayed in her seat, holding her head with both hands to stop the vertigo, the room spinning like a whirligig.

Nick stepped toward her, but John held out an arm to keep him back.

"Time to go, Wellbridge."

"But I—you cannot mean—"

"The lady wants you to go, so you are going, now. Corbel will send your things."

Nick stopped on his way through the door, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes as he intoned. "If I leave, Bella, I will not be back." His voice grew more gravelly and hard with every word. "I have danced attendance on you for months, sat at your bedside until I couldn't think for being so tired. I would have died to protect you from Malbourne and Michelle, and my good name is in tatters since the day I met you. If you can say, after all of that, that we are not even betrothed, so be it. But if I go—"

John interrupted, his hand reaching for Nick's elbow. "You are going, Wellbridge. There is no question of that. You can work out your differences later."

Bella moaned, "Just go. Just go, Nick. We can talk later. When I can think straight."

"There is no later." He yanked his arm away from John, straightening the sleeve of his coat, and his ducal voice boomed, "And you may both address me properly as 'His Grace, the Duke of Wellbridge' until Beelzebub ice skates in Hell!"