Fourth annual Belle birthday crush
July 2, 1820
Woodbury, England
Robert and Alice had come up with a very simple plan to distract everyone from their mourning: an excessive amount of manual labor disguised as acts of charity and community. Graham had wondered as to the wisdom of such a plan. Sera was already so bone thin, it seemed ill-advised that she take on physical activity, but she—and the rest of them—had clung to the chance to be useful, to do something.
The past few days had been filled with backbreaking work in the berry fields, neglected as the harvest turned to the more profitable wheat. Graham had plucked and plucked until his fingers were dyed blue. When the body was occupied, the mind was not as free to roam.
Unfortunately, all that was in the past. The Belle sisters’ birthdays dawned, and there was little to be done except hold still as his man tied his cravat.
The house was still in mourning, appropriately so, and therefore, instead of festive colors, the guests and servants were in black. Instead of an exotic menu with tasty morsels spanning the best of global cuisine that Dominic Belle had experienced during his life, there was a light soup and the barest of libations—sparkling wine, not champagne from France—and a simple musical trio instead of the usual orchestra.
With the quiet, both of mind and body, his thoughts turned back to how he should approach Dinah. Her father had only arrived earlier that day and was worried sick about Sera. A completely inappropriate time to approach a man about his intentions toward one of his other daughters.
Assuming Graham had intentions. Which he did, did he not?
His father and brother were dead. Lily was married. He couldn’t go the rest of his life alone, and he thought well of Dinah. More than well. He thought of her always.
“Well done,” he said to his valet as he finished dressing. He stared at his reflection in the glass. Graham knew he was no Lord Savage, but he had been told his looks were pleasing. He was from a good family. Surely that would be enough to persuade Dinah?
Though, it had not been enough for Lily.
But Dinah was no Lily.
She was practical. Intelligent. But also not convinced she needed to marry.
Damn. He was overthinking it. He turned from the looking glass and stalked downstairs to find Benjamin. While no one could approximate Dinah’s total sense and intelligence, Benjamin came closest. He found his brother in the library flipping through a copy of Pride and Prejudice—a strange choice, but he knew that grief did strange things. He knocked on the doorway, steeling himself for the conversation ahead.
Benjamin glanced up and snapped the book closed. “Good, it’s you. I have something important to announce, but I wanted to tell you first.”
Never mind that Graham had his own agenda. He raised a brow. “An announcement with the aura of a pronouncement? Go on.”
“I have yet to approach her father, but I intend to seek the hand of Miss Bridget Belle and for us to be married before Christmas.”
Graham raised both brows. He’d always felt Benjamin and Bridget were ill matched. As ill matched as he and Dinah, he supposed. Still, Benjamin had shared his intention to ask for Bridget’s hand when they were at their father’s funeral, but he had indicated it would come after a respectable period of mourning. “Oh. That is soon.”
“It is,” Benjamin agreed.
And it was as simple as that, apparently. Benjamin was to be married. Granted, he would be forgiven the timing as the Duke of Rivington. But still, it meant that Graham need not torture himself over his own decision or how it reflected on his past affection for Lily. He held out his hand. “I cannot imagine her father would object, so I suppose congratulations are in order.” They shook, and Benjamin smiled. It was an unfamiliar expression to see on his brother. “Hmm . . . I’m not sure I like the smile on your face. It’s . . . disconcerting.”
“Was I smiling?” Benjamin asked.
“Like a lunatic. Stop. You’re frightening me.” Graham shuddered.
“I’m frightening myself,” Benjamin admitted. “Was there something you wanted?”
There could never be too much good news. Still, he wondered if Benjamin would appreciate Graham’s overtures clashing with Benjamin’s own intentions. Perhaps it was best to wait. Waiting did not mean Graham couldn’t speak to Dinah.
Benjamin was the eldest, the duke. It should be his prerogative to command the news of the day.
“Nothing in particular,” Graham said.
* * *
Dinah had always disregarded the reports of her cold personality, which reached her so often she wondered if people actually enjoyed delivering such personal blows. She had always reasoned that others simply did not have the capacity to understand her emotional state.
But some part of the rumors of her cold-heartedness must have been true. Because even though she was worried sick over Sera’s relentless grief, which left her near insensible, and even though Dinah felt a pinch of grief whenever she thought too long about never seeing Tom again, she was lifted, buoyed, and overflowing with hope from Graham’s letter.
Fortunately, this positive attitude was also tempered by the rational if unpleasant idea that perhaps she was losing her mind. And when one was not certain of one’s mind, there was only one place to go: the library.
It was empty, which was quite unusual during the annual birthday fete that saw every nook, corner, and cranny of Woodbury Hall filled to excess. However, this year’s celebration was not one of excess but of quiet solemnity. There were no out-of-town guests, save for a few close friends, so the guest list consisted of mostly family and the local townsfolk. So she found herself alone, shelves of towering books looming overhead.
She knew the exact spot—fourth shelf, third bookcase—where the medical journals were lined up. She yanked them down and pored through them. Her fingers made fast work of the pages and pages of diagrams and heady prose, detailing everything from syrupy concoctions for a cough to strategies for field surgery during wartime. She found a series of anatomical drawings with colorful lines drawn from the head to the feet until she settled upon the ankle. She could almost feel it tingle again, as if Graham’s hand were clasped around it once more.
Dinah sat on a tufted chaise and pulled the heavy volume onto her lap. Her finger traced the line over the ankle and all the way up to the heart.
Was that when it had started? That first night in the cottage?
Surely not. She had spent the better part of the year—perhaps two—thinking ill of Graham. Not in his entirety, of course. She had always found him well-mannered, kind, and loving in regards to his family, but he was an imbecile for wanting someone he could not have.
But now she understood how little choice one had in the matter of the direction of one’s thoughts and feelings. She did not understand why she pined constantly for Graham all of a sudden. Wasn’t he the same man he’d always been?
Yet, before that night when he had touched her ankle, she had never really paid him much mind, unless he was trying to be funny or charming in order to be noticed. Today, however, the instant he entered the ballroom and engaged Mr. Crawford in conversation, she’d been aware of the way even the curtains swayed behind him.
Her thoughts turned to the inevitable. What had he meant by their conversations having a foregone conclusion?
And why did her imagination run to marriage, want it to mean marriage?
It was a heady thought, one that whirled around her, effervescent as champagne.
There had been little opportunity to speak to him since her arrival at Woodbury. Alice had kept all of them busy over the past few days, working in the village and on the estate in an effort to keep Sera occupied, but Dinah was desperate to speak with Graham. She was nearly clawing at the walls, as though something gnawed at her from within. It was so unlike her, so illogical, and she didn’t like it.
She snapped the book shut. She was out of her mind. Was she really entertaining grand notions of marriage to a man who had for years pined for another woman and was grieving the loss of his father and brother? He hadn’t even indicated his interest in such a thing, despite his embrace during the funeral. And what did she hope to base her own feelings on? A kiss? A caress on the ankle? One, tiny caress? Was one caress so different from another?
Well, that was easily remedied. She would know, once and for all, whether the event merited the attention she gave it.
Through the library window, she caught a glimpse of Damon Cade, Viscount Savage. He walked past—perhaps on the way to the ballroom—resplendent in a dark coat and breeches.
“My lord!” she cried.
He stopped, backed up two steps, and turned his head. She inhaled swiftly. The dark slash of his brows, the serious set of his mouth somehow enhanced his beauty, sharpened his cheekbones, made the marble that comprised his fine features seem even more polished.
He caught her stare and lifted a brow in question. She nodded to bid him enter the library as her heartbeat pattered in her chest. What she was about to do was ill-advised at best and scandalous at worst. Yet she had to know. She was desperate.
He strolled in, hands in his pockets, as if he might whistle at any moment without a care in the world.
“Privacy, if you please,” she said, gesturing to the open doors.
He raised his other brow. “Before I agree, I must know something . . . You have no intention of entrapping me in marriage, do you? I normally would not pose such a question, but unlike some hunters, I feel you would be honest.”
“If I did mean to entrap you in marriage, I assure you there would be little you could do to avoid such a fate. I am quite clever when determined.”
“I suppose that answer should give me comfort, but it does not.”
“Marrying you is the furthest thing from my mind,” she said. “That being said, please know I do mean to ask something of you equally beyond reason.”
After a beat, he shut the door and turned with a smile. “Consider me intrigued.”
She set her foot on a nearby stool and pulled her skirt up an inch or two. “Please touch my ankle.”
He took a step back, as if he’d been physically shoved, but to his credit, he masked his emotions quickly. “I can only assume your purpose is nefarious but well-intentioned.”
“I need to make sure . . .” She cursed the wobble in her voice. “I need to be sure of something.”
He approached her slowly, his gaze never leaving hers. Her heart quickened but in nervousness more than anticipation. He stood in front of her, and she felt the warmth from his chest, the slice of his breath against her cheek.
“Are you certain?” he asked.
She nodded.
He reached out and paused by her ankle, then very carefully, he wrapped his hand around it.
She felt warmth and a pleasant tingle. He swept his thumb very deliberately against her skin through her stocking, just as Graham had done. She couldn’t deny it was pleasant.
“Is that sufficient?” he asked.
She nodded, and he stepped away.
“That was nice,” she said.
“Well, I should hope so. I’ve had enough practice.”
“But it wasn’t . . .” She cocked her head at him. “It wasn’t nice. Does that make sense?”
He smiled. “It does.”
She left him behind in the room, muttering behind her. She quickly found Graham in the ballroom, engaged in conversation with his friends. Dinah managed to make her way toward him at the moment he stepped away from Benjamin and Mr. Crawford.
“Lord Graham,” she said, a little too loudly in her anxiety that he would walk by without seeing her.
He stopped, ran his hand through his hair, ruffling it, and gave her a smile. “I had wondered when we would speak.”
“I have . . . been worried about you,” she said. “And have thought of you often.”
“I believe I knew that,” he said, “and I found it a comfort these past few months.”
“I have something of urgency to discuss with you.”
“More pinching?” he asked. “Or wine and chocolate? Perhaps a little of both. And definitely poetry.”
She tried to return his smile but was too nervous to do so.
He seemed to sense her mood, because his smile fell away. “Are you quite all right, Miss Dinah?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
He glanced around the room, then took her by the arm and led her outside.
She knew where they were going—the gardener’s cottage—yet he took her on a merry walk around the pond first. He discussed their recent activities at Woodbury—the berry harvest, the townspeople—and inquired after Sera.
It was nearly twenty minutes until they were alone in the cottage, and he finally said, “I assume you received my last missive? You did not respond. I was worried.”
“I did,” she said. “Forgive me. I was not sure how to respond. I am still not sure.”
He ran his hands through his hair. “Perhaps I have been too confident in your feelings.”
“It is not my feelings that are of concern.” For a moment, she stared at him. “I have meant to ask more of your symptoms of heartache. Did you feel anxious? Unsettled? As if there was another version of you, inside your own skin, that yearned to get out?”
“While I bear those symptoms, they are not of heartache,” he said. “However, you describe my sentiments exactly.”
“It is because I share them,” she said.
Realization dawned in his eyes. “Dinah, I must confess that as much as I long to hear you finish, I must caution you against speaking further.”
“Please,” she said. “You’re nearly my closest friend and confidant. Can we cast aside Society’s shackles and speak plainly? I cannot know if your actions of last year assisted in this development—I can only assume they have—but they were not the sole cause. I have never believed in love because it defies definition and description. But Graham, I believe I may love you.”
He closed his eyes briefly at his name and took her hands in his. “I have thought of little else but you this past year, but I feared you did not return my affections.”
“But how can that be true?” she asked. “How can you love her and me? How can you know your feelings are genuine? Or permanent?”
He moved his thumbs over the backs of her hands, pulling her more tightly to him. “I only know that I can neither hear a poem nor enjoy a glass of claret without thinking of you. I can do little but think of you, and even now, when she comes to mind, it is only in the context of you. Thinking of you increases the pleasure of all I do and have done.”
How could such simple words make her feel so joyful? So indestructible? And yet, as much as she had changed since meeting him, she could not stop reason from scratching against her brain, a little itch she could not ignore. He could not have so easily changed affections. Perhaps it was just his heightened emotions.
“You’re pulling away. I can see it in your face,” he said. “I give no credence to your nickname of the Blasé Belle, and yet, it worries me that my feelings might so eclipse your own that they curse me to a lifetime of affections that are never reciprocated. Can you understand my trepidation?”
“Can you understand mine?”
He turned his back to her, ran his hands through his hair again, and spun around to face her once more. “We cannot both be correct in assuming the other’s affection is not as genuine as our own. I don’t know if I can be hurt again, Dinah. Not by you. I don’t know if I’d survive it.”
Her heart leaped to believe him, and yet that scratch came again. He had a way with words, and he was easy with his affections. “I have been hurt, too. My heart has been broken, too. They think I don’t remember my mother when she passed, but I have flashes of her scent, her smile. I know what love is, and I know how it feels when it goes away.”
He rested his forehead against hers, cupped her cheek in his hand. “Perhaps this is the battle we shall have our whole lives: who loves the other more.”
She grinned. “For once, I would be happy to be wrong.”
“Is it wrong to kiss you?” he asked. “Even if we are not officially engaged for a time?”
She tore herself away from him. “Why a time?” she asked, her voice trembling. “Are you not certain?” She hated this insecurity, this need she had for him, this fear that he might leave.
He pulled her into his arms. With a groan, he pressed his lips to her forehead. “None of that. It is not my preference, but Benjamin is making an announcement later this evening. I will spare you the details, but it involves his upcoming nuptials.”
She fisted the lapels of his coat. “To Alice?”
He frowned. “Alice? Why would you think that?”
“Nothing. Just . . . go on.”
“He will explain in his announcement, I am certain. It is already untoward for one of us to be engaged to be married so shortly after the misfortune that has befallen our family. But both of us?”
“So we must wait.” He was right, she realized. Every logical bone in her body agreed, even if her heart didn’t. “I have heard it said that delaying gratification makes the reward better.”
“I suppose, then,” he said, drawing her close, “we shall test that hypothesis thoroughly.”
* * *
G.,
How ironic that our own tempering was not shared by my sister Alice and Mr. Crawford. Now we must wait even longer, since to have three Belles married in such short form after Sera’s loss would be too much for the ton to handle.
I have twice this past month heard you referred to as my “brother.” It is not very encouraging.
D.
* * *
I suppose the only positive outcome is that I was so irked by this development that the last time I trained at Christian’s studio, I managed to take down Crawford, my brother, and Savage, all at once. I refuse to step in the ring again so my legend will follow me wherever I may go.
Unfortunately, I have also this past month been referred to as an “imbecile” (at White’s, for betting on a particularly slow horse that was named after Diana, goddess of the hunt, simply because it possessed a name so close to your own, but it then went on to win), an “upstart” (for declaring a peer’s foray into scientific matters poorly reviewed), and a “beef-wit” (for laughing so hard during a recitation of Shakespearean sonnets when I thought of what your possible reaction would be). I will admit I find all those preferable to “brother.”
G.