Second annual Belle birthday crush
July 2, 1818
Woodbury, England
The inaugural Belle birthday celebration at Woodbury following Sera’s wedding had been considered a stunning success, so much so that it had been declared several times, and not without the assistance of wine and drink, that they should celebrate the second of July at Woodbury for all the rest of time.
As far as compliments went, the Belles had felt inclined to accept, so here they were again, a year later.
Alice was ecstatic for Sera’s social success but couldn’t help but feel her own accomplishments dimming in comparison. Sera had married the first son of a duke and had become one of the most sought-after hostesses in London. Whereas Alice was still ... well, Alice. Unmarried. Unattached. Except for a stubborn groove at the bridge of her nose between her brows, it would have been impossible to tell the Alice of last year apart from this one.
The same could not be said of the birthday party, which had swelled to twice the size of the previous year’s fete. There was barely room under the refreshment tent for those seeking relief from the midday sun. Large numbers of guests still chose to picnic upon the multicolored blankets strewn around the perimeter of the lake, but Alice was not one of them.
“Absurd, isn’t it?” Charlotte said as she sought relief from the heat. After a quick glance to ensure no one was the wiser, she scooped a handful of half-melted ice meant to chill the bouquets of cut flowers and rested it on the nape of her neck. “Why couldn’t we have been born in December?”
“Can you imagine what father would make of that?” Alice was jealous she had not considered the ice trick herself. Unfortunately, tall as she was, her unladylike behavior would have been noticed. “He would build ice towers to dwarf St. Paul’s Cathedral.”
“Snowball fights led by Wellington.”
“Snow flurries by request.”
“An ice rink of sugared candy.”
Alice snorted. “Even that is too far for Father.”
“Nothing is too far for Father.”
The laughter died on Alice’s lips. “I suppose that is what makes him a great man.” Even if it did not make him the most understanding of fathers.
“Great men have been wrong before.” Charlotte dried her wet hands on the material of her dress, and Alice squashed the urge to scold her. “I take great comfort in your example.”
“My example?” Alice raised a brow. “My example of what?”
“Refusing Father’s wishes. If you don’t wish to marry—”
“Charlotte, no!”
Her sister startled at the forceful command of Alice’s voice.
“I’m sorry, dear, I did not mean to frighten you. But you cannot think that I willfully choose not to marry.”
Beads of sweat slid down Charlotte’s brow and streaked her cheeks. “Father has presented you with many potential husbands and you do not want any of them. Is that not a choice?”
“You almost sound like Dinah.”
“She is the one of us with the most sense,” Charlotte offered.
“And do you think Sera had a choice? Is it a choice when you’ve been told your entire life that you will do something, that you must do something?”
“It isn’t as if Father engaged Sera to Tom,” Charlotte defended.
That was true. While Sera had been the one beautiful enough, perfect enough, to bid entry into London’s highest family circle, she had never been slated to marry the heir, Tom Abernathy. She’d been engaged to Gray, the youngest brother, who had found marriage to a child of her age distasteful enough that he’d abdicated from the family entirely. It had been a desperate day for both families until Tom had offered, making Sera a future duchess and forever clinching her father’s happiness.
“Just because I have denied Father doesn’t mean it is a choice,” Alice said.
“If that is so, then why haven’t you married?”
“Because I am not marrying to please Father.”
Laughter filled the tent, as did the clinking of glassware and plates, the whiz of arrows from the nearby archery field, the rhythmic clapping of hands from the reel being danced in the neighboring tent, and the whinnies and neighs of horses from the hunt. Still, somehow, Charlotte’s silence managed to cut through all that. Alice could hear the rise and fall of her own breath in her chest. It was the first time she’d confessed her true intentions.
“You’re not marrying to please Father . . . You’re marrying for mother,” Charlotte realized aloud. “That is why you haven’t accepted any of his selections.”
“They aren’t the men mother would have chosen. Don’t ask me how I know. I just do.”
“So you do wish to marry at all?”
“Don’t you?” Alice asked, remembering the impetus for the conversation. “Charlotte, does my delay in entering an engagement have an ill effect on you?”
Her sister scooped another handful of ice onto her neck and sighed into the sweltering heat. “It is hard enough for someone like me to attract a suitor.”
“Someone like you?”
“Please, let’s not pretend. I am wealthy but not a beauty the likes of you and our sisters. With all of you to choose from, why would anyone cast his attention to me?”
Alice could never see the faults that Charlotte or Society saw in her redheaded sister. Her skin was fair, her lips generous. Her hips were a tad wide, always bumping into tables. Her bosom abundant, always shaking with giggles.
“I have always felt the same, you know?” Alice admitted. “Why would anyone choose me? I’m too tall, too masculine, too—”
“Bossy,” Charlotte finished. “We’re a pair, aren’t we? So does this man exist? One of whom mother would have approved?”
Alice conjured his image easily enough. It was always at the back of her mind, ready to come to the forefront.
“Ah, I see.” Charlotte nodded in the silence. “And I suppose Father would not approve.”
Their gazes shifted to the dancing tent, where Sera and Tom were engaged in a reel. He seemed a beefy ogre next to her but led her through the dance with a goofy smile and gentle hands. They twined elbows and shared grins as their fathers looked on from outside the tent.
Dominic Belle and the Duke of Rivington cast long, misshapen shadows over the grass that seemed to dwarf the tent itself, although that effect was from the boughs of a tree in the distance.
If her father would disapprove of a match between herself nd Mr. Robert Crawford, it was guaranteed that the Duke of Rivington would be even more soured by it. Never mind that he allowed Robert’s friendship with his sons, as they were college friends and military comrades. A marriage would make Robert a member of the Duke’s extended family, which was something else entirely.
* * *
All had gone perfectly at the soiree, other than poor Bridget taking ill and retiring early to her room. Now the townsfolk, friends, and guests had retired to their homes, to the nearby inn, or to the guest rooms. There were a fair number of attendees staying in the east wing, including Viscount Savage, who had set tongues wagging all night; Mr. Christian Hughes, who had treated the children to boxing lessons; and, of course, Mr. Robert Crawford.
After speaking to Charlotte, Alice had found herself avoiding him during the party in much the same manner as she had attempted to avoid reminders of him all year. She had stopped wearing blue ribbons, she had removed all the lilacs from Aunt Margaret’s floral arrangements, and her hatbox had been relegated to long-term storage in another room. In fact, avoiding him had been, and continued to be, quite exhausting.
Her tight and achy shoulders pinched together at the nape of her neck. Her feet, which were squeezed into slim and fashionable slippers, ached to be set free so she could stretch her toes. She knew she should retire for the night, but she could not without performing one last birthday ritual.
Alice swept through the ballroom toward the kitchen, all dark and quiet except for the howling wind, the rustle of leaves, and the occasional whine of a bough as it flapped and scratched against a nearby window. She pulled her shawl tightly around her gown.
Given the number of people currently occupying Woodbury, Alice was nervous someone might see her sneak in, but she entered the kitchen and walked around the wood preparation table, past the fire, and to the larder, undetected.
As she stepped inside, she shivered, goose bumps rising on her arms. She found the remains of the three-layer lemon-blueberry cake on the bottom shelf. The cook had sliced it into manageable pieces, enough to serve five or six people. She slid one onto her palm and turned toward the exit, stopping short when she saw Mr. Robert Crawford studying her quietly from the doorway.
She gave a yelp and stepped back, the cake toppling from her hands.
In a quick, effortless move, he was in front of her, catching the cake in his hand. “My apologies, Miss Belle. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Thank goodness,” she said, breathing heavily. “I shudder to think of the result if you’d actually put your mind to it.”
He smiled and walked with her to the kitchen, where he set the cake slice on a napkin. “I should go. My apologies again.”
“Wait!”
Oh dear. Why had she told him to wait? He was right. He should go. It was improper for him to be here. It also hadn’t escaped her notice that, while he still wore the resplendent jacket and breeches he’d worn to the ball, his cravat was missing and the top button of his starched white shirt was undone so she could easily see the column of his throat and the rough bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed. She had spent so much energy and effort avoiding him, and yet, here he was.
“I should go,” he repeated.
“You must have come down here for a reason.” She waved a hand, indicating the room. “No one will speak of this momentary indiscretion.”
“Cake, as well,” he admitted with a boyish grin. “I limited myself to one piece during the celebrations and have regretted it ever since.”
“Then cake you shall have to take with you to your room.” She found two plates with green-and-gold-leaf trim, set them side by side, and pulled a knife from the butcher’s block with a clean whistle.
“May I help you?” he asked. “It is my role as your indentured servant.”
Her hand stilled at the question, the knife hovering over the yellow frosting. He really did seem to have taken the role as her servant quite seriously. Earlier today, he’d found her maneuvering a rather heavy vase to create more room on the dance floor, and he had stepped in when she’d been too stubborn to wait for a footman or attendant to assist her.
In all the years she’d been organizing family events, she’d never had someone offer to help so often.
“No, thank you,” she said with a sweet smile. “I’m able to wield a knife quite well.”
He gave a tip of his head. “I’ll remember that.”
She quickly split her slice to form two pieces, his larger and hers smaller, and slipped the flat blade of the knife beneath each piece to lift it from the whole and set it on a plate. By the time she put the knife in the sink, he had rummaged through the cupboards and drawers to find two forks.
“Bon appétit,” he said, handing them to her.
She took them, set one on the plate with the larger slice, and passed him his dessert. He nodded his thanks and turned to leave. When he reached the door, however, his shoulders tensed. He spun back around. His brow was furrowed, his mouth pursed in a frown. “You don’t like lemon desserts.”
Her lips parted on a breath.
“I remember now. It is Charlotte’s favorite, and she likes cake best. But I recall you saying at Sera’s wedding feast that fruits and cake should never mix.”
“I did say that,” she admitted.
“So you are not here for a piece of cake.”
“But I am.” She lifted her plate from where it sat.
“And yet you never take a bite.”
She worried her lip. “Well, the cake is not for my consumption.” She held on to her composure with a deep breath. This was her secret birthday ritual, one she had never even shared with her sisters. She wanted their birthday to be a happy occasion, filled only with good memories.
“I don’t understand.” He crossed back to her and set down his cake. “I want to understand.”
How to explain without seeming melancholy and depressing? Or possibly even crazy? “There is a story . . . ‘the Tale of the Bayswater Belles,’ they call it. Most remember the story because it talks about me and my sisters—how we each have different colored hair, how our names are alphabetical.”
“Except for Sera?”
“She’s always the exception, isn’t she?”
“You are all rather exceptional.”
She glanced up at him, surprised. He had made the remark in such a grounded way, so genuine, with no flowery flattery. “I accept your compliment, as I believe it speaks highly of our parents, who were exceptional themselves. I’m sure you know my father.”
“My investment portfolio certainly does.”
“I am always happy to hear of another satisfied investor,” she said. “But I think people do not realize how much my mother’s initial influence helped shape the direction of his business. She was quite brilliant.” Her breath left her then, and she ended her sentence on a high pitch. It was so difficult to speak about her mother, even so many years later. Sometimes she envied the way Dinah and Sera could speculate on their mother for hours on end, not realizing each word pierced Alice’s chest. “The Tale of the Baywater Belles, and all it says about my sisters and I, has very little of my mother, except that she birthed us and she died. As if that’s all she was. But there was so much more to her, and I feel, without me to remember it. I haven’t explained it well, have I?” She listed her plate.
“You have,” he said. “I understand. She liked lemon cake. Just like Charlotte.”
Of course he would see without her having said it at all. “Lemon cake, lemon tart, lemonade,” she said. “If you asked whether she preferred something sweet or something sour, she would say she preferred a little of both. She used to say it about all of us.” A hot tear stained her cheek, and she brushed it away, stealing a glance at the clock on the mantel. “She died at twenty-two past midnight following our birthday.”
He glanced at the timepiece over the fire, noting the exact moment of twenty-two past midnight. “Then let me share a piece of cake with her,” he said.
He ate his cake, simply, solemnly. She felt strange standing there, surreal, as though she were somehow outside her body. Normally, at this point, she would throw the cake away, but it seemed wasteful to do that now, with someone watching. So after a moment, she picked up the fork and took a bite of her mother’s piece of cake.
It was a little sweet, a little sour, just as she would have liked. The creamy lemon frosting melted on her tongue, leaving behind a pleasant tartness that puckered her lips. Maybe she did like lemon cake after all.
It wasn’t long before their forks clanged against the empty plates. She picked up both with the intention of taking them to the sink.
“Let me help,” he offered.
She smiled at him. She had been smiling all day, grinning from one end of the house to the other at guests and her sisters, but this was her easiest smile of the day. “I do not require any help,” she said. “Your kindness is enough.”
“It is just a story,” he said from behind her.
She spun around, not understanding.
“It is just a story,” he said again. “It is not who you are. It does not define you, just as it does not define your mother.”
But it did. In just the same manner as her mother’s entire life seemed to be defined by a whispered deathbed wish, Alice’s entire life was defined by that tale.
“I wish that were true,” she said. “I remember so much of my mother. She wanted us to be well-read and to eat cake whenever we could. To be happy children. I remember she told us so many times to be happy. Only once did she say to marry well, yet that seems to be what others remember best.”
“Do you have many memories of her?” he asked.
Alice’s earliest memory of her mother was on her first birthday, during Bridget’s birth. Her friends scoffed at her when she claimed this memory, because one was quite a young age to be remembering anything. Perhaps the memory was not real. Perhaps her father had told the story so many times, it felt real. Regardless, she could recall the moment with crystal clarity.
“We were at home in the salon,” she began.
Alice had just learned to walk, and she remembered that, after breakfast, her parents had taken turns calling her name. She would turn to her mother, arms outstretched, tiny fists clenching and releasing. Each step had been exertion personified, with eager breaths and overzealous footfalls. “With a hand to her stomach, my mother had declared it was time for my sister to arrive. My father—well, in his eagerness, he didn’t know where to go. He kept turning in circles. I remember taking his hand and walking him to send for the doctor.”
“Clever girl.”
“It’s the first moment I remember. The first moment I knew that my purpose was to be a big sister, to help my parents.”
“Which you have been,” he said.
“Yes,” Alice said. “But not nearly enough.”
* * *
There were times in a man’s life when he had to do the right thing, and Robert was aware that the right thing was often at odds with what one desired. And at this moment, Robert desired Alice. He saw that now. He was attracted not only to all that was easy to love—her affection for her family, her beautiful gray eyes—but all that was easily overlooked, such as her height, her tendency to take over, her stubbornness. Others might see the two types of qualities as disparate, but he understood that one could not exist without the other. That the very Alice whom he respected for her love of her family was the same Alice who could never burden her father with an undesired marriage.
He also was a keenly observant man who recognized that Alice had developed a tendre for him, too. What other reason was there for a woman to allow a man into her confidence at such an hour?
If he encouraged her feelings, and if she were to accept his suit, then he would, in effect, be asking her to turn against her family. In good conscience, he could not allow it. Even now, she was looking at him from the sink, her shawl tight around her shoulders, and he was drawn by the desire to comfort her. But he steeled himself against it.
“Miss Belle,” he said instead, “allow me to express my sincere belief that you have always done what is best for your family and that you will always continue to do so.”
She stared at him with knit brows, understandably confused given how he launched into his declaration with nary a notice but he felt he must convey his feelings, quickly, while his intentions remained honorable.
Still, his tone softened as he said, “I have no doubt of your regard for your family, and because of that, I must bid you good night.”
She swallowed, and he watched the tightening of her neck and her hands at her sides. Alice did not pretend ignorance or confusion, which further convinced him of their like-mindedness. Her smile was bittersweet. “I bid you good night, Mr. Crawford. And good-bye.”
He gave a brief bow and turned, forcing his legs to take him far and fast. In his haste, he did not notice the other man who stood in the hall until he was upon him. Strong hands held him at bay.
“Are you drunk?” Viscount Savage asked, studying him.
Robert shook his head, coming back to his senses. “Savage, what are you doing about at this hour?”
“Nothing honorable, I assure you,” Savage said. “And yourself?”
Robert smirked. “Something too honorable for the likes of you.”
“I assume it has to do with Miss Alice Belle?”
“I beg you not to speak her name in that context, nor assume anything but the best of her character.”
“It is your character I call into question, not hers.”
“Ah, well, let me reassure you. I have, indeed, made it clear to her that I will not pursue my suit, particularly as such a connection would be undesirable to her family and, thus, to her.”
Savage scratched at the scruff at his chin. “Damned sorry to hear it. If your situation were easy enough to fix with money, I would give it to you.”
“And I would decline, although I appreciate the sentiment,” Robert said.
“Might I give you some advice on the easiest way to forget one woman?”
“I assume that while you might be able to lecture a year at Cambridge on the matter, you will keep it succinct?”
“Another woman,” Savage said, smiling roguishly. “Another woman always works.”
* * *
Savage,
While I appreciate your attempts to assist my emotional recovery, my mother will die of apoplexy if yet another unwed lady of ill quality shows up on my doorstep and offers to “help me forget.” Your money would be better used as kindling.
Your superior (in many ways),
* * *
Robert,
It may interest you to know that a certain lady in question has been acting as hostess for salons—at which there are gentlemen—at the family home in Bayswater. Are you certain you would not like me to continue my heartfelt gestures of friendship?
Your superior (in the way that counts most to women),
Savage
* * *
Savage,
Sod off. That’s an order.
R.