Bella pulled her hands back slightly, but Lady Malmsby held fast. Bella looked away. “La!” she said gaily, turning back toward Lady Malmsby, tossing her head up. “I needed to find my brother. I fear your son-in-law has you seeing intrigues everywhere.”
Lady Malmsby raised a skeptical eyebrow. “If I do, then I assure you it is because he is always up to every sort of intrigue imaginable,” Lady Malmsby said dryly. “And don’t try the gay socialite persona with me. Theatricals were a family enjoyment, with my daughter Catherine leading the amateur productions. Your dissembling won’t fadge.— Bella, what is it?” she demanded.
She looked away, damning the sheen of tears that suddenly threatened. “I saw Mr. Nowlton yesterday and realized that, even after three years, I couldn’t face him,” she said. She turned back to face Lady Malmsby. “So, I ran.” She shrugged apologetically. “You see, with the passage of time—and getting to know Harry and his games better,” she added with a watery chuckle, “I believe Harry misled me—deliberately misled me so I would reject Mr. Nowlton, which I did with truly hateful words.”
Her eyes glistened, threatening her vision. She looked up at the ornate plaster-work ceiling, painted white but finished with the relief glazed in a pale pink wash. She compressed her lips, then a frown creased her brow.
“I felt deeply hurt and confused. But in the last year,” she said slowly, consideringly, “I’ve had time to really think about my life and what has transpired in it. I can truthfully say I am not the young woman you met almost four years ago, or even the one you saw two years ago at Villa Di Fiori. Yesterday, to see Nowlton, memories came rushing back and with it a load of embarrassment and shame.”
“I don’t understand,” said Lady Malmsby. Her eyes narrowed. “No, perhaps I do. Did someone fill your head with stories about my son?”
Bella nodded. “And I was naïve enough to believe him. But he had proof!”
“Him? Who was that? Lord Candelstone?”
“No. It was Harry.”
“Sir Harry!” exclaimed Lady Malmsby, “But he was Aidan’s best friend throughout their boarding school and university years!”
Bella nodded. “I know. Harry told me.”
“What could he possibly say to turn you from Aidan?”
“That Mr. Nowlton was toying with me, that he had some wager in a men’s club that he could get under my skirts before the season ended.”
“What? That is not Aidan.” Lady Malmsby leaned back as she shook her head. “No,” she declared. “I don’t believe it.”
Bella sighed helplessly. “At first, I didn’t believe it either, and wondered what game Harry was playing. However, Harry told me of your family’s theatrics and how good Aidan was with them. And that was why he was so good as a gallery owner, he said, for he could charm the buyers and the artists. I told him again I didn’t believe him, quite forcefully. I believe I even stamped my foot,” she said with a slight laugh. “That was not Aidan, I told him. I was quite adamant with him. He told me, his voice full of sympathy, that he understood my resistance. Said Aidan was very good at dissembling.”
Lady Malmsby laughed. “Aidan is the worst liar!”
“Well, Harry was a master liar,” Bella said. “I saw that in our marriage. He could spin tales for others that I knew were lies, and evenIcould almost believe them!”
“So, how did he convince you that Aidan’s behavior was just an act?”
“He said he wrote it in a betting book, and I could have my brother check the book to verify what it said. Andrew looked and told me it was there and that the young bucks were all talking about it.”
“My God,” said Lady Malmsby. “I still don’t believe he would do that.” Lady Malmsby’s brow furrowed as she shook her head in rejection. “Someone set him up, I’m quite certain,” she said forcefully.
“Now, three years later, I agree,” Bella said. “But Harry didn’t stop with the betting book. He embellished his tale. He reminded me that Aidan was a youngest son and youngest child. The Malmsby properties and monies went to his older brother and to dowries for his three sisters. He said Aidan couldn’t marry me. Aidan needed to marry for money. And I knew I had little, not enough for Aidan’s needs. I had hoped to find a man who would love me despite my lack of dowry. The knowledge I was being made a fool of because I had no dowry, of being the butt of vile bets, cut me deeply. When these thoughts tumbled over and through me, I remember feeling physically sick. I doubled over and sank to the floor. Harry immediately picked me up and put me upon his lap. He tended to me, said he understood what a bitter pill this was to swallow, but he respected me too much to allow me to continue unawares.”
“And it went on from there. Harry insinuated himself into your affections,” Lady Malmsby said flatly.
“Yes, but not as much as Aidan had. I told myself that was because Aidan was my first experience with deep emotions, and the first is always the most dramatic.”
Lady Malmsby nodded.
“Over time I told myself I loved Harry,” Bella said. She smiled. “He was charming. He was fun. He could make any woman he was with feel like they were the center of the universe and he was a peasant at their feet. And he did it all the time. He was not faithful to me. He said it was just part of his work as a spy, that his dalliances with other women meant nothing. I wanted to believe that, but it was hard to watch my husband with these other women and know I was the whispered butt of gossip again. I wanted to believe that Harry really loved me. It was me he married, and it was a game with the other women. And I had myself convinced that was true.”
Lady Malmsby shook her head. “I never really trusted Harry—since he was a schoolboy—I could never say why, but it appears my instincts were true. But if I recall, Aidan was upset with you as well.”
“Yes, but truly, I didn’t listen to the accusations he flung at my head, as angry as I was. I vaguely recall his accusing me of bedding Harry.—Your grace, I am so embarrassed to see Aidan. I know it was over three years; however, when I saw him at the RA, it was like it was yesterday. I still don’t know the truth from then, I can only guess, and the biggest question for me iswhy! But that question gnaws at my insides. If Aidan and I were lied to, and we believed those lies, what does that say of either of us, or our feelings for each other, if we could doubt so easily?”
“I don’t think you doubted easily if someone went to the trouble of forging Aidan’s name to a bet in a betting book! That was carefully planned. But you are correct—thewhyremains the unanswered question, and that is troublesome.”
Bella stared back at her hostess and nodded slowly, just as the door to the parlor opened to the maid pushing in a beverage cart, followed by Ann.
“Bella!” Ann joyfully exclaimed. She limped around the maid and threw her arms around Bella just as she was getting up. They fell back on the sofa together, Ann landing on top of Bella.
