Page 1 of A Gentleman's Wager
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Bella
After her escape through an upstairs window and a particularly deft bit of shimmying down the drainpipe, Miss Bella Rushdale took off across the moors as if Satan’s own hounds were baying at her horse’s heels. In fact, said pursuants, three in number, remained comfortably poised and awaiting her arrival in the parlour at Wyndfell Grange.
The fiasco was Mrs Castleton’s fault. She, who at the Midsummer Fayre had declared within earshot of Bella’s brother; “There comes a time in every young woman’s life when she must throw herself wholeheartedly into the pursuit of matrimony else resign herself to eternal spinsterhood.”
Joshua, who bristled at the mere suggestion that he was anything less than an exemplary guardian to his younger sister, forthwith and without consulting her wishes, set about ensuring Bella was courted by the best Grinton and Reeth society had to offer.
To begin with, there had been Colonel Hardaker; grey as a leaden sky, already twice wed, and possessed of a daughter but two years Bella’s junior. She’d resolutely insisted he was too old. Then there’d been Francis Lumb of the Garsdale Lumbs, whoever they were; followed by John Gaukroger, possessor of more nostril hair than hairs on his head; and most recently Squire Cockroft, whom she’d informed but two days past that she’d rather eat slugs than marry.
Evidently, he didn’t see this as a barrier.
The curds of the county, that’s who she was being presented to, and they wouldn’t do. They wouldn’t do at all.
If she was to have anyone, and she really didn’t see that a husband was an absolute necessity for a life of adventure, then at minimum she expected beauty and wit. Lord, if they were to spend a lifetime together, she couldn’t bear to be bored by him. The tedium of daily existence in this region of the Dales was crippling enough.
Now approaching the boundary wall, Bella took it at a charge, and cleared it and the brook in two easy bounds. Freedom — that’s what she craved. The ability to go where she pleased, to move beyond the tiny circle of her experience into the wider world. Alas, Joshua had scoffed at the notion of a London Season. Who would run his business interests, oversee the tenant farmers? No, it was simply impossible for them to abandon their responsibilities like that. A husband would have to be found locally. It might not be a marquis or a viscount, but eventually she would settle upon someone who would fit her just as well.
Bella did not share his optimism.
By the old millpond, she reined in her mare and slipped from the saddle to land among the reeds.
Although it was early September, the day was sticky and sweet like honey, drowned with an oppressive heat that made everything damp. It was far too hot for such exertion. Her pulse pounded in her head after the short gallop, so that she almost regretted her flight. She could have been sipping lemonade and eating strawberries on the lawn, but the notion of being courted while doing so quickly soured the scene.
She pulled off her hat and used it to shield her eyes as she peered at the horizon. She was still too close to home not to fear pursuit. Ahead, grey sheep dotted the North Yorkshire hillsides, and from a distant hollow, murky smoke curled from the tall chimneys of the mine her grandfather had sunk and her brother now owned. Nearer, across the valley stood Lauwine Hall, its roofs just visible over the treetops. The old house had stood empty for nigh on fifty years, and its extensive gardens had grown wild. It was Bella’s favourite place in the whole world. Her sanctuary. A sheltered paradise of woodland and wildflowers, daisies and daydreams. There she would find solitude, and some desperately required shade.
Back astride her mare, Bella dug in her heels and set off at a canter, only slowing when the entrance was in sight. She tied up her mount beneath the shade of a tree that overhung the boundary wall, then squeezed through the old, rusted gates. Inside the estate, the air felt thicker, as if it possessed a latent charge. Lauwine ever seemed to her a borderland between the mundane and the wild places inhabited by boggarts and faerie folk, a place where any sort of fantastical adventure might be found.
Many such adventures she’d had, wandering its shady vistas, fishing in its streams, and splashing in its fountains after the rains had come and before the sun dried them up again. A dried ribbon of earth and rough grasses led through an avenue of rhododendrons up to the house and nestled among them was an assortment of empty eyed statues. She caressed the cracked stone of a beautifully endowed faun as she passed, bidding him good day. The breeze whistled back a reciprocal greeting.
At the back of the house, the roses bloomed uninhibited, blood red, hard up against the mullioned windows. Wildflowers mingled with the weeds in a riotous flood of colour. Bella stood at the top of the slope with the grass and the tall yellow buttercups licking her thighs and watched the summer breeze make ripples through the lawn.
The first time she’d run here, the grasses had towered over her head. Her parents had been dead a week, their bodies recently lowered into pits in the graveyard. Everyone had stared at her as though she ought to weep, but she’d already cried all the tears her body contained. They talked of guardians, and where she would live, who would be responsible for her. So, she’d decided, plain and simple, to be responsible for herself, and that she would live at Lauwine Hall and be its mistress, at least until the viscount—whoever he might be—returned to claim it. He was rather like a prince in her imagining, handsome, of course, and proud. When they met, he would instantly fall in love with her, and marry her the very next day so that she never had to go away.
Only later did she learn that he was old and portly, with a wife already, and four lordling sons. Perhaps one of them might turn out to be her prince instead.
No one had yet arrived to sweep her down the aisle.
Bella plodded onwards towards her special place – a huge willow tree, with shady boughs that overhung the grass. Beneath the green canopy she collapsed against the soft earth and loosened the ties of her bodice. It was too sticky for clothes. Her chemise was stuck to her skin, and she was tempted to take off her stockings to wade in the cool stream at the base of the valley.
Her ears perked. Alongside the birdsong and the usual rustle of branches, there was another whisper of movement. Someone or something was wading through the long grass.
Bella frowned. No one ever came here besides her and the odd poacher, and they came under the cover of night. Cautiously, she wriggled forward and parted the leafy boughs to peer out. About twenty feet away, two gentlemen stood on the lawn. The taller of the two was blond and wore a beautifully tailored blue coat. His boots were polished to a mirror-like shine. The second was shorter and considerably plumper. He was dressed like a country squire in knee breeches and buckled shoes. He turned to address his friend, and Bella recognised him at once as Charles Aubury, a vague acquaintance of her brother’s, one he surprisingly hadn’t attempted to marry her to yet.
“Well?” he said.
“It’s certainly not the crumbling ruin I’ve been led to believe.” The man in the blue coat encompassed the house with a gesture. “I was anticipating smashed windows and no roof, rather than wildlife and weeds.”
“Aye,” Charles acknowledged, nodding sagely. “Nature’s seen fit to reclaim its own, but I’ll give you that the walls and timbers are sound. The furnishings too, if a little dated. But you’re unlikely to impress anyone.”
“That was hardly my intention.”
“Damned if I understand what is.”
The man – was he the current viscount? – removed the seeds from the stalk of grass waving beside him, then scattered them in an arc around himself. “You won’t dissuade me, Charles. I’m settled upon the country. London has entirely lost its charm.”
Charles eyed him sceptically from beneath beetling brows. “Twiddle-twaddle!”
