Chapter 5
Though it was a struggle, West left Bella to her own devices for the rest of the day.
He could have left Blackwood—should have, in fact.
The barren room by the docks was still his.
The one he’d called home for the first two decades of his life was also readily available just across the field—with fresh linens on the bed.
But the temptation of sleeping beside Bella, even with a plaster barricade between them, was too great to resist.
That night, he settled atop the bed Ben had offered him, pressed his eyes shut, and suppressed each of his other senses, and he swore he could hear Bella’s soft, even breaths. The sound may have been a fancy of his desperate mind, but it was a beautiful fancy.
The following morning, he padded down to the kitchens and brewed a cup of Bella’s favorite rich Assam tea with two splashes of milk and a dollop of honey. He placed it in the morning room with the hope that it would still be warm when she woke.
Difficult though it was, he left the house before she stirred and strode quickly over damp grass to the cottage beside the stables.
His mam stuffed the table with far too much food—much to his pa’s amusement—as she fussed something fierce over West’s lingering bruises.
She worried after him, always had. Though West hated to give her cause to fret, his fists had kept his parents in comfort long after the money had run out at Blackwood.
When they’d finished eating, his father offered him a pointed look.
“Need to muck out the stalls.” West knew his father well enough to understand the inherent request in the statement. He nodded and dropped a kiss to his mother’s cheek before trailing his father along the familiar path to the stables.
He snatched a shovel off the wall without complaint and joined his father in the one occupied stall. They worked in silence for so long that another man might have taken the request at face value. Pa was chewing on his thoughts.
“Not that I’m not pleased as punch to see you…” he finally said.
“But…” West supplied.
“But.” Pa tipped his head to emphasize the word as though it were all that was necessary.
“I missed you. And Mam.”
“You missed us.”
West paused his efforts with the dung, propped the shovel against the ground, and leaned on it with one arm. “I did.”
“Us and no one else.”
“Come out with it, then.”
His father sighed and adjusted his own shovel to serve as a counterweight. “And your visit here has nothing to do with Lady Bella.”
West bit back a sigh. “’Course not.”
“That girl’s been to hell and back twice again in the last year. She’s not in need of a meaningless flirtation.”
West remembered precisely what Bella had been through in the last year—and every year before.
He had wrapped his hand around her limp and lifeless one while she went through it.
He’d washed the blood from her forehead.
And he’d lived a thousand torturous eternities in the minutes before her eyes flicked open.
He hadn’t been able to protect her. The only thing he’d ever been able to offer her was a meaningless flirtation.
“You know damn well that Arabella Sinclair has never once needed a thing from anyone. Least of all me.”
“What I’m saying and what you’re hearing are two different things, lad.”
“I’ve memorized this speech, Pa. Lady Bella deserves the world, and anyone not in a position to provide it best keep his gaze from wandering in her direction.”
His father huffed in irritation and turned back to the muck. “You’re not a boy any longer, Miles. The view from this side of the fence looks mighty different now.”
“Pa…”
“I’ve said my piece.” His father’s tone hinted that he had plenty more he’d like to say on the subject. That he intended to set it aside for the moment was a relief.
The sentiment was nothing new. Pa had been sharing variations on the theme since Bella lowered her hem. Lady Bella is a lady; she needs to marry someone who can give her a proper life. His father was a kind man; he always left the last part unsaid—and you’ll never be able to give her a proper life.
The fact was, no one was giving Bella a proper life. Her mother had passed on. And her father... West may have made a living with his fists, but he didn’t delight in violence. Still, he would’ve taken great pleasure in being the one to remove that man from the world.
But such fantasies were in vain. The man met his maker more than a year ago— West would never know his vengeance.
He shook away the bloody thoughts. “I thought I’d start on the winter firewood as long as I’m here.”
“I thought you were staying until Michaelmas.”
“Might shorten my visit a bit.”
A pointed note accompanied his father’s hum. “The lad has been possessed lately---since that tree took out the pathway last year. He’s felled every trunk with a twig that so much as twitched in a light breeze. There’s plenty that needs breaking down.”
“I’ll take care of it.” West took his father’s shovel and hung his own before heading off toward the wood yard.
Twenty minutes later, his shoulder began to protest the unfamiliar motion, leaving the satisfying ache of a job well done.
The rain may have dried out, but the ground was still damp.
He’d made the mistake of pivoting in place as he moved logs to the chopping block and billets to the firewood pile.
The earth had worn away beneath his feet, forming mucky divots.
Despite the filth, the work was gratifying. The steady rise and fall of the axe, the pull of his tendons, allowed his mind to wander.
He’d split a tidy pile when the sound of new boots squishing through the mire interrupted him.
“Are you planning to hide here indefinitely?” Benedict asked.
West paused his work and turned to his friend. “Thought about it.”
“Come now, she’s not so fearsome.”
West turned, meeting Benedict’s gaze with a raised brow.
“Alright, she is, but she’s unlikely to actually kill you.”
The heap of unsplit logs beckoned to West, and he reached down for another. “I’m not afraid of Bella. But this is her home. She shouldn’t be made uncomfortable.”
“She’s not uncomfortable. She’s just… Bella.”
West bit his tongue and brought the axe down on another log. “Regardless.”
“Eliza is still feeling poorly. I don’t want to leave her for long. She’s fretting something fierce about her festival.” Ben bent over to retrieve the half that fell and handed it to him for quartering. “I don’t suppose you would be willing to help. Once you finish not hiding, of course.”
“What needs doing?” West grunted with the swing of the axe.
“She needs holes dug all along the east field for her chrysanthemums. That’s where we’ll hold the festival. And there are some booths to build and signs to paint.”
“Ground is too wet for the holes today. What sort of signs?”
“Directions, that sort of thing. She has a list.”
“So everything still needs doing?” he asked, brow raised.
“Yes, essentially,” Ben said.
“Should’ve said so. When’s the festival?”
“A little over a month, on Michaelmas. Eliza is used to a bit more… help than we have here.”
A chuckle broke from West’s chest. “Leave your little booths with me. I’ll not paint the signs though.
Eliza would never forgive you for allowing it.
” Reading and, by extension, spelling had never been West’s strongest area.
He knew precisely as much as he needed in order to navigate the world—no more and no less.
“Deal. Everything you’ll need is in the shed.”
West nodded, eyeing the remaining logs and the scattered ones he now had to stack beside the house.
“She’ll be well for a few minutes. Need a hand?” Ben asked.
“Wouldn’t turn it down. Mam’ll have my head if I leave it like this.” He gestured to the precarious mound.
Ben grabbed a small stack and hauled it over to the woodpile.
The afternoon saw West digging through the old shed for supplies. Arms full of shorn planks, he stepped onto the lawn only to stumble upon a vision in bronze ruffles.
An impossibly creamy expanse of throat, collarbone…
and bosom tempted him. Her skin probably still tasted of crisp air and cloves.
Bella’s neckline was practically indecent.
It would have been perfectly appropriate on any woman who wasn’t Bella—but she was Arabella Sinclair, set on this earth to tempt West to sin.
And tempt she did.
Worst of all, she was well aware of it. Bella’s dark eyes held a self-satisfied cast, and her cheeks a pleased golden-peach flush.
“Bella,” he greeted, then waited for the inevitable set-down.
“Weston.” There was a warm, teasing note to the word.
He lingered a beat, giving her a chance to continue, to snap her title at him. When she didn’t, dread settled over him.
“He didn’t…”
“Send me to assist you? Of course he did. Well, his wife did.”
He couldn’t read her tone. It lacked her usual sharp wit. Nor was it tinged with the familiar exasperation. There was something breezy and unbothered about it.
West sighed, half dropping his armful of wood on the ground. “He’s fixing to borrow trouble, isn’t he?”
“You’ve just discovered that?” Even that comment—though sarcastic—was missing her usual bite. Long fingers caught a silky strand of hair that had escaped her pins and twisted it behind her ear before drawing those fingers down the lithe line of her neck.
This woman was set on ruining him. West swallowed. “And after everything I’ve done for him…”
“Yes, you’re a veritable saint.”
“Patron saint of fighting and gambling. Didn’t you know?” He offered her a cheeky smile.
“Do not forget the drinking and whoring,” she added.
“Drinking, I’ll allow. The whoring must go to some other worthy contender.”
Black lashes flicked skyward as Bella rolled her eyes.
Her easy dismissal rankled him. “I mean it, Bella. Much as I wish to claim the title, I’m not actually a saint. There’ve been other women, but not half so many as you like to think.”
“So you’ve only patronized a quarter of the brothels in the country.”
“One.”
“One entire brothel?”