Page 44 of Nothing Compares to the Duke
“Wonderful.” Lady Margaret clasped her hands and held them under her chin. She smiled and her eyes were much like her brother’s, glinting with an eagerness that verged on mischief. “There is so much left to do. Would you join me for lunch next week? We could begin planning, if that suits you.”
“Meg, perhaps you two can make arrangements another time,” Rhys interrupted. His words were like a chill breeze when everything had been sunny a moment before.
Meg’s face fell as she looked from her brother to Bella and back again. “Of course. I burst in and interrupted your conversation.” She offered a sheepish smile and turned toward her brother. “I only came to remind you that we’re due at the vicarage at noon. You do recall we agreed to visit?”
“I didn’t,” Rhys admitted. “But I appreciate the reminder.”
Meg seemed to sense the dismissal in his tone and offered Bella a tiny nod and a smile before headingtoward the study door. “I’ll be in the drawing room if you wish to speak before you depart.”
Bella couldn’t help but turn her gaze on Rhys. His answer would determine everything, and yet she could see he didn’t have one. Or that he knew she wouldn’t like the one he planned to offer.
“If not, I’ll send a note,” Bella assured the girl.
“A note would be lovely,” Meg told her. A moment later, she slipped out of the room and pulled the door shut.
“I don’t honestly know how to avoid disappointing her,” Rhys said after his sister departed. “I have no desire to disappoint you again either, but I cannot agree to this scheme.”
“Please.” Bella had rarely pleaded with him for anything. He’d always given her help freely, but she couldn’t remember a time she ever needed his cooperation this much. “We could start looking at the accounts right now.” Bella strode to the desk and picked up one of the leather-bound ledgers, hugging it to her chest. “If we start directly, I could be through half of this one by teatime.”
She wasn’t at all certain she could manage the feat, but she was more than willing to try.
Rhys shook his head in that stubborn way of his. “I wish I could make you understand. Inviting me to dinner one evening to put off a couple of pompous noblemen is worlds different from telling everyone you’ve agreed to marry me.”
“You’re the Duke of Claremont, for heaven’s sake.Many will say I’ve caught the most eligible bachelor in England.”
“You mean the most incorrigible bachelor in England. I have few merits, Bella. I’m known as a man of terrible morals. A rogue and a reprobate. I can’t even argue with those claims.”
Bella wanted to argue with them. At least the bit about him having few merits. Whatever he’d become, she believed a few things were still true. Rhys had always been loyal and he’d always been kind.
“You have a much different reputation,” he continued. “You’re known as—”
“Cold.”
“Clever,” he insisted. “And no one would believe you’re silly enough to choose me.”
Suddenly his handsome face looked weary and his jaw tightened. There was no sign of the easy smile he usually wore. His gaze flickered over her face, tracing the curve of her cheeks, pausing on her lips, then dipping low to stare at her necklace. Her bodice buttoned all the way to her neck, but she’d lifted the daisy pendant out, as she often did.
“I’m sorry. You’ll never know how much.”
“Then there’s nothing more to say.” She’d heard the pain in his tone, but all she could feel was her own anger. “Good luck with your ledgers.”
She was nearly to the door before he spoke again. “And what of Meg?”
Bella gazed at him over her shoulder, staring at his cravat, too angry to look him in the eyes. “There areothers to advise her. Lady Bembridge or the Dowager Viscountess Cartwright.”
He let out a sound of disgust. “They’re petty, judgmental women who look down on my family despite rank.”
“Please tell Meg I’m sorry.” Bella sighed.
Thinking of Meg reminded her of all the nervousness she’d felt before her first Season. She would have liked to help the girl.
“If you’re not willing to help me, I’ll be departing for Greece. I won’t be here to assist either of you.” She looked at him and a potent wave of tenderness filled her, confused her. She was angry with him, and yet she could never stop caring. “Good-bye, Rhys.”
Bella’s parting words echoed in his mind after she’d gone and Rhys sank into the chair behind his father’s desk. He pushed at the ledgers until he’d created open space on the desk, lifted his booted feet onto the blotter, leaned back in the chair, and covered his eyes with his hand.
God, he needed a drink. Several of them. Unfortunately, it wasn’t even midday and he didn’t want Meg to find him sloshed at such an hour.
He heard her footsteps outside the door. He knew she’d be watching for Bella’s departure and come to collect him for their visit to the vicar soon after.
