Bella and the Beast (29 page)

“Lila?” Miles asked with an ominous frown at Bella.

“Lila is his twin sister.” Striving for calm, Bella sliced the perfectly browned bread in half so that the cheese oozed out onto the plate. “Would
you
care for a cheese toast, too, Your Grace? I can make more for both of you, if you like.”

Without awaiting his assent, she transferred half onto his plate as a peace offering.

Miles picked it up—with his fingers, she noted. He took a bite and chewed appreciatively for a moment, though his stare remained stern. “Are there any other family members you've concealed from me?”

“None. Only the twins.” Because an explanation seemed in order, she added lamely, “Perhaps I should have said something, but they're my responsibility and I didn't wish to burden you with the matter.”

Miles glared at her another moment, as if trying to decide whether or not to believe her words. Then he shifted his frown to Cyrus. “So you abandoned your underage sister in Oxford. You left her alone in order to come to London on this fool's mission.”

Cyrus shifted uneasily in his chair as his defiant expression turned into that of a guilty little boy. “Lila isn't alone. Mrs. Norris is watching over her.”

“Who the devil is Mrs. Norris?”

“A neighbor,” Bella said as she buttered more bread for the frying pan. “The widow of a vicar and a very respectable guardian. Cyrus, I presume you didn't ask her permission to come to London. She'd never have allowed you.”

“But I left her a note—and one for Lila, too!”

Miles uttered a growl in his throat. “That is hardly the act of a responsible gentleman. They're likely worried to death about you. If I were your father, I'd thrash you for running off like that.”

Seeing her brother's dejected features, Bella went to him and put her arm around his shoulders. She brushed back a lock of dark brown hair from his brow. “His Grace is quite right to chastise you, my love. Your duty was to watch out for your sister.”

Miles abruptly gave her a piercing stare. She felt the force of it penetrate to her bones. What was he thinking behind that flinty mask? Was he just surprised that she would agree with him?

He turned his gaze to Cyrus, who hung his head, his fingers tearing at the cheese toast on his plate. “Sorry,” the boy mumbled. “But I was stuck at the cottage with nothing to do but study. It wasn't fair!”

Miles pushed back his chair and stood up. “A man always fulfills his obligations. Fairness has nothing to do with it. Tomorrow, I shall see to it that you return to Oxford. Be ready to depart at first light.”

With one last intent look at Bella, he walked out of the kitchen.

Her heart twisted into a painful knot. She wanted to run after him, to thank him for the basket of fruit and for giving fatherly counsel to her brother. Most of all, she wanted to throw her arms around him and lose herself in the joy of his passionate kisses.

But she herself had put a stop to all intimacy between them. They had mutually agreed to end their impulsive affair.
It would be best if we forgot this night entirely. Then we can go on as before. There's no need for us to speak of it ever again.

By her own declaration, she was no longer the duke's confidante and lover. She was merely his employee again. And now that Miles had caught her withholding the truth about her family, he had no reason to trust her ever again.

 

Chapter 21

Mounted on horseback, Miles rode beside the black coach along the narrow, rutted lane. It was high noon and the sun shone down from a clear blue sky washed clean by yesterday's rain. They had reached the outskirts of Oxford at last. The journey from London had taken more than six hours with one brief stop for refreshment at a posting inn.

Bella and her brother had come to the stables at the crack of dawn. While she'd issued directions to the coachman, Cyrus had peered enviously at the glossy black gelding being saddled for Miles. Despite the boy's hopeful query about borrowing a horse for himself, Miles bade him ride in the coach with Bella. The scamp deserved no rewards for abandoning his twin sister.

Miles still could scarcely believe Bella had two younger siblings. He had presumed her to be an only child like himself. Why had she never spoken of them? She'd had the perfect opportunity when they had discussed his father's death.
By standing up for yourself, you were learning how to be a man. It's a natural step for a boy of thirteen.

Bella could have explained that she'd had ample experience with adolescent boys. Instead, she had led Miles to believe she was alone in the world. It displeased him mightily to learn the extent to which she had shut him out of her private life.

Yet what right did he have to expect her confidences? Aside from that long-ago sojourn in Egypt, they had known each other less than a fortnight. That was hardly enough time for them to have grown close—even if they had shared the most spectacular night of his life.

Small houses lined the lane, the front gardens a riot of colorful spring flowers. A long-ago memory came to him of Sir Seymour laughing with his wife about how he'd been able to afford only a tiny cottage on his academic salary. Even in youth, Miles had been struck by how adoringly Lady Hannah had gazed at her husband. It had made such a stark contrast to his own parents, his mother frail and morose, his father cold and authoritarian.

Now, in his mind, the blue-eyed, brown-haired image of Lady Hannah transformed into that of her daughter. Miles wanted Bella to gaze at
him
with such adoration. For a brief time he'd believed she had formed an intense attachment to him.

My love
. She had called him that in the heat of their joining, and he had thought—hoped—that she felt a true affection. A fierce longing had taken root in him, a weakness that continued to bedevil him even though yesterday she'd uttered those same two words to her brother.

Miles felt like a damned fool. “My love” was nothing more than a casual endearment to her. She'd probably said it to numerous people over the years, family and friends alike. It meant little to her, just a tender phrase tossed out during a highly charged moment.

Nevertheless, he had half expected her to come after him when he'd left the kitchen. He'd wanted to steal a moment alone with her, to hold her in his arms and unleash his frustrations in a fervent kiss. But Bella had no interest in further intimacy. Any closeness of mind and spirit had been an illusion. She clearly did not trust him enough to divulge the details of her private life.

Logic told him to dissociate himself from her. There was no point to torturing himself with false hopes. Yet he had volunteered to come on this journey. He had given up a day's work in order to escort her brother back to Oxford. Perhaps because Bella made him feel alive, as if he'd awakened from a long sleep. One night of love had not been enough to satisfy him—it would never be enough.

Impatient with himself, Miles shut down the rise of lust. Fantasy accomplished nothing. He would not press his attentions on an unwilling woman, and that was that.

The coachman drew the team of horses to a halt outside a quaint cottage with a roof in sad need of repair, judging by the holes in the thatch. The stone chimney was crumbling, and the garden had reverted to a wild weedy tangle. A few yellow roses straggled up the walls along with a choking blanket of ivy.

A female face peered out of one of the mullioned windows, her features made indistinct by the old wavy glass. An instant later, the cottage door flew open at the same moment as Bella flung open the coach door at the footman, who had been reaching for the handle.

A remarkably pretty girl darted down the path. Like a fairy princess, she had golden-brown hair tied back with a pink ribbon that matched her gown, and Miles presumed her to be fifteen-year-old Lila.

Bella hopped out without even waiting for the step to be lowered. Clad in the bronze silk gown that she'd worn at their first meeting, she hastened to greet her sister at the garden gate. There, the two hugged each other tightly, and when Cyrus came trudging up to them, they brought him into their little circle.

Miles swung down from the gelding, scarcely aware of the footman taking the reins from him. A sense of isolation settled over him, the knowledge that he did not belong here. Bella and her siblings shared a closeness that he had never known in his own life—except perhaps to a small degree with their father, Sir Seymour.

But that had been a very long time ago.

Peeling off his riding gloves, Miles hesitated to intrude on the private reunion. Perhaps he should wait here by the coach and allow Bella to visit with her family. He could give them an hour or two together before it would be time for him and Bella to return to London.

Then a discordant sight caught his attention.

Lila began to wring her hands. When she spoke, her young voice held a trill of anxiety. “Oh, Bella, I'm so glad you're home. You won't believe what happened last night! Someone broke into the cottage!”

Miles crossed the rutted lane in two steps. To hell with propriety. He had to hear what the girl had to say. As he drew near, Bella and her brother both spoke at once.

“A thief—here?” Cyrus began.

“Oh, no!” Bella cried out, glancing over her sister as if to seek injuries. “Are you all right?”

Lila sniffled. “Of course! I frightened him away.”

“Was Mrs. Norris present? Do tell me you weren't alone.”

“She was sound asleep upstairs,” Lila said, her voice breaking. “It was dreadful. I—I heard a noise and … and…”

Bella slid her arm around her sister's shoulders. “Come inside, my love. You can tell me all about it over a cup of tea.”

Bella's deep blue gaze flitted to Miles, and the distress there cut straight to his heart. Then she directed Lila up the walk and into the cottage. Cyrus followed, his posture hunched as if he held the weight of the world on his shoulders. Clearly, the young man understood now that he should never have left his sister unguarded.

Miles grimly took up the rear. Although this pleasant little neighborhood didn't appear to be crime-ridden, thieves could be anywhere, looking for an easy mark. Perhaps Cyrus's absence had been noticed, and the villain had broken in believing that only a fifteen-year-old girl had been home. Miles clenched his jaw to think of what might have happened to Lila at the hands of a brute.

As they entered the cottage, a matronly woman with gray sausage curls and a green gown waited in the tiny entryway. She greeted Bella with great warmth and wagged a scolding finger at Cyrus before sweeping him into a hug. Bella introduced Miles, first to Lila, who turned frankly curious blue eyes on him, and then to Mrs. Norris, who bobbed a deep curtsy upon learning he was the Duke of Aylwin.

All aflutter, Mrs. Norris hastened down a narrow passage to fetch tea from the kitchen. The cottage had a cozy feel, he noted, from the steep staircase to the low ceiling and the miniature rooms. Bella started to lead her sister into a sitting room to the right, but Miles stepped through a doorway to the left. There, a blizzard of books and papers had been flung haphazardly over the dining table and bare wood floor.

“What happened here?” he asked.

Gliding with ethereal grace, Lila approached him. “This is where I found the thief, Your Grace. I heard a noise—a thump as if a book had been dropped. So I crept downstairs in the darkness to see what it was.”

Miles raised a stern eyebrow. “Was that wise? Oughtn't you have awakened your guardian?”

“Oh, Mrs. Norris can sleep through a crashing thunderstorm! And I was quite safe since I had my knife—”

“Your knife.”

“Why, yes.” Lila dug into the pocket of her pink gown and withdrew a small dagger much like her sister's. “Papa taught me how to use it in Persia.”

“Mmm.” Miles glanced at Bella, who met his gaze, her lips tilted in a slight smile. He could not help but appreciate that Sir Seymour had raised two such capable daughters. “Tell me what transpired.”

“I came upon the man right here”—Lila nodded at the dining chamber—“poking through those crates in the corner by the light of a candle.”

“Did you get a good look at him?”

She ruefully shook her head. “I'm afraid he wore dark clothes and had a hat pulled low on his head. When I screamed, he nipped out the candle at once and surged straight at me. That's when I slashed him.” Her dainty features turning fierce, she reenacted the scene by plunging the knife through the air.

“Did you hurt him?” Cyrus asked with avid interest.

“Yes,” Lila said. “There was blood on the blade, though I doubt I did any more harm than to gouge his arm, more's the pity! He went flying past me and out the back door and that was that.”

Miles revised his opinion of Lila as a delicate fairy princess. It seemed she was as plucky as her sister.

He stepped into the dining chamber to examine the mess. “Was anything else disturbed besides this room? Anything stolen?”

“Nothing is missing. I looked around, but we've really very little to steal, anyway.” A tremor ran through Lila as she pocketed the dagger. “I was just now composing a letter to you, Bella, to beg you to come home—and to see if Cyrus had found you. Then I heard the coach outside and you arrived—like magic!”

As Bella comforted her sister with a kiss on the brow, Miles picked up one of the many scattered notebooks. Opening it, he experienced a jolt of recognition. That untidy scrawl belonged to Sir Seymour. Miles looked through several more of the notebooks, then went to peer into the half-empty crate in the corner. It contained more books and papers. There were two other unopened crates, as well.

He caught Bella's eye and frowned, and in a flash she appeared to comprehend his meaning. She shooed her sister and brother toward the kitchen, instructing them to assist Mrs. Norris with the tea. When they were gone, she hurried closer, saying, “These crates hold Papa's life's work. I cannot fathom what a thief would want with any of this.”