A Terrible Beauty (Season of the Furies Book 1) (32 page)

“You're right about it all, especially that I don't understand what the two of you have been through, but I wish to learn.”

“She was shot.” Drew declared flatly. Michael stared back at his brother in shock.

“Mary Seacole and Belle would go to the battlefield with the orderlies and haul the living to safety. Sometimes the Russian snipers shot at them. The bastards played with them, trying to make them run. Those women never ran and one day Belle was hit. A bullet grazed her hip, but she still stayed by Mary’s side.”

Paddy cleared his throat and Drew looked away from his brother leaving Michael chastened. All this time he’d believed that Belle remained here at his sufferance. Granted, she’d returned when he asked her to, but until recently he’d believed she’d come to the abbey intent on facing him, taunting him. It was not the case all. She’d been afraid of him the first day when she’d confronted him in the library, yet she’d stayed for Drew. Her only agenda had been to keep her friend alive. She’d been afraid at the inn thinking Michael might have her arrested if she displeased him, but she’d returned with him anyway, still refusing to run under fire. He thought back to the library this morning. Damaris sitting protected in her husband’s embrace, Michael thinking he should guard the other woman’s sensibilities, but he hadn’t thought about Belle – not really and she’d lived through the nightmare of that war. God, he felt ashamed.

“I’m going to see how she is,” he said quietly. “For what it’s worth, Drew, you’re right about everything. I should have taken better care of her today, but I will do better by her in the future. You have my word.” Drew nodded, but said nothing, appearing to be lost in his own hellish memories. Michael knew that Paddy would sit with Drew all night if necessary to help hold his brother’s demons at bay and Michael would do the same for Belle. He walked slowly along the corridor to her room, each step weighted with iron. He would find his answers tonight. He only hoped he could learn to live with them.

Michael passed Mrs. Babcock along the way. His housekeeper looked as if she were about to speak to him, perhaps warn him away. He forestalled her by raising his hand. He wanted to see Belle, needed to see her, and he’d had quite enough of warnings and lectures for one night.

Everything was quiet beyond her door, no sounds of talking, no crying. He knocked softly. There was no answer. The latch was broken from Michael kicking open the door. He pushed lightly against the wood and the door swung inward. A lamp continued to burn beside the vacant bed and for a moment Michael thought that perhaps Mrs. Babcock had given her a new room. Then he saw her standing at the window with her back to him, her dark hair falling in waves half way down her back. She was searching for something and Michael had had enough dark nights of the soul himself to know that she was watching for the dawn. “Belle?” he called softly. He wasn’t certain she would answer him.

“Yes, Michael,” she replied. She sounded resigned more than anything else and that bothered him.

“Are you all right?” he asked as he crossed the room to her side.

She shook her head and gave a weak laugh. “Judging from tonight, I shouldn’t think so. I’ve caused quite a bother, haven’t I?” She sighed. “I’m tired, and I’m afraid to sleep. Mrs. Babcock offered to sit with me, but I couldn’t let her do that. She has the entire household to run tomorrow. I’m not that selfish – at least not anymore. Is Drew all right?”

“Paddy’s sitting with him. He’ll be fine.” Michael placed his hand on the center of her back, gently rubbing it in a circular pattern. “Why didn’t you tell me about your nightmares?” He could hardly believe it possible, but if anything, the muscles of her back grew tenser beneath his hand. Michael knew if he said the wrong word now, she would turn and bolt into the night just to get away from him and the memories he stirred up for her. He kept gently circling her back with his hand.

“I was afraid you might think I deserved them,” Belle said softly, a slight tremor in her voice. “No matter who nurse, Annabelle Winslow is now neither you, nor Strathmore can let go of a wretched nineteen-year-old girl.” She turned to face him. “If I’d shown up at the abbey today, my face and body ravaged with scars, if I’d abased myself in that room both of you would have pitied me, but you see, most of my scars don’t show. The only one in there today who understood that was the duchess.”

Michael flinched as he remembered Damaris’ words after Belle left the room.
‘
She said she wouldn’t ask for forgiveness. She never said she didn’t want it
.
’ Belle hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him about her nightmares. Why should she? He’d obliterated what trust she’d offered him when he’d turned away from her today and dismissed her.

“Be assured,” Belle continued acerbically, “the members of the ton I meet these days accomplish my abasement for me. Muriel Cathcart, one of my particular victims, you’ll recall, is now the Countess of Wrightly. She had the pleasure of giving me the cut direct – actually pulling her skirts away so that brushing by me wouldn’t taint her.” Belle’s eyes searched his face in the room’s dim light waiting for his reaction – either approval of the countess’ actions or condemnation of them.

“That day,” Michael began, thinking of the morning Belle had upended Drew’s breakfast on his head, “I wouldn’t really have had you arrested as a ....” Michael stopped, unable to use such a loathsome word in connection with Belle. She had no such qualms.

“As a whore?” She made a scoffing sound. “You would have if I’d made you angry enough. Luckily for me I didn’t.” Her golden eyes met his unflinchingly. “Don’t forget, I was there in the Malberry’s parlor that night too. Remember me? The girl with her gown pulled down to her waist when Kingsford brought in her fiance´?”

“There will always be that standing between us,” he said softly, reaching out to stroke her cheek. She surprised him by leaning her cheek into his palm.

“Standing between us, or connecting us – I’m no longer certain which it is. You also stood in front of me that night until I’d covered myself so that neither Kingsford nor Iredale would see me unclothed. Many men wouldn’t have bothered. They would have completely ruined me, Michael, and never looked back. As you pointed out, I would have let you. Your revenge would have been complete.”

He shook his head. “I would never have turned my back on a baby if....” He stopped himself, but it was too late. She understood his implication.

Belle stepped away from him and returned to her vigil at the window. “You never would have abandoned your child, so you wouldn’t risk having to give me your name. No amount of revenge was worth that.” She drew a ragged breath and Michael searched for something to say. “What I never understood though, was why you and Kingsford never wrote my name in the betting book at White’s like you did poor Sarah’s.”

Michael joined her staring into the night. “It was never the plan. I wanted you humbled, harmless. I didn’t want you destroyed – at least not then, but after Drew was wounded,” he sighed, “well, I’m glad I didn’t see you at Scutari. I might very well have destroyed you that day.”

“You were too late by that time,” she said. Cold dread worked its fingers through his stomach at her matter-of-fact tone. She turned and regarded him with an odd mixture of bitterness and curiosity. “Would you like to see some of my invisible scars, Michael? Would you like to hear what dreams make me scream in the night?”

“I will listen to whatever you wish to tell me,” he answered, reaching out to gently capture her arm. “All night long, if you want.”

“Very well,” she said in that arch manner she’d used to such great effect years ago. “It might prove amusing for you to....”

“No, damn it,” he ground out. “Don’t ever think that. I will never be amused by anything you've endured, or by anyone who’s hurt you. If I thought that for even a moment, then I was a damned fool.”

Belle sighed and rubbed her forehead in a gesture of exhaustion, as though she’d decided to end their battle because she no longer had the stamina for it. “I dream of the battlefields – at least in the beginning.”

“I thought as much,” Michael replied.

“It’s mostly the same dream. There’s so much blood and all these arms and legs are scattered around me like the pins in a game of Spilkins.” She shuddered. “I’m always trying to sort them, if you can imagine that – sort them and reattach them. Every time I reach into my basket to find cloths, or a needle and suture I pull out a fan, or a nosegay – once, even those blasted combs Drew bought me. That was a bad night.”

Belle rubbed her temple with her hand, the memory of her dream overtaking her for a moment. Michael remained quietly at her side, waiting for the moment to pass. “I have nothing useful to work with, nothing that can help them,” she continued in a whisper. “Every soldier has a big, gaping chest wound as if their hearts have been ripped out. They keep pleading and begging me for help just as they did that first day at Barrack Hospital and I still can’t do anything for them. When I look in my basket again, it’s full of hearts. I’m the one who’s ripped them out, you see.” The last word ended on a dry sob and Michael pulled her into his arms.

“Ah, Sweetheart, don’t,” he murmured.

Belle rested her head on his shoulder. How could he have let his own stubbornness shove aside everything he’d come to know about the woman he held? What kind of man had he become to have left her to fend for herself after making her relive such horrible events? He'd selfishly granted himself the time to sort out his feelings, but Belle didn't have that luxury. She'd been trapped in her memories tonight as surely as if he'd turned a key locking her inside of them.

“It’s just a face,”she murmured. “It’s not who I am – not anymore. Strathmore was right, though. That’s all anyone ever saw. The reigning beauty. I think sometimes it would be easier if I was scarred on the outside. People would be more forgiving if they could see my flesh, torn and mottled – the obvious evidence of my redemption.”

Michael brush her hair behind her ear and then bent down and kissed her lightly, temple to ear. “Let me help you, Belle. I've no right to ask, but tell me what happened to you. The truth, all of it, no matter how ugly.”

“Didn't Drew tell you?” she whispered, her voice broken, fatalistic.

Michael shook his head. “No. He'd die before he betrayed you.”

She gave a ragged laugh. “He almost did, didn't he, and not only in the Crimea. My stepfather threatened to kill him that Season. He would have, too if I hadn’t driven him away. Drew knew you see, and he was a danger to the baron’s plans.” Her words poured over Michael, as cold and shocking as a plunge in an icy lake. Belle eased herself away from the protection of his arms and stepped closer towards the heavy, velvet drapes surrounding the windows.

She reached out to finger the material, her motions jerky. “He's very observant, our Drew. He noticed when I had difficulty breathing because my ribs bothered me, or when we danced and my wrist couldn't bend without causing me pain.”

Michael felt the air leave his lungs in a rush. She couldn't mean what he thought she did, surely. Everyone knew Baron Seaton had doted on her to a fault, spoiled and pampered her until she'd become a tyrant.

“I tried to brush those things away, a clumsy fall, stays that were cinched too tight, but then one day I was careless and Drew noticed the bruising on my arm.” She lowered her head as if to hide her shame. “The baron likes to hurt...to punish those who disappoint him. Unfortunately, he's very easy to disappoint.”

“God, Belle!” He reached for her, but she shied away like a timid animal.

“Drew always fancied himself as knight errant – I’ve told you that. He wanted nothing more than to rescue his princess, but I couldn't let him do that. I was ashamed that he'd discovered the kind of life my mother and I lived, constantly in fear of doing, or saying anything that upset my stepfather. I tried convincing Drew that he was mistaken. He didn't believe me, of course. He just gave me this tender, pitying look that made me feel even more ashamed because he knew that my life was one enormous lie. I became angry with him simply for having the common decency to feel compassion for me, Araby Winston, the darling of the ton.” Belle looked up at him from the corner of her eye, a quick, darting motion that despite its brevity, conveyed all the pain and humiliation she held inside. She walked away from him and Michael feared she wouldn't continue, wouldn't tell him the one thing he needed most to know, but feared to learn. Belle sat down on one of the small chairs by the fireplace.

“I lived with Seaton from the age of ten. I watched him strike my mother at least once a week for nine years. Sometimes he did much more than that. Two months after they married he beat her so badly that she lost the baby she carried.” She turned to look at him, her eyes vacant. “The last time I tried to stop him from beating her I couldn't leave my bed for three days.” She held up her hand to stop him when he would have crossed to her. “I'm a survivor by nature, Michael. It was not in my mother's nature, but by God, it is in mine. By thirteen I'd become mistress of the cutting quip. I learned to draw his ire from my mother by decrying the idiocy of others, particularly those who held him in low regard. He would laugh and pat my cheek, calling me his creature, his little puss whose face would be all our fortunes.” She laughed, but the sound coming out dry and raspy. “He was right. I became his creature, Michael, and I would have done anything to anybody to stop him from tormenting my mother, or myself. That's not very pretty now, is it?” she murmured as she stared sightless into the fire. There was a hopelessness conveyed in the set of her shoulders, a despair she wore like a mantle.