Wicked Surrender (Regency Sinners)(41)

He gave a snort. “Then I should like to hear what they were.”

“I think perhaps you will not, but I have to tell you anyway.” Bella swallowed. “The truth is, Dante, David St. Just, Agatha’s husband, was your father.”

“What?” Dante stared at her as if she had gone mad. Or as if the small amount of brandy she had imbibed had robbed her of her wits.

“It’s all in the journals,” Bella assured him. “How David married the elder sister but afterwards fell in love with the younger. How David’s own brother, Michael, married Agatha’s sister Patricia to avoid a scandal when she became pregnant with David’s child.”

“You are talking nonsense. I have no idea why, but you are,” Dante stated furiously. “My father was Michael St. Just.”

She shook her head. “Michael preferred men sexually, Dante. He had no desire to bed any woman or to father a child. The marriage was one of convenience and friendship, a shield for where Michael’s true affections lay and to avoid a scandal by legitimizing Patricia’s child. David and Patricia continued to love each other until Patricia’s death.”

“That’s a damned lie!”

“I assure you it is not,” Bella said softly.

“Get out!” Dante’s eyes blazed darkly, his body tensed as if for attack. “Get away from me now, Bella, before I do something we would both regret.”

The tears fell unheeded down her cheeks as she felt Dante’s pain as if it were her own. “I will leave the journals in my bedchamber when I go so that you might read them for yourself. But be sure to read the very last one too,” she added firmly. “It is very important that you do so.”

“Go, Bella. Please.” A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw as he turned away to stare out the window, although Bella seriously doubted he was seeing any of the parkland. “I have no wish to hurt you.”

“Nor I you.” But Bella had known, after reading the dowager’s journals, she did not have any choice but to tell Dante the truth. And that afterward, he would hate her for being the one to tell him. “Goodbye, Dante.”

He made no reply, but as Bella quietly closed the door behind her, she heard a crash inside the room and knew Dante must have hurled the glass of brandy at something and smashed it into a dozen pieces.

Much as her own heart was now breaking.





Chapter 14


Aston House, London

Ten days later



“His Grace the Duke of Huntley is here to see you, my lady,” Grant informed her blandly.

It was decidedly a moment of déjà vu for Bella.

Her heart leaped at the thought of seeing Dante again, before it as quickly felt like lead in her chest. As she was reclining on the chaise in her private parlor, wearing her night rail and robe and with her hair loose about her shoulders, her answer must necessarily be the same as last time. “Please inform His Grace I am unwell and not up to receiving visitors—”

“You appear well enough— Good God, no, you most decidedly do not look well.” Dante frowned, having entered the room with his usual arrogance but coming to a halt several feet away from Bella as he studied her intently. “What on earth is wrong with you?”

She inwardly cringed to have Dante’s gaze upon her when she knew she did not look anywhere near her best. She had been vomiting on and off this past few days, although she usually felt a little better by dinnertime.

It was bittersweet to look upon and be with Dante again.

She had missed him these past ten days since returning to London.

She had taken one of the Huntley carriages and left Huntley Park the morning after their conversation about the dowager’s journals. Dante had not even taken the time to come out of his study in order to say goodbye to her, even though she had sent Lincoln to ask him if she might borrow one of the dowager’s carriages for her journey. She knew Dante must still be deeply upset over the things she had revealed to him, but his obvious disinterest in her departure still hurt. Deeply.

“As I have said, I am unwell—”

“Leave us,” Dante instructed the butler tersely as he handed his hat and gloves to the other man, waiting until Grant had left the room before turning back to Bella. “Has a doctor been to see you?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“He believes I have eaten something which disagreed with me,” she dismissed. “It is not helped by the fact the air is not particularly healthy in London during the summer months.”

“Then why have you not removed yourself to the country?”

“Possibly because I am unwell and not up to the journey?”

Dante scowled his irritation with her flippant reply. “You need to be outside in the fresh air rather than cooped up in the house. I called in the hope you might take a carriage ride with me,” he added questioningly.

Much as Bella would have liked to accept his invitation, she really did not feel well enough to wash and dress, let alone accompany him on a carriage ride. Even the thought of the rocking of the carriage was enough to make her stomach feel queasy.

As it was, she struggled to sit up on the chaise. “Dante, you really cannot burst into my private parlor uninvited.”

He raised arrogant brows. “It would seem I have already done so.”