Wicked Surrender (Regency Sinners)(42)

“Then you will know exactly how to see yourself out again.” Se frowned her displeasure. “As you can see, I really am not dressed for receiving visitors.”

“That would depend upon the visitor, surely.”

Bella gave him a sharp glance as she heard the husky tone of his voice. A lover’s voice. “What are you doing here, Dante? The last time we were together—”

“I was a trifle out of sorts,” he acknowledged self-derisively. “But in my defense, you had just told me my father was not really my father, but my Uncle David was.”

It was a very valid defense, Bella acknowledged, having no idea how she would have felt in the same circumstances. Although Dante appeared happy enough today… In fact, he looked his usual devastatingly handsome self, in a dark green superfine, snowy white linen, and pale gray pantaloons, and his highly polished brown-topped Hessians. “You are reconciled to that knowledge now?”

“I was not for several days after we had spoken,” he admitted. “It seemed too outlandish to be true. But then I read the dowager’s journals from the year before I was born and the one after. There can be no doubt I was David’s son and not Michael’s.”

Bella’s heart ached for the bleakness of his expression. “I am so sorry.”

He shrugged broad shoulders. “One cannot change the truth, only accept it or reject it. I have chosen to accept it.”

That was something, at least. “Did you read your aunt’s last journal, as I advised?”

“I did, yes.”

“She intended to tell you the truth, Dante, to explain and apologize for her treatment of you.”

He nodded. “Of you too, apparently. I had no idea she had treated you so abysmally after your mother and Hal died.”

“She was grieving and in pain. I can see that now. I was the closest thing for her to punish for that grief. I have forgiven her.” Bella had thought often of the dowager’s life these past ten days, and could feel only pity for the life Agatha St. Just had been forced to lead if she was not to bring down a scandal on all her family. “She was married for over forty years to a man she knew was in love with her sister and not her. Even after Patricia died.”

“Yes.”

“And you were living proof of that love.”

“It would seem I was, yes.”

“And then her own son died, and you inherited your father’s title after all.”

“Yes.”

Bella did not know what to make of Dante’s short replies, nor could she read any of his emotions in his closed-off expression. But perhaps that was enough of an indication of his present mood? “I am not excusing the dowager’s cruelty toward you, or her bitterness in later life. But it perhaps helps to explain the reason she felt and acted in the way she did.” She could not imagine living in such a scenario herself. It must have been hell on earth.

He nodded. “She is to be pitied rather than hated.”

“That is very…magnanimous of you.” Bella smiled tentatively.

“I have had over a week to grow accustomed to the idea of David St. Just as my father rather than Michael. It does not change the fact that Michael was my father for the first seven years of my life, and that he loved and cared for both myself and my mother.” Dante’s mouth tightened. “After considering the situation for—oh, at least half a day, I have also decided to have Huntley Park pulled down brick by brick.”

Bella gasped. “You have?”

“I have,” he confirmed grimly. “It has long been a place of deep unhappiness, and I believe that unhappiness to have seeped into its very walls and foundations.”

Bella could not disagree with him on that, but pulling the house down completely seemed rather drastic.

“I am having plans drawn up to build a new house a mile or so away from where the original stood,” Dante explained airily. “I had hoped that you might have some interest in helping with the design and décor?”

“I told you—”

“I recall what you told me,” he assured her. “I was hoping… I am here to ask you…”

“Yes?” Bella looked totally bemused by his babbling.

Dante drew in a deep breath and tried again. “I would like you to think about considering…” Dear God, he was still babbling like an idiot.

Dante had only arrived back in London late the previous evening, far too late at night to call on Bella. It had taken every effort of will on his part to stop himself from going straight to Aston House, and Bella, despite the lateness of the hour. He had not slept at all and had quit his bed completely by seven o’clock this morning, only to then have to pace and wait until it was a decent enough hour to call upon her.

In spite of obviously feeling unwell, Bella looked achingly beautiful this morning.

So much so that it was all Dante could do to stop himself from sweeping her up in his arms and holding her. But there was a wariness in her eyes that prevented him from doing so, and he doubted she felt that emotion solely because of the informality of her appearance. They had seen each other completely naked, after all.

More than that, they had been joined in an erotic dance of the senses unlike any other he had ever known. Not once, but several times. Memories Dante had not been able to banish from his mind for a single moment these past ten days.