Wicked Surrender (Regency Sinners)(6)
Considering Bella’s physical reaction to him, she could not claim her body, at least, to be averse to the idea.
Thankfully, she felt otherwise. She did not care for the way in which Huntley had intruded upon the privacy of her home and was now attempting to emotionally blackmail her with a double-edged sword. On the one side lay her dying stepgrandmother; on the other, the lure of an affair with him.
Bella owed the dowager duchess nothing but the same contempt she had received from the older woman. A contempt which had deepened after the death of Bella’s mother and stepfather. Admittedly, the duchess had also been suffering from the loss of her only son, but that was no excuse for the older woman’s complete lack of empathy or sympathy for Bella’s own loss. Or the duchess’s deliberate cruelty toward her in the weeks that followed. Admittedly, not the same humiliating cruelty as Dante had inflicted by his rejection of her declaration of love for him, but enough that Bella had known she could not remain under the duchess’s roof a day longer.
She would not go to Huntingdonshire, no matter what the duchess’s state of health. And most certainly not in the company of Dante St. Just. As he, it seemed, would not leave her home until he had elicited her agreement to accompany him.
Or, at least, the illusion of her agreement.
The St. Just family, what was left of it, had virtually disowned her after her elopement with Jeremy. Including the man now refusing to release her until she acquiesced to his demand to go with him to Huntingdonshire tomorrow.
“Very well.” Bella gave an abrupt inclination of her head. “You may release me now as you said you would,” she instructed coolly.
He considered her through slitted lids. “You might be agreeing merely to humor me in order to achieve your freedom.”
Obviously, he had not realized it, but Bella had not agreed to anything, whether it gave her freedom or otherwise. “I am sorry to disappoint you, but I do not feel any need to humor or reward you for your arrogance,” she derided.
Dante continued to eye her suspiciously. “You can be ready to leave with me at ten o’clock tomorrow morning?”
“I can.” But she had no intention of doing so.
“Very well.” His arms dropped back to his sides, but he did not step away. “I am very much looking forward to getting to know you again, Bella.”
She gave a snort. “Considering you did not know me in the first place, that might prove difficult.”
“I knew you,” he assured her softly. “Well enough to know your desire for me was real, at least.”
“As you said, a girlish infatuation,” she dismissed.
“And now you are a woman. A very beautiful and very desirable woman.”
“I am a widow,” she reminded him.
“Your year of mourning is over.”
“My mourning for my dear husband will never be over.”
Dante’s mouth thinned. “A dead husband cannot keep you warm in bed at night.”
“An unrepentant rake could never give me the warmth or fidelity my husband did,” she came back waspishly.
He frowned darkly. “I will make you a promise, Bella. For the duration of our time in Huntingdonshire, I will neither see nor acknowledge any other woman but you.”
Her brows rose mockingly. “Can a Sinner make such a promise with any degree of truthfulness?”
Dante drew back at this verbal reminder of exactly what he was doing here. Something he had almost forgotten during the course of this conversation with Bella.
Nor was she correct in her assumption that Dante and his circle of close friends had earned the name The Sinners because of a life of debauchery. The eight of them had chosen that collective name for themselves, in honor of the one they still considered their leader, Dominik Sinclair, the Duke of Stonewell.
“I can and do,” Dante informed her coolly.
She eyed him suspiciously. “Is this not rather a sudden change of heart on your part in regard to myself? After all, you have shown none of this…partiality toward me before now.”
Dante might not have revealed an interest in Bella, but that did not mean he had not felt it. He had genuinely believed he was acting for the best when he rebuffed her declaration of love seven years ago. Impossible to explain—to admit—to his feeling of shock when he learned of her elopement with Aston only weeks after declaring her love for Dante.
“You were a married lady,” he stated aloofly.
“And now I am a widow who has no wish to become a convenient lover for you whilst you are forced to reside in Huntingdonshire with your sick aunt.” She eyed him scornfully.
Dante gave a snort. “My dear Bella, you are the least convenient woman I have ever met.”
Her chin rose. “That will not change.”
“I sincerely hope not,” he drawled.
“Would you please leave now?” she repeated wearily.
“Until tomorrow.” Dante might be taking his leave, but he somehow felt no more reassured by Bella’s acquiescence to accompany him to Huntingdonshire than he had by her earlier refusal.
Chapter 3
“Going somewhere?”
Bella turned sharply at the sound of that voice speaking from beyond the lamplight of her stable yard. A voice she recognized only too well. “What are you doing skulking about in the shadows of my stables, Dante?” she challenged.