The Wedding Game(43)

She looked across at her baffled sister. Belle sometimes had trouble deciphering a regular letter, if the writer did not have a clear hand. Separating one direction of writing from another was far too difficult for her to manage. To send such a letter, Ben might as well have been writing in Latin.

Or in code.

There could be no more innocent way to get a private message to her than this.

‘What does it say?’ Belle was eagerly awaiting her half of the letter.

‘Let us see.’ Amy smiled at her sister as if the paper in her hand was just ordinary social correspondence and not the most important message she had ever received. Then she looked down, forcing herself to focus only on the first part of the letter, making no effort to let her eyes dart to the left to read the sideways writing crawling in and out between the words. ‘It seems we are invited to a house party at Mr Lovell’s estate in Surrey.’

‘A house party,’ Belle said, her worry over Guy Templeton forgotten. ‘I have never been to one of those.’

‘No, you have not,’ Amy agreed, glanced down at the letter again and then tucked it into her pocket so as not to be distracted by it.

‘What will it be like?’

Extremely difficult for all concerned, thought Amy. But she continued to smile. ‘This one is to celebrate your engagement to Mr Lovell. I suspect there will be fine dinners, parlour games and perhaps a ball where you can meet his friends.’ Belle would be under the scrutiny of everyone there for several days. Since she was the guest of honour, they could hardly creep away home if things got too difficult. Amy grew tense just thinking about it.

‘Dancing and games,’ Belle said happily.

‘It will also be a chance to see your new home,’ Amy said with as much enthusiasm as she could muster.

‘And I will get to see Guy again,’ she said. Then she remembered she was not to be familiar and added, ‘Mr Templeton.’

‘Perhaps,’ Amy said, hoping that, after Vauxhall, Ben would know better than to trust him.

‘And it will be your new home, too,’ Belle finished, smiling as though relieved that it was all settled.

Amy wet her lips. ‘After you are married, things might be quite different than you expected. Still good,’ she added hurriedly. ‘But different.’

‘I like things the way they are,’ Belle said, with a surprising show of independence.

‘I know, dear. But we cannot always have things the way we want them.’

Belle frowned, trying to understand.

‘For one thing, even if Mr Templeton is there, you must not go off alone with him, as you did at Vauxhall. You must not go off into the dark with any gentlemen. It is not a polite thing to do.’

‘It was bad to go off with Guy?’

That answered the question of what had happened when she had disappeared. Belle had been alone in the Dark Walks with a man. And despite what she’d hoped of him, Guy Templeton had not stepped forward to make an offer or done anything else to prove that his intentions toward her had been serious. ‘You did nothing wrong. It was my fault for encouraging you to spend so much time with him.’ She had been so sure that a proposal was imminent that she had thought there would be no harm done.

‘It was all Mr Templeton’s fault,’ Amy said, firmly, knowing it was her own fault as well. ‘And I am sure Mr Lovell would agree with me.’ He would not like it any more than she liked to think of Ben kissing Belle. ‘But you must not let it happen again.’

Belle gave her a doubtful look. ‘When we see Guy at the house party, I will ask him if we did wrong.’

Amy looked back in surprise. It sounded almost as if her sister had disagreed with her. If that was true, it was the first time in ages she had heard anything like rebellion. ‘You should not even speak to Mr Templeton,’ she said, in a firm tone. ‘And in no case should you listen, if he tells you to do something. From now on, you must let Mr Lovell make these decisions for you.’

‘But what if I do not want to do as he says?’ It was a legitimate question and one Amy had asked herself many times, when forced to follow one of the many rules that men expected women to abide by. Men were not always right. And when they were wrong, it was stupid to follow them.

But it was a very different matter when Belle was the one who wanted freedom. ‘Mr Lovell is to be your husband. It will be his duty to decide what is best for you in all things.’

‘Papa makes decisions for me,’ Belle said slowly. ‘And so do you.’

Amy nodded.

‘And now Mr Lovell will.’

Amy smiled, relieved that she was beginning to understand.

‘When do I get to decide things?’ Belle asked.

It was a question Amy had hoped that she’d never hear, for she did not have a good answer to it. ‘We all want what’s best for you,’ she began cautiously. ‘And on some things...the very important things like marriage...what is best is that you let the people who love you make the decisions.’

‘Then why does Mr Lovell get to do it?’ Belle’s smile had disappeared. Her lower lip jutted out in a pout that would have been unattractive on any other face. ‘He likes me. But that is not the same as love.’

For someone thought to be simple, her sister had an excellent grasp of the current situation. ‘He is a good man,’ Amy said, still not sure if that was true. ‘He will take good care of you.’