of womanhood. Her innocence shone beacon-clear. She was all honey and cream, from the top of her curls, tinged with the sun’s kiss, to her delicately tinted complexion. Her golden eyes contained a quality of unusual candour. And she had no more inches than Bella herself. Bella’s face brightened. A little sigh escaped her. With a generous and genuine smile, she floated forward, both hands outstretched to capture Georgiana’s cold fingers in a warm clasp.
“My dear! So you are Georgiana Hartley! Dominic has written me all about you. You poor dear! What a dreadful thing to happen, and you newly returned to England. You must let me help you.”
At Georgiana’s murmured, “My lady,” Bella broke her stride. But when Georgiana attempted to curtsy, Bella held on tightly to her hands, preventing it.
“No, no, my dear. You’re among friends here. You must call me Bella, and I hope you won’t think me terribly forward if I call you Georgiana.” She tilted her small head to one side, blue eyes twinkling.
Georgiana found her engaging manners difficult to resist. “Why, of course not, my…Bella. But truly, I feel as if I’m imposing dreadfully upon you.”
“Oh, pooh!” Bella pulled a face. “I’m always bored; there’s so little to do in London these days. I’m positively thrilled Dominic thought to send you to me! Why—” she paused, struck by a wayward thought “—just think. If you’d grown up at the Place, we would have been neighbours.” Bella waved Georgiana to the chaise and sank to the white damask beside her. “So, you see, there’s no need for you to feel at all bothered about staying with me.”
Georgiana’s head reeled. “Oh! But I wouldn’t dream of imposing—”
“Not at all! It’s the very thing. You have nowhere to go and we have plenty of room.” Bella gazed intently at Georgiana. “Truly, it’s no trouble at all.”
“But—”
Bella shook her head. “No buts. Just consider it as doing me a favour. We’ll have such fun. I’ll take you about and introduce you to all the right people.”
Despite a sudden tug of impetuosity, urging acceptance of the exciting offer, Georgiana, grappling with the flow of Bella’s burgeoning plans, felt constrained to protest. “But my la…Bella. I don’t think Lord Alton can have properly explained. I need to find a post as a companion.”
Recalling the specific instructions contained in her brother’s letter, Bella assured Georgiana that he had, indeed, explained fully. “But my dear, in order to find the right post for you, particularly considering your age, you must first become established in society.”
Bella watched the frown gathering in Georgiana’s fine eyes. Before her guest could raise any further objection, she raised one slim, restraining hand. “Now before you start arguing—and I do so hate people who must forever be sniping and finding fault—I must tell you that you will be doing me the biggest favour imaginable in allowing me to help you. You can have no idea how boring it is to pass the Season with no real purpose. The Little Season is coming up in a few weeks. I implore you to relieve my frustrations and stay with me and allow me to present you. Surely that’s not too much to ask?” Bella’s big blue eyes pleaded eloquently.
Bemused by the sudden twist the situation seemed to have taken, with Lady Winsmere now begging the favour of her company, and feeling too drained by the day’s events to fight a fate so apparently desirable, Georgiana found herself weakly acquiescing. “If it’s really not too much trouble…Just until I can find a position.”
“Splendid!” Bella grinned in delight. “Now the first thing we must do is get you settled in a bedchamber. A hot bath is just what you need. Always so soothing after travelling.”
With a magic wave of one small bejewelled hand, Bella took charge. In short order, Georgiana, her luggage, Cruickshank, dinner on a tray and a large tub together with steaming hot water to fill it had been conveyed to the best guest chamber on the floor above.
An hour later, after she had closed the door of Georgiana’s room behind her, having seen her young guest settled in bed, Bella Winsmere’s face took on a pensive frown. Slowly she descended the stairs, so deep in thought that she was halfway across the hall towards the front door before she recalled her intended destination. Swinging about, she turned her steps towards the library at the back of the house.
At the sound of the door opening, Lord Winsmere looked up from the pile of documents he was working on. His lean face lit with a smile of great warmth. He laid aside his pen to reach out a welcoming arm to his wife.
With a quick smile, Bella went to him, returning his embrace and dropping a quick kiss on his greying hair.
“I thought you were bound for Drury Lane tonight?” Lord Winsmere was more than twenty years older than his beautiful wife. His staid, sometimes regal demeanour contrasted sharply with her effervescent charm. Many had wondered why, from among her myraid suitors, Bella Ridgeley had chosen to bestow her dainty hand on a man almost old enough to be her father. But over the years society had been forced to accept the fact that the beautiful Bella was sincerely and most earnestly in love with her eminently respectable lord.
“I was, but we have an unexpected guest.”
“Oh?”
His lordship pushed his papers aside, consigning them to the morrow. If his Bella had sought him out, then she had some problem to discuss. He rose and, Bella’s hand still in his, led her to the two armchairs stationed before the fireplace.
Bella sat, chewing the tip of one rosy finger, a habit when thinking profoundly.
Smiling, Lord Winsmere seated himself opposite her and waited for her to begin.
“It’s really most intriguing.”
Inured to his spouse’s methods of explanation, Lord Winsmere made no response.
Eventually Bella gathered her wandering mind and embarked on her story. “Dominic’s sent a girl to stay.”
At that, Lord Winsmere’s brows rose sharply. But the knowledge that, despite his apparent lack of moral concern, Dominic Ridgeley had never permitted the slightest breath of scandal to touch his sister’s fair name held him silent.
“She’s a would-have-been-neighbour. Her name’s Georgiana Hartley. Her father was a painter, one James Hartley. He died in Italy some months ago and Georgiana was left to her uncle’s care. Most unfortunately, her uncle, who lived at the Place—you know, it’s that funny estate that was made by selling off a piece of Candlewick—well, he died too. Just before her father, only she didn’t know that, being in Italy. The long and the short of it is, Georgiana travelled all the way from Italy, only to find her uncle dead and her cousin Charles in charge. It only needs to add that Charles is an out-and-out bounder and you have the picture.” Bella spread her hands and glanced at her husband.
“How did Dominic come to be involved?”
“It seems Georgiana was forced to flee the Place at dawn this morning. She doesn’t know anyone—no one at all. She asked at the Three Bells, thinking to find a sympathetic lady in residence at a neighbouring estate. Of course, the Tadlows sent her to Candlewick. You know how all our people are about Dominic.”
Lord Winsmere nodded sagely, a thin smile hovering about his lips at the thought of the godlike status his far from godly brother-in-law enjoyed on his own lands.
“Well,
