Outrageous Confessions of Lady Deborah Page 19

Bella. Deborah. Bella. Even Elliot had confused her with her creation. Deborah smiled Bella’s wicked smile. ‘So it is my fault, is it?’

  ‘Completely.’

  ‘Then I suppose it is up to me to take remedial action.’

  ‘I’d say we should make a joint effort.’

  She shook her head. ‘It occurs to me that there is something else missing from my—Bella’s repertoire that we might try.’

  ‘What is that?’

  Deborah wriggled down Elliot’s body, kissing his chest, his stomach. Her heart pounded at her own daring, but the sense of power, the illusion of Bella, and the headiness of sexual satisfaction gave her confidence. ‘I’ll show you,’ she said, deliberately echoing Elliot’s own words, and began to kiss the thick, hard length of his shaft.

  * * *

  ‘I am supposed to be dining with Alex at his club,’ Elliot said sleepily some time later as they lay in the tangle of sheets.

  Deborah opened her eyes, surprised to see, through the uncurtained window, that dusk had fallen. Where had the day gone? How could the hours have passed so quickly? What was she doing here, lying naked in bed, with Elliot?

  With Elliot! She closed her eyes, then opened them again. He was still naked. She was still naked. Oh God!

  He smiled at her lazily and kissed the tip of her nose. ‘I find the idea of dinner with Alex incredibly unappealing. I want to stay here.’ He tucked a long strand of her hair behind her ear. ‘What do you say?’

  ‘Say?’ Panicked, Deborah pushed him away and sat up abruptly, clutching the sheet around her. She hadn’t thought beyond—beyond—she hadn’t thought! When Bella was done with a man, she simply donned her clothes and vanished into the night. Or she made him do so. When Bella was done with a man, there were no consequences, no repercussions, no discussions, no expectations. There was certainly no suggestion of spending the night together. Had Elliot not realised? Had she not made it clear?

  Oh God, she hadn’t thought to explain. She had been so—and he had been so—why hadn’t she thought? ‘Why would you want to stay?’ she asked agitatedly.

  Confused by the edge in her voice, Elliot, too, sat up. ‘Well, for a start there is the matter of finding your favourite situation. I am not suggesting that we can exhaust the possibilities in one night, but—’

  ‘Elliot, there can be no question of—of exhausting the possibilities. I’m not Bella. I mean, I was Bella when we—when we were…’ Deborah clutched at the sheet. ‘I told you, I’m going to kill Bella off.’

  ‘Because you no longer need her. I understand that, but I’m not sure I understand why you’re being so…’ Elliot stopped, momentarily at a loss. ‘Don’t you want me to spend the night?’ he asked, realising as he did that spending the night, the thing he never did, was precisely the thing he most wanted.

  The very idea of Elliot in her bed, sleeping beside her, waking up beside her, holding her through the night, making love to her through the night, was exquisite torture. Deborah stared at him, stricken, as the last remnants of her fantasy dispersed. Elliot wanted to spend the night with Bella, but Bella was well and truly gone, and no matter how much Deborah wanted to spend the night with Elliot, he would not want to spend the night with her and…

  ‘Deborah?’

  If she didn’t know him better, she would think him offended. She didn’t want to think about that. About why he was offended. About what he wanted. She didn’t want to think about what she wanted either, because it didn’t matter. What mattered was making things clear, which she should have done before, only she had been so carried away with Bella and Elliot. Especially Elliot. Oh hell! ‘I thought you understood. This afternoon, it was a—a last performance. Bella’s last performance. I thought you realised that, Elliot. When we were talking about the books. When you were talking about what Bella liked, what Bella did not know, I thought you knew that it was just—that it wasn’t real.’ She felt as if her skin, her body, was metamorphosing with every passing moment, from beautiful Bella to disgusting Deb. Terrified that he witness her transformation, she pulled the sheet up to her neck.

  Elliot ran his fingers through his hair, staring at her in consternation. The voluptuous creature who had been lying in his arms only moments before had been replaced by a haughty, icy female who looked like her maiden aunt. ‘Are you telling me that you regret this? That you wish it had never happened?’

  ‘I’m saying it won’t happen again. I can’t have an affaire with you. I think you should go.’

  Though an affaire was what he would have proposed—given the chance—Deborah’s out-of-hand rejection made Elliot wonder whether it was what he actually wanted. He hadn’t thought beyond this moment, but now that it had happened and it had been all, more than he had dreamed, he was very far from the point where he wanted to make it finite. This realisation confused him. Deborah’s dismissal of an offer he hadn’t even had a chance to make hurt. Elliot got out of bed and began to pull on his clothes. ‘It is customary to await an offer before turning it down,’ he said curtly. ‘I haven’t asked you to be my mistress.’

  ‘Oh. You mean you did understand after all—about Bella?’

  Elliot stopped in the middle of buttoning his waistcoat. ‘Are you seriously saying that this afternoon, you and I, it won’t happen again?’ Deborah looked like a trapped animal. He sat down on the bed again and tried to take her hand, but she shrank from him. ‘What the hell is wrong?’ he snapped, even more offended. ‘What have I done to upset you?’

  ‘Nothing! You haven’t. I’m sorry. It’s my fault.’

  ‘What is your fault?’

  ‘This. I shouldn’t have—we shouldn’t have. Can’t we just forget it?’ She knew as soon as she spoke the words that they were preposterous. Why hadn’t she thought this through? How could she have been so stupid, so incredibly stupid? No wonder Elliot was looking at her as if she had two heads. She had spoilt everything. ‘It was a mistake. My mistake. I’m sorry.’

  Her utter dejection cut through Elliot’s anger. The feisty, sensual woman who had sparred with him, teased him, flirted with him, aroused him and satisfied him beyond anything he had ever known was fled. ‘Deborah, I don’t know what it is going on in that clever head of yours, but—’

  ‘Nothing. It is nothing, save that I am sorry that you seem to have misunderstood—that I have not made myself clear. Please don’t let this spoil things between us, Elliot. I want us to be friends.’

  ‘Cannot friends be lovers?’

  ‘No! No, I can’t. It was Bella. I wish now that I had not told you about her,’ Deborah said wretchedly.

  ‘For God’s sake, I wasn’t making love to Bella!’ Elliot exclaimed in exasperation.

  ‘Yes, but, Elliot, that’s exactly what you were doing.’

  He stared at her in silence, quite unable to formulate any meaningful answer to this non sequitur. Snatching his coat from the floor, Elliot dragged it on and made for the door. ‘I assure you, I was under no illusions about who I was making love to. You told me only this afternoon that the time had come for you to stop hiding behind Bella. Are you absolutely sure that is the case? I would think hard about that, if I were you.’

  ‘I am not the only one hiding,’ Deborah threw at him, but Elliot closed the door to the bedchamber, making a point of not slamming it. She listened to the sound of his boots on the stairs. The parlour door creaked open as he went in search of his hat and gloves. She heard the sound of the latch on the front door being lifted. There was a pause, as if he was waiting for something, then the soft thud of the door closing and the house was silent.

  Deborah curled up into a ball and huddled under the sheets. They smelled of Elliot. And sex. She smelled of Elliot and sex. Despite the misery of his departure, her body still throbbed with satisfaction. It was like a battle which they had both won. The sheer elation of their coupling was so very different to the sense of subjection, latterly the degradation which she had endured in the marital bed with Jeremy. Elliot made her feel powe
rful. Or was that Bella?

  What did it matter? Elliot was gone and Deborah was bereft. He would never understand. She barely understood herself. It had seemed so right to tell him about Bella; she had been so sure she was seeing things clearly for the first time. She would forget all about the past. The future would be filled with new writing, new friends. And Elliot.

  Deborah buried her head under the feather pillow. The very idea of an Elliott-less future made her feel sick. Whichever way she looked at it, it was a colourless wasteland of a place. She couldn’t bear it.

  She would not have to! She would not! When he thought about it, Elliot would surely understand about Bella. Things between them would go back to how they had been. She would forget all about this afternoon. They both would. Wouldn’t they?

  Deborah groaned. She did not want Elliot to forget, any more than she really wanted to believe that he had been making love to Bella. Had she been hiding? Was she hiding still? She beat her fists on the mattress, furious at her own contrariness. What the devil was going on in her head? She couldn’t want him. She couldn’t let him see how much she wanted him. She didn’t want him. It was Bella, not Deborah, and Bella was no more.

  Sitting up, she hurled the pillow across the room. ‘Devil take it!’ Deborah dropped her head into her hands. She was not in love with Elliot. She could not possibly be in love with him, she couldn’t. It would be fatal.

  Chapter Ten

  Elliot sent Alex his excuses as soon as he returned home. Now he sat in his study, staring at the parcel of books sitting on his desk, strangely reluctant to cut the string. What was stopping him? He poured himself a glass of Madeira and stared at that instead. His mind was such a tangle of thoughts, he had no idea how to begin to unravel them. Taking a sip of the wine, he made a face and put it down.

  I am not the only one hiding. He had a horrible suspicion that there were uncomfortable truths lurking somewhere under that last remark of hers, but he wasn’t at all sure he was ready to confront them. What the hell had happened, there in her bedchamber, afterwards? He racked his brains, but could think of nothing he had said or done. His offer to spend the night had been the trigger, but why?

  Why had he offered anyway? He hated to spend the night with his chères-amies. He took a sip of the

  Madeira and made a face. Chère-amie no more fitted his idea of Deborah than mistress. Affaire seemed such a temporary word. He had always liked that about it. Before.

  Elliot picked up his paper knife and cut through the string. Two books, unbound and uncut, lay before him. Arsenic and Wolfsbane. Deadly poisons. Deadly Nightshade. Deborah. This afternoon, the revelation of her authorship had been exciting. Tonight, he wondered what his reading would tell him about her marriage. Bella wreaked revenge so that her creator could endure the mess she had made of her life. What mess?

  He stared at the frontispiece of the first book. He was afraid. He didn’t want to pity her. He didn’t want to think ill of her. He wanted…

  Elliot swore, then took a deep draught of his wine. He didn’t know what the hell he wanted any more. With a sigh, he took his knife and began to cut the pages.

  He read both books, one after the other, sitting up late by the library fire in his dressing gown. Like the novel Lizzie had lent him, these were risqué, funny and savage. Now that he knew she had penned them, he could detect Deborah’s caustic wit in almost every paragraph. Her talent was undeniable; the stories were exceedingly well written. That way of hers, of sketching a character in two or three brief sentences, transferred brilliantly to the page. No wonder the books were popular.

  He found them—unsettling. He could not at first understand why this was so, for the knowledge that Deborah had written this scene, her pen had described that act, her mind had conjured this twist in the plot, distracted him. His imagination moved seamlessly from Bella to Deborah to Bella.

  Elliot frowned. He had been so carried away, he hadn’t really thought about the extent to which Deborah had been transformed, in talking about Bella. To the extent where she had forgotten herself, confused herself with her own creation, the woman she said was everything she was not. Bella was Deborah’s secret weapon. Did she really believe that? And why?

  What the hell had gone on in her marriage? Elliot cursed. How many times had he asked himself that? Whatever it was, he had to admire her for the way she had kicked back. No matter how skewed she was emotionally, Bella Donna was a masterful instrument for revenge. But revenge for what?

  The clock on the mantel chimed four in the morning. She wasn’t going to tell him and he had to know. Elliot’s stomach rumbled. He’d missed dinner. He’d call on Lizzie in the morning, he decided, making his way down the back stairs to the kitchen. Knowing his sister, she would already have done some digging. In her own way, she was every bit as devious as he was. There was ham and cheese in the larder. Some rather stale bread went into the frying pan with several eggs. He wolfed all of it down at the scrubbed table, his mind flying in all sorts of different directions, while all the time, at the centre, was Deborah.

  I’m not the only one hiding. What had she meant by that? He was not hiding behind the Peacock, was he? Hiding from what? Elliot pushed back his chair and stretched, rolling his shoulders. This afternoon had been so—just so! He grinned. Perfect. Utterly fantastic, just as he had known it would be. It wasn’t just the act itself, it was her. The way she talked and teased and challenged him. The way she made him feel. The way she got inside his head and his skin. What it had felt like, being inside her. Joined in body, in mind.

  God Almighty, it was as well no one could hear his thoughts! Elliot cast his plate, fork and knife into the basin by the pump beside the dirty skillet. He hadn’t thought about the Peacock in weeks, but perhaps it was time for another outing?

  He tested himself for the familiar sense of excitement, but found none. He could not tell Deborah, obviously. She would worry. Not that she had a right to worry. Not that he felt himself accountable. But he wouldn’t tell her. Because she would worry.

  I am not the only one hiding. Dammit, why wouldn’t it go away? A stupid remark, flung at him merely to hurt him, that was all. What did he care? Elliot picked up the lamp, and made his way back up to the study. He had a housebreaking to arrange.

  * * *

  By dawn, Elliot had done most of the planning and could no longer keep his eyes open. He dragged himself up to bed and slept soundly for five hours. A bath, a shave, a change of clothes, and he was at his sister’s house not long after noon, only to discover she was gone out for the day with her mother-in-law and not expected back until after dinner.

  He thought of calling in Hans Town, but was loath to do so until he had spoken to Lizzie. Yesterday he had been hurt by Deborah’s refusal even to consider an

  affaire. Today, he was inclined to agree with her. He did not want an affaire. What, then, did he want? Why did he no longer want what he had? Was he hiding?

  Out of habit, Elliot sought respite and clarity in exercise. An hour spent in his shirt sleeves and stockinged feet, thumping hell out of the huge punch bag which swung from a hook in Jackson’s sparring room, helped. There was something soporific and at the same time liberating about the thwack of his fist on leather scarred with the thwacks of many hundreds of fists. It was like beating down his own resistance.

  Bella was Deborah’s revenge on her husband. The Peacock was his revenge for Henry. That parallel was obvious enough. Deborah had captured Henry’s spirit so well in her book, reading her words had reminded him of the Henry who laughed and broke the rules, who was infuriating as well as funny, as foolish sometimes as he was brave. The real Henry, not the crazed creature who had taken up residence in that fetid wreck of a body before he died. The real Henry, who had loved life above all. Was he done with extracting revenge for Henry’s death, as Deborah was done with avenging her marriage?

  But the Peacock had not been born just for Henry. Elliot needed him. What would Elliot do without him? He was no politic
ian, but he was a first-class agent provocateur. An agitator, who could make politicians act. Was there such a thing? Could he be such a thing? Would it be enough? Whether or not he would miss the excitement of his night-time escapades, tonight would tell. Whether or not something else could replace them…

  The punch bag caught Elliot a glancing blow in the midriff as he stood stock still in the sparring room. Something else already had. Someone else. Elliot dropped his head against the leather bag. ‘Bloody hell, not that,’ he muttered. ‘Surely not that?’

  Suddenly aware that he was in the middle of Jackson’s salon talking to a leather bag filled with sand, he straightened up and looked around, but attention was focused on a sparring match. Elliot groaned. He couldn’t be. Dear God, he couldn’t be—could he?

  Why did he have to choose someone so complicated? Not that he’d chosen her. In fact, he’d gone out of his way not to choose her. And not that he was, he told himself as he doused his torso in cold water. Not that. Most definitely not that.

  For the second day in a row, Elliot returned home in a daze. Slopping wine into a glass, which he then placed on a side table and completely forgot, he slumped down on to the chair in front of his desk. Wasn’t it supposed to make you happy? Weren’t you supposed to feel like you were walking on air or some such balderdash? Henry, who liked to think of himself as handy with his fives, had once described a mill he’d seen on leave, just before the Battle of Trafalgar. John Gully, unknown and untested, had gone more than sixty rounds before the champion, known as the Game Chicken, had knocked him out. Henry described Gully’s bloody visage in gory detail. Elliot thought now that he knew just how the man must have felt. Surely this couldn’t be love?

  There, he’d let the word loose and the sky hadn’t fallen down. Remembering his wine, Elliot retrieved it and took a cautious sip. It tasted the same. Wasn’t the world supposed to look different, somehow? ‘What do I know?’ he said aloud. Putting his glass down on the mantelpiece, he stared at his reflection in the mirror. Hair in disarray. His neckcloth lopsided. Was there a light in his eyes, a sparkle even? Elliot laughed. ‘Damned if I can tell!’