Page 30 of The Song of the Siren (The Venturesome Ladies of Little Valentine #2)

No cure for a sore heart.

Bea looked up from her position at the window seat, where she could catch the last of the evening light to finish her mending.

At least, that was what she had told Izzy and her father.

In reality, she was looking out for Stonehaven.

The news that he had gone out with George had at once delighted and terrified her.

She was immensely proud of him for doing so, for she knew how daunted he was, or guessed at least, having felt his trepidation at mapping out the confines of his bedroom with her.

This was a tremendous step, she knew, and a significant one, and Bea prayed it went well, that it gave him confidence and the courage to keep pushing himself…

though not so far or so fast that he got hurt.

“Night night, Bea.”

Bea looked down and smiled, setting her mending aside as she leaned down to kiss her nephew, Caspar. Mrs Mabbs stood behind the lad, a sleepy Daisy in her arms.

“Night night, Caspar. Shall I come and read you a story once you are tucked in?”

“Oh, yes!” the little boy said excitedly.

“Yes, what, Master Morton?” Mrs Mabbs asked, one eyebrow quirked.

“Yes, please,” Caspar said sheepishly.

Bea laughed. “All right, dear. I’ll be along presently if Mrs Mabbs tells me you have been a good boy and cleaned your teeth.”

Caspar pulled a face, but accepted his fate, hurrying across to kiss Izzy and Uncle Bertie.

Bea turned back to her mending, glancing out of the window as she picked it back up, and started as she saw Stonehaven ride up to the front gate.

“Oh!” she exclaimed.

Her father, who had just finished saying goodnight to Caspar, walked over to stand beside her. “Well, I never. Would you look at that,” he said with obvious admiration.

Bea longed to run outside and cheer but knew she could not with her family watching for fear Stonehaven would address her as Sally.

So, she stayed and watched as her father went out, greeting Stonehaven with a shout of delight.

A brief stab of pleasure struck her heart at the pleased look on Stonehaven’s face.

He swung down from the horse with as much agility and confidence as he had always possessed, and Bea’s throat tightened with a swell of happiness.

Oh, well done , she thought, so proud of him she felt she might burst.

“How pleased he looks,” Izzy observed, smiling as she watched Stonehaven talking to her father, taking the reverend’s arm as he followed him along the path.

He turned and then called out to George, who had mounted Stonehaven’s horse.

He raised his hand to wave as George replied, grinning as he rode off.

Bea’s heart thudded harder as her father’s voice grew louder, the two men’s footsteps coming closer.

“Are you all right, Bea? You look a little flushed,” Izzy observed.

“Of course. Quite all right. Just a little warm,” Bea replied, whilst her heart began a frantic dance behind her ribs. “Actually, my throat is a little sore,” she said in a rush, feeling like a terrible sister for lying as Izzy immediately looked concerned.

“Oh, dear. You poor thing. It’s not a cold? You were so poorly in the spring with that horrible flu that went round. I shall go at once and make some hot lemon and honey. It’s always best to nip these things in the bud,” she said firmly, and leapt up before Bea could stop her.

“Good evening, my lord. If you’ll excuse me,” Izzy said brightly, dashing from the room as Stonehaven and their father came in.

“Good evening, Miss Isabelle,” Stonehaven remarked, still sounding quite jovial.

As he entered the room, the faint tang of ale and pipe smoke clung to him and she smiled, realising he must have visited one of the inns in town with George for a drink.

“And Miss Beatrice?” he added, turning in her direction.

She realised he had heard her moving and guessed who else was in the room and smiled at how well he was adapting to his new circumstances.

He was a man one could only admire for his courage and determination.

“Good evening, Lord Stonehaven,” Bea said, giving her voice an oddly raspy quality.

“Bea? Whatever is the matter?” her father said, turning to stare at her.

“Sore throat,” she said, feeling utterly wretched now, increasingly so as both Stonehaven and her father offered her sympathetic words and advised her to look after herself.

“Well, sit down, do, my lord,” her father said, guiding him to a chair. “I shall find something for us to partake of. Perhaps you ought to have a glass too, Bea. Might do that cold some good.”

“Ha! If only Arkhurst thought like you do, I should be a happy fellow,” Stonehaven said with a snort.

“A tot of good wine cures many ills in my opinion,” her father remarked stoutly.

Bea considered telling him Izzy had gone to make her a hot lemon and honey drink but decided against it.

The less she said, the better. Instead, she accepted the glass her father handed her and drank it gratefully, hoping it might ease her agitated nerves.

Seeing Stonehaven sitting across the room, knowing she had sat in his lap, felt his hands upon her, his lips caressing her own, was enough to make her colour rise further.

Poor Izzy would have her confined to bed with a fever if she did not get herself under control, and quickly.

“Now, tell me again why you must leave? I don’t understand the urgency,” her father said, sitting himself down with his own glass of wine.

“Leave!” Bea exclaimed, so startled she did not need to disguise her voice, for it came out as a sharp squeak of alarm.

Stonehaven frowned, glancing in her direction curiously, and she held her breath. His expression cleared, and he smiled. “I really must. There are things I have not attended to that cannot wait, and I must make preparations for returning with… with my wife.”

Bea’s throat constricted, and she wondered if she had imagined the way he had braced himself to speak the words .

Her father looked rather glum. “I assumed you would stay until the wedding. I imagined Anne would return with you, to help you and—”

“I am not entirely helpless,” Stonehaven said evenly, and whilst the words were not angry, there was an edge to them that spoke of frustration.

Bea felt for him. How it must try his patience to be questioned so, when he was used to doing just as he pleased and having everyone do as he wished at once.

“Well, I never thought it. Indeed, I have said quite the opposite and am glad to be proven correct. I— Well, I suppose I am a selfish old man who wished to keep your company a little longer. You will return to us, I hope? You are not thinking of staying at Haven House alone until the wedding?”

Stonehaven smiled, as did Bea, for it was impossible not to be disarmed by her father’s honesty. “Hardly alone, when the place is bristling with servants, but no. Just a few days. I shall return early next week.”

“You’ll not be here for the reading of the banns, then?” her father remarked, with a touch of disapproval.

Stonehaven frowned. “You think it wrong of me not to be here?”

“I’m sure it is not for me to say,” her father said guilelessly, which made Bea smile as that had never stopped him before. “But I think it rather unkind to leave her to face the gossip and speculation alone. People will talk, you know, and they can be unkind.”

Stonehaven frowned. “I admit I had not considered that.”

“Well, perhaps you should.”

Bea watched his face and experienced a confusing tangle of emotions as she did so.

She felt desperately sorry for his need to marry a woman he did not love, both for him and for Anne, and yet there was a part of her she did not like at all that wished to scratch out Anne’s eyes.

Frustration and longing and regret boiled inside her, a noxious brew that made her feel quite as unwell as she had purported to be.

When the door opened and Izzy came in carrying a steaming mug, it took her a moment to realise, and she had not time enough to shutter her expression before her sister remarked it. Izzy stopped in her tracks, glancing wide-eyed from her to Stonehaven and back again.

Izzy blinked and then took a breath. “Come on then, Bea. I’ve made you a hot drink. Away to bed with you before that throat takes a hold and you are sick. I promise this will put you to rights,” she said, giving Bea a warning look that promised a conversation the moment they were alone.

Bea sighed, resigned to Izzy’s questioning and finding it was a relief. If she did not tell someone of her wretched situation soon, she might just run mad.

Packing her mending away, she drained her wine, much to the consternation of her father who frowned at her for downing such a fine vintage and obediently followed Izzy to the door. Adding the same scratchy quality to her voice, she bid Stonehaven a good night, kissed her father, and hurried out.

Izzy said nothing until Bea closed her bedroom door, at which point she scowled at Bea accusingly. “Why did you not tell me you had fallen in love with Lord Stonehaven?”

Despite everything, Bea laughed, though the laughter turned too quickly to tears as her emotions ran out of control. All the secrets she had been keeping, when she had never before hidden anything from anyone, seemed suddenly too much to bear.

“Oh, love,” Izzy exclaimed, immediately contrite as she set the hot mug down and ran to sit on the bed beside Bea. She pulled Bea close and hugged her. “I’m so sorry. What a brute I am, when he’s set to marry Anne.”

Bea sobbed harder, clutching at Izzy, who cast around for a handkerchief, which she pressed into Bea’s hand.

Taking it, Bea wiped her eyes resolutely and blew her nose.

There was no point in turning into a watering pot when there was nothing to be done about it, but at least she might confide in Izzy a little.

Izzy regarded her quizzically. “Are you really sick?”

“No,” Bea sniffed, giving her a rueful smile. “I was disguising my voice.”

“Whatever for?”

Reluctantly at first, and then with greater confidence as Izzy looked impressed rather than appalled, Bea explained how she had got herself into such a ridiculous situation.

Whilst she kept some of the more personal details to herself, she admitted to Izzy that she had let Stonehaven kiss her, and that he still did not know there was no maid called Sally.

“You must not give me away,” Bea said, clutching at Izzy’s hand. “Promise me you will not. Stonehaven is going away in any case, and he’ll be married soon, and I shan’t see him again. There will be no harm done.”

“No harm done!” Izzy objected. “How can you say so when you just broke your heart sobbing over the man?”

“Oh, how dramatic you are. I did not break my heart,” Bea said with a reassuring smile, though she was uncertain she was telling the truth. Her heart felt sore and unprotected, and whilst it might not be broken yet, she feared seeing Stonehaven marry Anne might just shatter it into tiny pieces.

“You must tell him,” Izzy said, folding her arms.

Bea stared at her in alarm, praying she had not made a terrible mistake in confiding to her sister.

“What?” she exclaimed. “Indeed, I must not. I know I have done a terrible, wicked thing, and I ought to atone for my behaviour, but telling Stonehaven will only make him cross and embarrass him and me, not to mention Papa. What if he feels honour bound to marry me?”

“What if he does?” Izzy replied practically. “It’s clear he likes you better than Anne, and you love him, which Anne certainly does not. That much is obvious. He might be delighted.”

Bea’s heart gave an uncomfortable thud, something that felt remarkably like panic singing through her blood .

“No!” she said, breathless with terror. “I forbid you to tell him, Izzy. He would not be delighted, he’d be disgusted by me, by my behaviour, and rightly so, and then his gentlemanly code would insist that we marry.

How wretched for him to be forced to marry a woman who betrayed him so dreadfully, who took advantage of his blindness to trick him for her own benefit.

And how wretched for me to marry the man I love, knowing that he will always despise and resent me!

No, Izzy. You cannot ask it of me. I will be Sally one last time, so I might say goodbye to him and wish him well, and after that you can tell him that Sally was dismissed for stealing, or that I found a better situation at the Hall, or whatever you think best. It will be over, and my stupidly reckless behaviour need hurt no one. ”

“Except you,” Izzy said softly.

Bea shrugged. “That will be my penance for acting in such a wicked and deceitful way. I’ll pay it gladly.”

“Oh, Bea, how can it be wicked when you love him so? I cannot bear to see you so unhappy. It is so unlike you,” Izzy lamented, her eyes growing shiny behind her spectacles.

“Don’t you start,” Bea said, her throat tightening.

Izzy sighed. “I don’t think I want to fall in love.

It seems to be an activity fraught with danger.

I almost changed my mind when I saw how happy Clemmie was, but now I think my instincts were correct.

Papa was so wretched when Mama left us, and now you will be heartbroken because you fell for the wrong fellow, and Anne is clearly here hiding from a scandal that likely broke her heart too.

It’s a dreadful business. It’s much safer to read about it in books, rather than actually practising it oneself. ”

Despite herself, Bea laughed, though she took issue with Izzy’s description of Stonehaven as the wrong man.

More accurately, she was the wrong woman.

Stonehaven deserved someone as brave as he was, not a feckless girl with little but her beauty to recommend her, one who had manipulated his blindness for her own benefit.

Guilt filled her to such a degree she felt sick with it.

But her sister was so sincere, and so entirely mistaken, that Bea reached out and took her hand, determined to do one thing right, at least. “I might be heartbroken when he’s gone, and it will hurt, and I will cry and be utterly wretched, but I won’t regret it, Izzy.

I shall never regret loving such a man, and knowing he is still out there in the world will be a comfort to me.

Don’t fear falling in love, pet. Just try to find a man who returns your feelings, that’s all.

Be courageous, love, and entirely yourself.

Don’t ever pretend to be something you are not.

Only find a man who loves you just as you are, and who can be everything you deserve. ”

Izzy wrinkled her nose, looking thoroughly unconvinced. “I’ll think about it,” she said grudgingly.

Bea patted her hand. “You do that.”