Free Courting Lord Dorney by Sally James Page A

On his one visit home, on leave, Richard had been astonished and pleased to see his beloved home looking once more as he remembered it when he’d been a small child, before his mother had died and his father had set out on the road which eventually ruined him.
    This had, however, been illusory. The exterior fabric was as he remembered it, but inside Selina had, in his opinion, ruined it. Much of the old oak panelling had been stripped out, and the small rooms decorated in the newly fashionable Chinese style. To his eye the clawed legs and elaborate carvings and exuberant decoration might be all very well in the spacious rooms of the Prince Regent’s monstrosity of a palace at Brighton, but here they were oppressive, overwhelming.
    If he ever married, would his wife turn out to be like Selina, wanting to change his home? The home he was only gradually restoring to what he wanted it to be? Would Bella be like Selina?
    He shook himself. Why was he thinking like this? He didn’t intend to marry, so the actions of a mythical wife could be of no concern to him. He must tear himself away and go to London. Dan would be there now. Then he frowned. He had committed himself to several engagements for the coming few days, and he might as well stay and attend them. Making his excuses and departing in haste might make people talk even more than they were already doing, and that might harm Bella. He could not do that to her, even if he had no intention of marrying her. He must casually announce his intention of leaving, and draw back from too much contact with Bella.
    * * * *
    Bella was feeling guilty. She had been so preoccupied with her own affairs she had thought very little about the proposed house in Bristol. She borrowed Jane’s coach, took Mary with her for the sake of propriety, and Jackson drove her to Bristol. When they reached the Tomkins’ house she dismissed Mary and Jackson, telling him to rest the horses and Mary to amuse herself shopping, and call for her in three hours.
    She was welcomed so enthusiastically that her guilt intensified. She’d let these people down.
    ‘Of course not, my dear Miss Trahearne,’ Mrs Tomkins assured her. ‘We’ve only just found a suitable house. Would you care to inspect it?’
    It was a tall house in a terrace near the docks.
    ‘It needs some repairs,’ Mr Tomkins said, ‘but that will help us to purchase it at a good price.’
    ‘I’ll pay for the necessary repairs,’ Bella assured them. ‘Surely these are not major defects, more a general shabbiness, and we could install one of the new ranges in the kitchen, which would make life much easier for the children and the maids.’
    ‘Oh, yes, there’s nothing else too expensive for us to do,’ Mr Tomkins hastened to reassure her. ‘We have already found people to promise contributions for the maintenance of the children, and wages for the couple who will look after them. We can accommodate the first of the children in, let us say, a month from now.’
    Bella nodded. ‘So I will purchase the house, and pay for the essential repairs, and you will afterwards find the money to run it?’
    ‘Of course, that is what Mr Jenkins told us was to be the arrangement.’
    ‘I’ll have Mr Jenkins draw up an agreement to that effect. Thank you, this seems eminently suitable.’
    She drove back to Bath satisfied with her day. Her scheme for helping orphans by installing them in small, homelike houses, was looking both practical and worthwhile. Other people like the Tomkins were eager to help, and if she supplied the initial capital to purchase suitable houses, there were local people who could do their bit in raising the money to run them.
    * * * *
    On the way home, Mary had been very quiet, and Bella assumed she was tired. But when they reached the house Mary asked to speak with her.
    ‘What is it? What’s happened?’ Bella asked, when they had reached her bedroom.
    ‘Oh, Miss Bella, I saw those men again. One of them.’
    ‘Which