Belle wasn’t certain about his odd response.
She looked down at herself anxiously and asked, “Do I look okay?” before her eyes lifted back to his.
His gaze moved from her chest to her face and he grinned. That look that made her uncomfortable left his face. Another look, a look that made her think maybe she was being a bit crazy, a look filled with warmth and affection, replaced it.
His hand came out and he teasingly flicked the ruffle at her neck.
“Is it one of yours?” he asked.
He meant her dress and he didn’t mean to ask if she owned it because, obviously, she did.
She had a small shop in St. Ives which sold, almost exclusively, a line of clothing creations that she designed and made. She also sold a few friends’ jewellery collections and other bits and bobs when the mood struck her, which was often.
The shop had been somewhat hand-to-mouth until the recent extraordinary events that rocked her life. Now, she had to employ two seamstresses to help her keep on top of stock, and her used-to-be very unusual, personalised orders had quadrupled.
“Yes,” she replied to Miles.
Her dress was knee length and form-fitting. It was a beautiful crêpe de chine she’d found that she’d fallen in love with instantly and bought yards of it even though the cost was astronomical. It was the colour of blush, that was neither peach nor pink nor cream but an elegant mixture of the three. The back was high. It was sleeveless but there was a deep slash from the throat to the empire waist at her midriff. This was made demure by a delicate, two-inch, complementary blush-coloured chiffon ruffle running the length of the slash and around her neck. Nevertheless, it showed the skin of her chest provocatively. She’d paired it with high-heeled pumps that were about three shades darker than the dress (on the pink side). The shoes had peek-a-boo toes that had a small rosette which flattered the shoes and drew attention to her French-pedicured toenails.
“Gorgeous,” Miles murmured and Belle had to steel herself against that word which he used often in regards to her, even calling her that as an endearment.
She considered any endearments in a month long relationship way too early but she never said anything, but she had to admit it kind of gave her the creeps.
It was a word her ex-husband, Calvin, had used to describe her and, just as Miles, Calvin had used it as a sweet nothing. Sometimes even saying it when he felt repentant, wiping away the blood from her lip, pressing the ice to her eye after he’d use his fists on her.
“We should join the party, Belle. Mum’s asking after you,” Miles told her, pulling her out of her thoughts and taking her elbow, forcing her forward, closing the door to her room behind them.
Belle had met Joy Bennett, Miles’s mother, that afternoon when they’d arrived at the family castle, called Chy An Als Point. An imposing, rambling, stone structure with an uneven roofline, some of it built hundreds upon hundreds of years before on a jagged Cornish cliff. The winds blew the waters of the sea so they smashed against the rocks at the castle’s base, giving the already daunting castle a strangely unsettling atmosphere.
You couldn’t say the castle was beautiful. The many different styles of its construction, as it was added onto century after century, clashed weirdly at the same time they managed to mingle.
You could say it was spectacular, almost like a living entity, powerful, magnificent and impenetrable, perched for centuries on its cliff.
Regardless of the fact that it was slightly spooky, Belle loved it.
Upon meeting Miles’s Mum, Joy, Belle liked her without reservation. She was a lovely woman, tall and svelte, sharing the colouring of Miles. She was open, friendly, welcoming and kind, if a bit dramatic but, considering Belle’s mother and grandmother, Belle was used to more than a bit of drama.
Joy was also, Belle found (to her surprise), wary of her son. This was something she tried to hide but Belle, her senses attuned to the strangeness she felt from Miles, read it and worried about it.
Then again, Belle worried about everything.
Belle was, unfortunately, a worrier.
Still, Joy loved him. That was obvious, and she was affectionate toward him. But when her eyes drifted between Miles and Belle, Belle saw the backs of them grow uneasy.
This did not aid in Belle’s indecision about how she felt about Miles Bennett.
Not one bit.
Belle walked beside Miles down the thick carpet runner that ran the length of the stone-floored hall. He’d tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow in a way she thought was a tad too possessive but also wondered if her caution had more to do with the lessons she’d learned from Calvin and less to do with the reality of Miles.
She’d only dated two men since divorcing Calvin. She found she couldn’t open up to either and realised she was not yet ready to move forward in life romantically.
She should, she knew, be more like her mother and grandmother. Both of them had been handed by God an overabundance of outspokenness, outgoingness and outrageousness. They also had the capacity to plunge themselves, both feet first, eyes open, into cold, shark-infested waters if there was even the slightest possibility that there might be something rich and rewarding to come of this endeavour.
Since she was a little girl, Belle had thought that God had been so generous to her grandmother and mother, He’d not had enough to hand out when Belle came along.
Therefore Belle Abbot had lost out on these qualities and all her life had been timid, apprehensive and never took an uncalculated risk.