“No, don’t apologize,” he said, smiling and touching her shoulder with a brief caress. He felt her shiver. He was entranced, charmed against his will, and knew why he had not been able to get her out of his mind for the two days he had spent away from London on unavoidable business. When she talked of her childhood he caught glimpses of a sweet girl, unaffected and good-natured, the girl she may have been before London society changed her into an automaton, a performing doll. What a jumble of contradictions she was, part schemer, part dreamer—or was that just his desire for her coloring her character with charming traits? “What else did you do at your cousin’s?” he said, wanting to draw her out.
It seemed he had breached some wall in her, coming upon her so suddenly as he had. He had broken through, briefly, her stiff, social façade. For a quarter hour she spoke of the vicarage down in Cornwall, a memorable trip to Polperro when she was eleven, riding the vicarage pony, visiting the poor with her cousin. She lost her self-consciousness after a while and chattered as happily as a child, with just occasional prompting from him. She was lively and animated, green eyes flashing, her hands in use when she talked of her first riding experience, which ended with her on her bottom in a thistle patch. He roared with laughter. He was completely at his ease with her.
And he thought he was as happy as he had ever been in his life.
He had come back to England with every expectation of enjoyment, but so far the trip had not proved as enjoyable as he had expected. He had looked up old friends, only to find them stuffy and stultifying and full of annoying and wrong-headed assumptions about Canada that they would not allow him to correct. Somehow they presumed to know more about the country he had just come from than he who had spent the last eleven years there. Galling in the extreme.
And the business he was there in England to resolve could not be called a happy one, by any means. He was not even sure how he felt about the inevitable outcome. So altogether, the visit to his homeland had so far not been an unqualified success. This moment, in a London ballroom with the Honorable Miss Swinley, was the happiest part of his trip “home” so far. He watched her lovely, joyful face, alight with mischief as she recalled pranks she had pulled and trouble she had caused as a child, with very little evidence of remorse. He thought he would have liked her as a child much better than her cousin, True, who sounded altogether too good.
He took her arm and guided her out of the alcove, taking her on a stroll around the ballroom. The noise and heat were overpowering, but if it was the price he must pay for a half hour with this girl, then he would gladly pay it.
“How big is Canada, truly?” she asked, her eyebrows knotted together.
“What?” He had lost himself momentarily in her twinkling jade eyes and could not think.
“I have heard that it is huge—Canada, I mean—but I cannot fathom it. One country, so very large?”
He reined in his wandering thoughts, and from there the conversation revolved around him and his journeys. She asked him questions no one since his arrival had ever thought to ask. What did the natives live in? Did they truly wear nothing but feathers? Were they cannibals? Where had he traveled? What had he done? How long was he there? Did he travel the whole time, or did he settle and live somewhere for a while? Were there any cities? What did he think would happen to Canada in the future? Would America ever try to take it over again?
He was by turns amused, perplexed, and tantalized by glimpses of a questing curiosity within her, and charmed by how entranced she was by nature. He felt a powerful urge to dress her in breeches and steal her away to Canada. She would love it, he thought, never mind that she grew up in society. She had the right personality: curious, active, unjudging. She was the first person he had met since he had been back in England who believed what he said about his Ojibway friends, and he longed to take her to see George, and his daughter, Mary Two Feathers. Once she was past her shyness, little Mary had asked him questions too, about the far-off land he had come from and the ocean journey there, about the terrifying creatures called lords and ladies, and about castles of stone. Put Mary and Miss Swinley together and they would talk nonstop. The picture was so vivid in his mind he could see it, Miss Swinley in breeches, sitting by the fire as Mary asked her about far-off London.
He shook himself out of his reverie. Of course, she was there in London to meet and marry a rich man, was she not? That thought chilled him to the marrow and deadened, for a minute, his pleasure. But he determined to enjoy the moment and let tomorrow take care of itself. What harm could there be in sitting with a pretty girl and talking for a half hour? No harm at all.
The half hour of the dance came and went, and still they talked. Finding two empty chairs behind a pillar, they sat for the last few minutes. Unconsciously, Marcus reached out and grasped her gloved hand, holding it as they spoke, and she did not grab it back, but smiled at him with a sweet shyness that he found captivating.
But then a shadow fell over them. Miss Swinley looked up and her face paled. She snatched her hand from his grip and stammered, “M-mother, m-may I introduce Mr. Marcus Westhaven?”
• • •
“When pretty girls dance in the month of May, tra la, then all the boys will kiss and run away, tra la—” Singing gaily, Arabella descended the stairs of Leathorne House next morning and headed toward the drawing room. Last night’s ball had been wonderful, and even her mother had been much more agreeable to Mr. Westhaven than she would have thought possible. She started into the room but stopped on hearing a raised voice.
“Na, m’lady, t’will never do, you know. I hears that yer gel ain’t performin’ her duty, an’ we’ll be forced to reckon with ya ’bout yer debt. Too bad, but an undootiful child is the devil’s right hand, ya know. So what ’bout this ’ere money ya owes us?”
“I don’t know where I can get the money. Please, please, just a little longer! I have sold my jewels and substituted paste; I don’t know what else I can do.”
Her mother’s voice was tearful, and Arabella felt her stomach twist in a convulsion of fear. She clutched the doorjamb and listened, putting her cheek against the smooth painted finish and closing her eyes.
“Look, I hates ta put it to ya like this, but if that gel o’ yourn ain’t betrothen in the next while, I’ll be forced to do somethin’ right nasty to you or yourn, if ya takes my meaning’. Mornin’, m’lady, an’ all the best o’ the day to ya.”
Arabella hastened into an alcove but saw the character, a man in a drab and shabby coat, leaving through the hall toward the back door. She rushed into the withdrawing room to find her mother sitting with a frozen expression on a sofa. She dropped down beside her. “Oh, Mother, I heard! What did he want?”
“Money,” Lady Swinley said dully. “Always money. Money I do not have.”
So it was as bad as her mother had intimated, and maybe even worse.
“Will they wait? If we have nothing, what can they do?”
“They can first force us to get rid of everything in Swinley Manor. It is all given in security. And then . . . oh, Arabella!” She clutched her daughter’s hands and she was shaking. “I am afraid they will take Swinley Manor away from me. I will have no home.”
Arabella’s day turned dark and somber from the bright mood of just minutes earlier, but realist that she was, she knew what she had to do, and without delay. Why had she been avoiding it? Better to have it done with and everything settled than to live on in this hopeful, idiotic dream, a dream of finding congenial companionship at the very least, in marriage.
After all, what did her prospects look like? Bessemere was a nice fellow, but he was young and still under the thumb of his mother. It would take too long to be sure of him, even if she did have a hope of bringing him around. Count Verbrachan had danced with her once or twice, and she felt his interest in her, an interest that did not seem wholly healthy or normal. He had pinched her hard on her arm, leaving a bruise, when she had refused to walk out on the terrace with him at the Connolly
ball. His demeanor terrified her. Better to be bored and repulsed than frightened and cowed, Arabella decided.
And so, Lord Pelimore would be it.
• • •
Over the next week Arabella tried her best to find Lord Pelimore alone, but she swiftly realized that he was offended by her disappearing with Westhaven, for he pointedly ignored her and paid court to another girl, one of the giggling seventeen-year-olds he had so disparaged. She was terrified that her one chance at marriage was slipping away; and to think she had deliberately put him off! Was she mad? Finally she managed a few moments alone with him, only to find that Westhaven was there, too, watching and listening. She had refused to walk with him—though in truth she longed to—and had fled each time he appeared ready to approach her. She felt a dull ache in her chest, for she had never enjoyed a half hour so well as when they sat together talking.
He was outside of her experience, an adventurer, bold and wild like the land he spoke of. And yet he had listened to her prosaic stories of a childhood spent mostly at school and in Cornwall with every appearance of enjoyment. He had laughed and gazed into her eyes with . . . well, it almost looked like affection, the emotion that warmed his gray eyes to the color of smoke. And always his nearness made her tingle. The merest caress of a ringlet left her breathless! But she could not afford to whistle a fortune down the wind for mere tingling. Her mother needed her, and she would not desert her in this, her hour of need.
With renewed determination she set herself to the task at hand. She could not let Westhaven’s nearness stop her from what she was there to do; did it matter what he thought of her, after all? So in the few seconds she had as they met in the crowded ballroom, stalled near the chaperone chairs by the thick crowd around them, she went to work. Smiling demurely at Lord Pelimore and fluttering her lashes, she said, “You will have me thinking that I offended you in some way, my lord, if you do not sit this next dance out with me. In truth, I am fatigued, and you would be doing me the greatest of favors.”
Westhaven was watching her, an incredulous look in his stormy eyes.
Pelimore squinted at her and grimaced. “Well, if you put it that way, I’ll do you the favor, m’girl. Truth to tell, I kind of got the idea you and that young wanderer, Westhaven, had something goin’.”
“Westhaven?” She arched her brows in surprise as she gracefully took a seat beside him. With the merest hint of malicious satisfaction, she said, knowing he was listening, “That young pup? Why he is not nearly . . . well, mature enough to interest a girl like me, if you know what I mean.” She leaned close to Pelimore, and he goggled down her low bodice. “A girl likes to feel secure with a man, you know, and one would always think he would be taking off on some adventure or another; no stability, you know.” Arabella tried her best, but a hint of wistfulness would creep into her voice. She could think of nothing more exciting than going off adventuring with such a man as Westhaven. Luckily, Lord Pelimore was not sensitive to things like that.
“Glad you realize it. Older man is what a girl your age needs. Gettin’ on yerself; need some stability in your life.”
She glanced sideways at Westhaven, so tall and handsome, lounging nearby. He had overheard Lord Pelimore, she knew it by his smirk. Getting on, really! One would think she was in her dotage rather than just three and twenty. Were all men insensitive boors? She could not bear to say another word with Marcus—she had begun to think of him thus, as Marcus—close enough to hear, and so she fell silent and let Pelimore bore her with stories of his rakish youth back in the far reaches of the latter half of the last century. Unfortunately, though, the man did not come to the point with a proposal.
And it was the same the next night, at the Beloir literary evening—how did Westhaven get invitations to all of these things? she wondered—and at the Sanderson musical afternoon the next day after that. Westhaven was always there, always watching and listening as she did her best to tease a marriage proposal from the elderly baron.
And now Westhaven had gathered his own court of fascinated women, who oohed and aahed over his stories of derring-do and dashing adventure, and Arabella gritted her teeth over it all, and lost her concentration every time she thought she was getting somewhere. Pelimore was proving to be surprisingly sensitive, and if her attention was not wholly on him he became huffy and left. Men! She longed to say good-bye to the whole sex and join a nunnery. Of course, the Church of England did not have nunneries, and so she would have to convert to Catholicism, but—oh, it sounded lovely! Nothing to do all day but contemplate and pray.
Eveleen was off visiting in Dover, so she did not even have her best friend’s company as comfort, though it was probably best. Eveleen O’Clannahan, sensible spinster with decidedly odd notions, was yet proving to have a surprising romantic turn to her personality that was jarring from so rational a woman. How could a woman as intelligent as Eve believe in such discordant and disjointed things as the freedom of women from the tyranny of men and romantic love?
But Arabella must do what she was there to do. There was no more money left; her mother had told her that when the butcher had sent a hefty fellow to collect. The staff had not been paid, nor the collier, nor the feed bill, nor the milliner. She needed to marry, and she needed the marriage settlement soon.
She dressed carefully for the night’s entertainment, a recital at the O’Lachlans’. In addition to the amateur performers a soprano had been engaged to sing, and Arabella loved Italian opera. She was a gifted pianist herself, or so everyone told her, and she knew the O’Lachlans would ask her to perform. It was her chance to impress Lord Pelimore, and she would take it.
She dressed in the ice blue silk, again, and went to the soiree alone, with just Annie for company. Her mother claimed a sick headache and said she must stay home in a darkened room. So Arabella went, mingled, and then, when asked, played a Haydn sonata of great emotion. There was applause at the end and the company arose to make their way to the refreshment room before the soprano was scheduled to perform. She looked around to see if Lord Pelimore was suitably impressed. Unfortunately, he was nowhere to be seen, his chair empty, though he had asked to escort her in to dinner. When she inquired she found that he had gone home before her solo, complaining of a stomachache. He left her his apologies.
All that effort, for nothing.
Alone, she drifted out to the terrace. All this energy expended, and all to capture an old man with whom she would have to live for the rest of her life, or as long as his lasted, anyway. Judging from old Lord Oakmont, that could be another thirty years.
And that was if she was lucky. If she was not lucky she would find no one to marry her, and then she did not know what they were to do. Her mother would not even discuss it, and so she didn’t know exactly where they stood, if there was any possibility of retrenchment through leasing Swinley Manor, or of selling off some of the land. She just did not know, and her stomach was constantly tied up in knots from worry.
And then if Lord Conroy should come to London, and word of her mother’s machinations should make the rounds of the ton—it was all too troublesome.
There was a light misty rain coming down, but it had been warm that day and she relished the feel of it on her bare hands, gloveless because she could not wear gloves when she played; she needed the intimate contact with the ivory to truly transmit her feelings through the instrument. The terrace had a deep overhang, so the vaporous rain just barely drifted onto her arms, cooling her heated skin. She used so much energy performing that she was always feverish after.
In the distance she could hear the clop-clop of horses’ hooves on the pavement, and the shoosh of carriage wheels in the rain, all mixed with the faint drift of music from the pianist hired to perform during the refreshment break. He was a German fellow, and the piece was melancholy and dramatic.
She had always loved London and the Season. It suited her energetic nature to be always doing something. But the gaiety of previous Seasons was over; now it was time to get d
own to the serious business of marriage. It was time for her to shoulder her responsibilities to her mother and to her family home. An overwhelming sadness burst like a ripened seed pod, scattering sorrow through her heart, and she laid her head down on her arms where they rested on the wrought iron railing. How would she ever do it? How would she bear to be married to a man she could not even like?
And then the hot tears came and the wrenching sobs, drowned out by the sound of the music.
• • •
She had slipped out to the terrace, Marcus thought, following Arabella as if she was leading him on a cord. He couldn’t help it. He was furious with her for ignoring him, and unbearably angry that she was throwing herself at that old fraud, Lord Pelimore, but still, he would attempt to talk some sense into her, perhaps. He had tried to visit her at her home, but there were always others, always visitors in the drawing room, and she would not heed his signals and meet him alone.
But he would tell her now, by God. He would tell her exactly what he thought of fortune hunting. He slipped out through the double French doors onto the terrace and was arrested by the sound of sobs.
She wept! He stared at her, her slender figure doubled over and her head down on her arms on the wrought iron railing of the terrace. Pierced to the core by her unhappiness, he was frozen, unable to move. He never imagined that beneath that glittering façade, behind those laughing eyes, such wrenching sadness could exist as was implied by heartrending sobs. He moved forward.
“Arabella,” he whispered as he turned her around roughly. She straightened and tried to pull away, but he enfolded her fiercely in his arms and felt her melt against him, her sobs becoming deeper and wilder.
He let her cry, rocking her gently and talking in hushed tones, nonsense really, but the kind of things men think women need to hear. He told her everything would be all right, that there was nothing in the world worth making her beautiful eyes red over, that he would fix everything.
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