Belle of the ball

by Donna Lea Simpson

  Eveleen drew her knees up and set her chin on them, watching Harris and Westhaven setting the rules of the race they were to run. "Now, are you not glad we met Mr. Westhaven?"

  Watching her friend, Arabella knew her suspicions were correct "You arranged this," she said. "You spoke to him at the Hartford ball, knew he would be at that inn today, and arranged this." It was an accusation, but she could not say she was unhappy with the results, so her voice betrayed no anger.

  Eveleen shrugged. "Westhaven knew nothing, I promise you, Bella. I wanted to go on this picnic anyway, and there was every chance we might have missed him, you know. He only mentioned that he often stopped at that inn on his way back to London, and that he would be away for three days this time. And it is just happy coincidence that Harris knows him." She glanced over at her friend, opened her mouth to speak, but then shut it again. She was silent for a moment, but finally said, "My dear, I know you feel you must marry wealth to rescue your mother and yourself from poverty, but I would that you had the opportunity for a little ... romance, first."

  Shaking her head in dismay, Arabella lightly replied, "Sometimes I do not understand you! You talk about women being chattel and marriage being bondage and all that, and then you talk about romance like the mooniest seventeen-year-old! At times I think you hate men, and at others—Eveleen O'Clannahan, I just do not understand you!"

  Cocking her head to one side, her feathered bonnet giving her a charmingly fey look, Eveleen said, "That is because I am a study in contradictions. It is my Irish blood, my dear, a little tempestuousness in my otherwise perfectly refined nature. Oh, Bella, look now!" she cried, pointing. "Look at the gentlemen! Your young man has cast off his jacket and is bending over examining the withers of Harris's hack. Are his buttocks not stupendous?"

  Appalled and crimson with embarrassment, Arabella said, "Eveleen!"

  Her friend gazed at her frankly, brilliant blue eyes wide and knowing. ''Look at him! It will not turn you to stone, you know, to think of all the things men and women do in private. You will have to do that to get an heir with rickety old Pelimore, why not do it first with a man such as Westhaven?"

  Deeply shocked and shaken, Arabella swallowed. She could hardly speak, but felt compelled to say, "Are—" She swallowed again, her throat dry as dust. "Eve, are you counselling me to ... to bed Marcus?"

  "Aha! Marcus, is it? We are on first-name terms, are we? How shockingly imprudent! Your mother would be appalled; she would shut you up in your room for a month and feed you bread and water!"

  Her mockery had a savage edge to it, and Arabella looked into her friend's blue eyes, noting an expression of ... of what? Despair? Pain? Deeply felt hurt? She laid her hand over her friend's, where it was, bare, on the blanket. "Eve, what is it? I don't understand you."

  "I am only saying, take your pleasure, my friend, before they sentence you to a life of being some man's chattel." Her voice was thick, but her air was one of forced gaiety. "I am not always going to be here to encourage you; you must recognize that you are only young once—feel it, live it, breathe it! Marcus Westhaven is a good man, even if he is not rich. He would make your first time a delight, rather than torture."

  Arabella, troubled by her friend's demeanor, was silent. How could Eveleen talk that way? It was beyond any boundaries of decency, and she ought to censure her for it, but she was disturbed more by her friend's tone than by her words. What was wrong with Eveleen, and why would she not share what was disturbing her?

  "Eve, what is wrong? What—"

  "Oh, don't mind me," Eveleen said, rising abruptly. "I am always a little broody this time of month. Or would be if—"

  She strode away and joined the discussion over the hack, leaving Arabella to watch and wonder. The day suddenly seemed not so very bright. Something was terribly wrong with Eve, and yet as close friends as Arabella believed them to be, she still did not feel right in questioning her any further. Only time would reveal the problem, perhaps. She stood and shook out her skirts, feeling a chill despite the bright sunshine.

  Ten

  If a cloud seemed to shroud the sun for a while, it soon disappeared as Eveleen returned to her customary bright demeanor. The two ladies stood on the green with Captain James, and cheered as Harris and West-haven raced down the long green sward, around a distant pond, and back.

  Arabella's heart pounded as she watched Westhaven*s magnificent frame bent low over his Arabian's neck. What a splendid horseman he proved to be! The clear victor, he was already off his mount before Harris sped to join them. The captain flung himself from his saddle and clasped Westhaven's hand in a firm grip, pumping it enthusiastically.

  "Told you that bay was a broken-down gasper, Harris," Eveleen crowed.

  "So you did. Eve." He panted, leaning over, hands on his knees, to catch his breath. He straightened and said, "Splendid match, Westhaven. Want a rematch sometime." Harris mopped the sweat from his neck and then dug in his coat pocket. Laughing breathlessly, he let a stream of gold slip into Westhaven's hand.

  "Name the time and place, Harris, and I will oblige," Westhaven said, counting out the money. "Or p'raps we will have a canoe race down the Serpentine!"

  Both men shouted with laughter and clapped each other on the back, and Arabella concluded it was some private joke from their time in Canada. When they all retreated to the blankets and Westhaven flopped inelegantly down by her side, she said, "What is a canoe? You have mentioned such a vessel before, but I cannot picture it"

  While they ate, Westhaven described the elegant dimensions and design of the native boat, and Arabella pictured him, brown and bearded, making his way through the Canadian wilderness with his Ojibwa— Marcus had explained that Ojibwa was a tribal name— friend and guide, George Two Feathers. She turned to ask Eveleen what she thought of what Westhaven had been saying, but the words died on her lips. Harris lay with his head in Eveleen's lap, and she fed him grapes. His teeth nipped at her fingers and she kissed his nose, nibbling at it as he had her fingers. The intimacy between them was unmistakable; they seemed more like a married couple than merely courting.

  As she watched the pair, Arabella could not get out of her mind Eveleen's startling advice, and though she had no intention of taking it, it plagued her with powerful and dark images of two lovers entwined in the shadows, one with Marcus's face and one with—^yes, with hers. She turned away from both the image and her friend’s shockingly free behavior with her beau. She had never seen such intimacy between two people, and it left her feeling oddly as if she had eavesdropped on a private conversation. Westhaven watched her and smiled with what looked like understanding.

  And so she resolutely banished all gloom. This was not a day for worry, nor for dejection; it was far too beautiful, and she was truly enjoying the company too much. Even Eveleen seemed completely recovered from her fit of moodiness. The real world of obligation and formality seemed far removed from this sunny park and it was not to be wondered at if their behavior became a little freer, a little heedless. Harris's friend had brought his fishing rod and announced his intention of throwing a line in for a few hours. Harris took Eveleen's hand and the two disappeared into a shady copse, but not before she threw a mischievous look over her shoulder, and said, "Do not come looking for us, you two!"

  Arabella's cheeks flamed as inevitably she wondered what they were up to. She decided she did not want to know. This was a new side to her friend, one she had not suspected; morally, Eveleen had always seemed most circumspect, at least in London company. Marcus diplomatically ignored Eveleen's parting words and suggested that Arabella might like to take a stroll.

  "Alone at last." He chuckled as he took her arm and they walked toward a copse of trees, in the opposite direction from their friends.

  Arabella glanced up at him, a little alarmed at his ambiguous words, but he was looking off into the distance and seemed to have nothing in particular on his mind. They strolled in silence for a few minutes, both lost in their own thoughts.

 
"Do you intend to go back to Canada?" she asked, apropos of those thoughts.

  "Yes. I cannot imagine staying here in England forever. I miss Canada already."

  "Will you return to your work?"

  He nodded. Unselfconsciously, he put his arm around her shoulders as they strolled into the shade of the copse of trees. There was a dry path that wandered through, and Arabella inhaled deeply the fragrance of last year's dead leaves and the biting fragrance that overlaid it from the needles around the occasional pine. She loved the scent, and it took her back to childhood days wandering the woods with True and Faith. She should shrug off his arm, she supposed, but it felt comforting, like a warm shawl over her.

  "I think, though, that I will be traveling west when I get back, west to the mountains. There is so much of the continent not yet opened up. What Lewis and Clark have done for the American West, I wish to do for the Canadian west. There is so much to see, Arabella, so much to do!"

  His voice held passion and excitement. Arabella had never heard a man talk as he did. Most of the young men she had met in London through the Season had only displayed passion when talking of hunting or sport of some kind. Marcus Westhaven seemed to feel that genuine passion for life itself, and would not be held back from what he wanted. For the first time Arabella began to wonder if this was what Eveleen had spoken of, this ability to do as one wanted, go where one wished, that women were cheated of merely because of their sex. This was what men experienced all the time. What would it be like?

  If only she were a man, she would accompany Marcus—leave England behind and explore the world! She was enthralled with his future plans, and a vision of wide vistas, huge mountains, rushing, tumbling cataracts crowded her brain. "Tell me more about Canada, Marcus," she pled, slipping her arm around his waist and feeling a thrill at die unaccustomed sensation of muscles flexing under her fingers through the fine fabric of his shirt. Somehow, they had fallen into first-naming each other, but it felt as natural as his arm around her, and she had no wish to go all missish on him.

  "Let's see, what shall I tell you? My first real sight of Canada—I do not count the eastern area as Canada, not my Canada, anyway—was Montreal Harbor, and a dirtier, more disease-ridden place you have never seen! Our vessel was quarantined for a week, and all I could do was gaze at the shore and wish I could leave that rocking, boring jail of the ship. When I finally did, I made my way immediately out of the town and into the wilderness. I was so young—only nineteen. It called to me, Arabella, like the Siren songs the sailors used to hear, and I responded by falling deeply in love."

  They walked and talked for an hour, and then finally sat on a log near the other end of the pond from Captain James, who they could still see casting his line. They gazed out across the calm pond; the sky, a brilliant blue, almost sapphire, with tiny clouds puffing across it like sails on a lake, was reflected like a mirror, and a swallow swooped low and shot straight up into the azure heights. Arabella was content for the first time in a long time and yet she did not understand why. Her problems were still what they were. The moment Lord Pelimore was back in town her mother would be plaguing her again, though she had seemed mysteriously distracted lately. And this interlude with Marcus was just that, a pause before the final, serious push to attach Baron Pelimore began.

  "Tell me more, Marcus. Tell me more." She laid her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes.

  Marcus almost couldn't breathe and his heart beat a rapid tattoo, though he concealed this from Arabella. He talked on as she laid her head on his shoulder. He could smell her lilac woman scent—her soft blond hair was tickling his nose, and he wanted to kiss her. The desire was so suffocating that he could not take in a breath without shuddering, and he did not want to alarm her with his need.

  Was it truly pure physical need that he felt, as he had been telling himself? Or was there something more between them? He would never forget her eyes as she begged for forgiveness in the inn on the way to Richmond. In that moment, he felt like he could see through her clear down to her heart, and could see the goodness that dwelt within her, the tender side of a fiery and feisty woman. He felt a sudden urge to take her in his arms, kiss her, and ask her to marry him, and the thought shook him to the core. It was the first time the thought of marriage had ever occurred to him spontaneously like that. He did not intend to marry, ever, and was heading back to Canada as soon as this sad business with his uncle was over. There was no room in his life for a permanent woman.

  Of course, there had been Moira, but she had fit into the rugged frontier life he lived. When he had asked her to marry him—circumstances had dictated that proposal, not his own wishes—he was all of twenty-one and she was twenty-seven. They had planned to marry and set on some land down near Lake Erie, land she owned from her father's involvement on the British side of the American Revolutionary war. When she died, he had returned to the nomadic life of the army, and then the war had broken out. Since then he had decided that marriage was too much of a burden when a man liked his life adventurous.

  And a woman like Arabella, pampered and used to all of the best in life, would never fit in among his friends. Look at her now, he thought, gazing fondly down at her. Dressed for a day in the country, she still wore gloves, a walking dress of some pretty shiny material, a Spencer, and a ridiculous, tiny hat perched on her blond ringlets, which, as always, were perfectly coiled.

  Moira had been a rugged Scotswoman. She was beautiful in her way, but her hair was simply pulled back on her neck, her dress was of sprigged cotton, handmade and well-worn, and her perfume was rainwater. And she was not afraid of hard labor, having worked her father's farm her whole life. She knew how to muck out stables, make candles, boil maple sap for sugar, collect wild rice in the native way, chop wood—and still, as much as she fit into the land he loved, he would not have asked her to marry him, but they found out she was with child, his child. He turned away from the dark memory of the months leading up to her death. Even with all her hardiness she had died before childbirth from some mysterious illness connected with the pregnancy.

  No. No man had a right to expect any woman to live like that, and he could not give up his dream of going back to Canada. The sweet flower he held in his arms was a cultivated plant; she would wilt and die in the wilderness.

  She opened her eyes and turned her face up to him. "You have stopped talking. Why?"

  For an answer, against all his common sense, against all of his sensible resolutions, he covered her lips with his own and felt her immediate surrender to his kiss. Fire and ice raced up and down his spine, and he felt the swift pulse of desire, followed by the throb of arousal. He plundered her mouth for a moment longer, then put her away from him, angry at himself for letting his passions overpower his reason. He felt a sureness within him that she was absolutely innocent of experience. She may have kissed before, but not in this way, not with the wanton disregard of propriety that he had led her to with his own lust.

  Her eyes were dazed and shadowed with desire, the green deepened to an olive of incredible hue. Her lips were moist still, and he licked his own lips and took in a deep shuddering breath. What he would give to have her, just once, to love her as a woman should be loved!

  But no one knew it would never be, better than himself. He could not— must not—forget her destiny, a rich man's treasure.

  "Marcus?" Her voice was sweet and thick, as though she held a mouthful of Devonshire cream and honey. She moved closer to him on the log and threaded her arms under his, around his waist.

  He pushed her away, gently, though it was the last thing he wanted to do. "I always seem to be apologizing to you for my behavior," he said, ruefully. "It is getting annoying."

  She sat straight, pulling away from him, and the haze disappeared from her eyes. "Then don't do it," she said, tartly, and lifted her chin, shaking back her mussed curls. She took a deep breath and swallowed. "Tell me of George and Mary Two Feathers, instead."

  After a silent moment, they r
eturned to the safety of neutral subjects.

  "You seem so very fond of Mary," Arabella said, after he described her, her fawn dark eyes and glossy black hair, and how she called him "Pere Marc."

  "She is about the age my—" He stopped and looked away, struggling with his emotion, then continued. "She is so very easy to be fond of. She is bright and engaging and smart as a whip. She dances at the lodge meetings in an outfit her mother made her, all buckskin and feathers and little bells obtained by trading with the English; I have been privileged to be named her second father. It is an honor." He stared straight ahead of him and spoke woodenly

  Arabella could feel some curious hurt within him. "Do you ever want children?"

  She saw him flinch as if she had slapped him, and an idea stole into her brain. But how to ask? "Did you . . . did you have a child once?" she said, as gently as she could.

  "Almost," he said, brokenly.

  "Moira?"

  "Yes."

  There was silence but for the trill of a lark. A light breeze had sprung up and it rustled through the brush that crowded the pond edge and created dancing ripples on the surface.

  "I am so, so sorry, Marcus," Arabella said, gently, and laid her hand over his. "You must have loved her very much. And to lose not only her, but the life she carried—" Inevitable pain streaked through her, but she abandoned it as an unworthy emotion. He had loved and lost, and she regarded him with a kind of awe she reserved for deep suffering.

  "I ... I suppose I did," he said. He covered his eyes with his hands for a moment, then took a deep breath and shook his head, smiling. "Moira was truly wonderful. Brave, resourceful, tough. Those don't sound like womanly traits, but I admired her for them, more than I can say."