Belle of the ball

by Donna Lea Simpson

He was silent, and Arabella's fury built at his obstinate obtuseness. "What do you know of a woman's lot in life, you having been off in the wilds of Canada. What do you know?"

  He was silent, and his expression gave away nothing of what he thought Arabella stared at him and it came upon her in a rush what it would cost her to marry Pelimore. She had done the unthinkable. She had fallen in love with a poor man. Damn him! Damn Marcus Westhaven for not being wealthy!

  And more than that, damn him for not even thinking to ask her to marry him himself, for she would be seriously tempted, despite everything, despite her obligation to her mother, despite Swinley Manor. She would be tempted to run away with him. She had never felt this all-consuming need to be near someone, the fire in the depths of her being that flared every time she looked at him, maddening as he was.

  And she was going to cry. She would not let him see her cry! She turned and started to walk away. She heard his exclamation of exasperation, then his quick steps, but still she was not preprepared for the sudden jolt as he swiftly turned her around and pulled her into his arms.

  His lips claimed hers, and she surrendered to the overpowering urge to be held and kissed and made love to. After the first angry crushing of his mouth against hers, his kiss softened and swept her away on a tide of sweet sensation. While he kissed her like that, she could forget everything, could forget the iniquities of life, the sordid reality of it. She wound her arms around his neck and felt his sinewy arms surround her, holding her tight against his body.

  But then she conquered her desires and pushed him away, holding her gloved fingers against her lips for one second.

  "Good-bye, Marcus," she said, hoping the sob that was in her heart did not sound in her trembling voice. "I wish you well on your journey back to Canada, whenever it shall be."

  She turned and swiftly left the small park, through the gate and back across the street to Leathorne House.

  "Arabella, wait! Listen to me! I must tell you—"

  She broke into a run then, and did not stop until she was inside. And when Marcus tried to call at Leathorne House, she had the butler turn him away. There was nothing he could say to her now that would change a thing.

  Seventeen

  "The garden is so beautiful," Arabella said. She looked up at her cousin's home, Thome House, and then over at Truelove, who strolled with her along a gravel walkway bordered by lush gardens, holding the tiny baby girl she had borne just one month before.

  "Thanks to you, my darling cousin! It is my first summer here; there are a thousand things I want to do, and yet I still feel so weak. I cannot find the energy for even one. If it were not for you and your boundless energy, it would all still be a mass of weeds."

  Arabella impulsively put her arm around her smaller cousin's shoulders, touched the baby's downy head, and said, "Hardly that. Drake would have hired the best of gardeners, you know, if he knew what you wanted. My dear, we are lucky you are"—she paused and swallowed, then continued in a determinedly calm voice—"are well enough to even walk in the garden. You had a very rough time of it" She carefully watched her tone, determinedly not letting her voice break, though it was wont to, even now, a month after True's ordeal. She tried not to remind her cousin of the fact that she had come far too close to dying in childbirth and would likely be weak for a good while to come.

  Drake, her husband, in the depths of his fear, had sworn that this child would be their only one. He would not risk losing the woman he loved more than life itself just to secure an heir. Arabella had been deeply touched, and though she and her cousin-in-law Drake did not get along, she felt humbled by his love. For that reason she had done her best to be civil to him, and to remain on the good terms they had come to during True's illness.

  In that spirit, she said, "I'm fortunate that Drake allowed me to do this work instead of hiring someone. I would have felt at loose ends, else."

  As she and True strolled in the July sunshine, she pondered fate, and how providence had stepped in to take a hand over the last year or so. Lord Drake was the very man both her and his mother, the Ladies Swinley and Leathorne, had schemed to match her with! It was laughable. They would have hated each other before long, she and Drake, but there was never any question really, whom he would marry. He had adored Truelove from the very first moment of setting eyes on her, Arabella thought, and mishearing her name, calling her "Miss Truelove Beckons." It had been a prophetic mistake.

  And oddly enough, she and Drake had despised each other, for some strange reason that she still did not fully understand, for she acknowledged that he was a good man, and a worthy one. She supposed that was providence keeping both of them from drifting into an arranged marriage; that could have happened if there had been less antipathy between them. Love was apparently a powerful, unstoppable force.

  Even now, almost a year later, the only thing that they agreed on was that Truelove was perfect, the baby was adorable, and that they were lucky both had survived. Their love for Truelove and Sarah bound them as nothing else in the world ever could. Other than that, they tended to avoid being together too much, for they fought over the most petty of things, their discord seeming to stem from a complete lack of understanding of each other's character. Arabella had a feeling he thought her superficial; she knew that she thought him overbearing and tediously serious.

  Lady Truelove Drake, formerly Miss Truelove Becket, watched her cousin closely. Arabella had, two months before, expressed her desire to come to True for the lying-in period, and True had been glad to have her. Arabella was more sensible than anyone gave her credit for being—^not to mention stronger—and her rational behavior was a relief after the way her mother-in-law worried and her husband fretted. She loved them both dearly, but it was Arabella to whom she turned, pouring out her fears and anxieties. Dear Bella never overreacted, never panicked, never told her she was being a goose. She always responded with calm and comforting sense.

  But after the baby was born and True had time to observe her younger cousin at close quarters, she saw that Arabella was not herself. It was not just that she was quieter than normal, or that she appeared beaten down by life. There was a new thoughtfulness to her that should be a welcome relief in one who was always a little feckless. And True would have welcomed it if Bella would have shared a little of what her thoughts were, but she did not. It worried her.

  Later that warm July evening, as the clock in the hallway chimed eleven, she and her husband stood in the dim nursery watching baby Sarah sleep. True said, "Wy, Arabella is still not happy. I don't know what I expected—she is making a marriage of convenience after all, not one of love—but I did expect that she would look forward to having her own establishment, and to being Lady Pelimore. All she ever seemed to want out of marriage was wealth and position, and she is gaining both. But she won't even talk about her wedding or her marriage or after her marriage, or anything. I am so worried."

  Lord Drake, Wy to his wife, cuddled her close to his body. "You, my darling, are not to worry about anyone or anything. Arabella is quite capable of looking after herself. The girl has raised self-interest to an art form."

  "Drake, you are unkind," she said. "But I suppose, in some measure, you are right. She is an adult, not a child. Oh, look, Wy, she is smiling!" True cried, staring down at their baby girl. They both gazed down with awe at the little creature they had created together. The baby burped, and they cooed adoringly, bending over the cradle and gazing in mutual rapture.

  "She is the most beautiful creature in the world," Drake whispered. "Next to her mother, of course," he added, squeezing his wife's waist. They stared in silence for a minute, and then straightened.

  "As I said, I suppose in your own way you're right about Bella," True went on, once the moment of parental delirium was over. "I know she is strong and self-reliant But it is just that she hasn't got her old fire, her old spirit. She seems ... oh, listless, somehow. Resigned rather than happy."

  "No one forced Arabella into this engagement; you
know that, my dear. She told you so herself. She is a realist. She does not have your warm heart and sweet nature, my love, and you must not expect her to be as tender-hearted as you. She has accepted this marriage to poor old Pelimore as the most palatable way to go on."

  Privately, Truelove thought that "poor old Pelimore" was getting the best end of the bargain, a young, beautiful, intelligent wife, but she did not say so to her husband. Their only arguments so far had been over Arabella, and it had taken some convincing—and pleading—to elicit anything more than grudging approval to have her come for the summer. Uneasy peace reigned at the moment, but there was always tension between Wy and Bella. They just did not see eye to eye on anything, though it seemed to have improved for a while after Sarah's birth. "Still," True said, stubbornly, "there is something she is not telling me, something she is unhappy about. I will get it out of her somehow."

  Drake chuckled and caressed her shoulder. "Come to bed, my darling busybody. You must not get tired, and you have been up for too long today."

  The morning breeze drifted in from the rose garden outside of the breakfast room window, carrying in the intoxicating perfume of a hundred flowers. There was silence around the table. Drake read one paper and True read another. Arabella absently spread butter on a muffin as she stared out at the cloud-strewn sky.

  "Listen to this, Arabella," True said. "It says here that Lady Cynthia Walkerton will marry Lord Bessemere, heir to the Haliburton title and fortune. Is that a good match?"

  "Brilliant," Arabella said, quietly, setting her muffin aside on the pretty floral breakfast plate, untasted. "Haliburton is a duke, and richer than the royal dukes. And a cannier businessman there has not been in Britain—at least not among the aristocracy. Bessemere will have millions when his father dies. He is a dear young fellow; I am afraid Lady Cynthia will eat him alive."

  True glanced over at her cousin with a worried frown. "You know Lord Bessemere?"

  "Oh, yes. Bookish fellow. Quiet, but quite charming when drawn out of himself."

  "Did you . . . did you spend much time with him?"

  Arabella took a sip of her coffee, and indicated to the footman that she would like a refill. "A little . . . not much," she said, stirring sugar into her cup. "I danced with him a few times. But his mother was on the lookout for a fortune—money seeks money, you know."

  "Did you . . . was he a favorite of yours?"

  Arabella's gaze sharpened and she laughed, but there was little happiness in her expression. "Oh, True, stop fishing. I am not in love with Bessemere, nor am I eating my heart out for him, or ... or any man! I am perfectly content, so just stop your fussing and take care of your husband, whose coffee cup is empty, if I am not mistaken."

  The footman leaped forward at that comment, and True, glancing over the table with a housewife's practiced gaze, said, "Could you ask Cook if there are any more pop-overs, Albert? Lord Drake is especially fond of pop-overs and we seem to have run out of them." Laying aside her paper for a moment, she said, "Bella, would you like to go into the village with me later? I have a longing for some new books, and I thought we would look in the drapers for ribbons to go with that pink sarcenet for your trousseau."

  "If you like," Arabella said, without enthusiasm. "As long as it will not overtire you, my dear. We can easily leave it to another day."

  True glanced over at her husband, but he was still lost in the paper. He had become the complete farming gentleman since they had come to live at Thorne House after the wedding, and she could not be more contented with that. The relatively modest mansion had felt like home the instant she had seen it the previous spring, and she never wanted to leave.

  But he showed precious little interest in anything beyond his books, the estate, his wife, and his new daughter, and she worried that his concerns were becoming too narrowly focused. Even the trade school he had set up for injured and out-of-work former soldiers was going on with little of his direction now. Not that it needed him. His former batman, Horace Cooper, was very ably managing it.

  True did wish he would stir himself to help her with Arabella, though, at least, but he was of no assistance at all. He tolerated her because she was his wife's cousin, but he showed less interest in her than he did in the dullest book on new farming techniques!

  Brightly, True tried to animate the conversation with Arabella. "Where will you and Lord Pelimore live once you are married; in London or at his house in the country?"

  'I don't know," Arabella said, pulling apart the muffin and leaving it in crumbs on her plate. She sipped her coffee again, but still did not eat any of the crumbs of muffin.

  "Will you travel?"

  "Perhaps. Whatever Pelimore wants."

  Exasperated with her cousin's lack of interest in anything to do with her marriage, or anything else for that matter. True went back to her paper, desperate to find any morsel of news that would make Arabella take some notice. She went through a few more pieces of society gossip without any luck, then read out loud, "The fourth Earl of Oakmont has died at the age of ninety-five, one day after his birthday, at his country home near Reading."

  Arabella looked up. "Really? So the poor old fellow died at last."

  True's eyes widened and she quickly said, "Do you know him?"

  "Oh, no, I know of him. He is a recluse . . . was, I should say. He was ninety-four, after all. But it was the talk of London who his heir is. It is a mystery and had all of London agog. Apparently the heir is some nabob recently come back from India, or something."

  It was the most she had said at one time about the Season just past, and True hurriedly looked down at the paper and read out loud, "The claimant for the tide of fifth Earl of Oakmont came forward to the solicitors sometime 2^0, and had been verified as the real and true heir even before Lord Oakmont passed. This step was necessary because the claimant was long thought to be dead, since his parents had died tragically many years before and all contact had ceased from the young man. It can now be told that he was visiting his uncle while his identity was being verified and was present at the earl's passing.'*

  'I have always wondered why the fellow did not declare himself to London society," Arabella mused. '*He would have been the toast of the town; I hear he is a bachelor, and that alone would have guaranteed him instant success. He would certainly have been the most popular man in London. I daresay he would not have had to dine alone for months."

  "There's your answer," Drake said, his voice dry as he shook his paper out and folded it. "He knew the minute he said who he was he would be pursued by money-hungry harpies wanting to marry him."

  Arabella did not respond, though she must have known the barb was aimed at her. True darted a quelling glance at her husband. "It says here he is the heir to several estate houses, hunting boxes, and the main family seat. Lakelands, up in Cumbria."

  Arabella appeared to have lost interest again, and True said, a little desperately, "Did you ever meet a gentleman by the name of Westhaven?"

  Arabella looked up again. "W—Westhaven? Marcus Westhaven?"

  True glanced down at the paper again and found the piece. "Yes, that is the name here."

  "Why? Where? Is he m—married or engaged or—"

  "No, silly, he is the heir, the one I was just speaking of. Were you not paying attention?" True looked at her cousin's stunned face, wondering why Arabella's voice had taken on a choked sound. "Marcus Westhaven is the fifth Earl of Oakmont."

  Eighteen

  August was in its full-blown glory. Marcus galloped along a country road, for the moment at peace with himself and his surroundings. It would not last, he knew, but while he felt it he would revel in it. He was on his way to Hampshire and free, for once, of his newfound consequence. It did not sit well on his shoulders and he hoped he was riding away from it.

  The house near Reading—his uncle's favored home and where the old man had died just a month before— while comfortable, was a little too formal for Marcus's tastes. If he was honest, he would say it was
a lot too formal. Gorgeous Turkish carpets woven with the Oakmont seal in the border, Waterford crystal, heavy Georgian furnishings from the middle of the last century, landscaping by Capability Brown—the best and most ornate of everything. Marcus found it suffocating and stultifying. He almost could not breathe in the heavy atmosphere of the mansion.

  And worse, there was nothing to do!

  For the last fifteen years of his life the fourth Earl of Oakmont had not been healthy physically, though his mind had functioned as well as it ever had. As a result, the estate had been managed from his bed much of the time. By now the steward knew his work far better than Marcus ever would if he studied it from now until he crept into his grave. It was all so well taken care of and ran so smoothly that there was not a thing for a man of energy and youth to do but ride every day and receive the torrent of visitors that insisted on descending upon the new Earl of Oakmont. This, for a man used to the wilds of Canada and new sights every day, was irksome in the extreme. He longed for new vistas and a little nature.

  Even more irritating than the lack of anything to do, though, was the difficulty Marcus was having getting used to his new status. He was surrounded by dozens of servants, bowing every time they saw him and calling him "my lord" and "Lord Oakmont." And even worse, every person of consequence, and many more of no consequence, who had flooded back into the country from the London Season, deigned to visit him and subtly congratulate him on his coup. As the fifth Earl of Oakmont he had many more "friends" than would have even spoken to him in London when he was merely Marcus Westhaven. What had happened to Marcus Westhaven, for heaven's sake? Where was the poor fellow? Buried in fine linens and harried by impeccably mannered servants, that was where he was. He had pensioned off the servants he could, but there were still fair too many for his liking.

  Brooding one fine, sunny day, he had suddenly realized that there was not a thing keeping him there. He was confined, by his period of mourning for his uncle— though he did not follow many of society's dictates, his respect for the old man commanded him in this—to no public entertainments and a black armband on his sober-colored coat, but no one could tell him where to go. Among his new acquisitions—and that was another thing that troubled him; how would he ever get back to Canada with all of these new responsibilities and literally hundreds of employees depending on his active management of the several and various estates now in his possession?—there was a hunting box down in Hampshire. It was a little too early for hunting, if he remembered right, but he would go anyway. A hunting box would not retain the staff of his main seat, nor would anyone there be expecting him. They would be less likely, surely, to make a fuss and bother over him.