To Wed an Heiress (10 page)

A
t long last the ladies returned. Arabella was wrapped in a ruby red pelisse trimmed with ermine on every edge, and she carried a large ermine muff to boot. Her long, slim figure stepped sinuously down the stairs of the great staircase, with an eye to the gentlemen watching her descend.

Eda followed close behind. Her own pelisse was purple, a brilliant contrast with the green of her dress, and as Haro had conjectured, her furs were sable. She looked every inch an empress, except for the barely concealed smile that lingered on her lips and betokened she was hiding some secret amusement.

The front door opened, and the four walkers stepped out into the chill of the late morning. Arabella and Haro led the way, the mill owner’s slender daughter leaning against the earl like a climbing vine on an oak tree. The other two fell in step several paces behind them. Bayeux’s face twisted into an unmistakable scowl. He kept his hands securely in the pockets of his many-caped greatcoat and, no matter how much Eda tried to draw him out, had little conversation to offer.

Arabella and Haro, on the other hand, had no lack of things to discuss. At Haro’s instigation, they walked forward quickly until they were out of earshot from the others.

“I must apologize for my cousin’s rudeness,” said Haro, inclining his head a little toward his fiancée. It was best to acknowledge the annoyance of the inappropriate sketch and get it out of the way. “She is still grieving over my father’s death, and I beg you to excuse any irregularities she displays.”

Arabella looked up at him, her eyes quite serious. “Irregularities like having your dressing gown in her room?”

Haro blanched. Hellfire! She knew. He determined to brazen his way out of this mess.

“My dressing gown? What on earth do you mean?”

“After I went to my room to collect my furs, I knocked on your cousin’s door to see if she was ready—and also to return that odious picture she foisted on me at breakfast. She bade me enter, and there, slung over the back of her zebrawood chair, was a Chinese dressing gown, much too large for her, and obviously designed for a man.

“She must have caught me looking at it, for she gave a little laugh and said, ‘Oh, that! It’s Haro’s.’ And catching it up from the chair, she tossed it upon her
bed
without any further explanation.” Arabella sniffed. “And is that, pray tell, one of the
irregularities
I am supposed to excuse?”

“Good God!” Haro cast about for some suitable explanation that did not involve his cousin coming into his rooms in the dead of night clad only in her shift. “I can only assume the maids must have mixed up the laundry, and she decided to make a joke of it at my expense. Eda has always enjoyed her jokes….”

Arabella, it appeared, did not share this enjoyment, for she had not the slightest twinkle in her eye when she responded. “If there are so many inhabitants in the house that the maids cannot sort the wash correctly, then perhaps it is time to ease their labor. And I daresay your cousin’s grief would heal more swiftly were she to remove herself from an environment that holds such painful memories.”

“You want Eda to leave Woldwick?” Haro could have foreseen this request, but it still felt like someone had planted a facer on him. He stopped in the middle of the path.

“It is three weeks to our wedding, and I cannot share a house with her.” The words came out shrill, and it seemed that Arabella knew almost immediately that she needed to soften them. Her warm hand came out of her ermine muff and found his cheek, now glowing from the exercise in the cold air. “You understand, my love?” Her thumb caressed his ear.

“Mmm, yes,” he said, glad that the lady in question had fallen so far behind them that the trees would obscure this display of affection. He laid a light kiss on Arabella’s upturned cheek. He could not deny that Eda was becoming more than a nuisance. If she continued on with her rude and reckless behavior, he would have no choice but to turn her out of doors.

But where would she go? Of her father’s relatives in Ireland, there were none that lived in anything better than a hovel. Of her mother’s relatives in England, only Lady Anglesford remained.

And yet, it was unconscionable to expect a bride to live in such proximity to her husband’s former intended. She
must
know that there had been an understanding between them. And she was within her rights to demand that her rival depart—more than within them if she had any inkling of last night’s midnight encounter.

There was no help for it. Eda must go. Haro resolved to ask his mother about it later that day. Perhaps Lady Anglesford would know a place where her foster daughter would be welcome. The only thing Haro knew for certain was that Woldwick was no longer that place.

***

“Come now, Monsieur,” said Eda as they picked their way along the path to the pond. “You must tell me
something
of interest about yourself, or I shall give you up as an altogether disobliging man.”

“Very well,” he said, bestowing on her the first small smile he had given throughout the whole of their walk. “My father died in the service of Louis XVI. My mother was the daughter of an aristocrat in the south of France, and she was forced to flee to England when I was just
un enfant,
leaving me behind.”

“Oh goodness! How very exciting!”

“Not very.” He stabbed his cane sharply into the earth with each step they took. “Although it ended up being the making of me. For had the Terror never happened, and had she stayed in France, I doubt not that I would have grown up idle and uneducated. But after she was gone, I grew up quickly, for I knew that I would have to earn my own bread. I applied myself to learning, and my studies acquainted me with architecture, the second great love of my life.”

Eda had no qualms conjecturing which love he held higher than his chosen vocation. “And your studies of architecture led you to meet our dear friends, the Hastings.”

“Yes.” He proceeded more cautiously. “Mr. Hastings became a client of mine several years ago. I designed his house for him in the north of England, a grand mansion with over forty rooms in the Palladian style.”

“It sounds very fine! And did Miss Hastings approve of it?”

“Yes, very much so.” His voice warmed a little, though the air was still cold enough to see his breath. “She has a passion for architecture.”

“I did not know that.” Eda resolved to try a more direct approach in gleaning information. “I only knew that she had a passion for earls.”

“No!” His voice turned bitter. “That passion belongs entirely to her father.”

Eda stayed silent, praying that he would continue.

“There was a time when a mill owner would find a man of his own station—worthy to pursue his daughter’s hand. But now, all sense of order is overturned, and capitalists aspire to be kings on the backs of their children’s marriages.” He hit his cane against a nearby log with astonishing force.

“So, this Mr. Hastings has convinced his daughter, against her will, to accept our Haro’s hand?”

“I am sure of it—or, at least, I was sure enough to come here.”

“And now that you are here, what will you do?”

“
Je ne sais pas
. I’ve had no chance to speak with her alone, to reason with her, to understand her heart. And now they have set a date!”

“Three weeks.” Eda pronounced the words like a verdict of doom.

“Three weeks!
Mon dieu
! Is there nothing I can do?”

“Nothing other than convince the lady to stand up to her father and throw Haro over. Are you
that
persuasive? Are you
that
charming?”

Bayeux shrugged. “Perhaps. But it is only possible if I can gain an audience with her. Alone.”

Eda gave the man a sympathetic smile. “That is something that I might be able to help you with.”

***

“Don’t get too near the edge,” warned Haro, as he helped Arabella down to the shores of the forest’s frosted pool. They called it a pond, but it was more of a lake, stretching out like a long finger toward the nearby village. A slow stream fed into it, bridged by a few weathered, wooden boards so that the path could continue unbroken around the water. At the end of the stream, just under the bridge, the ice began. White lines of frost zigzagged across the surface like intricate designs on a dish of white porcelain.

“It looks delicious,” said Arabella, no doubt thinking of the ices she had ordered for one of her father’s last parties in London. Haro suspected that she was making a deliberate attempt to humor him with her praise. From what he could tell, she had no innate appreciation for natural beauty, but he had acquiesced so readily to his cousin being cast out of doors that he needed some small reward.

“A fine sight,” Haro agreed. “I told Torin it wouldn’t be ready for skating until next week, but I wonder….” He put a tentative boot upon the edge of the ice. He took another step and left the safety of the shore. Another step—he felt it creak beneath his weight. One more step and it would be sure to crack.

“Watch what you’re doing, boy!” said a voice from the bridge. Startled, Haro shifted his weight, and the hard sole of his boot broke through the ice with a splash. He regained his balance ingloriously and recovered the safety of the shore by Arabella’s side, thankful that his topboots had protected his breeches from a dousing.

“What are you doing out here, Uncle Harold?” he demanded. The old man was in little more than his shirtsleeves and trousers, and it was as cold outside as a Russian Christmas. Haro could see the gleam of frozen water on the boards of the bridge. “And you should watch what you’re doing the same as I. There’s ice on those steps!”

Uncle Harold came down from the bridge, his feet surprisingly sure for an octogenarian. As he came closer, they could see that he held a large loaf of bread in his hands. “Ice? Pshaw. This is nothing compared to the winter I was in St. Petersburg. There was ice on our eyebrows every time we walked outside.”

“But I daresay the Countess kept you warm enough!” called out a cheerful voice. Haro swung around to see that Eda and Bayeux had come around the bend and were closing the distance between themselves and the water.

Uncle Harold smiled. Eda always
had
been his favorite, or at least, so Haro suspected. He wondered how the old man would take the news of her imminent eviction from Woldwick.

“I see you’ve already managed to spoil the pristine beauty of the pond,” said Eda, gesturing at the jagged hole Haro’s boots had made near the shore.

Haro tensed. So, she meant to sink her claws into him as well as into Arabella this morning. Well, then, let her! It would make him feel like less of a blackguard when he turned her out of her adoptive home.

“He tried walking on it!” said the old man with a snort. “Walking on it, when it’s hardly thick enough to hold a sparrow, let alone a great, galloping lad!”

“What does it matter?” said Arabella. “There’s ice aplenty to look at, and once you’ve all looked your fill we can return to the house. Some of us”—she glanced at Uncle Harold—“may be warm enough in our shirtsleeves, but I, for one, am starting to feel the chill.”

“By all means, then, let us return,” said Eda, acting far more agreeable to the idea than anyone would have guessed. “We should switch walking partners for the journey back, for Monsieur Bayeux tells me he has several questions to put to you regarding the house plans.”

Haro frowned at this, but the architect had already stepped up on Arabella’s other side and was blathering on about beams, and gables, and cornices.

“Will you join our party?” Eda called out to Uncle Harold.

“No, thank you, my dear.” The eccentric old man waved good-bye with one hand while his other hand clutched the loaf of bread. “I still have my birds to feed.”

“There’s a thick mist settling in through the trees,” Haro called out to the figure receding into the bare branches. He knew the old man was familiar with the woods, but still, there was a chance that he could lose his way in all the fog.

“Just leave him be,” said Eda, taking Haro’s arm and giving it a pull. “He’s too stubborn to listen, and we might as well get back to the house before your beloved’s nose turns blue.”

The path was not wide, but neither gentleman seemed willing to leave Arabella’s side, so they pressed on four abreast, jostling elbows and nearly stepping on each other’s feet. The fog was growing rapidly, and soon it was hard to see more than a dozen paces ahead of them.

“Oh dear,” said Eda quietly, falling behind the rest and bending down on one knee. Haro, who had been walking beside her, was the only one to notice her disappearance—the other two were talking far too animatedly about friezes and fixtures. He bit his lip in frustration, but whatever his feelings, the idea of leaving a female behind in the fast-growing fog was too ungentlemanly to be thought of. He murmured something to Arabella about being “right back in half a second” and turned around to come to the aid of his confounded cousin.

***

“What are you doing?” Haro demanded. The fog had already swallowed up the other two, and he was alone with Eda’s kneeling figure, surrounded by a thickening wall of white.

“I’ve broken my lace and need to fix it before I can go on.”

“Wouldn’t it be more effective to pretend that you’ve twisted your ankle?”

“Why, Haro! How clever of you! I do believe it would.” She stood up with a show of anguish and hobbled over to her cousin’s arm. “Would it be too difficult for you to carry me? Yes? Perhaps if I lean very heavily on your arm, I will be able to make it back to the house without fainting from the pain.”

Haro grimaced as she hung her full weight upon his forearm, and he began to drag her slowly down the path. It rankled him more than a little that this charade had forced Arabella into a tête-à-tête with the mysterious architect, but it also occurred to him that now would be an excellent time to broach some unpleasant news to his cousin.

“I hear you’ve been flaunting my dressing gown in a most inappropriate manner.”

“It’s very comfortable,” said Eda, forgetting to wince with each step now that Haro had addressed her in conversation. “I’m thinking of keeping it. Will your fiancée approve?”

Haro snorted. “I imagine any decent woman would approve if it kept you from wandering the halls in your nightdress. Go ahead and pack it in your trunk, and whatever else you want to take with you.”

“Oh? Are we going back to London so soon?”

“No,
we
are staying.
You
are going to London, or Brighton, or anywhere there’s someone who will take you in.”

Eda stopped walking. Her fingers tightened around his arm. “Haro, what on earth do you mean?”

“I mean you’ve been the most horrible harridan this past week or more, vexing Arabella to no end with your taunts and your tittle-tattle. I’ve made up my mind that it would be better for all concerned if you left Woldwick.”

“
You’ve
made up your mind, or
she’s
made it up for you?”

“There you go again! I’ll not have you sneering at her like that. Dash it all, Eda! She’s going to be my wife.”

Eda caught her breath. “
I
was going to be your wife.”

“Maybe,” he said coldly, reminding her that their understanding had never been official. “But things have changed. Perhaps for the better.”

“No.” Her face, already pale by nature, went a shade whiter at his words. “
You
have changed, and certainly not for the better. The Haro I knew would never put money before kindness.”

“Now, see here, Eda. It’s not as if I embarked on this engagement bloated with greed. I need the Hastings’ money, yes. But it’s for my mother, for my brother, for Woldwick.”