Belle of the ball (13 page)

Never had Eveleen's liveliness and managing ways been more poorly timed.

"I wish you to accompany us to Richmond," Eveleen said. "I see you have that magnificent Arabian outside, and like all the Irish I am a fine judge of horseflesh. I would see you put her through her paces opposite Captain Harris's bay hack. I have been trying to tell him this age that he—the horse, not Harris, you understand—is a poor animal, but he denies me. A race on Richmond's open parkland will decide the matter."

Marcus looked undecided. Then he gazed directly at Arabella and said, "Miss Swinley, may I have a moment of your time in private conversation?"

Stunned, she stuttered, "Y—yes, certainly."

He drew her away from the table to an inglenook by the fire, not lit on this warm April day. He knelt beside her and forced her to look into his eyes. His were dark and concerned, and his face was marked by an expression of doubt. "Miss Swinley, I cannot help but notice that you have been avoiding me today. I know why. I made myself abhorrent to you the other evening with my unwanted accusations. I had no business treating you in that manner, and I most humbly apologize. I could not answer your friend until I found out whether my presence would be repugnant to you. I never want to cause you discomfort, and if comfort can only be purchased by my absence, I will leave your party this minute."

It was a handsome apology, almost as handsome as the petitioner, Arabella thought, gazing down at West-haven where he knelt before her. She had a sudden, absurd vision of herself and him in just such a position, only he had just asked for her hand in marriage. She could feel it, the sweet blossom of joy that would bloom in her heart and the giddy sense of the world shifting finally into place. She would scarcely know how to contain her exultation, so she would let it burst forth and throw her arms around his neck and cry: Yes; yes Marcus I mill marry —

"Miss Swinley? Must I take your silence as proof that I have offended you beyond all reconciling?"

"No," she said, quietly. Her voice strengthening, she repeated, "No, Mr. Westhaven." She could almost hear her cousin, True's, voice in her head, guiding her. Always True was there when her conscience plagued her and she knew she had done wrong. She thought of her cousin as her good angel, but she suddenly realized that what True would advise her to do was not only what was right, but what she wanted to do. It was not going to be a chore; it was the opportunity to redeem her character just a little in his eyes, and more important, to make peace with the part of her heart that whispered she had been cruel and thoughtless.

"In fact, since you have so handsomely apologized," she continued, "I will confess that what kept me from meeting your eyes was the knowledge that I have been the one to offend unforgivably." She met his eyes steadily now, and was caught off guard by the gentle light in his smoky eyes. "I did not mean ... I did not want to—" She stopped, unaccustomed to begging forgiveness, but determined to do the deed properly, she started again. "I spoke slightingly of your . . . your fiancée and I have not forgiven myself for such an inexcusable offense against your feelings. I am so very sorry for your pain, and I most humbly apologize."

There was silence for a minute as his eyes gazed deep into hers, searching, probing down to her very soul. Arabella, a calm sureness that she had finally done the right thing filling her heart, felt her lips curve up in a smile. No matter how deep he looked, he would only find sincerity.

"Then we shall both admit that we have been hasty and impolite and can be in charity with each other once more," he said, grinning and standing. He held out his hand and said, "May we cry friends, then? Please?"

She gave him her hand, and felt his curl around the soft kid of her gloved fingers as he pulled her to her feet They stood together in the dim light of the small dining room, gazing at each other with foolish smiles on their faces. "Friends, Mr. Westhaven. Good friends."

The party advanced to Richmond, a drive of another hour and a half, to a spot Eveleen appeared to know well, parkland beside a pond. They settled on blankets on a sloping green, and the gentlemen eyed each other's horses while servants set out their repast. The day had the freshness of April without the bite of a spring wind that occasionally marks such a day.

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.