Belle of the ball (21 page)

He released her and stepped back, saying, "Think nothing of it, my lady." He was puzzled as to what her game was—she was the acknowledged diamond of the London Season—but he had been aware for some time that she was pursuing him. He was known to be poor, and he was certainly not the picture of one of her tonnish beaux, the gentlemen who crowded around her like bees around the sweetest and prettiest flower in the garden.

"My, but it is so fortunate that you happened to be here, sir. I might have come to serious harm," she said, her voice breaking. "How ever can I repay you?"

That was the second time she had mentioned repayment in as many minutes. He bowed. "Lady Cynthia, you must know that no gentleman would ever demand repayment where no debt exists. I would be a cur to insist upon one."

She dimpled and peeked up from under her veil again. "Still, you have but to command me," she replied, with a breathless quaver in her voice.

"There is one favor you can do me," he said, turning her horse and walking with her and her snuffling mount back to the safety of the public thoroughfare near the Serpentine. Her footman awaited in the distance, clearly not having been worried at all about his mistress's whereabouts or safety.

"Just name it." Her voice was breathless still, and little-girlish; she laid her gloved hand on his upper arm. "I will do anything."

"Can you tell me what entertainment Miss Arabella Swinley attends this evening? I just ask, because I remember you being near often when I was talking to her, and I thought you might be one of her special friends." He turned just in time to see her lip curl a little.

"I am not a friend of hers, sir, and I doubt that you will be when you learn all there is to know about the ... the lady"

It was deliberately said, and deliberately insulting to Arabella's character.

"What do you mean?" Marcus said harshly.

"I mean that things have come out—tell me, sir, have you ever heard mention of a Lord Nathan Conroy?"

Marcus's blood ran cold. What was it that the Snowdales had said when he had first seen them? He could not remember, but they had whispered something back and forth about Arabella and it concerned a Lord Conroy, he was almost sure.

"I can see by your expression that you know something of what I am about to say. Well, Miss Swinley had the misfortune of being at the de la Coursiere masquerade ball four nights ago, when who should arrive but Lord Conroy and his mother. Lady Farmington. One could see the stricken look on Miss Swinley's face. I almost pitied her, but it would have been misplaced sympathy." Her breathy voice held the vinegar of malice, and her mouth twisted into a spiteful smile. "It all came out then, how she tricked Lord Conroy into a room, pretended the door was locked, and then had her mother find them thus. The mother—Miss Swinley's mother, I mean—of course screamed compromise, and demanded the poor man marry her daughter. Nothing but fortune hunters, the pair of them."

Marcus felt a jolt of revulsion, but swiftly put away his first thought, that Arabella was even more scheming than he had thought, and staunchly defended his friend. "I do not believe it. It was all Lady Swinley's doing, I do not doubt"

Lady Cynthia gave him a pitying look. "Sir, Miss Swinley would hardly go into a room alone with a man and then pretend to find the door locked, if she did not intend to trap him into marriage."

"There must be some other explanation," Marcus said, stubbornly.

Ignoring his obstinate defense of Arabella, she continued. "And when accosted by Lady Farmington about it she was incredibly rude to the countess, one of the most respected peeresses in the realm!"

"Arabella must have had good reason," Marcus said, teeth gritted. He would not let such unworthy doubt creep into him. Arabella had her faults, but he would not believe her capable of such ugly intrigue.

Maliciousness in her expression, Lady Cynthia said, "Well, if you do not believe that, then how about this" - she leaned toward Marcus and toyed with his loosely tied cravat, straightening the knot with her delicate hands, then laying them flat on his chest. "The very day after that confrontation, it is announced that Miss Swinley is to marry Lord Pelimore!" She watched his eyes avidly. "She was, no doubt, holding out for something better, but the moment she and her scheming mother realized they were ruined, they sealed the deal with that old relic."

Marcus was stunned. She was to marry that grotty, grubby old peer after all? How could she? What was she thinking? No, he would not believe it; not until he heard it from her own lips.

Lost in his own thoughts, he strode away from Lady Cynthia without a backward glance.

The early afternoon sun was obscured by the leafy fronds of beech and alder tree, and even more so by a deep-rimmed chip straw bonnet Arabella wore as she strolled around the small garden that was opposite the Leathornes' magnificent town house. She uneasily glanced up every time she heard footsteps. She was not looking forward to the interview she was there to conduct. The tone of Marcus's note, delivered through Annie, who had obtained it from a footman, was abrupt and commanding. It was clear he had heard something, but whether it was about her betrothal or that awful scene at the de la Coursiere ball, she could not say. She wasn't even sure which she wished it was.

She heard a quick step behind her on the crushed limestone walk, and turned. It was him, and he was clearly furious, holding on to his anger tightly as though if he let go he might be capable of anything. She composed herself with an effort and smiled.

"Marcus, how good to see you. I feared I would never—"

"Cut line, Arabella." He stood in front of her and looked down at her, his hands working at his sides. "Are you quite mad? Of all the addle-brained, feather-headed, imbecilic—what are you thinking? You will be tied to that grubby old dullard for life; you will have to let him paw you and slobber all over you until he gets you with child, if he even can! He is marrying you for nothing more than—"

"Enough! Be silent. I know why he is marrying me," Arabella said, her voice icy. She was in no mood to be abused, and by Marcus Westhaven! She held her head high and leveled a challenging look at him. "He is marrying me for the same reason all men marry; so they can secure their inheritance and be sure any child they conceive is their own. I am not so shatter-brained as to believe that any man marries for love, or if they do they are usually mooncalves sighing after their first infatuation."

"Ah, but you choose to marry for money. Much nobler!"

"I have no choice!"

"You do have a choice! If there was any chance you had a scrap of affection or even respect for the old pustule I would not be saying this, but you cannot even like him!"

"M—my affections are none of your business, sir!" Arabella fiercely blinked away the tears that rose into her eyes. She would not let him see her cry, not if he was going to be so cruel about her fate. Did he not understand that she had no choice?

"Arabella! Do anything rather than marry without that affection. You must see that it will not do." He grasped her shoulders and stared down into her eyes.

She gazed at him for a moment, but the expression in his storm gray eyes confused her and she stared down at the gravel instead. His eyes seemed to search her soul, and she was not sure she would hold up well under the examination. "You have no idea what you are talking about!" she said, wearily.

"I do know what I am talking about—your future!" He shook her lightly. "You need not marry at all. What is wrong with living life as a spinster?"

"On what? Pins? Buttons? How am I supposed to live?" She wrenched her shoulders out of his powerful grip and stared up at him, misery clutching at her heart. "It is all very well for you to talk. Men can take a profession, make their own way in the world, but without money I—we, my mother and I, will be out on the street. I had no choice!"

He seemed to take that in for a moment. "You . . . you are lacking in funds?" His mouth tightened. "You could take employment," he said.

"As what? A governess? If you look around you, Marcus, you will see," she said, her voice trembling, "how few governesses there are who are tall, slim, moderately attractive daughters of barons. Such as I do not get hired as governesses; we are too tempting a target for the licentiousness of our employers' husbands and sons and even their servants. Even if I could—even if, by some miracle, someone was willing to hire me, what do you propose I do with my mother? We have no relation to whom she can go. And she would not live as a poor relation anyway; it would kill her. She is my mother, my responsibility!"

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.