Rage toward her mother warred with her pique that the previous autumn, on a visit that was supposed to see her wed to the eligible, handsome Lord Drake, viscount and heir to the Earl of Leathorne’s considerable estate, he had been snatched from her grasp by her cousin Truelove Becket, who had accompanied them on the visit as companion to Arabella. And yet she could not still the tiny, sensible voice that reminded her that she had decided that Drake would not do for her. A retired soldier wounded at Waterloo, the viscount was undoubtedly handsome, generous, titled and wealthy, but the legacy of that famous battle had been a physical limp and frightening nightmares that had plagued him every night. She did not want to go into marriage as some man’s nursemaid!
She had discouraged his attentions, but it appeared that marriage had cured him, or something had. When delicately questioned about it, True, now heavy with their first child, claimed he had not had the nightmares since before the wedding. He was cured, and she, Truelove, was wealthy beyond the wildest imaginings of a vicar’s daughter from a tiny Cornwall village.
“Let us not quarrel about that, Mother,” Arabella said. She supposed her mother did have some grounds for a sense of ill usage. Arabella should have been Lady Drake by now instead of her cousin. She and Drake had been promised from the cradle, but by the time Arabella had decided she must make a push to attach him, given how poor they were becoming, True had the upper hand.
They had lost that fortune and mother and daughter were now destitute. Lady Swinley swore that when her husband had died four years before, she had no idea that they would be so poor. The title had lapsed due to there being no male heir, but what should have been a stroke of good fortune for his wife and daughter did not aid their finances a bit; the manor house was mortgaged up to the very top of the crenellated roof. A brilliant marriage on Arabella’s part was supposed to rescue them from penury, but somehow one Season followed another—Arabella had not yet known that her marriage was supposed to pull them out of the soup—and the right man, wealthy, titled and handsome, had never come along. Why should they worry, though? both mother and daughter thought. There was always Lord Drake.
When that was clearly not working as planned, Arabella had decided that Lord Nathan Conroy—Drake’s best friend, staying at the Leathornes’ home on an extended visit—was a more likely conquest. And so while Drake suffered through a bout of fever and delirium brought on by his despondency at Truelove’s supposed impending nuptials to another man, Arabella and her mother had accepted Lord Conroy’s invitation to depart with him to his family home. Though not as wealthy as Drake, he still had money and property, and seemed susceptible to Arabella’s beauty and flirtatious manner.
“I will not tax you with losing Lord Drake if you will not raise the issue of Lord Conroy,” Lady Swinley bargained, picking up the book that had fallen from her fingers at Arabella’s announcement of the Snowdale snubbing.
“Agreed, Mother,” Arabella said. For she could not look back on that visit to Lord Conroy’s family home with any degree of comfort, even though she still held herself blameless in the disaster that made them flee from the mansion in late January.
Lord Conroy’s mother, the indomitable Lady Farmington, made Lady Swinley appear as gentle as a ewe lamb. And she was fiercely protective of her son, so Arabella, only staying at the family estate on sufferance and made to feel it every day, could not openly pursue the alliance with Conroy. And he, being a mama’s boy and rather afraid of his dragonish mother, alarmed that he had displeased her by inviting the Swinleys in the first place, had backed away from the preference he had clearly demonstrated for Arabella when they all were at Lea Park.
That was when Lady Swinley had made her disastrous and desperate plan, unbeknownst to Arabella. But it did not bear thinking about; it was all water under the bridge. She was still furious with her mother, but it would do no good to berate each other. Their situation was desperate and she needed to find a wealthy husband this Season, or they would be in deep trouble. She told her mother the tale of the morning, and the snub by Lord and Lady Snowdale, and the gentleman stepping in.
“But you put him in his place, I hope?” Lady Swinley said.
“Yes, of course! I said it had just been a misunderstanding, and that the Snowdales were there before me. They spoke to me very kindly after that, and hoped to see me at the Parkhurst ball tomorrow night.”
“That is all right then. I told you all would be well!”
Arabella just wasn’t sure. If the Snowdales had heard of the Conroy debacle, then others had, too. And the Snowdales might realize later that she was covering for them in the store that day to make up to them, not just out of class loyalty, which everyone of the ton understood.
It was the one part she felt a little uneasy about. She did not regret doing what she could to repair her reputation in front of the two aristocrats, for she had clearly handled it the only way she could, even though they had cut her. But she could not look back on her treatment of the large gentleman with any degree of composure, though she did not tell her mother that. Lady Swinley wouldn’t understand why she felt badly about snubbing the good-looking stranger to gain points with the noble couple.
But it was kindly meant, defending her and then purchasing her gloves. Did he not understand that it just was not done? Where had he been that he could think that acceptable in anyone’s eyes? She had enough trouble without adding “fast” to her list of faults in tonnish eyes. She had been hoping that no one had heard of the terrible outcome of their visit to the Farmingtons’, but Lady Farmington had no doubt spread it among all her friends, luckily a small group. Arabella’s only hope was that she had made up enough ground with the Snowdales that they would deny the charge against her in public if it should ever come up again, and that would only work as long as the Farmingtons were not in London.
If only her cousin True, now Lady Drake, had been able to sponsor her in London this Season, as she had offered. But Drake—overprotective, Arabella thought—would not hear of his wife suffering the fetid air of London in her “delicate” condition, and so she was staying in the country at Thorne House, their home near the Leathornes, his parents. The most he would do was convince his parents to let Lady Swinley and Arabella borrow their elegant Mayfair home for the Season, rent-free. It was a valuable boon indeed, but it still would not pay for a new wardrobe and all the other things they needed to present a good front and make Arabella seem a worthy wife for a wealthy man.
She stiffened her back and looked down at her mother, who was lost again in her perusal of the book of dress patterns she had brought in. It was up to her this Season to rescue herself and her mother from penury. Maybe she did not owe her mother any allegiance. After all, the woman had abandoned her through most of her childhood, leaving her at the vicarage, Truelove’s family home, until her marriage to Drake.
But Lady Swinley needed her daughter now, and Arabella would be there for her. Maybe then her mother would be proud of her. She turned and left the room without a word.
Chapter Two
Arabella smoothed ice blue gloves up over her elbows, checking for tears and wear spots—after all, they were last year’s—as she distractedly listened to her mother, who paced behind her while Annie fussed with her hair.
“Now, I have been visiting everyone I know these last two days, and I must say I don’t think anyone has heard about . . . about the Conroy affair.” Seldom did she refer to that embarrassing time, but when she did, it was as “the Conroy affair.” She still did not regret her actions, although the outcome had mortified her. “With a little luck we should be able to manage as long as Lady Farmington or Lord Conroy do not come to London for the Season. I have heard that Lady Farmington has come down with some indisposition; we can only hope it is a lasting one.”
“Or fatal,” Arabella said grimly.
Ignoring her daughter as she usually did, Lady Swinley said, “I have made a list of the eligible men who are rumored to be looking for a wife this Season.”
A list of men; a list of potential husbands, rather. And not one of them would have laughing gray eyes and broad shoulders, Arabella thought, then caught herself. She would not brood over that impossibly rude stranger! It simply would not do, since she was likely never to see him again. He was clearly not of sufficient social status to attend the same balls and events as Baron Swinley’s only child would. That was evident in his lack of manners and ignorance of correct behavior.
“As well, I have made a second list of those men I think might be persuaded to marry, though you haven’t had much luck lately in that, have you?” Lady Swinley gave her daughter a cold look in the mirror, then resumed her pacing, gazing down at a paper she held in her hands.
Sighing, Arabella batted Annie’s hands away, took up her bottle of scent and dabbed just a little behind each ear and in her modest décolletage. She gazed at herself critically in the glass and pulled down a curl, letting it drape artfully near the neckline of her dress. Now she looked perfect. “Mother,” she said, glancing up at Lady Swinley with a frown. “It is not like it was in your day, when marriages were always arranged and all the girl had to do was sit back and look demure.”
“In my day ladies knew how to capture a man’s interest, my girl, regardless of any arrangements made on their behalf!” Lady Swinley snapped. “Men have always needed to be manipulated; nothing has changed in that respect. You would do well to assume a fragile air, but no! You insist on being healthy and vigorous. How is a man supposed to feel protective toward you if you don’t look like you need protecting?”
It was an old argument, and Arabella stayed silent.
“Now, first is the Duke of Haliburton’s seedling. He is the matrimonial prize this Season, and if you would apply yourself, I think you could get his attention; it is rumored he has shown a weakness for blondes. He’s a little younger than you, just two and twenty, but old Haliburton is convinced he is going to stick his spoon in the wall and wants to see the succession assured. So they’ll be looking for a healthy gel like you, mayhap.”
Arabella frowned at her reflection in the mirror. “That is Bessemere, right? I have met him. He seems—I don’t know. So very unsure of himself.” Weak-willed was what she meant. Rumor had it that he was completely under the thumb of his dominating mother, and that did not bode well for his wife. Just look at what had happened with Lord Conroy.
“And what does that matter? With a firm hand he could be molded into the ideal husband.” Lady Swinley consulted her paper. “He is a bookish sort; likely would not bother you too much once you had begotten the heir. Problem there is his mother will likely be screening any gels that capture his interest, and she is a tough one.”
“And she is a good friend of Lady Farmington,” Arabella said, feeling a chill go down her back.
“Hmm. Thought there was a falling out there. I shall have to check into that.” She made a notation.
Standing finally and brushing her dress into the correct folds, Arabella gazed at herself in the cheval mirror at the end of her dressing room. The gown was from last year, but she and Annie had worked feverishly on it, supplying the ice blue silk with a frothy overskirt of white lace—very expensive but purchased at a warehouse, so much cheaper than the mantua-makers would sell it—and it appeared new. She gazed at her slender figure with approval. Blondes were in fashion this year, and her looks had always stood her well. Without being vain she knew it was her chief attraction, that and her vivacious manner. It had never been difficult to gain male attention, and never had it been a more vital skill than this Season.
“Next—do you remember from last Season Count Arndt Verbrachan?”
“I remember him,” Arabella admitted. He had flirted with her on numerous occasions, but had never seemed interested in marriage. He was good-looking in a dark, cold way and older, probably in his forties.
“It is gossiped that he is on the lookout this Season for a wife.” Lady Swinley stopped pacing and gazed at her daughter critically. She gave a nod of approval finally, after pulling the bodice of Arabella’s dress down just a little and prodding her small breasts into more showiness. “He is very, very wealthy, but as foreign nobility he will not be looking among the upper titles for his bride, even though it has been rumored that Princess Elizabeth conceived an infatuation for him some years ago and would have been glad to marry him. But he is not a prince, after all, nor even a duke. If it is true that he wishes to marry, he is a good possibility.”
Picking up a fan from the dressing table while Annie brought her kashmir shawl, Arabella chose her next words carefully. “I have heard—” She looked down and bit her lip. “Mother, it has been whispered among some of the girls that there was some suspicion that he was responsible for the disappearance of an opera dancer that he had under his protection.”
“Pish-tush! Foolish gabble. And even if he was, those kinds of girls take that risk. A man does all sorts of things with harlots that he would never try with a girl of good family.”
Arabella shivered and stared at her mother in disbelief. “She disappeared, maybe died!”
“All she deserved.”
Arabella realized that protest was hopeless. Her mother’s opinions were ever a mystery to her. Apparently in Lady Swinley’s mind, the life of one opera dancer was of no account, nor did the poor girl’s fate portend ill for any wife Count Verbrachan might choose. She would just have to keep her own counsel on the subject of Count Verbrachan. No one could make her marry him.
Lady Swinley stared down at the paper in her hand and then said, “The most likely, I must say, is Lord Pelimore.”
“Lord Pelimore?” Arabella slipped the silken cord of her fan around her wrist and allowed Annie to drape the soft, multicolored shawl around her shoulders. “He is sixty, at least!”
“And what is wrong with a mature man?” Her mother threw down the paper and stamped one foot on the carpet. “First you complain Bessemere is too young and now Pelimore is too old! There is no pleasing you, and I do not know why I take all of this trouble—”
Arabella sighed, picked up the paper and handed it back to her mother. “Tell me about him, then.”
Lady Swinley’s voice took on the enthusiasm reserved for one topic, money. “He is very, very wealthy—he owns a brewery, you know—and just out of mourning for his son, who died last year without issue. His current heir is his nephew and he despises the fellow; he can’t even stand to be in the same room with him. So it is a certain thing that he is looking for a second wife—Nellie died more than twenty years ago—and he will need one of breeding age.” The baroness took her daughter by the shoulders and looked her over critically one more time. “Perfect. You are perfectly lovely, as usual.” A rare smile lit her face. She squeezed Arabella’s shoulders and released her. “His age is in his favor, my dear, because he will not want to waste any time and will likely choose a bride early in the Season. Nor will he be put off by any . . . unsavory rumors that may taint the air.”
The ugliness of the discussion hit her that moment and Arabella felt a dull dread sweep over her. By this time next Season she would be married and likely with child by a man she would not love. Not everyone was as lucky as her cousin, Truelove, who had fallen in love with Lord Drake and had her feelings reciprocated. It was almost nauseating how happy True was, and yet she could not sneer at her cousin’s joy. Arabella felt an envy she had never experienced before. What must that be like, to be so in love?
Anyway, she thought, squaring her slim shoulders and heading out the door, she was not likely to experience that, as she had joked with True, until she had married, presented her husband with a couple of sons, and then took a lover. Or perhaps she was just not capable of the emotion so cloyingly described by the more putrid poets. She was her mother’s daughter, after all.
• • •
On the way to the Parkhurst ball Lady Swinley kept up a steady stream of chatter. There were other eligibles, of course, and it would be worthwhile looking around for them, bu
t they must focus early on one, for they had little time. This Season was it; Arabella must be engaged by the end of it, or the vultures—meaning the moneylenders Lady Swinley owed—would close in around them. They could not be choosy, they must settle on one husband, and soon.
Arabella steeled herself to enter the Parkhursts’ London mansion, lit up in glittering candlelight and with flambeaux at the door, with liveried footmen lining the walk. This was it, the first ball of the Season. Here she would find out if the horrible scene at the Farmingtons’ country mansion had made the gossip rounds and if she was to be cut en masse. They had visited friends already, and had received their invitation to this ball a week ago, but that could have been delivered before news of the debacle was related to the Parkhursts. The next few minutes would tell the tale of their London Season.
She felt as though everyone in the world must know about it, and could not help reliving over and over again the awful moment of being ejected from the Farmington mansion on a frigid January evening. Lord Conroy had been peeping out from behind his formidable mother, and if Arabella hadn’t been crying, her tears freezing into ice on her chilled cheek, she might have felt like laughing. It was like a scene from one of the more ludicrous of romances—the innocent maiden wronged and then thrown out into the night by a wicked aristocrat. And yet the thought made her indignant, too. One moment Nathan was ready to propose, and the next he was standing back and letting his mother toss the object of his supposed affections out of the house! What kind of man would do that?
She mounted the marble steps and entered the house behind another group of people, a couple she did not know. At last in, she listened, her ears burning while the butler announced their names.
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