Her expression softened. “You were horrible, Marcus. I don’t understand you when you’re like that. I should punish you longer for your treatment of me, but I find I can’t.”
He gazed into her green eyes with hope. He had expected resentment and anger; perhaps it was a good sign that he was to be treated with neither. “It’s just that I wish you would give up this scheme to marry Pelimore.”
Her expression chilled. “Marcus, stay out of business that does not concern you.”
There was warning, but there was also a kind of sadness in her voice. “Just consider, my dear, what marriage means. You will become his wife, ‘flesh of his flesh.’ Marriage means uniting in every way possible, not just legally! Do not do this without love, or . . . or at least respect! Affection!”
She turned her face away and gazed out the window. Her voice was tight when she said, “Do you think I do not know what marriage means? That I’m not prepared? I am not a silly little green girl, Marcus. I know what I’m doing.”
A spurt of irritation flared in Marcus. His fists clenched. “Do you really? Do you know what he will expect of you?”
“Marcus, don’t.”
Her voice was tired and her expression set. He swallowed his anger. What was it about her that tantalized and irritated him at the same time? He could ask himself questions forever and never learn the answers. He must accept that she knew what she was doing. Or did he have to accept it? Did he dare say the word, make the move, ask the question that would change everything? Did he dare tell her she need not throw her life away as she was prepared to do?
He reached out to her. “Arabella, I want to tell you—”
At that moment Lady Swinley erupted into the room, took one look at him knelt in front of Arabella in the act of taking her hands in his, and screeched, “Get out! Get out, you interloper. You have no business here. Albert, show this gentleman out!”
Well, she had never liked him, but this was beyond the pale. He stood. “Lady Swinley, I do not think this is necess—”
“I said get out, you swine!” Her pinched face was pale with fury.
“Arabella,” he said, turning.
She had stood and was going to her mother. “Mother, calm yourself! Mr. Westhaven was just—”
“I don’t care what he was doing, he must leave! It’s too early for callers. You’re not dressed properly yet. He should not have come so early!”
Arabella’s green eyes were wide with alarm as a string of spittle flew from Lady Swinley’s mouth. “Marcus,” she said, turning. “Maybe you had better go. Mother is not . . . not quite herself this morning.”
“She is exactly herself,” he said grimly, picking his hat up off the floor where he had laid it while talking to Arabella. “But I will go.” He touched her shoulder, rubbing his thumb against her fabric-covered arm. “Will I see you later at the Moorehouse ball?”
She nodded, her eyes wide and full of some unreadable expression, and he moved toward the door. He looked back, but she was administering to her mother, patting her back and speaking in a soothing whisper. He left. After all, he would see her later. And in the meantime he could think about what had occurred to him as he knelt in front of her. Should he or shouldn’t he?
Chapter Fourteen
Arabella knew that part—or even most—of her mother’s anger was because she had misinterpreted that scene between her and Marcus, whom Lady Swinley had always disliked and damned as a mushroom. They had spoken on occasion, and Lady Swinley had always found something to criticize about his manner, or his antecedents, or even his looks. It must have appeared, posed as he was, that he was asking for her hand in marriage, and that would be enough to send her mother into hysterics.
It took the better part of the morning and into the afternoon to calm Lady Swinley down. She told Arabella that she had had another visit that very morning from “that horrid man,” as she called the moneylender, and it left her feeling faint and afraid. She would not rest, she said, could never be comfortable again until she knew her daughter had Lord Pelimore sewn up as her intended; then and only then could she relax in the knowledge that their future was secure.
But Arabella could not put out of her mind what Marcus had said. Affection. Respect. He named those two qualities as important in a marriage, even if love was lacking. As she gazed ahead into the long years of bearing and raising children, living with one man as his lover, his nurse should he fall ill, did she care enough about Lord Pelimore to do all of that?
Well, no. She wasn’t sure she even liked him. He was abrupt and rude and didn’t seem to care about her at all other than as a sort of trophy. The thought of being his lover made her stomach queasy, and the unavoidably intimate nature of being his nurse could only be worse. Affection and respect were definitely not among the emotions she experienced when she thought of her prospective groom-to-be. Would she even love the children they created together? She supposed she would. Was that not a mother’s job?
But Lord Pelimore himself—good Lord, she did not even know his given name. It was at that moment, just hours after the scene with Marcus and her mother, as Arabella contemplated her future life, that Lord Pelimore, the unnamed gentleman, was announced.
Lady Swinley sailed into the parlor behind him, completely recovered from her earlier indisposition. “My good sir,” she said, curtseying deeply before him as if he was royalty. “How welcome you are in our home once more.”
Pelimore cleared his throat, handed his cane to Lady Swinley, and said, “Quite, quite. Mind if I have a few moments alone with your gel?”
Lady Swinley’s dark eyes glistened like obsidian. “Oh, yes, my lord, yes. Take all the time you need. I shall be . . . oh, around somewhere should you need to speak to me.” With that she backed from the room, closing the door behind her.
So this was how her fate was to be sealed, Arabella thought, stiffening her spine. She would be betrothed before he left the room. His intentions were clear; it was in the fusty frock coat from a previous decade and his formal manner. It was in the determined set to his beetling brow—oh, horrors! She had never truly noticed that particular part of his face before. Would her son have that same obstinate, overhanging brow? Best not to worry about that. After all, looks were only a small part of a man’s person. And she would endeavor to ignore Pelimore’s shortcomings, concentrating instead on her thankfulness to him for helping her mother and her out of their predicament. Surely gratitude was not a bad place to start a marriage?
She sat down calmly on the couch, the same one Marcus had knelt in front of hours before. This time she would not put the baron off. If it was to be done, it was best done quickly and gotten over with. Was that not a paraphrase from Macbeth? Not good luck to think it even, perhaps, but then—
“Ehem, Miss Swinley, it cannot have escaped your attention—”
A quick surge of panic rose within her like floodwater. “Lord Pelimore,” she said hastily. “Would you care for refreshments? Wine? Tea?” Despite her resolution, it would be impolite to not offer him something.
“No. As I was saying, Miss Swinley, it cannot have escaped your attention that I have bin most assiduous in my atten—”
“Or a plate of cakes. Cook is a master baker and produces the lightest, most delicate—”
“Now see here, Miss Swinley, let me have my say. All well and good to be modest, but I thought, you bein’ older, I wouldn’t have to put up with none of this girlish nonsense.”
Silenced, Arabella nodded.
“Now, where was I?” He frowned, stared down at his shoes for a minute, and then looked up again, a relieved expression on his face. He scratched his nose and harrumphed once, then said, “Miss Swinley, it cannot have escaped your attention that I have bin most assiduous in my attentions . . . attentions, yes. I’m looking for a wife; you’re looking for a husband. Seems to me we oughta hitch our teams together and make a go of it. What do you say?” He stuck out his hand. “Shall we call it a deal and shake on it?”
> So that was it. That was to be the proposal she would accept after having rejected others, one where the gentleman poured out his heart, swore undying love, offered to lay down his life for the fair Arabella. Another of her devoted swains even penned sonnets, which he read aloud to her in a flowery arbor one May day three years before.
But they had all been rejected for reasons as frivolous as their hair color, or some trivial annoyance they caused her, good men, some of them. Worthy men. Men with whom she could have found, perhaps, some modicum of happiness if she had been less haughty, more accommodating, sweeter-natured. And now, as punishment, she would take the only proposal she was likely to elicit this Season. She would wed a man who spoke as if she were a horse to hitch up with. He wanted to shake on their proposal! If she should have a daughter, and that daughter said, ‘Mama, how did Papa ask you to marry him?’ would she tell her the truth? Arabella shuddered. Better to lie, she supposed.
“What do you say, Miss Swinley?” Pelimore broke into her thoughts, his voice querulous. He dropped his hand and stared down at her.
Rebellion stirred in her heart. “No. No, I cannot m-marry you, sir. I am sorry, but I cannot!” She twisted her hands on her lap and swallowed hard.
Her voice and words startled even her, but Pelimore was apoplectic. “No?” he roared. “I cannot have heard you right.”
Arabella stiffened her backbone and raised her chin. Her voice more settled, she met his eyes and said, “I’m sorry, sir, if I have caused you any pain, but I do not think we should suit.”
“Now see here, m’girl, if you think to get a better settlement—”
Arabella rose. “I’m sorry, sir, but I must repeat, I just do not think we would suit.”
Pelimore gazed at her suspiciously. “I understood you and yer ma were cleaned out. She gave me to understand you were at low tides and in need of a pretty purse.”
Coloring, Arabella realized that her mother had been stage-managing the whole affair, from beginning to end. She was being sold to the highest bidder, as it were, no different than a piece of horseflesh at Tattersall’s. It didn’t surprise her, but it did leave her mortified and saddened. There had to be another way.
“You misunderstood, sir. I thank you most sincerely for your kindness but still say no. I will bid you good day.” Chin up, Arabella sailed from the room as regally as her mother ever would and headed upstairs immediately to her own chamber. Mere minutes later the door to her room burst open and her mother stormed in.
“Annie, leave us!” Lady Swinley, panting and red-faced, ordered away the maid, who was preparing Arabella’s hair for the Moorehouse ball. The girl scurried away, closing the door behind her.
Arabella had known this was coming. But she would just explain to her mother that she could not, after all, marry without at least some affection for her future husband. It was too much to ask. She was still young, attractive, and the Season was not done yet. Surely someone would want to marry her, someone who would make her feel something other than distaste, someone she could come to love?
But instead of the screaming and hysterics she expected from her mother, there was nothing. She turned in her chair and gazed up at the woman who had given her life. Lady Swinley stood staring down at the floor and tears were streaming down her seamed face.
This was unexpected and Arabella felt a jolt to the heart. “M-mother? What—”
“I cannot believe,” Lady Swinley said slowly, her voice breaking, “that, knowing our situation, understanding it as you must, still you will not take a kind, generous offer when it is made—one that would have brought us around and made life worth living again. What have I done that you hate me so?” The last word was sobbed rather than spoken.
“I don’t hate you, Mother. Whatever can you mean?” Arabella stood and held out one hand, appealingly, to her mother.
“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!” Lady Swinley cried, and slapped her daughter’s outstretched hand.
From Macbeth to Lear, Arabella thought dryly, slumping down in her chair once again. They really were in a Shakespearean mode that day. But then her conscience smote her at the real signs of distress on her mother’s face. The tears ran in rivulets along the fine net of wrinkles under Lady Swinley’s dark eyes and her nose was red from emotion.
“Mother, please,” she pleaded, clutching the soft fabric of her dress in her fists. “Hear me out. I just want a chance to find a husband I can respect, someone I can hold in a little affection. Lord Pelimore is, well, he’s repugnant to me, and I—”
“Repugnant?” Lady Swinley’s voice had risen to a screech and she paced back and forth, pausing to glare down at her daughter every few steps. “He has thirty thousand pounds a year. Three homes and a town house. He would have settled all of our debts and allowed me to keep Swinley Manor! And you call him repugnant?” She finally stopped and stood in front of Arabella. “Foolish, wicked child!” she hissed, the gap in her teeth creating a sibilant whistle. “What have I done that you hate me so much? What have I ever done that you want to see me old and poor and thrown out of my only home of thirty-five years? Why do you hate me?”
Arabella was caught by surprise; how perfectly well she knew the baron’s financial situation and what the man would be prepared to do for them should he and Arabella marry! How was that so clear? Unless . . . Lord Pelimore was taking no chances on a rejection, it seemed. He had secured her mother’s agreement in a coldly businesslike transaction.
But the pain in her mother’s voice was heartrending. “Mama, please! All I want is to be able to like my husband, to come to care for him in time. I do not see that happening with Lord Pelimore. He just—I just don’t.”
“It is that Westhaven ruffian, isn’t it,” Lady Swinley snarled, her tone venomous. “I’ve seen you dance with him, stars in your foolish eyes! I heard he took you out to the terrace at the Vaile ball; it was quickly retailed to me exactly how long you stayed out there, you may be sure, my girl! He’s been romancing you and turned your head. You risked your reputation, and for what? He does not have tuppence to his name! I have looked into it, and he does not have a single feather to fly on. Nobody is even sure where he came from. His parents, if they are the Westhavens people think they are, died debtors. He is nothing and nobody, an insignificant son of an inferior family! Have you been making imprudent mistakes with that pandering knave?”
Arabella started to deny her mother’s accusations, but found the words would not leave her mouth. Her refusal to marry Pelimore was because of Marcus. When she thought of him it was with a warm glow suspiciously like love in the region of her long-dormant heart. He said unforgivable things sometimes, but he also told her home truths, and made her think. Her rejection of Pelimore was because of what he had said about affection and respect for one’s mate. Was that such a bad thing, this contemplation she had been forced into?
“What have you done?” Lady Swinley whispered after a long silence.
Arabella looked at her mother and saw with shock that the woman’s face had bleached to a snowy white. “Mother, what is it?”
“What have you done with that jackanapes? I know you met him once, away from London. You were seen coming back into London with Eveleen O’Clannahan and that . . . that infamous hedgebird was riding beside your carriage. You planned a little rendezvous where I could not see, eh? What did you do with him? Have you made yourself unmarriageable?”
“How can you ask me something like that?” Arabella gasped, shocked that her mother could even think something like that about her.
“Well, have you?”
Arabella was tempted to say yes, that she had lain with Mr. Marcus Westhaven, but her mouth would not form the lying words. “I have not,” she said stiffly, hating that she even had to say that to her mother, who should have trusted her not to do anything unseemly.
“Good. I feared your association with Eveleen had perhaps corrupted you. I have heard things—but that is to no end. You will m
arry Pelimore, if I have to accept for you!”
“I have already said no to him.” Arabella turned from her mother and picked up a shawl that lay across the bed.
“But I spoke to him after.”
Arabella turned and gazed in consternation at her mother.
“Do not look at me that way. I’m thinking of what is best for you. There’s still a chance; you will marry him. If you do not marry him, I will set you adrift; you will no longer be my daughter!”
“You can’t disown me! I’m your daughter whether you like it or not.”
The argument raged on, but Arabella stopped listening and finally her mother left her alone. Arabella would have preferred to stay home, but she wanted badly to see Westhaven, and so she would attend the Moorehouse ball. With Eveleen gone he was the only one to whom she could talk.
She was terribly confused. When Pelimore had entered the room she had fully intended to accept his proposal of marriage, and yet found herself saying “no” without a single thought of what she would do if she did not marry him. And beyond some vague idea of finding someone more to her liking, she still did not know.
Eveleen had said “Marry Westhaven.” As if that was an option! What should she do, propose? And then run off to Canada with him, leaving her mother for the moneylenders to deal with? It was ludicrous, and yet—
And yet despite having dismissed it as ludicrous, the picture still held its charm in her mind. She could see Marcus leading her, holding her hand as they climbed some high Canadian promontory with the fresh breeze in their faces. And canoeing! It sounded thrilling, paddling down a rushing stream in the narrow, swift boat Marcus had described as a native watercraft; how much more exciting would that be than paddling that old punt she had used as a child at the squire’s millpond near the vicarage. She could see herself, her restless nature finally with enough movement and activity to give her respite. At the end of every day she would know what she had done, rather than wondering what had frittered away the hours.
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