Marcus gazed down at his hands and twisted the ring he wore on his right hand. He nodded slowly. “I do. I love her.”
“Then go to her, man.” He leaned over and grinned, staring at Marcus. “Lord Pelimore has called off the wedding and eloped with his mistress. Arabella Swinley is a free woman.”
• • •
The first elation, the first delirious knowledge that she was free, was over. Arabella walked in the gardens she had helped to create, near the blooming roses from which she had torn the encroaching weeds, past the thicket of sweet raspberries they had discovered when she pulled out a bramble bush that was choking it.
In the same way when she tore all the debris away from her heart, all the conceit she had ever been a slave to, all the care of position, and the love of money and clothes and jewels, she was left with the bittersweet knowledge that she could have had Marcus Westhaven. If she had followed her heart and let him see how she felt, if she had not talked so constantly about how necessary it was to marry a wealthy man, he might have felt free to court her, marry her, love her. Eveleen O’Clannahan had seen it; she had even advised her to ask him herself. What would he have said to such an outré proposal?
But it was too late. Marcus Westhaven was now an immensely wealthy man and the Earl of Oakmont. And he could never trust anything she might say to him now of love. Why should he? She had made it quite plain over the months that her prime requirement in a man was a fat purse. A hundred thousand pounds. She had even set her price. She had been for sale, just as surely as any Haymarket doxie.
She heard a rustle of fabric behind her and turned to find True approaching her. Poor True, she worried so about her. Once True had told her that she was a better person than she even knew; maybe there had been that potential there, but she had let things get in the way. Everything had seemed more important than who she was, and who the man she would marry was. And now when she finally understood herself, it was too late.
Hesitantly, True approached. “Bella, I need to talk to you.”
Smiling, Arabella said, “Why don’t we sit down? Drake will hang me up by my toes if I keep you standing in this hot sun too long.”
They found a stone bench in a shaded alcove of the garden. True took Arabella’s hand and they sat in silence for a few minutes, watching a small brown rabbit hop incautiously onto the pathway. It examined the greenery along the edge and then hopped away. “Bella, perhaps this is not the time to say it, but I want you to not worry about your future. You have a home here for as long as you need it, your whole life. I love having you here, you know that, and it is not as if we do not have the room.”
Arabella squeezed her cousin’s hand. “A poor relation; that is what I have become. I never wanted you to know about our financial problems, to worry about them.”
“You knew last fall, didn’t you? You knew when you left Lea Park with Lord Conroy.”
“Yes. Mother told me.” In agitation she stood and paced away. True stood, too, and followed her. Arabella turned to her cousin and said, “That is why I played that dirty trick on you about Drake, telling you I loved him and wanted to marry him. I knew your self-sacrificing nature would make you leave, even though you already loved him. It was a horrid deceit, and I’m heartily ashamed of it, still.”
“But you told me the truth before you left,” True said, taking her hand and squeezing it. “And it all turned out well in the end. Stay here, Bella. Be my friend. Help me raise Sarah.”
“Drake must still be head over ears in love with you to allow you to offer me a home. However did you talk him into it?”
True dimpled and shrugged. “He—we made a bargain.”
Chuckling, Arabella said, “I hope the terms are not too onerous, cousin. Why do I have the feeling it was the kind of bargain you will both enjoy?” Unexpectedly tears came into her eyes, and she had to force down a wave of self-pity. What True had was because she was the sweetest, truest, most loving and giving person Arabella had ever met. One could not begrudge her her good fortune.
“I don’t know. I have to think about Mother. I do not imagine Drake’s offer extends to her.”
Looking troubled, True said, “Well, Wy said that—”
At that moment a footman, resplendent in rust and gold livery, came along the path and bowed. “My lady, there is a visitor for Miss Swinley.”
For some reason Arabella’s first thought was of Eveleen O’Clannahan. She had not heard from her at all since her flight out of London to the Isle of Wight, and she was still worried about her, even though events in her own personal life had crowded everything out on occasion.
“Is it a lady? Is she—”
But in that second, around a bend in the garden path, came Marcus.
True’s eyes widened and she curtseyed to him. “Lord Oakmont, what a pleasure. I shall go up to the house and order tea.” She glanced at Arabella, who still stood staring at the young man. “It will be served in the drawing room in half an hour.” If privately she thought that champagne might be more in order, she did not say so.
Arabella was vaguely aware that True and the footman had left them alone. She could not think, her mind was so numbed.
“Walk with me?” Marcus asked, holding out his arm to her.
She nodded, mutely, and took his arm. They wandered for a while down the long pathway that led to a creek where willows dipped and swayed, drawing leafy fingers through the shallow brook. She remembered being there the previous summer with True and Drake and Lord Conroy. How things had changed since then. She glanced up at the man at her side. He frowned and stared off to the far, misty hills, his brow wrinkled into a series of horizontal lines. What on earth did he want? Had he heard of Lord Pelimore’s defection, or did he still think her betrothed? Today would have been her wedding day.
There was now a bench down by the creek, placed exactly where Drake had slept by True while she smoothed his curls from his forehead, the second day after they had met. Marcus bade her sit. Avoiding his eyes, she did so, gathering her soft, moss-green skirts around her. He dropped down on one knee in front of her and took both of her hands in his. She looked up, startled. “Arabella Swinley,” he said, in determined tones. “Will you do me the inestimable honor of consenting to become my countess? I realize that this is sudden, but—”
Arabella pulled her hands from his grasp. “Marcus, what are you doing?”
“Proposing,” he replied brusquely. “I know all. You have been jilted and are no longer betrothed. You’re brokenhearted and vulnerable, and I’m going to take advantage of your momentary weakness to gain my point. Now, where was I? Ah, yes.” He cleared his throat and took her hands back in his. “I know this is sudden, but it must have been evident to you for some time that my heart—”
Yanking her hands from his grasp again, Arabella said, her voice sounding panicky and strange, “Marcus, stop this foolishness. What are you doing?”
“Proposing!” He sighed and looked up at the sky, now a lovely shade of deep blue. “One would think the girl would remember what this is like, having heard this same offer a time or two.” He settled his gaze back on her, took her hands up one more time, and said, “Arabella Swinley, will you do me the honor of becoming my coun—Arabella!”
She had jerked her hands away, clutched them behind her back, and was glaring at him. “Do not make fun of me, Marcus Westhaven—Oakmont, whatever! I will not be mocked, not even by you!”
“I’m not mocking you,” he said gently. “Now, my knee is getting cramped, and I think you sprained my thumb that last time you jerked your hands away from me, so let me get this out. You know the drill. You have heard the question before. You have even said ‘yes’ before, so none of this is new to you. Arabella, will you marry me?” He grinned up at her. “Now it is your turn to smile sweetly and say ‘Yes.’ Say it. Say, ‘Yes, Marcus, I will marry you.’”
“I—I c-can’t!”
He sat back on his heels. “What? Yes, you can. Why can’t you?”
She reached out one trembling hand and touched his face, trailing her fingers down his cheek, tracing the lines that led from nose to mouth. He was serious! He was really asking her to marry him, despite his joking demeanor. “I can’t!” Blinking away the tears in her eyes, she continued. “Every time you looked at me, you would wonder if I married you for your money or for yourself.”
He grinned. “I believe you once accused me of being too sure of myself. Marry me, and keep me on my toes. It will give me something to strive for, if I’m not too sure of your love.”
“Seriously, Marcus, I can’t. I just can’t. It would break my heart. I would spend every day trying to convince you that I loved you, and never being sure if you really believed it, if you knew it in your heart.” She placed her hand over his heart.
“So convince me,” he said, covering her slim white hand with his larger brown one.
“Don’t joke! I cannot have you doubt me like that. And you—oh, Marcus, you deserve to know how much you are loved, every single day. I have seen that here, with Drake and True. There is so much love and trust. You deserve that.”
“So convince me,” he said huskily. He took a seat beside her. “Convince me now.” He put his arms around her and kissed her deeply, passionately, letting his love flow through her like honeyed wine. She succumbed, and he felt wave after wave of love and longing and pain and deeply felt need coming from her, shaking her, quivering in her lips and arms and fingers. He felt a deep exultation well up in him as he understood how much she loved him. In that moment, his heart needed no more convincing.
“I love you,” she whispered in his ear. “I love you so much it hurts to be near you! How can that be? Why does it hurt so much to love you?”
He claimed her mouth with his and kissed her deeply. “I love you, you tormenting little witch! I have loved you for so long, with no hope of return. That is when it hurts. The pain, my dear, is just fear, and I know you’re brave enough to overcome it.” He kissed her again. “I love you, Arabella, forever and always. Does it hurt a little less now?”
“Yes,” she sighed. “A little less. Kiss me again.”
Obliging as always, he did.
Chapter Twenty-one
It was September, but summer still. The fat, nodding roses still bloomed along the walk, the willows still draped leafy fronds into the brook, and the sun still gilded the verdant countryside. And in the garden of Thorne House, under a blue sky, Arabella Swinley became the Countess of Oakmont. But more important to her—far more important, she had learned at long last—she was marrying the only man she had ever loved.
“We are joining our lives together from this time forward, but more importantly, we are fusing together two halves of a whole. Life made us two, love makes us one,” Marcus said, taking her ungloved hands in his.
Lady Swinley sniffed and whispered, “This is not at all the done thing, to say such nonsense during the ceremony. What is wrong with a few verses from the good old King James?”
But Marcus and Arabella had wanted to say something to each other during the ceremony, rather than just repeat the vicar’s words. True, beside whom the baroness sat, just smiled and played with Sarah on her lap. She liked the informality of this rather hurried wedding, though Lady Swinley had spent the previous weeks condemning it. She had wanted a full court ceremony at St. George’s in Hanover Square as befit such a brilliant match, though even she knew that was impossible. The groom was still in mourning for his uncle, and the ceremony could only be small and restrained.
But still, Lady Swinley had said, they could have waited the required year and married in style. What was the hurry, after all, she asked, not understanding the nature of love, and the eagerness with which her daughter anticipated marriage. In her mind it was a social coup, a brilliant match, and she credited her daughter with more conniving than she had previously thought Arabella was capable. She had always known her daughter was going to marry well, and was on her way to convincing herself that she had arranged this marriage. Her only wish was that her new son-in-law was a little more generous to her, but she already had a few schemes in mind to enlarge her newly arranged allowance.
Arabella, with tears in her eyes, looked up at her groom, handsome and tall and incongruously wearing a colorful beaded sash given to him by his friend George Two Feathers. “I didn’t know what love was and that is the only reason I can give why I did not recognize it when it stole into my heart. But you taught me that life’s not complete without it, and that all the wealth in the world, or all the promise of wealth, could not make me happy.”
“Easy for her to say now,” Drake, on the other side of True, whispered. “Oakmont is ten times wealthier than I am.”
True put one hand over her husband’s, determined not to let even his cynical observation destroy the day. He was just on edge because of all the hubbub surrounding the marriage and all of the guests at Thorne House. He preferred a quiet life, and life had been anything but quiet lately. He would be fine once Arabella and Marcus were gone, and Lady Swinley had departed for her now mortgage-free Swinley Manor.
The only thing that had mollified him somewhat was Marcus’s offer to sell him whatever he wanted out of the library of Andover, the hunting lodge. He was to go down there and catalogue it all and decide what he wanted, while Marcus and Arabella were away on their extended honeymoon to Lakelands, Oakmont’s proper seat up in Cumbria. Marcus had never yet seen it, and was curious now to visit it with his new bride.
At last, as the morning sun reached its zenith, the wedding was over and Marcus and Arabella were now man and wife, earl and countess. For Arabella the day went by in a swirl of dizzying tableaux, the wedding breakfast, gifts to be opened, trousseau to be packed—the same trousseau that had been prepared for her wedding to Lord Pelimore, who was now back in London with his new wife.
And then, at long last, as the afternoon sun slanted through the line of trees that marched down the long drive from Thorne House, farewells to be said. She was in the carriage and Drake, happy now that the end was near, held little Sarah, whom Arabella had come to love as if she were her own, up to the open window. Arabella took her, cuddled her on her lap for a minute, and then whispered in the baby’s ear, “I shall try to give you a couple of cousins to play with very soon, my little love.”
“I am in great anticipation of that event myself,” Marcus said, his own lips close to Arabella’s ear. “But maybe not too soon.” They had finally spoken of children, and agreed that despite his fears for her health in childbearing, they would welcome the coming experiences together.
She blushed a fiery red and said, “You were not supposed to hear that, sir.”
“Nevertheless, I did.” He took the baby, who promptly started crying, and gave her a kiss on her button nose. “Good-bye, little one, and now I think I should give you back to your papa.” He leaned across his wife and handed Sarah off to Drake much as he would a valise or hatbox.
True came to the window and looked up at Arabella with tears in her periwinkle blue eyes. She handed Arabella a small package through the window and sniffed back her tears as best she could.
“Don’t cry, True!” Arabella said, taking the package and holding on to her cousin’s hand. “I’m not a weeper, but if I see you sniffle I shall be off like a watering pot!” She gazed down at her cousin and thought how tired True looked. She felt a sudden streak of worry dart through her, and she set the package down on the seat and took both of True’s hands in her own. “Say you will rest for days and days now that this is all over. Say it, or I shall worry myself sick!”
Her cousin cast a fond look over her shoulder at her husband, who still held their baby. “Do you think Wy will let me do anything? He has been beside himself for days, and only the promise that I would have a good, long, lazy period after the wedding would convince him to allow the wedding here at all.”
“I hope this has not been too much for you. You must evict my mother immediately. She has Swinley back and her deb
ts are all settled. She has no excuse to linger.”
“Arabella, do not worry so much! Wy will do all that is necessary, and your mother will travel wherever she wants in our carriage. I do not think she will want to stay; she and Wy don’t see eye to eye on anything. I think it is already arranged that she is going over to visit Wy’s mother at Lea Park for a couple of days, and then she will travel on to Swinley.” True’s face took on a more serious expression. She squeezed her cousin’s fingers and said, “Bella, be happy. That’s all I have ever wanted for you, and at last I think it is in sight.”
“I am far too delirious to be happy yet, but I think I will be. I think so, and soon.” She glanced over at Marcus, who was on the seat opposite her now, talking out the window to Drake. “I’m a little nervous about . . . well, about things, but I will be fine.”
True gave her a glowing smile. “There is nothing at all to be nervous about, my dear. Please trust me.”
“Mother made some things sound so dreadfully sordid and unpleasant, and it is not that I believe her, but what if—” She left the rest unsaid. Silent worries had plagued her that she would find the physical side of marriage unpleasant, for she had never been one of those women who felt a need for male affection. She enjoyed Marcus’s kisses and his caresses, but what if she didn’t like the rest of what was to come?
“You will soon find that there are few things as pleasant as the moments when you and Marcus are alone together in your room.”
Lady Swinley moved forward, her mouth working as if she was having trouble keeping from crying, and her beady eyes bright and fixed. True moved away, with just a whispered, “Be happy,” as her farewell to her cousin.
“Mother, are you all right?” Arabella gazed at her mother with worry.
“I’m just fine. I don’t know why Oakmont finds it necessary to take you to the ends of the earth on a wedding trip when the little Season is just about to begin. We could all go to London. You should be introduced to society with your new title! But I will be fine, all alone.”
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