He snuffled and closed his mouth, then wiped a hand down his face.
Good, he was coming to. “Gabriel . . .” Arabella placed a hand on his shoulder. “You need to go to bed.”
He mumbled something but Arabella couldn’t make out the words. “What was that?” she asked.
Gabriel’s words were slurred but this time she understood him. “What’s the time?” he repeated.
“I have no idea but—” Just at that moment, the clock helpfully chimed the hour. “Four o’clock.”
“Christ . . .” Gabriel opened his eyes and straightened in his seat. His groggy gaze lifted to Arabella’s face. And then he smiled. “Bella . . .” Before she could blink, he reached out and wrapped his fingers around her wrist. “I was dreaming of you.”
Arabella fought to keep her ire aflame. Even in an inebriated state, her husband was charm personified. “Where have you been all night?” she demanded. “I’ve been worried sick about you.” Worried sick you might be making love to someone else . . .
He frowned. “No need to worry, pet.” He scrubbed at his face again. “I was just at the Pandora Club.”
“The Pandora Club?”
Gabriel yawned. “Yes. It’s a gaming hell and a brothel.”
“You went to a brothel?” Arabella gasped. She couldn’t hide her shock.
Gabriel waved a dismissive hand in the air as though he were clumsily swatting away a fly. “S’nothing. No need to get out your scalpel.”
What on earth was he talking about? “It’s not nothing, Gabriel.” Arabella shook his other hand off her wrist. “You promised me—”
“I didn’t break my promise,” he said, his tone indignant. “I didn’t do anything at all. Just gambled. I didn’t even look, let alone tumble anyone . . .” His eyes were heavy-lidded, his smile lazy and almost boyish as he looked up at her again. “I didn’t want to because I have you.”
Arabella’s horror quickly dissipated at that last pronouncement. She didn’t know why, but she believed he hadn’t been unfaithful.
“Was Lord Malverne there too?”
Gabriel removed his feet from the table and leaned forward, his elbows resting on his thighs, his head bowed. “Yes, but he didn’t do anything either. We played faro most of the night. Bloody boring game, if you ask me.” He scratched the back of his head and yawned again. “But don’t tell Sophie. Nate didn’t want to upset her. He’s absolutely besotted with her, poor bastard.”
Arabella pressed her lips together. She wasn’t sure what she’d do. But she’d worry about that tomorrow. “You need to get to bed,” she repeated.
“Yes.” Gabriel suddenly lurched to his feet and for one heart-stopping moment, he teetered to one side. Arabella caught him about the waist.
Gabriel squinted down at her as though he was trying to focus his gaze. “I can see two of you . . . I might need some help.”
“Aye, I won’t disagree.”
By the time Arabella had safely steered Gabriel into the armchair beside his bed, she was out of breath and had a bruised shin; at one point, Gabriel had stumbled and she’d collided with a gilt-edged occasional table in his sitting room.
She supposed she could ring for Ryecroft to help him get undressed—especially when she almost lost her balance tugging off his boots—but it seemed like too much effort. Aside from that, she was secretly enjoying the fact that she was doing something wifely. And for once, her inebriated husband was as docile as a lamb . . . until he noticed what she was wearing.
She’d just helped him shrug off his waistcoat when he caught her hand, drawing her close. “What the hell are you wearing, Bella?” His brows crashed into a confused frown as he looked her up and down. “Is that one of my shirts?”
Arabella blushed, suddenly overcome with shyness. In all the fuss of finding Gabriel asleep in her sitting room, she’d completely forgotten she wasn’t wearing her sedate cotton night rail. She also suspected the bedside lamp was shining through the thin cambric and revealing a good deal more of her person than she’d like. “It’s um . . . I went shopping with Sophie, Lady Charlotte, and her aunt and purchased a few things for my wardrobe. This is a new style of nightgown. They’re all the rage.” Telling a white lie seemed easier than admitting the truth . . . that she’d missed him so much she’d wanted his scent to surround her.
Gabriel’s mouth curved into a slow, sinful smile as he made another leisurely perusal of her attire. He seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time inspecting her bare legs. “I like it,” he murmured huskily. “Very much.”
“I, ah . . . thank you.” Arabella’s breathing quickened and desire gathered low in her belly as Gabriel lifted his gaze to her face. The lamb had gone and the lion was back. And there was a smoldering hunger in his eyes.
Arabella’s heart began to crash against her ribs. What if she threw caution to the wind and just gave in to temptation? Leaned down and touched her lips to her husband’s?
To her surprise, Gabriel sighed and released her hand. “I must apologize, Bella,” he said as he pulled his shirt from his pantaloons. “Even though I’m foxed to the eyeballs, I’m afraid I’m beginning to develop a fearsome cockstand. It’s just been so long since I’ve had sexual intercourse . . . and the way you look in that shirt . . .” He shook his head. “I hope you understand my arousal isn’t intentional.”
“It’s all right,” she whispered. Disappointment settled over her. Which was ridiculous because Gabriel was clearly respecting her wishes . . . Only, it seemed her wishes might be changing. “If you don’t need me—”
Gabriel stood. His balance was steady now. His fingers came up to gently capture her chin. Tilting her head up, he trapped her gaze. “There’s no question in my mind that I need you, but now’s not the right time to act upon my desire. And you know . . .” His green eyes searched hers for one long moment, “I think that if I could fall in love with anyone, it would be you, Bella.”
Arabella’s heart twisted with pain and longing. Why did he have to make her feel this way? Or feel anything at all? Could there be anything worse than desperately wanting the love of a man who couldn’t love you in return? She didn’t want to love him, but she couldn’t hide from the truth anymore. She drew a shivering breath. “You’re incorrigible,” she whispered.
“Yes I am,” he said softly. He dropped a gentle kiss on her forehead. “Now go to bed, sweetheart. We’re getting married later today and you need your rest.”
As Arabella crossed to the door, Gabriel extinguished the bedside lamp.
If only her own love for this complicated, impossible devil of a man could be snuffed out so easily.
Chapter 15
A “special” occasion in St. James’s?
Hampers of gastronomic delights, crates of champagne, and a cartload of summer blooms were recently delivered to the home of a certain Errant Earl . . .
It appears as though the earl and his new lady wife held quite an exclusive gathering at their St. James’s residence. But the curious thing is, one of the guests was a man of the cloth, the Rev. R. G. from a cathedral in H. Square . . .
If the earl wasn’t already leg-shackled, one might have good reason to suspect another wedding had taken place.
But whose?
The Beau Monde Mirror: The Society Page
Langdale House, St. James’s Square, London
July 28, 1818
Arabella, you look beautiful,” declared Charlie. “Doesn’t she, Sophie?”
“Yes indeed,” agreed Sophie with a warm smile. “Arabella, you are the prettiest bride in the whole of London.”
“Oh, stop it, you two. You are making me blush,” said Arabella. She studied her reflection in the full-length oval looking glass in her bedroom. Charlie’s lady’s maid, Molly, had styled her hair into an elaborate arrangement of cascading curls threaded with seed pearls, and the cream
and gold couture wedding gown suited her slight figure well. And of course, the diamond and emerald necklace—Gabriel’s gift to her on their first wedding day—matched beautifully too. Arabella’s blush deepened as she recalled the last time she’d worn it . . . along with nothing else.
Gabriel had also surprised her this morning with an additional wedding present. Two presents in fact. Gifts so thoughtful, Arabella had been alternately stunned and thrilled and then moved to tears. When she woke, it was to discover a satin-lined wooden box on her bedside table containing a banknote made out to Arabella Holmes-Fitzgerald, the Countess of Langdale, in the amount of one thousand pounds for her charity work, along with another item of immeasurable value, at least to her. It was a stéthoscope, exactly like the one René Laennec had shown her in Paris. In fact, Arabella was certain that it might actually be one of the good doctor’s stéthoscopes as she examined it with trembling fingers. The initials R. L. were carved into the wood at one end.
So that’s why Gabriel insisted we stop for a whole day in Paris, Arabella had thought as she placed the stéthoscope carefully back in its case. When he’d been “attending to business,” he must have gone to see Dr. Laennec at L’Hôpital Necker. The whole notion made her head spin.
The stéthoscope and bank check seemed to serve as a wedding gift, apology, and a peace offering because the note Gabriel left with it read: To my clever, beautiful Bella. I hope you can forgive me for being such an inconsiderate, drunken dunderhead last night. I can’t wait to marry you all over again. G
Just recalling Gabriel’s words and his gifts filled Arabella with bittersweet longing, and she had to dash away a surreptitious tear lest her friends see. Of course, she would forgive Gabriel—how could she not after he’d presented her with such treasures? However, she also wanted to talk to him about last night’s incident and how sick with worry she’d been . . . But then she’d be in danger of betraying how she really felt. She didn’t want him to know she’d fallen in love, not when he didn’t love her back. Her mind tumbled with frustration and confusion. Gabriel seemed to want her, at times it felt as though he even cared for her, yet lately, he kept pushing her away . . .
But wasn’t that exactly what she was doing to him? And she was the one who’d started it all. Everything was such a mess.
“Do you need your glasses?” asked Sophie, drawing her out of her tangled thoughts; she held out her usual pair but Arabella shook her head.
“No, call it vanity, but I’m going to try using a quizzing glass today,” she said. “Courtesy of Lady Chelmsford.”
“Yes, I swear my aunt has a hundred of the things,” said Charlie as she stepped forward and fastened the chain of the small, gilt-framed eyeglass to Arabella’s cream silk bodice with a pearl brooch. “There. Now you can peer at us all imperiously, Lady Langdale.”
Arabella laughed. “I don’t think I have an imperious bone in my body.”
“Nor I,” replied Sophie. Radiant in a well-cut gown of azure blue silk that matched her eyes perfectly, and with sapphires and diamonds at her throat, she was the epitome of a refined ton beauty. “I confess that half the time someone addresses me as Lady Malverne, I haven’t realized I’m the one being spoken to.”
Charlie waved a hand. “You will both get used to it. Now, are you ready to wed again, my dear Arabella? I do believe the clock just struck three and your eager bridegroom—or should I say husband?—awaits.”
Arabella nodded and smiled, hoping her friends wouldn’t see the merriment in her eyes had dimmed. Since last night, she’d hardly seen Gabriel at all.
When she’d knocked on his closed sitting room door to thank him for her wonderful gifts and tell him she had indeed forgiven him, it was Ryecroft who answered and informed her Gabriel had gone riding in Hyde Park. They’d eventually crossed paths in the drawing room just before noon when Arabella was supervising the placement of the floral arrangements with Mrs. Mayberry. Gabriel stuck his head around the door—Arabella marveled at the fact that he was so bright-eyed given how drunk he’d been last night—and stated he couldn’t wait for three o’clock. And then he disappeared.
Arabella had wanted to go after him, but by the time she’d finished checking all the last-minute details of the wedding breakfast with the housekeeper, Sophie, Charlie, and her maid arrived, and then she’d been caught up in her own preparations for the wedding.
Despite the fact that Gabriel had written her a note stating he couldn’t wait for their nuptials, it worried her deeply that he seemed to be actively avoiding her. She didn’t want to believe his so-called eagerness was nothing but pretense. That his thoughtful gifts were nothing but hollow gestures—a “means to an end”—so she’d forgive him the worst of his excesses, last night being a case in point.
Well, she was about to pretend, too, for the whole afternoon in fact, so everyone believed she and Gabriel were blissfully happy. Fixing a bright smile in place, she picked up a nosegay of ivory rosebuds from a nearby satinwood table and turned to face her friends, hoping they wouldn’t notice she was lying. “Aye, I’m ready.”
* * *
* * *
Forasmuch as Gabriel and Arabella have consented together in holy wedlock, and have witnessed the same before God and this company, and thereto have given and pledged their troth either to other, and have declared the same by giving and receiving of a ring, and by joining of hands,” declared the gray-haired Reverend Robert Hodgson with a benign smile, “I pronounce that they be man and wife together, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”
Over the claps and cheers of their friends, Gabriel murmured, “It’s done, Bella.” He lifted her hand and feathered a kiss across her knuckles. “It’s done.”
The rapt look in her husband’s brilliant green eyes made Arabella’s heart race and with so many others watching them, a fiery blush scalded her cheeks. She could almost convince herself that Gabriel cared for her, that the intensity in his gaze wasn’t all just for show. “Yes,” she whispered, even as relief and despair flooded her.
There was no turning back now. They were legally, irrevocably wed.
After Lady Chelmsford and Maximilian Devereux, the charming Duke of Exmoor, witnessed the marriage lines, Reverend Hodgson presented them to Arabella for safekeeping. For better or worse, no one would ever be able to question the validity of their marriage now.
Except, it wasn’t the marriage Arabella wanted.
Throughout the opulent wedding breakfast—a cold buffet served with chilled champagne—Gabriel played the attentive husband and host, regaling everyone with the story of how they’d first met at Chillon Castle, and how Arabella had come to his rescue during the storm after he’d attempted to deliver Charlie’s letter. Arabella was grateful he glossed over some of the more salacious details of that particular incident, namely how he’d been sans shirt when she’d fixed his shoulder, and how he’d kissed her. He’d explained away their sudden engagement by stating, “The first time I saw Arabella in that dark, chill dungeon, I knew I had to have her,” and everyone seemed to believe that meant he’d fallen head over heels in love. His glib delivery and play on words was clever, but in a way, deceitful.
Her husband certainly had a silver tongue.
A horrible thought suddenly pricked at Arabella like a burr in her shoe: Gabriel had sworn he would always be honest with her, but was that really the case? Perhaps he was just adept at telling others what they wanted to hear.
What if he had taken up with Lady Astley again? What if he had dallied with a demirep at the Pandora Club?
Last night, he’d said that if he could fall in love, it would be with her, but what if his pronouncement was a lie?
Within the space of two hours, Arabella’s mouth ached with the effort of constantly maintaining a false smile. Feigning happiness was exhausting. She loved Charlie and Sophie with all her heart, but right now she wished she could
be alone. Though feigning happiness was far easier when one was a little tipsy, she decided after she’d helped herself to her fourth glass of champagne.
Taking up a position by an open set of French doors that looked out upon Langdale House’s courtyard garden, Arabella sipped her wine. Her gaze skipped between the flagged terrace, just beyond the doors, and the elegantly furnished drawing room. Inside, Charlie and Nate’s father, the Earl of Westhampton, conversed with the very roguish Scottish Marquess of Sleat and Lady Chelmsford. Max, the Duke of Exmoor, chatted with Gabriel, Nate, and Sophie on the terrace. A short time ago, Arabella had seen Charlie talking and laughing with the exceedingly handsome, blond-haired duke by an espaliered orange tree. She wondered about the nature of their relationship. Charlie had put his name at the top of the list of most eligible bachelors they should target in their quest to find perfect matches.
Nate leaned down and whispered something in Sophie’s ear that made her blush and bite her lip as if she were trying to suppress a giggle. Seeing how blissfully happy they were together was difficult, to say the least. The way they looked at each other, with adoration in their eyes, made Arabella’s heart clench. She was thrilled for Sophie, of course, but it highlighted what was missing in her own relationship with Gabriel—love.
Charlie appeared beside her. “Why are you over here on your own?” she asked quietly.
Arabella donned her fake smile. “I’m just enjoying the scenery while I drink my champagne.”
“Hmm.” Charlie laid a hand on her arm. Her brow creased with a concerned frown. “What’s wrong, Arabella? You don’t seem yourself.”
Arabella fiddled with the stem of her glass. “Whatever do you mean?”
“You and Gabriel . . . Something’s not right, I know it. Your smile is as brittle as that champagne glass you’re holding.”
“Everything’s fine.”
Charlie snorted in disbelief. “Now I know something is definitely amiss.”
How to Catch an Errant Earl Page 22