by Karen Ranney
“I expect you to assist her, Gillian. My daughter needs your help.”
She stared at Dr. Fenton, aghast. “Sir, I counsel you not to insist upon this marriage. Arabella is not prepared.”
Dr. Fenton frowned at her. “This is a very advantageous union, Gillian. It’s not often such elevation is possible.” He swiveled his chair to face her. “If she’s not ready for marriage, then I expect you, as her companion, to teach her what she needs to know, tutor her in those social niceties she requires. Make her presentable. You have a month to do so.”
She was so startled that for a moment she couldn’t even frame a question. A month? Finally, she found her voice. “Sir, Arabella cares nothing at all for feminine pursuits. All she wants to do is study her books.”
How often had she thought she was the only person in this household who did not seem to be fascinated with dying and death?
“His Lordship is not averse to allowing Arabella to pursue her studies, Gillian. In fact, he was quite willing to allow her to treat his staff. Tell her that if she balks. It’s the only way she’ll ever be a physician.”
He turned away.
“You would use that, Dr. Fenton?” she asked, more calmly than she felt. “You would use Arabella’s…” What did she call it? Obsession? Desperation? Nothing existed for Arabella but medicine. From the moment she woke in the morning until she fell asleep, exhausted, with a book in her hand, she was consumed with the idea of learning everything she could learn about the human body, about the treatment of disease. A broken bone delighted her, an inflammation fascinated her, and pus rendered her ecstatic.
“I’ve agreed, and as her father I’ve only Arabella’s best interests at heart. You, of all people, Gillian, should know the foolishness of a woman turning against her upbringing.”
She clasped her hands together so tightly that her knuckles were white.
“I beg you, Dr. Fenton, please do not insist upon this. Whether or not it’s an advantageous union is of no difference. Arabella will not agree. And if she does, by some miracle, accede to your wishes, she’ll be miserable.”
“Then you must plant the idea in her head that it is for her greatest good, Gillian. I expect you to be able to influence her to accept her future. Her very bright future.”
Since Arabella barely spoke to her, and since she had not once exerted any influence over the young woman since the day she entered Dr. Fenton’s employ nearly two years ago, Gillian could only stare helplessly at him.
Finally she left the doctor’s study and took the stairs to Arabella’s room. Even though it was already midmorning, the girl would not have left her chamber. Instead she would be at her desk, a lamp lit despite the brightness of the day, poring over yet another text featuring gruesome illustrations and even more hideous descriptions.
Life was much more pleasant when she controlled her feelings. As Gillian made her way to Arabella’s room, however, she found herself growing more and more disturbed. Perhaps it was anger. At Dr. Fenton, when he’d alluded to her past? Or at his wish to be aligned to an earl? Or was she annoyed at herself for feeling a surge of unexpected grief when he’d mentioned family?
Nearly three years ago, she’d left her stepmother clutching her lace-trimmed handkerchief, and her father frowning into the bowl of his pipe. They’d said not one word to her as she’d left the manor house that had been her home all her life.
One last time, she’d turned back, optimist to the end, and said, “Do you hate me so much, then?”
Time was arthritic, ticking by on bent and crooked hands.
“Not hate, Gillian,” her father had finally said. “Not hate. But you’ve lost the right to be in the company of decent people.”
Decent people? A stepmother who could watch her walk away and not say one word? A father who cared more for his new family than his daughter? Was that decent?
They wouldn’t listen to her words, however. They hadn’t from the beginning. Nothing would sway them, nothing would soften their iron hearts. So she remained mute and almost sullen, feeling a terror so deep and cold that she was stiff with it.
Perhaps that’s what she felt now. Perhaps it was fear, and not anger. If Arabella married, what would happen to her? Arabella, as the Countess of Straithern, wouldn’t need a companion. In all honesty, she didn’t need her now. Arabella certainly didn’t want Gillian in her room, in her life. Whenever Gillian spoke, it was to silence, and the two women rarely shared a conversation. To converse required the participation of both people.
The only time Arabella talked to her was if Gillian mentioned some discomfort. She’d stuck herself with her needle when embroidering. Her woman’s time was difficult this month. Then Arabella’s eyes would light up and Gillian could not stem the flow of questions.
The problem was, Gillian was exceedingly healthy. Nor was she about to imagine ailments in order to converse with Arabella. Therefore, most of their time together was silent, Arabella studying, and Gillian engaged in her embroidery.
A very proper, if boring, existence, and one that was about to drastically change.
How odd that she missed it already.
She knocked on the door to Arabella’s sitting room, waited a moment, and opened the door. It would be a waste of time waiting for Arabella’s response. She neither welcomed nor forbade Gillian to enter. She simply ignored her.
Gillian entered the room and closed the door behind her. Without a word, she went to the chair beside the window, sat, and picked up her embroidery. Arabella didn’t turn from her position at the desk.
Long moments passed while Gillian stared out the window, wishing she could be anywhere but here. Perhaps on the moor, standing among the heather. A hardy plant, it scarcely seemed to need anything. Instead, it just planted its roots into the ground, impervious to wind or rain or sun. Would that she could be like the heather.
She turned her head and regarded Arabella. Her head was bent, intent on the notes she was writing. The sun was bright today, and seemed to add gilt to the girl’s blond hair.
“Your father wished to speak to me,” Gillian said.
Arabella didn’t stop writing.
“About your coming marriage.”
Arabella’s head came up, but she didn’t turn. She only stared at the drawers of her secretary in front of her.
“I told him you would object.”
“Did you?” Arabella asked.
“He said it was quite an honor to marry an earl.” Those weren’t his exact words. Dr. Fenton was a bit more avaricious than that, but the gist was the same.
“You really do not have a choice, I’m afraid,” Gillian said. “Your father is set on the match. I have to agree that it seems very advantageous.”
Arabella glanced at her, her mouth curved in a smile. “What would an earl want with me?”
Did the girl not ever look in the mirror? She was perhaps the most beautiful creature Gillian had ever seen. She looked like an angel from a medieval painting with her heart-shaped face and striking green eyes. There was nothing about Arabella out of place, not one imperfection. Of course an earl would want her for his wife.
“He says you can continue your studies. Did your father tell you that?”
Arabella nodded. “I don’t believe him, of course.” She returned to her notes. “Most people say things they don’t really mean to make you do what they want.”
“How horribly cynical,” Gillian said. “Surely you don’t actually feel that way?”
“I do. My own father is not averse to the technique.” She glanced at Gillian again, looking supremely bored by the subject as if they were not discussing her future.
“What if he were telling the truth?” Gillian asked. “Would you consent to the union?”
Arabella smiled again.
“Regardless of what I feel, Gillian, I haven’t a choice. I may rail and protest and shout to the rooftops, but in the end my father and the earl will make it come about. We women have no say in our lives, not truly. W
hen a man asks you what you want, it is only a waste of time. If you tell him, he’ll quickly dismiss everything you’ve just said out of hand.”
She turned her attention to her notes, but she didn’t begin writing. “I don’t want to be married, Gillian, but I shall be. I have no choice in the matter. I’m like a trapped animal, and no amount of prettying it up will change that fact.”
“You might find love, Arabella. It might be possible to find love in such a union. If not, a measure of contentment. No, we do not have a choice, I agree, but in some matters you do. You could choose to be happy, in some way. The earl has said you might practice medicine. Surely you could find some contentment in that?”
“How silly you can be, Gillian. You’re such a child in so many ways.”
Stung, Gillian could only stare at her.
“Sometimes, the price for contentment is too high. He will touch me. He will bed me. I think I shall die if that happens.”
“One doesn’t die,” Gillian said, compelled to speak by the utter hopelessness in the girl’s voice. “In some situations, with some men, it’s pleasurable.” More than pleasurable. The act of love could exalt the senses, transport a place, a room, a mood into something almost hallowed.
“There is nothing you could say to make the situation more bearable, Gillian. I do not have your childish view of the world. I see it as it is, not as I wish it to be.”
This conversation was the longest she’d ever had with Arabella. In fact, it was the most she’d ever heard Arabella speak.
Gillian glanced at the girl, knowing there was nothing further she could say. Arabella had it right. In the end, she’d be married, regardless of what she wanted.
But what Arabella didn’t know was that marriage was so much more preferable to other alternatives. Being alone, for one. Being left adrift without anyone to love, or to love her.
But she had loved well, and that memory must sustain her for the rest of her life. Yet, at times like this, when others were rejecting love’s potential and promise, she felt increasingly lonely. She would have been satisfied to be in Arabella’s place, to be given so much without any effort, to be promised respect, and protection. All Arabella had to do was marry.
For the first time, Gillian truly envied the girl, and wasn’t that a foolish emotion?
Chapter 3
Gillian sat back against the cushions of the carriage, wishing suddenly that Dr. Fenton had not requested that she accompany them to Rosemoor. Requested? Hardly the correct word. It wasn’t a request—more a command, rather. What other choice had she? If she wasn’t Arabella’s companion, she’d have no occupation at all.
She should have taken advantage of the occasional trips to Inverness and visited a few of the milliners there. She could have seen the newest styles, perhaps practiced decorating a few of her own bonnets. Then she could have taken the results and solicited a position. She was talented in embroidery, evident from the fact that her work could be found in abundance throughout Dr. Fenton’s house. Surely she could have shown her work to a few dressmakers, and obtained a position with one of them.
Or perhaps she was only being foolish, and there was nothing she could do, no talent she possessed significant enough to support herself. Therefore, she packed her trunk and watched as it was lashed to the wagon holding all of Arabella’s belongings.
Gillian couldn’t help but wonder what the earl would think of Arabella’s trousseau: two trunks of books; one of her personal belongings, such as the silver-backed mirror and brush she’d inherited from her mother, and a porcelain tooth cup from France. One trunk held her clothing, and the last—or the most important, according to Arabella—was a trunk containing a male skeleton.
Not that it was possible to tell, from even a studied glance, what gender Roderick had once been. Gillian had not spent an appreciable time contemplating him. She could still remember when she’d opened the bureau in Arabella’s sitting room the first time and found herself facing a grinning skull. She’d taken one look at Roderick and clamped her hand over her mouth to contain a scream.
“Oh, do not be childish, Gillian,” Arabella had said. “It’s only a skeleton. We shall all look like Roderick one day.”
“There are certain things I don’t wish to know,” Gillian had retorted. “The exact hour and day of my death, for one, and my appearance after that moment.”
She’d ignored—or tried—the skeleton after that day.
Now Arabella sat at Gillian’s side, opposite her father. Her head was bent, her attention directed at the open book on her lap. Gillian knew she wasn’t reading, however. Arabella grew ill when reading in a carriage—one of the few personal details she knew about the girl. Arabella disliked greens, and favored lamb with mint jelly. She liked warm milk in the evening, and preferred wearing a particular nightgown with blue flowers embroidered on the yoke. She had no patience for card games, or conversation of any sort, and if she did speak it was to that hideous skeleton in her sitting room. That, and her growing dislike of the idea of marriage, was the extent of her knowledge of Arabella.
There was a flash of white beyond the trees. Leaning forward, Gillian caught a glimpse of something pointed. The top of a tower? The tops of two towers, to be precise. Narrow and round, they were built atop a brick wall now covered in lichen or ivy. Beyond the towers were two other pediments, these square and cumbersome, as if they’d been added as an afterthought to the wall.
“Is that it?” she asked, stunned at both the size and the majesty of Arabella’s new home. “Is that Rosemoor?”
Dr. Fenton sat up and glanced out the window. “Indeed it is. Rosemoor, the seat of the Earls of Straithern. A most impressive edifice, don’t you think, Gillian?”
The house was a jumble of buildings, all connected together, some high, some low, some topped with towers, some flat. The whole of Rosemoor was faded red sandstone, with large arched windows where there were windows, and tiny slits where there were none. She started to count them, and stopped when she reached twenty.
“It’s very large.”
“Indeed it is. Seventy-two rooms, to be precise. I myself have seen only a quarter of them. But I expect you, my dear,” he said, shooting a fond look toward his daughter, “will grow to know them well.”
Arabella said nothing. Nor did she look up from her book.
“Your bride will be here any moment, Grant.”
Grant stared at the paper in front of him, wondering if he should engage in conversation with his mother, or ignore her. She was, after all, the Countess of Straithern, and free to speak her mind. But that didn’t mean he had to listen, or even agree. Although he’d occasionally solicited her opinion, he wasn’t interested in what she had to say now.
He glanced up from his ledger. “I have given word that I’m to be notified when she arrives.”
“Are you no more interested than that? A wife is not a horse, Grant, however much you’ve bargained for the filly.”
He stood, unwilling to sit behind his desk while she advanced on him. He really should have left for his laboratory early this morning, but he’d been kept behind by his correspondence.
“The subject isn’t open to discussion, Mother. I’ve done what I feel is necessary.”
“Have you?” She took a step back as if to equalize their height, but he was at least six inches taller. Nor was he cowed by the ferocity of her look as he had been when he was twelve and guilty of some misdeed.
Living in Italy had been a pleasure in more ways than one.
“The subject is not open to discussion,” he repeated. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”
She clamped her lips shut and narrowed her eyes. “You’ve become insufferably arrogant, Grant. I dislike that quality in you.”
“Perhaps if you listed all my faults, we could meet soon to discuss them. I’m not averse to improvement, Mother.”
“Then at least tell me why you’ve chosen Dr. Fenton’s daughter. Are you set on this course, Grant?”
He studied her for a moment. “Are you prepared to go to Edinburgh, Mother? Renew your acquaintances, enter society once again?”
She didn’t respond.
“Arabella Fenton will suit well enough. Is there anything else I can do for you, Mother?” He brushed his fingertips against the letter he was writing, wondering when, exactly, he could finish with this chore and escape. He liked routine, the act of finishing one task before beginning another. If he wasn’t so methodical, he would have bolted from the room before she’d advanced on him.
She stood her ground, frowning at him. “Have you fallen in love?”
He was almost amused by that question, enough that he felt the corners of his lips curve up in a smile. “No, Mother, I’m not in love. I’ve yet to meet the girl.”
“Then why?”
“Because it would be wiser if I married as soon as possible,” he said.
They exchanged a long look, and he wondered what was in his eyes. Some knowledge, something that she saw and recognized, some emotion that made her nod and look down.
Perhaps his marriage to Dr. Fenton’s daughter would leave his family open to gossip, but no more so than his sudden appearance on the Edinburgh marriage mart. He could imagine that speculation.
“She will be arriving soon. If you cannot welcome her, Mother, then I can accept that. But do not make her miserable. I would think that you would train her, instead. Mold her into what you think she should be.”
Her dark eyes were filled with an emotion he didn’t want to decipher. Without another word, she turned and left the room.
He stared after her, wondering if he should have shared his suspicions.
Someone had wanted his brothers dead. But who? And did their murderous intent extend to him? Who was next in line to inherit the title? An obscure second cousin who’d immigrated to America. He hadn’t heard of the family for years, wasn’t even certain the man was alive. But his solicitors would somehow manage to find him if anything happened to Grant.