Collector of Hearts

by Cassandra Samuels

  ‘Did anybody else enquire about me?’ He didn’t want to ask the question but at the same time could not stop his mouth from saying the words.

  ‘Do you mean Miss Arabella? I … that is, we, have all been very busy … The wedding.’ Quinn pulled at his waistcoat.

  ‘So she still loathes me?’

  ‘She did not mention the word loathe, exactly. If you were mentioned it was in passing and usually regarding the wedding and such. She assured us she would have no trouble dealing with you as my best man. That is if you still would...’

  ‘Dealing with me,’ he repeated. ‘She isn’t planning to stab me with a fork at the wedding breakfast, is she?’

  ‘She didn’t mention fork specifically.’ Quinn laughed. ‘Come now. Just pretend she is my sister. Off limits so to speak.’ Quinn frowned then. ‘You will still be my best man, won’t you?’

  ‘Quinn, you know I will stand up with you. I would be proud to. That Arabella has deigned to deal with me for your sake is admirable. I have had time to think on the matter and as you rightly pointed out, Miss Fleming is not my usual fare and did not ask for my attentions. Therefore, I promise to conduct myself with the gentlemanly behaviour I usually reserve for my mother, and sometimes yours.’ He hit another ball on the table and watched as it bounced off the edge and into another ball. ‘Is that acceptable?’

  When he looked up it was to see Quinn beaming like a fool. ‘Yes. It is a great load off my mind, thank you.’

  ‘In any case, I’ve decided it is not conducive to familial relations to ignore Arabella any longer.’ Quinn lifted a brow. Robert couldn’t help but smile. ‘I am going to be as friendly and cordial as I can be and hope that she can forgive me my past transgressions.’ He potted another ball and looked up. ‘I think it is the least that I can do considering you are my friend and Isabelle is to be your wife. Arabella is bound to be in your company almost as much as I will be.’ At Quinn’s shocked expression, Robert laughed and then proceeded to pot all the balls on the table.

  ‘So, you propose to be friends with her?’

  ‘Exactly,’ Robert replied. He hoped his plan to woo Arabella would be as easy as it was to convince Quinn that he was no longer interested in her.

  ‘I look forward to watching you try. Isabelle will be pleased.’

  Robert only wished he could be there when Shacklesbury told her of his intentions. Would she be as pleased as Isabelle?

  ***

  ‘I don’t believe it!’ she gasped at Quinn’s announcement.

  ‘I can assure you it is true.’ Quinn’s seemed surprised she was questioning his announcement.

  Arabella placed a hand on her forehead. This did not make sense. ‘And this widow?’

  ‘Was nothing at all, just hearsay and rumour. He was visiting his mother.’

  ‘His mother!’ Arabella paced to the window, her mind racing. ‘Since when does he have a mother?’

  Quinn tugged at his waistcoat. ‘Since birth, I suspect.’

  Arabella made a face at Quinn. She knew how much Robert meant to him, how much her acceptance of him meant to Quinn.

  She noticed Isabelle was finding their interchange amusing. ‘Will you stop smirking at me, sister?’

  ‘I can’t help it.’

  Time was what she needed to get her mind around all this. How could she possibly be friends with Robert? How could he possibly want to be friends with her?

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ she repeated. How could he change his spots so easily? And how could Quinn fall for it?

  Isabelle came to Quinn’s rescue. ‘I don’t either, but won’t you at least give him a chance?’

  ‘I suppose I could, but I’m only doing it for you two, and most definitely not for him.’ She folded her arms over her chest.

  Quinn and Isabelle looked at each other and smiled. ‘That is all we can ask.’ Quinn said and took Isabelle’s hand and placed a kiss on it.

  Arabella rolled her eyes and left the room. They would be kissing again soon and she really didn’t want to see it.

  Wants to be friends, does he? Was it even possible for a man like Robert Mallory to be friends with any woman?

  They were due to have dinner with Quinn and his mother, and Shelton was supposed to be in attendance too. It would be the perfect opportunity to see how committed he was to being... friends.

  ***

  Shelton ignored her all through the first course of dinner even though they were sitting opposite each other. Being so conscious of him, she couldn’t help but note his disinterest in her. The conversation spun around the table and she felt distinctly on the outside, not even able to comment for the simple reason she was not listening. She was too busy looking at him from under her lashes. Expecting him at any moment to make some vulgar remark or suddenly to grab her and lay her on the table for dessert. He hadn’t made one single Collector-type comment. It had to be killing him to watch every word he uttered and to censor his every look.

  ‘Needless to say, the poor man was not the same after that little experience.’ The guests around the table erupted in laughter.

  ‘Robert, tell us about the time you found yourself lost in that cave,’ Quinn urged.

  ‘Ah, well, that was something I am liable never to forget...’

  Arabella inspected the quail on her plate. She poked at it, moved her portion around the plate and finally dissected the poor creature but ate nothing. Such a terrible waste but she simply could not stomach it. What was she so nervous about? Had she not intended to show Shelton that his absence had not affected her? Oh, but it had. She had thought of nothing else but him.

  She hated that she’d missed him. Too many hours had been spent thinking about Shelton and where he might be and whether or not he was thinking about her. What a silly creature she had become.

  ‘You fell asleep in a cave?’ Isabelle asked. ‘How long were you there?’

  ‘Yes. My mother found me after five hours leaning against the wall … asleep … standing up.’ Robert gave her sister a wink, which made Isabelle giggle.

  ‘You can’t fall asleep standing up, can you?’ her sister asked. ‘Wouldn’t you fall over?’

  ‘I was leaning against a wall.’

  ‘Tell her how far from the entrance you were.’ Quinn was still laughing.

  Robert smirked. ‘Less than a hundred feet, but in my defence, I was around the corner and hadn’t realised that I was so close to the entrance. I’d been wandering around for hours and had become disorientated.’

  ‘Your parents must have been very worried about you?’ Lady Shacklesbury enquired.

  ‘Considering I had been forbidden to go there and my mother had half the county out looking for me? Yes, they were quite cross.’

  She caught him watching her chase a pea around her plate and she let her cutlery clink against the plateware.

  ‘Mother was in hysterics and was convinced I had probably been afflicted by some kind of cave disease. I received double doses of cod liver oil as punishment for a week. I suppose I have always been intrigued with things that are forbidden to me.’

  The statement made her raise her gaze to his and he smiled before saying, ‘Why don’t you tell Isabelle about the time you wanted to be a knight and made your own armour out of pots and pans and what your cook threatened to do to you? I’ve always found that an amusing story.’

  Quinn coloured slightly before launching into his story, amidst numerous good-natured corrections from his mother.

  Arabella reached for her wine glass. Her gaze connected with him again. ‘Who are you?’

  He curved his lips into a smile and then put down his knife. ‘I don’t know what you mean. Who do you want me to be?’ He took up his wine goblet and drank from it.

  By the time dessert was over, Arabella was imagining her pudding all over his head. It wasn’t fair! Even when he was being everything that was not, in her opinion, him at all, he still seemed to command the table, the room, the whole damn house like he lived here instead
of Quinn. Not that he undermined Quinn’s authority in any way, but it was just his presence.

  She had to sort out how she was going to deal with a chameleon, for that was exactly what he was, changing himself from one minute to the next.

  ‘You are very distracted tonight, Bella.’ Isabelle took her sister’s hand and led her around the parlour after dinner so they could talk.

  ‘Am I? I have a few things on my mind.’

  Isabelle studied her for a moment with an amused smile on her lips. ‘I wonder who it could be.’

  Arabella should have known Isabelle would know where her mind was. ‘It is not funny. He is strange,’ she whispered low.

  ‘He seems fine to me,’ Isabelle responded. ‘He has been very well behaved, charming and delightful all evening.’

  ‘Exactly! He is up to something, I just know it.’

  ‘Indeed.’ Robert disengaged Isabelle from Bella and wedged himself between them. ‘What are we whispering about?’

  ‘None of your business, my lord.’ Arabella pulled free.

  ‘I thought it might have been wedding plans or that age-old argument, to corset or not to corset?’ He smiled and Isabelle giggled.

  Arabella was disgusted in her sister. She no doubt had a case of the Mallorys too.

  ‘Would you like to hear my opinion?’ he offered.

  ‘No!’ Arabella knew her tone was unladylike.

  ‘Ah, then you must have been talking about me.’ He spoke in jest, but when Isabelle blushed it must have been obvious to him that he had guessed right. The slight raise of an eyebrow made Arabella want to slap him.

  ‘This is a little embarrassing. I didn’t mean to interrupt you in deep discussion about myself, my apologies.’ He let go of their arms and took a step back, giving them both a mocking bow. Isabelle turned towards him but Arabella took firm hold of her arm so her sister could not ask him back and they resumed their walk around the room.

  The particularly poisonous glare Arabella sent his way made Robert laugh out loud.

  Lady Shacklesbury laid the book she had been reading on her lap. ‘What is so funny, Shelton?’

  ‘The twins are talking about me,’ he replied matter-of-factly.

  ‘Why ever would they talk about you?’ Quinn’s mother replied, with a chuckle.

  ‘I’ve no idea, but I feel a prank coming on.’ He winked at Lady Shacklesbury and leaned against the mantel, crossing his feet at the ankles. ‘Twins are notorious for pranks, or so I hear.’

  ‘That is usually your forte, is it not, Shelton?’

  He smiled at the woman who had taken him in simply because her son had brought him home. ‘I have grown out of pranks, madam, and have graduated to a few well-defined schemes instead.’

  Quinn chuckled from his chair beside the fire.

  ‘Schemes I’m better off not knowing about, I’ll wager,’ Lady Shacklesbury retorted in a merry tone.

  ‘Beauty and wisdom. I am in awe, madam.’ Robert offered her a grin.

  ‘Away, you rascal. I am too old for that kind of shenanigans.’

  Arabella sighed from the other side of the room. ‘I really don’t see why on earth we would be talking about you, Lord Shelton, when we have much more interesting and enthralling topics to discuss.’

  ‘Of course. I did hear that there is a new shipment of Indian muslin come in just this morning. Is this perhaps the enthralling topic you were talking of?’

  ‘How did he guess, Isabelle?’ Arabella replied in a mocking tone, obviously trying to end the conversation.

  Robert laughed and laughed, which only annoyed her even more, he was sure.

  The rest of the evening was spent in quiet contemplation of a set of cards. There was no further talk of corsets or Indian muslin. They played for buttons, supplied by Lady Shacklesbury from her mending basket. Robert and Arabella both played dismally, to the delight of Quinn and Isabelle. He played terribly on purpose, quite prepared to lose his buttons while sitting back in his chair lazily sipping his Madeira and watching Arabella.

  ***

  His dreams were back to normal, for him at least, and he was rather pleased with how the evening at Shacklesbury’s had progressed. He was back in her thoughts, but he suspected that he had never been far away to begin with. His plan to confuse her had obviously worked, as he’d practically seen her mind ticking over like the inner workings of his pocket watch, trying to figure out what he was about.

  The only problem was that he could count how many days he would be able to keep up this charade on one hand. Where had his patience gone? A good pursuit required patience as well as skill and for some reason he could not contain his enthusiasm for Arabella. He must make contact with her, however small, by the end of the week, but he must make it look like it was her idea. His friendship with Quinn depended on it. In the meantime, he had to maintain his state of respectability. Surely it could not be that hard?

  ***

  Arabella jerked to the left when she was jabbed with yet another pin and was scolded by the modiste for not standing still. Her nerves were jumpy, had been all week. Isabelle said that it was wedding jitters, but wasn’t Isabelle supposed to be having them, not her?

  She knew the answer—Robert. How it was possible for him to change himself so quickly; to be so courteous and well-mannered throughout dinner the other night, so charming and complimentary, and then with a blink of an eye he was a devilish rogue. It had become startlingly clear to her that Robert could be many things, and it all seemed to depend on what he wanted and who he was with. But who was he really?

  Deep down, underneath the polished exterior, under that arrogance, who was Robert Mallory? Was he the desperate man ready to jump into the Thames and take his own life? Or was he the shallow debaucher with nothing but pleasure and scandal on his mind? Perhaps he was someone else entirely. She wanted desperately to know, had to know, or she would never be able to put her feelings for him aside and find herself someone worthier of her kisses.

  She knew it was dangerous, stupid even, to seek him out, but she needed to talk to him, to settle a few things. Otherwise, she feared she would never have peace of mind again. There were never any opportunities when he was with Quinn. It was obvious that Robert was under surveillance from his friend, and she could only wonder why. Perhaps Quinn was just looking out for her, seeing that they were going to be related soon. Maybe Quinn was actually protecting Robert, from her. Arabella smiled. But for whatever reason, it made it difficult for her to get to Robert for even a minute. Annoyingly, Robert seemed to find it all very amusing.

  Tonight, however, there would be no protecting him from her or her from him, of that she was determined.

  Chapter 11

  The ballroom was crowded and noisy. The chatter of a hundred different conversations filled the air like the hum of bees around a hive. Robert stood in his usual position by the doors to the garden. It was the perfect vantage point in which to watch the goings-on before him. Quinn had left him to escort Isabelle and her family from the receiving line, leaving him temporarily alone with his thoughts.

  A group of ladies paraded past him. They were all blushes, fluttering fans and eyelashes. Shacklesbury had been right about his reputation. It was still very much intact. The rumour that he had left for the country with a young widow had metaphorically mutated into three separate women. And instead of rusticating in the country he had apparently now become the scourge of Bath. It was complete fiddle-faddle but what should he care? He should be happy with the turn of events but for some reason he was bored to death with the batting eyelashes and the coy looks he was receiving and that was disturbing in itself.

  He watched as Quinn and his trio of followers made their way through the crush towards him. It was quite obvious that his friend was unfashionably smitten with his future bride. The man couldn’t stop smiling. If he made one more comparison tonight of Isabelle’s complexion to that of a flower’s petal Robert might just cast up his accounts.

  Shacklesbury had sai
d earlier today something like love has the strangest effect on one’s inability to stop from saying rather sickly sweet things about one’s fiancée. Robert couldn’t have agreed more. Annoying as it was to hear him talk about Isabelle all the time, he could not dispute Quinn’s happiness.

  A happiness Robert knew would never be his.

  He told himself he didn’t need it, didn’t deserve it and didn’t want it. The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth—the flavour of lies.

  When they had finally made their way across the room, Lord Tremaine looked over the crowd with a bored expression. He turned to Robert. ‘Will I see you in the card room later?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ he replied, but his gaze remained on her. ‘But someone must supervise dear Shacklesbury. Make sure he behaves as one should with his intended.’

  Her father nodded then sighed. ‘Well, I’ll be off then.’

  ‘Papa!’ Isabelle paled before grabbing his arm. ‘You must stay in the ballroom with us, otherwise we will look unchaperoned.’

  ‘You are engaged.’

  ‘Yes, but Arabella is not.’

  The girl’s father laughed. ‘Who will know the difference?’

  Isabelle took her father’s hand. ‘Please stay. There will be talk.’

  He looked from Isabelle to Arabella then around the crowded ballroom. ‘All right, but I must see Sanders first.’ With that, Lord Tremaine abandoned his daughters.

  Isabelle shared a look with her sister and Robert knew they were doing that communicating without talking thing he’d heard twins sometimes did. He wished he could talk to Arabella like that, although he was sure she would be shocked at exactly what was on his mind most of the time.

  ‘Oh look, the dancing has begun,’ Quinn announced, to break the silence.

  ‘Yes, but I’m afraid we cannot dance tonight.’ Isabelle’s announcement fell between them all like rain at a picnic; her favourite thing in all the world was to dance.