by Emily Larkin
Unarguably, Arabella Knightley’s childhood would have been very different if the late Earl of Westwick had accepted his son’s bride. There would have been no descent into the slums. Her mother would still be alive, her reputation unsullied. Quite possibly her father would be alive, too.
Adam glanced at the vacated box. Did Arabella Knightley blame her grandparents for what had happened?
He thought the answer was probably Yes.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING Adam timed his ride in Hyde Park to coincide with Miss Knightley’s. She was cantering along the strip of tan when he arrived. The high-spirited black mare was as easy to recognize as her rider.
Adam touched his heels lightly to Goliath’s flanks. “Come on, boy. Let’s find out what she knows.”
They completed one circuit of the park some distance behind Miss Knightley, then Adam urged the big gray to come up alongside her.
She glanced at him. Her eyebrows arched in surprise. “Mr. St. Just.”
“Good morning, Miss Knightley.” Adam dipped his head to her. “May I have a word?”
The mare slowed to a walk.
Miss Knightley’s hat was tilted at a jaunty angle. Beneath the brim, her dark eyes already seemed to hold a glint of mocking amusement. “Mr. St. Just?”
Now that the moment had come, he suddenly felt foolish. On the heels of foolishness came annoyance with himself. Let Arabella Knightley laugh at his question. As long as she answered it, he didn’t care what her opinion of him was.
“It was Mrs. Harpenden you overheard, wasn’t it? Starting the rumor about Miss Wootton.
The glint of amusement vanished. “Mr. St. Just, I’ve already told you that I won’t—”
“I know it was her,” Adam said. “That’s why she received a visit from our quixotic thief.”
Miss Knightley said nothing, she merely looked at him, her expression closed and unforthcoming.
“I’m not interested in Mrs. Harpenden.” Adam shifted his weight in the saddle, leaning slightly towards her. “It’s Tom I want to know about.”
Miss Knightley blinked. “Tom?”
“Yes,” he said. “Who else was nearby? Who else could have overheard Mrs. Harpenden—”
“You want to find Tom?” Her voice was as astonished as her face.
Adam felt himself flush. “Yes.”
Miss Knightley didn’t laugh at him; instead, she frowned. “Why?”
Because it gives me something to do other than worry about Grace. Adam shrugged. “Don’t you want to know who he is?”
“No.”
“Well, I do,” Adam said. “And I’d be grateful if you could tell me who was nearby when you heard Mrs. Harpenden talking.”
Miss Knightley’s expression was as eloquent as a shrug. He didn’t need to see her lift her shoulders to know that she didn’t remember. “I have no idea, Mr. St. Just. I pay no attention to servants.”
“I don’t think Tom is a servant.”
Her eyebrows arched again. “You don’t?”
“No.” Adam looked at her in frustration. “Who was with you when you overheard Mrs. Harpenden?”
“I was by myself.”
“But surely there were people nearby—”
“Dozens,” Miss Knightley said. The amusement, the mockery, had crept back into her eyes, into her voice. “But I haven’t the faintest recollection who they were.”
“If you should remember—”
“I doubt I’ll recall anything more than I’ve already told you.” Her smile was contrite and insincere. “Good day, Mr. St. Just.” The black mare surged forward.
Adam held Goliath at a walk, conscious of a sense of frustration. “God damn it,” he said.
* * *
THE FRUSTRATION WAS still with him when he sat down with the Morning Post in the bow window at White’s later that day. Alongside it was a healthy dose of nervousness. Adam glanced at his fob watch. It was still too early to pay a visit to Mr. fforbes-Brown.
He swallowed a mouthful of claret and resisted the urge to loosen his neckcloth. His nervousness annoyed him. He might lack a title, but both his lineage and fortune were superior to Sir Humphrey’s. There was no reason for either Mr. fforbes-Brown or his daughter to reject his offer.
Adam opened the Morning Post. It was unnerving to think that within a few hours he’d be engaged. He felt a flicker of uneasiness. Was he being too hasty?
A moment’s reflection assured him that he wasn’t. Miss fforbes-Brown was the best of this year’s crop of débutantes. Others surpassed her in beauty and fortune, but she possessed the qualities of a fine mother: she was cheerful, sensible, and extremely fond of children.
His eyes skimmed the columns—and stopped halfway down the page, arrested by an announcement.
Mr. fforbes-Brown of Upper Helmsley, Yorkshire, announces the engagement of his eldest daughter, Sophia, to Sir Humphrey Holbrook of Holbrook Manor, Derbyshire.
“God damn it,” Adam said. He closed the newspaper violently and reached for his wine glass.
* * *
HIS MOOD, AS he entered the Thornycrofts’ ballroom that evening, was dour. Grace clasped her hands together and looked around in delight. “How beautiful! It’s like a Faerie bower.”
Adam looked at the flowers and the ferns and the gauzy draperies and wished he was at his club. The trill of pan flutes was an irritant.
Servants circulated among the assembled guests. Instead of livery and powdered wigs, they were dressed as ancient Greeks. Adam’s lip curled in disbelief as a footman wearing a toga and a laurel wreath came towards them. The man’s expression was wooden. He clearly felt as ridiculous as he looked.
“Pink champagne!” Grace said, enchanted. “May I?”
At Aunt Seraphina’s nod, she took a glass from the tray the footman offered.
Adam’s disgruntlement faded as he watched his sister. Her cheeks were flushed with pleasure and delight sparkled in her eyes. I haven’t seen her look this happy in weeks. Not since the Cranbrooks’ soirée, when they’d walked into the salon to the accompaniment of whispers and sidelong glances. Grace had been nervous, eager, delighted to be attending her first London party. The delight hadn’t lasted long; she’d left early and almost in tears.
“Can you see Hetty?” Grace asked, looking around. “She said she’d meet me here.”
To Adam’s relief, the pan flutes were superseded by an orchestra. Hetty Wootton arrived as the opening bars of the minuet were being played. The two girls departed, arm in arm, to the row of giltwood chairs that lined the wall and fell immediately into conversation. They were indisputably the most beautiful girls in the room. Grace’s pale loveliness, her golden hair and blue eyes, contrasted very nicely with Hetty Wootton’s more robust prettiness, her nut-brown curls and rosy cheeks.
Their beauty and the animation with which they conversed, the laughter lighting their faces, drew a number of glances, but neither girl showed awareness of the interest they were attracting.
His father would have disapproved of so animated a conversation—It’s vulgar to display emotion, and St. Justs are never vulgar!—but Adam gave a nod of approval. He went in search of something to drink that wasn’t pink. By the time he found it, a cluster of young men had begun to form around Hetty and Grace. To his satisfaction, not all of them were fortune hunters.
“The only thing more pleasing to the eye than one Beauty,” a familiar voice drawled in his ear, “is two Beauties.”
“Evening, Jeremy,” Adam said, without looking around. A face on the dance floor caught his eye: Miss fforbes-Brown. His disgruntlement returned.
“Very clever,” Jeremy said. “They set each other off to perfection.”
Adam grunted. He glanced at his friend. “Good Lord,” he said, as he took in the Marquis of Revelstoke’s splendor. “Couldn’t you find bigger buttons?”
Jeremy took a sip of pink champagne. “I like ’em,” he said.
“They’re the size of dinner plates.”
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Jeremy smiled, unruffled by the criticism. He raised his quizzing glass and examined one of the dancers more closely.
Adam followed his gaze. He saw dark ringlets and a softly indented chin. The familiar emotions flooded through him: guilt and shame, and a silent surge of desire. He looked away and gulped a mouthful of wine.
Jeremy lowered his quizzing glass. “I hear you were riding in Hyde Park this morning.”
Adam’s fingers tightened on the wine glass. “I ride there every morning,” he said shortly.
Jeremy didn’t appear to hear the warning. He swung the quizzing glass and smiled. “With Miss Smell o’ Gutters?”
Adam stiffened. “Don’t call her that.”
Laughter gleamed in Jeremy’s eyes. “Touchy, touchy.”
With difficulty, Adam restrained himself from snarling at his friend. He turned his attention to the dance floor again.
“Riding in the park with Miss Knightley,” Jeremy said musingly. “One wonders what you were talking about . . . ?”
Adam didn’t reply. He preserved a stiff and dignified silence.
Unfortunately Jeremy was unsnubbed. “Marriage settlements, perhaps?”
Adam swung around. “Damn it, Jeremy—!”
Jeremy laughed.
Adam glared at him, exasperated. “Heaven only knows why I put up with you!”
“Because I don’t bore you.” Jeremy swung the quizzing glass again. “Think how tedious London would be without me.”
The marquis waited for a moment, with an air of hopeful expectancy. When Adam made no rejoinder he released the quizzing glass with a sigh. “You’re very dull tonight,” he said, plaintively. “I’ll have to find someone else to amuse me.”
Adam watched him stroll off, and then returned his attention to the dance floor. He followed Miss Knightley’s progress with his eyes. Her gown of ivory-white silk was unadorned by rouleaux, festoons of flowers, or lavish trimmings of lace. Its simplicity suited the elegance of her face.
Miss Smell o’ Gutters.
The name was so ugly, so vulgar and offensive. And she had it because of him.
Adam grimaced and looked away. I wish I’d never uttered those words.
In fact, he wished he could consign that whole day to oblivion. It had begun with the interview with his father, the old man’s icy fury. You’ve been in town less than a day, and what do you do? Two dances with the daughter of a French whore! How dare you shame our name like that?
It had been useless to protest that he hadn’t known who Miss Knightley was, that he’d danced with her because of her face, not her name. His father hadn’t bothered to listen. I’ve promised you to my brother, the duke. You leave for Lisbon tomorrow. The old man had looked at him contemptuously. Dismissed.
Adam’s mouth tightened. Packed off to the continent like an errant child. He felt a surge of remembered bitterness, of impotent rage.
He’d spent the rest of the day getting drunk. He should have curbed his spleen; instead he’d vented it. Marry Arabella Knightley? he’d said through a haze of alcohol at his club. Certainly, if one wishes to live with the smell of the gutter. The target had been his father—how dared the old man think him capable of forgetting what he owed the St. Just name!—but the victim had been Miss Knightley.
It wasn’t until his return to England, months later, that he’d realized the ton had taken up his words with glee, that a name had been coined for her: Miss Smell o’ Gutters.
He grimaced again and looked for Miss Knightley. The dance had come to its conclusion; it took him some time to find her among the crush of guests. She was in conversation with Lord Emsley.
Adam’s eyes narrowed as Emsley leaned towards her. Miss Knightley showed no sign of discomfort. She looked as she always did—perfectly composed, slightly amused—and yet something in her smile, in the way she held her glass like a barrier in front of her, told him she was uncomfortable.
Adam glanced around the ballroom. Where was Miss Knightley’s grandmother? This was precisely the type of encounter a chaperone was supposed to prevent.
Lord Emsley sidled closer to Arabella Knightley. Adam hesitated a moment, and then set off across the dance floor.
“Emsley,” he said, as he approached. “Miss Knightley.”
Lord Emsley stepped back. “St. Just.”
Adam favored him with the slightest of nods. He turned and bowed to Miss Knightley. “I trust you haven’t forgotten our engagement?”
She surveyed him coolly. “Which engagement is that, Mr. St. Just?”
“The waltz,” Adam said, and watched as her eyes widened.
“I asked Miss Knightley first!” Lord Emsley protested.
Adam turned to him with an insincere smile. “My request was made this morning, when we were riding in the park.”
“Then I shall have the second waltz,” Emsley said, a flush of annoyance rising in his heavy cheeks.
“Our engagement was for both waltzes,” Adam said blandly. “Perhaps Miss Knightley can give you one of the country dances?”
Emsley’s face grew even more florid.
“I’m not engaged for this dance,” Arabella Knightley said, as the orchestra struck up another tune. “Unless you prefer a quadrille, Lord Emsley?”
Emsley accepted the offer with bad grace. His manner, as he proffered Miss Knightley his arm, was disgruntled.
“My glass,” she said, glancing around. “Let me find a table—”
“I’ll take it,” Adam said, holding out his hand.
After a moment’s hesitation Miss Knightley gave him the glass. Lord Emsley escorted her onto the dance floor.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you play the knight errant before,” an amused voice said in his ear.
Adam stiffened. “Hardly the knight errant.”
“Rescuing a damsel in distress?” Jeremy said. “I believe that qualifies as a chivalrous deed.”
Adam glanced at him. “I wouldn’t call Emsley a dragon.”
“Merely an old goat,” Jeremy said, and grinned.
Adam didn’t grin; he frowned. “If you thought Miss Knightley needed rescuing, why didn’t you do it yourself?”
“Because it’s much more amusing to watch you do it.”
Adam grunted. He returned his gaze to the dance floor, where Miss Knightley and Lord Emsley had found their places in a set.
“Lovely, ain’t she?” Jeremy said in his ear. “Quite the most graceful dancer I’ve seen.”
“Trying to marry her off?” Adam asked, his voice sarcastic.
“Only to you.” Jeremy met his sharp glance with a bland smile. “I have an investment to protect, after all.”
“Much you care about five hundred guineas.”
“Oh, but I do,” Jeremy protested, his eyes wide and his tone earnest.
Adam snorted. “You’re as rich as Croesus.”
“No,” Jeremy said, sighing. “That would be you. I’m but a pauper in comparison.”
Adam’s snort was louder this time. “Laying it on much too thick, Jeremy.”
The marquis looked wounded.
“You know, Jeremy, it’s a dashed shame you were born a nobleman. You should be on the stage.”
Jeremy sighed again. “I know,” he said, in a melancholy voice. “It’s the great sorrow of my life.” He drifted away, looking as frail as possible for a man possessed of robust good health.
Adam uttered a half laugh under his breath and returned his attention to the dance floor. Miss Knightley and Lord Emsley were going down the set. He watched for a moment. Jeremy was right: Arabella Knightley was a superb dancer. There was elegance and grace in each step she took.
In this Grecian-themed ballroom, the simile was easy to find: she was the goddess Artemis, the huntress, lithe and graceful, lissome.
And I have two waltzes with her tonight.
Heat flared in his belly. His throat tightened.
Adam tore his gaze from Arabella Knightley. He looked down at the glass she’d
given him. Pink lemonade. Eugh.
He went in search of a table to place it on.
CHAPTER SIX
HALF AN HOUR later Adam escorted Miss Knightley onto the dance floor. He’d spent the intervening time regretting his decision to rescue her from Emsley. He regretted it even more as they took their places, aware of the number of glances being cast in their direction.
Adam gritted his teeth. The staring would be even more marked when he danced a second waltz with her tonight. I was a fool to do this.
One good thing—the only good thing—was that his cousin, the new Duke of Frew, wasn’t in town to witness this. Frew’s strictures were even harder to stomach than his father’s had been.
Adam took hold of her hand. Heat stirred inside him, increasing his discomfort.
Arabella Knightley showed no signs of discomfort. As far as he could tell, her manner was the same as when she’d danced with Lord Emsley: distant, slightly amused, and utterly composed. She seemed unaware of the interest they were attracting.
But then, Miss Knightley was used to stares and whispers. For her, it was always like this.
Miss Smell o’ Gutters. For a moment he heard the nickname in his ears as clearly as if someone had uttered it aloud. It caused a sense of discordance inside him, as if the musicians played out of tune.
He’d been wrong to speak his opinion of her aloud—that went without saying—but now, for the first time, Adam found himself wondering if his opinion itself had been wrong. Miss Knightley had spent part of her childhood in the slums, but no one ignorant of her past would guess the truth; he certainly hadn’t seven years ago. She brought nothing of the gutters into the ballroom with her—nothing except a name he’d inadvertently given her.
Arabella Knightley’s poise, her graceful performance on the dance floor, were those of a lady of quality. There was no vulgarity in her appearance, none of the ostentatious display of jewelry seen in the nouveau riche. The shining cleanness of her hair, the faint scent of orange blossom that accompanied her, spoke of privilege and wealth, not London’s slums.