by Emily Larkin
St. Just glanced sharply at her, as if he suspected the sincerity of her praise.
“It made him look even more like a cockerel,” Grace said with satisfaction.
St. Just’s forehead creased slightly. “A cockerel?”
“Yes, look at him. He’s a cockerel.”
St. Just swung on his heel and stared across the ballroom. His eyebrows rose. “So he is.”
“Bella saw it,” Grace said, as smugly as if the observation had been her own.
St. Just turned and looked at her. His eyes narrowed slightly. “A talent of yours, Miss Knightley?”
“Yes,” Grace said. “She saw that Miss Brook looks like a pug dog.”
Arabella blinked. She’d forgotten that conversation.
“A pug dog?” St. Just turned on his heel again and scanned the ballroom. “Oh, yes, I suppose she does. An unfortunate nose.” His expression, when he looked at her, was tinged with suspicion. “Who else have you applied this . . . er, talent to, Miss Knightley?”
Arabella shrugged. “The comparison isn’t always easy to make.” But often it was. Adam St. Just was definitely a stag. It was easy to imagine him standing on the crest of a hill, handsome and arrogant, looking down that long nose of his, aware of his superiority over all other creatures. He carried his pride with him the way a stag carried its antlers. It was in the way he held his head. She could almost see them in the air above his carefully tousled hair, branching invisibly upwards, heavy with the weight of his lineage, his breeding, his bloodline.
“But who else?” Grace persisted.
Arabella shrugged again. “Some people are easy. Your friend Miss Wootton, for example. She reminds me of a robin; her cheeks are so rosy and her eyes so bright.”
“Oh, yes!” cried Grace. “She does!”
“And the Marquis of Revelstoke is clearly a—”
“Peacock,” St. Just said.
Arabella glanced at him, slightly disconcerted by his swiftness and accuracy. “Yes, a peacock.”
“Who else?” Grace asked.
“Well . . .” Arabella scanned the ballroom. “Lady Bicknell. I know it’s not very polite, but she reminds me of a—”
“Toad,” St. Just said.
Arabella turned her head and stared at him, her mouth still partly open. How had he known? She’d been going to say frog, but even so . . . “Yes,” she said.
Grace clapped her hands together. “How clever you both are! What am I?”
“A kitten,” Arabella said promptly. “A fluffy white kitten with big blue eyes.”
Grace blushed in delight. “And Adam?”
“A stag,” Arabella said, looking up at him. His eyebrows rose slightly. Did he take it as a compliment? It wasn’t.
“And Aunt Seraphina?”
Arabella checked that Grace’s aunt was in conversation with the lady seated alongside her. She lowered her voice slightly, “Your aunt reminds me of a beautiful Jersey cow, placid and gentle.”
Adam St. Just uttered a crack of laughter. “So she does.” He hastily straightened his face as his aunt looked around.
Arabella bit her lip and tried not to laugh, too—not at him, but with him. She looked down at her hands, clasped in her lap, and gently pinched the tip of one gloved finger. It was disturbing to find herself wanting to laugh with St. Just.
“And what about you, Bella? What are you?”
She glanced up and shrugged. “I’ve never given it any thought.”
Grace pursed her lips. “I think . . . a doe.”
A doe? She had an instant image of one—slender and shy, peering from the green fringes of a forest with large, dark eyes. Is that what I seem like to others?
“No,” St. Just said dryly. “Miss Knightley has claws.”
Arabella looked sharply at him. His expression was bland, but his eyes held a gleam of amusement.
There was no mockery in that gleam, no nastiness, but something friendlier, as if St. Just was inviting her to share a joke.
She was so taken aback that she couldn’t think of anything to say.
“Adam!” Grace protested. “That’s not very nice.”
St. Just shrugged. “You disagree, Miss Knightley?”
“No,” Arabella said, slightly flustered. “I think it very accurate.”
“Well, I don’t think Bella has claws!”
“That’s because she hasn’t sharpened them on you,” St. Just said, in the same dry voice. He raised his champagne glass to his lips and paused, listening to the orchestra. “The quadrille’s finishing. Excuse me, I’m engaged for the next dance.”
Arabella watched him walk away, more than a little disconcerted. Had they come close to laughing together, she and Adam St. Just?
“I’m engaged for this dance, too,” Grace said. “With Viscount Mayroyd.” She smoothed her glove up her arm and said with an attempt at nonchalance, “What do you think of him?”
“He seems a very nice young man.”
“He stutters,” Grace said, studying the seam of her glove.
“Does it bother you?”
Grace looked up. She shook her head firmly. “No. But . . .” Her brow creased for a few seconds, as if she sought words. “I think people have laughed at him because of it.”
“I’m certain they have.” Arabella hesitated, and then said softly, “Grace, be careful not to confuse pity with a . . . a warmer emotion.”
“I don’t pity him,” Grace said. She looked down at her lap and began pleating folds of cream-colored satin. “But I do like him.” She glanced up suddenly. “What animal does he remind you of?”
“Viscount Mayroyd?” Arabella smiled. “He reminds me of a puppy. Gangly and friendly and eager to please.” She paused. “He seems very kind.”
“He is.” Grace’s eyes focused on someone to Arabella’s right. Viscount Mayroyd, she guessed as the girl blushed shyly.
The young viscount made his bow. His likable manner and engaging smile only reinforced Arabella’s opinion of him: an appealing young pup, awkward and eager and practically wagging his tail in an effort to please Grace.
Arabella watched with amusement as the young pair took their places on the dance floor, but when the music started her thoughts turned to Adam St. Just. Her amusement faded. Had she and St. Just almost laughed with each other?
She chewed on her lower lip, slightly disturbed. Whatever animal she resembled, right now, she knew it had ruffled fur.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ARABELLA DANCED AN energetic contredanse with the Marquis of Revelstoke, enjoying his banter and his resplendent appearance equally. Afterwards he went off to procure a drink for her—and returned with a glass, and Adam St. Just.
“You know each other, don’t you?” he said innocently, as he handed Arabella her lemonade.
“Coyness doesn’t suit you, Jeremy,” St. Just told him.
Revelstoke laid a hand on his breast. His eyes opened wide, blue and guileless. “Coy? Me?”
St. Just snorted.
The marquis looked extremely wounded. Arabella bit her lip to hide a smile, and sipped her lemonade.
“Are you engaged for the next dance, Adam?” the marquis asked.
St. Just hesitated for a second, and then shook his head.
Revelstoke turned to her. His eyes were very blue, and very limpid. He radiated innocence. “And you, Miss Knightley?”
“No,” Arabella said, torn between wanting to laugh at the marquis and irritation.
“Then you must dance with each other!” Revelstoke exclaimed. “What could be more perfect?”
“Jeremy . . .” St. Just’s voice held a note of warning.
The marquis pretended not to hear it. “Oh!” he said brightly. “The musicians are about to start. Give me your drinks.”
Arabella bit her lip again and handed back the glass of lemonade. She avoided looking at St. Just; she thought his expression might make her laugh.
St. Just held out his arm to her. “Miss Knightley?”
/> Arabella laid her hand on his sleeve. She glanced back as St. Just led her onto the dance floor. Revelstoke’s expression was smug.
The smugness made no sense. She puzzled over it for a moment, and then asked St. Just, “Why did Revelstoke want us to dance together?”
“Because he has a bet in the book at White’s that we shall marry,” St. Just said, exasperation clearly audible in his voice.
“A bet!” Her gaze flew to his face.
“Yes.” St. Just met her eyes. To her amusement he flushed slightly.
The amusement evaporated abruptly as the musicians began to play the opening notes to a waltz. She almost balked—a hesitation St. Just noticed. He glanced at her. “Miss Knightley?”
Arabella bit her lip again—with chagrin this time, not amusement. A waltz! With Adam St. Just. The very thing she’d been hoping to avoid.
“Miss Knightley?” he asked again. “Is something wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said quickly. “It’s nothing.” What could she talk about while they danced? Hastily she cast about for a subject.
“Don’t be offended by Jeremy,” St. Just said, as his arm came around her. “His sense of humor sometimes gets the better of him.”
“Yes,” Arabella said, not paying attention to his words. St. Just was holding her, one hand at her waist, the other clasping her right hand. It felt far too intimate, far too dangerous.
“Are you interested in hearing about the welfare of Gorrie’s housemaid?” St. Just asked. “I understand, of course, if you don’t wish to discuss so indelicate a subject . . .”
Her thoughts steadied. “Jenny? Oh, yes. I wanted to talk with you about her.” She found herself able to look up and meet his eyes. “My maid tells me you paid the landlady for a week’s lodging.”
“Your maid?” His eyebrows rose. “How does she know?”
“I sent her to the boarding house to make sure that Jenny was all right.”
She felt him stiffen. “You thought I might have turned her out of the hackney and abandoned her?”
“No,” Arabella said. “But I wasn’t certain you’d think of everything she required.”
St. Just looked at her for several seconds without speaking. Clearly he was unused to being doubted. “And what did your maid report?” he said finally. “Was there something I overlooked?”
“No.” Not only had St. Just paid for Jenny’s bed and board, he’d sent for a doctor to examine her and had—through a mixture of polite bullying and bribery—persuaded the landlady to provide Jenny with a steaming bath and fresh clothes to change into.
“I’m glad my actions met with your approval,” St. Just said, his tone somewhat dry.
His actions had met with her approval—and that was astonishing. As astonishing as their moment of shared amusement earlier this evening. After seven years of hating Adam St. Just, she now found herself almost in charity with him. It made her feel off balance, as if the world had shifted slightly on its axis. She didn’t want to like him.
With that thought came an uncomfortable awareness of his proximity. The way he held her was almost an embrace. Heat shivered through her—and with the heat, fear. She wanted to turn and run, to flee this almost-embrace, this frightening awareness of him.
“Why were you so kind to Jenny?” she blurted.
St. Just blinked. “Kind?” It was clear from his voice that he hadn’t seen himself in that light.
His reaction steadied her. Not a philanthropist, then. “If it wasn’t kindness, why did you help her?”
His expression became grim. “A man of honor doesn’t behave as Gorrie did.”
Arabella’s lip curled slightly. Did he think she was that naive? “It’s a fairly common practice among gentlemen to take advantage of their female servants.”
“Perhaps,” St. Just said stiffly. “But an honorable man takes responsibility for his . . . er, his—”
“For his by-blows,” Arabella said. Here was the perfect opportunity to needle him, to take her attention from the disturbing intimacy of his hand at her waist. She widened her eyes, as the Marquis of Revelstoke had done. “Do you have any by-blows yourself, Mr. St. Just?”
Adam St. Just eyed her with dislike. After a moment he said, with extreme politeness, “Shall we change the subject, Miss Knightley?”
“By all means,” Arabella said. She cast about for another way to annoy him. “Are you a gambling man, Mr. St. Just?”
Surprise crossed his face, followed by wariness, as if he suspected her intentions. “I like to roll the dice,” he said.
“And do you win often?”
St. Just shrugged, still eying her warily. “Often enough.”
“And when you don’t win, you lose,” Arabella said cordially.
“That’s what tends to happen,” he said in a dry voice.
“How much would you lose in a night?” she asked. “Five hundred guineas? A thousand?”
St. Just looked down his nose at her. “How much I win or lose is no one’s business but my own, Miss Knightley.”
“No, it’s not, is it?” she agreed. “But money is such an interesting subject! Do you know, Mr. St. Just, that for the price of a pair of boots from Hoby, a poor family could eat for a year?”
“And for the price of that gown you’re wearing, two families could eat for a year,” St. Just retorted.
“Yes,” said Arabella affably, as he swung her into a turn that was too abrupt to be graceful. “Silk is an expensive fabric.” She smiled at him, a challenge in her voice. “I know precisely how much my clothing costs, Mr. St. Just, and I give an equivalent sum to charity. Can you say the same?”
Judging from his glare, he couldn’t. “What I choose to do with my own money is no one’s concern but mine,” he said haughtily.
“Of course it isn’t,” Arabella agreed. “But do tell me, Mr. St. Just, how did you earn your money?”
“Earn it?” He looked as outraged as if she’d accused him of treason.
“Oh,” Arabella said in a tone of enlightenment, widening her eyes at him again. “You did nothing to earn your wealth, you were born to it.”
St. Just said nothing; he merely looked down his nose at her, his mouth tight with dislike. His grip on her hand was equally tight, pinching her fingers.
“Tell me, Mr. St. Just, do you believe that you’re better than a man who earns his own money, or merely luckier?”
He made no reply. Arabella answered for him: “Better, of course. Your blood should always mark you as a gentleman, even if you’d been switched at birth with a crossing-sweeper’s son—”
His fingers flexed on her hand, tightening until the grip was almost painful. Arabella ignored it, warming to her topic: “Suppose you’d grown up without the benefit of an education or the tender nurture of a wealthy family? Suppose you were half-starved and illiterate and dressed in rags and sweeping a street crossing?” She raised her eyebrows at him, enjoying herself. His attention was grimly fixed on her face. “Despite all these disadvantages, something in your bearing, in your nobility of character, should instantly mark you as superior to those around you. It would be obvious to all who saw you that you were a gentleman. Whereas a crossing-sweeper’s son, growing up in your place, receiving all the advantages of wealth and education, should always be vulgar.”
She smiled at him. “Don’t you agree, Mr. St. Just?”
He made no answer. His jaw was clenched.
Arabella raised her eyebrows at him. “Oh, you disagree?” she said, enjoying herself hugely. “You think that having grown up as a crossing-sweeper’s son you would be nothing more than a crossing-sweeper yourself, a vulgar creature with no thought beyond where your next ha’penny is coming from? How delightful! We’re of the same opinion!”
“There’s no need to be offensive, Miss Knightley,” St. Just said stiffly.
“Offensive?” She tried to look as wounded as Revelstoke had. “I thought I was making a point. Look around you, Mr. St. Just. This ballroom is full o
f people—like yourself—who’ve done nothing to earn their wealth. Are they better than the crossing-sweepers and coal haulers of this world, or merely luckier?”
She waited for his reply as they made a final circuit of the ballroom. St. Just’s grip on her hand was iron-hard, as was the set of his jaw. He was clearly deeply insulted. That moment of shared amusement was lost.
Arabella felt a pang of regret. She pushed it ruthlessly aside. It was better this way—the jerky steps, the painful grip of his hand. There was nothing in this waltz to disturb her, no dangerous frisson of awareness. She was conscious of his dislike of her, not his maleness.
The waltz ground to its halt. St. Just released her hand. His bow was stiff.
Arabella flexed her fingers surreptitiously. They ached from his hard grip. “Thank you,” she said, with a bright smile. “That was delightful.”
St. Just made no reply. It seemed impossible that she’d seen friendliness in his eyes only a short time ago; they were cold, totally devoid of warmth. He held his arm stiffly out to her. It was clear he wasn’t going to answer the question she’d posed him. He bristled with silent outrage as he escorted her from the dance floor.
“Good evening, Miss Knightley.” St. Just bowed again, a wooden movement.
The urge to tease him further was overwhelming. “My grandmother and I are going to supper soon,” she said. “Would you care to join us?”
She watched as the muscles in his jaw clenched. “Thank you,” he said after a brief moment. “But no. I must take my leave of our hostess.”
“Oh? You’re leaving?” It didn’t surprise her; his anger was palpable.
“I’m going to my club,” he said, a hint of challenge in his voice.
“Do enjoy your evening, Mr. St. Just,” Arabella said warmly. “I hope your losses aren’t too heavy.”
She had the impression that St. Just almost snarled at her. He turned on his heel and strode away as if he wanted to put as much distance between them as possible.
Her amusement lasted a few minutes, then contrition set in. It had been extremely rude of her to bait him like that, and—if she was honest with herself—it had also been completely unfair.
If she’d had the upbringing her parents had intended, she would be just like everyone else in this ballroom: she’d believe herself superior by virtue of her birth—and she’d be as insulted as St. Just had been if anyone suggested otherwise.