by Mia Vincy
“What strikes me as ridiculous is your conviction that I wish to pass this evening discussing your petty politics,” Guy replied.
“Ha ha, how droll you are! Quite right, quite right.” The politician nodded enthusiastically, apparently undeterred. “Let’s discuss it next week at my club. Over a bottle of the finest Burgundy.”
This bit of nonsense made Guy snort. “Even six bottles of the finest Burgundy would not make your notions appealing.”
“Please, my lord. Have you no interest in the fate of our nation?”
“In the fate of our nation, yes. In the fate of your corrupt schemes, no.”
“I would not call them that!”
“Of course you wouldn’t, you naughty little rascal. But I would.”
His companion’s mouth opened and closed as he spluttered his outrage. Guy couldn’t help laughing. Never had he expected politics to be such fun.
The man rallied fast, although if he wanted to appear dignified, he really should not have dressed as a badger.
“This scheme benefits you too, my lord,” he hissed. “I would expect you to appreciate my assistance, given that your late father bequeathed to your sisters every bit of property that wasn’t entailed. Why, I hear he did not even make you their guardian, so you haven’t the benefit of managing their trusts.”
No, indeed. That “benefit” went to Sir Walter Treadgold, an obscure knight whose sister had married Guy’s father a few years earlier. The law stood firmly on the side of his father’s will; according to Guy’s solicitors, the Court of Chancery would overturn the will only if Sir Walter was found to be mismanaging his wards’ trusts. Evidence of that should be easy to find: Any intimate of the late marquess was almost certainly corrupt.
“Your concern is touching, dear sir,” Guy said lightly. “But fortunately for me, the entailed property generates enough income to provide all I desire from life, namely several pairs of comfortable boots and a supply of hot buttered toast.” His gaze snagged on a pair of young ladies dressed as flowers, heads together in intimate conversation. Their bright eyes and fond smiles aroused a pang of nostalgia for something he had never had. “Oh, and a bride.”
“Is it true, my lord, that your bride will not be Arabella Larke? An alliance with Miss Larke would bring you considerable wealth.”
An alliance with Arabella would also bring him considerable indigestion, if she was still the bossy, quarrelsome know-it-all that he recalled.
“True,” he conceded. “But Miss Larke was my father’s choice, and it’s so much more sporting to choose one’s own wife, don’t you think?”
The man steepled his fingers. “Now you mention it, I recall that I have a niece.”
Guy laughed. Heads turned. Among them, he spied a pair of jesters, pink ribbons dangling menacingly from their hands. The young ladies dressed as flowers exchanged a mischievous glance and drew closer. A tempting diversion, but Guy could not be distracted by a merry game of courtship tonight; first he must find Freddie, before Sir Walter played another of his tricks and whisked her away again.
He casually sidled away from the jesters, his latest hen clucking along beside him.
“Of course you have a niece,” Guy said, still searching the crowd. “And if you didn’t have a niece, you’d have a daughter or a sister or a cousin. During my absence, everyone in Britain has developed a female relative of marriageable age.” He spread his arms expansively, taking in the hubbub of the costumed, perfumed crowd. “May everyone send them all my way, and let the games begin.”
“If I might be so bold, my lord, my wife is planning a dinner party. You could meet my niece and we could discuss—”
Guy clapped the man on the shoulder. “I admire your persistence, old chap, but you have nothing else to recommend you. Here’s an idea: Come up with an honest scheme, one that doesn’t involve lining your pockets at the expense of the good people of Britain, and I shall happily attend all your dinner parties and meet everyone’s nieces. But for now, do me a kindness and toddle off. Go. Begone. Shoo.”
With that, Guy wheeled about.
Only to nearly collide with a Minerva.
Instinctively, he stepped back, excusing himself, already looking past her at the crowd. But the Minerva made no effort to move aside or apologize. Indeed, she did not betray any surprise at all.
Now he was paying attention, it dawned on him that this particular Minerva was tall for a woman. That the dark curls artfully arranged under the elegant helmet did little to soften her pale, angular features. That her gaze was as blue and unflinching as the desert sky. That her lips naturally curved upward at the corners, in the promise of a smile that would never come.
And when her eyebrows arched ever so slightly, wielded with as much control and skill as an orchestra conductor wielded his baton, Guy reached the dismaying conclusion that this was not any Minerva.
This was Arabella Larke.
Arabella Larke, matured from a gangling, scowling brat to a poised, haughty woman. Her unfashionable height was increased by the warrior’s helmet, whose mane of red feathers cascaded down her back. The drapes of her long Roman robe were fastened at one shoulder with an owl-shaped brooch, a reticule resembling a shield dangled from one wrist, and her pale arms were bare but for a silver snake coiled around her upper right arm.
His thoughts shattered. Arabella had somehow transformed into a compelling woman, and the sight crashed against his memories of her as a child. He shook off the sensation. Seeing people after a lengthy absence was always strange; that was all. He had last seen her when she was fifteen or sixteen; it was only natural that she had matured. Besides, judging by her demeanor, quite unlike the obvious amiability of the young ladies he had admired, she had not otherwise changed.
So Guy saw no need to change his typical greeting.
“Oh no, not you,” he said. “And I was having such a lovely evening.”
“So it’s true: You’re not dead.” Her drawl was as imperious as ever, but her voice had developed an appealing huskiness. “The government was in quite a state over your absence.”
“So touching to know they cared.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t take it personally. It just doesn’t look good for the country, to go around misplacing its marquesses.” She eyed him with some perplexity. “How astonishing that no one did kill you.”
“Many tried. None succeeded.”
“Perhaps one did succeed but the Devil spat you out again.”
“He sends you his regards.”
Was that—a smile? No, not from Arabella. She had never been one to give smiles away easily.
Then she flinched, and a strong hand gripped Guy’s wrist.
Instinct had him jerking away, spinning, arm raised, ready to strike. Only to freeze— It was a jester who had grabbed him. Stars above, Guy had nearly hit the jester, and he felt sick to see that same knowledge reflected in the other man’s eyes.
With a resigned nod, Guy forced himself to relax; Arabella had distracted him, and it was too late to escape. He had to suffer through it, suffer through the two jesters pressing his bare forearm against hers, suffer through them deftly wrapping their joined arms with an ungodly length of ribbon. Her skin was soft and warm. What a surprise: She was not made of marble. He thought he caught a matching surprise in her eyes, but her eyelids lowered before he could be sure.
A greater surprise was that she did not object to being manhandled in this way. How disappointing, if the years had turned Arabella docile. Her ferocity had been one of her few charms.
“Three thousand guests are attending this party,” Guy said. “What are the odds that I’d get tied to you, of all people?”
“Rather better odds than if I’d not paid for it to happen, I suspect.”
“Huh. You bribed them,” he said, nodding. She must have guessed he would refuse to talk to her, so she went to these extremes to get her way. But then, Arabella always had cared more about winning than about trivial things like rules. “I ought to
have guessed.”
“Do calm down. I’m not the only one who had the idea of thus securing an audience with you.”
“But you’re the only one with no scruples about doing it.”
“I beg to differ. It was a very scrupulous bribe.”
“A bribe, by definition, cannot be scrupulous.”
She lifted one silk-clad shoulder in a nonchalant shrug. “I factored in the risk these men would take to assist me, and offered an exceedingly generous payment accordingly. Which makes this bribe scrupulous, wouldn’t you agree?”
“I agree,” said one of the jesters.
“As do I,” said the other.
“There,” Arabella said. “Everyone is content with this arrangement.”
“Except me.”
She made a dismissive “hm” sound in her throat, indicating that Guy’s approval was of no concern.
Their arms had been pressed together long enough that it was no longer clear where his skin ended and hers began. Guy tried to keep his shoulder as far from Arabella’s as he could, but the hint of her orange-blossom scent attempted to lure him near.
The jesters triple-tied their final knot and skipped back to admire their work. Around them, other guests were pausing to watch—naturally. Guy couldn’t scratch his chin without attracting comment, and Arabella would never pass anywhere unnoticed; given their history, the sight of them tied together would have the satirists composing lines.
But Guy was marquess now, only one rank below duke, and being one of the highest-ranking men in the land had to be good for something.
“You’ve had your entertainment,” he said to the jesters. “Release us.”
A waste of breath: England had a long tradition in which jesters alone could say what they pleased with impunity, and these two jesters did not relinquish that ancient right.
Instead, grinning, they recited a rhyme in unison. “We bring a gift from Cupid above: a bucketful of mischief, a cartload of love.”
“No love here,” Guy muttered. “This is all mischief.”
One produced a dagger out of thin air; with a sleight of hand, it vanished again. “If you wish to be freed from this—you need but give the lady a kiss.”
“Kiss Arabella Larke?” Guy glanced at those curved lips. “Not a bloody chance in hell.”
Chapter 2
The jesters skipped off into the crowd, and Arabella was alone with a large, displeased marquess tied to her arm.
Alone but for the other three thousand people, that was, at least two thousand of whom were watching.
“All this for a kiss.” Guy waved his free arm. “Well, well, well. I expected England to change during my absence, but I never dreamed that quarrelsome Arabella Larke would grow up into an enticing adventuress who flirts with danger.”
Arabella blinked at him. She’d never flirted with anything in her life.
“Danger?” she repeated mockingly. “Why, is mighty, muscular Lord Hardbury frightened of a little kiss?” She had not considered he might actually kiss her. That would ruin everything. “Do calm down,” she hastened to add. “I wish only to talk.”
“But I don’t want to do that either.”
“Hence the ribbon.”
He shook his head, still so annoyingly pleased with himself. “By the age of twelve they were calling you accomplished, but clearly you have yet to master the art of charm, if your only means of engaging people in conversation is to tie them up.”
“If you must know, my preferred method is to whack them over the head. But that seemed impolitic, given that you are the guest of honor.”
“I thank you for your restraint,” he said dryly.
Shooting her a glance—his eyes were green; she had forgotten that—Guy bent his head and picked at the knot with his free hand. The light from a flaming torch caught the gold in his hair, licked the angle of his jaw, and cast shadows over the other side of his face. Arabella tried to ignore his closeness, his biceps inches from her own.
“I suppose you wish to discuss my letter to your father,” Guy added, without looking up.
“Indeed. Quite a way with words you have. ‘I am not responsible for my father’s promises,’” she quoted. “‘It is ludicrously medieval to expect an agreement concerning infants to be binding.’ And, my personal favorite, ‘Nothing on this Earth will induce me to marry Arabella Larke.’”
“I thought you’d like that one.”
“I was almost inspired to embroider it on a cushion.”
He flashed her a smile and returned to his task, the hand teasing those ribbons tanned and callused as no English lord’s hand should be.
“Those jesters of yours have tied a fiendishly excellent knot,” he muttered. “But, hmm, if I can simply…”
He twisted at the waist to examine the knot from another angle, before attacking it anew. That, too, she had forgotten: his appetite for a challenge. Whether crossing a swollen river or solving a rhyming riddle, Guy always threw himself into challenges with energy and fearlessness. He had thrived on the thrill of a chase, the excitement of a dare, always treading just this side of danger with a glint in his eyes and a smile on his face.
With the benefit of age and hindsight, Arabella suddenly realized it was likely his ebullience that had made him the leader as a boy, not merely his title and size.
This new understanding was…unsettling; how else had she been wrong? She was silently rewording her proposition when he spoke again, eyes on his task.
“I was surprised to learn you were not already married and making some poor man’s life an utter misery,” he said.
Arabella shrugged. “Well, there are so many men who deserve to have their lives made a misery, it’s difficult to choose just one.”
“Why only one? A woman with your talent and resources, you could have run through five or six husbands by now.”
“A wasted opportunity, I suppose. I would make a very fetching widow.”
“And whomever you marry would be happy to oblige you in that ambition. But that man is not me.”
Guy released the knot and let his arm fall; hers had to drop too. They stood so close that her fingers brushed his leather-clad hip, and his knuckles bumped her through the silk of her gown. He didn’t seem to notice. He was searching the surrounding carnival for inspiration or assistance. He’d find a solution soon. She had to stop wasting time.
“But really, Guy, I’m afraid you didn’t think this matter through,” she said. “If you had, you would recognize that an engagement would benefit us both.”
His expression was incredulous. “I don’t need to think it through. A lifetime of knowing you, Arabella, is enough to be sure.”
“Oh, you great men, you are always so sure. One day you are sure of one thing, and the next day you are equally sure of its opposite.”
“Direct that wit elsewhere. I know my own mind.”
“Nonsense. How can you possibly know your own mind when I have not yet explained it to you?”
A chuckle burst out of him, though not, she thought, because he recognized that as one of her little jokes.
“Ah, Arabella, you’ve not changed one bit.” His gaze rippled over her, flicked away. “Still as arrogant and ambitious as ever. First it’s my father insisting I marry you, then it’s your father, and now you make demands, proving, true to form”—he indicated their bound arms—“that you’ll stop at nothing to get your way. You always said you wanted to marry me.”
She sniffed. “No, I always said I wanted to be a marchioness and that you would merely be an unfortunate appurtenance.”
“I do remember you saying that.” Galling laughter warmed his voice. “I was impressed that a ten-year-old knew a word like ‘appurtenance’. Was that the day I threw you in a snowdrift? You came up spluttering like an outraged cat with snow coming out of your nostrils.”
“Yes, I recall you found that amusing. Right until I threw a snowball smack in your laughing mouth.”
“I remember the summer when w
e stole your oars and left you stranded on the water.”
The years melted away; they were behaving like children again, tumbling into their familiar pattern of competing to defeat each other. Oh, but he was as maddening as ever! The way everything had always come so easily to him. The way everyone had told her to behave nicely with him, because, “Oh, he’ll be your husband one day!” It had only strengthened her resolve to bring him down.
“Was that the same summer when you boys were playing war games on the lake and I destroyed your boat?” she said coolly.
His eyes narrowed. “You weren’t even playing, and I was about to win.”
“And there we have it: the reason boys hate playing with girls. Because they know the girls will get the better of them.”
“Ha! Do not imagine you’ll ever get the better of me.”
“Says the man dangling off my wrist like a reticule.”
He held her gaze a heartbeat longer, then shook his head with another small laugh. “Why did they imagine it was a good idea for us to marry? All we ever did was quarrel, compete, or ignore each other.”
“Sounds ideal for a modern marriage.”
“That is not what I want from my marriage.”
It wasn’t what she wanted either. She uttered such lines out of habit, for her own amusement, if nobody else’s. She could hardly admit to anyone—especially not to Guy—what she truly wanted from marriage.
She forced her attention back to her mission. This conversation had fallen so far off track, it was in a ditch spinning its wheels. Time to change her strategy.
“Speaking of marriage, namely your past failed attempt at it, have you renewed your acquaintance with Clare Ivory?” she asked. “No doubt someone has already told you that, after throwing you over for Lord Sculthorpe, she went on to become one of London’s most expensive and sought-after courtesans. And Lord Sculthorpe is now a greatly admired war hero.” She suppressed a shudder. “He mentioned that when you challenged him over Miss Ivory all those years ago, he dealt you a beating, after which you ran away.”