A Dangerous Kind of Lady

by Mia Vincy

  But her way through the gardens was blocked: Sculthorpe was patrolling the paths. She could not face him. Of all the people in the world, he was the one she could not bear to see.

  She veered off the path into a walled garden, and stood with her back to the wall, next to trellises covered in pink clematis blooms. She closed her eyes, listened to the birds, to the tinkling of the fountain, to her own deep breaths.

  The birds fell silent. She did not open her eyes. But she knew she was no longer alone.

  “There you are.” Sculthorpe’s voice was light and intimate. “Playing hide-and-seek with me.”

  No. Please, no. Let a thunderstorm strike, a gale, an earthquake, a plague of blood and locusts and frogs. Let it be anything but Sculthorpe, catching her alone, that repulsive smile slithering through his voice.

  The world never did obey her wishes. And now, still reeling from Guy’s touch, even her own body and thoughts were not hers to command.

  Oh, why had she ever imagined she could control anything? Had she learned nothing? All her life she had tried to bring the world under control; every day it resisted.

  Curse you, Guy Roth. Curse you, Sculthorpe. Curse you, Papa, and Oliver, and everyone who ever trod this misbegotten earth.

  “I was looking for you. Miss Larke?”

  His tone was sharper now. Vexed.

  She opened her eyes. Sculthorpe stood inside the entrance to the walled garden, paused mid-step, hat in hand and expression pinched. His gaze was sharp enough to pin her to the wall.

  “My lord. I was enjoying the birdsong.”

  He relaxed visibly. With a jaunty flip of his wrist, he tossed his hat onto the bench. “A pretty place to find a pretty virgin.”

  “We have no chaperone, my lord.”

  Her voice sounded shaky. Good grief. Arabella Larke, turned into a trembling ninny! Who needed an earthquake or plague of frogs? Clearly the end of the world was already nigh!

  “We are engaged. No one will mind.”

  I mind, you repellent lecher!

  Smiling, he strolled toward her. There was something new in his expression, not only the stomach-turning possessive leer, but something sharper, harder. A predatory gleam.

  An unfamiliar sensation spread through her, which she belatedly identified as panic.

  She had gone too far. It had all gone too far.

  Not taking her eyes off him for a heartbeat, Arabella forced herself to breathe through the tightness in her chest, the peculiar lightness of her limbs. She let the anger come. How dare he prey upon her, and frighten her, and try to take more from her when he already had so much.

  “I have decided to kiss you,” Sculthorpe announced.

  Arabella pressed her back into the cold wall, silently reciting the reasons she had agreed to this: Vindale Court, the patchwork fields, playing with Oliver, her happy childhood before he died.

  “You said you intended to wait,” she managed to say.

  “Just one kiss,” Sculthorpe murmured, as if to a skittish horse. “A single kiss to whet our appetites. You do not quiver and tremble with desire for me as you used to do. I miss that.”

  He was not touching her, yet she shuddered all the same. He laughed, low and horrid. She would scream or kick him or vomit on him, she didn’t much care what, so long as he moved away.

  He came closer.

  “There it is, your desire, that helpless frisson,” he said. “You wanted more, didn’t you? For a virgin, you are turning out to be very hungry.”

  She couldn’t do this. Yet she had agreed to it; she had agreed. This was the choice she had made, though she had no other choice, and was it a choice if she had no other choice? She had not won, after all. It wasn’t fair. She had defeated Guy, she had defeated Sculthorpe, but still they had defeated her.

  Curse them both. They should be the ones against the wall, Guy and Sculthorpe. She would dispense with a firing squad and shoot them both herself.

  “Just look at you, so prim and proper and bossy. Perfect for me. How I treasure you. Yes, I shall kiss you.”

  He was looking at her mouth, licking his lips, speaking to himself, really, but she had never deluded herself that his desires had anything to do with her.

  She tried to will herself away, back to the abbey ruins, to the wind whipping her skirts and Guy’s safe, solid heat, to Guy calling her splendid, sliding that blackberry between her lips.

  “Kiss my own virgin before I claim her.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, I am not your virgin,” she snapped.

  He went as cold and still as the stone at her back. Her limbs unlocked and she slipped past him, but she had taken barely two steps when he lunged. Fast as a snake, his arm lashed out. His hand gripped her forearm, his fingers digging into her flesh through her sleeves.

  “You are not— What?” he snarled. “You are mine! Are you not?”

  “I am not—”

  His fingers squeezed harder, as if to crush the bone. She cried out, a horrid sound like a trapped animal.

  “Unhand me, sir!” she managed to say. “You are hurting me.”

  “I am hurting you? What of the pain you cause me?”

  She swung her other hand to strike him, but he caught that arm too. She tried to pull away, but he gripped both her forearms, leaning too close, forcing her to arch her back.

  “Your innocence was for me, and me alone!” His once-handsome face was feral with rage. “What man took what is mine? You were my perfect, precious dream, a fine lady, untouched but prim and bossy as a governess. I treasured you, and you—betrayed me?”

  In vain she struggled against the vise of his grip. She kicked at her skirts, tried to kick him, and abruptly he released her, shoving her away. He was shoving, and she was kicking, and then she was falling toward the grass, her legs confused, her body twisting instinctively, so she landed hard on her shoulder, jarring her stunned bones and emptying her tortured lungs of air.

  She had barely sucked in a breath when his boot slammed into her side. Dreamlike, as if watching herself from the outside, she pictured her body slowly rise with the force of his kick, and just as slowly fall.

  She braced herself for more. But nothing. He was tearing the trellis off the wall, sobbing and ranting about betrayal, and his dead brother Kenneth, and the unbearable pain when others took what was his.

  Before her eyes, the stubby blades of grass were growing every which way. A brown beetle was tromping through them, the blades big to it like oak trees were to her. A brave little beetle, which cared nothing for her troubles. It did not care about Sculthorpe and his governess-stealing brother, or what happened to Arabella Larke. It cared only about making its way through these chaotic, disordered blades of grass.

  A bitter taste flooded her mouth, but behind it lay the sweet taste of a blackberry, juicy and plump and ripe. If she concentrated, that would be all she tasted, all she knew, all she felt. The touch of Guy’s fingers on her lips, the autumn wind, the rustling leaves. And Guy. Hating her, wanting her, teasing her, touching her. If Guy were here now, would he smash Sculthorpe’s head against the wall? She didn’t know. She would never know. She would have to smash his head herself.

  Tentatively, she rolled over and rose, testing her limbs. They did not fail her. She smoothed her skirts and wriggled her toes. Her arms throbbed. Her side throbbed. She ignored them; now was no time to feel pain.

  Sculthorpe stopped destroying the trellis, his mouth distorted, his face red, and he swiped at his tears furiously like a little boy. He cried? He had kicked her, yet she did not cry. How dare this vicious brute cry!

  “We will not marry,” Arabella said, her voice as cold and hard as the stone wall that had witnessed her weakness and shame.

  “Of course not,” he sneered. “I would not marry a soiled, disgusting, traitorous—”

  “Silence. How dare you mistreat a woman thus.”

  “You made me do it.” He clenched his fists. Gripping her skirts, she readied her feet to run, but he did not
come near. “You let another man take what was mine. I shall tell your father of this!”

  “I shall tell him that you kicked me.”

  “And I shall tell all of England why you deserved it.”

  After which, Papa would disinherit her. No excuses, he had said. She would have to keep fighting. How she wearied of fighting.

  But she had fight in her yet.

  This would not be her defeat.

  Her mind and body felt icy and numb, but her pride would never let her down. Her pride knew what to say.

  “You will go directly to my father and inform him that you have received a letter,” her pride ordered coldly. “The letter was from a lady whom you had once hoped to marry, and now she is available and willing. You begged me to release you from our engagement so that you might marry your former sweetheart.”

  “What utter rot.”

  She ignored him. “I agreed because I felt it would be wrong to wed a man who longed for another. You will assure my father that my behavior was impeccable and had no bearing on your decision.”

  “Your behavior! I will tell your father—the world!—about your behavior.”

  “And I will tell them that on the strength of a passing comment I made, a misunderstanding—”

  “A misunderstanding!”

  “—You attacked my person. What kind of lord and gentleman do you claim to be? The famed war hero, who beats a woman.”

  His mouth twisted with disgust as he ran his eyes over her. “Everyone will understand why. You yourself said you let another man fuck you first.”

  She swallowed away her own disgust. “I don’t even know what that word means, so no one would believe I said it.”

  “It will be your word against mine. You have no evidence. Who would believe a soiled, lying—”

  “Oh dear, my lord,” she drawled. “Perhaps you are in the habit of only striking horses and dogs, so you cannot see the bruises on their skin.”

  He went still. Completely still, but for his eyes, shifting to study her concealed arms. He could not know, but she knew her body. She would not think of it. First, one fought the battle; later, one wept.

  “I should—”

  He advanced on her but she held her ground.

  “What? Add more bruises to my collection? Murder me, perhaps? I think people might notice, don’t you?”

  He jumped back, wringing his hands. “I’ve never done that before. You made me do it.”

  “If you give my father cause to suspect that I have misbehaved in any way, I will spread the word faster than you can blink. When everyone learns what you did, not one person in Britain will allow you near any ladies, let alone a precious daughter.”

  “Is this meant to be some kind of blackmail?”

  So now she was a blackmailer too. She had never asked for this. All she had asked was to exercise a little control over her own life. They had built the maze and dropped her into it; she was only trying to find her way out.

  “I must protect myself, my lord, since clearly you will not.” She gestured at the garden entrance. “The days grow shorter. You should leave soon, if you are to cover a good distance before nightfall. Ride ahead. The servants will send your belongings after you.”

  “And when this sweetheart does not appear?”

  “Alas, the course of true love never did run smooth.”

  His mouth worked as he stared at her, his red-rimmed eyes poisonous with loathing.

  “Very well,” he finally said. “You say nothing, and neither will I.”

  “Go.” Gathering her courage, Arabella turned her back on him. “You will be gone before I return to the house.”

  Chapter 10

  Arabella entered Vindale Court through the front door, with a secret sense of ceremony. Perhaps this would be her final entrance. Perhaps the next time she left this house, it would be for good.

  Ramsay was in the foyer. He sent away the other servants as she peeled off her gloves.

  “Lord Sculthorpe?” she prompted. She unpinned her hat and dropped it onto the table, ignoring the protest of her tender ribs. A chunk of hair tumbled onto her face. She pushed it back. It fell again. She must fix that before Papa saw her.

  “He is gone and we are packing his belongings. Your father wishes to see you.”

  “I don’t doubt it. Is he in a terrible temper?”

  Ramsay’s lips thinned. The mirror confirmed that her walking dress betrayed no signs of misadventure, though her eyes seemed unnaturally bright. And she really must fix her hair, but she took a sudden perverse delight in it. That her coiffure was coming undone seemed fitting right now.

  This time, when Arabella entered her father’s study, Queenie was silent and Papa was already on his feet.

  “A fortnight,” Papa said. “You managed to keep a man for two whole weeks.”

  Arabella stared at the horizon like a soldier. She ignored Queenie, ignored the stuffed birds, ignored Oliver’s smirk.

  Mama slipped through the door. Papa did not pause in his tirade.

  “Sculthorpe was staying in the very house his son would inherit, yet a letter comes from someone he’s not seen in years and he cannot get away fast enough.”

  Arabella fixed her eyes on the wall. Sculthorpe had obeyed her. He feared her, then, a little.

  “Look at you, this disgraceful mess.” Papa sneered at her loose hair, which, to be fair, was irritating Arabella now too. “That I was robbed of my son and cursed to have only one living child, and that child is you!”

  “Peter! Enough!” Mama said sharply.

  Papa wiped a hand over his face. Arabella’s eyes went helplessly to Oliver, who crowed, You know he wishes it were you up here and me down there!

  Oh, go break your head against a rainbow, you irksome brat.

  Silence blanketed them. Arabella could think of a thousand things to say, but she would only make matters worse.

  “We have a houseful of guests and a betrothal ball in three nights,” Mama said, ever practical. “We must cancel it.”

  “No, make her attend the ball. Let everyone see her shame. A betrothal ball and no betrothal.”

  Finally, Arabella spoke. “You could put me in stocks in the middle of the ballroom and provide the guests with rotten fruit to throw.”

  “Don’t tempt me.”

  Of course she had to face the world. Why not at her own betrothal ball? She would glide through that ball in her elegant new evening gown, long gloves hiding the marks already blooming on her arms, flawlessly coiffured head held high. No one would know how her engagement ended; no one would guess how weak and helpless she had been.

  “The morning after the ball, you will leave,” Papa continued. “I don’t want you in this house unless you bring a legitimate son by an acceptable husband. Until then, I am changing my will.”

  “Peter, please consider whether that is necessary,” Mama said. “This isn’t Arabella’s fault. If Lord Sculthorpe loves someone else—”

  “I’m tired of you defending this hoyden, Belinda. It is her fault. If Sculthorpe loves someone else, it’s because our daughter is a woman whom no man can love.”

  “Do not say that,” Mama said quietly. “Never say that.”

  His mouth twisted sourly. “Consider that Treadgold girl. Three minutes with a man and he’s wrapped around her finger. Yet Hardbury has known Arabella most of his life and he can hardly bear to be in the same room as her. Sculthorpe should have procured a special license in London and married her on the spot.” He collapsed into his chair. “Now get out of my sight.”

  It was no surprise that Mama followed Arabella to her room and sat.

  “Tell me what happened,” she said. “Surely you did not let Sculthorpe go without a fight?”

  Arabella said nothing. Mama had always been on her side, even when it didn’t feel like it, pushing her harder, trying to mold Arabella into the best version of herself. Yet still she had turned into a woman whom no one could love.

  She released the fo
ur buttons on her left sleeve, fumbling a little, and slid the fabric up her arm. It was tight, and resisted, but she yanked and did not care when a seam tore.

  Red welts bloomed over her pale forearm. One did not need much imagination to picture the fingers that had left them.

  The loose lock of hair fell past her face as she bent her head and ran her fingers over them. The tender flesh was slightly swollen and hot with indignation.

  She kept her head bowed through the whisper of skirts, the comforting fragrance, and then Mama was taking her forearm, turning it gently to study the marks, her palms dry and cool.

  “Oh my darling. Why didn’t you say?”

  Mama’s fingers were brisk, but not nimble, as she released the buttons on the other sleeve and pushed back the fabric to reveal the other set of marks. Mama had never been tender, and Arabella was glad of that now.

  “I was wrong about Lord Sculthorpe,” her mother said.

  “You didn’t know, Mama.”

  “I should have.” She ran her fingers over the mottled skin. “You didn’t tell your father.”

  “Papa would have blamed me for provoking him.” She looked up. “I did provoke him.”

  “And you would have continued to provoke him every day of your married life.” Mama tweaked the loose lock of hair, tucked it behind her ear. “I truly believed Sculthorpe was not threatened by your strong character.”

  “I said something.”

  “I don’t care.” Mama’s eyes flashed. “Whatever you said or did, no man does this to my daughter. By heaven, I’ll shoot him myself. The shame is his, not yours, do you hear me? If you had discovered his true nature after your marriage, you would never have escaped him and it would only have grown worse.”

  “You must tell people, Mama. I promised to say nothing, but you must. Whisper it to the other ladies, so that no one ever lets Sculthorpe near another woman. Let him die a miserable old bachelor and never know why.”

  So what if she double-crossed Sculthorpe? He did not deserve her honor. She was disinherited anyway, and she would be disinherited a thousand times over before she let him do this to another bride. She wasn’t good for much, in the end, but she could be good for that. It was excruciating for society to know of her weakness, but of course, they would Not Mention it, and her pride would suffer in silence.