by Mia Vincy
And it had.
Dressing seemed too much trouble, so she pulled Guy’s banyan over her numb limbs. It smelled of him, felt like him, the soft, warm fabric cascading around her like the effect of his touch. Since she was on her feet anyway, she tidied the glasses, bundled up her clothes, gathered her hairpins from the table. Clearing away all evidence of their time together.
Back in her room, a single candle burned and red coals glowed. Arabella went through her nightly ritual, washing her newly sensitive skin, brushing and plaiting her newly discovered hair. She was brisker than usual, as if that might prove an antidote to Guy’s gentle, reverent touch.
In the drawer, her fingers fell once more on the miniature of Oliver. She tugged it out, traced the carved frame.
“I made a spectacular mess of that, didn’t I?” she whispered.
You just couldn’t find the right words, could you?
Why had she refused to tell Guy the whole story? Why had her pride intervened, yet again, and with such terrible timing?
“He said he wanted to know me.”
If he truly knew you, he definitely wouldn’t want you.
“Oh, Oliver, what is wrong with me?”
Maybe none of her sinful deeds had even been necessary. Oh, everything seemed necessary at the time, but perhaps there had been other ways to deal with her problems. Perhaps, if she were different, she’d have found those other ways. Perhaps it was some deep flaw within her mind that made it take such twisted turns.
But this was how she was. She didn’t know how else to be.
Which was why she was alone, in a stolen dressing gown, talking to the portrait of a dead boy.
She squeezed the frame so its carved wood dug indents into her flesh. “Why did you have to leave us, Oliver? We were happy, before. None of this would have happened if you had not gone.”
No response was forthcoming, and anyway, she hadn’t the heart for a squabble. A droplet of water fell onto Oliver’s frame. She blinked rapidly, wiped her face and his, and replaced him in the drawer.
She let the banyan drop to the floor and pulled on her nightgown. Immediately, the cold slammed into her, so she swept Guy’s dressing gown back over her, pressing the silk to her face.
Thus embraced by his scent and warmth, she crawled into bed, alone.
Chapter 21
Ursula yelled Guy’s name and trotted toward him across the lawn the following morning. He scooped her up before she fell and whirled her around, until she squealed and demanded more.
“I have to go to London today, Little Bear,” he said, poking her belly so she giggled. “But I’ll come back for you. You’ll come and live with me, I promise. I love you.”
She said something that sounded like “I love you,” and Guy decided that was exactly what she meant.
Dropping into a crouch, he set her on her feet and she threw her arms around this neck. He hugged her, trying to find in his baby sister’s embrace something to soothe the ragged hollow in his chest.
All night he had ached with longing, tempted to go to Arabella’s bed, take her in his arms, and sleep by her side. He awoke still haunted by a feeling of loss, even as he insisted he had lost nothing.
“We’ll have a home together soon, I promise,” Guy said to Ursula. “We’ll be a happy family.”
She patted his cheek. “I want a nice home with cake every day,” she might have said, and he decided he’d take that too.
Of course, his household would be nothing like the harmonious place—or dollhouse, according to Freddie—he had imagined. Ursula was a rambunctious child, and Freddie was downright unruly.
He wouldn’t have them any other way.
He went in search of Freddie, hoping to find her before Arabella returned from her ride, but instead, in the music room, he found Lady Treadgold distressed and Matilda Treadgold confused.
“She needs to be here.” Lady Treadgold was wringing her hands. “Of all the times for Lady Frederica to be running off. She knew we needed her here.”
“What for?” Miss Treadgold asked. “No activities are planned, and you never minded when she went off alone before.”
“Yes but today…”
“What’s happening today?”
Guy had no patience for their family squabbles. “I need to see Freddie now,” he interrupted.
“You see?” Lady Treadgold said to her niece. “His lordship needs to see her. But she went… Oh, and she’s wearing those dreadful trousers. Though I’ve no idea how she found them again. Whatever will he think?”
“I think they look regal,” Miss Treadgold said loyally.
“I’ll find her,” Guy said.
Better to run around the estate seeking Freddie than to chance a meeting with Arabella.
Sheer luck had him heading toward the abbey ruins first, where he spotted Freddie riding ahead. By the time he dismounted, Freddie’s horse was already tethered, and she had just started climbing the ruins. The Turkish trousers were paired with a man’s shirt, waistcoat, and boots—an eccentric, mismatched ensemble, but she likely had few options. She climbed higher than he ever had, apparently indifferent to any danger. Nimble and sure-footed, she traipsed along a broken wall to reach what had once been a long hallway, now an exposed platform.
Guy climbed and found her sitting cross-legged like a tailor under the arch of an ancient window.
He dropped onto the sill beside her. The ground was far beneath them, but the view was magnificent: a rolling patchwork of fields and woodlands, punctuated by villages and manors and rivers.
“You’re good at climbing,” he remarked. “Those Turkish trousers are perfect for it. Lady Treadgold doesn’t approve.”
“She took them away, but Arabella arranged to get them back for me.”
A pang struck him. Yet again, Arabella had done a kindness for someone else.
“How do you know where to put your feet?” he asked Freddie.
“I just do what feels right.”
“A philosophy to live by.”
Freddie picked the moss off the stones. “Everyone’s always telling me what to do and how to be and what I want. If I listened to all of them, my head would explode.”
“You don’t seem to listen to any of us.”
Freddie sighed and shifted. “Arabella told me to give you another chance.”
“Arabella said that?”
“She said I should get to know you again. That you are all heart and muscle and you fight for what you believe in.”
Guy dug up some moss too. “What else did she say?”
“She told me I should tell you. That you would listen.”
He shoved away the memory of Arabella: remote, defiant, and refusing to confide in him.
“Listen to what?” he said. “Tell me.”
“I’m nineteen, and they say I must marry or I could end up on the shelf. But I don’t mind. I think the shelf would suit me nicely.”
Guy opened his mouth to argue, remembered that Arabella had promised he would listen, and paused as he tried to understand.
“But don’t you want a family?” he said. “I enjoyed the freedom of my adventures, but the last few years, I came to crave a proper home, a companion, a family…”
Freddie flicked the moss into the air. “In my experience, a family is nothing but a group of people telling me what to do. When I reach my majority, I’ll have enough money to do whatever I like.”
“The difference,” he ventured, “is that, when we reach our majority, we can shape our own family to fit with what we want.”
Her expression grew thoughtful, as she tilted her head to consider the sky. Guy wondered if he had actually managed to say the right thing.
As he had with Arabella the previous night. Yet with Arabella, it had not been enough.
“I’m leaving today,” he said. “Back to London and then to Roth Hall. Would you like to come with me?”
Freddie twisted so suddenly, he feared she might fall. “Yes! Please! I must get aw
ay from here.”
“Why? What have the Treadgolds done?”
“Oh, the Treadgolds are fine. I think I did something silly.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
Guy bit back his impatient reply. Freddie would talk when she was ready.
Then she slumped back against the window frame. “Sir Walter won’t let me go with you.”
Ah, but Sir Walter had been naughty and would face some trouble in Chancery, so…
“I think I’ll be able to persuade him,” Guy said.
“What about your wedding?”
“Everything is under control.”
Nothing was under control. Not for him, anyway. Arabella had everything under control. She had a plan. She had Hadrian Bell. She didn’t need him.
“Do you mean, I could live with you?” Freddie asked.
“If you want. Ursula too, if I can arrange it.”
She considered. “I’d miss Matilda. Perhaps she could live with us too.”
Perhaps Guy would give in and just marry Miss Treadgold. She was pleasant and undemanding. He wouldn’t get bored. He wouldn’t. It would be peaceful. Peaceful was good. Life with Arabella would never be peaceful.
It would never be boring either.
He stood and extended a hand to Freddie. “Come on, then,” he said, and she put her hand in his and said, “Let’s go.”
Sir Walter was entertaining a guest in the drawing room, Ramsay the butler told Guy, when he and Freddie arrived back at the house. His mouth was tight and he was fidgeting with his buttons in a most un-butler-like manner.
“Lady Belinda is not in the house,” Ramsay continued. “Perhaps, Lord Hardbury, you would be so kind as to offer your assistance.”
“With what?”
“With removing the guest. His lordship is not welcome. But he will not leave, and Lady Belinda is not here, and Mr. Larke does not wish to be disturbed. If… If you would be so kind, Lord Hardbury.”
Guy charged into the drawing room. He had no intention of being kind.
Because the unwanted guest was Lord Sculthorpe.
He sat at his leisure, the very image of the ideal gentleman, across from where the Treadgold family were lined up in a row: Sir Walter beaming with self-satisfaction, Lady Treadgold looking ill at ease, Miss Treadgold studying her fingernails, her cheeks pink.
No need to ask why Sculthorpe was here. Another match. Poor Miss Treadgold.
“You’re not welcome,” Guy said by way of greeting. “Get out.”
Sculthorpe rose lazily, offered Guy a mocking half bow, followed by a smile. “Here is my beloved betrothed now.”
Miss Treadgold’s eyes were firmly on her fingernails. Guy spun around, seeing only Freddie, her strawberry-blonde hair disheveled, her dress eccentric, her complexion deathly pale.
Guy looked back at Sculthorpe, who was looking at Freddie. Guy looked at Freddie, who was looking at the floor.
Guy looked at Sir Walter, who was beaming broadly.
“Felicitations are in order,” Sir Walter said.
“Freddie?” Guy said. “You told me you don’t want to marry.”
Her tight smile made her face appear even more elfin. “I also told you I did something silly.”
Sculthorpe sauntered across the room, a hand extended. “Come now, my little dove. That’s no—”
Knocking his arm aside, Guy planted himself between his sister and the baron. “Don’t touch her. Don’t even speak to her or look at her.”
Sculthorpe smiled. “I say, that will make our wedding night awkward. Won’t it, Frederica, my dreamy little…dove.”
“My sister will not marry you.”
“She seemed willing enough.”
“I’m not!” Freddie said from behind him. “I was merely curious.”
Sculthorpe laughed. “I promise to satisfy your curiosity.”
Guy shoved him. “Stars above, man, do you want me to beat you up?”
“Not in the drawing room, Hardbury.” He straightened his coat. “Besides, let’s not forget what happened last time you challenged me. I left you as a sniveling, whimpering mess curled up in the dust. Do you remember that?”
“I do. I do remember that.”
“I should do it again, in the circumstances. But I prefer this solution: You took my betrothed, so I shall take your sister. You see how it works?”
Guy stared. “That is the most distorted piece of logic I have ever heard.”
“I learned a bitter lesson about the perfidy of women when I was young,” Sculthorpe carried on, oblivious. “I have waited for a woman to prove me wrong, but it seems they’re all the same. Maybe your sister will put me right.”
Freddie was hunched against a wall, gripping the blue brocade curtain. She was scowling at Sculthorpe, her expression more furious than scared. The Treadgold family were watching the scene like spectators at a game of shuttlecock.
“What a conundrum,” Guy said to Sculthorpe, trying to affect a light tone to conceal the tension coursing through his muscles. “I am experiencing a very intense desire to turn your face into pulp with my fists and then rip off your arms and use them to beat you around what is left of your head.”
“Your ire is admirable but misplaced,” Sculthorpe said. “The fact is: You took what is mine, and I am entitled to a replacement.”
“Bloody hell, they are not dolls for us to fight over or to claim. Freddie, let us be very clear about what you want.”
“I don’t want to marry him.”
“That isn’t what you said to me,” Sculthorpe broke in.
Freddie glared at him. “I didn’t say anything to you. You assumed.”
“Freddie, what the devil?”
“Lady Treadgold said no men wanted to court me so I would find it less distressing to marry whomever they chose. Then Lord Sculthorpe sent me a note, saying he’d broken off his engagement with Arabella because he had fallen madly in love with me and wanted to meet.”
“You were off meeting him?” He whirled back to the Treadgolds. “And you knew about this? Freddie?”
“I just wanted to know what it was like, to be courted.”
“And how was it?” Miss Treadgold piped up.
“Really dull. He kept saying things that made no sense, and talked about himself a lot.”
Guy clenched his fists. “Did he…touch you?”
“No. Well, he did kiss my hand. It was… You know.”
“No, Freddie, I don’t know. It was what?”
“Wet.” She shrugged. “I don’t know why everyone makes such a fuss about being courted. Why marry someone who’s boring and talks about himself all the time?”
The outrage on Sculthorpe’s face made Guy laugh. He wrapped an arm around his sister’s shoulders and planted a kiss on her temple. “Freddie, you are glorious. The poor bloke never stood a chance.”
Sculthorpe did not share his amusement. “As perfidious as the rest of them. But no matter, my lady. You’ll marry me anyway.”
“I will not.”
“She will not.”
Sir Walter jumped to his feet. “With all respect, Lord Hardbury, it isn’t your decision. As Lady Frederica’s guardian, I decide whom she will marry, a very solemn duty entrusted to me by your dear father.”
“Ah, so that’s what you got your knighthood for, Sir Walter: being a complete and utter weasel.” Guy wished Arabella were here; she would know how to navigate this. Guy was no diplomat, and he could not be bothered trying. “Enough with the pretense, man. First, you intended to marry Freddie off to your son, and now you try this little trick. Once we have a hearing in Chancery, you will no longer be Freddie’s guardian.”
Sir Walter spread his hands in a show of indignant innocence. “Whatever can you mean, my lord? Our darling Lady Frederica has no facility for making conversation with young gentlemen. Why, it would be cruel to expect her to endure the social rituals of a young lady’s Season. Besides, you must admit she does not exercise go
od judgment. Consider her trysts with Lord Sculthorpe! That special license was procured merely as insurance, in case she got herself into trouble and we needed to salvage her reputation. But now, here is Lord Sculthorpe, undeniably a suitable match for a marquess’s sister. How could you possibly argue that I am neglecting my duty?”
“Freddie doesn’t want to marry him.”
“Lady Frederica is too young to know what she wants. That’s why they have guardians. And Lord Sculthorpe has done the right thing in approaching me to ask for her hand. It isn’t as though he kidnapped her and whisked her off to Scotland, now, is it?”
“Don’t give him any ideas,” Guy muttered.
Sir Walter was lying through his teeth. Guy would wager that Sculthorpe’s reappearance was the reason for Sir Walter’s good cheer, once he’d noticed the special license was missing. They must have met at the village tavern. The question was whether anyone else would see it, and if Freddie’s reputation would survive, should this matter be dragged through the courts.
Sculthorpe was smirking. Because Sir Walter was right: On paper, the baron was a good match for Freddie. If Arabella were here, she’d find a way to resolve this. In the meantime, Guy could borrow her methods.
“Have you told Sir Walter your secrets, Sculthorpe?” he ventured. “The one Miss Larke knows, for example.”
Sculthorpe tensed and his eyes darted nervously to Sir Walter. Why the devil would Sculthorpe be scared of Sir Walter, of all people?
Whatever Arabella knew about him, it was not trivial.
Bloody hell. Guy should never have walked out of that room without making her tell him the full story. He should have found a way to assure her that whatever Sculthorpe had done, whatever anyone did, Guy would always be there to help.
I just do what feels right, Freddie had said.
Ah, Freddie. Terrible judgment in some respects, but wise in others. And what felt right…
What felt right was to trust Arabella.
Guy crossed to where the butler was hovering in the doorway. “We need Miss Larke here as soon as possible,” he said softly. “She’ll know what to do.”