by Mia Vincy
“Excuse me, my lady,” he said shortly. “I wish to speak with my betrothed.”
“Arabella has retired to her private chamber. Please join me in my sitting room, my lord.”
“I need to see Arabella.”
Lady Belinda did not move an inch. “You will not see my daughter in this agitated state and with another man’s blood on your hands.”
“To be fair, some of this blood might be mine.”
“Why do I not find myself comforted?”
With a swish of her skirts, she walked away, leaving Guy little choice but to follow.
Lady Belinda’s sitting room was a cozy, elegant parlor, decorated in cream and lavender, with a neatly organized workbasket and an array of books.
As he shut the door behind them, she said, “Let me wash your hands,” and set about pouring water into a basin.
“I appreciate your care, my lady, but I really need to speak to Arabella.”
“You really need to calm down.”
She gestured at the basin. Guy gave up and obeyed. The water stung his torn skin, but her hands were cool and efficient, keeping him prisoner under the guise of washing his hands.
“I always liked you as a boy,” she said, her eyes on her task. “I paid attention, obviously, as my husband and your father had decided the two of you would marry. I approved of your essential character: You were fair, good humored, and a natural leader. Your behavior worsened in your youth, but I have noted that a young adult who displayed a good character as a child will likely return to that good character upon maturity. It seems that you have made good decisions and become a man I admire.”
“I confess I have made some poor decisions as well, where Arabella is concerned.”
“Did you know what Lord Sculthorpe did to her?”
“No. But I knew there was something and I saw—”
He stopped short.
I saw her naked, I saw that bruise, and she lied and said it was a horse, and you are her mother and I cannot tell you any of that.
“You saw?” Lady Belinda prompted.
“I saw…the error of my ways.” He remembered that night, when she had loitered outside his room, right after Sculthorpe had left. The bruises must have been new and tender then, her mistreatment still fresh in her mind. She had slipped her arms around him. She had been seeking comfort and he—
“Why won’t she talk to me?” he asked. “I saw her the night after it happened. I asked if she needed help and she…”
Because when Arabella was frightened, she hid behind her walls and attacked everyone, even her friends. Consider that moment in London, when she had gripped the table, eyes turned upward as though begging the heavens, and when Guy had offered help, she had attacked him, hurting herself.
“Why won’t she say these things?” He thumped a fist against the side of the basin, nearly upsetting it. “Just tell me. Ask me for help.”
With a sigh, Lady Belinda lifted his hands from the water and wrapped them in a dry linen. “I was always too hard on her, I’m afraid. I thought that if she was the best she could be, her father would see how wonderful she is, and he would… But he never saw her. He never saw what he had; he only ever saw what he didn’t have. He would never be satisfied. And Arabella is rather proud and independent, you know.”
“Yes,” Guy said on a desperate laugh. “Yes, I know.”
“The last time I heard Arabella ask anyone for help, she was ten,” Lady Belinda added. “It was her father she asked. He told her to go away. Called her a useless burden and a worthless parasite.”
“Bloody hell.”
“Mr. Larke never spoke so harshly to her again, but I think she never forgot it.”
Over the fireplace was yet another portrait of little Oliver, but in this one, Oliver held hands with a dark-haired girl. It was the only portrait of Arabella that Guy had seen in the house.
“She was only a child too,” he said. “Your son died from an illness. It was not her fault.”
Lady Belinda followed his gaze. “She asked me once if it was her fault, because she was always the more robust of the two. She asked if she had been selfish and greedy in my stomach, which made her stronger than Oliver, and if that was why he did not survive the illness whereas she did. I did my best to tell her otherwise, but one is never too sure what a child believes deep down to be true.”
“And Mr. Larke?”
“Oliver was growing up to be a scientist just like him; he could see himself in Oliver, see his legacy passed on. Arabella never had the patience. Whereas Oliver wished to observe the world, she wished to fix it. Not a quality much admired in a lady, but it is not in her nature to change to please others.”
“And I am glad for it,” Guy said.
“As am I.”
She whipped away the cloth. “You wondered why she does not confide in you. Now you know.”
Yes. Now he knew that Arabella was a woman who needed love. His love. And he was there to love her. It was a powerful responsibility, a daunting, exacting, thrilling honor. One that he alone was qualified to fulfill.
What a stubborn fool he had been, letting his resistance to his father’s commands blinker him like a horse, even when that man had been dead more than a year. Now he had flung off those blinkers and could see Arabella simply as she was: a woman who loved and fought, who made mistakes and fell down, then got back up to love and fight another day. A woman whose very existence made him thrill with the glory of life, made him feel both as magnificent as the heavens and as inconsequential as a pinprick of light in the sky.
Suddenly, Guy was grateful for his years of exile. Grateful for his controlling father, for Sculthorpe and Clare, for his impulsive decision that long-ago day to sail away from England. Only by leaving had he discovered himself, had he learned what he was capable of, had he become the man who could love Arabella Larke.
And to think of her cruelly misguided father, and all the world’s cowards and fools, holding her back, no doubt scared of what she might do given her full potential.
Stars above, how he wanted to see that! If Arabella was this remarkable now, when wasting herself trying to please her father and behave, imagine how she’d be when unleashed!
“She is in her private chamber now, where you must not visit,” Lady Belinda said. “The house is in an uproar and I have much to do, so there will be no one to check that you do not go to my daughter’s room and stay there for a length of time.” She opened the door. “My lord.”
“My lady.”
In the hallway, Guy paused to consider Lady Belinda’s odd parting speech. He did not possess the subtlety of thought displayed by Arabella and her mother. But he suspected he was learning fast.
He skipped around and raced toward Arabella’s room.
Chapter 23
The footsteps coming down the hallway belonged to Guy.
Arabella could not have said how she knew that from the sound alone—the assuredness of the steps, perhaps, their speed, their boldness—but she was on her feet, chest tight and trembling hands clasped, when the bedroom door flew open.
He paused in the doorway, their eyes meeting with a jolt. His cravat was askew and a shadowy bruise was forming on his jaw. She longed to go to him, soothe him. She clasped her hands more tightly and didn’t move.
“You’re hurt,” she said.
With a rough bark of laughter, he stepped inside, kicked the door shut, and fell back against it so heavily a picture toppled sideways on its hook. Following her gaze, he shoved off the door to straighten the painting, then turned back to her, his tension filling the room like steam.
“I wish you had just told me,” he said. “You announced it to everyone in there, but you could not tell me in private.”
“I had to say it, for Freddie and Matilda. Mama started whispers at the ball, so word would have spread and thwarted him, but so long as it was only whispers, I could pretend no one knew.”
“I wish you had trusted me with the truth, rather tha
n try to convince me you’re a cold-hearted, amoral blackmailer.”
“Better than you sneer at me for being helpless and weak.”
The words had a surprising effect: They seemed to wash away his heated tension like summer rain. His eyes were intent, uncomfortably so, but thankfully, the sash on the curtain was crooked: a reason to look away, to busy herself with setting it straight.
“So that’s it,” he finally said. “You sneer at me.”
She spun around. “I what?”
He advanced a couple of steps. “You know Sculthorpe beat me when I was younger. He had me curled up in a ball on the ground, whimpering like a lost puppy. How you must disdain me for that.”
“Of course I don’t.”
“Then why is it any different for you?”
Oh. That was a trap, and she had stumbled right into it. How shaken she must be, to fall for such a trick! She turned away, but she heard him approach. He stopped behind her, close enough for her to feel his warmth.
Already he knew her body so well that when he rested his hand on her side, he unerringly found her bruise. The pain was long since gone; all that remained was a stain like spilt tea. It would be no surprise if his touch healed her even further, so she would undress that night to find even the last discoloration of the bruise gone.
“These impossible standards you hold yourself to,” he murmured.
“It was not severe,” she said. “I’ve been hurt worse.”
Something brushed her hair: his cheek or his chin. He stood closer now, his scent sliding over her, his heat engulfing her.
“The pain is not merely physical,” he said. “It is an additional shock, to be confronted with one’s own weakness, especially for those of us accustomed to thinking ourselves strong. When he first beat me, I had never lost a fight. It never occurred to me I might not win. When our bodies are overpowered so swiftly our mind can hardly comprehend it… The shock is not that our body has been battered, but that our whole view of the world has changed. Then we recall that we survived and they did not diminish us, and that knowledge alone makes us stronger.”
Arabella closed her eyes and listened for the beat of his heart. “He wanted to own me.”
“The fool. One could as easily own the stars.”
She eased back against his chest. He held her against his sure, solid strength, strong despite a hundred beatings, strong even after confessing to be weak. None of it had diminished him; none of it need diminish her.
In halting words, she told him everything: about Clare’s advice, her victory, those minutes in the garden, how Sculthorpe had wept, and the command she had issued.
“Oh stars above, that night outside my room.” His arms tightened around her. “I was playing with Ursula and wondering where you were, and the whole time… You came to me for comfort and I accused you. Arabella, if only you’d told me then!”
“And have you haring off to attack him.”
“He deserved it.”
“Then I’d have that on my conscience too. I do have a conscience, you know.”
“I know.”
“We must work out what to do with him, so he does not hurt anyone else,” she added. “As a peer, he will not be held accountable, and there will always be those willing to overlook his violence for their own advancement.”
We. How presumptuous of her, to speak as if they were still allies. Maybe they were. She no longer knew. Experience had only taught her how to issue commands and solve problems alone. Yet after embrangling him in her mess, after all he had given, she had no right to ask for anything more.
She tugged away from him; he dropped his arms and let her go. She drifted to the window and waited for him to speak. To announce his next move.
But he said nothing. He simply studied her.
When other men looked at her, she wanted to deflect their gaze. Even without meaning to, she had. So they had found easier, more soothing places to rest their eyes, more willing recipients for their smiles and wit. It was a triumph of sorts, for if they did not look at her, they would not see her, and if they did not see her, they would not notice her flaws. It was difficult to maintain a charade of perfection; if anyone examined her too closely, they might see the cracks.
Yet she wanted Guy to see her, with all her terrible flaws. To see her, and still want her.
But as the silence stretched on, a familiar discomfort blossomed and grew. Perhaps he was, indeed, seeing the cracks and flaws. He would remark on them, and hurt her. He would confirm he did not truly want her, and free her from this fierce longing for him.
“How is the light?” she asked, her tone sharper than she intended. “Shall I turn so you can study me from another angle?”
“There aren’t enough angles in the world to see all of you,” he said easily, undeterred.
“I don’t even know what that means. Are you attempting poetry again?”
His voice was warm as velvet. “Looking at you is like looking at the night sky. So vast and varied and infinite, the view changing depending on where one stands, or the hour or the season. One can only ever see a tiny bit of it at a time, unbearably, voraciously, insatiably aware that however wondrous the view, there is always so much more.”
Arabella tried to tell herself that his words made no sense—he was spouting poetry, and poetry never made sense—but this valiant voice of rationality grew fainter and fainter, until finally there were no words, there was no voice.
Wondrously, under the spell of his words, under the warmth of his gaze, she became the night sky. Her soul expanded to embrace it, her mind became deep and infinite and unfathomable, her body became a star, a thousand stars, all shining for him.
This was love, she realized. This was how it felt to love. To love him.
“Then you are the mountains,” she said softly. Her voice came from an unfamiliar place. Perhaps that was her heart, finally making itself heard. “Strong, enduring, sure.”
She had to turn away from him to say this. Her heart, it seemed, was shy. Through the window, the world was dissolving into the fading evening light, but all she saw was his reflection in the glass. “And when you…”
In the distance, something caught her eye. For long seconds, she stared, puzzled, until an alarm sounded in her mind and her thoughts cleared.
“There’s a fire,” she said. “In the far stables.”
“What?!”
“They’re empty but—”
But Guy was already moving. “Sculthorpe. If he’s still in there…”
He whirled about and ran.
Chapter 24
Guy ran, yelling “Fire!”, stirring up the household, not pausing as he raced outside. He passed a frantic messenger sprinting toward the house and ran on.
Too late. By the time he reached the far stables, the building was ablaze. Grooms and other workers circled it, clutching buckets of water, but no longer trying to extinguish the flames.
Horrified, ash-smeared faces greeted him, and he searched through them for the grooms he’d sent to tend to Sculthorpe, identifying one through his smoke-stung eyes. He put a hand on the man’s shoulder.
“Did he get out?”
The groom looked close to tears, his mouth working hopelessly, his head shaking.
The stable master arrived at Guy’s side. “My lord. I’m sorry. We were too late. We saw him try but… He must have been asleep and by the time we noticed the fire… We sent a message up to the house.”
“Bloody hell.” Guy raked his hands through his hair, stared at the flames engulfing the old, wooden frame and the man Guy had left inside. “What happened?”
The groom gulped. “We took him water and linens, like you asked, and he wanted whiskey too, so we got it, and then he told us to bugger off. He threw an old horseshoe that hit Roger, so we buggered off and we were all off in the other stables and…and then we smelled the smoke.”
The smoke now swirled around them, tickling throats, inducing coughs.
“Sculthorpe was
always smoking,” Guy said. “If he had drunk whiskey, lit a cigar, and gone to sleep…”
Guy cursed again. He had never meant for the man to die. But then, neither would he have expected someone as practical and experienced as Sculthorpe to be so foolish as to smoke in a stable.
No one had anything to add. They stared somberly at the roaring blaze, until the old stable’s wooden walls cracked and shuddered. Yelling, everyone hastily backed away to safety, as the entire structure collapsed.
Nearly two hours later, Guy joined the family and guests in the drawing room. He had washed his face and hands and removed his soot-smeared coat, but ash streaked his breeches and he stank of sweat and smoke. Guy had stayed with the workers until the fire was extinguished, while a messenger went for the magistrate and doctor, and everyone else sat inside to wait.
They made a stunned, somber group, scattered about the room like ornaments. Arabella was perched on the window seat, the blue velvet curtains closed at her back. Her father frowned at the fire. Freddie and Matilda huddled together on the settee. Sir Walter was pacing, agitated; Lady Treadgold was completely still.
Every face turned as Guy entered with Lady Belinda.
“Sir Gordon Bell has inspected the site and wishes to interview everyone in his position as magistrate,” Guy announced. “Lady Belinda has gathered the staff in another room. The doctor has left and the—” Guy stopped at a sound like a mirthless laugh. “You wish to speak, Sir Walter?”
“Doctor,” that man repeated. “Not much use for one of those.”
Lady Belinda inhaled on a hiss. “Thank you for that insight, Sir Walter.”
She crossed to sit at her husband’s side, squeezing Arabella’s shoulder as she passed. Aware of his dirty clothes, Guy stayed off the furniture. He found it hard to be sorry that Sculthorpe had left the world, but stars above, what a godawful way to go.
Sir Gordon entered and addressed the room with the practiced eloquence of a former barrister, requesting everyone’s patience.
“There must be a formal inquest,” he finished, “especially as this concerns the death of a peer, though the circumstances seem clear.”