“That lying, cheating, hypocritical cad!”
That shook Arabella out of her daze. “Not quite the response I had anticipated,” she said dryly, sounding more like herself.
“The earl already proposed to me,” Thea told her.
“He did? Does he know you are not Helen?”
“On the contrary: He is sure that I am. He had even prepared a marriage license with Helen’s name.”
“How did he— Oh, his father’s cousin, the Bishop of Dartford, I suppose.”
Thea almost asked how Arabella knew the earl’s cousin was a bishop, but of course, the aristocracy held everyone’s family trees in their heads the way Pa held the last decade’s price of gold.
“If you’ll forgive my perplexity, Thea, why on earth would Lord Luxborough want to marry Helen?”
“So she can’t marry Mr. Russell. He’s here at Lord Ventnor’s bidding. And if he marries again, he gets money from some trust set up by his mother.”
“Clearly you didn’t accept him.”
“Of course not. But…” She felt unjustifiably betrayed. His proposal had been insulting and preposterous and yet… “What kind of beastly cad proposes to one woman and, as soon as she refuses him, proposes to another? If you had refused him, would he have worked his way through every unmarried woman in the house? And why didn’t you refuse him? Wasn’t his proposal dreadful?”
“He never issued one. He simply told my father he would marry me, and Papa agreed. I have just now had an interview with him and— Why, Thea, he is utterly detestable.”
“What did he say?”
“That he wants my enormous dowry and…” Arabella burst into activity, straightening everything in sight. “I must remain on his estate, with no allowance, pastimes, or guests, until I have produced four sons. And how his eyes gleamed, as though it thrilled him to upset me.”
“But your father won’t make you marry such a man.”
“Papa doesn’t care. All he wants is a grandson.”
Hands in fists, Arabella glared at her perfectly neat room. Thea helpfully pushed over a stack of books.
“What about the Marquess of Hardbury?” she asked, as Arabella tidied the books with zeal. “You’ve been promised to him since you were a child.”
“No one has seen him in so long they say he might be dead, and Papa grows tired of waiting.”
“You can refuse.”
“Yes, and be disinherited and cast out. And then what? I shall make a formidable peeress, but I am of little use for anything else.”
Her tidying frenzy passed, Arabella crossed to the window and touched a hand to her reflection. She was too restrained to shatter the glass with her fist, but her glare could well do the trick.
Thea wanted to weep for her friend, who would twist herself into knots to help others and never seek help for herself. Who hid her kindness under a proud facade and a sharp tongue. And these men—they reduced her to nothing more than a means of making more men.
Even Thea’s parents had dismissed her, when Thea had come back from her year at the Winchester Ladies’ Academy and announced she had a true friend in Miss Arabella Larke. “She is excessively proud and aloof and so elegant she makes my eyeballs ache,” Thea had gushed. “But she is uncompromising and principled and good.”
Ma and Pa had shaken their heads in despair. “Miss Larke has excellent connections but no brothers,” they had said. “What use is a friendship if it does not grant you access to a circle of young noblemen?”
Thea had hated to disappoint her parents—she understood their ambitions were for the good of the whole Knight family—but never would she regret her friendship with Arabella. If only Arabella had not been in Italy the year of Thea’s scandal. Arabella always knew what to say; she would never freeze in fear. She would have looked down her nose at everyone in that ballroom and dealt Percy and Francis such a scathing set-down they would have fallen right through the floor.
“You were always very efficient,” Thea said brightly. “Perhaps you could arrange to have two sets of twins in two years.” She sought a positive note. “And he didn’t threaten to slit your throat and throw your body down a well.”
Arabella was not cheered by this perspective. “No wonder it is the fashion to marry for love. When a man may exercise such control over his wife, it would be nice if one’s husband felt a modicum of affection.”
“Then I shall marry him after all,” Thea announced and ignored the protestations of her suddenly pounding heart.
Arabella swung around. “No, you will not. Besides, his license bears Helen’s name. If you use a false name, the marriage won’t be valid.”
Thea waited.
“Oh.” Arabella drew the sound out. “The marriage…will not…be valid.”
Her face almost betrayed a smile, and Thea grinned in response. A terrible trick, indeed, to marry a man while using a false name, but it did comply with her Rules of Mischief. First, it served several good causes: saving Arabella from a horrid marriage, deflecting attention from Helen, and hopefully providing funds to pay for her pamphlet. Second, she had no qualms about tricking an earl, when he was powerful and had proven himself villainous. And third, well, why not enjoy life as a counterfeit countess for a week or two?
“He would have no legal rights or control over me at all,” she said excitedly. “I need only pretend until Helen’s return.”
“And Papa can hold a grudge for a century, so Luxborough could never propose to me again.”
Thea danced across the room. “And if I could channel some of his money toward myself…” An idea struck her. “Perhaps I shall uncover his dreadful secrets and he’ll pay thousands for my silence.”
“Yet to deceive an earl. Possibly even steal from or blackmail an earl.”
“Oh, who cares? He is only a man, and not a very agreeable one at that. I shall not bother my conscience over him. And neither should you. After all, he is planning to slit your throat and throw your body down a well.”
“No, he isn’t,” Arabella said patiently. “You made that part up.”
Thea sniffed. “Just because I made it up doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
“It is too dangerous, Thea.”
“Not at all.” She thought of the way Lord Luxborough’s features had softened when he spoke of the orchids. Of his warm solidity at her side. “I am sure his lordship is as sweet as syllabub under all that growling.”
“And I am sure he is not. If he believes you are legally his wife, he may—” Arabella cleared her throat. “Claim his conjugal rights.”
“Um. Yes. He did mention heirs.”
His large body, covering hers, like in the etchings in Mrs. Burton’s library. She remembered his big hand, cupping the flower; would he be so gentle with her? Would she touch him too? That dark, curling hair, that scarred face, those broad shoulders… And his firm-looking mouth, with the little half smile on his defined lips…
Thea had been kissed before, but only by Percy Russell, whose chaste kisses had been tolerable at best. She had tried hard to like him, for the sake of her whole family, yet with Percy, she always felt awkward, as if she had too many arms. With the earl, even when he had stood so close that she caught his scent, she had felt not awkward but…right.