“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.”