Those eyebrows lifted. “Good grief, Guy, what use would you be on your knees? No— I should put a ring through your nose like a bull. I’ll tie a ribbon to it and use it to lead you around.”
Her voice dripped with scorn, yet a lost look flashed across her face—a startling, naked vulnerability, come and gone like lightning. But perhaps it was a trick of the light, for the next moment, she was giving him her aloof profile. A mole graced her high cheekbone and a single dark curl caressed her ear.
She jerked her chin. “There,” she said.
Guy followed her gaze, which led him to a three-tiered fountain. On the low stone wall encircling the fountain sat a pair of matching shepherdesses; one had reddish-blonde ringlets and a blue dress, and the other was a brunette in pink.
“Freddie is the shepherdess in blue,” Arabella went on. “She is something of a wallflower, if only because of her indifference to others’ opinions and her marvelously original views. The pink shepherdess is Miss Matilda Treadgold, Sir Walter Treadgold’s niece. She has been his ward since she was a small child. She is not a wallflower, by any means. The fact that she is with Freddie now, rather than surrounded by besotted gentlemen, suggests that Freddie is the bait and you are the prey.”
“Do you think all women are schemers like you?”
“Only the admirable ones, and I admire Miss Treadgold immensely. She has little in the way of wealth or connections, but as you don’t require those, she fits your notion of an ideal wife very nicely.”
Even from afar, Guy could not deny Miss Treadgold’s appeal, but he kept his eyes on his sister. The ringlets and profusion of blue flounces and ribbons did not suit her, but he’d know that face anywhere: the slightly upturned nose and wide mouth, big eyes and fierce brows, a face that could appear mischievous and elfin one moment, and sullen and mutinous the next.
On his visits home from school and, later, university, she used to run from the schoolroom to throw herself into his arms, and he’d swing her around while she squealed. She would have to marry soon, but perhaps not for another year; they’d have time to get to know each other as adults, rebuild their family first.
He glanced back at Arabella. “I would never have found her myself. Thank you.”
“In terms of an engagement, I’m only talking—”
“No talking. No engagement. Enough.”
She inhaled through her nose, audibly, and flicked a glance over his shoulder. “Freddie needs your protection. I suspect that Sir Walter may be scheming—”
“Of course he is. Arabella. Desist.”
He closed the gap between them. Again she did not budge, as yielding as a marble pillar.
“You are not part of my family, and never will be,” he said. “Do not tell me whom to marry, or how to manage Sir Walter, or what my sisters or I need.”
“I’m saying this for Freddie’s sake, not for yours.”
“You are meddling.”
“Don’t be absurd. I never meddle. I simply fix other people’s problems for them.”
“I do not need you to fix my problems.”
He did not need her at all. Their fathers’ agreement was not her fault, any more than it was his, but damned if he would sacrifice himself for anything, whether his dead father’s persistent tyranny or Arabella’s persistent ambitions.
Besides, they were not children playing war games on the lake. They were adults, both unmarried, and matters had a way of getting confused. Their entire relationship had been characterized by mutual resentment and the desire to defeat each other; that, at least, had not changed.
Time for their final farewell, though Guy felt an urge to make a truce first. “I truly regret that you have spent these years awaiting my return, only to be disappointed now.”
“Disappointed,” she repeated dryly.
“But you are an accomplished, attractive lady with excellent connections, breeding, and wealth. You will have no trouble finding a husband.”
Unexpectedly, amusement glimmered over her face. “You have no idea,” she murmured.
“Good night, Arabella.”
Guy spun around and strode toward Freddie. He fancied he felt Arabella’s gaze searing into his back, and he quashed his impulse to retrace his steps and ask her what she meant.
Chapter 3
Arabella watched Guy stride off toward Freddie and Miss Treadgold, his red cape swirling around his booted legs. Once he had reached them, she turned around to consider her next move.
No need: Her next move was already decided. For there stood Lord Sculthorpe, black tricorne tilted back, studying her with a faint smile. Society called him handsome, though surely a wealthy, heroic peer could never be called anything else. Certainly, all his features were present and correct and arranged in the usual way. The overall effect might be described as strong and square: quite unobjectionable. But then, Arabella’s objections had never been about his face.
As their eyes met, his smile broadened and he headed toward her.
“No trouble finding a husband,” she murmured ruefully to herself. “It seems my husband has found me.”
Her sole gambit had failed. Now Sculthorpe would propose, and if Arabella refused, her father would cut her off and cast her out.
Proud and haughty, they called her. The lady who had everything, they said. Well, the lady who had everything would lose the lot in the next ten minutes if she did not take care.
Lord Sculthorpe was still smiling as he reached her. “Good evening, Miss Larke, or should I say Minerva? You make a fitting goddess.”
“And you, my lord, make a dashing outlaw.”
“Ridiculous costume, is it not?” Chuckling amiably, he flipped one lacy cuff. “I always wonder whether other people are sending a message with their costumes or if, like me, they simply put on whatever their valet laid out. I am terrified of upsetting my valet, in case I find myself one day dressed as the back end of a horse.”
Ah, that self-deprecating wit. How charming he was. And how commanding and courteous, for he had summoned a footman, bearing drinks. Sculthorpe swept up two glasses of wine and handed her one. Between his fingers was one of his thin cigars, a habit he had picked up while fighting in Spain during the Peninsular Wars and which he never allowed etiquette to restrain. Another servant appeared at his side, proffering a flame. With a wave of his lit cigar, the servants disappeared.
“And, if you do not mind my saying so,” he added, in a more intimate tone, smoke puffing out the side of his mouth, “you will also make an excellent baroness.”
I’ll make an even better widow, Arabella didn’t say.
No. She did not have the luxury of speaking her mind. She must parrot the right words, or lose everything. One did not vex the man who held one’s future in his hands.
“You are too kind,” she did say.
Over his shoulder, Arabella spied her mother, ostensibly in conversation with a friend, but one eye on Arabella and Sculthorpe.
Dear Mama, so lovely in her ermine-trimmed Queen of Hearts costume, her face serene under the red-and-gold turban perched on her dark hair. Arabella didn’t want to disappoint her parents, or scheme and manipulate and lie. She didn’t want to stay unmarried. She asked only to be granted her birthright, and to choose her own husband, someone who respected her for what she was, in contrast to those who criticized her for what she was not.