Yet one true word from Sculthorpe left her unsettled. How could she allow a man to exercise such power over her that a single look could make her sick with fear? Surely, she should be able to laugh him off, deliver a set-down, put him in his place, as she had done to so many other men over the years. Her rational mind told her this, but it seemed another, less rational part lurked inside her. Her rational mind could insist that Sculthorpe was honorable, charming, and heroic; this secret part of her stepped out of the shadows to insist that he was not. What was this hidden part of her mind, and how did it know things that the rest of her did not?
The wine was no longer helping, so Arabella handed the glass to a passing servant and willed herself to touch the bracelet on her arm. Her eyes drifted back to the rope dancers, their feet on the ground, resting after their finale.
“Arabella?” Mama said, seeing too much. “Lord Sculthorpe has not given you cause for alarm?”
“He seems to display an interest in my…virtue.”
Mama frowned, considering. “Of course a peer requires virtue in his bride to be sure his sons are his own, but I am surprised he would insult you by questioning it.”
“He did not question it. He rather took it for granted.”
“If a man describes a lady as virtuous, that is a compliment. I would not expect him to mention it directly, but Lord Sculthorpe is a directly spoken man and he admires your practical nature.”
“Yes, he said that too.”
Arabella didn’t know what else to say. No doubt she was overreacting, some childish trick of her fancy because she resented not having her own choice. Perhaps these were the small intimacies that developed between husband and wife. She had educated herself in the mechanics of intercourse, but she knew nothing of intimacy or desire. She hated not knowing. She hated that Sculthorpe knew something about her that she did not. She hated that no book would provide an explanation.
“Lord Sculthorpe is a good match,” Mama said. “Had you formed an attachment to another man, it might have been different, but you have only ever insisted that you were promised to Lord Hardbury, although your mutual animosity was clear from a young age. And just think,” Mama added, a radiant glow stealing over her face, “the sooner you and Lord Sculthorpe marry, the sooner you could be a mother. I would be a grandmother.”
Arabella liked the idea of having children, of watching her mother with them. “Yes, Mama.”
Mama squeezed her hand and returned to her friends. Arabella moved inside, in search of her own friend, but first, she slid the silver snake off her arm and presented it to the rope dancers as a gift.
Neither Freddie nor Miss Treadgold seemed to notice Guy approaching the fountain where they were seated.
Miss Treadgold was chatting, apparently to herself, for Freddie was staring at nothing. Her expression was reassuringly familiar: odd, dreamy Freddie, the child who rarely listened and was always wandering off. Sometimes, she would forget to wander back, and they had to search for her. Once, they had found her up a tree, and Guy needed all his ingenuity to get her down again; when he had asked her how she got up there, she shrugged and said she didn’t know.
Fondness swelled his chest. She was a young woman now, true, and a stranger of sorts, yet undeniably his little sister. Freed from their father’s tyranny, they’d be a proper family at last.
Miss Treadgold noticed him first. Her big brown eyes widened in her pretty, heart-shaped face and she fell silent, her lips forming an O. When Guy bowed, she jumped to her feet and curtsied, her cheeks turning a becoming shade of pink, her brown ringlets bouncing.
Courtesy out of the way, Guy turned to his sister. “Freddie.”
She didn’t respond.
He tried again, more loudly, arms wide, ready for her to grin, to squeal and launch herself into his arms. “Freddie?”
“Yes?” Freddie turned toward him, smiling vaguely. “Oh, good evening, Guy,” she said, and went back to her thoughts.
Guy let his arms fall. Well. No embrace then. Right. He nodded, managed something like a laugh.
“Lord Hardbury, we are honored that you joined us,” Miss Treadgold said. “Lady Frederica has been so looking forward to seeing you again.”
“Yes,” he agreed dryly. “Her enthusiasm is evident in the way she greeted me as if we last saw each other at breakfast this morning.”
“She does tend to daydream, and we always— Oh, but we’ve not been introduced!”
She slapped a hand over her mouth, looking as mortified as if she had stumbled into his bedchamber at night.
“It hardly matters.” Guy leaned toward her and added in a conspiratorial tone, “Let’s pretend.”
“But the rules of etiquette, my lord! Whatever must you think of me?”
“What I think, Miss Treadgold, is that your aunt married my father, so we do not need an introduction. I also think you are very becoming.”
Even her coquetry was becoming. Perhaps it was simply her pleasant sweetness in contrast to Arabella, so vibrant and demanding and ruthless. He was uncomfortably aware that Arabella was right: Miss Treadgold nicely matched his image of the ideal bride.
She blinked her long lashes. “My lord, you and Lady Frederica have much to discuss, after so many years apart. I shall leave you together.”
Bobbing another curtsy, Miss Treadgold left. Guy twisted to watch her go, but through the crowd, his eyes landed on Arabella, talking to… Hell, was that Sculthorpe? He turned back to Freddie, who was studying a pair of acrobats.
“Do you prefer to be called Frederica now?” he asked her.
“Lady Treadgold prefers to call me Frederica. Lady Frederica,” she said absently. “Freddie is a man’s name and not becoming on a lady, Lady Treadgold says.”
“You can choose what people call you,” Guy said. “You don’t have to do everything they say.”
Freddie said nothing. An indifferent stranger. Perhaps he could have done things differently, but as a confused, angry twenty-year-old, leaving England had seemed his only choice.
Guy dropped onto the wall beside her, the mist from the fountain cooling his neck and arms. He absently arranged his skirt over his knees, watching the partygoers, picking out familiar faces, reminding himself of names.
With every hour back in England, the years of his exile became more removed, his adventures as remote as if he had read them in another man’s journal. Despite everything, he had enjoyed his adventures, relished the freedom he could never know in England. Upon his return to London, he had worn out his comfortable boots rediscovering the city on foot. As for the time spent chasing Sir Walter from one country house to another— For all Guy’s complaints, it had felt good to ride through the familiar countryside. It had felt good to stop in a village inn for a pie and a pint and a chat about the crops.
It felt good to be home.
Yet still a restlessness plagued him, with his big houses holding nothing but memories of Father and a keen awareness of the emptiness of his life.
“How have you been?” he asked Freddie.
Her fierce brows drew together. “Would you like me to summarize eight years in one word, or may I have a whole sentence?”
“Good point.” A new riddle: how to converse with one’s sister when she had become a surly stranger. “Did you know our father well?”