“Shush!” Edward flung the command out before he threw an anxious glance over his shoulder to assure himself that the Earl had departed. “Do ye not ken, girl?” He caught her elbow and bent close to whisper, “This may be Arabella’s last hope.”
Elise jerked away from the cruel vise and rubbed her arm as she replied with barely restrained ire. “Better to remain a spinster than bed with the likes of him!”
Spinning on a heel, Elise lifted her skirts and flew up the stairs before her uncle could find his tongue. Though he called after her, she dashed along the loggia without giving acknowledgment, snatched open the door to an inner hall, and slammed the portal behind her, rattling nearby windows with the force of her passage.
Throughout the ensuing days her uncle had repeatedly demanded she give an apology to the Earl, but Elise had vowed through clenched teeth that she would move into a thorn-bound spinney before she would yield to any such request. Not sure of just what she might do, since she seemed capable of the most outrageous conduct, Edward had finally acceded and had pressed her no further.
And here she was again, Elise thought, feeling a strong repugnance for Reland. She was sure the task she had been given was tantamount to lending assistance in the sacrificial rites of a virgin being offered up to a slavering beast. In truth, she abhorred the ruffian and felt great sympathy for her cousin.
Elise quickly erased the repugnance from her face as Arabella glanced around. As if bidden by some mysterious summons, she searched the room until she found her younger cousin. Elise met her gaze and responded with a hesitant nod, recognizing an unspoken inquiry in the pale gray eyes. A fleeting frown touched the bride’s smooth visage before she turned aside to speak a word to her new husband. Reland leered in heated lust as he watched her depart, and in smug triumph he glanced around at his companions, stirring a memory in Elise’s mind of that same self-satisfied smirk he had worn that first day of their meeting. It was almost as if Arabeila had become another possession he could use as a whip with which to lord it over others.
A few of his rowdy friends called to him in coarse repartee and, at each stroke of witty humor, chortled the louder in outrageous glee. Arabella showed only a trace of a smile as she moved with quiet dignity through the press of bantering, hooting guests and held her silence until she and Elise were climbing the stone stairs that led to the west wing.
“I am beset by folly,” she murmured dismally.
Elise stared at her cousin, wondering what had finally set her awry with her state of circumstance. Arabella had always managed to maintain a reserved poise through times of conflict and turmoil, even amid her father’s blustering tirades, and had actually shown a certain measure of eagerness to marry the Earl. To Elise’s knowledge she had never issued a complaint against Reland before, though there were times when she displayed a discontent because of the tragedies she had suffered. She had a bent toward melancholia and long moods of depression, which even Edward tried to assuage. Much attention had been given to the grieving woman by everyone in an attempt to bring her out of doldrums, for no one could doubt she had good cause to lament.
“What troubles you, Arabella? Why do you say such a thing?” the younger cousin asked.
“Oh, Elise, try and understand. Reland is a fine and noble man . . . even a handsome man . . .”
Elise was sensitive to her cousin’s uncertainty and understood only too well the troubling disquiet Reland could rouse in a young bride’s breast. Indeed, if the roles were reversed and she were the one to wed the Earl, she would have vented a thousand grievances by now.
“I am beset with a cruel curse,” Arabella continued in a muted tone. She paused on a step and leaned her head listlessly against the stone wall, not caring how she crushed the jeweled attifet that adorned her meticulously dressed hair. “Heretofore every man who has vied for my hand has been torn from my side by some cruel tragedy. Where now are those who once pledged their troth to me? All fallen to some awful fate, I vow. Each plucked from my side by death or some great catastrophe. I thought it mere coincidence when the first two succumbed to some unnamed malady, then the third’s life was snuffed out when thieves attacked him on the streets. ‘Twas not three years ago during Eastertide the earth jerked and heaved until stones tumbled down upon our heads from a church and killed my poor William. Hardly a week betrothed, and so quickly he was taken. The fifth suitor was abducted by miscreants, and I’ll warrant we’ll find his bones someday. And then, the sixth . . .”
Delicately sweeping brows came together in querying bemusement as Elise heard the other’s wistful sigh. Softly she questioned, “Was that not the Marquess of Bradbury?”
Arabella nodded slowly. “Yea . . . Maxim . . . he was the sixth.”
Elise dropped a slender hand on her cousin’s sleeve as she gently argued, “Surely you cannot mourn a murderous traitor.”
Without answering Arabella continued her ascent and, moving down the hall, passed through her chamber doors. She crossed the anteroom and went to stand before the fireplace in the bedchamber, there pulling the veiled cap from her head and tossing it carelessly aside. “Yea, ‘tis true. The Marquess’s offenses were worse than the others. Accused of murder and conspiracy with Mary Stuart against the Queen, he deserved to be hunted down and slain. He could not have done more to win my hatred.”
Not knowing what to reply, Elise glanced about at the spacious bedchamber and its rich appointments and wondered what had possessed the man who bad once lived here within the confines of these chambers to form such unhealthy allegiances. What had turned him against the Queen . . . that same Queen who had fondly compared him to that other Seymour she had known in her youth? Thomas Seymour had won her affection; had Maxim Seymour deserved her hatred?
“Surely you are not cursed as you suppose, Arabella,” Elise consoled. “Rather, ‘twould seem you’ve been fortunate to escape marriage with those who were less worthy.”
“How can I make you understand, dear child? You are so young, and I have grown so tired and . . . so old . . .”
“Old?” Elise repeated in amazement. “At five and twenty? Nay, you are still young, Arabella, and you have your life ahead of you. This is your wedding night . . . and you must prepare yourself for your husband . . .”
Elise saw the tears well up in the silver-gray eyes. The agony was visible in the wan smile, but there was no ease for it, nothing either of them could do.
“I must have some time alone,” Arabella whispered in sudden desperation. “Delay the wedding party until I send a servant to beckon them.”
“Your father asked me to attend you,” Elise murmured softly. “What would you have me say to him?”
Arabella looked into the worried countenance of her cousin and hastened to reassure her. “Beg him to let me have a few moments alone so I can better prepare myself for Rebind. Only a little time . . . just until I have calmed myself. Then you may return and assist me.”
“Reland has a fair look about him.” Elise offered the comment with the hope that she could bolster her cousin’s spirits. “You’ll no doubt be the envy of many a maid.”
Arabella responded distantly, “Not as handsome as some I’ve known.”
A small, fleeting frown chased across Elise’s brow. “Do you yearn after a dead man, Arabella?”