“Found something to laugh at then?”
Rafe looked up to see Nicholas dressed in green and wreathed in flowers. “Puck?”
“I make a good Shakespearean sprite, don’t I?” Nicholas said. “I do hope our Thea will be at the costume party.”
Rafe imagined her in that cat mask. No, no masks. He longed to see her face. He curled his fingers around the pages, then remembered himself and smoothed them out.
Nicholas flipped the green sleeves of his tunic. “I wonder if our friend William Dudley’s theatre troupe is still performing that play about Rosamund. Although they really need to change the ending. If you came to London, you could see it too.”
“I’ve already seen it,” Rafe reminded him. “The original performance.”
How innocent he had been back then, that first night, scowling as Thea told her story. How enthralled her audience had been. Then he and Thea had stood together in the moonlight, where she had ignored his clumsy attempts to comfort her, and cradled his face to comfort him instead.
Pain shot through him. The pages spilled from his hands and his forehead landed on the desk with a thud.
“Oh so help me,” he groaned into the wood. “I miss her so bloody much.”
A gentle hand squeezed his shoulder. Rafe sat back up and stared at the bishop. “I’ve done this all wrong, haven’t I?”
“You did the best you knew how at the time.”
“But what if I’ve lost her? What if she needs my help and I’m not there? Anything could be happening in London and I’m not bloody well there.”
Rafe stared out the window. Down by the lake, Sally and Martha were strolling arm in arm, heads together as they talked. He watched them absently, two more misfits who had found a home here with him, a home he was able to offer only because he was an earl.
He had never wanted to be an earl—he’d much rather his brother was alive—but he was. The only way he could stop being an earl was to die, and he was not ready to leave this world for good. He had to decide, and decide now, whether or not he wished to be part of this world.
It was suddenly a very easy decision: This world had Thea in it, and Rafe wanted to be part of anything that had Thea in it.
Nicholas reached past him and tidied the pages. “One of the many things I admire about you, Rafe, is the way you always went after what you wanted. You never bothered yourself with what anyone else thought; you simply decided and went.” He sighed dramatically. “My carriage is ready, and I must be on my way. How horrid you are, my boy, to make me travel back to London all on my lonesome.”
“You are not subtle, old man.”
“I am exceedingly subtle. What a shame you won’t have time to pick out a costume for the party.”
“I’m not going to any blasted costume party.”
“Of course you’re not,” the bishop said, and smiled.
Chapter 26
The next day, Arabella and her mother arrived in London. Gilbert carried messages, Arabella came to collect her, and Thea moved again, this time to join Arabella in her family’s London home.
Thea had just finished telling Arabella about the destruction of her pamphlets, earning from her friend a vehement “Curse Ventnor. I would cheerfully toss him on a bonfire,” when they were interrupted by the delivery of Arabella’s costume for the Prince Regent’s party: a classical white gown designed to transform her into the Roman goddess Minerva, along with a helmet crowned with sweeping red feathers, an owl pendant, and a silver snake that would wrap around her upper arm.
Arabella busied herself with arranging the helmet’s mane of plumes so they fell perfectly. “I cannot decide if it is fitting or ironic that I shall be dressed as a warrior goddess the evening I get engaged.”
Thea stopped petting the silver snake. “Engaged? But you said the Marquess of Hardbury would not have you.”
“Papa insists I get engaged at the party, so get engaged I shall.”
“But so soon? And to whom, if not Lord Hardbury?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Arabella tweaked a feather. “I shall run through my list of lords at the party and accept the first one to propose. All I ask is that he be a peer, that I may call him ‘my lord’ for the rest of my life and never trouble with learning his name.”
Thea watched her friend’s long, slender fingers aligning the feathers. Arabella was so intent on her task that a stranger might believe she found her costume more important than her engagement. Thea was not a stranger.
“Arabella, if you need help—”
“Or perhaps your earl?” Arabella interrupted smoothly. “You suggested I might have him once you finished with him. Have you finished with him?”
“No, I haven’t. I’m going back to him.”
“Does he want you to go back to him?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. I’m going back anyway.”
Arabella’s hands stilled and she pivoted away from the helmet. “Thea, what have you done?”
“I’ve fallen in love, that’s what I’ve done. But I fear I have ruined it.”
“Why do you say that?”
“He is giving me ten thousand pounds, which might mean he’s washing his hands of me. I don’t blame him because I got everything wrong. I have lost my dreams and my family, and I have enough money to start a new life, but I don’t care about any of that. All I can think of is putting things right with Rafe. Even if he doesn’t want me anymore, I must let him know that he is loved. I owe him that, at least, after all he has done for me. I shall see his solicitor, request an advance on the money, and use it to hire a chaise.”
“Perhaps Mama could lend you funds to leave sooner.”
Thea’s heart skipped at the thought. She could leave tonight! And then— She looked back down at the silver snake and thought of Arabella, going off to the party in two days to get engaged against her will.
“I could share my money with you,” Thea said. “You could live independently and you wouldn’t need to marry Lord Wotsisname.”
Arabella shook her head. “It is not the money. The Larke estate is my birthright, but the only way I can inherit it is to adhere to my father’s demands.”
“But remember, you said you were like a hawk, soaring free in the sky.”
“Do you know how we train hawks? With a tether. The lead gets longer and longer, until eventually the tether is cut, but in the hawk’s mind, it is always there.” Arabella gave her a pointed look. “Wipe that concern from your face, Thea. I shall make an aristocratic marriage, as I have meant to do all my life. And I shall be able to see you more often, if you would be so kind as to make an aristocratic marriage too.”
“I shall try,” Thea said and tried to ignore the flutter in her stomach. But she could not abandon Arabella, even if Arabella claimed not to care. “But first I shall accompany you to the Prince Regent’s costume party, if you can smuggle me in, so I can interrogate this Lord Wotsisname of yours.”
Arabella clearly did not want Thea to interrogate Lord Wotsisname, for she disappeared the moment they were safely inside the Prince Regent’s costume party, and Thea ended up wandering out onto the lawn alone, finding not a genteel party but a carnival.