“But you are a practical woman, and I am grateful I need not guard my tongue with you. This is why we are such a good match. We have that in common.”
What we have in common is that we both wish to own me, Arabella didn’t say.
He was looking at her expectantly, so she offered a small nod that seemed to please him. Not that her response mattered; he would interpret it as he wished anyway.
“I trust you are not exhausting yourself with the wedding preparations,” he said. “You must take care of yourself, until I can take care of you.”
“Our wedding is not until spring. We have plenty of time to make the arrangements.”
“Did your father not write to you about our change in plans? I am to follow you to Vindale Court, where your parents will host a betrothal ball. The banns will be called in the following weeks, and we’ll be wed soon after Michaelmas.”
Arabella thought irrelevantly of the Michaelmas goose, fattened and roasted and laid out on every table in England that could afford it, with a blackberry pie to follow. September was one of her favorite months, when they trooped out under blue skies and orange leaves to pick blackberries and nuts, ahead of Michaelmas at the month’s end. She and Mama always prepared a feast for the tenants and villagers, before the winter began. She wondered if they would manage that this year, with a wedding as well.
“I thought we had agreed on a spring wedding, here in London, during the Season next year,” she said.
“I changed my mind.” He leaned in, the sun glinting on the medals on his chest. “I am keen for us to begin our life together. I fear my patience grows thinner, every time I look at you.”
Then do us both a favor and stop looking at me, she didn’t say.
Really, she deserved a medal too, for all the times she held her tongue. Was this how it would be the rest of her life?
“Perhaps I might be plain spoken with you too, my lord,” she ventured.
He pitched his voice to a low, intimate tone. “I hope you will, my fierce, sharp-tongued virgin.”
Tightening her belly to restrain her shudder, she sought a casual tone. “You use that word a lot. With me.”
Something flickered in his eyes. “It is true, though.”
“Of course,” she said hastily. “I merely wonder at your anticipation of something that you will dispense with more quickly than you smoke a cigar.”
He crept so close that his tobacco-flavored breath crawled over her ear. “The anticipation is the pleasure. You feel it too, don’t you, my own Miss Larke?”
Holding very still, Arabella forced herself to look at him, and adopted a cajoling tone that sounded distastefully false to her own ears. “But if I may, my lord, I do not belong to you.”
He lashed out, swift as an adder, seized the stick of her parasol, nearly knocking it from her hand. His eyes were hard; his square jaw clenched. A jolt shuddered down her arm and into her suddenly tight chest.
Then just as quickly, the harshness vanished, leaving nothing but affection and smiles. His fingers slithered down the stick, to find and briefly squeeze her hand.
“I see you’re one of those ladies with a taste for games, my dear,” he said chidingly, fondly. “But I can feel your little shivers of delight when I speak of our anticipation. You need not be ashamed; I will be your husband and your excitement pleases me.” He dropped his hand. “You are right, of course: You do not belong to me yet, but you will. On our wedding night, I shall claim you fully, after which you will be mine and no one else’s. Oh yes, I see you can hardly breathe at the thought.”
Finally, Sculthorpe had something right: Arabella could hardly breathe. She shifted to stare past him, at the soothing, flawless columns of soldiers.
“And then?” Her voice came out strangely hoarse.
“Then what?”
“After our honeymoon. After you have…” The soldiers marched, marched, marched. At some unseen signal, they stopped. “Claimed me fully.”
Stepping away, he pulled out his silver cigar case and signaled to a boy with a lantern to bring him a light.
“Then you will be the mother of my children,” he said calmly. “Once our sons are born and our second son is named heir of your father’s estate, you may live there independently with him. I can put that in the marriage settlement, if you wish.”
A month before their wedding and they were negotiating separate lives. It was not the worst offer. This marriage would secure her dream: Vindale Court, her home. A wife could not turn her husband away from her bed, not if he insisted on claiming his rights, but she need only suffer his attentions until she had borne him two sons, and then she would be free.
“You are pleased,” he said.
“I am…overcome. I think I need some air,” she added, foolishly, for they were already outside.
“I understand,” he murmured. “We truly understand each other. I watched you and knew you would be perfect for me.”
“I am honored, my lord,” she managed to say, before thrusting her glass into his hands and making her escape.
Unseeingly, Arabella pushed through the crowd. She had crossed the limits of propriety in speaking thus to Sculthorpe, driven by her need to know, but the knowledge left her feeling even more helpless. Perhaps all men had thoughts like that, but they hid them under bad poetry and good manners, and Sculthorpe only revealed himself because of their engagement.
She might have walked aimlessly for miles, until that elaborate green bonnet once more caught her eye.
Clare Ivory, also alone, was heading toward a copse of trees. Without knowing her own intention, Arabella casually adjusted her direction to follow the other woman.
No sooner had Arabella reached the trees than Clare Ivory whirled around.
Under the bonnet, her pale face was a perfect oval. Her pink lips were uncommonly plump, her large eyes a silvery-blue. The whole was framed by hair so fair it was almost white. Clare Ivory had the face of a seductive angel, they said; no wonder she was a successful courtesan.
“Are you following me, Miss Larke? I wonder that a lady of your station would even acknowledge me.”
Arabella closed her parasol with a snap. She must not be seen anywhere near Miss Ivory, but the trees sheltered them, and for now they were alone but for some boys playing dice and a pie seller taking a break.
“Yet we have much in common,” Arabella said. “We were both once thought to be engaged to Guy Roth, and Lord Sculthorpe was the first man to bed you, as he will be for me.”
Miss Ivory’s eyes widened. “You show a surprising lack of delicacy, not to mention care for your reputation. What would the world say if you were seen with me?”
“For one, they could make a marvelous portrait of us. The title suggests itself.”
“‘The virgin and the whore.’” For a woman with an angel’s face, Miss Ivory could employ a tone as dry and sharp as Arabella’s. “Do you think yourself daring?”
“Curious, rather.”
Fear, anger, and desperation combined to create a certain daring, Arabella supposed. Her only recourse was to learn about what frightened her.
“You could have become Guy’s marchioness,” she said.
“But I did not want to.” Miss Ivory raised her chin in a challenge. “Did you follow me here to speak of Guy?”