“You will not tell her,” Arabella said. “Everyone must know, but not yet.”
“Of course not.” Mama squeezed her hand and stood. “You must pull yourself together, Arabella. It was ghastly, I know, but you cannot indulge your misery forever. We fall over and then we get back up and face the world as though nothing is amiss.”
“I shall be better tomorrow.”
She slept all day as if she truly were ill. At one point, she awoke and lay staring at nothing, her mind also invaded by gray fog. Eventually, she realized someone was sitting by the fire.
Arabella propped herself up on her elbows. “Freddie?”
Freddie looked up. “You don’t mind I’m here?”
“Not at all. Why are you here?”
“They won’t look for me here. If they find me, they’ll take away my sewing.”
Arabella sat up further. A mass of teal fabric was spread over Freddie’s lap. “What are you sewing?”
“One of the German ornithologists described the Turkish trousers his niece wears to ride en cavalier.” Freddie stood and shook them out. “You see, they are a kind of pantaloon, which means I can ride astride, but because they billow, they are modest. He told me it is not uncommon for ladies on the Continent to ride en cavalier. But Lady Treadgold insists it is not becoming.”
“That is an excellent solution. I recall a portrait of Marie Antoinette dressed and mounted thus.”
“Indeed!” Freddie dropped back into her chair and arranged her sewing over her lap. “I told Lady Treadgold that, but she pointed out that Marie Antoinette was guillotined.”
“It is safe to say that the reasons for her beheading were more complex than the way she rode a horse.”
“I don’t know,” Freddie said glumly. “I feel that I shall be beheaded if I do not behave as they say I should.”
Arabella had no response to that. She was hardly in a position to offer reassurances. How abhorrent to think that dreamy, original Freddie might face a similar dilemma to her own! Not if she could prevent it.
“Do you know if Sir Walter has found someone for you to marry?” she asked.
Freddie resumed sewing. She was silent so long Arabella wondered if she had forgotten their conversation.
“I’m nineteen,” Freddie finally said. “Lady Treadgold says it’s time now we’re out of mourning. She says I’m an heiress and my brother is a marquess, so it doesn’t matter that I’m not pretty or good with people.”
“But have they suggested any names?” Arabella persisted. “Held parties with suitable gentlemen? Made a point of introducing anyone to you?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
That was suspicious. One would expect Sir Walter and Lady Treadgold to be seeking a suitable husband for their ward. Sir Walter would not miss an opportunity to forge new connections by parading the wealthy sister of a marquess about like a prize ewe.
The fact that they were not encouraging Freddie to wed strengthened Arabella’s theory about their scheme. If only she—or rather, the servants—could find the proof.
“What about spring?” she asked. “Are they planning to take you to London for the Season?”
“No. I mean, they said they might. I don’t know. I don’t care. It isn’t as though anyone will ever court me properly. Men like Matilda. They like my money.” She stared at the ceiling. “I wonder what it is like, to be admired and flattered, to have a man whisper sweet nothings and make one feel special.”
“I wouldn’t know. Men never whisper sweet nothings to me.”
Except Guy, mocking her, that night in London, tenderly tucking a flower behind her ear, his eyes intent, her surprised lips still tingling from their first kiss. She walks in beauty like the night…
Longing throbbed through her. Immediately after their lovemaking, when her body was still trembling with erotic sensations, he had wrapped his arms around her and held her against his hot skin, his fast-beating heart. By some miracle, that had made her feel complete. As though in gathering her to him, he had gathered her together, merging her familiar parts with those parts she kept secret, even from herself.
Don’t be ridiculous, she scolded herself. After the pain and indignity she had suffered at the hands of one man, how could she possibly crave the embrace of another? Maybe it wasn’t about Guy. Maybe she simply longed to feel someone’s arms around her again.
“I imagine it would depend on whether he meant the words and whether he values you,” Arabella added. “I shouldn’t be in a hurry for it.”
“I just wonder what it would be like, that’s all.”
Arabella had no answer for that either, so she dropped back onto the pillows and once more closed her eyes.
Chapter 11
The female voices coming from the hallway bore that tense, overly controlled quality of women engaging in polite argument when at least one of them longed to scream.
“You can have them back when we return home,” said one of the women; Guy identified the voice as belonging to Lady Treadgold. “You may ride astride in the privacy of our estate, not here amid this fine company.”
Bouncing a chortling Ursula on his hip, Guy rounded the corner to see Lady Treadgold with Freddie, who wore a green riding habit and a mutinous glare.
“Why,” Lady Treadgold added, her tone brightening, “whatever will your brother the marquess think?”
Freddie flicked him a scornful glance. “I don’t care what he thinks.”
“What I think about what?” Guy asked, absently unhooking Ursula’s fingers from his cravat before she choked him.
“I was making Turkish trousers so I could ride astride, but Lady Treadgold took them away.”
“Not in this company,” Lady Treadgold repeated. “Riding astride is not becoming in a fine English lady.”
“I’m a good rider and I want to ride fast.” Freddie turned her scowl on Guy. “You remember. You let me go fast before.”
At first, he had no idea what she meant. Then a memory arose, of tobogganing through the snow with little Freddie between his knees as they sped down a hill. Freddie had shrieked with delight and demanded they go faster; Guy had happily obliged.
“But you were a child then,” he said. “You oughtn’t behave like that now, should she, Ursula?”
Ursula’s lively response sounded like “Marcus Aurelius would not approve,” but probably wasn’t. At first, her babble left Guy feeling awkward. He could barely decipher one word in five, and his interpretations were impossible. But in the end, her words didn’t matter nearly as much as their games.
“Arabella doesn’t care,” Freddie argued. “She thought it a brilliant idea.”
“You’ve seen Arabella? How is she?”
Ignoring him, Freddie pushed into the front hall to grab her gloves and hat. “Never mind, I’ll wear this,” she muttered, and marched out the door.
Lady Treadgold also left before Guy could offload Ursula, so he carried her outside and fell into step beside Freddie, as they headed for the stables. If Freddie had spoken to Arabella, he needed to know more.
Guy had not seen Arabella since the afternoon before, at the abbey ruins, when the wind had swept away his vows to avoid her, and he’d fed her a blackberry and nearly kissed her again. When he had finally come back to the house, it was to learn that Sculthorpe had ridden off in a rush, the engagement was over, and Arabella was nowhere to be seen.