“No, but I imagine you are not one either. No need for us both to be miserable.”
He huffed out air. “Arabella, speak directly. I haven’t your subtlety or complexity of thought.”
“It seems you have become a rare beast: You hold noble principles and you live by them. That is something to be honored, not exploited. It is time I faced the fact that Papa will never accept me on my own terms. You never meant it to go this far, did you?”
“No.” He trailed the stick in the gravel. “And you’ll— What? Simply walk away?”
“Perhaps I should have done so years ago.”
“Your father will cut you off. You’ll lose everything.”
Perhaps it had never been hers to lose, and her biggest mistake was thinking it could be.
“I’ll figure something out,” she said. “I always do. It is my problem, not yours.”
There: She had released him. But he did not answer. Instead, he pulled off his hat and balanced it on the end of his stick as they walked, spinning it, throwing it into the air, and catching it again.
Good grief. The man was a marquess, yet he behaved like a playful child. And she— Oh, be honest. She was as much a child. She could gather her skirts and leap for that hat. Knock it off the stick and grab it and run. He’d catch her easily, and they’d tumble onto the grass and—
Not like children, then.
Finally, Guy threw his hat into the air, jumped to seize it in his free hand before the wind stole it, and stopped beside the next statue. Apollo, with sculpted muscles, long curls, and a lyre.
“I refuse to surrender until we have exhausted all options,” he said. “We have a whole sixteen days to fix this. I cannot believe you are giving in.”
“Don’t be absurd. I never give in. I am merely changing my strategy.”
Finally her brain caught up with her ears. She stared at him. A smile hovered over his lips.
“I don’t need you to rescue me,” said her pride, which did not know how to thank him.
“Don’t be absurd. I’m not rescuing you,” he said, mimicking her. “I’m helping you rescue yourself.”
The look she gave him should have sliced him like the wind, but he only grinned and turned to study Apollo.
“I’ll not be forced to marry you, Arabella,” he said to the statue. “But I find it despicable, the way your father uses the promise of your inheritance to control you. Do you have any idea how thoroughly my father controlled me? I could not even choose how the tailor cut my coat, or how my valet cut my hair. Duty and one’s place in society are all very well, but to deny our personal choices is to erode our very selves. So we must secure your inheritance without your choices being taken away.”
Guy finished this speech by placing his hat on Apollo’s head. He tilted it to a rakish angle and stepped back to admire the effect.
Arabella stared at the statue too, yet while her eyes saw the weathered stone, she was aware only of Guy. Strong, powerful Guy, who owed her nothing, who despised her, who would help her anyway.
And all was right in the world.
Except—
She stepped forward and straightened Apollo’s hat, so it sat evenly on his head. There. Now all was right in the world. Nodding with satisfaction, she prepared to walk on when Guy brushed past her, touched his fingers to the brim, and set the hat crooked again.
His face was the picture of innocence. She glared at him, but when he did not rectify his error, she used both hands to once more straighten the hat.
He waited until she had stepped back, and then, with a lazy tap of his knuckles, tipped it again.
Again, Arabella straightened it.
Again, Guy set it askew.
She curled her fingers into her palms. She was not going to play his games. And look! One thing he knew about her—one harmless foible—and he used it to torment her. This was what happened when people knew you cared about something.
With a haughty toss of her head, she continued along the path. He fell into step beside her.
One step. Two steps. Three. Four.
Curse it.
She dashed back and straightened the hat, and he laughed, looking carefree and rumpled, with the smile in his eyes and the wind in his hair.
When he extended his elbow, she returned to him and slipped her fingers into the crook. They walked on, like a typical engaged couple, shoulders bumping, her wine-red pelisse flirting with his greatcoat.
“Are you already married?” she asked, oddly breathless for such a short dash.
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“Using a false name?”
“No.”
“Underage?”
“Hardly.”
“Insane?”
“Only around you.”
“Impotent?”
He whirled about. Her hand slipped from his arm. His eyes glinted with that heated intensity so familiar from that night in London.
“What do you think?” His growl was rough with promise. “You have some experience in the matter of my…potency.”
“Things might have changed.”
“Would you like a demonstration? To check everything still works as it ought?”
He lowered his gaze to her mouth, and then over her body, his look inflaming her skin, as though his hands were touching her again. In his eyes, amusement mingled with that heat, an infectious mix that rippled through her blood in delicious ways and, that, oh yes, she remembered that from London too.
That night when she had ruined everything, with her fears and pride and carelessness, long before it had occurred to her that there might be anything precious to ruin. All those years of despising him, only to learn too late there was nothing to despise. Caring nothing for his good opinion of her, until that good opinion was irrevocably lost. And what heartrending cruelty, to discover this longing for him, after all she had done to ensure he would never want her.
Maybe it was not too late. Maybe she could grab his head and make him listen. Make him understand that sometimes she got frightened, and fear turned her stupid, and her pride concealed it so no one would know. Even then, what was the point? Perhaps he would understand, perhaps even forgive. But it would not make him want her.
He thought her unscrupulous and arrogant and power-hungry, and a good, honorable man did not want a woman like that. She had made enough mistakes already; she would not mistake his fleeting desire and essential decency for anything other than what they were.
“I’ll take your word for it,” she managed to say.
His eyes held hers a moment longer, then he turned back to the path, his boots crunching on the gravel, and he trailed his stick in the water as though nothing had happened.
Because nothing had.
“Those questions relate to marriage, I take it?” he asked.
“Legal impediments. There are none. The other option is to delay the wedding.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I daresay you have some ideas.”
“For the marriage to be valid, the vicar must read the banns three Sundays in a row, in the parish church in which the wedding is to take place,” she recited. “If there are no objections, the ceremony must take place within three months of the third banns, witnessed by at least two people. If there is any disruption or delay, it must start all over again from the first banns.”
“How do you know all this?”