If there was a plot to trap him into marrying Matilda, she ought to let him be jolly well trapped, and it would serve him right for being cabbage-headed enough to pick up ribbons in the first place.
But later that night, when the house was settling, Holly gave her a nudge, and Arabella discovered a need to loiter in the hallway outside Matilda Treadgold’s chamber, with her ear very close to the door. And so she heard a short conversation that sounded something like:
“Hurry up, Matilda! His lordship is alone in the Reading Room right now.”
“But Aunt Frances, I don’t think this is right. Lord Hardbury is already engaged—”
“Hush. You will thank me for it when you’re wed.”
If the conversation continued, Arabella didn’t hear it, for she was running along the hallway and leaping down the steps and skidding around the corner and hurtling down more hallways and through the music room and around another corner—and, good grief, was Vindale Court always this large?—until she reached the hallway door to the Reading Room.
At which point, she stopped, smoothed her skirts, patted her hair, breathed in, breathed out, and calmly stepped inside.
Guy was sitting by the fire, reading and sipping a brandy, with a green-and-gold banyan thrown over his shirt, his hair tousled, and his stockinged feet stretched out before him. He managed to look both dignified and rumpled, both potent and harmless, and the sight of him made Arabella think of domestic comforts, and long winter nights, and kisses and smiles and the hollow in her heart.
He looked up. The sight of her still did not make him smile.
“Are you coming in or guarding the doorway forever?” he said.
Which reminded her why she was there.
“You have to get out,” she hissed. “Get out, get out!”
She shut the door to the hall and dashed over to shoo him out like a troublesome cat. Like a troublesome cat, he resisted.
“What have I done now?” he said.
She tugged his book and drink out of his hands and dropped them onto the table, then opened the connecting door to the library and peered in. It was empty and dark but for the last coals glowing in the hearth.
“Go in there.” He had not moved. “Guy, for heaven’s sake. Hide in the library. It’s not safe here.”
He stood. “Safe? What—”
“Matilda Treadgold is coming to get you.”
“Is she coming with guns or knives?”
“Worse. I wager you a thousand pounds that in less than two minutes, Matilda Treadgold will come sailing through that other door, wearing nothing but a nightgown and a pretty smile, and she will draw you into a conversation about Italy, and who knows what else besides, and at a pertinent moment, the door will open again and every matron in the west of England will come flying in!”
He wandered toward the library, lazily amused. “I don’t need a thousand pounds. Can we wager something else?”
“Do you want to marry Matilda Treadgold? Is that it? Do you want to be caught in a compromising position with her and be marched to the altar?”
“Of course not. But—”
“Shush. Now go.”
She pushed him into the library, shut the door, and threw herself into the still-warm cushions of his chair. She picked up his brandy glass and arranged his book on her lap.
The door to the hallway eased open.
For the sake of her performance, Arabella focused on the words on the page, and almost dropped the book. Oh good grief, what was he reading?
A click: She looked up to see Matilda Treadgold turning around from closing the door, Matilda Treadgold wearing nothing but a nightgown and a grimace of horror.
“Good evening, Miss Treadgold,” Arabella said calmly.
“Miss Larke! What—” Miss Treadgold looked around. “What are you doing here?”
“This is the Reading Room and I am reading.”
Her eyes narrowed. “And you are drinking brandy?”
“Aren’t you cold, wandering around in only your nightgown?” Arabella said, dodging her question. “Who knew whom you might have encountered?”
“I could not sleep, so I came downstairs looking for a book. I did not expect to encounter anyone.”
Arabella raised an eyebrow.
“What?” Miss Treadgold sounded almost belligerent. “Don’t you believe me?”
“Of course I believe you. It happens all the time.” Arabella put down the book and glass and crossed to join her at the shelves. “You could have tried the library. Why the Reading Room?”
Miss Treadgold’s eyes darted every which way. “I wanted a book I could read.”
“A book you can read. Those are my favorite too.”
“I mean, there are two kinds of book, aren’t there? There are the books that one reads and the books that one doesn’t. And it seemed to me that the books that find their way into the Reading Room must be the kind of books that one reads.”
Even Arabella could not argue with this impeccable logic.
With a tight smile, Miss Treadgold turned to peruse the shelves. On one shelf perched a stuffed canary that had somehow wandered out of Papa’s study. Oh dear: The poor girl had said how much she loathed and feared the dead birds! To spare her, Arabella went to move the canary out of sight.
But Miss Treadgold saw the canary first. She paused, staring at it—and then touched a finger to the bird’s little yellow head. Her expression rapt, she stroked the feathers down its back and caressed the scaly feet and talons, which only a week ago she had described as hideous.
“The truth is, I like the birds. The dead ones, I mean,” Miss Treadgold said abruptly, her bright eyes on the canary as she petted its cold, feathered head. “Especially the dead ones.”
“The dead ones. I see.”
“And the crypt too. I was only pretending to be scared earlier. The truth is, I go down there by myself. I like looking at the sarcophagi and thinking about their bones.”
“Their bones. I see.”
“But Aunt Frances says I ought not like dead things, like stuffed birds and bones in the crypt,” Miss Treadgold went on in uneasy tones. “She says it is not becoming and that men don’t like women who like dead things. But it isn’t as though I like all dead things.”
Arabella studied her. Miss Treadgold was still undeniably amiable and likable—yet rendered interesting and new, with her surprisingly Gothic taste for the macabre so at odds with her ribbons and blushes. To think: All this time, Matilda Treadgold had been performing too. And one day, Matilda would perform her way to the altar, where she would marry a man who did not know her, and she would perform for the rest of her life.
“If you like dead things, you should say so,” Arabella said. “That is who you are, Matilda, and you ought not conceal your nature to please others.”
“I couldn’t! A young lady must not express opinions or disagree with anyone, Aunt Frances says.”
“You don’t have to do everything they say.”
An anxious look entered her brown eyes. “They took me in as a child and have looked after me; I would have nothing without them. My best way of repaying them is to marry well. That’s why I… You understand.”
Arabella understood: It was an apology for this plot to trap Guy. “I understand. It’s all right. But you owe them nothing. They should have looked after you simply because it was the right thing to do. You must—”