Belle of the ball (10 page)

She would never ever forget the look of disgust and contempt on Marcus's face when she coldly suggested she was just using him for practice flirtation. But no matter how it hurt to know what he must think of her now, no matter how painful it was to tear apart the fragile, sweet connection they had woven between them, she could not help but feel that she had done the right thing. There was no future for them, and it seemed he would plague her until she put him in his place once and for all time. She had done that now; she doubted if he would bother her again. But in her bed alone, after Annie had left her and she had blown out her candle, it was cold comfort.

She snuggled under the covers in the chilly darkness of a room with no coal fire to heat it—the last of the coal was being conserved for cooking and for heating the main rooms—and contemplated her life. She had often thought about marriage, especially over the three Seasons she had spent in London, ostensibly looking for a husband. She had had many offers, but had never accepted one. There was always something wrong that kept her from accepting a man, and she never felt too pressing an urge to marry until this Season, until her belated knowledge of their financial predicament. She had come close once last Season with a young man whom she genuinely liked and respected, but her mother had refused to countenance the match, and she had sent him away after a nasty scene which had made her believe she had had a lucky escape from matrimony with Lord Sweetan.

And then the previous fall she and her mother had gone to stay at the country home of the Countess and Earl of Leathorne, long-time friends of her mother's. It was expected that she and the son and heir. Lord Drake, would make a match of it. He was rich, and she was in need of a husband, so what was the impediment?

The impediment from her aspect was that she could not love him. They just never seemed to find a common ground on which to build even a friendship, much less the kind of intimacy necessary, she thought, between a man and a woman who intended to wed.

Why? He was rich, he was handsome, he was generally good-natured, though he was at the time suffering from problems brought on by his military service. As well, he was a genuinely good man, and had treated her kindly enough—at least he had when he even remembered her existence. She had even, to her everlasting shame, employed devious means to rid herself of competition for his hand in the form of her cousin. True, although she could see that the two were falling in love with each other.

But in the end love had triumphed. True had married the viscount and Arabella was pleased, truly overjoyed about it! True was her anchor in the world in a way her mother had never been, and to see her happy

was a secret delight that she hugged to herself, for her mother was so very bitter about the marriage that she could not even speak about it openly without inspiring Lady Swinley to streams of vituperation. Arabella might envy her cousin's good fortune in material matters, for Drake was wealthy, but those two were meant to be together, and even when she tried she could not work up any animosity toward either of them, nor their marriage. It was as it was meant to be.

She turned over on her side and stared off into the darkness. What was wrong with her? Was she incapable of love that she could not even feel it for so good a man as her cousin's husband. Lord Drake? As her eyes got used to the darkness, she saw, glowing in the dark like a beacon, the small, white bark basket on her bedside table. She stretched out one hand and traced the rough texture of the surface. The question drifted through her mind again; was she incapable of love? She had begun to think so, until Marcus Westhaven had entered her life. He was everything she had always pictured in the perfect beau; tall, handsome, bold, adventurous, and with an air of wildness that she found enticing and enthralling.

But were those not all surface attributes? Surely there was more to love than a handsome face or a pretty figure. This was an unaccustomed train of thought. She had never thought so before, but she had begun to wonder, after watching her cousin and Lord Drake together, if there was not something more to love, something she had never experienced, a bond between two people that welded them into one.

How did it happen? When did that miracle happen; before marriage, when the couple fell in love, or as they wed, or after the marriage? She had attended three weddings over the course of the winter and spring; True had married her wealthy viscount, True's younger sister, Faith had married the brother of her best friend, and the girls' father, an elderly vicar Arabella had always loved as if he were her father, too, had married the plump, motherly widow, Mrs. Saunders, in a ceremony that was simple, and yet for Arabella, most touching.

Each wedding had had moments of emotion, touching scenes that lived on in her memory. But of the three, the one that stayed with her was the vicar's. He was in his late sixties and the widow in her fifties, but the love that shone from their eyes as they were joined in wedlock was a stunning surprise to Arabella. Love, at their age? But yes, it was love, as fervent and real as any pair of mooning twenty-year-olds, and perhaps more fast and steady for their age.

So what was love? She rolled over on her back and stared at the ceiling, pulling the soft covers up under her chin and drawing her feet up out of the chilly regions of the bed.

The feelings that had coursed through her the moment Marcus had taken her in his arms had been powerful and new. But they were physical; thrumming blood, a thrill down her spine, and tingling in her toes. Was that love, then? Is that what the vicar and the widow felt that made them want to marry? It seemed ludicrous, but was it?

Restlessly she rolled over on her side again, eyes wide open in the dark, the blackness like a velvet blanket around her, except for a faint brightening of the window through the heavy drapes, and the white blur on her sidetable that was the basket Marcus Westhaven had given her. Love had to be something more than just tingling and thrumming and thrilling. It had to be! So what she felt for Marcus Westhaven was just a passing fancy and it would not, as her darkest fears would have her believe, plague her for the rest of her life with regrets and fearsome longings.

Arabella closed her eyes against the darkness, but try as she might she could not rid herself of the sensation of lips firmly pressed to her own and hands that trailed down her back, leaving alternately icy and burning traces on her skin under her gown. It was not love!

But whatever it was, it kept her awake until the early morning sun brightened the eastern sky.

Reading was not far from London, not even a full day's ride for a young man on a horse. So when the message came that the old man was conscious, it had not taken long to respond. Marcus sat at the bedside trying not to inhale the scent of old man, bed linens in need of washing, and a lingering smell of imminent death. He gazed down at the man on the bed and examined the blue veins that traced a path across the temple and into the sparse hairline. It had been so many years. He didn't recognize this frail body, this figure that barely made an impression in the bed, as the man he remembered from his childhood, the old man who smelled of tobacco and hoarhound and stable, and whose voice boomed out in a commanding bass. Suddenly the man's eyes fluttered open.

"It's you, eh? Don't know why you bothered comin' to see me. Lawyer says you're the one, all right. Gonna get it all; don't have to make up to an old man after all, y'know."

Smiling, Marcus relaxed at the familiar tone of brusque impatience and said, "I hope I am as cussedly ornery as you when I reach your age. Uncle."

"Won't reach my age; nobody does!" The crabbed hands plucked at the covers irritably. He eyed Marcus with something like resentment. "Wouldn't have recognized you myself, you know. Last time I saw you, you was just a little lad—a little bugger if I recall—always askin' questions and wan tin' to ride the horses."

"I haven't changed that much. I'm still always asking questions and wanting to ride the horses. As for the other part—^I suppose I'm not so little, but I might still be a bugger!"

The old man cackled and then yelped, "Call m'man and tell him I want to go downstairs today. Hate being in bed all the time! Nothing to do, nothing to look at. If I'm gonna die, might as well see somethin' besides this room. So, you been gallivanting around enjoying the Season? Making up to all the pretty gels? They do still make pretty gels don't they?"

"They do, at that One in particular is very pretty, like some kind of a ... an angel. But a calculating wench. Kissed me, then told me it was just for practice! She's planning on marrying a man of sixty and some odd years!" Marcus sat back in his chair, stretched his legs out in front of him, and said, "Disgusting, I say."

"Good for him, / say," the old man retorted. "If I was ten years younger I'd be giving him a run for his money, if she's as pretty as you say. What's she look like?"

Marcus closed his eyes. "Blond hair, bright, like spun gold. Eyes the color of oriental jade, the finest kind. Lips like rubies, only soft as velvet and honey mead sweet"

The man cackled in, and then coughed, his thin shoulders hunching as he hacked and wheezed. Marcus sat up straight, alarmed, but his uncle's valet came running and lifted the old man to a sitting position, pounding on his back.

As the cough subsided and he caught his breath, the old man rested back against the pillows propped up on the massive headboard for him. "Realize you described the gel in terms of gold, jade, and rubies?" the old man said, as his valet fussed around him, straightening the bed linens. "No wonder she's a fortune hunter! Got to keep up with her looks!"

Marcus laughed. "I hadn't looked at it that way."

"So is it just her looks that keep ya comin' back to her?"

"I didn't say I kept coming back to her," Marcus said, examining his uncle's surprisingly shrewd eyes. But it was true. He had followed Miss Arabella Swinley for a number of days before the embrace on the terrace. He knew he was fouling up her plans for tempting Lord Pelimore into a proposal, and took a strangely savage delight in disconcerting her. Ruthless little wench. "It's just—well, I don't want to see her throw her life away."

"Liar. There is something else there that you're not tellin' me."

"Maybe," Marcus said, abruptly, moodily. "But that is my business." He recovered his good humor, not wanting to upset his uncle. Who knew how long they would have to talk? The doctor said he could go anytime. This last coma that he had just emerged from had been longer and deeper than any other. He was very sick—dying, in fact—and he knew it. "But it is true as far as it goes. She is a brilliant diamond, about to be set in dullest pewter. It is not good enough for her. She ... I suppose I think she deserves something better."

"Then marry her yourself!"

With a grin, Marcus said, "She wants a rich man, and I am very poor, in her eyes."

"I'm sure you could convince her. You're a handsome devil, I'll give you that. Women like that kind of thing, almost as much as they like money. See if you can't tempt her into makin' a disastrous alliance!" He cackled again, but it died to a wheezy cough, the sound a harsh rattle in his chest.

The valet held a glass up to the old man's lips; he drank a little of the pale liquid, but then sputtered, "I want to go downstairs, you bacon-brained idiot! Damned if I'll spend the rest of my life in this bed. M'nephew will take me for a walk in that damned Bath chair I used to use, b'fore I got bedridden."

Marcus was a little alarmed at the thought of being in charge of the old man's movements in such a way. He wondered if he was helping his uncle feel better, or hastening his demise. He hoped it was the former and not the latter. The doctor said the old man had not done so much as sit up for many months before Marcus's arrival home. The last few weeks had been spent in a coma, and he had just emerged within the last couple of days. "Sir, you are hardly strong enough—"

"Don't tell me what I am," he said and struggled to a sitting position again. The bed was huge and it dwarfed the frail man at its center, but it could not swallow up his personality, which still dominated the room. He glared up at his patient valet, and said, "Ain't gettin' any younger while you shilly-shally around like an old woman. I am going to get dressed and come down to lunch with my nephew like a real man, and then he shall take me for a walk in the garden in my Bath chair. And that is that." He cast a sideways glance at his visitor, then, and said, in a more uncertain tone, "That is, if I am not keeping you from more exciting events?"

Marcus stood and gazed down at his uncle. He had not seen the old man in almost thirty years. Unbeknownst to him, he had been presumed dead years ago when no more letters came to family members. But it had seemed pointless after the death of his mother and father to keep writing to aunts and uncles who never answered, so he had stopped. And in the interim many had died, resulting in the present turn of events. "I would be delighted to stay to lunch with you, if you will let me tell you more about the delightful, tantalizing, maddening Miss Arabella Swinley. Maybe you can give me some ideas as to how to handle her. She slapped my cheek, you know, and after tasting my kisses."

"Slapped you, eh?" He cackled and slapped the bedcovers. "I like her already. Feisty—no milk-and-water miss like they make nowadays. I'll give you the benefit of my wisdom, boy. I don't imagine women have changed all that much over the years. The devil knows men have not."

"I'll wait for you downstairs, then, sir, and we shall walk in the garden." Marcus glanced out the window at the brilliant sunny day, and hoped it was not too cold out. He did not want to be accused of helping the old fellow get pneumonia. There would be many who would assume it was purposeful, no doubt, not that he cared what a bunch of society snobs thought. But he did care, he found, to his surprise, about his uncle, and would not hasten his demise even accidentally. "Perhaps after that we can come in and you will let me beat you at whist."

"No more hesitation, my girl. You get a proposal from Lord Pelimore tonight! I have arranged with Olivia Howland to have you sit next to him at dinner, so make the most of it!"

This was hissed in Arabella's ear by her mother, just as they entered the Howlands' fashionable Bruton Street residence for a dinner party. She did not need the warning. Just that morning the butcher, who had become increasingly importunate, as they had apparently not paid him a penny since they had come to town, had threatened that since they were staying at the earl and countess's house, that perhaps they would be approached. Arabella had been appalled. She did not want their personal insolvency to be brunted about the streets, especially after that awful Conroy incident, which she was sure would come back to haunt her somehow. And it was unbearably humiliating to think of the Earl of Leathorne, her cousin's father-in-law, being approached for the money.

So she was determined that the end of this night would see Lord Pelimore asking to visit the next morning with an interesting question. But on entering the drawing room where the party was gathered before going in to dine, who should she see but Marcus West-haven, sitting and grinning up at her from a sofa, which he shared with the very pretty matron, Mrs. Olivia Howland.

What was he doing there? She had not seen him since that awful scene on the terrace at the O'Lachlans', and had been glad to hear he was out of town again. But now here he was, as large as life, a broad smile displaying square, white teeth.

A streak of jealously raged through her at the way Mrs. Rowland, sans husband, flirted outrageously with Westhaven. She laid her pretty delicate hand on his arm and snuggled close to his sizable frame, gazing up at him with a simpering expression on her lovely face. And he, the devil, was flirting back, smiling down into her exquisite eyes.

Arabella sniffed, put her nose up, and headed for Lord Pelimore, who was sitting with Lady Jacobs, a buxom, fortyish widow who had reportedly cut a wide swatch through the ranks of tonnish men of a certain age. It was well known that she and the aging baron were intimate, and Arabella thought that it might be good if he had that outlet even after marriage. Anything that would lessen his need for her as companion was to be considered a good thing.

Lady Jacobs looked her over assessingly. "Miss Swinley, how comely you look. I believe I remember that gown from last year; quite one of the prettiest of your wardrobe."

Arabella fought the urge to snipe back after that snide remark. It would not do to appear petty in front of her future bridegroom. A wave of revulsion shook her, but she determinedly suppressed it and sat down next to Lord Pelimore. "As always, Lady Jacobs, you are the picture of refinement."

The woman frowned and looked as though she was trying to find the expected malicious retort in that, but finding none, remained silent.

"I am so very grateful to see you better, my lord, after your recent indisposition!" Arabella laid her hand on the man's arm in a daring show of familiarity, then glanced over at Westhaven. The elderly baron started. But Arabella could not afford to waste time. His lordship had been absent from the social scene for three days, unfortunately the same amount of time Marcus West-haven had been missing as well. Unfortunate because without Westhaven's presence she could have made up for lost time. Arabella was determined, though, not to let Westhaven interfere with her plans anymore. She would ignore him and devote herself to Lord Pelimore.

The company was small, just twelve gentlemen and twelve ladies. When the butler came to the door, bowed, and announced dinner was ready, Olivia Howland jumped to her feet in a swift movement and organized the procession to the dinner table according to her seating plan. Arabella found herself on Lord Pelimore's arm, just as her mother had said. But when she sat down at the table, she found that on her left was Marcus Westhaven. And his gray eyes were alight with mischief.

"What good fortune, Miss Swinley," he said, with a smirk on his face, "that I should have the opportunity to apologize for my shocking misbehavior a few nights ago."

"You were so intent on apologizing," Arabella said, in frigid tones, "I have been home every day, and at balls and the opera every night. You did not see fit to make an effort to apologize, so I cannot believe that you were so very concerned."

He gazed at her steadily. "It sounds as if you are quizzing me as to my whereabouts, young lady. Bad ton. Very bad ton."

Oooh! Outrageous man! As if he would know bad to from good ton. She ignored him.

"I was visiting relatives, if you must have an explanation for my absence. I have been out of the country so long that most of them thought I was dead, it appears."

"What a disappointment to them when you appeared alive and so very healthy." She was being rude, she knew, but she did not care. Lord Pelimore, on her right, was just being served and she waited while his soup plate was placed before him.

"Mmmph, real turtle," he exclaimed as he took a mouthful.

Arabella, who had been about to speak to him, decided it was better to let him eat first, she supposed, since he was so intent on his dinner.

"Do you accept my apology?"

Westhaven's voice was a whisper in her ear, and the small hairs on the back of her neck stood up. Reluctantly she turned back to him. What a pity he was so handsome. That, she had decided, lay at the back of her undeniable attraction to him. That must be all it was. Olivia Rowland at the end of the table was trying to get his attention, probably wanting to make sheep's eyes at him, Arabella thought acidly. It was well known that she was bored by her husband, a minor diplomat attached to the War Office, so it was no wonder she was drawn to Marcus Westhaven. He looked, in the elegant surroundings of the dining room, like a wolf in the midst of a flock of helpless sheep. The other men's finished appearances looked effete and pallid next to his rugged, lupine vigor.

'I . . . I accept your apology, sir, now leave me alone, please!" Where the plea had come from, Arabella did not know, but it was heartfelt. She could not concentrate with him next to her. He radiated some force that held her helpless and confused in the face of it, but she could not allow it to interfere any longer in her pursuit of Lord Pelimore. It was imperative that she sew up this betrothal with no more delay.

There was silence, and she darted a look at West-haven. He was gazing at her with indecision in his hooded gray eyes. He started to say something, then stopped. On her right, she could hear Lord Pelimore scraping the bottom of his soup plate with his spoon. She had not touched her own soup and could not bear to even think about it at that moment. There was something in the air between her and Westhaven, something hanging unsaid, something important.

"What is it?" she whispered, looking into his eyes. The gray of them was dark, with coal flecks in their depths and a coal ring around the iris.

"Arabella, I want to tell you—"

"Miss Swinley, what is all the whisperin' about?" Lord Pelimore chose that moment to be attentive to his dinner partner. They were between courses, so that explained it.

But Arabella could not afford to miss the opportunity, nor could she let him get the wrong impression about her and Westhaven. "We were not whispering, sir; Mr. Westhaven was just informing me that—that I had a curl amiss."

"Mr. Westhaven should keep his 'informing' to himself," Lord Pelimore said, testily.

"It was kindly meant, sir. A lady must always wish to know when her appearance is not . . . not up to scratch." She was scrabbling for conversation and sounded hen-witted at best, she thought.

The baron stared at her. "Can't see anything wrong with your hair, young lady. You look perfect, as always."

"Why thank you, sir."

"Lord Pelimore has found something upon which we concur," Westhaven said, dryly. "You always look perfect. Miss Swinley."

"I suppose your colonial ladies have no time for such nonsense as pretty dresses and bonnets," Arabella said, responding swiftly to what she fancied was some kind of implied criticism. Somehow, even a compliment from him sounded like fault-finding.

"On the contrary; maidens will always be maidens, wherever they reside. There are some remarkably pretty girls in the Canadas, Miss Swinley."

Somehow the answer did not please her as she supposed it ought. It promised to be a long, awkward evening. "I'm sure there are," she retorted. "And I am sure you have flirted with every one of them."

Eight

After dinner, as the gentlemen sat smoking cigars and drinking port, Pelimore gazed steadily at Westhaven through a cloud of smoke. Under cover of a rather loud political discussion taking place at the other end of the table, concerning the Luddite threat and what to do about it, the baron said, "What's your interest in Miss Swinley?"

Marcus, startled, blew out a mouthful of smoke and said, "Interest? I have no interest in Miss Swinley."

"Good. Because just between you an' me, man to man, as it were, I intend to offer for the gel."

Staring at the much older man, his black dinner coat covered in a fine layer of gray ash, Marcus was surprised at the wave of revulsion and anger that swept through him. It really wasn't any of his business, since Miss Swinley appeared determined to have him, too. But he couldn't help himself. "Is she not—pardon me, sir, but is she not a little young for your tastes?"