Belle of the ball (2 page)

Rage toward her mother warred with her pique that the previous autumn on a visit that was supposed to see her wed to the eligible, handsome Lord Drake, viscount and heir to the Earl of Leathorne's considerable estate, he had been snatched from her grasp by her cousin Truelove Becket, who had accompanied them on the visit as companion to Arabella. And yet she could not still the tiny, sensible voice that reminded her that she had decided that Drake would not do for her. A retired soldier wounded at Waterloo, the viscount was undoubtedly handsome, but the legacy of that famous battle had been a physical limp and frightening nightmares that had plagued him every night. She did not want to go into marriage as some man's nursemaid!

She had discouraged his attentions, but it appeared that marriage had cured him, or something had. When delicately questioned about it, True, now heavy with their first child, claimed he had not had the nightmares since before the wedding. He was cured, and she, True-love, was wealthy beyond the wildest imaginings of a vicar's daughter from a tiny Cornwall village.

"Let us not quarrel about that. Mother," Arabella said. She supposed her mother did have some grounds for a sense of ill usage. Arabella should have been Lady Drake by now instead of her cousin. True, having that tide. It was something Lady Swinley had long talked of and hoped for as the best possible match for her daughter. But by the time Arabella had decided she must make a push to attach him. True had the upper hand, and Arabella had found it beyond her ability to bring the rather imposing Major-General to heel. If that was not quite how things had come about, it was how her mother viewed it, laying the blame equally on her daughter and their cousin. Ultimately it came down to the same thing: they had lost a fortune.

And simply put, the Swinleys were destitute. Lady Swinley swore that when her husband died four years before, she had no idea that they would be so poor. The tide had lapsed due to there being no male heir in sight, but what should have been a stroke of good fortune for his wife and daughter did not aid their finances a bit; the manor house was mortgaged up to the very top of the crenelated roof. A brilliant marriage on Arabella's part was supposed to rescue them from penury, but somehow one Season followed another—Arabella had not yet known that her marriage was supposed to pull them out of the soup—and the right man, wealthy, tided, and handsome, had never come along. Why should they worry though, both mother and daughter thought? There was always Lord Drake. Isabella Swinley and Jessica Prescott, Countess Leathorne, were bosom bows from their school days and had planned, loosely, the match very early. Once Drake was back from the war and had resigned his commission, the visit was planned with the match in mind.

But somehow, Arabella and Drake had not hit it off as they should have. And then with the nightmares and Drake's apparent preference for petite, mousy True-love, Arabella had decided that Lord Nathan Conroy— Drake's best friend, staying at the Leathornes' home on an extended visit—was a more likely conquest. Not as rich, but much more susceptible to Arabella's flirtatious ways. And so while Drake suffered through a bout of fever and delirium brought on by his despondency at Truelove's supposed impending nuptials to another man, Arabella and her mother had taken Lord Conroy's invitation to depart with him to his family home as a sign that he, not as rich as Drake, but still wealthy, could be had.

'T will not tax you with losing Lord Drake if you will not raise the issue of Lord Conroy," Lady Swinley bargained, picking up the book that had fallen from her fingers at Arabella's announcement of the Snowdale snubbing.

"Agreed, Mother," Arabella said. For she could not look back on that visit to Lord Conroy's family home with any degree of comfort, even though she still held herself blameless in the disaster that had made them flee from the mansion in late January.

Lord Conroy's mother, the indomitable Lady Farmington, made Lady Swinley appear as gentle as a ewe lamb. And she was fiercely protective of her son, so Arabella, only staying at the family estate on sufferance and made to feel it every day, could not openly pursue the alliance with Conroy. And he, being a mama's boy and rather afraid of his dragonish mother, and alarmed that he had displeased her by inviting the Swinleys in the first place, had backed away from the preference he had clearly demonstrated for Arabella when they all were at Lea Park-That was when Lady Swinley had made her disastrous and desperate plan, unbeknownst to Arabella. But it did not bear thinking about; it was all water under the bridge. She was still furious with her mother, but it would do no good to berate each other. Their situation was desperate and she needed to find a wealthy husband this Season, or they would be in deep trouble.

And so she told her mother the tale of the morning, and the snub by Lord and Lady Snowdale, and the gentleman stepping in.

"But you put him in his place, I hope?" Lady Swinley said.

"Yes, of course! I said it had just been a misunderstanding, and that the Snowdales were there before me. They spoke to me very kindly after that, and hoped to see me at the Parkhust ball tomorrow night"

"That is all right then. I told you all would be well!" Arabella just wasn't sure. If the Snowdales had heard of the Conroy debacle, then others had, too. And the Snowdales might realize later that she was covering for them in the store that day to make up to them, not just out of class loyalty, which everyone of the ton understood.

It was the one part she felt a little uneasy about. She did not regret doing what she could to repair her reputation in front of the two aristocrats, for she had clearly handled it the only way she could, even though they had cut her. But she could not look back on her treatment of the large gentleman with any degree of composure, though she did not tell her mother that. Lady

Swinley wouldn't understand why she felt badly about snubbing the good-looking stranger to gain points with the noble couple.

But she did feel a little uneasy. It was kindly meant, defending her, and then purchasing her gloves. But could he not see that it just was not done? Where had he been that he could think that acceptable in anyone's eyes? She had enough trouble without adding fast to her list of faults in tonnish eyes. She had been hoping that no one had heard of the terrible outcome of their visit to the Farmingtons', but Lady Farmington had no doubt spread it among all her friends, luckily a small group. Arabella's only hope was that she had made up enough ground with the Snowdales that they would deny the charge against her in public if it should ever come up again. And that would only work as long as the Farmingtons were not in London.

If only her cousin True, now Lady Drake, had been able to sponsor her in London this Season, as she had offered. But Drake—overprotective, Arabella thought—^would not hear of his pregnant wife suffering the fetid air of London in her "delicate" condition, and so she was staying in the country at Thorne House, their home near the Leathornes, his parents. The most he would do was convince his parents to let Lady Swinley and Arabella borrow their elegant Mayfair home for the Season, rent free. It was a valuable boon indeed, but it still would not pay for a new wardrobe and all the other things they needed to present a good front and make Arabella seem a worthy wife for a wealthy man.

She stiffened her back and looked down at her mother, who was lost again in her perusal of the book of dress patterns she had brought in. It was up to her this Season to rescue herself and her mother from penury. Maybe she did not owe her mother any allegiance.

After all, the woman had abandoned her throughout most of her childhood, leaving her at the vicarage, Truelove's family home until her marriage to Drake.

But Lady Swinley needed her daughter now, and Arabella would be there for her. Maybe then her mother would be proud of her. She turned and left the room without a word.

Two

Arabella smoothed ice blue gloves up over her elbows, checking for tears and wear spots as she did so— after all, they were last year's—as she distractedly listened to her mother, who paced behind her while Annie fussed with her hair.

"Now, I have been visiting everyone I know these last two days, and I must say I don't think anyone has heard about. . . about the Conroy affair." Seldom did she refer to that embarrassing time, but when she did, it was as "the Conroy affair." She still did not regret her actions, although the outcome had mortified her. "With a little luck we should be able to manage as long as Lady Farmington or Lord Conroy do not come to London for the Season. I have heard that Lady Farmington has come down with some indisposition; we can only hope it is a lasting one."

"Or fatal," Arabella said, grimly.

Ignoring her daughter as she usually did, Lady Swinley said, "I have made a list of the eligible men who are rumored to be looking for a wife this Season."

A list of men; a list of potential husbands, rather. And not one of them would have laughing gray eyes and broad shoulders, Arabella thought, then caught herself. She would not brood over that impossibly rude stranger! It simply would not do, since she was likely never to see him again. He was clearly not of sufficient social status to attend the same balls and events as Baron Swinley's only child would. That was evident in his lack of manners and ignorance of correct behavior.

"As well, I have made a second list of those men I think might be persuaded to marry, though you haven*t had much luck lately in that, have you?" Lady Swinley gave her daughter a cold look in the mirror, then resumed her pacing, gazing down at a paper she held in her hands.

Sighing, Arabella batted Annie's hands away, took up her bottle of scent, and dabbed just a little behind each ear and in her modest décolletage. She gazed at herself critically in the glass and pulled down a curl, letting it drape artfully near the neckline of her dress. Now she looked perfect. "Mother," she said, glancing up at Lady Swinley with a frown. "It is not like it was in your day, when marriages were always arranged and all the girl had to do was sit back and look demure."

"In my day ladies knew how to capture a man's interest, my girl, regardless of any arrangements made on their behalf!" Lady Swinley snapped. "Men have always needed to be manipulated; nothing has changed in that respect. You would do well to assume a fragile air, but no! You insist on being healthy and vigorous. How is a man supposed to feel protective toward you if you don't look like you need protecting?"

It was an old argument, and Arabella stayed silent.

"Now, first is the Duke of Haliburton's seedling. He is the matrimonial prize this Season, and if you would apply yourself, I think you could get his attention; it is rumored he heir shown a weakness for blondes. He's a little younger than you, just two-and-twenty, but old Haliburton is convinced he is going to stick his spoon in the wall and wants to see the succession assured. So they'll be looking for a healthy gel like you, mayhap."

Arabella frowned at her reflection in the mirror.

"That is Bessemere, right? I have met him. He seems—^I don't know. So very unsure of himself." Weak-willed was what she meant. Rumor had it that he was completely under the thumb of his dominating mother, and that did not bode well for his wife. Just look at what had happened with Lord Conroy.

"And what does that matter? With a firm hand he could be molded into the ideal husband." Lady Swinley consulted her paper. "He is a bookish sort; likely would not bother you too much once you had begotten the heir. Problem there is his mother will likely be screening any gels that capture his interest, and she is a tough one."

"And she is a good friend of Lady Farmington," Arabella said, feeling a chill go down her back.

"Hmm. Thought there was a falling-out there. I shall have to check into that." She made a notation.

Standing finally and brushing her dress into the correct folds, Arabella gazed at herself in the cheval mirror at the end of her dressing room. The gown was from last year, but she and Annie had worked feverishly on it, supplying the ice blue silk with a frothy overskirt of white lace—very expensive but purchased at a warehouse, so much cheaper than the mantuamakers would sell it—and it really looked new. She gazed at her slender figure with approval. Blondes were in fashion this year, and her looks had always stood her well. Without being vain, she knew it was her chief attraction, that and her vivacious manner. It had never been difficult to gain male attention, and never had it been a more vital skill than this Season.

"Next—do you remember from last Season Count Arndt Verbrachan?"

"I remember him," Arabella admitted. He had flirted with her on numerous occasions, but had never seemed interested in marriage. He was good-looking in a dark, cold way and older, probably in his forties.

"It is gossiped that he is on the lookout this Season for a wife." Lady Swinley stopped pacing and gazed at her daughter critically. She gave a nod of approval finally, after pulling the bodice of Arabella's dress down just a little and prodding her small breasts into more showiness. "He is very, very wealthy, but as foreign nobility he will not be looking among the upper titles for his bride, even though it has been rumored that Princess Elizabeth conceived an infatuation for him some years ago and would have been glad to marry him. But he is not a prince, after all, nor even a duke. If it is true that he wishes to marry, he is a good possibility."

Picking up a fan from the dressing table while Annie brought her Kashmir shawl, Arabella chose her next words carefully. "I have heard—" She looked down and bit her lip. "Mother, it has been whispered among some of the girls that there was some suspicion that he was responsible for the disappearance of an opera dancer that he had under his protection."

"Pish-tush! Foolish gabble. And even if he was, those kind of girls take that risk. A man does all sorts of things with harlots that he would never try with a girl of good family."

Arabella shivered and stared at her mother in disbelief. "Mother! She disappeared, maybe died!"

"Slut. Likely all she deserved."