Belle of the ball (20 page)

A well-born and powerful one, even if he was a weak easel. And now he was here, in London at the de la Coursiere ball, with his mother. Arabella turned and tried to hide behind her mask, her heart thudding and her blood pounding in her ears, overriding the music even in its insistent thrum. What was she going to do?

Her worst fears had been realized; the Farmingtons were in London, and it was only a matter of time before those who knew about it—the Snowdales among them—realized where their loyalties lay, and sided with the powerful, rich Farmingtons against the poor and relatively obscure Swinleys. If they hadn't quite believed the story of her supposed iniquity before now, they would once Lady Farmington spread her side of the story among the ton.

Where was Marcus when she really needed him? Eveleen, with her caustic wit and fierce friendship, would lave been appreciated. Even her mother's brazen attitude would have helped her through this, her moment of humiliation. Instead she was alone, and must slink away in obscurity if she was very lucky.

But she was not to be so fortunate. She had started moving toward the ladies' withdrawing room in order to retrieve Annie, who would get her cloak, when she was stopped by a high, fluting voice.

"Why it is Miss Arabella Swinley! Diana the Huntress—what a droll costume for you, Miss Swinley, you sly thing!"

It was Lady Cynthia Walkerton, this year's diamond, and she was as determinedly snide and catty as she had been since learning that Marcus Westhaven, whom she had apparently decided should be one of her conquests, had appeared to prefer the "older" woman to her own sweet self. Arabella stayed silent, longing to race from the room but unwilling to draw attention of that sort to herself.

"But where are you going, Miss Swinley?" The young woman's voice was the clear and carrying sort, even over the orchestra. "Surely you are not thinking of leaving us so early. Miss Swinley?I have not seen your most determined beau, Mr. Westhaven, lately. Has he deserted you?"

Arabella gritted her teeth at Lady Cynthia's determined and ill-timed repetition of her name. All of this occurred on the steps, unfortunately near Lady Farmington and Lord Conroy. Nathan Conroy's face beneath his plain black mask was bleached to a chalky white. Arabella muttered something about being indisposed and tried to slip around the young lady in front of her, but Lady Cynthia moved slightly, blocking her exit, and it was too late.

In ringing tones. Lady Farmington, who eschewed a costume and was therefore extremely recognizable in her customary plum gown, with her maroon and white domino thrown back over her shoulders, said, "I think it infamous that some gels, no better than they should be, see fit to impose themselves on good society!"

There was silence for a moment. The orchestra and the movement on the ballroom floor continued, but the company around the steps all halted and listened avidly for juicy gossip. One gentleman put up his quizzing glass and followed Lady Farmington's glare directly to Arabella.

The Snowdales, who were just moving forward to greet Lady Farmington, looked at each other in consternation. Arabella could almost read their minds. So, they had taken the wrong side. They had been seen to speak with and accept Miss Arabella Swinley, and now it appeared that they should have shunned her as indeed they had originally intended. They had been fooled by her civil manner and her defense of them into thinking her innocuous and perhaps wronged by malicious rumor. They would certainly not make that mistake again. Lady Snowdale drew her skirts closer to her body, as if she would catch some taint from Arabella.

Conroy was silent, and Arabella cast him an anguished look. Surely he knew that that last scene at their house was not her fault? She had thought him a gentleman at least, a gentleman who would not stand by and see her utterly destroyed! Would no vestige of kindness within him triumph over his fear of his mother?

She turned and was ready to leave, when Lady Farmington spoke again, at large and apparently to the assembled company.

"Of all creatures, a fortune hunter is to be most despised. One can never trust a thing she says, for she is willing to say anything to gain her point. Is that not true, Nathan, my son?"

He cleared his throat. 'I—^I concur. Mama, one does never know—uh—"

Arabella thrust her chin up. This was it, the moment she had been dreading since arriving back in London. It was here, and she would be damned if she would go down without a fight. "If you speak of me. Lady Farmington, I would have you address me directly" She put down her feathered mask and squared her slender shoulders, standing to her full height and gazing up at her enemy.

"I would not pollute my own breath by speaking your name!" Lady Farmington's voice was as bitter as bile.

"Then speak not of me, if you have not the courage to speak to me!"

The sound of a collective gasp, a throng gathering in its breath all at once, made Arabella look around. In those few seconds the music had stopped and a crowd had gathered, mostly, no doubt, to greet the Farmingtons, who were very rich and very powerful. She had insulted and defamed a woman well known for her resentful personality and was now irrevocably sunk. Not a single person there would dare speak to her again.

"Harlot!" Lady Farmington hissed.

"Harridan!"

"Fortune hunter!"

"Battle-ax!"

Lady Farmington glared at Arabella, but had no more words to respond with. Arabella glanced around at the gathered crowd, and then fixed her stare on Lord Conroy. "Mama's boy," she said, with disgust, and whirled on her heel, marching away up the stairs. She imperiously told the butler to have her maid follow her immediately.

Reaction did not set in until she was home and Annie had undressed her and left her with a candle to go to bed when she wanted. She sat in front of the fire in her room, and felt a shiver of dread race through her. London society was everything to her. She was well and truly in the soup now, for no man would marry a social outcast. And the story of her supposed "trap" for Lord Conroy would even now be making the rounds of the Due de la Coursiere's ballroom. She would be a pariah, and had nowhere to go. Not even home. What would she do? She circled her drawn-up knees with her arms, laid her head down, and wept.

Sixteen

And that is how her mother found her. It was possible that Annie had spoken to her, but somehow Lady Swinley seemed to know immediately what had happened, for before Arabella was even aware she was in the room, she said, "It has happened, has it not? Lady Farmington and her son are in London."

"Yes," Arabella said, wearily. "I am finished. Lady Farmington has made sure of that by now; if there is anyone who does not know the story by the end of this evening, it will not be due to a lack of diligence on her part."

Lady Swinley sat down heavily in a chair across from Arabella, in front of her small hearth where the rare fire Arabella had felt the need of had burnt down to embers. "If you had only accepted poor William, none of this would have happened."

"William?" Arabella frowned and glanced up.

"Pelimore! William Pelimore!"

'You should marry him, mother. At least you know his given name!"

"Sarcasm will not serve, my girl," Lady Swinley said, harshly. "We have one opportunity left. Lord Pelimore still needs a bride, and he is lazy. I can assure him that you will agree to marriage without further queer starts, then I believe I can wring another proposal out of him."

"Wring another proposal out of him." What a humbling thought that such a thing should be necessary, Arabella thought, and yet it was the best that she would ever get now. All she could do with her life at this point was help her mother regain some comfort for her old age and save the family home from the moneylenders. If she could keep them out of the poorhouse it was not an ignoble end, perhaps. A dull hopelessness set over her, and Arabella nodded. "Very well. I do not think you will be successful, but I promise, if Lord Pelimore should propose again, I will marry him. I see no alternative."

It was a meek and quiet Arabella who met the baron in the parlor the very next morning. Lady Swinley must have apprised him of her agreement, for he did not ask for her hand at all.

"So," he said, wringing his hands together and smacking his lips, "we are to marry after all, eh, my girl? I won't ask what your refusal meant; it is a subject best left aside between us. What say you to a June wedding?"

Arabella, her heart sinking, looked up. "I ... I had rather hoped to go to my cousin for the summer, and be married in September."

"September? What's the matter with June? Doesn't every gel want a big June wedding at St. George's at Hanover Square?"

How to say it? Arabella realized suddenly that Lord Pelimore had come straight to Leathorne House from his place in the country, probably in response to a note from Lady Swinley. He had not heard of her humiliation at the hands of the ton, and did not understand that she wanted to go away, wanted to be out of the harsh glare of public disapproval for a while. No doubt her mother had arranged it this way for a reason; she did not want Lord Pelimore learning about it and rejecting Arabella as tainted goods. They would be betrothed this morning and the lawyers would likely have the marriage settlements signed by the afternoon. He could not escape after that, no matter what, and she would be damned forever as a fortune hunter by her own actions, this time.

And yet she could not tell him. Her mouth would not form the words. And did it matter, really? She was still willing to abide by the agreement they were making. She would still bear him an heir, if it was within her physical powers.

"M—my cousin is with child, and I had hoped to be with her at her lying-in. Her sister is newly wed herself and in the same state, and so cannot be there. Would you—" It was her first bitter taste of having to ask her husband's forbearance rather than planning her life as she saw fit, and it choked her. "Would you grant me this one favor? If we marry in autumn, then we will have the whole winter to ... to get to know each other."

He looked thoughtful for a minute, and suddenly agreed. "All right, Bella. I might as well start calling you by your name now, you know. And you must call me Pelimore. I shall be an indulgent husband this once. We will be married in September."

That day the bells rang out in the city of London, but it was not for the betrothal of Lord William Pelimore to the Honorable Miss Arabella Swinley. It was May 2, 1816, and the Prince Regent's daughter. Princess Charlotte, was married to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, a love match, to all of London's satisfaction. Lord Pelimore was heard to congratulate himself at White's that evening on gaining the hand of the beautiful Miss Swinley on that very propitious day, only to learn from a friend of Lord Conroy's of the scene at the de la Coursiere ball the night before.

To his credit, he defended his fiancée’s honor as well as a man of little intelligence and less wit could. If he was privately furious, he was at least crafty enough not to appear so in public. Better to look like her noble savior than her dupe.

And indeed he was well and truly caught, for just as Arabella had expected, knowing her mother's shrewd and grasping nature, the marriage settlements were signed and sealed. That they were very favorable did not surprise Arabella either. What satisfaction she would derive from the marriage must come from knowing that she was doing her duty; her mother's future and that of Swinley Manor were secure.

May fifth. It was that very day several years before, Marcus Westhaven thought, as he strode out to the hotel stables, that his parents had perished. It was a mournful anniversary, but many years had passed and it was only chance—random chance that he had heard someone mention the date—that he had happened to remember it. Newly arrived back in London, he rode out early, just as the sun sent its first beaming rays over the treetops, to exercise his restive Arabian in the freshest part of the day. He had gotten back to his rooms at the Fontaine late the previous night, but from old habits he did not need much sleep and was an early riser.

He would not be long in London, he thought. Just long enough to see Arabella and talk to her—explain his sudden disappearance, if he could—and then he would head back to Reading. His uncle was sinking fast, he feared, which was why he had stayed so long in the country this time, after an urgent message had come before the Moorehouse ball that he was needed at Reading. The old man had had a bad turn, and had asked for Marcus. He was often sleeping now, a laudanum-induced sleep designed to ease his pain, but when awake he liked sitting with Marcus and playing at piquet or whist.

It was little enough to do for the man, and the doctor seemed to think it was the sole reason he was still living. Marcus had only come back to London on a flying visit because he had a presentiment—he who did not believe in such nonsense—that Arabella was in trouble. How he would find out whether he was right or not when he clearly was not welcome at Leathorne House he did not know, but perhaps some of his acquaintances could tell him what entertainments the lady was rumored to be attending and he could see for himself that she was well. The need to talk to her was so strong it felt like a physical ache in his belly.

He rode his glossy, prancing mount through Hyde Park toward the Serpentine, pondering his day's business. He had to see a London solicitor at his uncle's insistence, to deliver a mess^^e from the old man, but then the day was his own. He was startled out of his reverie by the pounding of hooves behind him. He turned in the saddle to see a horse thundering toward him, apparently out of control.

He bolted into action, riding alongside the snorting, heaving beast and catching the reins, to find that it was Lady Cynthia Walkerton, her eyes wide and frightened and her handsome bosom heaving just as much as her steed's.

"Oh, thank you, Mr. Westhaven, thank you! I ... I don't know what happened. One minute she was walking steadily, and then she must have been frightened by a rabbit or something. How will I ever repay you?"

Marcus leaped to the ground and helped her down from her mount, noting that in such a frightening moment Lady Cynthia's dashing little shako had not come dislodged from her perfectly coiffed hair. She held on to his arm for just a fraction of a moment too long and looked up at him from under the tiny veil that draped cunningly over her hat brim, and he knew as sure as he lived that the horse had been made to run, and that Lady Cynthia, rumored to be a superb horsewoman, had not lost control for a single second.