A Belated Bride (10 page)

“More likely he is completely mad,” she retorted. “Has he recently sustained a fall of some sort? Did he injure his head?”

“When a man loves something, he will do whatever he must in order to possess it.” Right before her eyes, calm, dependable, orderly Mr. Francot surprised her with a look so full of admiration that she almost fell back into her chair.

Heat fanned Arabella’s cheeks. Cook had been right. “It is getting late and my aunts wish to go to town. Thank you for bringing these papers to my attention.”

White lines appeared about his mouth as he hurriedly stuffed the contracts into the leather case and laid it on the desk. “Miss Hadley, I only want what is best for you.” He grasped her hands and held them tightly. “Please listen. You must—”

“There you are, Mr. Francot!” Aunt Jane stood in the

doorway, her shrewd gaze taking in the situation at a glance. “How good of you to stop by, and in such weather!”

He reluctantly dropped Arabella’s hands and turned. “Lady Melwin, how good to see you.”

“Wilson has brought the carriage around. We are off to town before the road worsens. I wonder if you would be so kind as to escort us.”

“I—”

“Thank you.” She smiled graciously. “Such a gentle- man!”

He cast an anguished glance at Arabella, who stu- diously ignored him. Shoulders sagging, he picked up his leather case and gave Aunt Jane a jerky nod. “Of course. I would be delighted to escort you and Lady Durham.”

“I am sure you will be of immense use if we slide into a ditch.” She looped her reticule over her wrist and fixed her bright blue gaze on Arabella. “Robert will be joining us as well. The fresh air will do him good.”

“Don’t keep him out too long. He didn’t sleep well last night.”

“What that boy needs is more exercise and less mother- ing.” Aunt Jane adjusted the bow on her hat to a more sedate angle. “Mr. Francot, don’t you need to collect your horse?”

Arabella watched with amusement as Aunt Jane herded the poor solicitor from the room, alternately admonishing him to hurry while thanking him for his “offer” to escort their party.

Jane watched him leave with obvious satisfaction, then returned her attention to Arabella. “Have you enough to keep you occupied while we are gone?”

“Indeed I do.” She pulled the accounts closer.

“Don’t pore over the books too long, dear. You will go blind.”

“Hmm.” Arabella pinned her aunt with a gaze. “What about the duke?”

After two days of trying every ploy known to try and trick Arabella into the sickroom, Aunt Jane’s shrug was something of a surprise. “He should be fine. I left a bell on the table beside him in case he needs anything. But if you’re anxious, pray feel free to visit him. I’m sure the company would be most welcome.”

Aunt Emma rustled through the doorway, a vague look of worry on her plump face. “Arabella! Thank goodness I’ve found you!” She pressed a hand to her round cheek and announced in accents of doom, “I’ve lost my embroi- dery pattern.”

Aunt Jane fixed an unforgiving eye on her sister. “You just had it in your hands a moment ago.”

“I know. But then I couldn’t find my blue half boots and I set the pattern down to look for them, and then I heard the carriage come around and I knew I should hurry, and now I can’t remember where I left the silly thing.”

Arabella looked down at Aunt Emma’s tiny feet. “But you are wearing your red boots, not the blue.”

“Oh, yes! The blue ones pinch my feet so I decided to wear the red, after all.”

Jane snorted. “Shatterbrained old woman. Did you look in the sitting room?”

“I’ve looked everywhere. I even checked the attic.”

Arabella refrained from asking why Emma thought her pattern would be in the attic. “Where is the last place you remember seeing it?”

“In the morning room. But I already looked there and it

is nowhere to be found. I am beginning to think . . .” She sent a meaningful glance at the portrait of the Captain.

Jane gave a brisk nod. “Yes, he does seem to be quite active lately.” She leaned toward Arabella and said, “I lost two pair of stockings just last week.”

Emma blinked. “What would the Captain want with your stockings?”

“He is a
pirate
ghost, you ninny. Pirate ghosts can’t help but be attracted to naughty items like stockings. It is in their blood.”

Emma appeared much struck by her sister’s undeniable logic.

Arabella took Emma’s arm and led her to the hallway. “You had better leave before the weather turns.” Promis- ing to find the missing pattern, Arabella walked her aunts to the door and handed them over to Ned, who helped the elderly ladies into the carriage.

With a sense of relief, Arabella watched the coach clat- ter down the drive, a forlorn Mr. Francot riding behind. Finally she would have some peace and quiet to finish the accounts.

She started to walk past the morning room, but stopped. Most likely Aunt Emma’s lost pattern was right where she’d left it, on the table by her favorite chair. Ara- bella entered and walked briskly to Aunt Emma’s chair, placed by the window to catch the morning light.

“There you are,” said a voice from behind her. Arabella slowly turned around.

Lucien sat in a wing-backed chair by the fireplace. His black hair still damp from a bath, his jaw scraped clean of whiskers, and his shirt hanging disgracefully open at his neck, he looked dark, handsome, and arrogant.

Arabella forced herself to remember what a treacher- ous dog he was. She was helped by the sight of Aunt

Emma’s favorite shawl laying across his lap, clashing hor- ribly with Aunt Jane’s best scarf of India silk that was tied about his arm like a sling. Even confined to the sickroom, he had managed to work his magic over her aunts.

He gestured to the chair opposite him, separated only by a low table bearing a silver tea tray. “We have a con- versation to finish, madam.” His mouth curved in a lazy smile, his green eyes glinting with humor. “So . . . will you run? Or will you stay?”

nm

Chapter 7

“W

hat do you want, Lucien?”

“Conversation. Pray have a seat.” Lucien regarded Arabella, from her worn boots to her mussed hair. Her drab gown served as a foil for the riot of color that brushed her cheeks and lips. Arabella made Sabrina’s cold, perfect beauty fade into nothingness.

Her gaze flickered over him, lingering for an instant on his chest before she looked away, adorably embarrassed. “Did my aunt have anything to say to your traipsing about the house half dressed?”

She may have been embarrassed, but he was assailed with the desire to bare even more just to watch her deli- cious reactions. Heated by his own wayward thoughts, he cleared his throat. “Your aunt had plenty to say about my attire. The Hadley women are not known for their meek ways.” Her eyes flashed and he chuckled.

His Bella had developed into a woman of extremes, with a temper as rich as her passion. He had an instant

82

vision of Arabella, flushed from passion, her hair stream- ing across her white shoulders and—

Lucien stirred, his manhood taut and ready. He tugged Aunt Emma’s shawl farther across his lap and silently cursed his too-vivid memory.

Arabella’s eyes darkened with suspicion. “I hope you didn’t upset Aunt Jane.”

“Don’t be absurd.” In Lucien’s opinion, Aunt Jane was a woman-shaped piece of cold, hard steel covered with a very thin veneer of lace and muslin. Before Arabella could harangue him further, he added, “I don’t wish to discuss your aunt.”

He half expected her to refuse to speak to him. But, pluck to the backbone, she showed her teeth in a chilly smile. “What
would
you like to discuss, Your Grace?”

He gestured to the chair. She eyed it warily as if she suspected he had placed a spider on it. He grinned. “What’s wrong, Bella? Afraid?”

That lit the fires. “Of
you
? Ha!” She marched to the chair, but perched on the very edge it, ready to fly at a moment’s notice. “What do you want?”

Lucien hooked her chair with one foot and pulled it closer, ignoring how the delicate wood scraped past the small table and jostled the creamer.

Arabella gasped, her hands clutching the thin armrests. As soon as he pulled her within touching distance, she favored him with a cold, flat stare. “You have two min- utes, and then I’m leaving.”

She could not have appeared more disinterested if she’d fallen asleep in the midst of the sentence.

His eyes narrowed. In his drug-induced dreams, she had not been disinterested. No, she had reacted much the same way she had in the carriage, with a throaty moan and a wild sensuality that had flamed his passion even higher.

He leaned forward and pushed one of the waiting cups toward her.

“I don’t have time for tea.” “Why not?”

“It is Thursday. I always work on the accounts on Thursday.”

Though he wasn’t vain, it irked Lucien that an attrac- tive woman would think a dry list of numbers of more interest than sitting with him. In London, he was consid- ered quite a catch. The only way he’d found respite from the hordes of matchmaking mamas was to wear unrelent- ing black to every social function, obliquely announcing his widower standing to one and all.

A flicker of something unusual flared in his chest. Ara- bella was a challenge: a woman who knew her worth and questioned his. And the fact that it was she who chal- lenged him made it all the sweeter.

He shamelessly used the one topic he knew would melt her icy facade. “Your brother visited me earlier.”

“Did he?” She hesitated, then added, “He can be dis- courteous at times. He so hates it when people pity him.”

“I’m hardly in a position to pity anyone other than myself, especially after being in the care of your aunts for two entire days.”

A smile hovered on her mouth before she regained control, her lashes dropping to conceal her expression. “Robert chafes under such constant attention. I’m sure he is glad to have some male company. He is quite outnum- bered in this household.”

It was fascinating the way her face softened when she spoke of her brother. “I found him to be remarkably intel- ligent.”

Her gaze darkened. “Yes, but much too quiet.”

“Not when he wins at chess. I’m sure you heard him crowing throughout the entire house last night.”

She chuckled, the sound rising from her throat and spilling over her lips until he wished he could capture it with a kiss. He focused on her plump lower lip and the shorter one above it. Together, they formed the perfect mouth, one that would part sweetly beneath his.

Lucien bent his leg slightly and rested his knee against the edge of the table to hide his too-obvious reaction to her presence.
Bloody hell, all this from just looking at her
. Heaven help him if she accidentally touched him.

Damn Aunt Jane’s potions. How long did it take to recover from that vile mixture? He took his emotions firmly under control. “So many things have changed since I was here. How did Robert come to be confined to his chair? And your aunts, when did they arrive?”

A speculative gleam lit her gaze, then she settled her shawl about her shoulders and reached for the teapot. “I shall tell you all about my family,” she replied coolly, “after you tell me what brings you to Yorkshire.”

So that was the way of it? She still couldn’t resist a direct challenge. Lucien hid a grin. “I was on my way north to meet someone regarding a purchase.” Not for land, of course, but there was nothing wrong in letting her think otherwise.

“It was very improvident that your horse bolted across the road just as our carriage rounded the bend. You could have been killed.”

“But I wasn’t.” He watched her elegant, capable hands as she poured the tea and wondered what it would take to get her past her anger and back to the passion she’d once felt. The idea tantalized him.

“Tell me something,” she said abruptly. “Why were

you out riding the moors at that time of the night? Surely you were not meeting someone so late?”

He met her gaze with a direct one of his own. “What were
you
doing out on the moors at that time of night?”

“Visiting one of the tenants,” she said, her answer clearly practiced. “Mrs. March was ill and I took her some soup.” She lifted the cup and held it out to him. “You may ask Aunt Jane if you do not believe me.”

He had little doubt that Aunt Jane would confirm every blasted word. Lucien took the cup, barely keeping himself from making a face. He hated tea. “Speaking of your lovely aunts, do they often conspire to keep wounded guests confined to their sitting room by dosing them with sheep tonic?”

“Oh, no. You are the first.” She dropped not one, but three lumps of sugar into her cup. “You should be flattered that they believed you to be of such value. It isn’t often that they leap to such heights of impropriety.”

He watched, fascinated, as four dollops of fresh cream followed the sugar. “How did they come to stay with you?” “They were widowed within a few months of each

other. When Father got sick, I asked them to stay.” “And your brother?”

She took a sip of her tea, grimaced, and then added another lump of sugar. “My brother has seen more sadness than any person should. He was in the light cavalry at Waterloo. His unit was decimated.”

Lucien whistled silently. The fate of the cavalry at Waterloo was almost legend. They had led the charge with a rousing roar, fighting with a frightening fierceness and skill that had allowed them to bring down ten times their number of the enemy. But they had paid dearly for their bravery and only a handful had survived the final battle.

Arabella set down her cup and placed a crème cake on

a plate. “Two of his childhood friends were there, fighting alongside him. Neither survived.” Her eyes darkened and she placed the plate on his side of the table. “Robert will not speak of it, but I know it grieves him greatly.”

Apparently Arabella wasn’t the only member of the Hadley household whose every action could be traced to stubbornness and pride. Lucien thought of the thin, quiet boy who had so single-mindedly played chess with him the night before. “Perhaps he just needs time.”