Chapter 22
Arabella
With absolutely no decorum, I ran to the drawing room door after Rowan. I stopped just short of it, plastering my body against the nearby wall. With all the discretion I possessed, I leaned forward and peered around the corner. Sure enough, Rowan was headed straight for Papa’s office.
This was the plan.
I wanted this to happen.
I needed this to happen.
I wanted to scratch out last night’s verbal agreement between us with my pen and write a new ending—one where I gave Rowan a second chance.
But that was foolish, wasn’t it? I had let my heart overrule my intelligence.
There was still the fact that Rowan didn’t know about my writing and the part where he would mock it and destroy the greatest source of happiness I’d had these many years.
The door to the study opened, and Papa stuck his head out. My feet began to dance in place. Dare I create a scene and put an end to this madness? Or should I stop the madness that was me, Arabella Delafield, the insane woman who had developed feelings for her archnemesis?
My deliberation had taken too long, and the decision was made for me. Papa and Rowan entered the study and shut the door behind them. My feet were moving before I could stop them. Not a moment later, I had my ear to the study door, wishing I could decipher the mumbled sounds from within.
In a fictional story, I could have made out every single word. Why was this door so thick?
Frustrated, I pushed back and marched away.
It was done. Rowan and I were no longer promised to each other. Now that my future was safe, I could return to my writing pursuits. I made my way up the stairs to my bedchamber.
There on my writing desk were my paintings. I knew Rowan must have taken them and then had felt too guilty to keep them. Why had he been trying so hard to win me? Was it because of the bet with his friends? My body seemed to conjure up the recent memory of standing in Rowan’s arms.
I was too scared to believe that those feelings were real, and yet my body felt flushed and warm, and there was no pretending that I felt myself spiraling like a top ready to crash against the nearest wall.
I smothered every thought and desire as deep as I could. I had a book to write.
In the bottom drawer, beneath my stack of blank parchment, I pulled out the adventure of Penelope Waters.
She needed no man. No hero. She only required her wits about her, and she would be able to return home a legend.
I stretched the fingers above my sprained wrist, testing their strength.
It seemed much improved, just as Penelope’s future would be.
Taking up my pen, I dipped it in ink and set it to paper, writing the first words that came to my mind.
Now was not the time for finesse, but results.
Penelope was going to be as free as I was.
Penelope rushed to the window. If she could manage to squeeze through the narrow opening, could she survive the forty-foot fall to the alligator-infested moat below?
She studied the swirling, muddied water below and gasped when a man’s arm stretched forth from its depths and grabbed hold of the castle wall.
Another arm came up, and then his upper body emerged.
Gasping, she stepped back from the window. Even without seeing those daring brown eyes, she knew his identity. It was the man she swore she would never love . . .
I jerked my pen from the paper. No! This was all wrong. I did not write gothic romances. And I most certainly wasn’t about to memorialize Rowan Ashworth in a book. Penelope was supposed to save herself!
Disgusted, I pushed the paper away from me. I was certain my regular writing flow would return the moment I was free from my promised arrangement. At least now my words had come as easily as before—even if they had come out all wrong. Romantic fantasies did not belong in my writing.
I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples. Perhaps it wasn’t the agreement but my feelings that were causing the trouble.
Only half of my problems had been resolved.
I still had a ball of emotions in my chest that needed to be unraveled.
I both disliked and liked the same man. I had to get to the bottom of it.
With a little work and a few direct questions, shouldn’t I be able to discover how Rowan could possibly be both those people?
If he had truly changed and I could forgive him, would I be able to return to my normal writing habits?
With tears in my eyes, I prayed it was so.
I needed my writing desperately. It was how I coped with the world, and it was going to be how I managed to survive a marriage to Mr. Clodwick.
I rested my forehead on my desk, my lips trembling.
There was no happy ending in my story, was there?
Not for me and not for poor Penelope. My hand went to my heart.
It felt like it was bleeding with how it ached.