Chapter 19
Engagement Party
It was just the next day, and the London sky seemed to be in a celebratory mood, the clouds having shed their usual grey for a light white color. Not that it would make any difference to Arabella’s mood, even if there was a storm raging outside. She would still have the same soft smile on her face.
Of course, it really improved the already elevated spirits to come down to breakfast and see the room bathed in sunlight.
The sunlight was spilling through the tall windows in golden stripes of warmth.
The smell of tea and freshly baked biscuits wafted in the air, and the flowers in the vases added to the exquisite scent.
Arabella sat down at the perfectly made table to enjoy her breakfast. Everything seemed better this morning. The silverware was shining under the light, and the linen was soft and so delicately embroidered. She poured herself some tea and was perusing the sandwiches.
She was quite famished. The last thing she had eaten was some cold dishes at the Opera. And after last night…
Her cheeks turned pink at the thought. Her heart fluttered, and her stomach tightened in the most delicious way at remembering how it felt to be in his arms.
“Good morning, Your Grace,” Gerald’s voice filled the air, low and husky.
Her body reacted to him even more, her thighs tightening and her breasts getting heavier. She knew that there would never be a time when she wouldn’t react to him the same way.
She was, at the same time, quite surprised to see him in the breakfast room, since he mostly took those in his room, gracing her with his presence only during dinners.
“A good morning indeed,” she replied.
She was trying hard not to linger on how good he looked in this light. In any light, for that matter, but he was particularly striking this morning. He had that impossible combination of informal ease and a gentleman’s appearance.
He sat down and opened the ledger he had brought with him.
Arabella was getting used to seeing him use his business as a means to retreat from things around him.
She had come to understand that his obsessive devotion to his finances was not a pursuit for money or greed. It was another one of his walls.
She studied him as they quietly had their breakfast. After a while, he looked up from his ledger.
“I would like to remind you that my sister’s engagement party is soon,” Gerald said.
“I have made a note of it on my calendar. After all, it is one of my obligations to make sure everything goes smoothly there as well,” Arabella said.
“I must admit you did excellently with the Pembletons,” Gerald said, and then his voice dropped lower. “I think I made my appreciation quite clear, haven’t I?”
Arabella felt her cheeks inflamed. She had not expected him to refer to the previous night so openly. Whenever they seemed to draw closer, Gerald usually found some way to retreat behind his composure. But this time he was almost… amused.
“I think there has been some mention of my excellent performance last night.”
“Oh, you did perform excellently, Your Grace.”
Her blush went bright red, and she could feel it up to her ears. He chuckled cruelly at seeing her like this.
“You seem to be quite refreshed this morning, Your Grace,” she said with a succoring smile.
“You sound almost dejected by that.”
“I am merely surprised. I was under the impression that certain exertions demanded longer recovery.”
“Are you questioning my stamina, Your Grace?”
If her cheeks had the capacity to get even redder, they deployed that certain ability right then.
“Because I should think,” his voice turned into that low purr that undid her last night, “that you of all people would know that my stamina was never under question.”
Arabella, very inelegantly, choked on her tea.
“Gerald!”
“Yes?”
He was smiling a teasing smile, and no matter how Arabella tried to glare at him, she could all but smile back.
“As I said, my sister’s engagement party is coming soon,” Gerald threw a cold bucket of water over them. “And we need to be prepared.”
“I understand that this is a very important occasion in a family’s life, but you seem more anxious than I would expect from such a common occurrence.”
Gerald lost all his playfulness and looked at her as if he were trying to deduce how to proceed with his thoughts. He was simply trying to evaluate how much he could share with her. How safe it was.
Arabella felt hurt and, honestly, a little insulted. Of course, they hadn’t started their relationship on the right foot, but she would think that she had never given any reason for the Duke to doubt her. And she wouldn’t stay idly by to see him distrust her so.
“Must I remind you, Your Grace, that we are a married couple. We did give an oath, such as it was.”
Very subtly, Arabella was asking him to trust her. He studied her a bit, and she could see that he was struggling with emotion. The ruthless Duke was mostly alone and trusted virtually no one but himself, but now he found himself in a tight spot, needing her help.
“I need to explain to you more about my family, perhaps,” he said after he seemed to reach a compromise between necessity and fear.
“I am listening. Keep in mind that I am well aware that most families hide secrets they do not wish others to know.”
She saw his look get heavy as if he was telling her that she was presenting him with an understatement. Arabella decided to do what her role demanded, as they had divided them, and lighten the mood a little.
“But honestly now, how bad can this be?”
She regretted asking the question the moment she saw the look on his face. If she was expecting merely the fact that he was talking about his half-sister, his half-brother, and stepmother, she realized her mistake soon enough. It was worse than she could imagine.
It was all written in his tight expression, the mixture of anger and anxiety she saw on his face, and another layer that almost barred him from her.
Something that was rooted deep into his psyche, stemming perhaps from his earlier years.
Arabella was wise enough to know not to ask and simply waited for him to be ready.
“There is a reason why I don’t want to be at the engagement party or wedding unaccompanied and a bachelor,” Gerald explained.
He looked away out of the window, mustering his courage, gathering his thoughts, and taming his emotions. He seemed to be lost, and Arabella needed him to be with her in this breakfast room right now.
“It better be,” she said in a light tone.
“You burst into my house, waving a ridiculous contract under our noses and demanding either my sister or me to marry you. And you are, in fact, married just because of that. It would be quite disappointing to think that I was dragged into this situation for a simple misunderstanding.”
His eyes instantly found hers, side-eyeing her with a faint smirk.
It was so delightful to provoke him and see him respond.
At the same time, Arabella saw a little glimpse of guilt in his eyes.
It was as if he only now recognized that his personal problems had spilled into her life and now they were bound together for good.
Gerald exhaled and looked at her over the brim of his cup. They had shared their bodies, but that mattered little if he didn’t share more with her. Arabella, despite herself, admitted that she needed him to trust her.
She wouldn’t expect anything more from the Duke, not love, not affection. Perhaps desire, as he had shown her last night. But you could have that much with the man who was supposed to be her husband. Trust.
“The reason I need to appear in my sister’s engagement party and the wedding with a wife on my arm,” he started explaining.
He paused for a while and turned fully to her. It was bizarre to think that they had gone through so much, that they had given an oath before God and Crown, that they had tasted each other, joined together. And somehow this simple moment was also paramount.
“I am listening, Your Grace,” she prompted.
He took a deep breath and nodded to himself. Arabella had had quite a few victorious moments in her short social life, but nothing compared to this little nod. He was not completely opening up nor surrendering, but it was a glimpse of something more.
“I must appear with a wife so that I can avoid a scandal,” he breathed out.
Arabella hadn’t seen much of the world, but in her little experience, she had developed the skill to manage her expectations. In this matter, she had kept an open mind. But to hear that this was the reason she found herself married to the Duke didn’t make much sense to her.
“Your Grace, many things could be said about you, but your name has never been entangled in scandal before. You are known as ruthless, not as a rake.”
“I never said I would be the one causing the scandal.”
“I am not sure I follow.”
“Let’s just say that my family is quite inclined to seeing me entangled in disreputable behavior,” he said with a heavy tone, looking into his cup.
It took a while to reconcile what she had just heard and what the implications were. Surely he was not implying that his own family was trying to trap him into a scandal.
“I’m sure I did not understand well.”
“You did understand quite clearly, but you don’t want to believe it because you are not a bad person, Arabella,” he looked at her with grief in his eyes.
“I’m afraid that does not apply to all the people in my life.
My family has tried to trap me before, and I think they will have ample opportunity to do so on those two occasions. ”
Arabella was stunned, her haircut set aside in disbelief.
How could one family use such devious methods?
She then just grasped that the reason everybody was calling him a ruthless Duke was because of the way he had treated his own family.
But now it was revealed that he had very good reasons to do so.
Perhaps he was even too gentle with them.