Chapter 17 #2
Arabella’s heart started to pound as her butler stepped aside and Silas came into the room.
Her sisters were already greeting him, welcoming him without hesitation.
He smiled at them, but then he looked at her and she felt the air go out of her lungs.
How could he do that to her? She had experience with men, she knew how to make them dance on a string and feel like they were in control.
And yet this man moved her.
“Arabella,” he said, and came toward her.
He caught her hand, his thumb stroking across the ridges of her knuckles gently. “Silas,” she said.
“Oh, kiss him already,” Evelina said with a laugh. “We’re no proper ladies here.”
He glanced toward them with a flash of a wicked grin, then caught Arabella around the waist and tugged her to his chest. “May I?”
She nodded and found herself lifting to him, meeting his lips. He didn’t devour her, they had enough decorum to keep from doing that in front of her family, but he certainly claimed her. When he set her aside gently, she felt dizzy from the pressure of his mouth, the taste of his lips.
“Well, that starts my night out very well,” he said.
“Would you like a drink, Mr. Windham?” Evelina asked, and moved to the sideboard.
“I wish you two would call me Silas. If you can call your stuffy old duke Harry, I must have the same courtesy.”
Evelina tossed a look at him over her shoulder, playful outrage. “Ugh, I’ll have you know my Harry is anything but stuffy.”
“He is a little stuffy, Evie,” Julia said, and winked at Silas. “He talks about crop rotations, Silas. You’ve no idea.”
He rolled his eyes theatrically and then threw a smile toward Arabella. “How have you survived him?”
Evelina brought him a whisky with a smile. “Well, he’s terribly rich and very generous, of course.” She grew a little more serious. “And I believe I care for him more than I’ve cared for any man I’ve ever known.”
Silas’s brow wrinkled a little at that passionate declaration. He sipped his drink and finally sat when the women did the same. “So it is a match of affection?”
Evelina nodded. “Yes. We met at the Donville Masquerade, so it was very passionate as a start. I was just ending my last arrangement and Harry pressed very quickly for a new one. He showered me with gifts and notes. And he made promises, all of which he’s kept over our time together since.”
Arabella let out her breath. She wanted Evelina to be happy, of course, and there was a great deal of happiness between her and Harry.
But sometimes she saw how deeply Eveline cared for the man and she worried.
The duke would have to marry one day. What would happen to Evie remained to be seen.
He made promises, Arabella knew, about keeping her, having her as his true bride even as he fulfilled his obligations.
But without legal standing, could a woman truly expect those promises to be kept?
“And what about you, Julia?” Silas asked. “Do you have a gentleman in mind to be your next protector?”
Julia let out a long sigh. “No one interests me as of yet. I’ve not the bubbly personality of my sisters, I suppose.
All my affiliations have been much more temporary, fleeting.
I would like something longer term this time, something with heart to it like Evie and Harry have.
So I’m being careful and trying to weigh my options when I go out with friends or my sisters. ”
“That’s very reasonable,” Silas said. “I could ask around, see if there’s anyone who might fit the bill.”
“That would be very kind,” Julia said. Then her eyes widened. “Oh, I’d forgotten to tell you, I have gossip!” She looked at Silas apologetically. “You don’t mind gossip, do you?”
He leaned forward and waggled his eyebrows at her. “I adore gossip. And there was never a better source of it than the courtesan network.”
Julia smiled at him and then turned toward her sisters, hands clasped. “I was out with Bianca Reynolds last night, we went to a play, and we saw Lady Blackburn.”
“The Earl of Blackburn’s wife?” Evelina asked, her brow knitting slightly. “He’s a friend to Harry.”
“The very one. She was alone, Blackburn wasn’t in sight and then Bianca told me that most scandalous thing. The couple is getting a… divorce .”
The effect of that startling news on the rest of the room was instant. All three of their mouths dropped open. Divorce was legal, of course, but difficult and expensive and always a terrible disgrace. Arabella couldn’t think of the last one she’d heard of.
“A divorce,” she breathed. “Why in the world would they do that? Couples of that level can live apart very nicely.”
“They say she has a lover, a titled lover at that. I’ve heard that isn’t all that rare for her, but this time it sounds like she wants to marry him. It’s already in motion, apparently, has been for months and somehow Blackburn kept it quiet. But within a few weeks it’s likely everyone will know.”
“Poor man,” Evelina said softly. “Oh, that’s a shame.”
“Indeed,” Silas said. “I knew of him in school. He was a decent fellow.”
Arabella looked at him. “Where did you go to school?”
“Eton,” he said, then laughed. “Oh, all three of you just got the most shocked looks on your faces. Do I seem too much a dolt for that?”
“Too clever for such a place is more likely,” Arabella said. “I didn’t know you were sent to such a prestigious school.”
“Because I’m a bastard?” He shrugged. “I think my father had the idea that I could have the bad blood educated out of me. That I’d get a vocation that he could sniff his nose at, but still support.
That I’d stay under his thumb. Instead I played pranks and got in trouble and eventually got kicked out. ”
“The pranks don’t surprise me,” Julia said with a shake of her head. “Arabella was also wild with her pranks as a girl.”
He turned toward her, face lit up with laughter and interest. Her breath caught at the absolute beauty of him. “Well, I must know more about this,” he said.
Arabella shook her head and hoped she didn’t sound as breathless as she felt. “They exaggerate.”
“You added bitter berries to Miss Jenson’s cordials.” Evelina said.
Arabella shrugged. “She sold them as curatives when she knew they weren’t.”
“What about when you climbed up that tree on Hogbellow Lane and convinced Ian Marshall that you were a spirit of the forest watching him?” Julia giggled.
“Well, he was gashing up the trees for no reason and harassing the baby squirrels.” Arabella folded her arms. “He deserved a set down.”
“He almost pissed himself,” Evelina said.
“Sounds like he deserved it.” Silas’s tone was even, as was his gaze on her face.
“He really did,” Julia agreed. “Actually, now that I think of it, Arabella only ever played tricks on people who did deserve it.”
Arabella shifted. “You make me sound like a heroine not a hoyden, which is utterly ridiculous.”
“Not so ridiculous,” Evelina said with a gentler smile for her.
Arabella was happily kept from having to respond to that when Barnaby entered the room to announce supper.
Arabella rose to lead them into the dining room with her sisters behind her, flanking Silas on either side and telling him tales about her walking fence rails and altering the sheet music at an assembly hall so that the orchestra played nonsense and ruined the dancing.
And he laughed at every story as he slid quite perfectly into her home and her family. Even though she had to pull him away from all of it in just a few hours.