Chapter 10 #2
“I do love an auction,” Felicity said after the door closed.
“It seems there is always a bit of awkwardness when someone does not win the item they wished for. I once saw two men nearly come to blows! Though perhaps the art will be too terrible for anyone to bid. It certainly would be if I were the one supplying it.”
“Perhaps we should not go,” Arabella said, hardly hearing her cousin.
Felicity’s brows snapped together. “What? Why not?”
Arabella hesitated, grasping her fingers together absentmindedly. “I do not wish to see Mr. Hayes.”
“Oh, Bella,” Felicity said, coming up to her. “Do you not see? This is the perfect opportunity to show him how little you care about his disappearance at the ball.”
Arabella took a moment before responding, for the disappearance had preoccupied her ever since.
She did not wish for this to be the case.
She wanted to be as nonchalant as Felicity.
Perhaps acting that way would help her feel it.
She could not avoid Mr. Hayes forever, after all, and she could not let his poor behavior dictate where she went and how much she enjoyed London. “You are right.”
“Of course I am,” Felicity said. “You must have the most grand time there and converse with as many eligible young men as you possibly can.”
“And ignore Mr. Hayes,” Arabella said, feeling this detail needed to be added for clarity.
“No, no,” Felicity said.
“No?” Arabella asked in bewilderment.
“Purposely ignoring him is simply another way of showing how much sway he holds over you.”
“Oh,” she replied faintly.
“Here is what you must do. You will treat him as any other young gentleman. If you pass him, you will smile”—Felicity demonstrated—“and offer him a kind greeting. And then…” She raised her brows, prompting Arabella to respond.
“And then…I…will…”
Felicity smiled as Arabella’s response never came. “You will continue on your way to speak with someone else.”
“That is precisely what I was going to say.”
Felicity laughed. “It will drive him mad, Bella. Just you wait.”
Arabella was not so angry with Mr. Hayes that she wished for that, but she did wish for him to feel just a bit sorry for what he had done.
Arabella gazed up at the Egyptian Hall as she waited for Aunt Louisa to descend from the carriage. The building facade was unlike any she had seen, with creamy stone, a flat roof, various trapezoidal windows, and two Egyptian statues standing guard over the entrance.
She had never seen anything like it.
They made their way inside and were soon in a hall lined with ornate columns covered in designs and hieroglyphs.
The walls and ceiling boasted similar artwork, while a tall, domed window let in light from the sky.
A violinist and cellist sat in the far corner, playing music for the people who roamed the tables covered in artwork.
Mr. Hayes was nowhere in sight.
Perhaps Mr. Fairchild had told him that Arabella would attend, and he had made his escape early.
“He is not here yet,” Felicity said.
“Who?”
Felicity smiled at her. “Very good. Shall we look at this infamous artwork?”
They started at the nearest table, where a painting of a hunting party sat on a stand.
In front of the frame were small squares of parchment and a polished wooden box with brass fittings, a keyhole, and a rectangular hole in the top.
Identical boxes sat in front of all the pieces of art in the room.
Arabella gazed at the painting, impressed with the abilities of the artist, who had signed the bottom right corner in illegible script.
“That is enough for now, I think,” Felicity said after the sixth painting. “Time for a bit of socializing.”
As if on cue, Mr. Hayes, Mr. Yorke, and Mr. Fairchild came through the door, and Arabella’s heart gave a responsive stutter.
“Do not look,” Felicity said, slipping her arm through Arabella’s and pulling her toward Aunt Louisa. “You are not even aware he is here.”
“I am not,” Arabella confirmed, focusing her gaze anywhere but on Mr. Hayes, though her body seemed ever-aware of him.
Aunt Louisa was speaking with a middle-aged man and, based on their resemblance, his son, who had sandy blond hair and a handsome face. Arabella and Felicity were introduced, and Arabella did her best to keep her focus on the conversation with the Lybberts.
When her gaze flicked to Mr. Hayes for a moment, she found him looking at her.
She immediately returned her gaze to the younger Mr. Lybbert, who had engaged her in conversation while Aunt Louisa and his father spoke. Felicity had disappeared—a talent she and Mr. Hayes seemed to share.
Should Arabella nod or acknowledge Mr. Hayes in some way? She seemed to have no sense for the right way to go about things. She was certain she should not have looked at him in the first place.
And yet, no matter what she did, her gaze gravitated to him.
It was the need for comprehension that drove it.
Of that she was certain. Some part of her hoped that, by looking at him, she might solve the riddle of him and reach some understanding of what drove him to tease her and make her feel like the only person in the room one minute, then to fade into the crowds and desert her the next as though he cared not a jot for her existence.
Would it be so wrong to simply ask him? To demand an explanation for his behavior?
She managed to go twenty minutes without allowing her eyes to veer in his direction, but that was only thanks to Mr. Lybbert.
He must have been nearing thirty, but his age and time in Town had apparently not granted him the conversational skill one might have expected.
Arabella was obliged to ask question after question to avoid awkward lapses in their exchange.
The task required all her concentration, for Mr. Lybbert responded with short answers and never turned a question back to her.
It exhausted her and made her wish heartily for Mr. Hayes’s teasing and easy conversation.
Her eyes wandered the room until they found him standing in front of a painting.
He stared at it, head tipped to the side in contemplation.
His hands were clasped in front of him, pulling the sleeves of his coat taut over his back.
That was when she spotted it, dangling just below the cuff of his gray coat: the butterfly pendant.
Her gaze flicked to his face. What was this man about?
He had not even been able to bring himself to bid her good evening after their dance or to fetch the drinks he had promised her and Aunt Louisa, and yet he insisted on wearing that bracelet—her bracelet, according to him.
Beyond that, he had made no effort to seek her out here with an explanation for his behavior.
She could not see the reason in any of it.
Mr. Lybbert stared at her, apparently waiting for her to introduce the next topic of conversation, and Arabella suddenly felt tired. Tired of manufacturing conversation with this dull man, tired of trying to play the part Felicity had given her, and tired of playing a game she did not understand.
“Would you excuse me, Mr. Lybbert?” she asked politely.
“Yes,” he said in his particular, bald way.
She curtsied, then, with a hammering heart, made her way over to Mr. Hayes for answers.