Chapter 2
Two
At eighteen, raven-haired Lady Juliana Dalrymple was the eldest of the five Dalrymple daughters.
Arabella always said she loved the Dalrymples equally, but when she was honest with herself, in her heart of hearts, she loved the light brown-haired Lady Rebecca Dalrymple more than Juliana.
Rebecca was six months younger than Arabella and far more impressed with her than Juliana was.
Indeed, Juliana had a smugness about her and was always intimating she knew far more than Arabella since she was older.
One evening after dinner, Juliana and Rebecca and Arabella were all together in Rebecca’s bedchamber.
Juliana was sitting at the dressing table, trying on every piece of Rebecca’s jewelry.
Arabella and Rebecca were lying on their stomachs on the bed and looking at the dresses in a copy of Ackermann’s Repository.
“That’s an old one,” Juliana said.
“From this spring!” Rebecca protested.
Juliana sniffed. “When I am married, I will have new gowns made every winter, spring, summer, autumn.”
Arabella looked up from the illustrated plate that featured a pink dress with a large white band near the hem and a white hat that looked almost military in its shape.
“Are you to be married, Juliana? Are you engaged? To Sir Timothy?”
Juliana held up a pearl necklace in front of her throat. “We are engaged to be engaged.”
“I have never heard of such a thing,” Arabella said.
“He has not asked me, but he has asked me if he can ask me.” Juliana lifted her rather fierce eyebrows.
Arabella swung herself around so she now sat on the edge of the bed, her legs dangling off.
“And has he kissed you?”
Rebecca raised her head from the periodical to hear her sister’s answer.
“I told him,” Juliana said primly, “we could not kiss until we were properly engaged.”
Rebecca went back to the Ackermann’s and flipped the page.
“B-but,” Arabella faltered, “what if you don’t like his kisses? What if his breath is bad? Or he is not passionate enough?”
Juliana’s dark brows knitted together, and she glared at Arabella in the reflection of the mirror. “There are more reasons to get married than kissing, Miss Lovelock.”
The Miss Lovelock was to remind Arabella she was not a member of the peerage and had no courtesy title even though her stepfather was a duke and her mother was now a duchess. Her late father had, after all, only been a very rich banker.
“Yes, Lady Juliana,” Arabella said. “But if the kissing is not good, how could the coupling be any better?”
Arabella had shared her sister Mary’s lessons regarding coupling with Juliana and Rebecca a week ago. Juliana had asserted she knew everything already, but Arabella noted she had drawn near and paid as close attention to Arabella as her sister Rebecca had.
Now, Arabella felt the bed begin to shake. It was Rebecca, who rolled onto her back, laughing. An insulted Juliana turned around on the stool and faced a serious Arabella and a howling Rebecca.
“There are—” Juliana started in an imperious fashion, but she could not be heard over Rebecca’s laughter.
And, as the seconds passed, Arabella’s lips could not help quirking into a smile.
Juliana lost her scowl, and she began to titter.
Soon, all three girls were roaring, holding their stomachs and kicking up their feet.
A knock came, followed by the countess putting her head around the door. She was greeted by the sight of three young women, weak with laughter, tears streaming down their faces.
“Girls,” she said. “Henrietta, Emma, and Frederica are preparing for bed. You must hush.” But she smiled and used a kind voice.
“Yes, Mama,” gasped Juliana and Rebecca, and Arabella said, “Yes, Lady Dalrymple.”
The girls quieted themselves, but as soon as the countess had closed the door behind her, there was an outburst of suppressed giggles.
“What I was going to say,” Juliana wiped her eyes, “is there are other reasons to get married besides coupling.”
“Yes,” Arabella said. “Love. Which has to do with coupling.”
“Children,” Rebecca said. “Which also has to do with coupling.”
“Money,” said Juliana. “Land. Titles. Dresses. Jewels.”
“Are you marrying Sir Timothy for those things?” Arabella was shocked.
“I am not marrying him yet! We are merely engaged to be engaged. But perhaps I am drawn to him for those reasons.” Juliana shrugged. “We are not all heiresses like you.”
The Earl Dalrymple had a lovely estate, but the lands were not extensive, and Arabella knew the Dalrymple girls might not have every luxury they wanted.
Also, with five daughters to be married, the funds for dowries would be stretched thin, and the girls would need to marry rich men who had no need of generous marriage settlements.
“But don’t you want love?” Arabella asked.
“I do,” Rebecca said and slipped her hand into Arabella’s and gave a quick squeeze.
Juliana bit her lip. “I don’t know. It seems like love might give someone a desperate power over you.”
“Yes,” said Arabella and smiled. “And you over him.”
Juliana narrowed her eyes. “Are you in love, Arabella?”
“I don’t know.” Arabella looked down at the toes of her slippers.
Juliana leaned forward, intently. “You have some secret, I can tell.”
Arabella had held her thoughts of Alasdair close for months now. She had never kept a secret so long. She had never had a secret so important. She yearned to tell Juliana and Rebecca of her feelings.
She spoke slowly at the start. “I have met him only once. But I think,” she felt herself blush, “no, I know I could be in love with him. Very easily. I want to . . . oh, so many things.”
Now Rebecca and Juliana both joined Arabella in sitting on the edge of the bed, each sister flanking her.
“You must tell us,” Juliana said.
“Oh, please do, Arabella,” Rebecca breathed.
“His name is Alasdair.”
The Dalrymple girls were silent for several seconds.
“I know of no Alasdair among our acquaintance in London,” Juliana finally said. “Is he in Debrett’s?”
“No, he is a physician and lives near Sommerleigh, my brother-in-law’s estate.”
“A physician?” Juliana frowned. “But your two sisters? I mean to say, one married a viscount, the other an earl, and now your mother is married to a duke. I would have thought you wouldn’t settle for anything less than a baron. Won’t your mother oppose your marriage to a mere physician?”
“No,” said Arabella stoutly, but she did tremble a bit inwardly since her mother had permitted her to have Seasons, starting when she was sixteen. What other purpose was there for a Season with the ton of London but to attract a lord as a husband? Her mother must want that for her.
“No, she won’t think it important,” Arabella went on. She must believe that. “My father was a cit and my mother loved him, and he loved her. And she came from farmers, you know.”
The Dalrymple girls did know, of course.
They also knew Catherine had been an actress before she married the banker Edward Lovelock.
And she had now married a duke, seventeen years younger than she, and she was about to have his baby.
The ton had talked of nothing else for the last two months of the Season.
“Tell us more about Alasdair, Arabella,” Rebecca said.
“He is from Scotland—”
The Dalrymple girls hooted at this. Arabella had gone to Scotland the August of the previous year, long before she had met Alasdair, and had come back enraptured.
She had become fascinated by all things Scottish and had had several dresses made up in tartan and, in fact, was wearing a blue-and-green one tonight.
She had even tried a nip of her stepfather Middlewich’s illegal Scottish whisky last month, and, although it was not to her taste, she had vowed she would try it again.
“He is tall and has dark-red hair and green eyes and dimples.”
The description seemed inadequate to Arabella.
How could she put into words the feelings that had swept over her when she had spoken with him?
How she had instantly known he was all that was good and kind.
How he was devastatingly handsome. And for the first time, how she had really understood why men and women wanted to lie down together, naked.
And how he was the not-stupid man of her dreams.
“And his hands . . .” Arabella was lost, thinking about those hands.
“Have you kissed him?” Juliana asked.
Juliana’s question brought Arabella’s mind back to the here-and-now. “I have met him only once, and our meeting was only ten minutes, a quarter of an hour at most. In June. At St. Paul’s Cathedral. So, no, I have not kissed him.”
She thought of Alasdair’s mouth and the dimples that bookended his smile. But I want to kiss him so badly.
“Does he write to you?” Rebecca asked.
“No.”
“Do you write to him?”
“How can I?” Arabella fell backwards onto the bed. “It would be so forward. I have to find some other way to meet him again.”
Juliana scoffed and got off the bed. “You have met a man for ten minutes, and you think you love him. And you want to advise me on my engagement.”
“On your engagement to be engaged,” Rebecca said and fell back so she was lying next to Arabella. She held Arabella’s hand.
“You will see him again, Arabella, I am sure of it,” Rebecca whispered.
Arabella stared up at the canopy of the bed.
She was not so sure.
Every day her memories—of what he looked like, what they had said, how she had felt—waned and became dimmer and dimmer.
And he had not pursued her, had not asked her mother if he could write to her, had not come to London or to the duchy of Middlewich to pay a call.
Surely, if he felt for her what she had felt for him, he would do something.
He had the freedom of action she did not.
Oh, to be a man.
Arabella blinked several times and set her jaw.
No, not to be a man. To have the liberty of a man.