Chapter 18
Eighteen
Arabella knew she would not be able to carry on her brave act without Alasdair at her side, helping her tell the lie that he was her husband and she was cherished despite what had gone before.
He made it possible for her to pretend she was the woman she might have been if Alasdair had declared himself years ago.
Unafraid. A bit mischievous. Satisfied. Well-loved.
She wanted Giles to know someone had wanted her the way she should be wanted—as a wife.
She wanted him to know she had not shriveled up and died from the pain and humiliation he had caused her.
She had survived, and now she was here with the love of her life, her husband.
Even if the doctor had not yet made that promise to her.
But there was still hope for that, wasn’t there?
Alasdair had forgiven so many of her flaws already.
A laugh rang through the hall, a laugh she remembered. She did not hide her cringe from Alasdair.
“I wondered who among my former acquaintance this might be, but I would have never guessed Arabella Lovelock!”
Giles was walking towards her with swaggering, long strides. Just as light on his feet. Just as big and towering. Same dark hair, dark eyes. She should not be surprised he looked the same. It had only been a little over two years.
She curtsied. “Lord Morpeth.” She could feel Alasdair bow next to her. She put her arm through his and clasped her own hands, forming a link. She felt Alasdair’s other hand settle on top of her forearm.
“This is my husband, Dr. Andrews. Darling, this is Lord Morpeth.” She looked up at Alasdair, willing him to behave.
“Thank ye for yer hospitality in this snowstorm, Lord Morpeth,” Alasdair said stiffly. “I am obliged to ye.”
Oh, good, he was trying to be civil.
Giles’ eyes swept over Alasdair with a degree of curiosity, but his gaze quickly returned to Arabella, and, as he bowed, he let his eyes continue to rest on her.
“I had not heard you had married, Miss Love—I mean, Mrs. Andrews.”
She smiled coquettishly even as the bile rose in her throat. “And I had not heard you were married, either, when last we met, my lord.”
Shock came to his eyes because she had brought their history forward openly and without shame. Oh, yes, she had startled him, she could tell. Here, in his own house, she had put him on his back foot. She felt a great deal of pride in that.
“Oh, but I forgive you for your deceit, Lord Morpeth.” She wished she had a fan or a lorgnette so she could tap him with it. “How young and foolish I was. Not to read my Debrett's and find this out. I look forward to meeting Lady Morpeth.”
“Yes,” he said, and his eyes took on the hurt and pained look she remembered. “She is not well.”
“Oh, I am sorry.” And she was. She almost made a move towards him to show her sympathy, but Alasdair held her tightly by his side, and she remembered that the man with the wounded eyes was not a good man.
The man with his arm laced through hers was.
She looked up at Alasdair, hoping to catch his eye, to show him how much she cared for him and how little for the man across from her, but Alasdair was looking at Giles.
“My husband is a physician,” she said. “Perhaps he could attend on your wife.”
Giles hesitated. “Yes.” He seemed to make a decision. “Come and meet the house party. We are all drinking rum punch and making wagers on how long we will be buried in snow.”
Their host led the way down the hall to the open door of a large, light-filled room beyond.
As they walked, Alasdair removed his hand from where it had rested atop her arm, but she kept her hands clasped, her arms linked around his, staying close, deliberately bumping his arm with her breast and his leg with her hip as they walked.
He did not seem to notice.
Then they were in the drawing room, and Arabella was surprised in the most marvelous of ways.
“Rebecca! Juliana!”
It was the Dalrymple girls, those dear, sweet girls whom she had not seen since she had left London. She broke away from Alasdair’s arm, and there was such hugging and kissing and squealing and giggling.
But she was mistaken. It wasn’t the Dalrymple girls, plural, anymore. Rebecca was still a Dalrymple, but Juliana had married Sir Timothy and was now Lady Colborne.
Arabella curtsied to Sir Timothy, who seemed the same vaguely irritated and fatigued man he had always been.
“And Rebecca, Juliana, you must meet my husband.” In her excitement, she found it easy to think he was her husband, and she longed to show him off.
“Dr. Alasdair Andrews. Alasdair, these are my friends, my very dear friends.” She was unexpectedly emotional.
“Lady Colborne and Lady Rebecca Dalrymple.”
With a serious face, Alasdair bowed and said, “I widnae have guessed ye three were friends.” But then he raised his eyebrows, and Arabella knew he was teasing her, just like a real husband might.
How kind, how good he was. She felt such a warmth that she longed to put her arms around his neck again.
Rebecca clutched Arabella’s arm.
Juliana gasped.
“Dr. Alasdair Andrews,” breathed Rebecca.
“He of the auburn hair,” Juliana said.
“Green eyes!” Rebecca squeaked.
“Scottish burr.” Juliana smiled.
Arabella knew there was one more thing to show her friends.
“Alasdair.” She tugged on his arm, and, when he leaned down with a bewildered look on his face, she whispered in his ear, “Open Sesame.”
He grinned.
“Dimples!” Juliana and Rebecca shrieked simultaneously. Arabella gave Alasdair an impulsive kiss on the ear.
Alasdair shot a questioning glance at Arabella. He must think the three of them were Bedlamites.
“I’ll tell you later.” Arabella formed the words silently with her lips, and Alasdair nodded in acknowledgement. She sighed happily as she moved away from him to sit on a sofa with Juliana and Rebecca.
Arabella cared not one whit she was in Giles’ house in her plain gray woolen traveling dress or that she had pinned her own hair this morning and had not looked at it since then. Juliana and Rebecca were here, Juliana sitting on her right side and Rebecca on her left.
And Alasdair, her Alasdair, was in the room with her.
“You must tell us, Arabella, when did you get married?”
“We have not heard one word of this! Does your mother know?”
Arabella now started to feel uncomfortable. What if Alasdair had no intention of marrying her, ever? She would be caught in the lie if ever she returned to her life in England. But if Alasdair didn’t want her, she would never have a life in England. Never.
“It is very recent,” she temporized.
“Is that why you don’t have a ring?” Juliana asked.
A ring. She didn’t have a ring. She had not thought of that.
“Perhaps you eloped,” Rebecca said.
“Y-yes,” Arabella faltered.
“So not a big wedding,” Juliana said.
Rebecca clutched at Arabella’s hand. “Oh, how romantic. And he is Scottish just as you said. Did you elope to Scotland?”
“We were in Scotland,” Arabella said slowly.
She felt something cold and metal in her left hand. She kept it in her palm but pressed it with her fingers to see what it was.
A ring.
She looked at Rebecca, who smiled at her. She looked at Rebecca’s right hand and saw a red line around her pinky. A red line where a ring had sat until just a moment ago.
“Your fingers are so small compared to mine. I think it will fit your ring finger,” Rebecca whispered in Arabella’s ear as Juliana talked about the elopement of Miss Sarah Lymington to a lieutenant in—now, which regiment was it?—and how they gotten lost on the way to Gretna Green.
And, indeed, the ring did fit.
As Arabella settled herself with her friends, Alasdair met the Marquess and Marchioness of Painswick.
He didn’t much like the look of the marquess, who seemed a vain and preening man.
And the dark-haired and bejeweled marchioness was clearly taking very high doses of some opiate, likely laudanum, as her pupils were approximately a sixteenth of an inch in diameter and she seemed confused as to where she was.
Lord Morpeth introduced Mr. and Mrs. Swinton.
“But,” Alasdair said. “I have surely made yer acquaintance before, Mr. Swinton, Mrs. Swinton.”
The Swintons—he silver-haired and perhaps fifty, she buxom and red-haired and Alasdair’s age—shrugged.
“We travel a great deal for pleasure,” Mr. Swinton said. “It would not surprise me if we had crossed paths at an inn somewhere.”
“Have ye ever been to Sommerleigh?” Alasdair asked.
They looked at each other and again shrugged.
“I don’t recall, Dr. Andrews,” Mrs. Swinton said.
Lady Lyndmouth was introduced next. Petite, blonde, supercilious.
About Alasdair’s age as well. Wearing lavender, the color of half mourning.
A fairly recent widow, then. Sometime in the last year.
She was constantly reaching out to touch Morpeth, to brush his arm or his shoulder.
And if she was not touching him, she was looking at him, following him with her eyes.
Alasdair next bowed to Morpeth’s brother-in-law Sir Timothy Colborne, brother to the unseen Lady Morpeth and also the husband of one of Arabella’s friends on the sofa. Sir Timothy yawned in the middle of the introduction.
Alasdair turned to look at the three women on the sofa, and he could hear Arabella’s laugh and was happy for her. Then he turned his head and observed Morpeth downing a glass of rum punch, also staring at Arabella.
I still want to beat him to a bloody pulp.
A half an hour later, Alasdair could tell Arabella was exhausted, despite the giggles and whispers on the sofa with her friends.
She had had that long walk in the snow before he had thought to put her on the horse.
And, since breakfast, all she had taken was a small cup of tea, having refused the sandwiches in the lodge.
Perhaps she felt she could not eat after hearing she would be soon facing Lord Morpeth.
But how well she had done in the front hall with Morpeth, how brave she had been. Dauntless, as always.
But now she needed someone to arrange her rest and nourishment.
With a start, he realized that someone was Alasdair Andrews.
“Mrs. Andrews should retire. My lord,” he turned to Morpeth, “would it be possible for someone to take us to our rooms? And perhaps for some food on a tray to be brought for Mrs. Andrews? I dinnae think she will be able to stay upright for dinner.”
“Certainly,” Morpeth said smoothly. “In my experience, Mrs. Andrews has a great deal of trouble staying upright, no matter the circumstances.”
Daggers of light flashed in Alasdair’s vision.
He would have thought he was about to have a seizure except the moment passed and he could feel his nails digging into his palms. He willed himself to recall the promises he had made as a young doctor during his training and the promise he had made to Arabella in the lodge.
He then also remembered the piece of tartan sitting between his waistcoat and his shirt. His armor, yes, but also a favor from a lady. He could still parry.
“The privilege of being a husband,” he said through his teeth, “is that I ensure Mrs. Andrews has nae trouble, at all. With anything. Ever. Anywhere. From anyone.”
Morpeth inclined his head. “Indeed, Dr. Andrews.” He turned to his butler, who had been serving the rum punch, and told him to take the doctor and his wife to their rooms.
Oh, to have the privilege of a husband, really and truly. For Arabella to be Mrs. Andrews in law as she already was in his heart.
When they were away from this evil man and his house, Alasdair would lay his soul bare to her.