Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
Arabella knocked on Rebecca’s door again.
“May I sit in your bedchamber with you?”
Rebecca drew her into the room immediately, her forehead creased with concern.
“Of course. But why?”
“The doctor and I have become estranged. I do not want to be with all the other guests, and yet I don’t want to be alone.”
Arabella was glad to sit down by the fire with her friend. The brown scarf was in her hands, and she busied herself, folding and unfolding it.
Rebecca said, “You and the doctor? That makes me very unhappy.”
“You may have guessed, but we are not married.”
“I thought perhaps you just did not have a ring, yet.”
“No.”
“So you are his mistress? He is already married?”
“No! No. You should not think anything ill of him. He is not married, and he would never take a mistress. He would be the most faithful of husbands.” Arabella’s throat closed up, and her last words were choked.
“I hear you defending him but not yourself.”
Arabella got up and walked around her friend’s bedchamber.
“In truth, I cannot defend myself. If I had had my way, the doctor and I would have . . . I would not care. Married or unmarried, I would be his mistress a thousand times over.”
“I don’t understand. If he has no wife, why are you two not married? He adores you. I can see it, Arabella. It’s no good denying it.”
Arabella stopped pacing. “He has not asked me yet. And now I feel sure he won’t. We have only just met again. And I have found that the doctor . . . I don’t know how to explain this. The doctor does not believe in female desire.”
Rebecca laughed. “So you will teach him.”
“You don’t understand.”
Rebecca was silent for a minute.
“You think because I am unmarried, Arabella, that I don’t understand desire?”
“No, of course not, I just . . . no.”
“Of course not, because you are unmarried yourself.”
“Yes.”
“You have just fallen into the habit of thinking of me as a younger sister. You should not.”
“No.”
“So here we are. Two unmarried women who understand desire.”
A very long pause, one that was weighty and filled with import. Arabella felt a prickle of unease. She looked at Rebecca, who was still seated, looking at her, waiting. Measuring her reaction, somehow.
Rebecca bit her lip and looked away. “I don’t know what Juliana told you yesterday. But I do know some of why you left London. And I know Lord Morpeth was the one. I heard the Marquess of Painswick whisper it to Mr. Swinton.”
Rebecca brought her eyes back to Arabella’s. Arabella could see sympathy there, and she was so grateful to her friend. But there was something else there, too, wasn’t there?
“You know then that I am not an innocent and have not been one for years,” Arabella said.
“Yes.”
“And your parents regret your family’s connection to me.”
“Well, I don’t!” Rebecca was very loud. “I only regret I did nothing to help you afterwards.”
“You are very kind.”
“No, I’m not.” Rebecca’s tone was mutinous.
This was the second time in the last three days Arabella had thanked someone for being kind, and that person had refused the compliment. The other person had been Alasdair, just before he kissed her for the first time in the carriage.
She gazed at Rebecca. How strange she felt almost the same tension coming from her friend. Some bubbling, dangerous mixture of worry and dread and hope and courage.
“But you are kind, Rebecca, and I am most grateful to you.” She didn’t know why, but it seemed best to stay away from Rebecca, stay on the other side of the room.
Suddenly, the tension vanished, and there was her friend of old. Indeed, tender-hearted Rebecca’s eyes were filling with tears.
“You are safe with me, Arabella.”
Arabella crossed to her and held her hands.
“Of course, I am.”
Rebecca smiled through her tears. “And when the snow stops, I will do everything in my power to help you get to Sommerleigh. To your real sister. But please, I beg of you, reconsider.”
“Reconsider what?”
“The doctor. Punish him only briefly. Unlike most men, he is educable, I believe.”
Alasdair sat on the edge of the bed in the room he had shared with Arabella for two nights now.
He waited. He delayed putting on his shirt, remembering his dream of Arabella pressing her face to his chest in his sleep.
And, this morning, before she had lost her temper, how she had sighed when he had faced her bare-chested.
And how she had said lust had driven her to ask him to turn around.
The swathe covered part of his chest, but not all. Perhaps enough of his chest still showed to draw her closer to him. And she might kiss him again in that wild—and wildly generous—manner, just as she had before his shoulder had gone back into place.
She must have overestimated the time he would sleep. He hoped she would return to the room shortly. Because he wanted to tempt her. He thought he could.
So, he must, in some deep way, believe in her desire.
Of course, he did. Were all the kisses and touches for him and him alone?
And, if that were true, how selfish he was.
No, he believed she felt something, it was just hard to believe it could be in any way as profound and desperate as what he felt.
Because if women felt as men did, every female who went to her wedding bed a virgin had practiced the same self-restraint that Alasdair had.
He shook his head. He could not sort this out right now, when he was alone and had so much turmoil inside of him.
He must find Arabella and talk to her. He managed to get on his shirt by putting his head through the neck hole and his left arm through the sleeve.
His right arm stayed in the sling and swathe, hugged to his body under the shirt.
He put his head out the door and waited. After ten minutes, a chambermaid walked by, carrying a stack of sheets.
“Pardon, but would ye ask Andrews, the butler, to come and speak to me?”
The butler Andrews told Alasdair he believed Mrs. Andrews had closeted herself with Lady Rebecca Dalrymple. Alasdair asked if the butler could inquire if Mrs. Andrews would come and speak to him.
Andrews’ face was grave when he returned to Alasdair, hovering in the doorway of the bedchamber.
“She will not.”
“Pardon?”
“She asked me to tell you she was not disposed to speak to you at this time.’”
“Oh.”
“She seemed quite determined.”
“Did she seem upset?”
The butler shrugged. “I could hear laughter before I knocked on the door.”
Alasdair looked around the room.
“I cannae really be seen downstairs in just my shirt, can I? And the waistcoat and tailcoat are out of the question for now. I suppose ye had better show me to my own room, finally.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
After the butler Andrews had helped Alasdair into his boots and shown him to his much more modest room in the other wing, the butler lingered for a moment.
“You should not give up so easily, Doctor,” Andrews said before he left.
It was not a matter of giving up easily. It was a matter of his inability to dress correctly. It was a matter of her refusing to come to him. It was a matter of his letting everything slip through his fingers. Once again.