Chapter 2
Sebastian had never been approached by an admirer of his work outside of a college campus, and so Arabella was an astonishment to him.
Beyond the unexpected experience of encountering a like-scientific mind, she was a beautiful woman, and full of natural, bubbly charm.
The majority of his academic conversations were between him and older gentlemen, and so to say he was instantly taken by her would be an overstatement but he was intrigued. A rare part of him had flared up within, urging himself to call after her, not wanting to part so suddenly.
It had taken him by surprise as much as it had her, perhaps.
“It is unusual for a lady such as yourself to take interest in such things,” he said, continuing the conversation.
“So, I have heard,” she quipped, and he felt a rush of excitement at her quick wit and candor. “Though, I do wonder who the authority is on such matters, we ladies are interested in a great deal of things I would have them know.”
“That may well be,” he replied with a chuckle. “I did not know women were allowed in Oxford lectures. I feel I would have remembered you among all the black coats and tall hats.”
“Some of the public ones,” she replied. “They seat us on the third balcony. There are several of us, you know.”
“Ah,” he said. “I see.” There was a small flutter of activity to their right, and they both glanced over to see a small group of commonfolk laughing as they tried to pin a rogue corner of a stray banner back up.
“Does it trouble you?” she asked suddenly, her eyes narrowing just a touch, and he felt a short spike of adrenaline at her cutting glance. “A lady, like myself, interested in the sciences?”
“Quite the opposite,” he said, recovering cheerfully; he saw a faint blush creep back into her cheeks, and he smiled back. “I will take all the minds we can enlist in our quest for knowledge.”
“Quest?” she teased, and he could see her growing more comfortable with the conversation as they continued to speak. “Who does that make you, Lancelot?”
“I would prefer Galahad, if we are assigning monikers," he chuckled. “Lancelot failed his king, if you recall.”
“I do not,” she said with a light shake of her head. “I confess I do not know my fairy tales as well as I should, I do prefer academic texts.”
“What a rarity,” he murmured, rubbing his hand gently over the stubble on his jaw, and he realized how desperately he needed a shave, causing him to glance down toward his shoes with a touch of embarrassment.
Suddenly a child’s voice broke between them, and the sweet-seller’s daughter came running at them, twirling in her fresh tweed skirt.
“Lady Arabella!” the little girl called out. “Look at my new skirt! My mother made it for me!”
“And you look lovely, Ashley,” Arabella remarked without skipping a beat. “Mind not to dirty it with all the mud about!”
Sebastian watched her with the little girl, and an image of domesticity flashed through his mind. Ever so briefly, he imagined a world with a wife and a child, a world which he once thought he would occupy before it had all been violently snatched away in the birthing bed.
The sorrow had long subsided; he had grown numb to the memory of the tragic loss, but for the first time in a long while, the image of family life came slinking back, and it was accompanied by the inkling of something else.
He felt the allure of romance, the idea that love was possible for him.
The feeling quickly subsided, but it left a lingering trace dancing over the back of his head like a soft comforting brush of a pillow.
He tried to dash it away; while the lady before him was beautiful, she was far too young for him. She could have hardly been more than twenty-five, and he was nearing forty. Of course, that was not necessarily abnormal, but something about it gave him pause.
Perhaps it was just an excuse; either way, he tried his best to suppress the confusing flare of emotions in his chest as he forged ahead. One thing he knew for certain was that he did not want to stop talking to her.
“The townsfolk seem to know you well,” he mentioned as Ashley twirled off back toward her mother.
“I have lived here for some time,” she said, watching the girl run off before looking back to him.
“Still,” he said, “it is impressive. Not many would go to such lengths.”
“You flatter me, I live in a manor outside of town,” she shot back with a cocky smirk. “Now come, I shall send you home with a box of sweets.”
“How’s that?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. It was a most unusual offering. A lady buying a gentleman a box of sweets? London might never recover; it was a good thing they were not in London.
“We do not have dukes in town very often,” she said. “Famous dukes at that,” and she waved Ashley’s mother over with a small box of honey pastries. “Take a little Hartwell Green home with you.”
“You are too kind,” he said, gingerly accepting the box.
“Ah!” Nathaniel’s sharp voice pierced the crowd as he came bounding up to meet them, weaving between a number of otherwise happy couples and children running about.
The top of his shirt was undone, and a small scraggle of his chest hair protruded from the open collar.
He looks as if he has just thrown his coat back on, Sebastian thought; it was not the first time he had seen him in such a state.
“I have found you at last! Kingsmere, is that you? By God, how long has it been? Good to see you!”
Nathaniel stepped up and clapped Sebastian on the shoulder, then moved back beside Arabella.
Sebastian’s mouth twitched into a short frown as he saw Nathaniel step closer to her.
He had known Nathaniel for a long time, as their families had been briefly intertwined some years earlier, though Sebastian did not like him.
His reputation was exaggerated of course, like everything was, but it was not baseless.
Seeing him stand so close to Arabella triggered a gut reaction that he did not expect.
“Nathaniel,” he said with a stout nod. “I did not know you were in the area.”
“I have merely asked Lady Arabella to the fair,” Nathaniel replied arrogantly. “Nothing more.”
“Have you tired of poor Gerold already?” Arabella asked, batting her eyelashes at Nathaniel and looking his suddenly disheveled appearance up and down. Her wit was lost on the rake, but Sebastian snorted a short grin.
“What? Gerold? The old boy is just fine,” Nathaniel said with a quick shake of his head. “How do you two know each other?”
“We do not,” Arabella said, “Though I know the duke’s work.”
“Ah! Science!” Nathaniel remarked. “Glorious stuff! The future, they call it. Come, Arabella, we should be away. No doubt your aunt is already fussing.”
“Oh, I doubt that,” Arabella muttered, and Sebastian raised his eyebrow. There was tension there that he could not discern.
“Before you go,” Sebastian said, an idea flashing through his mind. “Let me return the favor.” He turned and quickly purchased another box of sweets matching his own, leaving a crisp coin on the counter as he offered Arabella the gift. “I could hardly leave at a disadvantage.”
“You cannot accept that!” Nathaniel scoffed. “It is improper. He is a total stranger.”
“We have been talking for several minutes,” Arabella shot back. “That is hardly a stranger, and besides, the two of you know each other.”
“That is the definition of a stranger,” Nathaniel balked, and Sebastian couldn’t help but grin.
“You and I know each other,” he said to Nathaniel, “That hardly makes me a stranger.”
Arabella took the box from him and smiled back, and he felt an electric charge run between their gaze, sending a slight shiver down his spine. Nathaniel scoffed aloud as she took it, and mouthed the words thank you back to him.
“Come,” Nathaniel muttered. “We should be away.”
“It was a pleasure to meet you, My Lady,” Sebastian said, bowing his head. “I will look for you in the third balcony.”
“The pleasure was mine,” she replied, holding eye contact with him a touch longer. “Though I shall have no trouble finding you on the floor.”
“Quite,” he laughed back.
There was another charged moment of silence, and then they finally broke away. Sebastian watched them walk back through the festival crowd, and Arabella looked back at him over her shoulder. Their eyes met one last time, and the shiver ran through him once more, and then they were gone.
He stood there in the street, the box of sweets still clutched awkwardly in his hand, trying to make sense of the unexpected encounter.
“What a woman,” he breathed to himself, and then his brow furrowed as he thought of Nathaniel. “And what a fool.”