Chapter 3
The carriage ride back from town was a laborious journey as Arabella tried to tune out Nathaniel’s ramblings, thinking of Sebastian and the box of sweets in her lap.
The coach bounced gently along the road, which grew increasingly unkempt the further they got from Hartwell Green, and Arabella gazed out the window at the passing trees and hedges.
The countryside was so beautiful in the early fall, before the trees had lost their leaves and were just beginning to change colors.
“And so Gerold,” Nathaniel went on, waving his hands about dramatically.
His wiry frame heaved with each loud sentence, apparently unable to control the volume of his own voice.
“He is standing up in the window, the glass is broken, snow is coming in, and he falls straight out! Tumbling backward like a sack of flour in a warehouse! God, how we laughed, of course, only after we had stuck our heads out to see him safe in the snowbank.”
Mrs. Farleigh looked at him with disapproving eyes, but of course her mood went entirely over his head, as did Arabella’s. “God, that was a season, the late snow had us all by surprise. Do you remember it? The snow in Trafalgar square, what a sight!”
“I did not attend,” Arabella muttered, still watching the foliage.
“What? Why yes, it was a gentleman’s evening,” he said with a confused expression.
Confusion does not suit him, she thought, his confidence the only thing propelling him forward most of the time.
“No, the Season,” she said, finally breaking her gaze away from the window. “I was not in London last year.”
“How can that be?” Nathaniel asked, raising an eyebrow. “Everybody was there, and I do mean everybody.”
“Even Duke Kingsmere?” she asked, and Mrs. Farleigh raised a cautious eyebrow.
“I am sure he was somewhere,” Nathaniel said with a wave of his hand, and then he frowned as he thought longer on the issue. “I could not say one way or another. Now that you mention it, I have not heard anything of him courting, though, I do say, it is overdue.”
“Overdue?” she asked, her finger running along the edge of the paper box in her lap. “What do you mean?”
“Awful business with his wife, years ago now,” Nathaniel said flippantly as they went over a rut in the road and everyone endured a brief bounce. “Died in childbirth. Can you imagine? Just awful,” and he shook his head with an apparent genuine display of sorrow.
“How terrible,” she said quietly, her eyes fluttering down to the box of treats in her lap. “And he never remarried?”
“Never even came close to it,” Nathaniel said, his voice picking up once more as the brief sorrow left him and he returned to his usual, oblivious self.
“Now, lady Dustin, she was chasing me around the ballroom, but I know better, because her sister had chased me the year before! That family is nothing but trouble, I tell you.”
He went on like that for some time as they finished their ride back to the manor. Arabella was already exhausted by the time they were disembarking.
The manor itself was rather humble as far as country estates went, but it was still a sweeping two-story building on a manicured lawn with stone steps and matching verandas. Hedges ran waist-high through the small garden, and a small fountain bubbled along just to the right of the gravel drive.
Her Aunt Maragaret was waiting for them on the steps, her hands held taught in front of her at her waist, her usual, hawkish eyes studying every small movement in her field of view, and Arabella had a sinking feeling in her stomach as she anticipated the coming conversation.
Margaret was not a tall woman by any imagination, but she was a forcible presence with sharp shoulders and sharper cheeks, and Arabella knew what she was going to say before she said it.
“You returned sooner than I expected,” Margaret said snidely as she watched them climb down from the coach. Her voice was crisp, but not shrill. “Was the fair not all you imagined?”
“It was exceptionally pleasant,” Arabella replied, walking up the stone steps to meet her. Margaret’s eyes darted between her niece and Nathaniel as he hung back by the coach, rubbing his toe idly in the finely ground gravel.
“Nathaniel,” she said sharply, her face snapping toward him like an owl on its perch. “Would you like to join us for tea?”
“But of course,” he said with a flourish, and Arabella frowned.
“Come,” Margaret said, moving almost robotically as she turned to lead them into the house. “You are just in time for it.”
The wood paneling on the walls of the central corridor needed a fresh coat of varnish, but the light green wallpaper in the parlor was freshly done, and the tall windows let in the pleasant afternoon light across the hardwood floor.
Arabella endured another ten minutes of Nathaniel’s rambling grandiose stories as tea was served, and Mrs. Farleigh sat patiently in the corner working on a small needlepoint that she seemed to carry with her everywhere she went; it was a lovely rose pattern.
“My father had mentioned, perhaps we should have you over for dinner one day soon,” Nathaniel went on. “You know my mother is always eager to make another friend, such as it were.”
“That would be splendid,” Margaret cooed as she set down her teacup, and she shot Arabella a sharp look. “Wouldn’t you enjoy that, Arabella?”
“As you say,” Arabella replied dryly. Margaret did not appreciate the response, but Nathaniel was typically oblivious as he happily bit into a small tea cake.
She knew she only had to wait him out. He was in poor favor with his family, particularly his father, on account of all his womanizing and carrying on.
He had built himself a thorough reputation as an un-serious gentleman, concerned more with the next skirt and social house than the well-being of his household name. To what extent he was aware of his own reputation was another matter.
There were rumors that his father was forcing him to marry, and Arabella had a strong suspicion that his surprising interest in her was related to his own family drama more than any potential for romance between them.
She only had to outlast his fleeting interest, she reasoned, and then she would be free of his pestering visits and boastful behavior.
There was always another lady with a larger dowry than hers, and if that was his goal he could find it anywhere, even if only half of his stories were to be believed.
“Oh!” Nathaniel remarked, looking up from his teacup and reclining in his wooden chair.
The elegant frame creaked under his sudden movement.
“We had a lovely little run-in with the Duke of Kingsmere. Arabella was gushing over his scientific works; can you believe it? A lady interested in the sciences, quite a thing, mind you,” and he shot her a wink across the table as if it was good of him to mention such a thing.
Maragaret’s demeanor changed quickly at the news, her face seeming to tighten, at least if that were humanly possible for a woman as stoic as her. “The duke is back home?” she asked hesitantly, her eyes flicking between the pair of them, searching for confirmation.
“You know, I did not ask,” Nathaniel said, cocking his head from side to side as he appeared to think very hard on the matter. “I feel I would have heard if he was. Then again, I have not been home in several days.”
“He was there in town?” Margaret pressed. “The Duke of Kingsmere? Here in Hartwell Green?”
“Yes,” Arabella said, finally interjecting herself into the conversation. She did not understand Margaret’s sudden change in demeanor, and it intrigued her.
“He has come home then,” Margaret muttered, and her face seemed to darken. Turning to Arabella, she said, “What were you doing speaking with him?”
“I met him at a confectionary,” Arabella said innocently, picking up on Margaret’s change in tone.
Any chance she had to poke the old bat was a chance that she would take.
“Or rather, one of the carts on the green. We were talking about his scientific lectures. You know, I have seen him speak at Oxford, and another time in London.”
“A lady should not be attending such events,” Margaret huffed, her fingers drumming on the tabletop in a short, frantic dance. “As you well know. And you should not be bothering a duke, at any rate. He is well above our station, and you would do well to remember it.”
“As you say,” Arabella said, cocking her head slyly, and Nathaniel picked up his teacup once again, trying to do anything to fill the sudden eerie silence.
“I do,” Margaret insisted. “And let this be the end of it.”