Chapter 17
When Waring announced that Arabella had arrived the next morning, Simone was under no illusion that her friend didn’t already know everything. And if she didn’t, Simone feared she would the moment she saw Simone’s face.
“Tell her I’m not in,” she whispered, and sank into the settee before the fire in her bedroom.
Waring inclined his head and exited. She waited to hear the shut of the front door and the jingle of Arabella’s carriage driving away. Instead, within a few moments there was Arabella’s voice in her hallway, arguing with Waring.
“…and I don’t really care, Waring. It will be on my head, not yours.”
Simone got up and faced the door as it flew open and Arabella entered the chamber, poor Waring on her heels.
“I’m sorry, Miss Stanhope,” he began.
“It’s not your fault, Waring. You may go,” Simone managed to say.
Arabella shut the door behind him and then speared Simone with a pointed gaze. “Little coward,” she began, and then she stared harder at Simone and her face softened. “Oh. You look like something a cat dragged through the mud.”
Simone pursed her lips. “Thank you. Please go away, Arabella, I’m very busy.”
Arabella folded her arms. “Yes, your calendar appears to be filled with brooding and I hate to interrupt that. Now, are we going to pretend I don’t know? And that you don’t know that I know what I know?”
“What?” Simone asked, and was truly a little flummoxed as she tried to follow the convoluted question.
“I spoke to Caroline.”
Simone lifted her chin. She had done this before, talked about rejected declarations of affection.
She could pretend this was no different if it protected them both from the ultimate heartache.
“Did you? And she told you of her foolish little pronouncement that she believes herself in love with me?”
Arabella shook her head and there was a great sadness in her stare as she took a long step forward. “Don’t do that,” she said. “This is me, Simone. I can see through you.”
Simone feared she could. In this moment, she feared almost anyone could if they saw her with all her masks gone, with only her fears and her hopes and her heartbreak and joy so impossible to control.
“I suppose she sent you to bother me,” Simone said.
“No. She is worried about you.” Arabella stepped forward again and touched her cheek. “Seeing you like this, I can understand why.”
Simone drew in a breath but it was shaky. Everything felt shaky and she sat back down on the settee to keep from falling over as a hateful tear slid down her cheek. “I cannot be in love, Arabella.”
“Why?” Arabella sat beside her and watched her carefully. Almost like she was glass and Arabella feared she’d break.
Perhaps she would at that. “You cannot be serious when you ask me why,” Simone snapped, and waved her hand in the air as if that answered everything.
It did in her estimation. They were in the middle of her bedchamber, after all, where she had been with many in exchange for security and money and whatever else was offered.
“You’re talking about being a courtesan?”
“Of course. A whore, Arabella.”
Arabella flinched at that more pointed, ugly word. “Fine, so you were a whore.”
“Am a whore!”
“You haven’t had a lover in months and months, it’s all anyone talks about when we get together.
At any rate, are or were, what does it matter?
I led the same life on my back. As did my sisters.
As did many of our friends who have settled down in one way or another.
Do you think none of us deserve what we’ve been so lucky as to find? ”
Simone tried not to think of those examples. They gave her too much hope. “It’s different,” she muttered.
Arabella slid a finger beneath her chin and forced Simone to look at her. “No. It’s not. The only question right now is, do you love her?”
Everything in Simone wanted to say those words out loud. To scream yes from the rooftops. To find some way to make this real and true. But she couldn’t. The words wouldn’t come because they were too heavy and if they landed wrong they would break not only her world, but Caroline’s.
Her silence seemed to say enough though. “You love her,” Arabella said.
Simone meant to get up and stomp away, but in that moment she couldn’t. Instead she leaned forward and rested her head against Arabella’s shoulder. Her friend’s arms came around her and suddenly she was gently smoothing her hand over Simone’s hair.
“Oh, sweet Simone,” she whispered. “Don’t throw away what you could have, all the joy and pleasure and happiness that could be your life, because of some nameless, faceless fear. Don’t let the past put up a block to your future.”
“What if it ruins everything she has left? I know what she went through, what she lost in the past. What if loving me takes everything else?” Simone said into her shoulder. She lifted her head. “What if she comes to regret it? To—to hate me for it.”
“You’ve really built quite the monster in your head, haven’t you?”
“Sometimes it’s only monsters in my head,” Simone admitted softly.
Arabella nodded slowly and there was so much new understanding there.
As if she were finally seeing Simone fully, even after their years of friendship.
“I understand that. And I understand not wanting to harm someone with your love. I worried about the same thing with Silas. Evie almost threw everything away with Vaughn for the same reasons. I know what I believe about my aunt, but that’s not what you need to hear.
And you won’t have any answers to your questions and fears if you insist on sitting here in this bedroom with your hair looking like a rat’s nest and your eyes all puffy from tears and never talk to her about it. ”
Simone let out her breath in a huff as some of the tension lifted. “Thank you. I feel much better about myself.”
Arabella laughed. “We can only be brutally honest with our friends.”
“Trust you to be that.” Simone sighed. “I-I suppose you are suggesting I ready myself and go…go talk to Caroline about it.”
“Indeed. I’ll even help you get ready, like old times, yes?” Arabella got up and hurried to the adjoining dressing room where she threw open the doors and went to go through every dress hanging within.
“What were you wearing the first time you kissed?” she called out from within.
“The fuchsia satin,” Simone admitted. “It was when you and Silas were just starting. You came to my home that day and—”
Arabella staggered back out in the main room. “Wait, are you talking about that day when I called on you and Caroline was here and acting so oddly? You kissed her that day?”
Simone shrugged.
Arabella’s eyes remained wide a moment and then she shook her head. “Well, that’s the dress, then. At least you’ll look a treat. Now come, let’s get you ready. And then you’ll be very brave and face whatever comes.”
Simone got up and started toward the dressing room. She stopped at the door and watched Arabella pick through her jewelry to find the right thing to coordinate with her gown. “Could you really be so accepting of this?”
“You two really are a matched pair. Caroline asked me the very same thing.” Arabella smiled up at her. “But you know I’ve had women as lovers in the past.”
“I-I didn’t mean because we’re both women. I mean because your very proper aunt would lower herself to me.”
Arabella blinked. “I would never consider it lowering herself. I adore you, Simone. And I know your very good heart, even if you try to pretend sometimes that you haven’t one.
If you and my dear aunt could be happy together, I would be over the moon.
And I speak for my sisters when I say our family would be far richer with you in it.
Now come, I want to try out something pretty with your hair. Sit.”
Simone didn’t fight. All the fight fell out of her as she sat and allowed Arabella to brush out her tangled hair. Somehow she was going to face Caroline.
And by the end of that day, this would be resolved. For happiness or for heartbreak, she wasn’t certain. But she’d never been more frightened in all her years.
Caroline saw Simone’s carriage pull up into her drive late in the afternoon and her heart stuttered as she threw her needlework aside and got to her feet. She was here. Without sending word ahead, and she was getting out of the carriage with a nervous expression on her shockingly beautiful face.
Oh God. This was happening now and there was no way to pretend it wouldn’t change everything no matter how the conversation went.
She hurried to the foyer and intercepted Dennis before he could open the door. “I-I’ll answer it, Dennis. Please feel free to carry on.”
He inclined his head despite his confused expression. “Will you require refreshments, Mrs. Banfield?”
“No,” Caroline gasped out just as there was a rap on the door.
Dennis left her and she opened the door. Simone appeared startled that she had done so herself and nearly deposited herself down the stairs behind her.
“Oh. Caroline. I-I—”
“I saw you pull into the drive,” Caroline explained as she stepped aside to allow Simone entry. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“You didn’t.” Simone shook her head. “Well, you did but…oh, good afternoon.”
Caroline laughed despite her nervousness and motioned her inside. “Good afternoon. You know it seemed like a good idea to let you in myself, but now I don’t know what to do with your hat and that very pretty pair of gloves you’re carrying.”
“Take them into the parlor?” Simone suggested as she removed said hat while Caroline closed the door.
Caroline led her to the parlor and took the items to set them aside on a chair near the door. She drew a long breath before she shut them in together and then faced Simone.
Lord, but she was pretty. The fuchsia satin of her expertly folded and laced gown was exquisite against her skin and brought out the brightness of her gray stare. The very stare that now held on Caroline in unwavering focus.
“Would you like something to drink?” Caroline asked, and began to move toward the sideboard.