Chapter 6 #2
Arabella thought of his dark eyes, his careful control, the way he held himself apart from everything and everyone. "I don't think he'd prefer being compared to anything. Comparison requires connection, and he seems determined to avoid that at all costs."
They spent the next hour unpacking, hanging gowns in the dressing room that was indeed through the connecting door and proved to be larger than Arabella's entire bedroom at Marchwood House.
Her belongings looked rather lost in all that space; her modest wardrobe barely filled a quarter of the available room.
"We'll need to order new gowns," Jane observed. "A countess needs more than what we've brought."
"With what money? I can hardly ask Lord Blackthorn to finance a new wardrobe."
"Why not? You're his wife."
"In name only."
Jane made a sound that suggested what she thought of that arrangement. "Still a wife, my lady. Still a countess. You need to look the part."
"For whom? He doesn't entertain, and I'm, as it seems, to be a hermit."
"For yourself, then. And who knows? Perhaps his lordship will change his mind about entertaining once he has such a lovely wife to display proudly."
"I doubt Lord Blackthorn has any interest in any of that."
Before Jane could respond, the dinner gong sounded, echoing through the house like a summons to judgment.
"I suppose I should go," Arabella said, checking her appearance in the mirror. Her wedding gown was wrinkled from travel, and her hair was escaping its pins. She looked exactly like what she was; a woman who'd had a very long, very strange day.
"Should I help you change, my lady?"
"Into what? Another wrinkled gown? No, let him see me as I am. It's not as though he's expecting elegance."
The dining room, when she found it after only two wrong turns, was another exercise in intimidation. The table could have seated thirty, and two places had been set at opposite ends, so far apart they'd need to shout to converse.
Lord Blackthorn was already there, having changed into evening dress that made him look even more forbidding than usual. He rose when she entered, a gesture of courtesy that seemed at odds with the distance between their seats.
"This is ridiculous," Arabella said, looking at the vast expanse of polished mahogany between them.
"It's traditional."
"It's also impossible. We'll need speaking trumpets to communicate."
"Perhaps that's the point."
"Is it? Is the point of our marriage to see how far apart we can sit while still technically dining together?"
He was quiet for a moment, then gestured to the footman. "Reset Lady Blackthorn's place next to mine."
The footman, admirably trained, showed no surprise at this breach of protocol and efficiently moved her setting to Lord Blackthorn's right.
"Better?" he asked as she took her seat.
"Marginally. Though I notice you didn't suggest the middle of the table."
"I'm the Earl. I sit at the head."
"How medieval of you."
"I prefer 'traditional.'"
"Like our marriage?"
"There's nothing traditional about our marriage."
The footmen served the first course; a soup that was probably excellent but might as well have been water for all Arabella tasted it. The silence stretched, broken only by the clink of silver on china.
"This is unbearable," she said finally.
"The soup? I'll speak to Cookie."
"Not the soup. This. Us. Sitting here like strangers."
"We are strangers."
"We're married!"
"The two are not mutually exclusive."
"They should be."
"Should they? How many married couples do you know who are genuinely acquainted with each other? Who speak honestly, without pretence or pretension?"
"My parents did."
"Then they were fortunate. And rare."
"And you think we can't be?"
"Fortunate? That seems unlikely, given our beginning."
"I meant honest. Can't we at least try to be honest with each other?"
He set down his spoon carefully. "You want honesty?"
"Yes."
"Very well. I didn't want to marry. Anyone.
Ever. The fire that gave me these," he gestured to his scars," also took someone from me.
Someone I thought I loved. I came back to England intending to live quietly, alone, until I died and the title passed to some distant cousin I've never met.
Then you fell into that lake, and suddenly my carefully ordered isolation was destroyed.
So I did what I had to do. I offered marriage to salvage your reputation, telling myself it was duty, honour and the right thing to do. "
"And was it?"
"I don't know. All I know is that now I have a wife I didn't want, a dog who's probably destroying my kitchen as we speak, and a life that's become infinitely more complicated than I ever intended it to be."
The words should have hurt but strangely, they didn't. Perhaps because he'd delivered them without cruelty, just a kind of weary resignation.
"My turn?" Arabella asked.
He gestured for her to continue.
"I wanted to marry for love. I wanted someone who would see me—not the daughter who needed to make a good match, not the solution to financial problems, just me.
Instead, I got caught in a scandal not of my making and married a man who views me as an unwanted complication.
So here we are, two people who didn't get what we wanted, trying to make the best of what we have. "
"And what do we have?"
"I don't know yet. But I'd like to find out."
"That sounds dangerously like optimism."
"Would pessimism be better?"
"It's usually more accurate."
"My goodness, you're depressing."
To her surprise, he laughed; a short, rusty sound, as if he'd forgotten how. "So I've been told."
"Has anyone told you that you're also rather interesting when you forget to be the Beast of Blackthorn?"
"I don't forget."
"You did just then. When you laughed."
"A momentary lapse."
"Have more of them. They're becoming."
He looked at her then, and for a moment something shifted in his expression. "You're very strange, Lady Blackthorn."
"So you've mentioned. I'm starting to take it as a compliment."
"That's probably wise. I meant it as one."
The second course arrived—some sort of fowl in a sauce that was definitely excellent but still registered only vaguely on Arabella's consciousness. She was too aware of the man beside her, the way his hands moved as he cut his meat and the way candlelight played across his scarred features.
"Tell me about the fire," she said suddenly.
His hands stilled. "That's not a dinner conversation."
"Then tell me later. But tell me. If I'm to be your wife, even in name only, I should know what shaped you."
"Why?"
"Because despite your best efforts to prevent it, we're going to have to coexist. And I can't coexist with a mystery."