Page 25 of Lady Arabella’s Reluctant Hero

She really ought to be planning what she would do about Pierce, about the Halliday girl, about her father, about all of it.

She was, instead, thinking about Lord Alderton. About the very careful way he had untied her ribbon, and the story he had told her about Lucy and the bonnet of fruit, and his poor wife surrounded by flies.

A smile tugged at her lips at the memory. She'd long suspected he was an upstanding man. If for no other reason than his kind regard for his sister earlier in the Season, she'd assumed he was just as good and upstanding as Lady Clarissa. But now she knew it to be true.

He was the sort of man who wanted nothing to do with Lady Arabella. Who truly should have nothing to do with her, especially after the way she'd treated him.

But he'd been kind to her all the same.

She'd already been indebted to him after the garden incident. And now…

She shut her eyes as Lady Westover's appearance at the hotel came back to her. She'd been so overset with fear and horror after her meeting with Pierce, that particular run-in had barely affected her. But now it came back to her, along with its consequences.

How long before Lady Westover told all of London what she'd seen? That paired with the garden rumor…

Arabella groaned, then turned to bury her face in a pillow.

How would she ever make it up to Lord Alderton?

She had no idea.

And so, rather than planning out the lies she ought to tell, or how she would confront Pierce again, Arabella found herself lying in bed pondering how she might possibly extricate the kind Viscount Alderton from the disastrous mess that was her life.

She had no good ideas.

By the time the sun began to set and her eyes grew too heavy to keep open, Arabella had only managed to come to one conclusion.

Poor Lord Alderton must have been ruing the day he'd ever met Lady Arabella Wycliffe.

9

Arabella woke with a start.

The clock on the duchess's mantel read quarter to eleven, which meant…she had slept through the night.

She couldn't recall the last time that had happened.

Arabella sat and stared at the clock for a full minute as she took in the reality of her situation. The whole day before and well into the night, she'd been carried along in a merciful fog.

The morning was not so kind.

She was in a strange room in the duchess's house, and she had no idea how she was going to walk down the stairs and face two people who had already seen more of her than was tolerable.

The maid had laid out one of her own day dresses, which must have arrived from Marchmont House overnight. Arabella washed her face in the basin, allowed the maid to do her hair, and stared at the small high collar that did nothing to hide Pierce's fingerprints on her neck.

She made her way down the staircase at four minutes to eleven, telling herself she would walk into the drawing room composed, dignified, and impossible to fluster. She would thank the duchess for her hospitality and Lord Alderton for his kind attention to her the day before, and then…

Well. Then she would go home.

And then she would come up with a plan.

With a sharp nod, she approached the drawing room. She heard their voices before she reached the door.

It was Lord Alderton. He was early.

She could not quite make out the words but she recognized his low tone and the duchess's voice when she answered him.

Dread pooled in her belly as she approached. She hadn't quite worked out what she would say if they demanded answers. But she'd perfected the art of cordial but meaningless small talk years ago. She could deflect and demur all day long if need be.