Page 33 of Lady Arabella’s Reluctant Hero

"Mmm."

John turned to look at her properly. "Will your father be displeased? About this?" He gestured vaguely between the two of them.

She frowned. "Why would he be?"

"He's never met me."

She gave him a look that was almost pitying. "You are a viscount, are you not? And heir to an earldom?"

"Well, yes, but⁠—"

"Then he shall not be displeased." The words left no room for argument. She wasn't bitter about it, which somehow made it worse. She was merely stating how it was.

"That's terrible," he said quietly.

"That's my father." She smoothed an invisible wrinkle from her skirt. "You needn't look so stricken, Lord Alderton. I assure you I am quite accustomed to it."

"So long as I'm titled, I'll have his approval?" He couldn't quite hide his judgment.

"Don't be silly. It's not just the title." Her look of feigned affront was meant to amuse, and it did. "You ought to have means as well. Obviously."

He hated that this was her reality. And yet, when she shot him an expectant look, waiting for him to play along, he heard himself say, "Perhaps I ought to show him my ledgers then."

A spark of amusement flickered across her face. "Are they impressive?"

He dipped his chin. "Reasonably."

She arched her brows. "Only reasonably?"

He leaned in and lowered his voice. "I am a modest man, Lady Arabella."

Her lips curved up in a small smile that was disarmingly genuine. "Then yes, by all means. Show him the ledgers."

That smile hit him somewhere inconvenient. He was still enjoying the warmth of it when her gaze caught on something across the lawn and the smile vanished.

He followed her line of sight. A young woman had just arrived with an older lady. Fair-haired and with a round face, she glanced around the garden with wide uncertain eyes.

Arabella had gone very still.

"The Halliday cousin?" he asked quietly.

She nodded once. "She's only sixteen."

He looked at the girl again. Sixteen. The same age Arabella had been when Pierce walked into her father's house with a music portfolio and a plan.

"He shall not have her," John said.

Arabella looked up at him.

"Whatever he wants with her," he said, "he shall not have her."

She studied him for a long moment, and whatever she found in his face seemed to settle something in her. "No," she said quietly. "He shall not."

11

The Dowager Duchess of Ashworth had never envisioned herself running a spy network out of her drawing room. And yet…

"This woman knows about Linley Grange?" Sebastian Vane, the Marquess of Blackwood, stood by the fireplace with the sort of scowl that would have sent lesser women reaching for the smelling salts.