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Sometimes though, in a quiet moment before falling asleep, Caroline wished for more. More opportunity for frivolity and leisure. More money. More family to help her shoulder the responsibility, but alas they had no aunts or uncles or cousins.
It was one reason she was so grateful for Arabella, and why she would never act on her attraction to her. It wasn’t worth risking the friendship of the most important person in her life outside her family.
She pushed those thoughts aside, like her admiration for Arabella’s curves. Neither had a place in her life. She was dedicated to her family, and everything else was a distraction she could no more afford than the joint of beef for dinner.
* * *
If Inverley was small by country village standards, it was positively tiny compared to London. Arabella had heard the comparisons more times than she could count from visitors. They claimed to be shocked to hear that anyone could live in such constraints all year round, with the sea air forever making one’s hair a quiz, and no more than five and twenty families well-bred enough to make up a card table in theevening! They made no bones about hiding such amazement while they riffled through her paintings.
It was thoroughly irritating.
But Arabella needed their money, so every summer she smiled and laughed alongside them, though sometimes she felt like pouring her dirty paint water over their sneering faces and fashionable skirts.
From the window in the attic room that she worked in, she could see the water. It was calm today, but she heard the waves lapping against the sand. The constant sound of the ocean could be heard from most everywhere in Inverley, as the town was settled shallowly by the long shoreline.
Arabella stroked her paintbrush against the pad of paint, mazarine blue saturating the damp bristles. She pressed the side of the brush against the thick textured paper and watched as color flooded the seascape. She blotted the paint with a handkerchief to lift color away from the whitecaps cresting the waves, then continued to add splashes and layers of paint. Green where the sun hit the water’s surface, violet where the bluffs cast shadows and turned the water murky and mysterious.
It was easy to picture it in her mind’s eye. After all, she produced the same paintings every year. The same views. The same colors. The clientele changed each summer, but they all wanted the same thing. A tiny slice of holiday to tuck into their valise and then hang up in their parlor at home to remind them of the happiness of time away from their everyday.
Creating that slice of holiday washereveryday, and it didn’t exactly fill her with the same joy as it did the eye of the beholder.
She shook her head clear. She was grateful for her life.
All but one of her twenty-seven years had been spent in Inverley. Countless hours had been racked up roaming the shore, collecting shells and pretty pebbles, and walking with friends. Losing herself in thoughts and dreams and fancies with the crash of the waves for company.
She flung the window open to the warm June air and the scent of the sea, and Shelley leapt to the windowsill with his orange tail twitching. Her other cat, Byron, was a dark grey shadow napping ona stack of canvas cloths that she draped over finished paintings to protect them from the elements.
Footsteps sounded in the stairwell, and Matthew propped a shoulder against the door of the whitewashed room that abutted the servants’ quarters. He crossed his arms over his barrel chest. “That’s a pretty one, Arabella. Should fetch a pretty penny, too.”
Her brother was a cheerful and uncomplicated man with an unshakable faith in his own decisions, and for the most part, Arabella liked living with him and his wife, Rachel. She paid her share of expenses through her painting sales, and she and Rachel handled most of the household duties together, with a pair of maids and a manservant to help with the rest. Matthew’s business was ropemaking, and he and his business partner did a brisk trade in ropes and nets for the fishermen and sailors who worked the shores.
“Thank you. I have quite a few that I prepared in advance of the influx of visitors.” She turned on the stool and smiled at him, her stomach twisting into such elaborate knots that a sailor would envy them. “I hope it will be a profitable season.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to talk about finances. Caroline had long thought that Matthew took more than his fair share, and Arabella alwaysmeantto talk to him about it—but never found the courage to speak up. She had plans for any extra money she could gain. She wanted nothing more than to set herself up in a snug little cottage of her own. But she hated confrontation, which led to arguing, and then shouting and tears and unforgiveable words.
She was far too worried about disrupting her peaceful life to voice even mild dissonance.
“It’s clever of you to plan ahead. And it’s fortuitous timing.” He pushed away from the doorframe, his chest puffing out. “I have excellent news.”
“Really? Were you successful to increase your yarn stock at last?”
“No—though that’s still in progress. If we can store more hemp fiber in the warehouse, we can increase our production, and life will be good indeed. No, Arabella, this news is far better than business. I am overjoyed to tell you that Rachel is expecting a child.”
“Oh!” She leapt from the stool so fast that it toppled over, startling Shelley and Byron into running for the stairwell. She threw herself against Matthew and wrapped her arms as far as they would reach around his sturdy frame. “Oh, I am so happy for you both.”
Rachel and Matthew had been married for years before Arabella had moved into their house, and that had been over a decade ago. They had never had any children, and at this point had no longer expected it to happen.
“Good things come to those who wait, I suppose,” Matthew said gruffly as he pulled away, his eyes bright with unshed tears. “Rachel is looking forward to your help.”
“My help?”
“Why, we shall need you as a nursemaid, of course. You’ll have time, don’t worry about that—the babe will arrive in October. Long after the last of the visitors leave. It will be good to have the income this summer from the extra paintings you have done, and then your help after.” He grinned at her.
Arabella smiled in reflex, though her stomach pitched.Nursemaid?She knew nothing about babies. But her lips were moving, and she heard herself say, “Of course.”
Dash it all, why was it so hard to sayno?
“I knew we could count on you.” He squeezed her shoulder and went down the stairs.
