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Her future was here.
With any luck, it would be with Caroline.
* * *
Arabella stormed into Matthew’s office at the docks. She didn’t come to his workplace often anymore. It was a bustling operation in a building with rooms for storing hemp and flax fibers as well as the ropes and nets that they made. The ground floor was designated for laying the rope, with rooms for tarring and twisting the yarns, and the second floor was for spinning and finishing the ropes.
“You accepted an offer of marriage on my behalf?”
Matthew looked up as she barged in, surprise on his face. “I accepted nothing,” he said. “I did tell Mr. Worthington that if he thought his suit would be welcome to you, then he would have my blessing. He has a secure enough position, and I know how much you love painting. I thought it would be a welcome opportunity for you.”
“Well, it wasn’t,” she said, and slumped into the chair by the door so she could watch the ropemakers ply their trade.
“I’m sorry to hear it, Bell.” His tone was gentle. “But you have been so unhappy. I thought maybe this was the right move for you. A change of scenery might do you good. Inverley isn’t for everyone.”
“Inverley is for me,” she said. Then she bit her lip. “You thought I have been unhappy?”
He smiled at her. “You never could hide a feeling, however fleeting, on that face of yours. It’s been the same since we were children.”
“It’s not that I am unhappy.” She struggled to find the right words. This was hard. It was a conversation that she had always been afraid of starting. “I love living with you and Rachel. But I have felt for a while that I am an extra in your life.” His face turned stormy and he opened his mouth, but she put up her hand. “No, Matthew—you have never made me feel that way. And Rachel has treated me like a beloved sister since you married. But this is your life. And with the baby on the way, I have been giving a lot of thought tomylife, and what I want.”
He nodded. “And that would be marrying and establishing your own home. It’s grand news, Arabella—and if it’s a local Inverley man you want instead of Mr. Worthington, then I know we can find one for you.”
“No,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster. “I do not wish to wed.”
Matthew sat back, a puzzled look on his face. “Then I don’t know what you want then. You have but two options. You can marry, or you can stay with myself and Rachel.”
“I want a house of my own, but no man to run it. I want my independence, Matthew. The freedom of setting up my space as I wish and doing as I wish.”
His eyes narrowed and he crossed his arms over his chest.
Arabella took a deep breath. “Everything you have done has been above and beyond what I ever could have asked for. You gave me a room where I could live, the attic studio where I could work, the front parlor in which to sell, and then you even built the swing in the garden so I could dream. It’s been a wonderful ten years, Matthew, and I have appreciated it from the depths of my soul. But it is time for me to establish who I am, and I need my own space to do it in.”
He took a few minutes to digest this. “Rachel will take it powerful hard.”
“The last thing I ever want to do is to hurt her. And I know I promised I would help with the baby. But Inverley is not big. I will still be here to help,” she said. “I promise.”
“How will you make your living?”
“I have been saving my coins for years with this plan in mind. I should have enough put away now for a few months in a cottage. If I am careful, I could make ends meet until next summer when the visitors come again.” Arabella tried to put as much dignity as she could in the words.
Matthew sighed. “I have taken so much of your profit since you started selling.”
Arabella’s heart started to pound. This was the conversation that she could never bring herself to have with her brother. “It was fair of me to contribute to the household,” she said as evenly as she could manage. “But it was too much, in my opinion.”
He shook his head. “I took it so I could invest it for you. I didn’t want you to squirrel away your savings when you could be doubling or tripling your earnings on the ’Change. Didn’t think it was right.”
“You invested it?” she repeated.
“I wanted to help give you a good dowry when the time came. And if you never did marry, then the money would provide for you if I was no longer living. The money was always yours, Bell. If you’ve decided that now is the time you have need of it, then you shall have it. It should be enough to buy a cottage outright, with enough to spare for your comforts for a good long time.”
For once, she couldn’t speak because she was struck speechless from happiness, instead of her tongue being glued to the roof of her mouth in fear. She wrapped her arms around Matthew. “You are the best of brothers,” she whispered, and kissed his bearded cheek.
She knew what she had to do next. She had to tell Caroline that she loved her.
Chapter Twenty-three
Arabella rushed into the parlor. Caroline looked up from the list in front of her on the escritoire. “Is something the matter?”
