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“It was still frustrating?” he supplied for her.
“Yes. I never took it out on Caroline, however, no matter what anyone thinks. She remained unengaged by her own choice, though I still am not sure why. There have been many proposals.”
“Perhaps she merely wanted to wait for the right person?” That had certainly been his philosophy going into the wife hunt. Though, he thought as he watched Arabella’s pretty face struggle to continue, he may not need to wait as long as Miss Caroline. “It is a smart way of going about things.”
“I was not nearly so wise,” she replied. “Not back then, at least. When Lord Lindsay began to approach me at balls, procuring a dance nearly every time, you cannot imagine my excitement.”
“I’m sure,” he replied.
“He made several calls, and for once I wasn’t left alone in the drawing room corner whilst Caroline managed her insurmountable wall of gentleman.”
“Insurmountable?” The image of the poor girl managing a veritable hoard of silly suitors nearly made him laugh aloud.
She nodded. “Oh yes. With so many of them, it was nearly impossible for anyone man to claim her attention unless he could keep her interest to a reasonable degree, which was difficult. Though many assume it because of her beauty, my sister is not a frivolous person and requires stimulating conversation.”
“Yes, I noticed that.” Though they had had nothing in common, Miss Caroline had been an intelligent conversation partner, one who hadn’t dithered in petty niceties about gossip or the weather. He was beginning to understand why the lady was so picky and, perhaps, where this unfortunate tale was going.
“He danced with me at every ball and even took me out on a few drives. There was one picnic we both attended, and we spent a good while walking about together.”
Nathan remembered luncheon the other day and her stricken look as she spied him and Miss Caroline strolling through the garden. Perhaps the reminder had been what had set her off so egregiously, rather than their confrontation at the lake. “He was not actually courting you, was he?”
“No, he was not. I should have sensed something was amiss when he kept asking me questions about Caroline. At the time I had thought that he was merely trying to engage me in conversation, blind fool that I was. But no, he was merely trying to get an edge on his competition. ‘Who would ever be interested in you, Miss Hughs’ was what he said to me after I’d pressed for more.” Arabella looked positively mortified as she spoke, and it infuriated him to no end.
“What an absolute ass. Why did he not think that you would tell your sister of his duplicity?”
She shrugged. “I assume he thought the rumors of our bitter rivalry to be true.” She shook her head with a small smile. “Ironic, considering that Caroline was the one to warn me about him in the first place. She has a knack for people, you see. Far better than myself.”
“You couldn’t have known. I would have thought the same thing were I in your shoes, anyone would have.”
“But I didn’t and got my heart broken in the process. It wasn’t all bad, though. After I told her about it, Caroline led him along like a puppy dog for the rest of the season and brutally rejected his proposal. She poured an entire cup of tea on his head.”
“Good,” he replied, satisfaction thrumming through him at the vengeance. “And he was entirely incorrect in his assumptions. ‘Who would ever be interested in you?’” He repeated Lindsay’s question with a dramatic scoff. “An entire duke, that’s who.”
“Milton…”
He stopped walking and stared into his uncertain face. Even in the quickly fading light of dusk, he could see her eyes shining. “I know you are unsure,” he said gently, “and I understand why. Just, please believe me when I say that you are the only woman I’ve ever met who has even come close to stirring my heart.”
She took one plump lip into her mouth. Blast the current predicament they were in , for he wanted nothing more than to back her into the nearest tree and kiss her senseless. As if to emphasize that they were, in fact, in a very precarious situation, the skies took that moment to open up once more and a torrential downpour even worse than earlier fell upon them with raging fury. “Oh dear,” Arabella muttered, hugging his coat tighter to herself.
The darkening sky roiled with thunder once more, a heavy gale sweeping through and whipping around his soaked clothes. They had yet to exit the forest, and even he wasn’t certain they could find their way in the darkness were they not able to make it out by the fast approaching night. There was only one thing to do, as dangerous as the action might be to her reputation. “Arabella,” he called over the rain.
“We need to find shelter,” she replied.
“Yes,” he said with a grimace. “I know.”
* * *
Arabella watched Milton lead Highwind along with trepidation. “Do you know where you’re going?”
He steered them down another trail, one going in the opposite direction than they’d been heading. “There is an old gamekeeper’s cabin a little down the way. We liked to use it for a bit of a hideaway when we were boys. It won’t be much, but we’ll be sheltered until the storm passes.”
“Can we not still make it to the house?” Surely he understood the precariousness of taking shelter together, alone and overnight. If knowledge of this were discovered, her reputation would be in shambles, if it wasn’t already.
But Milton merely shook his head. “No,” he called over the rain. “You strayed well off course, and I’m afraid the house is still a good few miles away. It would be far too dangerous in such a storm.” As if to punctuate the statement, another bolt of thunder struck, close enough that the crackling boom made her jump in the saddle. Highwind, thankfully, was far more disciplined than her mare and merely took a few uneasy sidesteps.
“We cannot be alone like this,” she declared.
“We’re going to have to be. With any luck, Thurmont and the others will be the ones to find us once the weather settles. We could say that you found the cabin on your own, and I spent the night in the wilds searching for you. If Derry is kind enough to humor us and believe the excuse, then the rest of the guests at the house won’t stir up a fuss, probably.”
