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Because when Arabella was frightened, she hid behind her walls and attacked everyone, even her friends. Consider that moment in London, when she had gripped the table, eyes turned upward as though begging the heavens, and when Guy had offered help, she had attacked him, hurting herself.
“Why won’t shesaythese things?” He thumped a fist against the side of the basin, nearly upsetting it. “Justtellme. Ask me for help.”
With a sigh, Lady Belinda lifted his hands from the water and wrapped them in a dry linen. “I was always too hard on her, I’m afraid. I thought that if she was the best she could be, her father would see how wonderful she is, and he would… But he never saw her. He never saw what he had; he only ever saw what he didn’t have. He would never be satisfied. And Arabella is rather proud and independent, you know.”
“Yes,” Guy said on a desperate laugh. “Yes, I know.”
“The last time I heard Arabella ask anyone for help, she was ten,” Lady Belinda added. “It was her father she asked. He told her to go away. Called her a useless burden and a worthless parasite.”
“Bloody hell.”
“Mr. Larke never spoke so harshly to her again, but I think she never forgot it.”
Over the fireplace was yet another portrait of little Oliver, but in this one, Oliver held hands with a dark-haired girl. It was the only portrait of Arabella that Guy had seen in the house.
“She was only a child too,” he said. “Your son died from an illness. It was not her fault.”
Lady Belinda followed his gaze. “She asked me once if it was her fault, because she was always the more robust of the two. She asked if she had been selfish and greedy in my stomach, which made her stronger than Oliver, and if that was why he did not survive the illness whereas she did. I did my best to tell her otherwise, but one is never too sure what a child believes deep down to be true.”
“And Mr. Larke?”
“Oliver was growing up to be a scientist just like him; he could see himself in Oliver, see his legacy passed on. Arabella never had the patience. Whereas Oliver wished to observe the world, she wished to fix it. Not a quality much admired in a lady, but it is not in her nature to change to please others.”
“And I am glad for it,” Guy said.
“As am I.”
She whipped away the cloth. “You wondered why she does not confide in you. Now you know.”
Yes. Now he knew that Arabella was a woman who needed love. His love. And he was there to love her. It was a powerful responsibility, a daunting, exacting, thrilling honor. One that he alone was qualified to fulfill.
What a stubborn fool he had been, letting his resistance to his father’s commands blinker him like a horse, even when that man had been dead more than a year. Now he had flung off those blinkers and could see Arabella simply as she was: a woman who loved and fought, who made mistakes and fell down, then got back up to love and fight another day. A woman whose very existence made him thrill with the glory of life, made him feel both as magnificent as the heavens and as inconsequential as a pinprick of light in the sky.
Suddenly, Guy was grateful for his years of exile. Grateful for his controlling father, for Sculthorpe and Clare, for his impulsive decision that long-ago day to sail away from England. Only by leaving had he discovered himself, had he learned what he was capable of, had he become the man who could love Arabella Larke.
And to think of her cruelly misguided father, and all the world’s cowards and fools, holding her back, no doubt scared of what she might do given her full potential.
Stars above, how he wanted to see that! If Arabella was this remarkable now, when wasting herself trying to please her father and behave, imagine how she’d be when unleashed!
“She is in her private chamber now, where you must not visit,” Lady Belinda said. “The house is in an uproar and I have much to do, so there will be no one to check that you do not go to my daughter’s room and stay there for a length of time.” She opened the door. “My lord.”
“My lady.”
In the hallway, Guy paused to consider Lady Belinda’s odd parting speech. He did not possess the subtlety of thought displayed by Arabella and her mother. But he suspected he was learning fast.
He skipped around and raced toward Arabella’s room.
Chapter 23
The footsteps coming down the hallway belonged to Guy.
Arabella could not have said how she knew that from the sound alone—the assuredness of the steps, perhaps, their speed, their boldness—but she was on her feet, chest tight and trembling hands clasped, when the bedroom door flew open.
He paused in the doorway, their eyes meeting with a jolt. His cravat was askew and a shadowy bruise was forming on his jaw. She longed to go to him, soothe him. She clasped her hands more tightly and didn’t move.
“You’re hurt,” she said.
With a rough bark of laughter, he stepped inside, kicked the door shut, and fell back against it so heavily a picture toppled sideways on its hook. Following her gaze, he shoved off the door to straighten the painting, then turned back to her, his tension filling the room like steam.
