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“Why, so it is! Are you interested in Italy?”
“I think it is the most fascinating place in the world. I have heard that you spent some time in Italy, my lord. Perhaps you could entertain me with your experiences.”
“Miss Treadgold, it would be my immense pleasure to tell you all about it.”
Again, Guy looked straight at Arabella, who again looked away, so again saw Miss Treadgold look at Lady Treadgold, who again looked at Mama, who again was looking absolutely anywhere else at all and so, of course, did not see.
“Perhaps we could do that later this evening, my lord.”
“Of course.” Guy strolled over to Arabella, who kept playing the pianoforte determinedly. “You are not reading tonight, Miss Larke?”
“Why on earth would I read? I already know everything worth knowing.”
He chuckled and sauntered off. She did not look at him, nor at anyone else either, because she did not care who looked at whom.
If there was a plot to trap him into marrying Matilda, she ought to let him be jolly well trapped, and it would serve him right for being cabbage-headed enough to pick up ribbons in the first place.
* * *
But later that night,when the house was settling, Holly gave her a nudge, and Arabella discovered a need to loiter in the hallway outside Matilda Treadgold’s chamber, with her ear very close to the door. And so she heard a short conversation that sounded something like:
“Hurry up, Matilda! His lordship is alone in the Reading Room right now.”
“But Aunt Frances, I don’t think this is right. Lord Hardbury is already engaged—”
“Hush. You will thank me for it when you’re wed.”
If the conversation continued, Arabella didn’t hear it, for she was running along the hallway and leaping down the steps and skidding around the corner and hurtling down more hallways and through the music room and around another corner—and, good grief, was Vindale Court always this large?—until she reached the hallway door to the Reading Room.
At which point, she stopped, smoothed her skirts, patted her hair, breathed in, breathed out, and calmly stepped inside.
Guy was sitting by the fire, reading and sipping a brandy, with a green-and-gold banyan thrown over his shirt, his hair tousled, and his stockinged feet stretched out before him. He managed to look both dignified and rumpled, both potent and harmless, and the sight of him made Arabella think of domestic comforts, and long winter nights, and kisses and smiles and the hollow in her heart.
He looked up. The sight of her still did not make him smile.
“Are you coming in or guarding the doorway forever?” he said.
Which reminded her why she was there.
“You have to get out,” she hissed. “Get out, get out!”
She shut the door to the hall and dashed over to shoo him out like a troublesome cat. Like a troublesome cat, he resisted.
“What have I done now?” he said.
She tugged his book and drink out of his hands and dropped them onto the table, then opened the connecting door to the library and peered in. It was empty and dark but for the last coals glowing in the hearth.
“Go in there.” He had not moved. “Guy, for heaven’s sake. Hide in the library. It’s not safe here.”
He stood. “Safe? What—”
“Matilda Treadgold is coming to get you.”
“Is she coming with guns or knives?”
“Worse. I wager you a thousand pounds that in less than two minutes, Matilda Treadgold will come sailing through that other door, wearing nothing but a nightgown and a pretty smile, and she will draw you into a conversation about Italy, and who knows what else besides, and at a pertinent moment, the door will open again and every matron in the west of England will come flying in!”
He wandered toward the library, lazily amused. “I don’t need a thousand pounds. Can we wager something else?”
