glumness. Apparently Arden had scant fondness for Shakespeare, and they were to see a performance of
It was while the duke was trading quips with Lady Eleanor that Arabella spied her friend Fanny Irwin entering a nearby box on an elderly gentleman’s arm. Looking very much the “Fashionable Impure,” Fanny was gowned in emerald satin with her upswept ebony hair and her ample white bosom bedecked with jewels.
Fanny sent Arabella a discreet smile, which she returned just as discreetly. They had decided several years ago, for the sake of her academy’s reputation, that it wasn’t wise for Arabella to blatantly advertise her friendship with a notorious courtesan.
A few moments later, however, she noticed a red-haired lady staring darkly at her from several boxes away. The woman was simply stunning, dressed in an ivory gown whose low decolletage exposed an abundant amount of alabaster skin adorned by diamonds.
Arabella had no idea what she might have done to arouse such enmity from a perfect stranger, but she saw Lady Beldon give the beauty a polite nod of acknowledgment. Fortunately, the curtain rose, and Arabella’s attention became caught up in the drama being enacted on stage.
Kemble’s performance was truly a pleasure to watch, so the time sped by. At the intermission following Act II, Marcus and the duke rose to fetch the ladies some wine. The marquess offered to act as escort when Eleanor professed a desire to stretch her legs and invited Arabella and Winifred to stroll the halls with her.
Lady Eleanor was hugely popular, they quickly discovered. She was greeted frequently and stopped each time to introduce her new friends.
Eleanor was chatting gaily with an older couple when Arabella spied the stunning, red-haired beauty farther along the crowded corridor. When the lady approached Marcus and offered him a cool smile that held more than a hint of seduction, Arabella felt the strangest urge to scratch the woman’s eyes out.
She was scolding herself for her absurd reaction when Winifred noticed her expression. “Don’t be dismayed, my dear,” her friend whispered. “By all reports their affair was over months ago.”
“What affair?”
Winifred hesitated before grimacing. “You may as well hear the tale from me, so you won’t leap to the wrong conclusions.”
“What conclusions? Winifred, will you please stop talking in riddles?”
She sighed. “Very well, that lady is the Viscount Eberly’s very wealthy widow. To put it bluntly, she had a romantic liaison with Lord Danvers years ago when he was still Baron Pierce. Then after her elderly husband obligingly went to meet his Maker, they resumed the relationship for a brief time last Christmas, but it didn’t last. She was too possessive and fancied becoming Baroness Pierce, so he broke it off. To my knowledge they have not been seen together since.”
Arabella suddenly felt a constriction tightening her chest. “They had an affair while her husband was still alive?”
“Well, yes. But it came to nothing in the end, and I doubt Lord Danvers is the least bit interested in her any longer.”
Arabella stared in dismay at Marcus and his beautiful inamorata. She couldn’t deny her jealousy, yet her distress was not only because the stunning Lady Eberly had once been his mistress; it was also because Marcus had pursued the lady while she was still another man’s wife.
Dragging her gaze away, Arabella lifted a hand to her mouth.
“Are you all right, dear?” Winifred asked in concern.
She couldn’t answer just then for the churning in her stomach. To think Marcus had been trying to persuade her to accept his offer of marriage while assuring her that he was nothing like her father, who had harbored no qualms about committing adultery.
“It is nothing,” Arabella managed to lie. “Perhaps I indulged in too many rich dishes at dinner. And the theater
“Certainly, you should sit down.”
She drew a steadying breath as they moved along the corridor, telling herself she had no right to feel such hurt. She had no real claim to Marcus. It was just that she had begun to trust him, to open her heart to him.
She should have known his portrayal of the ideal suitor was too perfect to be real.
But seeing Marcus with his former mistress was a cold awakening to reality. Her father had indulged in countless affairs after marriage, showering his affection on his mistresses, leaving her mother to languish alone in humiliation and resentment and heartbreak, pining after an unfaithful man who could never love her. How could she trust that Marcus would be any different if she wed him?
Arabella felt the hot sting of tears burn her eyes. To think that she had actually attempted to picture herself as his wife. Clearly she had been indulging in pipe dreams. Marriage between them would never work out. She was foolish to have thought it might.
She was an even worse fool to let herself become so vulnerable to hurt after her first wretched experience with love. She had let her emotions become too involved with Marcus, obviously. If she didn’t take care, she could end up making the same mistake all over again.
Arabella forced herself to swallow the ache in her throat. At least now there was no longer any danger of her falling in love with Marcus. Her resistance to him had been slipping day by day, softened by his seductive charm and his generosity toward her sisters. But she wouldn’t allow it to weaken any further.
Their wager would be over in less than a week. She had only to survive until next Monday and then she could declare her independence from him. Meanwhile, she had to pretend to be unaffected by this new revelation about him.
Her thoughts were so distracted that she nearly ran into Fanny Irwin, who was returning to her own box with her gentleman patron in tow.
“Do forgive me, Fanny,” Arabella murmured. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
Fanny surveyed her in concern. “Is something amiss, Arabella?”
She returned a strained smile. “No, I was just wool-gathering. It is so good to see you again, Fanny dear.”
Her concern evidently allayed, Fanny cast a glance farther down the corridor and then lowered her voice. “We shouldn’t be seen speaking together in public, Arabella. Your blue-blooded friends will see you.”
Arabella followed her gaze to glimpse Marcus’s aunt, Lady Beldon, standing at the door to their box, observing her encounter with Fanny with obvious disapproval.
“It is no matter,” Arabella replied. “I have no need to cultivate her ladyship’s good opinion.”
“But what about-”
“I will write to you tomorrow, Fanny. Winifred,” she called over her shoulder. “You remember my good friend, Miss Irwin.”
Smiling, Winifred offered a polite greeting. They spoke for a brief moment before Arabella continued on her way. By the time she entered Marcus’s box to find his aunt already seated, she was calmer and thinking more rationally, yet she couldn’t help reflecting on how right Fanny had been to warn her against succumbing to the earl’s seductive advances.
As she settled next to Winifred, though, she realized that Lady Beldon was addressing her. “You do realize, Miss Loring, that it is not proper for a lady to acknowledge a female of that stamp?”
Eleanor entered the box just then and resumed her seat between her aunt and Arabella. “A female of what stamp, Aunt?”
Lady Beldon sniffed. “Miss Loring knows whom I mean.”
At the viscountess’s censorious tone, Arabella stiffened. Earlier this evening, Lady Beldon had readily acknowledged the promiscuous Lady Eberly. It seemed highly unfair to forgive such wantonness in a married lady while condemning fallen women like Fanny.
But Arabella struggled to keep her tone polite when she replied, “Miss Irwin is a childhood friend, my lady. We grew up together and were as close as sisters.”
“That is no excuse for recognizing her now.”
Eleanor’s curious gaze went directly to Fanny. With a light laugh, she made an obvious effort to smooth
