There was so much she wanted to say to Sir Arnold. She’d written half a dozen messages, but in the end this was the one she’d brought with her. Like the tiepin, it was simple. She’d expressed her contempt of Sir Arnold, not in words, but in the drawing at the bottom of the message. The black cat had caught a cockerel. It lay at the cat’s feet, belly up, its plumage bedraggled—and unmistakably Gorrie.
Back in the bedchamber, she stared at the four-poster bed with distaste. Sir Arnold hadn’t seduced Jenny, nor had he resorted to physical force. He’d used words, veiled threats of dismissal, to woo her into his bed. And Jenny, young and newly come from the country, without family or friends in London, had taken the only course she’d thought open to her.
Arabella thinned her lips. The tiepins weren’t enough. She turned on her heel, heading back for the dressing room and the diamond-encrusted buckles, when the bedside cabinet caught her eye.
It was vulgar, like everything else she’d seen in the house. Mahogany, in the form of a fluted column, with gilded ionic scrolling.
Arabella changed direction. She crossed to the bedside cabinet and lifted the hinged top. She saw a handkerchief, some smelling salts, a bottle of laudanum, two guineas, a tin of lozenges, and—
For a moment she stood frozen, then she reached out and touched a cautious finger to the roll of banknotes nestling in the corner.
The first banknote was for one pound. The second was for—
Carefully she counted the banknotes onto the crimson and gold bedspread. Three hundred and twenty-seven pounds.
Arabella blew out a breath. She glanced at the locked door to the bedroom. Her heart began to beat faster.
The smaller banknotes—the twos and ones—went back into the cabinet. The larger ones went into her pouch, crammed in beside the jeweled tiepins. Three hundred and twenty pounds’ worth of banknotes. Enough money to give Jenny and her child a future.
Arabella glanced around for paper and ink. She had to leave a note from Tom, or a servant could be blamed for this theft.
In a drawer in Sir Arnold’s dresser she found some bills from his tailor. In another drawer was a clutter of cosmetics: rouge, powder, eyebrow pencils.
The note was much rougher than any she’d left before, but Arabella felt it made its point nicely. An honorable man provides for his children, she wrote in brown eyebrow pencil on the back of a bill for waistcoats. Underneath the words she sketched a cat lying stretched out on its side, watching a kitten play with a ball of string.
She left the message inside the gilded mahogany plinth, curled into the diminished roll of banknotes.
ARABELLA RODE IN Hyde Park the following morning. Her spirits were high, despite the grayness of the sky. Merrylegs caught her mood. The mare’s canter stretched into a gallop. For a moment Arabella let her have her head, then she reined Merrylegs back. Much as she loved to gallop, Hyde Park wasn’t the place for it.
It was always like this, after a night as Tom: the exultation, the silent laughter bubbling inside her. The exultation would drain away, but until it did she’d hug it to herself—and hold Merrylegs back from a high-spirited gallop.
On her third circuit Arabella saw a familiar horse and rider. Her good mood faltered slightly. She slowed Merrylegs to a trot.
The dappled gray gelding was a magnificent beast, powerful and well-muscled, with an easy gait and a proud way of looking down its nose. Rather like its owner.
Arabella grimaced. “Well,” she said to Merrylegs. “I may as well get this over with.”
She urged the mare into a canter again and came up alongside the rider on the gray gelding. “Mr. St. Just.”
Adam St. Just glanced at her. His face seemed to tighten. He hesitated for a fraction of a second, and then inclined his head politely.
“May I have a word?”
The gray gelding slowed to a trot, and a walk. “Yes, Miss Knightley?” Neither St. Just’s expression nor his voice was encouraging.
“I wish to apologize for sharpening my claws on you at the Mallorys’ ball. It was extremely rude of me.”
St. Just blinked. Something approaching surprise showed on his face. “Consider it forgotten, Miss Knightley. I more than deserve any . . . er, sharpening of claws.”
Arabella lifted her eyebrows, not understanding.
“For my words seven years ago.”
Words for which he’d apologized.
“I hope I’m not that ungracious!” she said, insulted.
St. Just opened his mouth, and then closed it again. She saw a glimmer of curiosity in his gray eyes. He wanted to know why she’d behaved as she had—but was too polite to ask.
Arabella focused her attention on Merrylegs’ ears. She couldn’t tell St. Just the truth: that the intimacy of waltzing with him made her deeply uncomfortable, that the sensations it engendered were frightening. “The waltz brings out the worst in me,” she said.
“Oh.” St. Just’s voice told her nothing, but his expression—when she glanced at him—was faintly perplexed.
Arabella smiled brightly to forestall any questions. “Good day, Mr. St. Just.”
He hesitated slightly, then inclined his head. “Good day, Miss Knightley.”
THAT AFTERNOON ADAM walked around to Bond Street, but instead of entering Jackson’s Boxing Saloon, he turned into the neighboring establishment: Angelo’s Fencing Academy.
Jeremy strolled in several minutes after him. “Ready to lose?” he asked cheerfully.
“I have no intention of losing,” Adam said, peeling out of his coat.
Jeremy grinned, showing his teeth. “Neither have I.”
Adam removed his boots. He cast a glance at Jeremy’s clothing. “You make a nice target in that waistcoat.”
Jeremy smoothed a hand over the crimson satin. “Beautiful, ain’t it?”
Adam snorted.
He tested the foils while Jeremy removed his coat and boots. Henry Angelo, grandson of the original Angelo, was their referee. “Ready,
