She tackled Against first.
The first item was easy: Arrogant, Arabella wrote neatly. Then she stared at the word. Was Adam St. Just really arrogant?
She chewed her lower lip. There’d been no arrogance in him today when he’d spoken with Harry and Tess, no arrogance when he’d made his astonishing offer of marriage.
Adam St. Just had a way of looking down at people, but was that due to arrogance, or a combination of height and a patrician nose?
Finally, after staring at the word Arrogant for several minutes, Arabella dipped her quill in the inkpot again and crossed it out.
She stared irresolutely at the Against list. What else could she put down? His statement all those years ago about the smell of gutters? It seemed churlish to, after he’d apologized.
She gnawed on her lower lip. Adam St. Just had only articulated what everyone else in the ton had been thinking—and still thought.
What a fool he’d look if she accepted his offer. How people would laugh at him!
That decided it; she wouldn’t put it on the list.
But that left the Against list with nothing on it.
Arabella frowned and rubbed her forehead, and turned to the sheet headed For. She would go back to Against later.
This list was slightly easier. Her quill scratched lightly across the paper.
He did apologize. Even though it had taken him seven years to do so.
Next on the list was: He rescued me from Emsley.
And then: He helped Jenny.
And: He wants to help with the school.
Philanthropy was a new venture for Adam St. Just, surely? Although his ex-mistress, Lady Mary Vane, ran a charity for indigent soldiers’ widows. Presumably he contributed to that?
Ah, that was something for the Against list. In the habit of keeping a mistress, Arabella wrote. That was a serious entry against him.
She tapped the quill against her chin. St. Just chose his mistresses from the ton, not the demimonde. Did such fastidiousness make his liaisons better or worse?
It was an unanswerable question.
Arabella chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip. What else had St. Just done that could go on the For list, or the Against?
Memory came: at the Mallorys’ ball, after he’d cut Sir Arnold Gorrie, they had almost laughed together.
Sense of humor, she wrote on the For list.
And later that evening she’d learned of his propensity to gamble—another item for the Against list. A gambler, she wrote firmly.
Turning back to the For list, she tapped the quill against her chin again, before writing: Clever. Adam St. Just had figured out Tom’s identity, something she hadn’t thought anyone could do. He was more intelligent than she’d given him credit for.
What else? There were a number of other things that could go on the For list—his splendid physique, his skill on horseback, the lack of ostentation in his dress, his handsome face—but they could all be summarized in one short phrase.
Arabella bit her lip. At the bottom of both lists she wrote: I find him attractive.
She laid down her quill and stared at the lists. That last reason was the most important one of all. Being attracted to him was dangerous; it could tempt her into making a terrible mistake.
She might like Adam St. Just’s smile, might feel flushed and breathless when he waltzed with her, but the thought of being touched intimately by him, of sharing his bed, was—
Arabella shuddered. She couldn’t marry him, simply could not.
Therefore, she had to refuse his offer.
She screwed up the pieces of paper and crossed to the fireplace. The lists burned quickly. She watched as they crumbled into ashes. Gone.
Arabella bit her lip, feeling ridiculously close to tears. She turned away from the hearth.
Only one question now remained: How to refuse St. Just’s offer without hurting him?
HER CHANCE CAME the following morning, when she was riding in Hyde Park. On her third circuit, she saw Adam St. Just ahead of her, astride his gray gelding.
St. Just was easily as handsome as his mount: the ease with which he controlled the horse, the strong shoulders, the muscled length of his thighs—
Arabella averted her eyes. “Well, Merrylegs . . . shall we do this?”
The mare tossed her head and snorted. Arabella took that as a Yes. She blew out an unsteady breath. “Very well. Let’s give him his answer.”
In less than a minute she was alongside St. Just. He slowed once he saw her; the great gelding dropped back to a trot, and then a walk.
“Mr. St. Just.” Arabella inclined her head at him. “I’d hoped to meet you here.” She took a deep breath and launched into the speech she’d prepared: “I would like to thank you for your extremely flattering offer, but I must tell you that . . . that I’m not a suitable wife for you.”
His eyebrows rose. “Surely I must be the judge of that?” he said, with a slight smile.
The smile was disconcerting. Arabella clutched the reins more tightly. “Six years ago I put loaded dice in Lord Crowe’s pocket. Two of them. Uphills.”
The smile froze on St. Just’s face.
“When he pulled out his handkerchief, they fell on the floor. I believe you were witness to the event. It happened at White’s.”
St. Just made no reply. The smile had vanished.
“Lord Crowe was ruined. Society turned its back on him. Two months later he killed himself.” Guilt—and its accompanying nausea—rose in her throat. She swallowed. “I ruined Lord Crowe, Mr. St. Just. One might even say I killed him. I think we both agree that I’m not a fitting bride for you.”
Adam St. Just made no reply. He stared at her, his face utterly blank. There was no smile in those gray eyes; instead she saw condemnation.
Arabella bit her lip. She inclined her head. “Good day, Mr. St. Just.”
ARABELLA WAS SHAKING as she changed from her riding habit into a cambric dress. Absurdly, she found herself wanting to cry.
The shaking and tearfulness were symptoms of relief, she told herself as she went downstairs to eat luncheon with her grandmother.
