“Polly?” St. Just looked sharply at her. “You mean . . . Miss Highsmith?”
“She’s Harry’s sister.”
“His sister?” He glanced behind them, to where Polly maintained her distance. “But her name—”
“She changed her surname.” Polly had wanted to leave her past behind. The Polly Higgs who’d sold her body on the streets of Whitechapel was someone entirely different from Miss Polly Highsmith, lady’s maid.
St. Just accepted this with a nod. “How did she come to be your maid?”
“The school began with Polly.”
“It did?”
Arabella nodded. How much should she tell him? “During my first Season, one day I went to Whitechapel without anyone knowing, to see if I could find Harry and Polly. It was . . .” It had been shocking—and it had put her own miseries into perspective. “It was a good thing I did. Harry had broken his arm. He couldn’t work, and Polly was trying to earn money by—” She bit her lip, and then hurried on: “I gave them everything I had, and Polly was able to . . . to stop. And we decided that the best thing would be a school where girls could learn how to work as servants, instead of . . . prostitutes.”
“A most admirable plan.”
“Yes. At first it was just Polly, and then Tess.” She glanced at him. “Harry’s wife.” Who’d been a prostitute alongside Polly. “I’m hoping they can move out to Swanley, Harry and Tess, before the baby’s born. Whitechapel is no place for an infant.”
“No.” St. Just walked in silence for several paces. “Harry taught you to steal? Was it necessary that you . . . er, do that?”
Arabella nodded. “In the beginning . . . it meant that Mother didn’t have to take so many clients. And at the end, when she was ill, we had no other income.” Her thieving had paid for their food, for the tiny room in the rookery—and it had paid for the stagecoach and that final journey to Kent—where her mother had died and been buried alongside her husband—and her own onward journey to Somerset and her grandparents.
Adam St. Just said nothing. She glanced at him and read censure in his frown. “Mother didn’t know I was doing it. She would never have allowed me! I told her . . .” She flushed. “I told her I’d earned the money, begging. I’m a good liar.”
“I know,” St. Just said. His expression became wry. “The nanny goat.”
They walked in silence for several minutes, their feet crunching on the gravel. “Does the school have a name?” St. Just asked, as they neared a junction in the paths.
“Not yet. But once I have my inheritance and can formalize everything, it will.”
“What will you call it?”
“The Thérèse de Martigny School for Girls,” Arabella said. “After my mother.”
“She would be very proud of you,” St. Just said quietly.
Sudden tears rushed to Arabella’s eyes. She blinked them away. “I hope so.”
They reached the junction. St. Just stopped. “I should return you to the museum.”
“Yes.”
They stood for a moment, looking at each other. Arabella took hold of her courage. “Mr. St. Just, do you . . . do you truly wish to marry me?”
“Yes, Miss Knightley. I truly do.”
“I’m very sorry,” she said.
His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “So am I.”
THAT EVENING, ADAM attended the Elphinstones’ ball with his sister and aunt. He was in no mood to dance. He stood out the first dance, a drink in his hand, searching the ballroom for Arabella Knightley.
She was the daughter of a whore. Common wisdom painted her as impure, little better than a lightskirt herself, when instead, the opposite was true. She was afraid of sex—
“Darling,” a familiar voice said.
He turned his head. Lady Mary Vane stood beside him, smiling her sleepy smile. “I have that letter you wanted. I’ll send it around tomorrow.”
For a moment Adam had no idea what she was talking about—then he remembered. The letter from Grace’s blackmailer, Lady Bicknell. “Thank you. I’m more grateful than you can imagine.”
“For you, darling, anything.”
“Mary, if anyone should ask . . . you never received the letter.”
Her eyebrows arched slightly. “If that’s what you want?”
“It is.”
Mary nodded. She moved on, leisurely, beautiful.
Adam sipped his champagne. He scanned the ballroom for Lady Bicknell. Once he’d finished with her she wouldn’t be blackmailing anyone else.
He saw dowagers with turbans on their crimped gray curls, stout matrons wearing caps of white satin from which ostrich feathers sprouted, dashing young ladies with diamond tiaras atop their heads, débutantes with jeweled combs in their hair—
A face snagged his gaze; dark curls, dark eyes, high cheekbones, and a softly indented chin.
“Lovely, isn’t she?” a smooth voice said in his ear.
Adam grunted, and swallowed another mouthful of champagne.
“Do I hear the sound of wedding bells?” Jeremy asked sweetly.
No. His hand clenched around the glass. “Were you present when Crowe was ruined?”
“Crowe?” Jeremy blinked. “Lord, yes. Never forget a scene like that!”
Adam grimaced, and drank another mouthful of champagne. It tasted bitter in his mouth. He’d turned away from Crowe, as had every man in the room, while Crowe had blustered his innocence. I should have killed him. Or better yet, castrated the man and then killed him.
“Why do you ask?”
“No reason,” Adam said.
He returned his attention to Arabella Knightley. She was afraid of sex—the kind of sex her mother had been forced to endure, not the kind of sex he hoped to share with her. If he could only make her understand the difference—
An idea bloomed in his head. It was shocking, scandalous, perfect.
Dare I? Adam asked himself, as he sipped the champagne.
Given the alternative, he most definitely did.
“D’ you like my waistcoat? Matches my eyes, don’t you think?”
Adam glanced at him. “You are a fribble and a coxcomb!” he said, severely.
Jeremy looked gratified. “One does one’s poor best.”
Adam couldn’t help it; he laughed.
HE MADE HIS way around the ballroom to where Arabella Knightley stood. She watched
