In a low voice, he said, “I am trying to get Olivia into the water because her parents say she hasn’t gone in since the accident, and she used to swim like a fish. If she doesn’t give it a go now, she might have a fear of water for the rest of her life.”
“Why do you care?” Arabella asked coldly.
With her raven curls and emerald eyes, his duchess was a stunning beauty. Yet more and more, he saw the ugliness beneath, and it made him weary. He loved her, yes, but after seven years of marriage, he concluded that he did not like her very much.
Nonetheless, he did not want to give up on the closest relationship he had left. They were stuck with one another for the duration. And he was determined for them to make a go of it.
Thus, he controlled his temper and said, “I care because she is young, and her future should not be shaped by fear. And what if she falls into water again? For her own safety, she should learn to swim.”
“That is utter claptrap,” Arabella retorted. “You only care because you like playing the part of her hero. You like that the girl looks at you like some dewy-eyed mooncalf!”
He shot a look over at Livy, afraid that she’d overheard. Luckily, she was peering up at a vee of flying geese and didn’t seem to be paying attention to his row with his wife.
“Are you mad?” he said in disgust. “For God’s sake, she is thirteen and like a younger sister to me.”
“Maybe if you hadn’t alienated your actual sister, you wouldn’t be so pathetically desperate for more family.”
Incredulity slammed into him, loosening his grip on his temper.
“I would give my soul to undo my sins,” he said with vibrating anger, “but I will not be lectured by you. I think you and I both know that, of the two of us, I am not the only one who has wronged my sister.”
Arabella blanched. He’d never brought up her shameful abandonment of Bea after Bea’s injury. The two had been the best of friends until Bea’s scar had ruined her popularity. Years ago, Bea had tried to tell him that Arabella had, indeed, been behind some of the cruel monikers aimed at Bea, but he had refused to listen. Refused to believe that the woman he loved could be so heartless.
He’d nearly lost his sister because of his stupidity. Paid for it in the years of estrangement between them. Now that Beatrice had given him a second chance, he’d sworn to himself that he would do his best by her…and so would his wife.
“You will be on your best behavior for the duration of this visit,” he clipped out. “No more sulking, no more complaints.”
“I am not a servant, and I will not take orders from you.” Arabella’s face was now red with fury. “You and your sister think you are so much better than me just because my father’s wealth came from trade!”
The accusation was ludicrous. His sister was the least snobby person he knew. Her closest friend was a tinker’s daughter, for God’s sake, and she treated her tenants like they were her family. He, himself, hadn’t given a thought to Arabella’s background when he’d proposed to her. Yet Arabella had a way of twisting things in her mind, and he knew from past experience that he could not sway her from her beliefs. He hated his feeling of helplessness. The impulse to find oblivion, even temporarily, rose within him.
Just then, voices sounded, a group emerging from the woods next to the stream. Ben’s jaw tightened as he recognized his rakehells-in-arms Edgecombe, Thorne, and Bollinger. In the past, he’d done plenty of carousing as part of the Horsemen, but of late he was trying to distance himself. A fresh start for him and Arabella included getting away from corruptive influences.
The scoundrels weren’t getting his message. Or they found it amusing to confound his efforts to turn his life around. Although the Horsemen weren’t on his sister’s guest list, they must have found out about her party and come to make trouble.
“I say, is that the Hadleighs?” Edgecombe came over, bowing to Arabella. “What a coincidence.”
Like hell it was.
“What are you doing here?” Ben’s words were filtered through his teeth.
“We were just in the n-neighborhood.” Thorne kissed Arabella’s hand, and she giggled.
“The better question is, what are you doing in the water, old boy?” Bollinger eyed the creek with a shudder. “It looks positively frigid.”
“Cold water is good for the constitution,” Ben said curtly.
“But you’ve left your pretty wife high and dry.” Edgecombe winked at Arabella. “And that is a crime.”
“Indeed, sirs, this day has been a dreadful bore,” she said with a pout.
“We are headed to town, my lady, to see a travelling troupe perform.” Bollinger made a leg. “Perhaps you would care to join?”
“I forbid you to go,” Ben told her in a low voice.
Shooting him a triumphant look, Arabella declared to the group, “That sounds like the perfect antidote to rustication.”
Edgecombe gave her his arm, and she headed off with the group. Ben could not chase after her without looking like a fool. As the party disappeared from sight, he punched the water in frustration. Bloody hell, why could nothing go right? Why couldn’t he control the simplest damn thing?
He felt as powerless to stop the wreckage of his life as he had been to save Griggs’s daughter. Disaster was approaching like an oncoming train. No matter how he tried to stave it off, he was destined to fail. To feel again her fingers letting go of his, to hear the whoosh of air as she’d fallen, dark triumph glittering in her eyes…
“Hadleigh?” a girlish voice called.
Devil take it. He’d forgotten about Livy.
He made his way back to her, the water swirling in agitated waves around him. She was still standing on the rock, and she looked down at him
