Page 29 of A Fake Courtship with the Marquess
“Cassie, not you, too,” Arabella murmured.
“I must think practically for you, if you can’t do it for yourself,” Cassie replied softly. “Give him a chance, Milady. You might be surprised.”
Confused, Arabella stared down at the grass and watched a ladybird crawl through the stalks. She would be lying if she said she had not watched Henry’s departure with a sense of regret, for she had thoroughly enjoyed their walk through the gardens. He was easy to talk to and made jokes that brought ready laughter to her lips, and when she held onto his arm, she had a sense that she was safe.
After they had spoken of Lord Powell, they had spent almost two hours together, chatting about everything and nothing. She could not fully remember the details of their conversation, for she had been laughing so much that a great deal of it was foggy.
“That isnota horse by anyone’s standards,” she recalled him saying, as she had shown him the terrible topiary by the kitchens. “Horse-kind would be horrified. How is a person supposed to ride that when it has a back like a wilted leek? And the nose, or what I think is the nose… No, that is an abomination. Do not even ask me about the tail—that is, frankly, obscene.”
She had howled until her ribs ached, and the sound of him laughing with her had been as powerful as his pianoforte. Laughter like that was truly a liberation she had never known she needed.
“You’re thinking of him, aren’t you?” Cassie nudged her arm lightly.
Arabella cast her a disapproving look. “Desist. If he liked me so much, he would not have suggested I find another husband. As far as rejections go, that is rather final.”
“He didn’t know anything of you when he said that,” Cassie pointed out. “And, don’t forget, he’d just humiliated himself in front of an entire ballroom. He probably thought he was doing you a favor, so you wouldn’t have to be saddled with an embarrassment, but he doesn’t seem so… inelegant when he’s alone with you.”
“No, he does not,” Arabella said, before she could stop herself. “Unless he is hiding behind bushes.”
Cassie chuckled. “Even then, it was done with your comfort in mind.”
“What do you mean?”
“He entered the gardens while you were talking to Lord Powell. If gentlemen could truly die from witnessing beauty, he’d have expired right there between the yew bushes,” Cassie explained, beaming. “Clearly knowing it might cause trouble if he interrupted, especially considering his history of conflict with Lord Powell, he ducked back out again. Foryou.”
Arabella gaped at her friend. “He did not!”
“He did. I saw it with my own two eyes. Ergo, he was likely hiding behind the bush for the same reason.”
Empathy flooded Arabella’s chest, prompting her to put her hand subconsciously to her heart. No man had ever considered her feelings or her comfort before, and now two such men had entered her life. But which meant more—the kindly acts done in front of a ballroom of people, or those done for no one to see?
“I ought to see what this parcel is before the curiosity kills me,” Arabella announced, getting up.
Cassie jumped up, too. “I was hoping you’d say that! I’ve been dying to know.”
“Do you think we speak too ghoulishly, too often?” Arabella teased, as Cassie gathered the woolen blanket, and they began heading back to the house.
Cassie sniffed. “It’s passion, Milady, nothing ghoulish.”
“I ought to write a book of your sayings, Dear Cassie.” Arabella weaved her arm through her friend’s, smiling to hide the nerves that thrummed in her. She did not know what kind of gift awaited her, yet it troubled her that she was already hoping it was something nice.
I have been given a rare opportunity to find true love. I must not waste it because Cassie has wriggled into my head.
Opening up the French doors and stepping into the cool of the library, the parcel could not be missed. It was enormous, sitting on an end-table that threatened to buckle under the weight of the vast gift.
“How did he get that here on his horse?” Arabella blinked at the parcel, wrapped in brown paper with a silk ribbon of beautiful turquoise fashioned in a bow on top.
Cassie snorted. “It’s not that big, Milady.”
“I worry what you consider tobebig,” Arabella quipped in reply, approaching the gift. Her name was written elegantly on the paper, in the same hand that had so enchanted her in that letter of mistaken identity.
Excited, she unraveled the bow and peeled away the paper, to find a rectangle of card sitting on top of a huge, two-deep stack of books.
Taking the card first, though she longed to read the titles of the gifted tomes, her eyes flitted across the cursive.
To My Daring Damsel,
I offer these, not in jest, but in apology. Unfurnished with the grace to know how to apologize in person, I hope these will serve you instead. They are long overdue, and I pray that, at last, you will know the endings to the stories I stole from you when I was a “Scarecrow” of a boy.
