Page 20 of Harpy of the Ton
“There you are!” she huffed. “Where have you been? Justlookat you!”
“In the garden, Aunt.”
“Don’t speak with such an insolent tone! What have you done to get yourself into such a state?” She wrinkled her nose. “Oh, youstink! Have you been near that gardener fellow despite my telling you not to fraternize with his sort?”
Arabella opened her mouth to explain, then closed it again.
Tell and bedamned, Lady Arabella.
“Let me look at you, child.”
A bony hand grasped Arabella’s chin and thrust it upward, and she let out a soft groan at the ache in her neck.
“Aunt…”
“I said silence! You look like you’ve been dragged through a bush.”
She squeezed her chin, and Arabella let out a low cry of pain as tears spilled onto her cheeks.
“And that’s quite enough of that,” her aunt said. “Women of our rank should not be given to such outbursts. Such histrionics belong in the schoolroom.”
“I can’t help it if—”
“Yes, you can!” Her aunt thrust her face close, her poisonous eyes glittering with contempt. “Who do you think you are, disgracing the family name like this?”
“It’smyfamily name, not yours.”
“Don’t take that tone with me, young lady! Remember your position. You’d be nothing without me, do you hear? After all I’ve done for you—the sacrifices I’ve made—you repay me with this? You’re on the brink of securing our triumph, yet you threaten it, behaving like a guttersnipe! Get yourself inside, before somebody sees you.”
“Who’s to see me out here?”
“Your betrothed, for one thing,” her aunt said. “Do you think he’ll maintain his interest if he sees you like this? With a blotchy face and puffy eyes? Your appearance dictates your future.”
“I thought that was my fortune,” Arabella said bitterly.
Slap!
Her aunt struck her cheek, then gripped her wrist and led her inside.
As soon as they’d passed the footman guarding the main doors—who, though he tried to stare straight ahead with nonchalance, couldn’t help a glance in their direction—Arabella wrenched her arm free.
“Do not defy me,” her aunt warned.
“I’ll do what I like,” Arabella said, forcing a frost into her voice. Then she tilted her head to one side and gave her aunt a cold smile. “What do you think the duke will do once he’s secured my hand? Do you think he’ll have further use for you?Icertainly won’t.”
“You’ll still need me to teach you decorum.”
“I’ll need no one,” Arabella said. “Isn’t that what you’ve always told me? Isn’t that why I have no friends?”
“You’d have plenty of friends if you associated with the right sort.”
“What of Juliette Howard?” Arabella asked. “She was my particular friend until last Season.”
“I’ve told you before not to speak of that whore!”
“What did Juliette do to cause such offense?” Arabella asked. “Dunton himself was enamored by her until she disappeared. I always thought he’d offer for her.”
“He’d never offer for someone with her background—daughter to a common shopkeeper. But she got what she deserved in the end—banished to the country to live out her disgrace. That’s all her sort deserve.”
