Page 79 of The Inconvenient Heiress

It didn’t take her long to fill a few pages with rough outlines of the views, with notes about color and composition. She would spend the next few days painting them in her attic, but she liked to have the landscape in front of her while she composed the images.

Caroline came striding up the hill with her skirts clutched high in one hand, her other hand on her bonnet to prevent a wind gust from blowing it off her head.

“Bell!” Caroline peered down at her drawing. “You are so talented. As always.” She sat down on the grass and Byron yawned and stretched before curling up on her lap like a cushion.

Arabella envied the cat as Caroline stroked him. The strength of her physical reaction startled her—her skin tingled, and her lips felt dry, and she was hard-pressed to keep her papers in her lap instead of tossing them to the wind and throwing herself into Caroline’s arms.

She swallowed. “Were you looking for me? Or taking a walk?”

“I stopped by your house to see you, and Rachel told me you had come up here to sketch.”

“I thought that you would be too busy these days for company, so I haven’t stopped by your new house.”

The truth was that Arabella had been avoiding her for the first time in their lives, fearing that their encounter would be awkward. But as Caroline sat there cuddling Byron, her brown hair blowing across her face, the sea breeze seemed to take any awkwardness away with it. Arabella felt herself relax.

Caroline groaned. “Busy is not the word. I am more exhausted now than I was before, despite the fact that I have not prepared a single meal, done an inch of scrubbing, or put one stitch into the mending. Instead, I have been arranging the furnishing rentals, interviewing servants, and discussing curriculums with the new tutors.”

“Is Mr. Taylor helping you?”

“I hate to admit it, but I could not do any of this without his help. He has been…well, I suppose I ought to sayinvaluable.” She said the word as if it was distasteful.

“Perhaps we have been wrong about him.”

“Perhaps. But the situation is still so dashed suspicious.” Caroline sighed. “And there is one thing he cannot help me with.”

“Oh?”

“Betsy and Susan want nothing more than to be launched into society. I might be reaching for the stars, but I think they have a chance at a respectable match.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I am trying to find a sponsor who will help me with the girls. But Mr. Taylor knows of no such woman. He was unable to suggest any aunts or cousins or family that we have.” She frowned. “Is that not odd?”

“Decidedly odd,” Arabella agreed.

Byron opened one eye and meowed.

“Byron agrees that Mr. Taylor is an enigma,” Caroline said with a laugh.

He meowed again, then leapt onto Arabella’s lap and butted his head against her sketchbook. She rubbed beneath his chin, then picked him up and nuzzled the top of his head as she thought about Caroline’s predicament. It didn’t make any sense to her.

“I’m not sure what I’m going to do,” Caroline confessed. “I need help.”

Carolineneverasked for help. Worry flitted across her face, and she was working her bottom lip with her teeth in a moment of vulnerability that Arabella rarely saw. Caroline was always confident and charging ahead with a plan. She never seemed to need anyone.

She knew who she wanted Caroline to need.Her.

But if she couldn’t have Caroline, she would still do anything in her power to help her.

“I know what you should do,” Arabella announced.

“What?”

“Write to your new cousins directly. You showed me the family Bible. There were scores of names written in it—and most of them were women, remember? That was why they had to go back a generation or two to find Mr. Taylor and give him the baronetcy in the first place after your father and his brothers had passed. Mr. Taylor must be overlooking someone in his family. A gentleman may not know the niceties of such a thing, after all. You could ask for their direction from the solicitor, could you not?”

Arabella’s heart hammered. Suggesting to go against a family member felt almost treasonous to her, especially when she herself hadsuch a hard time standing up to her own brother. She had no intention of sowing discord among the Reeves.

She felt like a hero when Caroline beamed at her.

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