Page 43 of How to Cross a Marquess (The Way to a Lord's Heart 3)

“Why obviously?”

“Because of the result,” he answered. “One day, when I called at her house, I managed it. I saw her alone. I was so pleased with myself, I never wondered how that came about. Imagined it was my own cleverness, I suppose. I tried to steal a kiss. Just one kiss, no more, as Arabella seemed willing. But her mother came in at just that moment. She’d been lying in wait. Like a hunter watching a snare.” Roger couldn’t help that last bit. Mrs. Crenshawhadlaid a trap for him. He’d worked out later that he was the one with the highest rank and largest fortune among Arabella’s beaus.

“She congratulated us on our engagement,” he continued. “When I stammered something about not meaning that, tongue practically tied in knots, she called me a libertine. Arabella cried.” Roger still winced when he remembered that scene. “I said of course I wasn’t. And then there was a great deal more scolding.” It had been a veritable flood of words, engulfing him whenever he tried to speak, and Roger had lost his way in the spate. The feelings of chagrin and shame were vivid, however. He’d been made to feel like a deceiver who had trifled with an innocent girl’s affections. The idea that he’d wounded Arabella, so sweet and fragile as she seemed then, had racked him. Of course he’d had to make amends. “Mrs. Crenshaw sent a notice to the papers within the hour, and the thing was done.”

Fenella nodded.

Roger couldn’t tell what she thought of him. He felt his spirits sink as the details brought it all back. Perhaps he shouldn’t have started this story. “My father was so glad,” he added. “We’d been at odds since…” He gestured at Fenella and himself.

“Yes.”

“Mama was happy, too. Which I was glad of.”

“Of course.”

Still no sign of her opinion that he could decipher. “I owed it to the title to marry.”

“And Arabella was so beautiful,” she said again.

Roger acknowledged this with a nod. That had been a point; he admitted it. Seeing her across a crowded drawing room could take a man’s breath away. The announcement of their engagement made him the object of envy in his whole set of young bucks. And he’d reveled in it, popinjay that he was. “I was never alone with her again until after the wedding.” And then, of course, he’d discovered the extent of his folly.

Roger risked a glance at Fenella. He thought he saw sympathy in her eyes. On their last ride together, he’d begun to feel that he could talk to her about anything. But he couldn’t complain about Arabella. That would be ungentlemanly, loutish. He would never do that.

But he yearned to understand, Roger realized. He’d wanted that for months and found no way to achieve it. Macklin had advised asking, and Fenella was the only friend Arabella had made in the neighborhood, ironically. As they were speaking to each other again, could she enlighten him? Still, it took him a moment to dare to say, “Afterward, I found I couldn’t put a foot right.” He stared into the distance rather than at his companion. “I’m not such a coxcomb as to expect everyone to like me. But I’d never before encountered someone who objected to every single thing I said or did.” Nor had he ever felt such an utter failure, he added silently. He couldn’t bring himself to say that aloud.

In the short silence that followed, Roger had ample time to regret his impulsive confidences. An urge to spur his horse and gallop off washed over him. They could resume their policy of not talking. It was so much easier than worrying that he’d said the wrong thing and ruined all.

“She cared for someone else,” Fenella said.

Roger turned in the saddle to stare at her.

Fenella absorbed his incredulous stare stoically. She’d made up her mind as he spoke, hesitant at first but then increasingly moved by the pain in his voice. Arabella had never sworn her to secrecy, after all. Indeed, she’d been defiantly indiscreet, her need to speak seeming to outweigh all else. Perhaps she’d assumed that Fenella would take her side. She’d certainly vented her spite and resentment of Roger unstintingly, at every opportunity. It never seemed to occur to Arabella that she was burdening Fenella with one of most uncomfortable secrets she’d ever possessed, and straining her affectionate bond with Roger’s mother.

“She told me about him,” Fenella went on. “Not his name, but…other things. They’d met during the season and fallen in love. They wanted to marry, but her parents objected. Particularly her mother, I believe. The match wasn’t grand enough for her.”

Roger scowled like a man who could not believe what he was hearing. “Why did she accept me if that was so?” He put a hand to his midsection as if to ease an ache.

“That was her mother’s doing. She wove a…fantasy of a bright future on one side and doom on the other, with this less wealthy suitor.” Fenella frowned, recalling Arabella’s bitterness toward her parent. She hadn’t really understood why the other girl gave in to this argument. “I gathered that Mrs. Crenshaw is a…strong personality.”

A crack of laughter shook Roger. There was no humor in his face. “A bit like Medusa, actually. One look, and you turn to stone.” He grimaced. “Not fair. And I swear she loved her daughter. If you could see her since Arabella’s death.” He struck his thigh with a fist. “Why the deuce didn’t Arabella stand up to her if that was the way of it?”

“She was young.” Fenella would make no judgments. “And perhaps not well taught.”

“Poor Arabella.” Roger’s expression grew pained. “So there was this other fellow the whole time. The whole time I knew her.”

“Yes.” Fenella hated to hurt him, but there was no other answer.

He was silent for a while. “And she never—” He shook his head. “Still, I needn’t have walked into Mrs. Crenshaw’s scheme.”

Fenella was surprised. She’d rather expected that he would go off on a rant about the Crenshaws ruining his life.

“What a prodigious waste. On every front.” He met her eyes. “Ask,” he murmured.

“What?” This was a different Roger. There was a curious diffidence in his face.

“When you first came back from Scotland and I saw you again, I felt this pull. Like waking up to a…trumpet blast.” He examined her face. “I thought you might have, too. Not sure about that.” He paused, waiting.

After a moment, Fenella nodded. She could admit it now that there were no secrets lying between them. She felt the attraction more today than she’d done then.

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