Page 121 of A Dangerous Kind of Lady

He regretted burning the note, but he knew it well enough to recite in his sleep.You owe me no debt or duty.

Thank the stars. She had given him a clue, after all.

Chapter 27

Arabella made no effort to hide, because she knew Guy would not come after her. And if he did come after her, why make it difficult? But he would not come after her. She knew he would not.

And he didn’t.

It was two days’ travel to London, and she was thankful for Cassandra’s help in providing her comfortable carriage. She avoided her family’s house; the humiliation if Papa wrote to cast her out would be unbearable. Instead, she traveled two extra streets to the London house of her friends, Lord and Lady Luxborough. The earl and countess were at their home in the county of Somerset, but their retainers knew her well. They opened the house and let her in.

Like all her other oh-so-brilliant solutions, it turned out to be a mistake.

Because the Luxborough house formed part of a square, and in the middle of that square was a small, leafy park, and on the other side of that park was Lord Hardbury’s house.

Several days after Arabella arrived, Guy did too.

She knew from the bustle of carriages. She knew from the chatter of servants. She knew because she saw him, day after day after day, playing with Ursula in the park.

She knew because he looked right at her each time, his expression unreadable as he held her gaze.

As always, she was the first to look away; as always, he continued as if she were not there.

“What did you expect?” she muttered to the window. “A bunch of flowers and a thank-you note?”

“Did you say something?” Juno asked from behind her.

Good grief. Arabella had forgotten her friend was even there. She had expected heartbreak to hurt; she had not expected it to be so all-consuming she could concentrate on little else.

“No. Nothing,” she said.

With a whisper of skirts, Juno crossed the room to join her, and side by side they watched Guy and his little sister play. Ursula had spotted the robin redbreast that frequented the park. Guy crouched, with his arm looped around her, as she pointed out the little bird.

“Lord Hardbury came by the studio, with Leo,” Juno said.

As a professional artist, one of the very few women in London with her own studio, Juno inhabited a space parallel to society’s usual rules. While she would never be received in respectable places, it was perfectly acceptable for respectable people to mingle in art studios. Leopold Halton, the Duke of Dammerton, was known to mingle in Juno’s studio quite often.

Perhaps Arabella would learn to exist in a space like that, if she managed to start her publishing house. By jilting Guy, she had thrown herself out of society, but a publisher had little use for a good reputation. All she needed was money. And friends.

Abruptly, Juno bounded back across the room, grabbed her charcoal and paper, and started sketching. Arabella leaned against the windowsill to watch her work.

“How is he?” Arabella asked.

“He didn’t talk much. He seemed distracted.”

“Was he poking and prodding things?”

“Oh dear me, yes.”

Arabella smiled, remembering. “He does that. He gets restless.”

Oh, but she missed him. She made her longing worse, she supposed, the way she kept taking out her memories of Guy and studying them like treasured pieces of art. But she welcomed the heartache; it came with love, and she refused to surrender her love.

“We could arrange a meeting,” Juno said, not looking up from her work. “At my studio. It could appear purely incidental. You would be there visiting me, and Leo will bring Hardbury again. You could talk to him.”

Arabella shook her head. “Talking won’t help.”

Cassandra had said something similar:Don’t make it more complicated than it needs to be.

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