Page 75 of A Dangerous Kind of Lady

“Ah.” Guy stopped short. He nodded at his sister’s retreating back, a hurt half smile twisting his lips. Without thinking, Arabella slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow and squeezed his arm.

Lady Treadgold appeared crestfallen. “I am sorry, my lord. But Lady Frederica has been in such a mood recently, I thought one missed Sunday would not matter. She’ll take a groom, of course.”

“Of course.”

Miss Treadgold, who had been waiting nearby, stepped forward. “She received a note.”

“Hush, Matilda.”

Guy’s head whipped around. “What do you mean, a note?”

“I saw her—”

“That note was from me,” Lady Treadgold inserted smoothly. “Saying she could go riding instead of attending church today. Now, stop your pouting, Matilda, and let us enjoy this walk.”

The pair of them hastened after the rest of the party. Guy stared in the direction Freddie had gone.

“She is an excellent rider and loves horses,” Arabella ventured. Offering comfort: another skill she had failed to learn. What might someone kind like Cassandra say?

“Freddie’s life has undergone many changes in recent years, and she is trying to find her footing,” she tried. “At that age… Recall, you were only a year or so older when you ran away.”

“True.”

Her hand still curled around his arm, they walked down the laneway. The hedgerows were colorful with autumn fruits: red rose hips and clusters of purple sloe berries. A blue tit bounced among the berries and fluttered away.

Guy yanked off his gloves. She had to let her arm slip from his.

“I suppose it was too much to expect Freddie to care about seeing me again,” he said abruptly. “Before, she would run to greet me and we’d head off on some adventure. It was my favorite part of going home.” He grabbed some berries, jostled them in his palm. “She was too young to take with me, and I couldn’t have stayed.”

“You could have written.”

“I did. Father never passed on the letters.” One by one, he pelted the berries over the hedge into the field. “I wrote to her as soon as I arrived in Naples.”

“Why Naples? Did you have friends there?”

“No, I boarded the first boat I could find. But the locals in Naples proved to be very friendly and kind.” His expression was wry. “They gave me a few friendly punches and kindly relieved me of my purse and boots.”

“How did you survive?”

“Labor, in exchange for food and bed from an elderly couple, and boots from a local cobbler.”

Again, he reached into the hedgerow but immediately jerked his hand back with an “ow.” He sucked his finger, but, undaunted, once more reached to pick a rose hip.

“After that?”

“Whatever work I could get. Protected caravans in Anatolia as a private guard, joined expeditions in Peru, picked oranges in Spain. That sort of thing.”

Arabella studied his profile: the broken nose, the weathered complexion, the hollow cheeks. And as for his body—like a laborer’s, according to Juno, who had some experience in the matter of men’s bodies. As a youth, Guy had seemed so pleased with himself, so accustomed to having everything his way, that Arabella never dreamed he would even tolerate hardship, let alone welcome it.

“You could have come home at any time, or been welcome in any great house in Europe,” she pointed out. “Most people would fall over themselves to assist a future English peer.”

“I know, but… That first night in Naples, I walked out of town. I had no money, no shoes, and no idea what to do. I lay down in a field to pass the night and… It was clear, no moon, but millions of stars. And for the first time in my life, I felt free. On nights like that, the sky goes on forever and one’s soul expands. It’s…” He threw the rose hip at an oak tree. “I felt free.”

Arabella navigated a puddle. “So when you said your father would not let you choose your own haircut, you were not exaggerating.”

“He hired my staff, decided which shops and establishments I could frequent, and pulled strings to prevent me from getting any employment. Such was his influence that even the Navy wouldn’t take me. If anyone else served me, they would suffer for it. So I learned not to stray.”

“Good grief. He was obsessed.”

---