Page 39 of Seven Swans a Swimming

Arabella swallowed, but her mouth was dry. This was a nightmare—this was precisely what she did not want! How could she stop him?

Nathaniel’s hand slipped from her grasp.

“‘It pains me to hear that my daughter’s arrival has not been met with greater joy and welcome,’” Lord Cartier continued to read from the letter. “‘My daughter’s happiness, as you can imagine, is of the utmost importance to me. Though I had wished for this match to be fruitful, it is clear that we cannot force either of our children into such an arrangement.’”

No, no, this could not be happening. Arabella’s lungs had constricted, preventing her from taking deep breaths, deep breaths she sorely needed.

How could this have gone so wrong, so quickly? Mere moments ago, they had been laughing, her hand in Nathaniel’s, knowing she was going to be wed to the very best man she ever knew.

Now that was all falling apart. Because of her own stupidity, because of her rush to tell her father how unhappy she was, she was about to lose everything.

Arabella looked at Nathaniel, who was resolutely not looking at her. He looked…as though the world had ended. As though he had been told he would be locked in a cage, never to be let out into nature.

As though he had been betrayed by the person he trusted the most.

“‘I must therefore consider this arrangement of marriage between my daughter Miss Arabella Fitzroy and your son, Lord Nathaniel Cartier, to be at an end,’” finished Lord Cartier, reading the final words from the letter in his hand. “‘This engagement is cancelled. It is over. Send me back my daughter.’”

Chapter Ten

The words echoedaround the room, around Arabella’s head, forcing her to hear them over and over again, a curse, a death knell, causing her very heart to stop.

“I must therefore consider this arrangement of marriage between my daughter Miss Arabella Fitzroy and your son, Lord Nathaniel Cartier, to be at an end.”

This was a nightmare. Arabella was certain she had accidentally fallen into a nightmare and would, at any moment surely, awake to find herself safe and sound, in her bed. Preferably with Nathaniel by her side.

But it was not happening. No matter how many times she blinked, ragged breath drawn into her lungs, Arabella could see only the same scene before her eyes.

The breakfast table, covered in a white linen cloth and a teapot, several cups, a stack of toast, marmalade, two hard boiled eggs that were cooked every morning and no one touched, and the abandoned newspaper.

Lord Cartier and Lady Cartier, staring, eyes wide, confusion on her face and disappointment on his.

And the other occupant of the table, the one whose opinion mattered so much to Arabella and yet she had hurt so badly.

Nathaniel. He sat there, face drawn, closed, the pain she had caused him forcing him to pull away from her, she could feel it. Arabella could sense the distance between them.

He had trusted her. He had trusted her not only with his body but with his heart, a far more delicate thing, and in his eyes, she could see that she had betrayed him.

“This is all new to me, too. And I-I am glad. I am glad we are sharing this together.”

Arabella swallowed, tasting the bile in her throat, and knew she could not make the words be unsaid, no matter how much she wished it. She could not make the letter her father wrote unwritten, nor take back the words that she herself had written in the original letter—a letter she had never intended to be sent.

I know you and Lord Cartier made the match with the best of intentions, but you could not have known just how abominable that man—I will not call him a gentleman—is.

So please, Papa. Write soon, and tell me that I am forgiven, and that the whole thing will be called off.

She closed her eyes, hands shaking, and opened them again, but there they all were. Waiting for her to respond.

As though she could respond to such a thing. As though there was a way she could defend herself, herself and her father, for betraying their trust.

Arabella opened her eyes and glanced at Nathaniel, hoping he could see by the look of shock and upset on her face that she was as surprised by her father’s words as he was; that she had never intended such a thing; that such a pronouncement came against her wishes.

But Nathaniel would not look at her. His gaze had fallen to his hands resting on the table, seemingly unable to meet her gaze. Unable or unwilling, Arabella did not know.

She swallowed, tasting the bitterness in her throat, and reached forward with one of her hands to take his own.

Nathaniel moved his hand away.

Panic rushed through Arabella’s veins. If only his parents were not here, she could explain to him, could be honest and say she had feared the arranged marriage had been a mistake—before…before everything!

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