Page 7 of Seven Swans a Swimming

Arabella dropped into a low curtsey—far lower than she was accustomed to, but it felt appropriate. He was a lord, after all, and she a mere miss.

Besides, he was her future husband.

Her future husband. Arabella shivered slightly as she straightened up from her curtsey.

“Oh, my dear, you must be freezing—let us get you inside,” said Lady Cartier suddenly, stepping forward to put an arm around her and usher her toward the front door. “Come on, Nathaniel.”

The four of them went up the steps and into the hall of Oxcaster Lacey, which was quite large enough to fit Arabella’s entire home. She swallowed. This was going to take some getting accustomed to. What if she could not find her way to her room? Even worse, what if she could not find her way to the breakfast room in the morning?

“I really must go and finish some letters,” Lady Cartier was saying.

Arabella blinked. Without her noticing, Lord Cartier had entirely disappeared, and his wife was drifting toward a door which led to a room which could have been a drawing room.

“I am sure my son will be able to acquaint you with your surroundings and show you to your suite,” said Lady Cartier before shutting the door and leaving the two of them alone.

Arabella swallowed, then smiled at Lord Nathaniel. He was standing right by the front door, hardly having taken a step inside. The glower had returned.

“Well,” Arabella said aloud, inviting him to say something. Anything.

But Nathaniel stayed silent. There was an awkwardness in his bearing, now she came to look at him more closely, that clearly showed his lack of comfort with the whole situation. He did not need to say that he wished she were not here, Arabella thought with a flush to her cheeks.

His demeanor made that quite obvious.

“Well,” she repeated, shrugging off her pelisse because it appeared he was not going to offer to assist her. “Is there a place I can put this, or…”

More silence. Arabella did not believe she was asking a particularly difficult question, and though she felt the awkwardness of the situation herself, she was at least able to speak.

Nathaniel was just standing there like…like a lemon. As though he had no idea she had been coming at all and was now utterly at a loss for words at her appearance.

Arabella tried to smile. A little light conversation, that was all they needed. It was a rather strange experience, after all, meeting one’s future spouse in such circumstances. There were not that many marriages arranged these days, at least not in her circles.

All they had to do was talk to each other. She was certain, after a few minutes, she would quickly see the charms of the man whose very look was making her warm.

“I will just put this here,” she said quietly to herself, placing the pelisse on a chair by the door. “Now, Nathaniel—I mean, Lord Nathaniel—”

“Nathaniel is sufficient.”

If Arabella had not been watching closely and seen the man’s mouth move, she would not have been entirely sure that he had spoken. His syllables were so clipped, his sentence so brief, it was hard to believe that he was the son of such an elegant woman.

“Nathaniel,” said Arabella, trying to slow her heartbeat. It was not her responsibility to make this go well, at least not entirely. He had to bear some of the weight of the conversation.

Did he not?

“Thank you for meeting me as I arrived,” she said softly.

“I didn’t,” said Nathaniel curtly. “To be quite honest, Miss Fitzroy, I had entirely forgotten you were coming.”

“Oh,” said Arabella helplessly.

Well, where did she go from here? She was not her sister Caroline, able to speak to absolutely anyone on any subject, always able to make them feel at ease. Nor was she Lucy, whose mischievous nature could usually get people to laugh and break the tension of a room.

If only she could think of what to say—but it was all too overwhelming. Oxcaster Lacey, Lord and Lady Cartier, the woodland, the lakes—and now this man.

Nathaniel pulled off his greatcoat to reveal what appeared to be a farmer’s smock, just as dirty as his face, and a large leather belt around his breeches which had seen better days.

But none of that would have been so interesting if Arabella had not been so transfixed by the man himself.

If Lord Nathaniel Cartier had been wearing the typical clothes of a man of his station—shirt, waistcoat, jacket, cravat—then she would have been able to see a little of his figure, and not much more.

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