Page 10 of Seven Swans a Swimming

It was not an auspicious beginning, but Arabella was determined to improve things. After all, how could they be much worse?

Opening the door, Arabella smiled at Lord and Lady Cartier who were already seated. “I hope I am not too late.”

Lord Cartier rose to his feet as she entered, but there was a frown on his face that she did not understand until he asked, “But where is Nathaniel?”

Arabella halted her footsteps. Was she supposed to know? Was she his keeper already, this gentleman who did not appear to wish to be her husband at all, even before they had exchanged vows in a church?

“Nathaniel,” his mother repeated as though Arabella had momentarily forgotten him.

“Yes, Lord Nathaniel,” Arabella said, unsure whether she was supposed to sit down or remain standing where she was. “What about him?”

“Well, he was supposed to meet you outside your suite and escort you downstairs,” said Lady Cartier with a slightly nervous smile. “Did he…did he not meet you?”

Arabella forced a smile. He was a rude, irritating, thoughtless gentleman, and she saw absolutely no reason why she should go through with this foolish betrothal if he was going to be so insolent!

“I am afraid he did not,” she said sweetly. “It appears we missed each other.”

“Nothing of the sort,” said a deep voice behind her. “I did not meet you. Good evening, Father.”

Arabella turned in a swish of skirts and saw the ironic smile on Lord Nathaniel Cartier’s face. He could not have presented a more different picture than the first time she had seen him but mere hours ago.

Where the dirt had been, there was now only a sardonic look on his face, the beard still intact—but the delicious way it disappeared down his neck and onto his chest was hidden by a cravat tied in a most complex knot.

The waistcoat and jacket he had chosen—or, Arabella reminded herself, his valet had likely chosen—were a delicate light blue, perfectly suiting his eyes. His shirt was clean, and a shirt, not a smock. The mud-dripping boots were gone, and he was…he was perfect.

Blast, thought Arabella, her heart skipping a beat most painfully. He was perfect.Damn.

“I thought you said you were not coming to dinner,” she hissed under her breath, heart racing.

Why did he manage to have this sort of effect on her? It was most unfair that the man she was supposed to marry was both rude and handsome.

“I thought you said we must have missed each other,” he quipped with a lazy grin as he stepped around her toward the dining table. “Mother.”

“Nathaniel, you are both late and rude,” said Lady Cartier with a frown that Arabella could see had very little heart in it.

Her son shrugged as he sat between his parents, leaving the seat opposite him empty. “That I am.”

Arabella took a long, deep, calming breath. This was not as bad as it looked, though it might be as bad as it felt. The fact was, Lord Nathaniel Cartier had taken against her for some reason. That much was obvious. Why exactly, she could not tell—but perhaps he was even less enthusiastic than she was about this arrangement.

It was not unsurprising. Arranged marriages were becoming less common now, no matter what Miss Theodosia Ashbrooke said.

Still, this was the situation they found themselves in, and Arabella was not going to let her father down. He had made it very clear this match had been made long ago with the agreement of all parents, and so it was now time for her to carry it out.

Even in the face of such…such…

“Miss Fitzroy?”

Arabella started. Evidently, Lady Cartier had been speaking to her, but she had been completely lost in her own thoughts. “I beg your pardon?”

“I said, do sit down, dear,” said Lady Cartier.

“Sit down,” repeated Arabella. She heard Nathaniel snort, and tried desperately to pull herself together. She was not the foolish one in this arrangement! “Yes, of course. Thank you.”

She tried to move across the room as elegantly as she could manage, which was no easy feat when her legs felt weak. What had she managed to get herself into?

For a brief moment as Arabella sat down at the highly decorated table with more forks on the left of her plate than she had ever seen together, she thought wistfully of Chalcroft.

Her family was there, the whole family. Almost every Fitzroy: laughing, joking, teasing Esther something dreadful about those novels she liked to read, or Olivia for how she simply must have the best of everything.

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