Chapter Eight

A n hour later, Arabella found herself staring at a piece of stationery, her mind just as empty as the sheet of expensive notepaper. Normally, she found it easier to express herself in writing than in speech. She was rarely at a loss for words when she had a pen in her hand, and more than one of her friends had remarked that Arabella was far more talkative in a letter than in face-to-face conversation.

But the news she needed to share now felt too momentous to be contained in words, even written ones. She had to explain to her parents why she was getting married almost immediately—as soon as she and George could return to Derbyshire and obtain a license. Somehow, she would have to make her hasty marriage to George seem advantageous rather than baffling.

She very much feared that she had set herself an impossible task. The moment she thought of a possible opening into the subject, she also thought of a handful of objections. She had not even written the date or the salutation, because she was afraid that unless she worked out the wording for the whole letter in advance, she might have to scrap the paper and start again. She knew that was silly; almost superstitious, in fact. But she could not bring herself to put pen to paper.

“Aren’t you finished yet?” George, who had dashed off a note to his own parents in just a few minutes, peered over her shoulder.

“I don’t know what to say,” Arabella whispered.

She felt ashamed of having been caught loitering over the task, but she also felt hyperaware of George’s proximity. Maybe it was her imagination, but she thought she could feel the warmth of his body as he leaned over her shoulder, though he was not touching her.

A week ago, she would have thought nothing of it. She might not even have noticed how close he stood as he looked over her shoulder. Now it was all about which she could think. She wanted to lean her head against him. She wanted to feel his hands in her hair, making a mess of her chignon. She wanted to bury her face against his coat again, so she could smell the mixture of strong soap and faint musk that made up his scent. She wanted other things, too, that she wouldn’t let herself think about in too much detail, because thinking about them made her heart pound and her body flush.

Arabella shifted uneasily in her chair, not sure how she felt about these carnal sensations. She wished she had some control over her physical response. She did not like feeling like a cat in heat! Wouldn’t it make more sense if her desire for George could be turned on and off at will? She could switch it off until after the wedding, when they would be in the privacy of their own bedchamber. Then it would be safe to want all the things she could not yet have.

This line of thought did not aid her epistolary efforts in the least. It was a relief when George pulled a chair up and sat down next to her instead of hovering behind her and making her want things she was embarrassed to name. At least, it was a relief until he caught sight of her frown.

“What’s wrong, then?” He took hold of her right hand, gently freeing the quill from her fingers.

Oh. She had gripped the pen so tightly that it left marks on her fingers, and she had not even noticed. She forced herself to relax every tightly clenched muscle. She immediately felt better. Even her incipient headache retreated.

But she could not bring herself to admit the actual cause of her discomfort. How could she explain to her intended husband—and childhood friend—that she simultaneously wanted him to touch her and felt uncomfortable with the new ways her body reacted to his? Instead, she told George about her other problem: “No matter what I say in this letter, Mama and Papa are going to be shocked.”

She could not predict how her parents would feel about the engagement. On the one hand, George was not particularly well-to-do, and his family did not have important social connections that might have made up for his lack of fortune. On the other hand, her parents knew and liked the Kirklands, and his uncle’s gift would make George financially independent, if not wealthy. Mama and Papa could have few legitimate grounds for objection to George.

But even if her parents accepted her choice of groom, they would not understand why she wanted to marry in such a hurry. She could be certain of that .

“Do you want me to write to your parents instead?” George offered. “I can explain everything, and you can just add a personal note at the end.”

“Yes, please.” She slid the notepaper over to George and watched as he immediately began writing. The fluidity with which his pen scratched across the paper amazed her. How did he know what to say without taking so much as a moment to think about his wording first?

It took him less than five minutes to finish the note. “Here, take a look.” He offered her the letter, which nearly filled the entire page.

As she read it, the corners of her mouth lifted up. It sounded so characteristically George: enthusiastic, optimistic, friendly. Where Arabella would have begged for her parents’ approval, he simply assumed that Sir Michael and Lady Canning would be delighted to hear that their daughter was betrothed to someone they already knew very well. Most of the letter was taken up with a concise explanation for why George and Arabella were going to marry as soon as possible, by bishop’s license, rather than calling the banns.

“I asked my father to get the license for us as soon as he gets my letter,” George explained. “That way we need not waste time once we get back to Norton Combe.”

Arabella nodded, though she suspected her mother might be disappointed not to have time to help choose a wedding dress or order a trousseau. With no time to purchase clothing, Arabella would have to wear one of her existing dresses for the wedding. Perhaps the white muslin with lilac trim? Though that one had a tear in one sleeve. Her maid had done a good job of mending it, but it might be better to wear something newer.

“Are you sure we need to marry in such a hurry?” she asked. The seamstress the Cannings patronized could usually make room in her schedule for a rush order if the price were right. If given a week’s notice, she could probably whip something up for Arabella to wear.

But George shook his head. “I have no idea what my cousins are up to,” he reminded her. “One of them may have already found a bride. I’d hate to lose the race because we tarried too long.” He rubbed his forehead, looking more somber. “The worst scenario would be us marrying and then finding out that Augustus or Benedict had already claimed the prize.”

A cold, sick feeling spread outward from the pit of Arabella’s stomach. “That would be the worst case?” In that scenario, he would still be married to her. She swallowed, trying to stuff her rising misery back down as she faced the implications of his words. “I suppose that since you are only marrying me in order to get the prize, it would be terrible to be stuck together if we lost.” She ought not be so surprised by that. He had made it clear from the beginning that Dogwood Cottage was his goal. But she had thought, or hoped, that—

“No!” George looked properly horrified. “It’s just that without the money from Uncle William, I couldn’t afford to marry.” He twisted his mouth into a bitter line. “I do not make enough by my writing to support a family, you know.”

“I have a dowry invested in the Funds,” she reminded him. “We would have the income from that to live on.”

George dismissed the suggestion with a shake of his head. “Not comfortably. You shouldn’t have to make do with shabby rooms on Grub Street.” He scrunched up his face in disgust. “Believe me, you would not like that. If we are too late, I suppose I will just have to seek ordination after all and look for a position as a curate. That would at least make my father happy.” He smiled wryly. “I suppose your father would be pleased to have you living at Norton Combe someday.”

Arabella nodded. George’s father had always intended his son for the church, and Sir Michael would have perfectly willing to hand the Norton Combe living on to George when the time came. It had been a surprise and a disappointment to both families when George announced that he was not going to pursue a career in the church.

“Why did you decide not to be ordained?” she wondered aloud. Curates generally had tiny incomes, but the pay would probably have been steadier than what he made as a writer.

“I realized that I was not fit to be a clergyman.” He looked down as he fidgeted with the quill pen, passing it from hand to hand and thoroughly inking himself in the process. Evidently, he would rather not discuss this.

Arabella tugged the pen out of his hand and slid the notepaper away from him. “I had better add a note for my parents, so they know I am still in my right mind.” She meant it as a joke, but maybe it wasn’t funny. Her parents were going to be very surprised by this news. Probably very confused, too.

She could already imagine her mother saying “But I had no idea that you and George had any sort of understanding. Why did you not tell us earlier?” Or maybe it would be her father who spoke first: “Are you sure this is what you want, Jelly-Belly? You might yet do better.” She cringed as she imagined it, because Papa would keep using that nickname, though she’d told him many times that she hated it.

All her fears rushed back to overwhelm her. “What if they’re mad at me?” Or worse, disappointed.

“They couldn’t be mad at you, silly.” George said this with such confidence that she almost believed him. Almost. But how could he be so certain? He did not know Mama and Papa as well as she did.

George must have seen the doubt on her face because he ruffled her hair affectionately. This would have been a sweet gesture if she’d had short, cropped hair of the sort that could stand being ruffled. But since she wore her long hair swept up in a chignon, the gesture resulted in the collapse of her coiffure He laughingly tried to help her repair it, while only making it worse, he knew nothing about women’s hair arrangements.

“This is hopeless!” she wailed, which only made George laugh harder.

When she glared at him, he put his hand under her chin, tipped her face upwards, and lightly kissed her. The tense muscles in her jaw relaxed again. Even more amazingly, she ceased fretting about her parents in order to focus on the pleasing sensation of his mouth against hers.

If anyone had told her yesterday that she would find comfort in kissing George Kirkland, she would not have believed it. If anything, she would have expected a kiss from a young gentleman to send her into a panic. Perhaps it would have done so if she had kissed the wrong man. But she liked kissing George.

She would never have expected someone as impulsive as George to kiss so tenderly and thoughtfully! Maybe thoughtfully wasn’t the right word, but she could think of no other way to describe the slow, gentle way he teased her mouth, or the moth-wing-soft kisses that he left on her nose, her eyelids, her jawline, and the space just behind her ear. That last kiss sent a shivery thrill—unfamiliar, but not unpleasant—from her head to her toes. Her body temperature seemed to rise a degree or two in response, though that must have been her imagination.

She gasped with surprise, and George immediately drew back. “Sorry.” His voice came out rougher and thicker than usual, and that, too, sent a shiver down her spine.

Arabella reluctantly opened her eyes. She vaguely felt that they must have been doing something wrong, though she could not have said what. There was no impropriety in a young lady kissing her fiancé, but the sensations she’d just experienced seemed downright decadent. Surely proper ladies were not supposed to enjoy being kissed that way! Arabella had always tried her best to follow all the rules her mother taught her, but perhaps she had somehow been corrupted. She frowned as she pondered that.

“Belle? Is something wrong?” George stroked the furrow between her brows with one gentle finger. “Did I frighten you?”

“No, I frightened myself.” She could see from his face that her explanation puzzled him. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” she assured him. It had not been his ardor that startled her, but her own fervent desire. That would take some getting used to.

“I suppose I had better seal this letter,” George suggested, “and it put out for the next post. And then, I wonder if I ought to ask Leland if I can borrow one of his saddlehorses.”

“Saddlehorses?” Arabella repeated. “Aren’t we going to rent a chaise?” Her parents had sent her to Newton Park in the family coach, but it had long since returned home. She did not want to impose on the Gray family by requesting they send their coachman to escort them back to Norton Combe.

“You can rent a post chaise,” he agreed, “but I will get there faster on horseback. And I cannot travel with you anyway, Belle, unless we have a chaperone. I suppose if my sister were willing to come with us, it would be right enough, but otherwise, it would look bad.”

“Oh, yes.” She lowered her head and stared fixedly at the toes of her slippers, ashamed that she had not thought of that. Naturally, an unmarried man and woman could not travel alone together for two days, not even if they were betrothed. She cleared her throat, hoping her suggestion hadn’t scandalized George. “When will you leave, then?”

“Maybe tomorrow.” He restlessly tapped his fingers against his leg. “Or the day after. It depends on how quickly we can make the travel arrangements. I suppose we’d best talk to Caro about it all.”

At that moment, the door to the morning room swung open. Caroline stood there, wearing a charming dove-gray morning gown and a look of intense, wide-eyed interest. “Talk to me about what?”

George scowled at his sister. “How long were you eavesdropping?”

Caroline looked back and forth between George and Arabella. “Long enough to know that something interesting is in the wind. Why are you leaving so soon George? I thought you were going to stay out the week.” The corners of her mouth tipped down slightly.

George caught Arabella’s eye and raised his eyebrows, asking a silent question. Arabella gulped, clasped her hands together, and nodded. Then she looked at Caroline and smiled uncertainly.

“I think I had better go and...” And do what? What could she possibly be planning on doing at this hour? She frantically tried to think of a task that might take her away from this awkward conversation, but the tablet of her mind had gone blank. “I have some things to do before dinner.”

She waved her hand vaguely and scurried out of the room before Caroline could ask any more questions. Let George explain matters to his sister. Such a task lay well beyond Arabella’s powers of speech just now.

When she reached her guest room, she looked about, wondering how long it would take her maid to pack her things. At present, her possessions were scattered all over the room—not in a mess, but neatly placed on shelves, in drawers, or hanging in the wardrobe. She had settled into the room, because she’d expected to stay at Newton Park for at least a month. She so rarely got to see Caroline that she’d wanted to make the most of this visit.

All her summer plans would be altered now, wouldn’t they? Arabella sank down onto the bed, struck by the enormity of the changes that lay before her. In just a day or two, she’d be on her way home, for the last time ever. She would undoubtedly visit her parents in the future, but Oliphant Hall would never be her home again. She would live at Dogwood Cottage with her new husband.

Arabella tried to imagine her new home, but she could not form a clear picture of the cottage or its setting. She had been to Lancashire before. In fact, she’d attended an unexpectedly eventful Christmas house party in Lancashire a year and a half ago. That was where she first made the acquaintance of her friend Rose. But she had never visited the town of Pendleford. She had no idea how big it was, whether it was pretty or ugly, old or new. Would there be nearby cotton mills belching black smoke into the air? She wrinkled her nose at the thought.

Well, she’d find out soon enough! Pendleford would be her home. And George Kirkland would no longer be simply her best friend’s older brother. He would be Arabella’s husband. She would be Mrs. Kirkland of Dogwood Cottage.

She shook her head, struggling to imagine taking such a large step forward. Since Arabella was a creature of habit, changes often unsettled her. But this would be a change for the good. She would finally have an establishment of her own, a husband of her own, and one day, perhaps, children of her own. At the very least, she would be able to kiss George as much as she wanted without fear of impropriety. That prospect assuaged some of her anxieties, though it also put a blush on her cheeks.

In the meantime, she’d better finish that portrait of Charlie now, while she still had the model in front of her. It might be years before she next visited Newton Park, and by then, Charlie would have grown and changed. She picked up her box of crayons and went in search of her godson. The prospect of creating art put a spring in her step and a tune in her mouth, making it easy to lay aside any doubts and anxieties about the decision she and George had made today.