Chapter 9

“You realise,” said Belle mutinously, “you have gone from objecting to my alleged abduction of you to abducting me back?”

Sir Horley had his head turned away, his gaze fixed upon a darkening horizon he barely heeded. “You started this.”

“That does not mean you should finish it.”

“Well, I am.”

Belle kicked the edge of his seat. “But I don’t want to marry you.”

Sir Horley ignored Belle kicking the edge of his seat. “For someone who doesn’t want to marry me, you’ve certainly tried very hard to marry me.”

“That was before I understood what it meant to you. What you felt you would lose.”

“Oh, so now that you see the pit of crocodiles you’ve thrown yourself into, you wish to trade places with Miss Carswile after all?”

He would not have blamed her, but—far from regretful, resentful, or aggrieved—Belle simply seemed startled. “What? No. I don’t think you should marry anyone. I think if you sincerely believe that marriage, even to an understanding partner, would destroy the possibility of the kind of relationship you’re looking for, then you should ... get a job. In a shop.”

He did not, at present, require more reminders of his selfishness. “I doubt there are many shops who would have me, either, my dear.”

For forty-seven blissful seconds, Belle was silent and not kicking anything, though rage was rising from her like steam from damp clothes. Then, “The last time a man tried to force me into matrimony, it did not go well for him.”

“From a certain point of view,” said Sir Horley mildly, “it went very well for him. But”—and here he seized her ankle before she could recommence her assault upon his seat—“ you would do well to remember I am not Valentine.”

Belle gave a low and ominous growl, attempting, without success, to extricate her foot. “Indeed you’re not,” she concluded at last. “You’re worse .”

This, also, was not new information. “I’ve told you several times now who I am. You should have believed me.”

To his bewilderment, Belle briefly stopped glowering at him. “You’ve told me who you think you are. I consider your judgement impaired.”

“Have you forgotten I’m abducting you?” Probably it was better—fairer—that she remained angry with him, rather than trying to reassure him. Her anger, at least, he had earned. Her compassion he had not.

“Yes but ...” She ground her teeth resentfully. “For what you perceive as my own good. Albeit without regard for my actual wishes.”

He shot her a look he knew to be infuriating. “I consider your judgement impaired.”

Somehow she did not slap his face. “In what way is my judgement impaired?”

“Putting aside your peculiar, and entirely incorrect, convictions about me, there’s the fact we live in the same damn world, Belle. You know what reputation means to a woman of your station.”

“But we only die from the loss of it in Richardson.”

“So your plan,” Sir Horley asked, exasperated and taking refuge in scorn, “is to be a fallen woman?”

“My plan,” she returned haughtily, “is to be a rich one, or at least a moderately well-off one, and to live in my family’s home, where nobody will care what they say about me in London.”

Was this naiveté or obstinacy? Actually, knowing Belle, it was probably both. “They always care. About everything. But especially indiscretions.”

“ I will not care. And since it’s my life, that’s all that matters.”

“You say that now. God knows what you’ll want in two days’ time.”

Belle did not have quite the same repertoire of disdain as Sir Horley. She gave it a go, though, curling her pretty lip at him. “I can take care of my own future, thank you very much.”

“Less than an hour ago, you were dead set on marrying me. Now you’re dead set on not. Forgive me if I entertain some doubts as to the constancy of your decision-making.”

“Well, what about yours?” She started ticking his inconsistencies and hypocrisies off on her fingers. “You don’t want to get married because of some perfect fantasy you’re clinging to. But you also insist you must get married to earn the goodwill of someone who is very much not worth your goodwill. And that it should be Miss Carswile. Except now it must be me.”

He let his gaze drift back to the window. Above the flat grey-and-brown fields, the sky was blooming purple like a bruise. “I haven’t exactly lived a life to be proud of, Arabella. But I draw the line at causing you harm.”

“What about the harm you caused when you vanished from our lives in pursuit of wedded unbliss?”

That surprised him, when it probably should not have done. The Tarletons were shamelessly manipulative and disastrously open-hearted. It was, if he was honest, part of what made them so entrancing. “At worst, I mildly hurt you. You would be long over it if you weren’t so bloody stubborn.”

“I do not, as a general rule, get over losing people I care about.”

“Then consider this a lesson in taking more care where you place your care.”

She offered a bright and brittle smile. “What a reassuring sentiment to hear from my future husband.”

Sir Horley was far too tired and physically compromised to be capable of much by way of emotion at the moment. But there was guilt aplenty. And, somewhere in the dusty recesses of his soul, a crumb or two of anger to sustain him. Was his life to be permanently derailed by Tarletons? First the brother, with his melting eyes and fuckable arse? And now the sister, who deserved infinitely better. “I’m not marrying you to reassure you,” he snapped. “I’m marrying you because you’ve left me no other bloody choice.”

The sister who deserved infinitely better drew her teeth back in an actual snarl. “You have plenty of choices.”

He tried to think, but the wheels of his mind were mired to the axles. Maybe Belle was right. Maybe with Valentine on their side, they could smooth this over somehow. Maybe he didn’t have to marry anyone. He could rejoin the army. Become a goat herder. Jump off a cliff. “Right now, my choice is to sit in silence for a while because my stomach feels like it wants to eat my brain.”

“And my choice,” declared Belle, “is to vengefully not let you.”

“Belle . . .”

“Think of it as a preview of married life.”

“For heaven’s sake, will—”

“‘Early one mor-or-ning, just as the sun was ri-i-sing’”—Belle’s voice was not terrible, but what quality it possessed was presently given over solely to volume—“‘I heard a maid si-i-ing in the vaaaa-al-ley below.’”

With a groan, Sir Horley folded his arms over his head and hoped to die.

“‘Oh, don’t decei-ei-ve me, oh, never lea-ee-ve me. Ho-ow-ow could you u-ooh-oose a poor maiden so.’”

“This is an assault on human dignity.”

“‘Remember the something something that you something tru-oo-leeeey.’”

“Jesus wept, you don’t even know the words.”

“‘Remember how you something something—’”

“Arabella Tarleton, I will gag you with my cravat.”

The look she cast him was pure steel. “I’d like to see you try.”

He tried. She bit him. Not hard enough to draw blood, but hard enough to make him rethink his actions. Including having threatened to gag a woman with his cravat in the first place.

“Now I’ve forgotten where I was.” Belle sighed tragically. “Oh well, I’ll just have to start again. ‘Early one mor-or-ning, just as the sun was ri-i-sing—’”

“Please,” he said desperately. “Bonny and Valentine will not let this go.”

“Bonny and Valentine?” Belle’s eyes went wide in mock surprise. “Those people you don’t give a damn about? Who never truly knew you? Who would despise you if they did?”

“Do you think they’d stand idly by and let me run off with you, then jilt you and leave you to suffer the consequences?”

For a second so fleeting Sir Horley half wondered if he’d imagined it, Belle hesitated. “I hope,” she said finally, “they would agree I shouldn’t be obliged to wed you on account of having shared a coach with you for a day.”

“They would never say that you were obliged to wed me , but they will certainly feel that I am obliged to wed you .”

“Isn’t marriage rather a reciprocal arrangement?”

“What I mean, Bellflower—”

“Abductors don’t get to use pet names for their abductees.”

He pressed his temple to the side of the carriage. It did not help. Although how he’d thought it might, he wasn’t sure. Not unless when he looked up again he found himself in a completely different set of circumstances, which he didn’t. Not even his headache had lessened. “What I mean, Miss Tarleton , is that even if you are correct, even if scandal does not follow you, even if you never want anything more from life than to live quietly in ... in wherever it is.”

“Warwickshire.”

“Fine. In Warwickshire. Even if all of that is true, your prospects will be lessened, your horizons narrowed, your choices stripped to near nothing. And in your brother’s eyes, and in Valentine’s, and, frankly, in mine, it would be my fault. It would be a thing that I had done to you.”

“And my eyes are immaterial in this scenario?” Belle had gone still and icy. He much preferred her tempestuous, but she did—finally—seem to be listening. Or rather, not just listening, but heeding.

“I am afraid so.” He tried to ignore another surge of guilt. “There are certain injuries to which one cannot consent. If I leave you unwed after all that has happened between us, all that has been seen to happen between us, the consequences will be irreversible.”

“Whereas marriage is famously impermanent?”

He offered a consoling smile. “Married, you will at least have the hope of one day being a happy widow.”

“That,” said Belle, in a strange, tight voice, “is not amusing.”

“I merely thought you’d appreciate a silver lining.” It was hard to see in the shadows of the carriage interior, but she’d gone quite pale. “Oh, come on, everybody dies.”

“Given that one day I went to bed in possession of two parents and woke up possessing none, I am well aware of that, Sir Horley.”

He flinched. “I simply—”

“I do not care what you simply . I do not need you, or anyone, to lecture me about loss.”

She had turned slightly away from him. He did not doubt she was genuinely upset, but he also knew how her mind worked. “I apologise. But if you think I’m distracted enough to let you jump out of a moving vehicle, you are profoundly incorrect.”

“Could you stop me?” she asked, somewhere between sullen and curious.

He pondered. While he was not exactly in the best physical (or emotional) shape, the space was small, and so was Arabella Tarleton. “Yes,” he concluded.

Her eyes flicked between him and the door and back again.

“Try it,” he warned her, “and I’ll tie your hands together.”

“This is going to be a delightful journey.”

“Perhaps you’ll feel better about it after food and rest. I think I see an inn ahead.”

At first, it seemed like she would not deign to reply. Then, in her most deadly and dulcet tones, “Sir Horley?”

“What?”

“Do you have some proclivities I should know about?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“In the space of a single evening, you have threatened to gag me and bind me.” She tilted her head, her expression carefully guileless. “I am not judging. But given your other proclivities, towards men, I mean, you probably should not be sublimating such desires upon me.”

There was, he was sure, a suitable response. By which he meant, devastating. Unfortunately, l’esprit was waiting for him on some future escalier, and he could think of nothing whatsoever. He was therefore reduced to “Oh, fuck off, Belle,” and her resultant laughter contained a note of fully deserved derision.