Page 72 of A Foreign Crown
Aribella held her breath, counted to five, and then exhaled. “Perhaps we should reveal only a portion of what you feel—leave room for him to be guessing and give him something to work toward.”
The Queen nodded in her direction and then moved to sit beside Princess Elizabeth. Aribella watched as mother’s arm encircled daughter and they whispered together, and the excellence in Queen Charlotte’s character shone. Her strength, the dedication she gave to each of her children, were much to be admired. Aribella was happy to be able to witness Her Majesty’s virtues firsthand, especially when at the moment she wanted nothing more than to blame the Queen for the loathsome task of aiding Princess Mary.
“How about this?” Aribella suggested. “I’ll go through and underline your best lines, and we can rewrite a letter to send.”
When Princess Mary looked like she might balk, Aribella hastily added, “You may keep the original, of course—to gift to him when next he pays a visit.”
Princess Mary’s eyes brightened, and Aribella began her attempts to capture lines to convey the least-romantic letter possible. And she didn’t even question her own selfish motives. The less romantic the letter seemed, the better... for all involved.
The day progressed slowly. Aribella sat at her mirror later, at last getting ready for her night at the opera with Lord Bartholomew. She had removed the formal dress of the court and gratefully enjoyed the freer gowns and looser stays of her usual formal wear. The Queen had requested mourning clothes in the typical styles of the day as well as the formal court wear from the modiste. Aribella wore shades of gray, but her mother would say they looked like the sea in a certain light.
After a long moment of nostalgia for her mother, her ache continued as she recognized that the only man she would want to impress, the only man she wished to see her in it was Layton.
She was a hopeless case.
But she was giving every effort to see if she could be happy with Lord Bartholomew. She owed it to her father, to generations of names who’d come before her, to the estate itself. She loved that land, felt it calling to her after so long apart. The fields and fields of grasses, the stormy sea, the craggy rocks. How could she leave it all in the hands of another?
Layton’s face came back into her mind.
With a divided mind and heart, she descended the stairs, ready to meet the man who could give her everything she had always wanted—except Layton.
Lord Bartholomew stood at the side of the door, stately, formal, everything a good man should be. He looked like a duke—not quite the towering figure her father presented, but a decent fellow all the same, one who might make a good presence in the House of Lords, one who had already made strides to bring some income back into her estate.
Her dowry would certainly help. At that thought, her heart clenched. Her dowry would save the estate. She pasted a larger smile on her face and reached for Lord Bartholomew’s outstretched hand. He placed his lips upon her knuckle and, with a warm twinkle in his eyes, tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. “You look beautiful.”
“Thank you.”
The opera was moving. Aribella was in tears more than she ever had been at a performance. Lord Bartholomew had gifted her two handkerchiefs.
“You will be sad to leave the royal courts, I imagine.” His whisper, close to her ear, interrupted another poignant scene.
“I imagine I will.” She was to finish her time as a lady-in-waiting
this week.
“I’ve received news from your father. I’m to escort you home.”
She started. “Father has written?” She hadn’t received news from him in two weeks and had begun to worry.
“He has, and he has asked that I share the details with you.” He pulled the letter from his pocket as intermission began.
“Thank you.” She would have much rather read it before this moment, the moment Lord Bartholomew had received it, but she hurried to read through the contents, looking for hints of her father’s well-being.
He spoke more formally with Lord Bartholomew than he would have in a letter to Aribella, but he did mention a pair of birds dipping and diving outside his tower window one morning, and she could picture just what he saw. Toward the end of his letter, he asked that Lord Bartholomew see her safely home and tell her that the servants missed her but he most of all.
She hugged the letter to her heart. “He seems well.”
“Yes, in the best of spirits.”
She nodded.
The rest of the opera passed without interruption. Aribella felt distracted, thinking of home for much of the time.
Later, when the carriage approached the front doors of Windsor Castle, she was ready to spend the rest of the evening in her room, but Lord Bartholomew stalled her. “Might I have a word?”
The footman opened their carriage door.
“Certainly. Shall we take a walk or find a warmer place inside?”
