Page 20 of A Lady Igniting Wicked Passions
“We need to return to the real world,” he whispered.
“Don’t,” Arabella said brokenly. “I do not want to face that yet.”
“But face it we must,” Aaron insisted. “I’m sorry I ran away from you last week. You deserved better.”
“I did,” Arabella agreed.
“Did it make you hate me?” Aaron asked.
“Yes,” Arabella said, biting into the material of his shirt to pinch the skin beneath.
Aaron drew in a sharp, pained breath but otherwise endured, believing that he deserved it. When she released him and looked up at him, he saw the tears filling those oceanic blue eyes. He hated himself for causing them, and hated those around them for engineering the circumstances that forced his hand.
If it were not for the customs and conventions of so-called English nobility it would not matter if he were disgraced by poverty. If it weren’t for the customs around marriage, Arabella would not feel obliged to marry a man she did not love and who did not desire her. He hated England and everything it represented in that moment.
“I have your medal,” she said when she lifted her head again.
“Keep it,” Aaron replied impulsively.
He had noticed its absence when he returned home to Ashenwood, had searched his luggage and rooms for it before realizing it must have been left behind in his haste to flee Eversden.
“What is it?” She asked.
“The Cross of Santiago, that is Saint James. He is patron saint of Spain. I led a company of men that helped defend a convent from the French at a place called Torre Castro. The medal was their talisman, supposedly touched by Santiago himself when he routed the Moors from Spain,” Aaron replied.
“They must believe you as noble as he was,” Arabella said.
“They are the more deceived,” Aaron replied grimly.
Chapter 12
Arabella returned to Edgeworth while Aaron waited in the woods, so as not to appear at the same time. She skirted a large, flowering bank of shrubbery, paying close attention to the blooms as she did, until she saw Edgeworth. He sat at a table with her mother and father. A teapot and four cups sat between them as well as a range of cakes. Plucking a bloom from the shrub, she began walking towards them, lacing it through her hair.
“Where the Devil, have you been?” Her father demanded, rising from his seat.
Edgeware followed suit, a semblance of annoyance on his face though Arabella could see through it.
“Please excuse me, Papa,” she said, smiling sweetly. “Lord Edgeworth, my dear, I hope you weren’t waiting for too long. The call of nature.”
He gave Arabella a tight-lipped smile while his father harrumphed and resumed his seat.
“Where is Helena?” Arabella asked, sitting beside Edgeworth.
“In conversation with her good friend, Lady Isabella,” Lady Eversden said primly, nodding her head towards another table.
Arabella looked to see Helena sitting as part of a court around Lady Isabella. Laughter rippled through the ladies, instigated by something that Isabella had said. Helena replied and prompted another ripple of laughter, though smaller. Arabella turned away, uninterested in her sister’s politicking or her obsession with the Ton.
Before she did though, she found Lady Isabella’s eyes. The other woman had glanced over and when Arabella caught her looking, gave her a distinct nod. Arabella frowned, wondering why Isabella had chosen to bestow attention on her.
“Helena is looking this way,” Lady Eversden said. “And there is His Grace, the Duke of Ashenwood. I wonder where he has been.”
Arabella helped herself to a cup of tea and sat with her back to her sister and associated cronies. Her thoughts reached across the intervening space to Aaron though. She had used his name and he had neither corrected her nor given permission for her to continue. He wanted to hear her own name on his lips, with propriety stripped away and nothing but desire in his voice.
“Is that some sort of bruise on your lip?” Lady Eversden suddenly asked.
The tea was too hot and in her distraction, she took in too much. She yelped, dropping the cup, which slopped tea into the saucer and over the cloth which covered the table.
“Arabella, what a mess!” Lady Eversden scolded. “You should be more careful!”
