Page 23 of A Lady Igniting Wicked Passions
“I have not refused. So much for your theory.”
“Yes, well I wish you luck, Your Grace,” Isabella said loudly. “Though my good friend is the sister of your opponent and blood is thicker than water. So, I shall be cheering for her.”
She walked away, leaving Aaron wondering at her scheme. He decided on the team he had been examining, seeing that they were much like the other team with little, if anything, to differentiate. He nodded to Arabella and climbed onto the curricle’s seat. She did likewise. The crowd had swelled at the prospect of the unusual entertainment.
Aaron settled himself, taking up the reigns. Eversden took it upon himself to act as the race’s starter, raising a handkerchief above his head and counting down from the three before dropping the handkerchief. Whipping the reins, Aaron yelled at the horses to spur them. Arabella did likewise.
Her curricle hurtled forward, drawing ahead of Aaron. She was lighter than he so it was to be expected, but he was confident he could overtake her into the first bend. Arabella was glancing back at him, her hair flying behind her and eyes bright. There was a grin on her face despite everything and Aaron found himself returning it.
It was utter madness but he was enjoying himself. And once again his enjoyment seemed to be shared with Arabella. He lost ground as he steered his team to the inside track.
Arabella urged greater speed from her own and as they reached the bend, they veered wide. As Arabella was forced to slow down in order to keep from colliding with the railings, Aaron urged his own team at a slower speed around the much narrower inside lane. He drew level and then allowed his horses to have their head as he straightened them.
Arabella’s voice reached him over the thunder of their contest. She was urging her horses to speed with wordless yells, sounding like some savage barbarian queen. Like Boudicca. Aaron was now ahead and approaching the second bend as he held his team in tight check, taking the inside track once again.
Looking back, he saw that Arabella had lined up her team behind him and was dangerously close. Not dangerously close to winning, but to actually colliding with him. Inches separated the stretching noses of her steeds with the flashing wheels of his Curricle.
Then the corner was upon them both. As Aaron reined in hard to deny Arabella the shorter inside track, she yelled for her horses to fly and they soared around the outside. Her curricle actually lifted onto one set of wheels, as she leaned in the opposite direction.
Aaron gaped as her wheels slammed back into the ground and she pulled ahead once more. A splinter of wood flew from part of her curricle with the impact and he was forced to veer in order to avoid it. The race continued through one lap. Then a second and a third. Someone had a bell and they were ringing it enthusiastically, as both racers crossed the line for the third time.
It was to signify the final lap. Arabella was pulling ahead. She had chosen her team well and driven them even better. Eversden was shouting at the top of his voice in support of his daughter. Helena stood mute and tight-lipped. Isabella watched; her face unreadable. Aaron was desperate.
He could not lose. Even if it caused Arabella to hate him, he could not lose. He lashed the reins mercilessly, gaining ground as Arabella swerved across his path to take the smallest path. Approaching the final bend and remembering her insane trick on the first circuit, he whipped and lashed the speeding horses and they gave their final, greatest effort.
As he hurtled around the final bend, passing Arabella and pulling ahead, the wheels on one side of the curricle lifted. The seat sloped as the speed lifted the carriage higher. He leaned into the turn to try and weigh himself down, but he was moving too fast. Suddenly, the carriage was overturning.
His world turned upside down and a solid piece of wood caromed into his ribs. Something cracked loudly, whether a rib or the wood. Pain blossomed across his chest and breathing became difficult. Then the ground was rushing towards him.
The carriage scraped away, shattered, and broken but still pulled by its terrified team. Aaron looked up, pain enveloping him and narrowing his vision. The last thing he saw was Arabella, her face ashen, leaping from her own carriage to run towards him.
Chapter 14
“The physician says that His Grace suffered fractures to his ribs and a heavy blow to the head. He was lucky to escape without worse injuries,” The Earl of Eversden said.
“He deserved to suffer worse, imagine risking the wedding we have invested so much time and effort into arranging, simply for the sake of a childish wager!” Helena replied.
Arabella frowned but remained silent, shaken by the horrific accident, which could, so easily, have been deadly. She sat in the drawing room of the Harrington’s new London residence, a property on Portman Square with a noble aspect and sufficient size for a family ten times their size.
Helena and Lady Eversden had chosen it for just that reason, it was intended to make a statement among the ton on the rising fortunes of the family. Arabella considered it overbearing and vulgar with its ostentatiously grandiose interior design.
Despite its prodigious size, she felt hemmed in and constrained. While it boasted a long garden, made to feel larger by the artful positioning of trees and shrubs to divide it into a series of partitioned spaces, it was nothing compared to the rolling countryside of Cambridgeshire.
“A sporting wager is a fit and proper pursuit for a gentleman and not for you to question, Helena,” Eversden said sternly.
“She is quite right to criticize when her husband-to-be risks his life for a sporting wager,” Amelia put in sharply. “Now we must wonder if the duke will be well enough to marry Helena. Unless, you have ceased to care about your daughter’s marriage?”
She did not wait for a response but turned away, lifting a cup of tea as though it were a shield to deflect any responses that her husband might make.
“It speaks of an immature attitude and a selfish one,” Helena put in.
That made Arabella snort with laughter, earning her hard stares from her mother and sister. She had seated herself away from the others, who sat in the room’s bay window, around a table upon which afternoon tea was served. Amelia had been waiting to speak to the physician, who had gone up to examine the duke as soon as he had arrived.
The Harringtons’ Portman Square residence had proved closer to Hyde Park than the duke’s own residence at Finsbury Square. Seeing the physician, a sour-faced, thin man with white hair and stooped shoulders, descending the stairs, Arabella had moved to intercept him and discover the duke’s condition.
He had side-stepped her, raising an impatient hand on his way to speak to her father. Arabella had been left fuming before following him into the drawing room to hear the verdict.
Now, she sat, separate from her family, wishing she was upstairs, watching over Aaron. She clasped her hands together in front of her and forced a polite smile.
