Page 23 of Her Heart's Rightful Earl
“Do not try to take me back there,” Arabella asserted. “I was there for so long without you. I was left behind, unable to moveforward, and you weregone. You had a choice, Alexander, and you left. You relinquished any right to entice me with romantic association!”
Alexander dropped his head, accepting this castigation.
Silence fell between them, but it crackled with the tension of their repressed emotions.
Arabella looked back across the wide expanse of lawn. “If you have said all you needed to, I shall return to the house–”
“I have not,” Alexander halted her. “Please—could we sit?” He gestured towards the stone bench, and his sparkling eyes held the weight of the memory. Neither of them could look at that bench without recalling his proposal and how she’d cried as she accepted.
“I’m perfectly comfortable standing.”
Alexander nodded just once and steadied his breathing before launching into his new narrative.
“Thomas and I are working to clear my name.”
Arabella inhaled sharply, and her hand flew to her chest. Alexander looked up at her through his eyebrows.
“Please say you know that I did not kill my father.”
Arabella swallowed and nervously whispered, “I never doubted your innocence, Alexander.”
He closed his eyes momentarily, as though he had wished to hear those words from her for three whole years. Perhaps he had, Arabella considered.
“Thank you,” he muttered before continuing, “I expressed to Thomas how I am living a half-life in exile. I am merely surviving. There is no joy, no hope. Coming home here, seeing Mother, seeing you …”
His eyes twinkled, and Arabella had to look away because it hurt too much to see the pain and want in his eyes.
“… I have nothing to lose by staying here undercover and working to expose who murdered my father. If we can prove it, I will again be a free man.”
Arabella blinked, unable to articulate the whirlpool of tumultuous emotions his revelation provoked.
“I wanted to ask you, Arabella—whilst I am aware that you owe me nothing and likely feel that you want to hand me over to theauthorities yourself, such is your anger, and rightfully so—but …”
Arabella tilted her chin defiantly, soliciting his request.
“Please do not tell anybody you have seen me–”
Arabella huffed as though she was insulted. “But of course I have not told anybody, nor will I!”
“I appreciate that, very much. But also—may I ask you to help me?”
This question struck Arabella in the heart. Alexander had always been such a capable young man, independent and resilient. She had never heard him ask for help, and she felt a surge of compassion towards him for saying it.
“Yes, I will help,” she answered before she had even allowed herself a moment to think through the implications.
Alexander straightened in surprise. “Youwill?”
“Of course.”It seemed to be the only option to Arabella, and she was surprised by the idea that he had thought she would decline.
Alexander stepped forward, smiling, and Arabella, once again, stepped back, widening the distance between them. She held up her hand as a boundary.
“My cooperation does not equate forgiveness, Alexander.”
“No. No, of course, I understand that, and I am not requesting your forgiveness …” he stammered as he reluctantly stepped away once more.
“And forgiveness—should it ever materialize—would not equate reconciliation.”
Alexander hung his head, fully admonished.
