Page 43 of Slippers and Thorns
He could hear it in her voice – the hope mixed with the fear of hope. He shouldn’t give her hope. He should walk away. There was nothing left to salvage.
The memory of candied pecans from the market left in his room the night before drifted through his mind.
Clenching his hands, he tried to force his feet down the hall. Instead, he looked over his shoulder at the lonely woman who was his wife. Hands clasped at her chest, the expression in her eyes declared her to be starving for his attention.
Michael exhaled, releasing his hands. Offering her a slight smile, he said, “I suppose I could spare a little time. Do you need me to carry anything?”
Arabella shook her head as a bright smile bloomed across her face. “It should be waiting for us.”
“In that case, shall we?” Michael asked, offering her his arm.
He might still be angry with her, but he couldn’t help the pleasure he felt when she placed her hand on his forearm, even if she didn’t settle quite as close as she once had.
Their path took them past the guard waiting against the wall. Michael paused next to him. “You know where the picnic is set up?” he inquired. The young soldier nodded. “Be there in half an hour. Go eat.”
“But Your Highness—” the guard began.
“I can be responsible for the well-being of my wife for that long,” Michael said dryly, cutting him off. “If my father is displeased with your absence, he can take it up with me. Go.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” the guard responded. With a bow, he turned on his heel and headed for the barracks.
Arabella swayed closer to him as they walked. “Worried about witnesses?” she asked. She was clearly trying to be flirtatious, but her voice wavered, betraying her uncertainty.
“I’m used to a little more privacy in my own home,” he answered lightly. “Even if it is mostly an illusion, given there will be a small army of servants between here and our lunch, not to mention hovering around the secluded spot you picked out.”
She giggled. “This is very true. But maybe we can chase away the ones in the garden.”
As it turned out, the lunch Arabella had obtained, while delicious, was also simple, which made it easy to convince the servers that they were unnecessary and “chase” them away. Privacy was still an illusion, since there was nothing to stop any number of people from lurking on the other side of the evergreen hedges surrounding them. Even so, for the first time in months, Michael was alone with Arabella.
He wasn’t positive how he felt about that. He’d been avoiding her and ignoring her for weeks, but now she was sitting on a blanket spread out on the grass, her feet tucked along her side, smiling shyly a scant three feet from where he sat cross-legged on the same blanket. He could feel the anger still smoldering inside him, but he could also feel the – not tenderness, but maybe softening – that went through him each night when he found the gift that she had left for him while straightening his things. He knew she wasn’t spending time with Charles. And he could still feel the gentle pressure of her hand where it had gripped his arm on their walk from the castle.
Lunch was a quiet affair. After a few attempts at conversation, Arabella had retreated back into her whipped-cur posture in response to Michael’s stiff replies.
Sighing, Michael decided to give Arabella a break. Not hope – he wasn’t going to give her hope beyond what he already had by coming out here – but a break. She was trying to reach out, after all; the least he could do after all she’d done the past couple weeks was to give her a chance.
“So,” he began, “you left me a letter?”
Arabella looked at him in confusion for a moment before her face cleared. “Oh,” she said, “yes.” Looking up, she met his eyes. “Charlie is the closest thing I have to a friend here, but that’sallhe is,” she assured him. “All of the servants think I’m above them, all the courtiers think I’m beneath them, and the rest of my guards are too focused on their job. Especially the last few weeks, since they’re all scared of you. Charlie is the only one who ever takes the time to really talk to me. But he’sonlya friend.”
Michael eyed her skeptically. “And the archery?”
Her cheeks flushed slightly as she dropped her eyes. “I didn’t understand why Katy thought I should learn,” she admitted. “I thought I was trying to join you in one of your hobbies, so when you didn’t have time to teach me, I thought you didn’t want to deal with a beginner. I thought—I thought if I knew the basics, maybe I could join you when you practiced. So I begged Charlie to teach me.” She took a deep breath and looked up at him again, although she kept her face lowered. “He didn’t want to. He did his best not to touch me the entire time, up until he finally helped with the draw that you saw.”
“You were flustered,” Michael accused.
“Yes,” Arabella sighed, “because I had just figured out why it was supposed to beyouteaching me.”
He studied her suspiciously. If it were Lady Charlotte or Lady Ilse feeding him this story, he wouldn’t believe her for a moment. Arabella, though…Arabella was just innocent enough to make it plausible.
“Why is he rarely on your detail now?” Michael pushed.
Arabella played with the napkin on her lap. “You wouldn’t talk to me,” she finally said. “And you glared at him every time he was the one following me. So I asked him to rearrange the schedule and make his role less active.”
Michael digested that for a moment. Nothing in her manner suggested guilt. Some people might be able to pull that off in the face of their transgressions, but unless he didn’t know her at all, Arabella wasn’t an accomplished-enough liar. And he didn’t have any proof – only his jealousy – that anything she said was false or that she had actually wronged him.
In fact, if everything she said was true, his jealousy had driven her to send away her only friend at the same time that her husband was ignoring her. It was no wonder she seemed so lonely.
Well, that made him feel like a jerk.
