A wave of fatigue washed over him, as if only her presence had kept him from wilting like the orchids’ leaves.
Maybe she needed a night to think it over. And tomorrow he’d invite her for that walk among the roses and she’d beg his forgiveness and say she was overcome and something something blah blah blah. She was right about one thing at least: He was not very good at this.
And he would not get better overnight.
Blast it, no. No more games. No more pretty smiles and pretty proposals and pretty ankles.
Rafe had another option. Thea Knight was not the only one who knew how to play tricks.
The Earl of Luxborough was likely mad, Thea decided, as she darted off in search of Arabella to tell her about the encounter.
That whole encounter had been, well, rather thrilling, if she was honest. How demanding he was, never imagining that she tricked him. And how marvelous for him, to be so sure of his place that he could issue a marriage proposal as carelessly as a dinner order. Perhaps he saw a wife as being of as little consequence as a meal.
Really, he had nothing to recommend him.
Except the money.
Oh, the money.
If somehow she could turn his proposal to her advantage and wangle some money from that trust, then she could go ahead with her publishing scheme immediately.
No. No regrets. Refusing was sensible. Her fascination with him was silly. The fact was, he had been awful to her, and she was rather tired of noblemen being awful to her.
Thea got lost several times in her attempt to locate Arabella’s room, and might have spent the rest of her life wandering through the enormous house had a servant not rescued her. Arabella had not returned, so Thea left for her own chambers. She ate the supper left for her, bathed, and prepared for bed. But as her mind continued to torment her with “what-ifs” and “yes-buts” and memories of intense eyes and an amused half smile, Thea pulled on a wrap and went back to Arabella’s room.
Which was still empty.
She sat and stood and sat and stood, and was about to leave when Arabella drifted in, looking even paler than usual.
“Where have you been?” Thea asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Why on earth would anything be wrong?” Arabella said, only to stop short and stare at nothing.
“Arabella? Are you ill?”
“Worse.”
“Are you dying?”
“Worse.”
“Are you already dead and I’m conversing with a ghost?”
“Worse.” Arabella inhaled with a hiss and blew the air back out. “I am engaged.”
“What?”
“To be married.”
“What?”
“To the Earl of Luxborough.”
“That lying, cheating, hypocritical cad!”
That shook Arabella out of her daze. “Not quite the response I had anticipated,” she said dryly, sounding more like herself.
“The earl already proposed to me,” Thea told her.
“He did? Does he know you are not Helen?”
“On the contrary: He is sure that I am. He had even prepared a marriage license with Helen’s name.”
“How did he— Oh, his father’s cousin, the Bishop of Dartford, I suppose.”
Thea almost asked how Arabella knew the earl’s cousin was a bishop, but of course, the aristocracy held everyone’s family trees in their heads the way Pa held the last decade’s price of gold.
“If you’ll forgive my perplexity, Thea, why on earth would Lord Luxborough want to marry Helen?”
“So she can’t marry Mr. Russell. He’s here at Lord Ventnor’s bidding. And if he marries again, he gets money from some trust set up by his mother.”
“Clearly you didn’t accept him.”
“Of course not. But…” She felt unjustifiably betrayed. His proposal had been insulting and preposterous and yet… “What kind of beastly cad proposes to one woman and, as soon as she refuses him, proposes to another? If you had refused him, would he have worked his way through every unmarried woman in the house? And why didn’t you refuse him? Wasn’t his proposal dreadful?”
“He never issued one. He simply told my father he would marry me, and Papa agreed. I have just now had an interview with him and— Why, Thea, he is utterly detestable.”
“What did he say?”
“That he wants my enormous dowry and…” Arabella burst into activity, straightening everything in sight. “I must remain on his estate, with no allowance, pastimes, or guests, until I have produced four sons. And how his eyes gleamed, as though it thrilled him to upset me.”
“But your father won’t make you marry such a man.”
“Papa doesn’t care. All he wants is a grandson.”