Hands in fists, Arabella glared at her perfectly neat room. Thea helpfully pushed over a stack of books.
“What about the Marquess of Hardbury?” she asked, as Arabella tidied the books with zeal. “You’ve been promised to him since you were a child.”
“No one has seen him in so long they say he might be dead, and Papa grows tired of waiting.”
“You can refuse.”
“Yes, and be disinherited and cast out. And then what? I shall make a formidable peeress, but I am of little use for anything else.”
Her tidying frenzy passed, Arabella crossed to the window and touched a hand to her reflection. She was too restrained to shatter the glass with her fist, but her glare could well do the trick.
Thea wanted to weep for her friend, who would twist herself into knots to help others and never seek help for herself. Who hid her kindness under a proud facade and a sharp tongue. And these men—they reduced her to nothing more than a means of making more men.
Even Thea’s parents had dismissed her, when Thea had come back from her year at the Winchester Ladies’ Academy and announced she had a true friend in Miss Arabella Larke. “She is excessively proud and aloof and so elegant she makes my eyeballs ache,” Thea had gushed. “But she is uncompromising and principled and good.”
Ma and Pa had shaken their heads in despair. “Miss Larke has excellent connections but no brothers,” they had said. “What use is a friendship if it does not grant you access to a circle of young noblemen?”
Thea had hated to disappoint her parents—she understood their ambitions were for the good of the whole Knight family—but never would she regret her friendship with Arabella. If only Arabella had not been in Italy the year of Thea’s scandal. Arabella always knew what to say; she would never freeze in fear. She would have looked down her nose at everyone in that ballroom and dealt Percy and Francis such a scathing set-down they would have fallen right through the floor.
“You were always very efficient,” Thea said brightly. “Perhaps you could arrange to have two sets of twins in two years.” She sought a positive note. “And he didn’t threaten to slit your throat and throw your body down a well.”
Arabella was not cheered by this perspective. “No wonder it is the fashion to marry for love. When a man may exercise such control over his wife, it would be nice if one’s husband felt a modicum of affection.”
“Then I shall marry him after all,” Thea announced and ignored the protestations of her suddenly pounding heart.
Arabella swung around. “No, you will not. Besides, his license bears Helen’s name. If you use a false name, the marriage won’t be valid.”
Thea waited.
“Oh.” Arabella drew the sound out. “The marriage…will not…be valid.”
Her face almost betrayed a smile, and Thea grinned in response. A terrible trick, indeed, to marry a man while using a false name, but it did comply with her Rules of Mischief. First, it served several good causes: saving Arabella from a horrid marriage, deflecting attention from Helen, and hopefully providing funds to pay for her pamphlet. Second, she had no qualms about tricking an earl, when he was powerful and had proven himself villainous. And third, well, why not enjoy life as a counterfeit countess for a week or two?
“He would have no legal rights or control over me at all,” she said excitedly. “I need only pretend until Helen’s return.”
“And Papa can hold a grudge for a century, so Luxborough could never propose to me again.”
Thea danced across the room. “And if I could channel some of his money toward myself…” An idea struck her. “Perhaps I shall uncover his dreadful secrets and he’ll pay thousands for my silence.”
“Yet to deceive an earl. Possibly even steal from or blackmail an earl.”
“Oh, who cares? He is only a man, and not a very agreeable one at that. I shall not bother my conscience over him. And neither should you. After all, he is planning to slit your throat and throw your body down a well.”
“No, he isn’t,” Arabella said patiently. “You made that part up.”
Thea sniffed. “Just because I made it up doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
“It is too dangerous, Thea.”
“Not at all.” She thought of the way Lord Luxborough’s features had softened when he spoke of the orchids. Of his warm solidity at her side. “I am sure his lordship is as sweet as syllabub under all that growling.”
“And I am sure he is not. If he believes you are legally his wife, he may—” Arabella cleared her throat. “Claim his conjugal rights.”