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What would he do if she did not come?
By twenty minutes he was close to pacing.
By forty minutes there was only Miss Rouge and himself left in the room and a very awkward silence.
At fifty minutes, Miss Rouge was gone and he felt like he had done that day almost six years ago—angry and disbelieving, a fool and his wounded pride.
He had requested his hat, cane and gloves and was about to leave when Arabella finally arrived.
‘Miss Noir, your Grace,’ announced Mrs Silver, all smiles and solicitude as she brought Arabella into the room and left.
The door closed behind Mrs Silver.
The clock on the mantel punctuated the silence.
Dominic’s glass sat beside it, the champagne flat and untouched.
She was wearing the same scandalous dress, the same black feathered mask and beneath it her face was powder white. She came to stand before him and he found he was holding his breath and his body was strung tight with tension.
He swallowed and the sound of it seemed too loud in the silence between them.
He waited, not daring to frame the question, any certainty of what her answer would be long forgotten.
‘I accept your offer, your Grace,’ she said and her voice was low and dead of any emotion. She seemed so pale, so stiff and cold, that he had the absurd urge to pull her into his arms and warm her and tell her everything would be well. But then she moved away to stand behind the cream-coloured armchair and the moment was gone. ‘Let us discuss the details.’
He nodded and, like two strangers arranging a business deal, they began to talk.
When Arabella returned to the little room in Flower and Dean Street later that same night it was to find Mrs Tatton and Archie curled again upon the mattress.
‘It is only me,’ Arabella whispered in the darkness, but Mrs Tatton was already struggling to her feet, armed with the chamber pot as a makeshift weapon.
‘Oh, Arabella, you startled me.’
‘Forgive me, Mama.’ Arabella made her way across the room by the light of a nearby street lamp that glowed through the little window.
‘What are you doing home so early? I had not thought to see you until the morning.’ Her mother’s hair hung in a heavy long grey braid over one shoulder and she was wearing the same crumpled dress she had worn for the last five days. Then her eyes widened with fear. ‘The workshop have turned you off!’
‘There has been a change of plan, it is true,’ Arabella said and quickly added, ‘But you need have no worry. It is for the better.’
‘What do you mean, Arabella? What change?’
‘It is an arrangement that will ensure we do not end up in the workhouse.’ She glanced towards the sleeping form of her son. ‘We will live in a warm furnished house in a good respectable area, wear clean clothes and have three square meals a day. I will have enough money that Archie need not go without. And you, Mama, can have the best of medicines in London. We will not be cold. We will not be hungry. And …’ She glanced towards the footsteps that passed on the landing outside. She lowered her voice, ‘We will be safe from robberies and fear of assault.’
Her mother set the chamber pot down on the floor and came to stand before Arabella, staring into her face.
‘What manner of arrangement?’
Arabella felt herself blush and had to force herself to meet her mother’s gaze. She had known this moment would come and could not shrink from it. Better they spoke of it while Archie was not awake to hear. They would be moving out of here in a few days and there was no way that Arabella could continue her pretence. She had to tell her mother the truth … just not all of it.
‘With a gentleman.’
‘Oh, Arabella!’ Her mother clasped a hand to her mouth. ‘You cannot!’
‘I know it is a very great shock to you,’ she said in a calm reassuring voice that belied everything she was feeling. ‘And I am not proud of it.’ She was ashamed to the very core of her being, but she knew in order to make this bearable she must hide her true emotions from her mother. She must stand firm. Be strong. ‘But believe me when I tell you it is the best of the choices available. Do not seek to dissuade me from this, Mama, for my mind is quite made up.’
‘There was no workshop, was there?’ her mother asked in a deadened voice.
‘No.’ She saw the tremble in the old swollen hand that Mrs Tatton still clutched to her mouth and felt as bad as if she had just reached across and dealt her mother a physical blow.
‘And the gentleman?’
Arabella swallowed and averted her gaze. ‘It is best that he remains nameless for now.’ If her mother knew it was Dominic to whom she was selling herself there would be no force in heaven or on earth that could stop the awful cascade that would ensue.
‘Really?’ Mrs Tatton said in a hard voice that revealed to Arabella everything of her mother’s disillusionment and hurt. ‘And have you told him yet of Archie and of me?’
‘No,’ said Arabella quietly and her heart was racing and all of her fears rushed back as fast and frantic as a spring tide racing up a shore. ‘He need know nothing of either of you.’
‘It will be his house, Arabella. Do you not think he will notice an old woman and a child cluttering his path to his fancy piece?’ Mrs Tatton’s nostrils flared, revealing the extent of her distress.
Oh, indeed, Dominic would more than notice Archie in his path, Arabella thought grimly.
‘It will be a large house and he will not visit very often.’ She had been very careful in her negotiations with Dominic, forcing herself to think only of Archie’s safety and not the baseness of what she was doing, laying out her demands like the most callous of harlots. ‘All we need do is keep you both hidden from his sight when he does come.’ Words so simply spoken for her mother’s sake, but Arabella knew that they would have to be very careful indeed to hide the truth.
‘You think you are so clever, Arabella. You think you have it all planned out, do you not?’ Mrs Tatton said. ‘But what of the servants? It is the gentleman’s money that will pay their wages. They will be loyal to him. At the first opportunity they will be running to him behind your back, eager to spill your secrets. And he shall send Archie and me away.’
‘Do you think I would stay without you?’ she demanded. ‘It is true that it is his money that will pay the servants. But it is also true that if I dissolve our agreement, which I would most certainly do were they to tell him of your and Archie’s presence, then they shall be out of a job as much as me. I shall put it to them that it is in their interest, as much as mine, that we keep your presence secret from the gentleman.’
‘For men like him there are plenty more where you came from. Do not hold yourself so precious to him, Arabella,’ her mother warned.
The smile that slipped across Arabella’s face was bitter. ‘Oh, Mama, I know that I am not precious to him at all. Do not think that I would ever make that mistake.’ The word again went unspoken. ‘But he will take the house and the servants for me. And were I to leave, he would let them go again just as easily.’
‘Then we best pray that you are right, Archie and I.’ Mrs Tatton turned her face away but not before Arabella saw the shimmer of wetness upon her cheeks.
Mrs Tatton did not look round again, nor did she return to bed. She just stood there by the empty black fireplace, staring down on to the bare hearth. And when Arabella would have placed an arm of comfort around her mother’s shoulders, Mrs Tatton pulled away as if she could not bear the touch of so fallen a woman.
Arabella’s hand dropped back down to her side; inside of her the shame ate away a little more of her soul. She wondered what her mother’s reaction would be if she knew what the alternative had been. And she wondered how much worse her mother’s reaction would be if she ever learned that the man in question was Dominic Furneaux.
Chapter Four (#ulink_6610e336-ded5-5eb9-a847-a722c04091d0)
Dominic was supposed to be paying attention as his secretary continued working his way through the great pile of correspondence balanced on the desk between them.
‘The Philanthropic Society has invited you to a dinner in June.’ Barclay glanced up from checking Dominic’s appointments diary. ‘You are free on the evening in question.’
‘Then I will attend.’ Dominic gave a nod and heard Barclay’s pen nib scratch upon the paper. But Dominic’s attention was barely fixed on the task in hand. He was thinking of Arabella and the discomposure he had felt since seeing her last.
‘The Royal Humane Society has written of its need for more boats. As one of the society’s patron you are in receipt of a full report of …’
Barclay’s words faded into the background as Dominic’s mind drifted back to Arabella. While making her his mistress had seemed the perfect solution at the time, in the cold light of day and after a night of fitful sleep, Dominic was not so sure. He had revisited their meeting during the long hours of the night, seeing it again in his mind, hearing every word of their exchange, and he could not remain unaware of a growing uneasiness.
Surviving. The word seemed to niggle in his brain. Her explanation of what she was doing there did not sit well with the later claim that she was in Mrs Silver’s House out of choice. Surviving. The word pricked at him.
Barclay gave a cough in the silence and cleared his throat loudly.
‘Most interesting,’ Dominic said, having heard not a word of what the report had been about. ‘Organise that they receive a hundred pounds.’
‘Very good, your Grace.’
‘Is that all for today?’ He could barely conceal his impatience. He wanted to be alone. He wanted to think.
‘Indeed, your Grace.’ Barclay replied, checking the diary again. ‘Except to remind you that you are due at Somerset House for a Royal Society lecture this afternoon at two o’clock and that you are sitting in the House of Lords tomorrow to debate Sir John Craddock’s replacement in Portugal by Sir Arthur Wellesley.’
Dominic gave a nod. ‘Thank you, Barclay. That will be all.’
And when his secretary left, taking with him the great pile of paper, Dominic leaned back in his chair and focused his thoughts fully on Arabella.
***
Arabella had to endure two days of pleadings. Mrs Tatton begged that Arabella would not cheapen herself and warned her that once it was done there would be no going back. She cried and shouted, persuaded and coerced, but once the shock had lessened and her mother saw that Arabella would not be moved, then Mrs Tatton’s protestations fell by the wayside and, to Arabella’s relief, no more was said about it. She seemed to have accepted the inevitability and necessity of what would happen and steeled herself to the task every bit as much as Arabella.
Which was well, for on the Friday morning of that week a fine carriage and four arrived outside their lodgings in Flower and Dean Street. Every face in the street stared at the carriage, for nothing so grand had ever been seen there before. Archie stared in excitement at the team of bays and kept asking if he might run down the stairs to see them more closely. It pained Arabella to deny him and to force him away from the window for fear that Dominic himself might be within the carriage.
‘Soon,’ she whispered, ‘but not today.’
‘Ohh, Mama!’ Archie groaned.
‘He must be wealthy indeed,’ observed Mrs Tatton drily with a glance at her daughter that made Arabella curl up inside. And she was all the more glad that the carriage was a plain glossy black with no sign of the Arlesford coat of arms. She worried that her mother would recognise the smart green livery of the footman, groom and coach man, but Mrs Tatton showed no sign of realising the uniform’s significance.
‘I think he might be awaiting me in the house and I need time to speak to the servants. Either the carriage will come back for you, or I will return alone.’
Her mother nodded stoically and Arabella pushed away the little spasm of fear.
‘Either way we should not be parted for too long.’
She hugged Archie. ‘I have to go out for a little while, Archie.’
‘In the big black carriage?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Can I come with you?’
Arabella ignored the pain and the guilt and forced herself to smile. ‘Not just now, my darling. Be a good boy for your grandmama and I will see you soon.’
‘Yes, Mama.’
She kissed his head and took the time to blink away the tears before she rose to embrace her mother. ‘Look after him, Mama.’
Mrs Tatton nodded, and her eyes glistened with tears that she was fighting to hold back. ‘Have a care, Arabella, please. And …’ She took Arabella’s face between her worn hands and looked into her eyes. ‘For all that I dislike this I know why you are doing it and I thank you. I pray that your plan is successful and that it is the carriage that returns for Archie and for me.’
Those few words from her mother’s lips meant so much to Arabella. They strengthened her resolve that was fast crumbling at the prospect of facing Dominic once more.
‘Thank you, Mama,’ Arabella whispered and she kissed her mother’s cheek and, before she could weaken to the tears, she pulled the hood of her cloak over her hair and walked away, closing the door behind her.
The carriage was empty. Of that Arabella could only be glad, for she had no wish for Dominic to see her cry at the sight of her son and her mother peeping from the edge of the dirt-encrusted windows.
Nor was Dominic waiting in the town house that he had rented for her.
It was a fine property in respectable Curzon Street, as different from the hovel in Flower and Dean Street as was possible. The servants were lined up in the hallway for her arrival just as if she were Dominic’s duchess rather than his mistress. In some ways their respectful attitude made the whole thing easier, and in other ways, so much harder, for it reminded her of the hopes and expectations she had held for the future all those years ago when she had been a foolish naïve girl in love with a boy who would be duke.
The elderly butler bowed. ‘I am Gemmell. Welcome to Curzon Street, Miss Tatton. We are very glad that you are here.’
It was so long since anyone had called her that name. She was Arabella Marlbrook now, even though Henry was dead these two years past. It angered her that Dominic wished to remove any reminder of the man who had saved her. She wanted to correct the butler, to tell him that her name was Marlbrook and not Tatton, but that would only be foolish. It was Dominic’s house and Dominic’s money; besides, she had no wish to make matters awkward between her and the servants, not when she would be counting on their good favour to keep her secret. So she smiled and walked down the line of servants, smiling and repeating each of their names and telling them how pleased she was to meet them and how she was sure that they would deal very well together.
Gemmell gave her a tour of the house during which she worked hard to breach his wall of formal and very proper servitude. By the time he had served her tea in the drawing room she had managed to coax from him all about his three little granddaughters and ten little grandsons; that his wife Mary, who had been the best housekeeper in all of England, had died three years past; and that he and Mary had previously been employed in the Duke of Hamilton’s hunting lodge in Scotland for twenty years before moving south on account of their children and grandchildren because family was what was important.
Arabella knew then that the time was right to raise the subject of her own family, of her son and her mother. And after she had finished explaining, to a limited extent, the matter, Mr Gemmell was just as understanding as Arabella had hoped.
She knew that what she was asking the staff to do was not without risk and so did Gemmell. But she also knew she could do nothing other than ask. And the answer was yes. He promised to instruct the rest of the staff and then he brought her the note that Dominic had left for her.
She recognised the handwriting on the front of the note: determined lettering, bold and flowing from a nib that pressed firmly against the paper. She felt her heart begin to speed and her mouth dry as she broke the seal and unfolded the sheet.
The words were brief, just a couple of lines, saying that he hoped she approved of the house and its contents and that he would call upon her that evening.
Of course he would come in the evening; gentlemen did not visit their mistresses during the day. Not when everyone knew the purpose of their visit. She tried not to think ahead to the evening. She would deal with that when it came. For now she turned her mind to more comfortable thoughts.
She rang the bell for Gemmell, and sent the carriage back to Flower and Dean Street for Archie and her mother.
The sun came out that afternoon. It was a good omen, boding well for their future, Arabella told her mother as they wandered through the rooms of the town house in Curzon Street. Mrs Tatton kept stopping to examine and exclaim over the fineness of the furniture, the rich fabrics of the curtains and the sparkling crystal of the chandeliers.
‘Arabella, these chairs are made by Mr Chippendale’ and ‘Arabella, this damask costs almost thirty shillings a yard,’ and ‘I have heard that the Prince of Wales himself has a wallpaper similar to this in Carlton House.’
Arabella did not tell her that the gentlemen’s clothing hanging in one of the wardrobes within her bedchamber was made by the ton’s most expensive tailor, John Weston, nor that it bore the faint scent of Dominic and his cologne.
Having been cooped up for so long in the tiny room in Flower and Dean Street, Archie shouted and ran about in mad excitement at such space and freedom.
‘It is all so very grand that he must be very wealthy indeed, this … gentleman,’ said Mrs Tatton and she stopped and frowned before her face was filled with worry once more. ‘I blame myself that it has come to this,’ she said quietly so that her grandson would not hear. She dabbed a small white handkerchief to her eyes.
‘Hush now, Mama, you will upset Archie.’ Arabella glanced over towards her son and was relieved to see that he was too busy with his imaginary horse games to notice.
‘I am sorry, Arabella, but to think that you have become some rich man’s mistress.’
‘It is not so bad a bargain, Mama. I assure you it is the best I could have made.’ A vision of the crowd of drunken gentlemen in Mrs Silver’s drawing room appeared in her head and she could not stop the accompanying shiver. She thrust the thought away and forced herself to smile a reassurance at her mother. ‘And we will all do very well out of it.’
‘You have spoken to the servants?’
Arabella nodded.
‘And you are sure that they will keep Archie’s and my existence a secret?’
