And so she was, Lord Astor found with some relief. He might have lost his nerve entirely if he had had to hunt for her. He saw her as soon as he turned his head in the direction of the black-and-white collie that was bounding toward him, barking enthusiastically. She was sitting on the grass, but she rose hastily to her feet and began to walk toward him. Clearly she was expecting him.
Lord Astor changed direction and smiled as he approached her.
“Good morning, Miss Arabella,” he said, bowing and coming to stand a few feet in front of her. “That is a fine dog. He is yours?”
“Yes, my lord,” she said, turning to pat the dog on the neck as it put its paws on her waist and panted upward into her face. “No, George, we may not go walking now. You will just have to wait. And do get down. I am not at all sure that your paws are clean.”
She was indeed tiny. She must reach scarcely to his shoulder, even though he was not himself a tall man. It must have been her height that had misled him into thinking her a child. She had the shape of a woman. On the other hand, she had the eager and flushed face of a child.
“Perhaps you would care to stroll with me,” he said with a bow, “and thereby give, ah, George his exercise. Is he meant to bear any resemblance to any royal gentleman, by the way?”
She laughed. “It is just that Papa had all the other dogs named King and Rex and Prince and Duke and such,” she said. “There did not seem to be anything very regal left by the time poor George came along.”
“Shall we?” he said, indicating the lawn to the west, which appeared to lead down to a pasture.
She fell into step beside him. Her plain blue woolen dress and shawl made her look somewhat older than whatever it was she had worn the day before. Her hair was dressed in a plain chignon, but one heavy lock had come loose and hung down her back. It was a quite unbecoming style anyway, Lord Astor thought, making a mental comparison between it and Ginny’s riotous curls.
And Miss Arabella Wilson was not pretty.
“I have had the honor of talking with your mother this morning,” he said, clasping his hands behind his back. “She has given me her permission to pay my addresses to you.”
“Oh,” she said, and blushed. She looked up into his eyes for a brief moment. “I am most dreadfully sorry. I mean, I am sure that you offered so that we would not be destitute and so that we would not feel ourselves beholden to you for charity. And I am sure that you would vastly prefer it to be Frances, for she is the acknowledged beauty of the family. And I am not beautiful at all. But Frances is to marry Theodore, you see—Sir Theodore Perrot, that is—and so it was decided that I should be the one to accept your so generous offer.”
Lord Astor was lost for words. The girl prattled like a twelve-year-old. And did she not know that there were pretenses to be upheld? One did not openly admit that one was making a marriage of pure convenience.
“I offered because the daughters of the former viscount seemed eminently eligible,” he said carefully. “And indeed, I would consider it a deep honor if you will accept me. I did not specify, you know, which of you I would offer for, for I had not met any of you until yesterday and I thought your mother would be able to make the most sensible choice. I am quite satisfied with the decision she has made. I will be happy if you will accept me, Miss Arabella.”
“Oh, I will accept you, of course,” she said. “No, George, I will not throw sticks for you today. Run along, and pray do not be trying to trip me with every step I take. I am sure Mama assured you of that, my lord. And it really is most civil of you to say that I am to your liking when I am sure you cannot be vastly pleased. I shall try to make you comfortable, my lord.”
“I am quite certain you will succeed,” he said. “And I shall try to make sure that you do not regret your choice, ma’am. I shall suggest to your mother that we be wed here as soon as the banns can be read. Will that suit you?”
“Oh, so soon?” she asked, looking up at him with a blush.
They had reached a stile leading into the pasture. Lord Astor had intended to turn back or to lean on the fence for a few minutes. But Arabella climbed over the stile without hesitation and without giving him a chance to assist her. And she showed a quite indecorous expanse of ankle and petticoat in the process. The viscount hid a smile and climbed over after her.
“Is it too soon?” he asked, hope grabbing at him for a brief moment. “Would you like some time to accustom yourself to our betrothal, perhaps?”
“Oh, no,” she said, smiling briefly in his direction. “I suppose we might as well get this over with. Mama will be pleased that you wish the wedding to be here. She was afraid that you would wish it to take place in London.”
“Do you have a dread of London?” he asked. “Would you prefer to live here after our marriage? You are very young to be taken from your mother and all that is familiar to you.”
“That is for you to decide, my lord,” she said. “If you say that we are to live here, then of course I shall not complain. But if you wish to return to London, I shall not try to dissuade you. I shall go wherever you wish. I shall know my duty, as you will see.”
“Then London it will be,” he said with a smile. “You will have a chance to be a part of the Season. You will enjoy it, I believe. Your dog should be taught some manners, ma’am. I marvel he does not bowl you right off your feet when he jumps up at you like that.”
She looked up at him with a smile. “Oh, but he does sometimes when he takes me by surprise,” she said. “I do not mind. I love him, you see.”
She stooped down so that the dog’s paws rested on her shoulders, and wrapped her arms around him. He licked at her face until she laughed and pushed his head away.
Her upper lip curved upward slightly, away from her teeth and her lower lip. He did not know what caused it to do so, as her upper teeth did not noticeably protrude. But it was a somewhat attractive feature.
It was still hard to believe that she was eighteen years old, he thought, standing silently as she hugged her dog and resisted its desire to pant into her face. She was far more like a small and unruly and slightly disheveled child. And she had a childishly candid tongue.
She was to be his wife, his life’s companion. His bedfellow. He again made the swift mental comparison with Ginny and the other females who frequented his bed. It was quite ludicrous—almost embarrassing, in fact—to contemplate doing any of the things with this child that he was in the habit of doing with his nighttime companions. But then, he supposed that the whole point of keeping a mistress when one had a wife was that one’s senses might be satisfied. He could not honestly imagine any of the married gentlemen of his acquaintance enjoying their wives as they did their mistresses.
Miss Arabella Wilson was not ugly. She was not uncouth, though her manners were not quite what one would expect of a young lady of theton. He could have done a great deal worse. If he blanked from his mind the image of the lovely Miss Frances Wilson as she had appeared the day before, he could still feel relieved that his bride was not a great deal more of an antidote than she was. He could contemplate the thought of marriage with her without any real cringing or repugnance.
She would try to make him comfortable, she had said a few minutes before. Well, and perhaps she would succeed, too. There would be some satisfaction, while he continued his life where he had left it off a few days before, in knowing that a wife who knew her duty and who wished to make him comfortable was ensuring the respectability of his name and his home.
