“Yes, I believe we are,” Arabella said. “And I have just had a ridiculous idea. Do you think he will let me take George with me? He is desperately in need of more exercise than he can get in the park. Oh.” She giggled suddenly. “George is my dog, sir.”
He laughed. “Knowing Farraday,” he said, “I am sure he would be delighted if you brought your whole kennels. Why don’t you ask him?”
“I think I will,” she said, and they danced in companionable silence for several minutes.
“Did I tell you?” Mr. Hubbard asked suddenly, his voice tense. “No, of course I did not. My wife and my son are back in Brighton, you know. Someone saw them there and told me so a couple of days ago.”
Arabella looked up at him, some of her own pain in her look of sympathy.
“I am sorry,” she said. “I mean . . .”
“I know what you mean,” he said. “I am sorry. I should not keep referring to the subject. You are almost too kind a lady, ma’am.”
Chapter 15
THE weather during that spring had not been kind to those who enjoyed the outdoors either for the fresh air and exercise or for the opportunity it gave to show off new bonnets and new conveyances. But on the morning one week later when Lord Astor’s traveling carriage set off for Lord Farraday’s country home, the sun shone down from a cloudless sky, and the breeze was just strong enough to prevent the heat from being oppressive.
Arabella was gazing out through the window, her whole attention focused on the trees and fields that stretched away on either side of the road.
“How lovely it all is,” she said. “It is amazing that one can spend most of one’s life longing to go to town, only to find when one does so that one is closed in by buildings and roadways and pavements. It is going to be marvelous to have two days in which to breathe in country air. George is going to be ecstatic.”
“I imagine Henry will be so too when we reach our destination,” Lord Astor said. “I don’t believe he objects to traveling in the coach behind us with your maid and all the baggage, Arabella, but he looked quite indignant when I informed him that he would also be sharing the carriage with George.”
“Oh, dear,” she said, “I hate it when Henry is cross with me. He has a way of looking at one that would make one swear that he is a royal duke at the very least.”
She found herself laughing with her husband before she recollected herself and turned to stare resolutely out through the window again.
Frances was looking dreamy. “I could almost imagine that around the next corner we would come across Parkland,” she said. “Do you not wish it were, so, Bella? We could see Mama and Jemima again. Do you think Jemima will have changed? Do you think she has grown more?”
“We have been away for less than five weeks,” Arabella said. “Of course she will not have changed in that time, Frances. It is just that so much has happened that it seems we have been away forever. Oh, you are not about to cry, are you? Look at all the lovely scenery you will miss if you do.”
“How foolish I have been,” Frances said, two tears spilling over from her brimming eyes, “thinking that I would not have lived until I had been to town and attended all thetonevents and met all the fashionable ladies and gentlemen who live there or spend the Season there. And all the time I had Mama and Jemima and you, Bella. And Parkland. And Theodore.”
Arabella moved across from her seat beside her husband to sit besides Frances. “Don’t take on so,” she said, putting an arm around her shoulders. “Parkland and Mama and Jemima are still there, you know. And Theodore. And it is never a bad thing to have new experiences and to broaden one’s knowledge of life.”
“But Theodore is going to offer for Lady Harriet, I am sure of it,” Frances said. Two very blue eyes appeared above her lace handkerchief. “And how dreadfully ungrateful you and his lordship will think me after you have brought me to London for the Season.”
“Not at all,” Lord Astor said. “A healthy dose of homesickness never did anyone any harm. I have promised to take Arabella home for the summer, Frances. A few more weeks and we will be on our way.’’
“You are very kind, my lord,” Frances said.
“It was very kind of Lord Farraday to invite us to stay for a few nights, was it not?” Arabella said cheerfully, patting her sister on the back.
She was not so grateful two hours later after they had been greeted by their host and his mother and had been put into the housekeeper’s care. That was when she discovered that she and her husband were to share a bedchamber.
He looked at her apologetically when they were alone. “I am sorry about this, Arabella,” he said. “Of course, we might have expected it when there are several house-guests staying here.”
“Yes,” she said, wandering to the window in some embarrassment.
“You need not fear,” he said. “Doubtless I shall stay up almost all night with Farraday and Hubbard. We usually do a great deal of talking when we get together.”
“Yes,” she said. “Though you need not sit up on my account. I am your wife, you know.”
Her voice sounded so martyred that Lord Astor found himself smiling. He strolled over to stand beside her at the window. It looked out across a long and sloping lawn to the north of the house and beyond it to dense trees.
“I have lived so much of my life in town,” he said, “that I sometimes forget that the countryside can offer beauty and space. And peace. I have a home in Norfolk, you know—smaller than both this and Parkland, but it is set in attractive surroundings. I think you would like it, Arabella. Perhaps I will take you there toward the end of the summer.”
She said nothing.
