But she was already gone.
As he went to join his son and the Home Secretary in the office, he couldn’t help but feel that he’d just lost something infinitely precious.
Chapter 29
Arabella mourned.
If she could, she’d wear black weeds, but how would she explain that to her brother and to Lucy?
She was mourning the loss of a love that had never been. For she had no place in Philip Merivale’s life. Oh yes, she’d pretended she’d been able to integrate into their lives, but it was all based on a lie. She’d thought she could reinvent herself by becoming Arabella Weston.
And deny her roots, her heritage. Her self.
But all she’d accomplished was that she’d been enchanted by a family that wasn’t her own. She’d gotten her heart broken. She missed Katy, Robin, and Joy with a fierceness that frightened her.
Arabella dared not think of Philip.
The thought of having lost him sucked her into a black hole so deep, she feared she’d never emerge from it again.
“Do I need to call out Threthewick?” Ash had asked after casting one look at her stricken face. She knew that, despite his aloof behaviour, he worried about her.
“No,” she choked.
Ash nodded and without a word took her in his arms, where she cried her heart out. “You just have to say the word, should you change your mind. I’ll gladly whip him for you.” He handed her his handkerchief.
“Ash?” she asked, after noisily blowing her nose.
“Yes, Bella?” he hadn’t called her that since she was ten. The look of concern in his eyes almost made her burst into tears again.
“Don’t fight my battles for me.”
He looked searchingly in her face. Then he nodded. “If you really don’t want me to, then I won’t, little sister.”
Arabella had returned with Ash and Lucy to Ashmore Hall. Life there seemed to continue as usual, but everything had changed.
She was no longer the same.
She supposed love tended to do that to people.
At least she’d proven to herself that she could support herself. She’d learned that working for a living could be satisfying. She learned how to swim. How to cook. How to teach.
But what would she do now? She could not, for the life of her, return to her previous frivolous life of embroideries, ton parties, and balls, where the biggest issue was catching a husband. She’d lost all interest in that life long ago.
“I know what I am going to do with my life,” she announced to Lucy in the nursery one day. Lucy was in the process of changing Isolde’s napkins. The nurse hovered in the background and wrung her hands, for how could a duchess change her baby’s napkins?
“Splendid, Arabella.” Lucy pinned the linen around the baby, who cooed. “Tell me.”
“I am going to be a spinster.”
Lucy shot her a quick glance. “Excellent. You are aware that means you’ll be stuck with us for the rest of your life?” She picked up the baby and settled her on her shoulder. “I wouldn’t mind that in the least. Neither would Isolde. The only worry I’d have is you’d be dissatisfied living with us. How about becoming an eccentric and setting up your own household?”
A ghost of a smile flitted around Arabella’s lips. “I’ve thought about it. I want to do something useful. I want to work.”
“Ash will break out in hives, but I understand.”
“Ash has promised to no longer interfere with my life.”
“Yes, and unicorns fly.”
