Thankfully, they left the park without calling too much attention to themselves, but the ride home took far longer than she wanted it to.
“Oh heavens, Arianna. I forgot I need to make it to my meeting this afternoon at Gunter’s,” Daphne lamented. “It’s what Lady Essex was reminding me of when I saw her. I don’t have the time to see you all the way home... If Lord Seabright were not here, I’d skip the meeting, but seeing as he is a trusted family friend, perhaps I can leave you in his capable hands?”
“I’d be happy to see her safely home,” Derrick said. “Assuming Arianna does not object.”
Oh, she wanted to object—desperately—but she knew Daphne’s meeting was important to her. One didn’t miss a meeting with the Society of Rebellious Ladies, especially since Daphne was the one scheduled to be presenting. It was a prestigious honor to present a subject before the society.
“Go—I shall be fine. Lord Seabright is a family friend... or at least he was once,” she reassured her friend.
Daphne bit her lip, her gaze darting between Arianna and Derrick. “Well, only if you’re sure.”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” Arianna promised her friend.
Daphne bade them farewell and raced toward home.
Once they were alone, Derrick shot Arianna a devilishly bemused look. “I wasoncea family friend?”
Arianna flushed, but she wasn’t sure if it was embarrassment or anger that caused it.
“All I know is that one day you and Lucas were as close as brothers, and I was...” She slammed the lid on those thoughts and locked them away. “Then the next day you were no longer speaking and you never came home.”
“Home.” He said this softly, a hint of wistfulness there that made something strain painfully in her chest. She had meant to say he’d never come to her and Lucas’s home, yet she’d said home as if they’d shared her home. Strangely, it had always felt like her home had been his. How wrong of her to believe that after everything that had happened.
He cleared his throat, his gaze fixed elsewhere. “Your brother and I...”
“You can’t even say his name.” Arianna didn’t mean to sound accusing, but her tone was a little rigid.
Derrick scowled and shifted his grip on his reins, their horses nearly bumping shoulders.
“Perhaps we should talk about you, Arianna.” He tightened his reins, and his horse tossed his head with a huff. “What the bloody hell were you doing on Scandal Lane with Cumberland? Explainthatto me.”
“I don’t have to explain that or anything else to you.” She urged her horse to go faster, but Derrick reached out and caught the reins, stopping her from moving away from him.
She didn’t want to explain anything to this man. She’d been madly in love with him since she was a young girl. She’d dreamed that when she had her debut season, he would one day dance with her and then fall deeply in love with her. But that day never came, and in the last two years she had come to know better than to hope for a wild, mad love. But she did hope she would find a man she liked well enough and that they could at least be tolerably happy.
“Arianna.” He sighed her name as though it pained him a little. “You could have been hurt terribly today.”
As if she didn’t know that. She had made a foolish assumption about Solomon, and she had paid for it with a bruised face and a sore body—to say nothing of her injured pride. She didn’t allow herself to imagine what might have happened if Derrick hadn’t come along to save her. She cringed. No, she would not dwell on what could have happened. She forced that thought into another box in her mind.
“You have no right to lecture me, Derrick. None whatsoever.”
His sudden smile caused a traitorous flutter in her belly. “Now she calls meDerrick. Thank heavens. If you called meLord Seabrightall the way back to the house, I might have become put out.”
Arianna straightened her spine and did her best to look prim, something that wasn’t quite natural for her the way it was for other women. She had always been informal with him, perhaps because she’d grown up with him always around, and it felt wrong to call himLord Seabrightwhen the two of them were alone.
“Someone ought to lecture you,” he said. “In fact, someone ought to do a bloody lot more than that. I’m tempted to put you over my knee.”
Arianna jerked her horse to a stop. “Howdareyou!”
“Oh, come along, we haven’t time to dawdle. I have dinner at my club this evening.” He continued walking his horse slightly ahead of hers.
“Oh, we wouldn’t want you to miss that. I’m quite fine to go on alone.”
He continued to grin, damn him. “I’m afraid you’ll have no luck in ridding yourself of me. I’m quite determined to play the hero today.”
“How fortunate for me,” Arianna muttered.
“You know, I don’t remember you being quite so shrewish when you were younger.”
