“Arabella, excuse me for saying this, but…are you feeling well?”
“I feel excellent. Bridget, all you need to do is be gloomier, more introverted, more of this sweet self you are, but emphasize the parts that very elegantly say ‘leave me alone,’ and I believe that he will in fact leave you alone.”
“You want me to provoke the Duke?”
“I want to do what you already do, but to a superlative degree. Be distant and detached. Talk in sentences with no verbs. Stare at the carpet. Bury your head in a book. We want him to realize what a terrible mistake he made.”
“And if that doesn’t work?”
“I have faith in your gloom,” Arabella chuckled before she went serious again. “We need to try something. We can’t just sit idly while you are married off to that brute mountain of a man.”
“I will do my best,” Bridget said with renewed determination.
“No, we want you to do your absolute worst,” Arabella corrected.
Bridget nodded, still confused. She got up slowly and looked at the door.
“All this excitement and planning exhausted me,” She said lightly. “I think I will retire.”
Arabella got up and hugged her sister. Bridget hugged her back, and the two sisters stayed like this for a while, sharing their bond. Then Bridget left, and Arabella stayed in the room alone.
She started pacing again. What could her father and the Duke be talking about all this time? Arabella decided to go up into the study and confront the men. She opened the door, and when she noticed that the Duke was coming down the stairs on his own.
The moment the Duke took that last step, Arabella grabbed him by the wrist. She needed answers and many more explanations than a piece of paper, and she really needed to give the Duke a piece of her mind.
She dragged him the few steps it took for him to be inside the empty drawing room. He offered no resistance, and Arabella realized the benefits of an ambush. When they were both inside the room, she closed the door and turned to face him.
“Your Grace,” she said, looking at him.
“Miss Arabella,” he simply replied in his cold tone.
“I hope that you came to your good senses and decided not to marry Bridget.”
The Duke took one step closer to her, his strict face dissolving into a fierce grin, with bared teeth. Arabella had never felt more unsafe in her own home, but then again, nobody had let in a predator with a calling card.
“You will be pleased to hear that I am not, in fact, marrying your sister.”
Relief washed over Arabella after the first shock. She knew that her sister’s introverted demeanor would be a deterrent for the wrong kind of men.
“I am not marrying your sister,” The Duke repeated, taking one step more, “because I have decided to marry you.”
If a bucket filled with cold water somehow fell from the ceiling onto her right at this moment, Arabella would have reacted with less shock. At his announcement, heat rushed to her face, then drained just as quickly. Her knees threatened to betray her, and she was forced to straighten her spine to keep from swaying.
“What…?”
“The contract statedanyof the Marriott daughters. And I have chosen you.”
Shock had done its job, stayed a little more for good measure, only to leave to make space for the inevitable rage.
“This is not a shop where you can choose your cufflinks from.”
“Indeed, it is not,” the Duke said. “The variety is quite disappointing.”
Never in her life had Arabella felt the need to slap someone across the face, though there were many that deserved it. But standing in front of the Duke of Albury talking about her and her sister as if he was merely window shopping, made her hand twitch and itch.
“I thought you would be delighted with the result,” the Duke commented as he calmly put on his gloves. “After all, it was you who pointedly said you would notallowme to marry your sister.”
Arabella opened her mouth to counter something, but nothing came back except pure fury. This man was not only here to claim one of them like cattle, but he also seemed to be enjoying the havoc he was wreaking in their household.
