Unmasking the Duke's Mistress (Gentlemen of Disrepute #1)(14)
Dominic gave a nod. ‘Thank you, Barclay. That will be all.’
And when his secretary left, taking with him the great pile of paper, Dominic leaned back in his chair and focused his thoughts fully on Arabella.
Arabella had to endure two days of pleadings. Mrs Tatton begged that Arabella would not cheapen herself and warned her that once it was done there would be no going back. She cried and shouted, persuaded and coerced, but once the shock had lessened and her mother saw that Arabella would not be moved, then Mrs Tatton’s protestations fell by the wayside and, to Arabella’s relief, no more was said about it. She seemed to have accepted the inevitability and necessity of what would happen and steeled herself to the task every bit as much as Arabella.
Which was well, for on the Friday morning of that week a fine carriage and four arrived outside their lodgings in Flower and Dean Street. Every face in the street stared at the carriage, for nothing so grand had ever been seen there before. Archie stared in excitement at the team of bays and kept asking if he might run down the stairs to see them more closely. It pained Arabella to deny him and to force him away from the window for fear that Dominic himself might be within the carriage.
‘Soon,’ she whispered, ‘but not today.’
‘Ohh, Mama!’ Archie groaned.
‘He must be wealthy indeed,’ observed Mrs Tatton drily with a glance at her daughter that made Arabella curl up inside. And she was all the more glad that the carriage was a plain glossy black with no sign of the Arlesford coat of arms. She worried that her mother would recognise the smart green livery of the footman, groom and coach man, but Mrs Tatton showed no sign of realising the uniform’s significance.
‘I think he might be awaiting me in the house and I need time to speak to the servants. Either the carriage will come back for you, or I will return alone.’
Her mother nodded stoically and Arabella pushed away the little spasm of fear.
‘Either way we should not be parted for too long.’
She hugged Archie. ‘I have to go out for a little while, Archie.’
‘In the big black carriage?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Can I come with you?’
Arabella ignored the pain and the guilt and forced herself to smile. ‘Not just now, my darling. Be a good boy for your grandmama and I will see you soon.’
‘Yes, Mama.’
She kissed his head and took the time to blink away the tears before she rose to embrace her mother. ‘Look after him, Mama.’
Mrs Tatton nodded, and her eyes glistened with tears that she was fighting to hold back. ‘Have a care, Arabella, please. And…’ She took Arabella’s face between her worn hands and looked into her eyes. ‘For all that I dislike this I know why you are doing it and I thank you. I pray that your plan is successful and that it is the carriage that returns for Archie and for me.’
Those few words from her mother’s lips meant so much to Arabella. They strengthened her resolve that was fast crumbling at the prospect of facing Dominic once more.
‘Thank you, Mama,’ Arabella whispered and she kissed her mother’s cheek and, before she could weaken to the tears, she pulled the hood of her cloak over her hair and walked away, closing the door behind her.
The carriage was empty. Of that Arabella could only be glad, for she had no wish for Dominic to see her cry at the sight of her son and her mother peeping from the edge of the dirt-encrusted windows.
Nor was Dominic waiting in the town house that he had rented for her.
It was a fine property in respectable Curzon Street, as different from the hovel in Flower and Dean Street as was possible. The servants were lined up in the hallway for her arrival just as if she were Dominic’s duchess rather than his mistress. In some ways their respectful attitude made the whole thing easier, and in other ways, so much harder, for it reminded her of the hopes and expectations she had held for the future all those years ago when she had been a foolish na?ve girl in love with a boy who would be duke.
The elderly butler bowed. ‘I am Gemmell. Welcome to Curzon Street, Miss Tatton. We are very glad that you are here.’
It was so long since anyone had called her that name. She was Arabella Marlbrook now, even though Henry was dead these two years past. It angered her that Dominic wished to remove any reminder of the man who had saved her. She wanted to correct the butler, to tell him that her name was Marlbrook and not Tatton, but that would only be foolish. It was Dominic’s house and Dominic’s money; besides, she had no wish to make matters awkward between her and the servants, not when she would be counting on their good favour to keep her secret. So she smiled and walked down the line of servants, smiling and repeating each of their names and telling them how pleased she was to meet them and how she was sure that they would deal very well together.
Gemmell gave her a tour of the house during which she worked hard to breach his wall of formal and very proper servitude. By the time he had served her tea in the drawing room she had managed to coax from him all about his three little granddaughters and ten little grandsons; that his wife Mary, who had been the best housekeeper in all of England, had died three years past; and that he and Mary had previously been employed in the Duke of Hamilton’s hunting lodge in Scotland for twenty years before moving south on account of their children and grandchildren because family was what was important.