At long last by Busbee Shirlee

Author:Busbee Shirlee [Shirlee, Busbee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

D uring the remaining hours of the night and all the next day, Arabella constantly turned the events of the disastrous evening with Tony over in her mind, minutely examining every word, every gesture, trying painfully to discover the moment when everything had gone so very wrong. Bleakly, she wondered if and how she could have handled anything any differently.

She had never once doubted Tony’s version of his two marriages, nor the circumstances surrounding the deaths of his two wives—despite all the stories to the contrary. She knew that he regretted bitterly his wild, debauched youth, that he was ashamed of the selfish way he had treated Mercy and the irresponsible way he had chosen both Mercy and Elizabeth to be his wives.

She had never held his past against him, aware of the way both sets of his grandparents had doted upon him. It would have been astonishing if he had been anything but arrogant and spoiled. The important thing, she had told herself, was that he hadn’t stayed that way, that he had matured and tried to rectify his mistakes—she believed that truly, else she would never have been able to fall so completely in love with him.

But the affair with Molly Dobson had shown Arabella that he was still capable of acting with reckless arrogance. And the knowledge that another of those careless wagers had piqued his initial interest in her only added to his crimes.

Thinking about the past, brooding on their argument did nothing to lift her spirits and with an effort, she tried to put Tony Daggett and their briefly mingled lives away from her. It was not easy.

Jeremy came to call Monday afternoon, mystified and jubilant that the vowels had been returned to him that very morning. His blue eyes bright, he bounded into the room, where she was sitting listlessly mending a linen tablecloth, and exclaimed, “I say, Bella, Tony Daggett is not such a bad sort, after all. I don’t know what changed his mind, but he rode slap up to the front door of Highview this morning, asked to speak to me, and, to my astonishment, handed me the vowels and told me to tear up that document he had signed.”

His words stabbed her. Any hopes that Tony had not been serious were dashed. He obviously intended to have nothing to do with her—ever. How she smiled and acted thrilled for Jeremy she never knew. She was just grateful when, whistling merrily, he rode away from Greenleigh.

To Arabella’s dismay, she discovered that she missed Tony dreadfully. He had been back in her life for such a short time and yet she found, as one week became two, that the ache in her heart only grew worse. She tried to bury herself in the refurbishing of Greenleigh, but somehow her enthusiasm had faded, and she only listened indifferently to the Tidmores’ proposed changes, sometimes approving items for purchase and renovations, having no idea to what she had agreed.

The night of the Crockers’ ball

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