Page 101 of The Duke's Sinful Deal
There it is.Arabella had expected it from someone tonight.“Are you speaking about my marriage?” she asked, though she knew perfectly well what he meant.
Amos inclined his head. “You must know that I am only speaking out of concern.”
“I know that a great many people have dressed curiosity as concern these past weeks,” she replied sharply. “I do understand the difference.”
His smile did not falter, though something in it sharpened. “Then I hope you will not place me in that category. I would not presume upon your affairs without cause.”
Arabella held his gaze. “And still you have found the audacity to raise them?”
The turn of the dance forced them briefly apart before bringing them together again. Amos used that space to let out a small breath, as if regretting what he was obliged to say next.
“You were always generous,” he said. “Perhaps too generous. It is one of your best qualities, though it may leave you vulnerable where harsher natures are concerned.”
Arabella felt her patience tighten, though she kept her voice even. “If you mean to speak plainly, Lord Covington, then do so. I have no taste for subtlety.”
His brows lifted fractionally, as if mildly surprised by the firmness in her tone. “Very well. I only fear that you may have entered into something without fully understanding the man involved.”
“My husband and I understood one another sufficiently when we wed.”
Amos gave a low murmur that might almost have passed for sympathy. “Forgive me, Your Grace, but I do not think any lady can ever fully understand such a man before it is too late.”
The disgust of it struck her first, not because of the words alone, but because of the satisfaction he seemed to take in speaking them. The music continued around them, polished and bright, while he spoke of her husband as though he were some regrettable ruin she had been too naïve to examine properly before accepting it.
Arabella’s mouth cooled into a smile that no longer held warmth. “You speak very boldly for a man who claims concern.”
Amos leaned the slightest degree closer, enough to make the intimacy of his tone feel deliberate. “You were too young to know at the time, perhaps, but Northwood was not always what he is now. He was a rakehell once. Quite notorious, in fact.”
Her fingers tightened in his.
Amos went on, lowering his voice as though what followed pained him to share. “I ought not say such things in the company of a duchess, and yet I would rather offend than remain silent where your peace is concerned. Men like that do not change in their nature, no matter how much society may pity them after the fact.”
Arabella stared at him.
“What, precisely, do you imagine you are implying?”
His expression arranged itself into something regretful, which made him look all the more slimy for it. “Only that the ton has long said his excesses led him to where he is now. That one cannot live so freely without consequence. A man who spends his nights in bad company and worse beds rarely escapes untouched. And now…” He let the sentence trail off with practiced heaviness. “Well. You have seen what remains.”
For the length of a heartbeat, Arabella heard nothing at all. The music receded. The room itself seemed to narrow until all that existed was the smooth, self-satisfied venom of his voice.
“Some men invite consequence,” Amos said, too lightly. “Though I suppose not all of them expect it to come quite so… thoroughly.”
There was something in the way he said it. It was not just the words, but the familiarity beneath them unsettled her more than the insult itself.
Then the heat of anger came crashing all around and in her. It was so distracting that she nearly missed her next step, but she recovered at once, but only just.
“How fortunate I am,” she said, her voice silk-smooth now, “to have such vigilant guardians appearing at every turn.”
Amos seemed encouraged by the calm of it, mistaking restraint for receptiveness. “I am only telling you so that you are aware of who and what exactly you have associated yourself with.”
The dance continued. Around them, other couples turned and shifted, unaware or politely pretending to be so. Arabella did not lower her voice, but neither did she raise it. She had no wish to make a spectacle of herself. What she wanted was far simpler than spectacle.
She wanted him to understand.
“You may clothe it in concern as often as you please,” she said, meeting his gaze without flinching, “but I am not so easily misled as you seem to think, Lord Covington. The stories that society has amused itself by repeating, you will not repeat them to me. And you will certainly not speak of my husband as though I ought to be ashamed of him.”
Amos’s jaw shifted beneath the line of his mask. “You misunderstand me.”
“No,” Arabella replied. “I do not. You have spoken plainly. There was very little room for misunderstanding.”
