Page 102 of The Duke's Sinful Deal
For the first time, some of the confidence left him. Not enough to make him truly uncomfortable, but enough that his next words came more stiffly.
“If I have offended you, then I deeply regret it.”
“You have said your peace, in full, and in more ways than one.”
His expression tightened. “I do apologize, Arabella. I shall say no more.”
“See that you do not, Lord Covington. And I shall be addressed as Your Grace hereto forth, am I understood?”
“Of course, Your Grace,” he said obligingly, but his tone cursed her.
The music was already nearing its close. Arabella endured the final measures with a composure she did not remotely feel, her anger held so tightly it had become almost cold. When Amos bowed at the end, she inclined her head only as much as courtesy demanded, then turned away from him before he could attempt another word.
The room was too warm now, and far too crowded. Every light burned more sharply than before.
She found Maxwell more quickly than she expected, though perhaps that should not have surprised her. Even masked, even surrounded by others, he held a presence that made him easy to locate. He was speaking to Roderick when she approached, but whatever her face revealed was enough to draw his full attention at once.
“Arabella?” he said softly, hand outstretched.
“I wish to leave.” The words came before she had quite decided on them, and she knew at once that he heard more in them than the request itself.
Maxwell’s posture stiffened so subtly that anyone else might not have noticed. She did. The stillness in him sharpened. Even behind the mask, she could feel the shift in his gaze as it moved over her face.
“Did Lord Covington say or do something to upset you?” he asked, his voice quiet enough not to carry, though there was nothing soft in it.
Arabella forced herself to breathe evenly. “No.”
It was not wholly true, and they both knew it.
Maxwell looked at her for one beat longer, then offered his arm. “Come.”
He did not ask again. He did not question her before the room. He simply turned them toward the edge of the ballroom and guided her through the crowd with a calm that would have reassured her had it not been for the deadly restraint beneath it.
The corridor beyond the ballroom felt cooler, the noise of the musicians dimmed by distance and thick walls. Their footsteps echoed softly over the runner as they made their way toward the stairs and the waiting carriages beyond.
Arabella kept her hand on his arm, though the touch had become less elegant than it ought to have been. She was aware of it. Aware, too, that Maxwell said nothing at all.
He said nothing, which told her more than enough.
The carriage had not yet cleared the sweep of the drive before Maxwell spoke.
“What happened?”
The question was not raised, nor sharpened, but it carried weight all the same. Arabella could feel it beside her, in the way he sat too still, in the way his attention had not left her since they had entered the carriage. The lantern light from outside shifted across the interior in brief, uneven passes, catching the edge of his mask, the line of his shoulders, the quiet restraint that had settled over him.
Arabella drew in a breath, steadying herself. Her anger had not yet subsided, but she knew she owed him an explanation.
“He spoke of you,” she said.
Maxwell did not interrupt.
“He framed it as concern, though it was anything but. He suggested that I did not understand the man I married. That I was too young to have known what I was agreeing to.”
The carriage rolled forward, the sound of wheels against stone steady beneath her words.
“And then?” Maxwell asked.
Arabella’s fingers tightened slightly in her lap. “He repeated what society has already decided to believe of you— that you were once a rakehell. That your… past led you to where you are now. That your injuries were the consequence of your own conduct.”
