Page 2 of Lady Arabella’s Reluctant Hero

On that point, they were in perfect accord.

Fortunately the laughing group around Clarissa didn't notice her as she passed. And she soon found her friends Cecily and Henrietta waiting for her near the orchestra, where Cecily had established their evening's encampment.

"There you are." Fair-haired and wide-eyed, Cecily wore a shade of blue that did not particularly suit her. "We have been waiting."

"Have you." Arabella accepted the glass of punch Cecily handed her. "How devoted."

Cecily hurried on. "Henrietta has been telling us the most extraordinary thing about Lady Coventry's daughter. Do you know, she actually wore a yellow gown."

"Mmm," Arabella said. "That is extraordinary."

Cecily grinned, but their friend Henrietta, at least, read the dry remark for what it was. She tipped her pert nose up in the air with a sniff. "Not just yellow. It was a dreadful orange-yellow. As though she had never met a mirror."

Henrietta laughed too loudly at her own cutting remark.

Cecily giggled. "As though she had been sent here from a country in which mirrors have not yet been invented!"

Still laughing, Henrietta added, "As though her mother had simply abandoned her to her fate."

This sent the two of them off into a fit of laughter which the lazy remarks did not deserve.

"Yellow is a perfectly serviceable color," Arabella cut in. The others sobered, and she took her time sipping her punch before adding, "On the right person. Lady Coventry's daughter is only unfortunate in that she has been built like a candle. It is not the color's fault that she looks as though she might burst into flames."

Cecily put a hand over her mouth to stifle a high-pitched laugh. Henrietta made the wheezing noise that always made Arabella flinch.

For her part, Arabella heard her snide retort as if it had come from somewhere very far away. They would repeat it, she knew. By the end of the week, her cutting remark would have been heard by half the ton.

A pang struck her chest, tight and familiar. Well done, Arabella.

She lifted her glass and drank.

"Speaking of unfortunates," Henrietta said, recovering, "Our dear Cecily has been mooning at Lord Alderton for half the evening."

Cecily frowned. "I have not been mooning. I was merely looking."

"Looking at what, then?" Henrietta shot back. "Has he done anything interesting?"

"No, not really. He hasn't danced once all evening," Cecily said. "But you must admit, he is a catch. After all, he is heir to an earldom, and⁠—"

"He has a child, Cecily," Henrietta cut in.

"Yes, I know⁠—"

"And you fancy yourself a stepmother?" Henrietta sounded so horrified, Arabella shot her a look.

She didn't particularly like Cecily. But she disliked Henrietta more.

Cecily lifted her chin. "I fancy myself the wife of an earl. Besides… He seems nice."

Arabella's scoff came so instinctively, she nearly choked on her punch. Nice. She had fallen for a nice man once. She was reminded every day of what nice had cost her.

Cecily turned to Arabella with a hopeful look. "Don't you think he seems nice?"

"You are very welcome to him, Cecily," she said.

This was dismissive enough that Henrietta felt free to continue disparaging the poor widower. "In any case, you are barking up the wrong tree. Why would Lord Alderton bother with you when Arabella has not yet given any of her admirers her hand?"

A small distressed noise came from Cecily.