‘Are you sure about this, Arabella?’ Mrs Tatton asked.
‘It is still early, Mama. There should be few enough people about to notice us; even if they do, there is nothing to associate us with this house or its master.’
Archie paused as he galloped past the mantel piece to stroke a hand against the ribbons that Arabella had festooned there. She smiled at the pleasure on his face and knew that the decorations had been worth it, even if she would have to take them down and hide them away just in case Dominic arrived.
‘And remember that we are to have a special birthday lunch,’ said Mrs Tatton. ‘Cook is making a cherry cake and lemonade and some biscuits too.’
‘Hurrah!’ shouted Archie. ‘I love birthdays.’
Gemmell came in to organise the clearing of the breakfast plates. ‘And how old are you today, young master Archie?’ he asked.
‘I am a grown up boy of five years old,’ said Archie with pride.
‘That is very grown-up indeed,’ agreed Gemmell with a smile and gave the little boy the small wooden figure of a horse that he had carved.
And the maid, Alice, chucked Archie under the chin and gave him a packet of barley-sugar twists that she had made herself and knew to be his favourites.
Arabella felt her heart swell at their kindness. ‘Thank you,’ she said with meaning. ‘You are very kind to us.’ And today all the shadows of the past and the present seemed very far away. Today they were a proper family—Archie, her mother, Arabella and all of the servants.
Dominic read the card in his hand and knew there was no way he could refuse Prinny’s invitation without delivering the prince a monumental insult. How recently a night of drunken revelry and fireworks in Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens would have held appeal for Dominic. Now it did not. He wondered how little time he might need stay there before he could slip away.
He thought of Arabella sitting alone at her needlework in Curzon Street. And he felt that same surge of desire for her that he had always felt. He burned for her, just as he knew he could not take her. It was an absurd situation of his own creation. An insolvable paradox that tortured him more with each passing day. His brain told him that he should go round to Curzon Street right now and ease the ache in his loins upon her, to ride her as he had done in Mrs Silver’s. But even the memory of what had happened in that place soured his stomach. And in his heart he knew that he could not do it. Even if she had been ridden by a thousand men before him.
He glanced again at the card, Vauxhall and its masked carnival, and an audacious idea popped into his head. An idea that was both daring and ridiculous. To be with her was a torture, but he craved it all the same. The carnival might be easier than being alone with her in a house he was paying for, with a bed too easily within reach. The thought of having Arabella by his side seemed to make the prospect of Vauxhall much more palatable. He slipped the card into his pocket. It would require another visit to Curzon Street.
Just to tell her of the carnival.
Nothing more.
Tonight.
He anticipated the visit with a combination of dread and impatience.
It was wonderful to escape the house in Curzon Street and it gladdened Arabella’s heart to watch her son and her mother enjoy the morning in the fresh air of the park. The trip lifted all of their spirits and so too did the little party they had for themselves and the servants that afternoon.
Normally Gemmell served dinner at four o’clock, which was early for London’s society, but it was an hour that gave Arabella and her family time enough to sit down and eat together before preparing for the evening. The preparation involved checking in each room that there was no evidence of either Archie or Mrs Tatton and ensuring that Archie was bathed, changed and tucked up in bed asleep before the master of the house’s arrival, should he choose to call. But today, because of the park and the party, and the fact that come four o’clock they were still full of birthday cake and lemonade, everything was running late. And Arabella was loathe to bring a close to the day. Not once had she allowed herself to think of Dominic or her circumstances. She had been determined to make this day as enjoyable as possible for Archie’s sake. And it had been. Arabella felt happy for the first time in weeks.
‘Have we not had the very best of days?’ she asked as they sat down to a light dinner within the dining room.
‘Indeed we have, Mama!’ His eyes were shining and his cheeks had the healthy glow of the outdoors about them.
Arabella and her mother laughed.
‘And Charlie thinks so, too.’ He stroked the little wooden horse that Gemmell had made for him.
They were in the middle of eating when Arabella thought she heard a familiar-sounding carriage outside. It cannot be, she thought to herself. It is barely quarter past six. But then a very worried-looking Gemmell appeared in the doorway.
‘Madam, it is the master!’
‘Good Lord!’ said Arabella beneath her breath.
‘Oh, Arabella!’ gasped her mother.
‘Show him into the drawing room. I will come through and stall him there while Mama and Archie make their escape.’
Gemmell gave a nod and hurried away.
‘What is wrong, Mama?’ asked Archie.
‘Nothing at all, little lamb. Grandmama wants to tell you a very exciting new story. So you must sneak upstairs to your bedchamber as quickly and quietly as you can. And once you are there you must climb straight into bed and be as quiet as a mouse and listen to Grand-mama’s new story before you go to sleep.’
‘No bathing?’ asked Archie, who was looking as if it was something too good to be true.
‘Just for tonight,’ said Arabella.
‘Hurrah!’ Archie began to shout.
Mrs Tatton put her fingers to her lips and hushed him. ‘Shush now, Archie. Fasten that little button on your lips. Quiet as a mouse, remember?’
Archie nodded and made the button-fastening movement at his lips.
Arabella heard the front door open. She heard the murmur of Dominic’s voice and the tread of his shoes on the polished wooden floorboards of the hallway.
Archie was grinning so much a tiny breathy snigger escaped him.
Arabella’s and her mother’s eyes shot to him, shaking their heads, touching their fingers to their lips in a silencing gesture.
Her heart was thudding as hard as a blacksmith’s hammer striking against an anvil. She looked at the door, afraid that Dominic would come striding through it, demanding to know what was going on.
Please God, do not let him discover them.
But his footsteps walked straight on past the dining room door and on along the passageway to the drawing room.
A minute later, and without a single noise, Gemmell appeared at the door. There was a glimmer of sweat upon his brow. The poor man looked every bit as worried as Arabella felt.
She nodded to him. ‘Help Mama and Archie. Wait until I am inside the drawing room speaking with him before you make a dash for it.’ She thought of the infirmities of both Gemmell and her mother—’dash’ was perhaps the wrong word to use.
‘Be a good boy for Grandmama.’ She kissed Archie on the forehead. And to her mother, ‘Take off his shoes that they make no noise upon the floor.’
‘I will carry him, ma’am,’ said Gemmell.
Archie was quite heavy and she worried that Gemmell could not manage him, but she did not want to insult the old butler by suggesting any such thing. So she gave him a grateful, if nervous, smile. ‘Thank