Indulgent, self-possessed, he met her gaze, a single black brow cocked. In mirror to his companions’ expressions, Gregory’s cruelty was on full display.
There had always been an itch, a scratching worry in her belly that the man would play her false. Had Arabella been wiser, she would have heeded her intuition.
“Mr. Harrow.”
“My lady.” He’d drawn out the words in the same manner in which he called her my love, and Arabella died a little inside.
Her next words were acid in her throat, but she made herself say them to the one man at the table who made her want to run screaming from the room. “Sir Statham, have you seen the most recent London Chronicle? The loss of your close confidant, Baron Witte, has touched me. I wonder if it was the fire on his ship that killed him, or if he suffered fighting the choppy waters off the coast of France. Neither end seems fitting for a man of his qualities. He deserved so much more.”
Brows fell, the smug lasciviousness falling right from the lord’s jowly face. “I have heard no such thing.”
“It seems I must be the bearer of bad news. Another sad loss you have suffered. First, my doting husband Benjamin, with whom you shared all things, the sad murder of the Marquise of Glauster, and now Baron Witte.” She gestured to William Dalton. “Though I understand you have found a like mind in this one—either that, or my dear cousin owes you a great deal of money and you find it best to keep your investment close.” Arabella did not know from where her gall came, but she turned her sneer on the seething Baron of Iliffe, mocking, “Again, dear William, you have my deepest condolences on the loss of the Strand fortune.”
A swelling vein pulsing in his forehead, Dalton hissed, “You bi—”
Arabella shook her head, her voice low and dark. “You can turn those I call friend against me, hound me day and night, but you’ll never touch me.”
It was Sir Statham who was willing to play. Smiling again, reeking of deceit, he murmured. “I’ve touched you.”
Eyes traveling past a paunch belly to the man’s trousers, Arabella hummed. “If memory serves, there was little to consider.”
Her taunt sparked Statham’s disgusting smile. “Soon enough we’ll play our old games.”
Arabella turned her back and walked across the room to the seat Edmund deemed worthy of a gypsy whore... one far from the fire and the ladies of sterling reputation. She did not spare the men a further glance.
* * *
Horses had been summoned, the ladies left to walk the gardens or ride while the men retreated to shooting across the lawns. Arabella played her part despite the party’s indifference. There was no reason to shame the Jenkins family. After all, she had warned Edmund herself that it would be wise for his family to publicly cut ties with her. And now it had been done with typical English precision.
Except in the case of Lizzy. The young woman showed her face when it was time to stroll. Eyes red and puffy, she looked to Arabella, so utterly sorry that her lip shook. But she obeyed her mama’s silent warning and did not approach.
Mamioro sensed his mistress’s dejection, fussing at the slow pace. The stallion, like her, wanted to get away, but Arabella knew there was nowhere left to go. This was it. Whatever Gregory had put into place must play out.
When the ride was over, when the men approached with their guns draped over their arms, Payne was there to lift Arabella from her saddle. Thus far she’d had no opportunity to tell him that the monsters were at their backs, but he saw in her eyes the old fear no matter how hard she tried to fight it.
“William Dalton and Sir Statham are here.”
That was when the shot was fired, when her horse screamed, and when Payne took the brunt of the spooked beast’s wrath, trapped underhoof. Her friend, her dearest companion, was trampled into the earth, Arabella desperately clinging to the saddle as Mamioro shot off.
Wind whipping the hair in her face, the world moving too fast, Arabella sailed through the air, landing on the gravel, tangled in her skirts and unable to breathe. Fighting the dress, fighting a body stiff in the shock of pain, she rolled to her knees.
The women were shrieking; she didn’t hear them. The baroness did not hear the men rushing forward, or the sound of her name in the air. Her thoughts were automatic, focused on Payne, where he lay motionless on the cold ground.
Landing across his chest she screamed his name, fighting any hands that thought to pull her from him.
Chapter 20
T he barn smelled of hay and horse, the sweetness overpowering the stink of vinegar used to wash the multitude of abrasions on Payne’s body. Up and down, in even rhythm, his chest expanded with breath, half lidded eyes staring at the ceiling beams.
“The opium will ease his discomfort.” It was the same doctor who had attended the baroness through her fever, though he seemed remarkably less excited about repairing a servant. “Are you sure you wish to see this, my lady?”
If he asked her one more time to allow an outsider to brace her friend, Arabella was going to strike him. “I will stay.”
“It will be upsetti—”
“Set the bone!” Loud enough to be heard across the yard, the baroness shrieked, “You are wasting time, sir!”
Payne may have looked dazed, but the instant the doctor pulled his crooked arm straight, the large man screamed. She was there through it, pressing him back to the wooden table, talking to him, Mary and Hugh having been sent from the house to help where they could.