"Has something happened?" she dared to ask.
"Not exactly, no. Can you be ready at the end of the week?"
She nodded. "Tomorrow if you like."
"No, I have a few things to take care of. I'll make a list in a minute." He sighed and closed his eyes again.
"No you won't," she said in a firm tone. "You'll go upstairs and get a decent rest. Things will look much better when you're able to think clearly again. You're exhausted."
"All right. Just another minute here." His even breathing a moment later told her he was sound asleep.
Arabella knew the servants would come in eventually, but for now she would just sit and admire his handsome face.
A face that belonged to someone else, she reminded herself bitterly. For he had been with Leonore. Though she knew they had fought on New Year's Eve, she was sure he had looked more than amiable toward her the other night, and they had left the soiree together. She had seen it with her own eyes. As would have anyone else who had been watching him depart.
Blake had made no secret of the liaison with Leonore Ross. She should not be upset, just accept that it was a fact of his life. He had a mistress like many another man, and that was all there was to it.
There was no sense in hoping for him to change his mind. To break his word suddenly and try to form an attachment with her. The danger they had been in, the intimacy of having shared a bed for a night, had skewed his judgment when they had first met. Thus he had made a mistake.
He had said he was sorry, and there was an end to it. If he had not been appointed her guardian, he would never have seen her again.
She had to get over it. But it was so hard… And with him in her arms and her lap like this now, it could only get more difficult. Every day Arabella knew she loved Blake more.
No, if he had another person in his life, then she had to find someone as well.
It was not as if she didn't have plenty of choices: her two cousins, Lady Pemberton's dashing nephew Matthew, even staid Alistair Grant if she offered him some encouragement.
Not to mention the handsome if unusual Philip Marshall, who she was sure she still had not even scratched the surface of yet. Everyone said he was a rake, like Matthew Dane and Randall Avenel, but the difference between the three men was like night and day.
She sighed. There would be other beaux, of course. Once she went down to Somerset, there would be more interesting people for her to meet now that she was in such a lively and friendly set as the Rakehells. But for the moment, Adam and Oliver were worth cultivating, and Philip, if she could ever get him to open up to her about himself. He was still so much of an unknown quantity.
As for Lady Pemberton's nephew Matthew, he might have been useful to make Blake jealous, had her guardian been the jealous type. But he had quite happily handed her over to man after man to dance and talk with, so that wasn't going to work.
Randall? Far too flighty, with something hidden and dark under the surface that she couldn't quite make out. And she would never dream of risking her reputation to discover what lurked beneath his Devil-may-care facade.
Alistair? Far too staid and serious, prematurely grey though his face was as boyish as a youth's. With the respectable barrister, it would be marriage or nothing, of that she was sure. No chance of him ever doing anything improper.
No, it was evident from the parade of swains trooping past in an attempt to win her hand that Blake didn't care for her one bit. She just had to accept it and find a man she could like, even if she could never give him her love.
Blake was dreaming again. It was the same dream he had had ever since he had met Arabella. Of a bright and shining radiance when he was with her, inside her, loving her.
He kissed her rosy lips, stroked her petal soft cheek and melted into her, until he at last knew the meaning of one flesh…
Only this time the dream did not have a happy ending. He saw white and gold and then black and red. A dark shadow fell across them as they rolled in the newly mown hay field and laughed and loved.
He could feel a freezing chill, and her being ripped out of his arms. He could hear her screaming and crying in terror. Yet he was paralyzed. Powerless to help her.
"Arabella! Belle!" he shouted, sitting bolt upright.
"It's all right, I'm here, I'm right here," she reassured him, one arm around his neck.
Blake was so relieved he didn't even kiss her. He grasped her around the waist and buried his head in her lap, smelling her wonderful fragrance, which was both incredibly alluring and a balm to his soul.
She was startled, but immediately put her arm on his shoulder and stroked his hair with both hands. "It's all right, I'm here. What did you need?"