Belle of the ball by Donna Lea Simpson Page B

you the favor, m'girl. Truth to tell, I kind of got the idea you and that young wanderer, Westhaven, had something goin'."
    "Westhaven?" She arched her brows in surprise as she gracefully took a seat beside him. With the merest hint of malicious satisfaction, she said, knowing he was listening, "That young pup? Why he is not nearly . . . well, mature enough to interest a girl like me, if you know what I mean." She leaned close to Pelimore, and he goggled down her low bodice. "A girl likes to feel secure with a man, you know, and one would always think he would be taking off on some adventure or another; no stability, you know." Arabella tried her best, but a hint of wistfulness would creep into her voice. She could think of nothing more exciting than going off adventuring with such a man as Westhaven. Luckily, Lord Pelimore was not sensitive to things like that
    "True. Glad you realize it. Older man is what a girl your age needs. Gettin' on yerself; need some stability in your life."
    She glanced sideways at Westhaven, so tall and handsome, lounging nearby. He had overheard Lord Pelimore, she knew it by his smirk. Getting on, really! One would think she was in her dotage rather than just three-and-twenty. Were all men insensitive boors? She could not bear to say another word with Marcus—she had begun to think of him thus, as Marcus—close enough to hear, and so she fell silent and let Pelimore bore her with stories of his rakish youth back in the far reaches of the latter half of the last century. Unfortunately, though, the man did not come to the point with a proposal.
    And it was the same the next night, at the Beloir literary evening—how did Westhaven get invitations to all of these things, she wondered?—and at the Sanderson musical afternoon the next day after that West-haven was always there, always watching and listening as she did her best to lure a marriage proposal from the elderly baron.
    And now Westhaven had gathered his own court of fascinated women, who oohed and aahed over his stories of derring-do and dashing adventure, and Arabella gritted her teeth over it all, and lost her concentration every time she thought she was getting somewhere. Pelimore was proving to be surprisingly sensitive, and if her attention was not wholly on him he became huffy and left. Men! She longed to say good-bye to the whole sex and join a nunnery. Of course, the Church of England did not have nunneries, and so she would have to convert to Catholicism, but—oh, it sounded lovely! Nothing to do all day but contemplate and pray.
    Eveleen was off visiting in Dover, so she did not even have her best friend's company as comfort, though it was probably best. Eveleen O'Clannahan, sensible spinster with decidedly odd notions, was yet proving to have a surprising romantic turn to her personality that was jarring from so rational a woman. How could a woman as intelligent as Arabella had always thought Eve, believe in such discordant and disjointed things as the freedom of women from the tyranny of men and romantic love?
    But Arabella must do what she was there to do. There was no more money left; her mother had told her that when the butcher had sent a hefty fellow to collect. The staff had not been paid, nor the collier, nor the feed bill, nor the milliner. She needed to marry, and she needed the marriage settlements soon.
    She dressed carefully for the night's entertainment, a recital at the O'Lachlans'. In addition to the amateur performers a soprano had been engaged to sing, and Arabella loved Italian opera. She was a gifted pianist herself, or so everyone told her, and she knew the O'Lachlans would ask her to perform. It was her chance to impress Lord Pelimore, and she would take it
    She dressed in the ice blue silk, again, and went to the soiree alone, with just Annie for company. Her mother claimed a sick headache and said she must stay home in a darkened room. So Arabella went, mingled, and then, when asked, played a Haydn sonata