Page 26 of A Scandal for the Beastly Earl

"Welcome to marriage." He bowed and was gone before she could respond.

Arabella stood in the middle of her new sitting room, Thistle at her feet, and wondered what she'd gotten herself into. The rooms were beautiful, the house was magnificent, and her husband was... what? Confusing? Contradictory? Capable of moments of dry humor followed by arctic coldness?

A scratch at the door interrupted her musings. Jane entered, followed by two footmen carrying her trunks.

"Oh, my lady," Jane breathed, looking around with wide eyes. "It's like something from a fairy tale."

"Yes," Arabella agreed. "Complete with a beast in the west wing."

Jane's eyes grew even wider. "Is he really as fearsome as they say?"

"He's..." Arabella paused, considering. "He's complicated."

"That's one word for a husband, I suppose."

"What would be another?"

"Well, my mother always said husbands were like weather; unpredictable, occasionally stormy, and best handled with patience and a good umbrella."

Despite everything, Arabella laughed. "I don't think Lord Blackthorn would appreciate being compared to weather."

"No, my lady? What would he prefer?"

Arabella thought of his dark eyes, his careful control, the way he held himself apart from everything and everyone. "I don't think he'd prefer being compared to anything. Comparison requires connection, and he seems determined to avoid that at all costs."

They spent the next hour unpacking, hanging gowns in the dressing room that was indeed through the connecting door and proved to be larger than Arabella's entire bedroom at Marchwood House. Her belongings looked rather lost in all that space; her modest wardrobe barely filled a quarter of the available room.

"We'll need to order new gowns," Jane observed. "A countess needs more than what we've brought."

"With what money? I can hardly ask Lord Blackthorn to finance a new wardrobe."

"Why not? You're his wife."

"In name only."

Jane made a sound that suggested what she thought of that arrangement. "Still a wife, my lady. Still a countess. You need to look the part."

"For whom? He doesn't entertain, and I'm, as it seems, to be a hermit."

"For yourself, then. And who knows? Perhaps his lordship will change his mind about entertaining once he has such a lovely wife to display proudly."

"I doubt Lord Blackthorn has any interest in any of that."

Before Jane could respond, the dinner gong sounded, echoing through the house like a summons to judgment.

"I suppose I should go," Arabella said, checking her appearance in the mirror. Her wedding gown was wrinkled from travel, and her hair was escaping its pins. She looked exactly like what she was; a woman who'd had a very long, very strange day.

"Should I help you change, my lady?"

"Into what? Another wrinkled gown? No, let him see me as I am. It's not as though he's expecting elegance."

The dining room, when she found it after only two wrong turns, was another exercise in intimidation. The table could have seated thirty, and two places had been set at opposite ends, so far apart they'd need to shout to converse.

Lord Blackthorn was already there, having changed into evening dress that made him look even more forbidding than usual. He rose when she entered, a gesture of courtesy that seemed at odds with the distance between their seats.

"This is ridiculous," Arabella said, looking at the vast expanse of polished mahogany between them.

"It's traditional."