Kiss Me Annabel

‘You’re judging on appearances,’ she told him. ‘My only dowry is a horse, although, as I said, I’d be happy to introduce you to some appropriate young ladies.’

He opened his mouth, but at that moment Imogen appeared at her shoulder. ‘Darling,’ she said to Annabel, ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you!’ Without pausing, she turned to the earl. ‘Lord Ardmore,’ she purred, ‘I am Lady Maitland. What a pleasure to meet you.’

Annabel watched as the earl bent over her sister’s hand. Imogen was looking as beautiful as any avenging goddess. She gave Ardmore a look that no man, especially a man in search of a dowry faced with a wealthy young widow, would consider resisting. In fact, it looked very much like one of Annabel’s own come-hither glances.

‘I have an unendurable longing to dance,’ Imogen said. ‘Will you please me, Lord Ardmore?’

Unendurable? But Ardmore wasn’t laughing; he was kissing Imogen’s hand again. Annabel gave up. The man would have to find his own way out of Imogen’s net. Imogen had always been thus: once she made up her mind, there was no stopping her. ‘I shall return to my chaperone,’ Annabel said, curtsying. ‘Lord Ardmore, it has been a pleasure.’

Lady Griselda was holding court in a corner of the room, their guardian sprawled beside her with a drink in his hand. Not that there was anything unusual in that; the Duke of Holbrook always had a drink. He came to meet Annabel when he saw her winding her way through the crowd.

Now that she had come to know a number of English nobility, she was more and more surprised by how unducal Rafe was. For one thing, he refused to go by his title. For another, he was as far from scented and curled and sartorially splendid as could be imagined. At least his valet managed to get him into a decent coat of blue superfine for the evening, but when he was at home he tended toward comfortable pantaloons and a threadworn white shirt.

‘Griselda’s driving me mad,’ he said without formality. ‘And if she doesn’t succeed, Imogen will finish me off. What the devil is she doing, dancing attendance on that Scottish fellow? I don’t even know the man.’

‘She’s decided that she wants a cicisbeo,’ Annabel told him.

‘Stuff and nonsense,’ Rafe muttered, running a hand through hair that was already wildly disarranged. ‘I can escort her wherever she needs to go.’

‘She’s being plagued by fortune hunters.’

‘For God’s sake, why’d she choose a penniless Scot to dance about with, then?’ Rafe bellowed, only belatedly glancing about him.

‘Perhaps she won’t care for him on further acquaintance,’ Annabel said, trying to see whether she could glimpse Lord Rosseter anywhere. At the moment Rosseter was her first choice for a spouse.

‘She’s making an ass of herself,’ Rafe said.

For some reason, Imogen’s antics always drove Rafe to distraction, especially since she’d returned to London and begun to order gowns that fit her like a second skin. But no matter how much he bellowed and raged, she merely smirked at him and said that widows could dress precisely as they wished.

‘Surely it’s not as bad as that,’ Annabel said absently, still searching the crowd for Rosseter.

She caught Lady Griselda’s eyes, who called: ‘Annabel! Do come here for a moment.’

Their chaperone was nothing like the dour old ladies who generally earned that label; she was as good-looking as the infamous, altar-deserting Earl of Mayne. It went without saying that none of them held her brother’s behaviour against Griselda; she had been devastated when Mayne galloped away from Rafe’s house approximately five minutes before he was due to marry Tess.

‘What on earth is Rafe bellowing about?’ Griselda inquired, without much real concern in her voice. ‘He’s turned all plum-coloured.’

‘Rafe is worried that Imogen is making an exhibition of herself,’ Annabel told her.

‘Already? She is a woman of her word.’

Annabel nodded over to the right. A waltz was playing, and the Earl of Ardmore was holding Imogen far too tightly. Or perhaps, Annabel thought fairly, Imogen was doing the holding. Whatever the impetus, Imogen swayed in his arms as if they were in the grip of a reckless passion.

‘Goodness me,’ Griselda said, fanning herself. ‘They’re quite a couple, aren’t they? All that black on black…Imogen certainly was correct about the aesthetics of choosing Ardmore as a partner.’

‘Nothing will come of it,’ Annabel assured her. ‘Imogen was just blustering. I’m sure of it.’ But the words died in her mouth as Imogen threw an arm around the earl’s neck and began caressing his hair in an outrageously intimate fashion.

‘She wants a scandal,’ Griselda said matter-of-factly. ‘The poor dear. Some widows do suffer through this sort of thing.’

She made it sound as if Imogen were coming down with a nasty cold.

‘Did you?’ Annabel asked.

‘Thankfully not,’ Griselda said with a little shiver. ‘But I do believe that Imogen’s feelings for Lord Maitland were far deeper than mine for dear Willoughby. Although,’ she added, ‘naturally I had all proper emotion for my husband.’

Imogen was smiling up at Ardmore, her eyes half closed as if – Well. Annabel looked away.

What Imogen wanted, Imogen took. She had loved Draven Maitland for years, and never mind the fact that he was betrothed to another woman. The moment Imogen had a chance, she somehow sprained her ankle in such a way that she had to convalesce in the Maitland household. That ankle injury was remarkably fortuitous. The next thing Annabel knew, her sister had eloped with Draven Maitland. In fact, given Imogen’s strength of will, Annabel rather thought that Ardmore might have to find and woo his bride in the next season.

‘Have you seen Lord Rosseter?’ she asked Griselda.

But Griselda was mesmerised – as doubtless were most of the respectable women in the room – by Imogen’s behaviour on the dance floor. ‘Imogen is not my duty,’ she said to herself, fanning her face madly.

Annabel looked back at her sister. Imogen could not have made her intentions to engage in a scandalous affair more clear. She was clinging to Ardmore as if she’d turned into an ivy plant.

‘Oh, Lord,’ Griselda moaned. Now Imogen was caressing Ardmore’s neck, for all the world as if she meant to pull his head down to hers.

Annabel’s elder sister Tess dropped into a chair beside them. ‘Can someone please explain to me why Imogen is behaving like such a wanton?’

‘Where have you been all evening?’ Annabel asked. ‘I thought I caught a glimpse of you and Felton earlier, but then I couldn’t find you.’

Tess ignored her question. ‘She may ruin herself with this behaviour! People will draw the conclusion that she is Ardmore’s mistress.’

‘And they’ll be correct,’ Griselda put in calmly. ‘How are you, my dear? You look blooming.’

But Tess just stared at Griselda. ‘Imogen has taken a lover? I knew she was distraught, but –’

‘She calls it taking a cicisbeo,’ Annabel put in.

On the dance floor Imogen was dancing thigh to thigh with the Scotsman, head thrown back in an attitude of sensual abandon.

‘We have to do something,’ Tess said grimly. ‘It’s one thing to take a cicisbeo, if that’s what she wants. But at this rate she’ll create such a frightful scandal that she won’t be invited to parties.’

‘Oh, she’s already beyond the pale on that front,’ Griselda said, a little too cheerfully for Annabel’s comfort. ‘Remember, she eloped with her first husband. And after this exhibition…Well, she’ll still be invited to the largest balls, of course.’

But Tess had raised her three younger sisters from the time their mother died, and she wasn’t going to resign herself to Imogen’s disgrace so easily. ‘That will not do,’ she stated. ‘I’ll just put it to her that –’

Annabel shook her head. ‘You are not the one to give advice. The two of you only reconciled a matter of weeks ago.’ Tess looked rebellious, so Annabel added firmly, ‘Not unless you wish to engage in another squabble with Imogen.’

‘It’s all so absurd,’ Tess muttered. ‘We never really quarrelled.’ Just then Lucius Felton came up, dropped a kiss on his wife’s hair, and winked at Annabel.

‘Give me a chance and I’ll scare up a reason to stop speaking to you myself,’ Annabel said, smiling at him. ‘All this marital affection is hard to stomach.’

‘Imogen apologised very prettily,’ Tess said. ‘But I still think her behaviour was remarkably unjustified.’

‘Your husband –’ Annabel began.

‘Is alive,’ Tess said, accepting the point. ‘But does that mean I have to allow my sister to ruin herself without saying a word?’

But Annabel had a twinge of sympathy with Imogen, seeing the way Lucius brought Tess’s hand to his lips before he left to bring her a glass of champagne.

‘Do you think that Ardmore is aware that Imogen has only just been widowed?’ Tess asked. ‘Perhaps you could appeal to his better self. Weren’t you just speaking to him?’

‘He has no idea that Imogen is my sister,’ Annabel said doubtfully. ‘I could –’

‘It wouldn’t make any difference,’ Griselda put in. ‘Imogen made it quite clear earlier in the evening that she fully intends to create a scandal, if not with this gentleman, then with my own dear brother. And frankly, if this is the way she intends to go about it, I’m grateful she didn’t choose Mayne. I still have fond hopes for a nephew at some point and my brother may have slept with most of the available women in the ton, but he’s never put on a public exhibition.’

Tess’s eyes narrowed. ‘She was considering Mayne?’

‘Yes, Mayne,’ Annabel confirmed. ‘I believe she had some quixotic idea of punishing him for leaving you at the altar.’

‘That’s foolish,’ Tess said. ‘Mayne punishes himself quite enough.’ She turned to Griselda. ‘Did he come tonight?’

‘Of course,’ Griselda said, startled. ‘He was just inside the gaming room, last time I looked. But –’

Tess was already gone, heading like an arrow to the room where the men sat around their cards, hoping their wives wouldn’t drag them onto the ballroom floor.

‘I was going to say,’ Griselda added, ‘that I believe he intended to leave for his club. I barely have a chance to see my own brother now that he has given up philandering. He won’t stay at a ball over a half hour.’

Annabel looked back at Imogen. Would this waltz never end?

But at that moment Rafe shouldered his way onto the floor. Before Annabel could take a breath, the red-haired Scotsman was bowing, and Rafe had swept Imogen away.

Imogen was as surprised as her sister. One moment she was gliding around the ballroom with Ardmore, thoroughly enjoying every scandalised glance directed at her, and the next she was jerked from his arms by her ex-guardian. ‘And just what do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded, holding her body as far from Rafe’s as was possible.

‘Saving your miserable little self,’ he snapped back. ‘Do you have any idea what a disgrace you’re making of yourself?’ Rafe’s hair was standing up on end and his normally grey-blue eyes were black with rage.

Imogen raised an eyebrow. ‘Just remind me again where your authority over me lies?’

‘What do you mean?’ He swung her into a brisk turn and began back up the ballroom floor.

‘What right have you to interrogate even the smallest aspect of my behaviour? I ceased to be your responsibility the moment I married Draven.’

‘I only wish that were the case. As I told you when you broached that ludicrous idea of renting a house, I consider myself still your guardian, and you’ll live with me until you marry again. Or grow old enough to govern yourself, whichever comes first.’

She smiled at him, a movement of her lips belied by her angry gaze. ‘This may surprise you, but I don’t agree with your assessment of my situation. I’m planning to set up my own establishment in the very near future.’

‘Over my dead body!’ Rafe snapped.

Imogen glared at him.

‘I don’t know what you’re playing at with Ardmore,’ Rafe said, ‘but you’re ruining yourself for nothing. The man is looking for a bride, not a flirtation with a silly widow with no plans to marry.’

Suddenly he looked sorry for her, as if his anger were draining away. The last thing Imogen wanted was sympathy from her drunken oaf of a guardian. ‘For nothing?’ she said, taunting him. ‘You must be blind. Ardmore’s shoulders, his eyes, his mouth…’ She gave a little shiver of supposed delight.

Which turned into something quite different, although it took her a moment to realise it. He was shaking her! Rafe had dropped her hand and given her a hard shake, as if she were a child in the midst of a tantrum. ‘How dare you!’ she gasped, feeling pins slide from her hair.

‘You’re lucky I don’t drag you out of here and lock you in your chambers,’ he snapped. ‘You deserve it.’

‘Because I find a man attractive?’

‘No! Because you’re a liar. You said you loved Maitland.’

She flinched. ‘Don’t you dare say that I didn’t.’

‘It’s a pretty way you’ve chosen to honour his memory,’ Rafe said flatly. He had dropped his hands from her shoulders.

A wash of shame tumbled over Imogen’s body. ‘You have no idea –’

‘No, none,’ he said. ‘And I don’t wish to know. If I ever have a widow, I certainly hope she doesn’t mourn me in your fashion.’

Imogen swallowed. Thankfully, they were at the end of the room, because she could feel the tears swelling in her throat. She turned on her heel without another word and walked through the door. Rafe came behind her, but she ignored him, heading blindly for the front door.

At the side of the room, Annabel sighed. Her little sister had always been passionate to a fault, and unfortunately Rafe, comfortable Rafe who liked everyone, had taken a sharp dislike to Imogen almost from the first. As the two of them left the room, the storm of gossiping voices around them reached a high cackle, like hens experiencing a visit from the neighbourhood fox.

‘If Rafe wanted her to marry that Scot,’ Griselda remarked, ‘he couldn’t have done more to force the match.’

‘She won’t marry Ardmore,’ Annabel said.

‘She may not have a choice,’ Griselda said darkly. ‘After Rafe put on such a paternal performance, Ardmore will likely guess that given a modicum of scandal, Rafe will force a marriage, and he could use her estate, if the tales are true.’

‘She won’t marry him,’ Annabel repeated. ‘Have you seen Rosseter tonight?’

Griselda’s eyes brightened. ‘Ah. All that land in Kent and no mother-in-law. I approve, my dear.’ Griselda was always to the point.

‘He’s a nice man,’ Annabel reminded her.

Her chaperone waved her hand. ‘If you believe that silence is golden.’

Annabel settled her scrap of gold silk around her shoulders. ‘I see nothing wrong with his lack of verbosity. I can talk enough for both of us, should the need arise.’

‘He’s dancing with Mrs Fulgens’s spotty daughter,’ Griselda said. ‘But have no fear. Rosseter is not a man to overlook imperfections, is he?’

Annabel looked in the direction of Griselda’s nod to find Rosseter leaving the ballroom floor. He wasn’t the sort of man who immediately struck you as handsome: certainly he was no big, burly man who tossed women around the ballroom as if they were bags of wheat. In his arms one floated around the floor. He had a narrow, pale face with a high forehead and grey eyes. He tended to look expressionless and rather detached; Annabel found that a refreshing change from the puppies who begged her for dances and sent her roses with rhyming poems attached.

Rosseter had sent her only one bouquet: a bunch of forget-menots. There was no poem, only a scrawled note: These match your eyes, I believe. There was something deliciously offhand about his note. She had made up her mind on the spot to marry him.

Now he dispensed with Daisy, as Griselda had predicted, and drifted in their direction. A second later he was bowing in front of Lady Griselda, kissing her hand and saying in his unemotional way that she was looking particularly lovely.

When he turned to Annabel he didn’t bother with a compliment, simply kissed the tips of her fingers. But there was a look in his eye that warmed her heart. ‘Madame Maisonnet?’ he asked, indicating her costume with one slim hand. ‘A superb choice, Miss Essex.’

Annabel smiled back. They didn’t speak as they danced. Why should they? As far as Annabel could tell – and she could always tell what men were thinking – they were in perfect harmony. Their marriage would be riven by neither tears nor jealousy. They would have beautiful children. He was extremely wealthy and so her lack of a dowry would not bother him. They would be kind to each other, and she could talk to herself if she lacked breakfast conversation.

For someone with as little tolerance for inane chitchat as she had, the prospect was entirely pleasing. In fact, the only drawback she could think of was that conversation with oneself held few surprises. Neither did Rosseter’s farewell to her that evening. ‘Miss Essex,’ he said, ‘would it be acceptable to you if I spoke to your guardian tomorrow morning?’ His hand was snow-white, slim and delicate as he pressed her fingers in a most gratifying manner.

‘That would make me quite happy, Lord Rosseter,’ Annabel murmured.

She was having trouble suppressing a grin. Finally – finally! – her heart’s desire was within reach. She had longed for this moment for years, ever since her father discovered that she had a gift for figures and promptly dumped the entire accounting of the estate in her lap. From the time she was thirteen years old, Annabel had spent her days bargaining with tradesmen, shedding tears over a ledger book that showed far more minuses than pluses, pleading with her father to sell the most expensive animals, begging him not to spend all their money at the track…

And was rewarded by his dislike.

But she had kept at it, well aware that her financial management was often the only thing between her sisters and true hunger, the only thing holding off the ruin of the stables her father held so dear.

Her father had called her Miss Prune. If she approached while he was standing with friends, he would roll his eyes at her. Sometimes he would take out a coin and toss it in her direction, and then joke with his friends that she kept him on a tighter string than the worst of wives. And she would always pick up the coin…bend down and pick it up because that was one coin saved from the huge maw of the stables. Saved for flour, or butter, or a beautiful hen for the supper table.

So she had turned to dreaming of the husband she would have someday. She had never bothered imagining his face: Lord Rosseter’s face was as acceptable as that of almost any wealthy Englishman. What she had imagined were sleeves clad in gleaming velvet, and cravats that were white as snow and made of the finest linen. The kind of clothes that were bought for beauty, not to last. Hands in that flawless state that screamed manual labour was unnecessary.

Rosseter’s hands would do perfectly.

Three

Grillon’s Hotel

After midnight

Ewan Poley, Earl of Ardmore, was fairly certain that he was obeying Father Armailhac’s instructions to the letter. ‘Go to London,’ he had said. ‘Dance with a pretty girl.’

‘And just what am I supposed to do with this pretty girl?’ Ewan had inquired.

‘Surely the spirit will move you,’ Father Armailhac had said. For a monk, he had a wicked twinkle at times.

And so far, Ewan had met a multitude of pretty girls. Due to his terrible memory, he couldn’t remember any of their names, but he reckoned he must have danced with half of London by now. Thanks to his title, he had been showered by invitations within a few days of his arrival; it seemed that the English were not quite so blasé about Scottish titles as was rumoured in the north country. Yet it seemed to him that Father Armailhac had meant he should meet a particular girl, one whom he could contemplating wooing and bringing back to Scotland.

He had no objection to marrying, although he couldn’t say he felt passionate enthusiasm for the idea. His mind slid easily from marriage to the long, clean rows of his stables, the golden fields of spring wheat just beginning to sprout. He could give this marrying business another fortnight. Then he would return home, married or no.

The black-haired lass he had danced with this evening seemed more than ready to hop before the altar. But what was her name? He couldn’t remember. She had clung to him like a limpet, which he didn’t care for much. Yet perhaps the lady was desperate, widowed as she was, and likely with naught more than a small dowry.

His manservant appeared at the door, a silver plate in his hand. Ewan might not be enjoying London much, but Glover was ecstatic. All his ambitions were fulfilled by being in the city, as he called it, during the season. ‘Your lordship, a card has arrived.’

‘At this hour? Just put it over there,’ Ewan said, nodding at the mantelpiece. It was crowded with cards and invitations from people he’d never heard of.

Glover bowed but didn’t move toward the fireplace. ‘Your lordship, this card is from the Duke of Holbrook. And’ – Glover lowered his voice to an awed whisper – ‘His Grace has condescended to wait.’

Ewan sighed. A duke. Perhaps the man was desperate to send one of his daughters off into the supposed wilds of Scotland. He’d figured out soon enough that the English thought of Scotland as a wilderness of crazed warriors and grim religious dissenters.

He glanced at his cravat in the mirror. Glover was brokenhearted at his refusal to change his customary black for the gaudy waistcoats Englishmen wore to balls. But he looked fine and, more importantly, Scottish. Scotsmen wore kilts if they felt the need for a little colour, even if they weren’t allowed to wear them in this country.

‘His Grace awaits you in the sitting room,’ Glover said.

‘Aye.’

‘If you’ll excuse the boldness, my lord,’ Glover said, hesitating.

Ewan raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes?’

‘A duke of the realm,’ Glover said, trembling with the excitement of it. ‘Try to avoid Scottish phrases such as aye. ‘Twill make an unpleasant impression on His Grace.’

‘I’m not marrying him,’ Ewan said, but then softened. ‘But thank you for the advice, Glover. I shall do my best to appear reasonably English.’ Not that he would ever wish to mimic an Englishman, not in a hundred years.

The duke was a messy sort, Ewan saw with some relief. In fact, the sort who would take no offense at an occasional aye. Ewan had already had several conversations with the perfumed, sleek type of English nobility, and he didn’t care for them. No more did they him.

This duke was dressed in clothes that looked comfortable rather than elegant. His stomach strained comfortably over the waist of his pantaloons, and as Ewan stood in the doorway of the room, his guest threw back a glass of brandy that Glover must have given him with all the enthusiasm of one of Ewan’s labourers greeting the evening.

‘Your Grace,’ Ewan said, entering the room. ‘This is indeed a pleasure.’

The duke straightened like a bloodhound and turned around. Ewan almost took a step back. Bloody hell, the man looked enraged. And now he remembered precisely where he’d met him before. If you could call it a meeting; the duke had snatched the black-haired lady from his arms and danced with her himself.

‘Do you know who I am?’ he said. His voice was as deep and burly as his figure.

‘According to your card, you are the Duke of Holbrook,’ Ewan observed. He moved over to the sideboard. ‘May I offer you another drink?’ He dropped the Your Grace part as it made him feel faintly servant-like.

‘I am the guardian of Lady Maitland,’ the man announced.

‘Quite so,’ Ewan murmured, pouring himself a stiff glass. ‘Well, I am the Earl of Ardmore, hailing from Aberdeenshire, if you were not already aware of the fact.’