Kiss Me Annabel

‘Lady Maitland,’ Holbrook insisted. ‘Imogen Maitland.’

Imogen must be the black-haired charmer from the ballroom. ‘If I have offended you or the lady in any way, I offer my sincere apologies,’ Ewan said, striving for diplomacy.

‘Well, I should say you have!’ the duke huffed.

‘How?’ Ewan inquired. He kept his tone easy and even.

‘All London is talking of the two of you,’ Holbrook snapped. ‘Of your tasteless exhibition of waltzing.’

Ewan thought for a moment. He had two alternatives: to tell the truth, or to take responsibility. Honour demanded that he not reveal the fact that Holbrook’s ward had clung to him with all the expert passion of a Bird of Paradise. He was no fool: the black-haired Imogen was far less moved by his beauty than she had pretended to be. He caught some sort of emotion in her eyes, but it didn’t seem to be pure lust, even if that was the emotion that she was flaunting.

‘I apologise in every respect,’ he said finally. ‘I was bowled over by her beauty and I gather it led to my actions being interpreted in an unpleasant light.’

Holbrook narrowed his eyes. Ewan gazed back at him, wondering if all dukes in England were so undisciplined in their emotions and dress.

‘I’ll have that drink now,’ the duke said.

Ewan picked up his personal decanter and poured him a healthy glass. Holbrook had the distinct atmosphere of a man who enjoyed a good brandy, and Ewan had brought with him several flasks of the best aged whisky to be found in Scotland.

Holbrook took one large sip and then looked at Ewan in surprise. He sank into a couch and took another sip.

Ewan sat down opposite him. He could see that Holbrook understood exactly what he was drinking.

‘What is it?’ Holbrook said, his voice hushed.

‘An aged single malt,’ Ewan said. ‘A new process and one likely to change the whisky industry, to my mind.’

Holbrook took another sip and sat back, ‘Glen Garioch,’ he said dreamily. ‘Glen Garioch or – possibly – Tobermary.’

Ewan gave him a real grin this time. ‘Aye, Glen Garioch it is.’

‘Bliss,’ Holbrook said. ‘Almost, I could let a man who knew his whisky marry Imogen. Almost!’ he said, opening his eyes again.

‘I’ve no particular desire to marry her,’ Ewan said agreeably.

He realised his mistake when Holbrook’s eyebrows drew into a ferocious scowl.

‘Although I would consider myself immeasurably lucky to do so,’ Ewan added. ‘She is a lovely young woman.’

‘Rumour has it that you’re in England precisely to find a wife,’ the duke growled. But he was sipping his liquor again.

‘The rumour is correct,’ Ewan said. ‘But not necessarily your ward.’

‘Ah.’

They sat in silence for a while, enjoying the whisky.

‘I expect the truth of it is that Imogen threw herself at you, and you’re being too polite to tell me so to my face,’ the duke said as gloomily as was possible when one is holding a glass of ’83 whisky distilled by Glen Garioch.

‘Lady Maitland is an exquisite young woman. I’d be more than happy to marry her.’

The duke caught his eye, and then: ‘Damned if you don’t mean it. Don’t care who you marry, is that it?’

‘I take a reasonable interest in the subject,’ Ewan protested. ‘But I will admit that I’m rather anxious to return to my lands. The wheat is sprouting.’

The duke looked as if he had never heard the word sprout. ‘Are you telling me that you’re a farmer?’ he asked. ‘One of those gentlemen who dabble about with experimental methods. Turnip Townshend, wasn’t that his name?’

‘I’m not quite as engrossed as Mr Townshend,’ Ewan murmured, letting another sip of liquor burn its complex, golden way down his throat.

‘This is delicious,’ the duke said, clearly discarding a subject of little interest to him. ‘This whisky is utterly –’ he stopped. ‘Wheat? Do you have anything to do with whisky production, then?’

‘My tenants supply some grain for the distilleries in Speyside,’ Ewan said.

‘No wonder you know your drink so well.’ The duke seemed quite struck by this. ‘Been thinking about giving up the tipple,’ he said suddenly.

‘Indeed?’ Ewan had to admit that the duke was putting away the best whisky there was to be had in Scotland at a fantastic rate, and showing little signs of it. Perhaps he had fallen into the way of drinking too much.

‘But not tonight.’

Ewan decided the appropriate response to that revelation would be to pour the duke another generous portion, so he did so.

‘Your estate is in Aberdeenshire?’

Ewan nodded.

‘There’s a lovely horse up there,’ the duke said, thinking it over. ‘I haven’t seen him for a year or so, but –’

‘Warlock,’ Ewan put in. ‘He strained a fetlock last July.’

‘Exactly! Warlock. Belongs to a friend of yours, does he?’

‘I own Warlock,’ Ewan said.

Now the duke’s eyes were definitely warm. ‘Good man. Out of Pheasant, wasn’t he?’

‘Pheasant by way of Miraculous,’ Ewan said.

‘I don’t suppose you’re thinking of breeding his line, are you?’

‘I already have a yearling who’s showing definite possibilities.’

The duke had shed his sleepy, pleasant manner and was sitting bolt upright, looking more awake than Ewan had seen him, except perhaps at the ball when he was in such a rage. ‘I’ve three offspring of Patchem sitting in my stables, two mares and a colt. The daughters are my wards, and each one of them came with a horse for a dowry. Their father was a bit of a featherhead and he doesn’t seem to have thought carefully about the business. I was thinking of breeding the mares, since neither shows much racing ability.’

A horse for a dowry? He’d only heard of such a thing once, and that was from the golden-haired beauty at the ball. Who had told him to look elsewhere, because she only had a horse for a dowry. Apparently she didn’t think it important to note that the particular horse was from the line of Patchem.

‘I should like to see a horse with Warlock’s and Patchem’s bloodlines,’ he said.

They sat in comfortable silence for a few moments, the duke slumping back into his boneless, indolent stance.

‘You’ve gone about finding a wife the wrong way,’ Holbrook said, after a while.

‘I’ve gone to fourteen events in the last week,’ Ewan observed. ‘Four balls, a number of afternoon gatherings and one musicale. I did ask a young lady to marry me this evening, but she declined.’ He didn’t think it necessary to note that the woman was apparently one of Holbrook’s wards, not when the duke had only barely gotten over his annoyance at Ewan’s behaviour with another of those wards.

‘That’s not the way of it. These things are handled between men. The key is to figure out which woman you wish to marry before you go to the ballroom.’ The duke’s voice had just the slightest husky edge now, a golden burr of whisky. But all in all, Ewan thought he held his liquor better than any man he knew except old Lachlan McGregor, and McGregor had given his life to the practice.

‘I’ll take you along to my club,’ the duke continued. ‘We can have it all fixed up in a moment.’ He rose and Ewan was rather amazed to see that the man wasn’t even unsteady. ‘Not that you can have Imogen,’ he said with a sudden roar, ‘even if she does come with a mare for a dowry. We’ll do the horse breeding on the side.’

‘I wouldn’t think of it,’ Ewan said, looking around for the card case that Glover had brought for him. He didn’t find it, so he simply followed the duke out the door. The only sign that Holbrook had imbibed the better part of a flask was a certain talkativeness.

‘You see,’ the duke said in the carriage as they were trundling off to his club, ‘the poor girl lost her husband a mere six months ago. The man fell on the racetrack, racing one of his own horses: a yearling that should never have been put to the bridle.’

‘Aye,’ Ewan said. He’d heard that story somewhere, but as was often the case, the name of the rider eluded him.

‘Imogen had loved him for years.’ Holbrook was leaning back against the cushions, having no problem whatsoever keeping his balance as the carriage swung around corners and rumbled down cobblestone streets. ‘She picked him out when she was a mere nursling, and they ended up eloping. And then he died but a matter of weeks later.’

‘Weeks!’ Ewan said, struck by the misfortune of that. And then: ‘Of course, that would be Draven Maitland.’

‘The same.’

‘Ah,’ Ewan said. He had met young Maitland a few times, since the man used to race the Scottish cycle before returning to England for the English racing season. Maitland was a rash, foolish young man whom Ewan had rather disliked.

The duke took a little flagon out of his pocket and took a sip, but shook his head. ‘This is like drinking pisswater after that whisky of yours. At any rate, poor Imogen is not quite herself, due to the shock of the whole thing, as you can imagine.’

The carriage stopped in front of an imposing, pillared building. Ewan had no idea what part of the city they were in. ‘Aren’t these clubs for members only?’ he asked.

The duke waved his hand dismissively. ‘No one will question my bringing a guest in for a drink. I’ll put you up for membership, if you’d like. But it is a hell of an expense,’ he tossed over his shoulder. ‘Not worth the money, I should think.’

Ewan agreed with him. Surely men stewed in liquor all offered the same tedious company, and if it was their society he wished, the men in his local tavern would do.

The duke seemed to know precisely where he was going. They were greeted by a solemn-faced individual, who bowed deeply and intoned a welcome to ‘White’s’. Then the duke trundled past a few rooms that seemed to be filled with gamblers and finally arrived in a library.

It was a magnificent room. The few bits of wall that weren’t covered with books were papered in a deep crimson. There was a fire burning in a generous hearth, and comfortable chairs scattered about the room in groupings that offered intimacy. The duke didn’t hesitate. ‘Come,’ he threw over his shoulder, heading to a corner.

Four high-backed chairs were grouped with their backs to the room. In one of them was a scion of English nobility of just the sort that Ewan disliked. He had black curls tossed in one of those styles that Ewan had just figured out was a style, rather than the effect of an unexpected rain shower. And he was wearing a waistcoat of such riotously embroidered beauty that Glover would have grown weak at the knees. Ewan could only be glad that his manservant was not with him: the last thing he wanted was to find himself dressed in a garnet-coloured jacket, as if he were a man milliner.

Ewan saw with one glance that the gentleman seated next to the man milliner was a man of power. He had a face that bespoke the ability to move nations, if he wished. His very quietness radiated power and presence. Perhaps he was one of those royal dukes, although he had heard tell that the dukes were on the plump side.

‘I’ve brought along a Scottish earl,’ Holbrook said without ceremony. ‘Seems a decent fellow, and keeps a whisky in his chambers that’s full of the devil. Plus he’s the owner of Warlock, who won the Derby two years ago, if you remember. Ardmore, that sprig of fashion is Garret Langham, the Earl of Mayne. And this is Mr Lucius Felton. As for myself, I go by Rafe amongst friends.’

Without waiting for a response, he signalled to a footman. ‘Ask Penny if they have any aged Glen Garioch whisky in the house.’

‘They don’t,’ Ewan said, bowing to the gentlemen, who had stood up and were doing the pretty. ‘Aged malts aren’t exported for sale yet.’

The duke collapsed into a chair. ‘I suddenly have a deep interest in visiting our northern neighbours.’

Now that the Earl of Mayne was on his feet, Ewan could see immediately that the man was no man milliner, for all his deep red jacket seemed to catch the gleam of the firelight. He had tired eyes and a dissolute droop to his mouth, but he was a man to be reckoned with.

‘Ardmore,’ Mayne said. ‘It’s a pleasure.’ He had a strong handshake. ‘Didn’t I see you dancing at Lady Feddrington’s house?’

‘You and the rest of London,’ the duke put in darkly.

‘I danced most of the evening,’ Ewan noted, shaking hands with Felton.

‘He’s in need of a wife,’ Rafe said. ‘And since I’m not giving him Imogen, for all she’s thrown herself at his head, I thought we could find him someone ourselves. After all, we didn’t do badly with you, Felton.’

‘Least said about that, the better,’ Mayne muttered.

The duke was finally showing the effect of all that whisky and he grinned rather owlishly at Ewan. ‘What Mayne is trying to say is that after he jilted one of my four girls, Felton stepped in and married her.’

Mayne was looking at Ewan with just a faint curl of a sardonic smile on his face; Felton was grinning outright. Englishmen were far stranger than he’d heard. ‘How many wards do you have?’ he asked finally.

‘Viscount Brydone had four daughters,’ the duke allowed, his head falling back. ‘Four, four, four. All sisters. One is still in the schoolroom, that’s Josie. Imogen is one of them, and Tess was the eldest, until Felton here took her away.’

Felton was smiling. Yet a Scotsman would never stay in the company of a man who had jilted his wife. Never. One look at Mayne’s face and you knew he was a dissipated trifler.

Felton must have seen that fact in his eyes, for he said easily, ‘Unfortunately, I had to force Mayne to jilt his bride. I decided she would do better married to me than to him.’

‘Ruined my reputation,’ Mayne said.

‘Nonsense,’ the duke snorted. ‘The jilting was merely one in a line of scandals you’ve tossed to the wind. So who can Ardmore here marry? You know the ton, Mayne. Find him a bride.’

Ewan waited with faint curiosity for Mayne’s response, but at that moment a plump waiter appeared.

‘Your Grace, we haven’t a drop of Glen Garioch in the house. Would you like some Ardbeg or Tobermary?’

Rafe looked at Ewan.

Ewan bent toward the man and said, ‘We’ll try the Tobermary.’

The plump man bowed and took himself off, and Rafe said dreamily, ‘A man who knows his liquor is more precious than rubies.’

‘In that case, may I point out that Miss Annabel Essex is doing the season,’ Felton said. ‘The second of Rafe’s wards,’ he explained to Ewan. ‘Dowried with Milady’s Pleasure, and since I gather that you are likely putting Warlock to stud, the combination would be quite interesting.’

So the golden-haired Scotswoman was called Annabel.

But the duke shook his head. ‘It’ll never fly. Begging your pardon, Ardmore, but Annabel has a penchant for rich and titled Englishmen. She’d be an uncomfortable wife for a penniless Scottish earl, and that’s the truth of it.’

Felton opened his mouth but Ewan caught his eye and he closed it.

‘Ah, a dowry problem,’ Mayne said thoughtfully.

The waiter returned with a decanter of the Tobermary, which was just as good as Ewan remembered.

‘Do you like poetry?’ Mayne asked.

It seemed an odd question. ‘Not particularly.’

‘Then Miss Pythian-Adams won’t do. She’s got a hefty dowry, but I’ve heard she’s memorised the whole of a Shakespeare play. At any rate, she does drop bits and pieces into conversation. Maitland used to complain when they were engaged that she made him read aloud the whole of Henry VIII. Apparently it took an afternoon.’

‘No,’ Ewan said. ‘That won’t do.’

‘So that’s why you’re in London.’ Rafe stared at him over a mere inch of liquid left in his glass.

‘To find a wife,’ Ewan agreed. ‘As I told you earlier, Your Grace.’ The duke was definitely showing his whisky now.

‘Sometimes I think that I need one of those too. She could take care of all these wards of mine. They’re going to have me in Bedlam.’

‘Don’t be a fool,’ Mayne said to him. ‘No one would marry a drunken sot like yourself unless she wanted your title and money.’

Somewhat to Ewan’s surprise, Rafe took no umbrage at his friend’s harsh assessment.

‘You’re probably right,’ he said, with a yawn that appeared likely to break his jaw. ‘I have to go to bed. Come up with a few names for Ardmore here, Mayne.’

‘Miss Tarn,’ Mayne said, his eyes narrowed in thought. ‘She’s quite beautiful; her dowry is more than adequate; by all reports, she’s an expert horsewoman.’

‘My wife says she’s in love with a Frenchman named Soubiran,’ Felton said. ‘Her father doesn’t approve of the connection, but Miss Tarn has dug in her heels.’

‘In that case, Lady Cecily Severy,’ Mayne said. ‘Eldest daughter of the Duke of Claire. Not bad-looking and the dowry is obviously magnificent.’

‘This is her third season,’ Felton put in.

‘She does lisp,’ Mayne admitted. ‘But her dowry surely trumps the lisp.’

‘She pretends that she’s approximately five years old,’ Felton said crisply. ‘Talks in baby talk to her suitors. Puts some men off.’

‘I would consider myself one of them,’ Ewan said.

‘Third choice, then,’ Mayne said. ‘Lady Griselda Willoughby. She’s a young, beautiful widow, with a large estate and a cheerful disposition. She thinks she doesn’t want to marry, but in fact she would make a happy wife and mother. And her reputation is impeccable.’

Silence followed this suggestion. Ewan thought Lady Griselda sounded just fine. He nodded.

‘Lady Griselda is Mayne’s sister,’ Felton said.

Ewan looked at Mayne. ‘Your sister?’

Mayne nodded. ‘Mind you, she’s been courted by many a man, and none of them has had the least success.’ He eyed Ewan narrowly. ‘But I have a feeling that you might have more luck than most. She’s only thirty, and there’s more than enough time for children.’

‘He doesn’t have an estate,’ Rafe said, his voice turned to a dark-toned growl by exhaustion and liquor.

‘She doesn’t need it. Her jointure alone was excellent, but Willoughby’s estate is also extensive.’

Felton nodded. ‘I would agree with your assessment of Lady Griselda’s holdings.’

‘She says she doesn’t want to marry again,’ Mayne said. ‘But I’m fond of her.’

Ewan translated that into a typical English understatement of a loyal love for his sister. Lord, but Englishmen were strange. Here was a man who looked like a rake-hell if he ever saw one, and yet…it seemed he was truly being offered a wife.

‘I would be honoured to meet Lady Griselda,’ he said.

‘Good, that’s settled,’ Rafe said, with another yawn. ‘I’m off. Ardmore, would you like me to drop you at Grillon’s, or will you find your own way home?’

Ewan rose and bowed to the two men.

‘Perhaps we could talk about your stables at some point,’ Felton said.

Ewan recognised the spark in his eye as being that of a man with an abiding passion for horses. ‘I would be delighted,’ he said, bowing again.

Mayne rose in turn. ‘Have you been invited to Countess Mitford’s garden party tomorrow afternoon?’

‘Yes.’ Ewan hesitated. ‘I thought not to go. I found the last garden party painfully tedious.’

‘This won’t be. Countess Mitford models herself on the ancient Renaissance families of Italy. She holds only one party a year, and it’s not to be missed. I shall escort my sister.’

‘Come along,’ Rafe said grumpily. ‘Aged whisky gives one the same headache as its younger brethren, damn it.’

Ewan bowed again.

Four

Everything had changed since Tess married. For years, the four of them would curl up in bed, huddling under threadworn blankets in the winter, wearing chemises because they had no nightgowns…talking. Josie was the baby, who sometimes sounded the eldest of all of them because of her biting wit. Imogen next youngest, with her passion for Draven Maitland that had thrived for years before he even noticed her existence. Annabel was two years older than Imogen and had spent her adolescence managing the finances of the household, exhausted by the burden of it and tired, bone-tired, by the poverty of their father’s house. She had talked incessantly of London, of silks and satins, and of a man who would never make her count a penny. And Tess was the eldest…Tess, who had worried about all of them and kept her fears to herself.

But Josie was in the country under the care of her governess, Miss Flecknoe, and Tess was in her husband’s bed. Which left only two sisters to squabble, Annabel thought gloomily.

Imogen was in a sullen mood tonight, sitting with her lips pressed together, scowling at the bedpost at the end of the bed.

‘He’s got no right to act in such a fashion,’ she said. ‘He has no right!’

Annabel jumped. Her sister’s voice was as sharp as the north wind. ‘Rafe is our guardian,’ she pointed out.

‘I can do whatever I wish, with whomever I wish,’ Imogen said. ‘He may be your guardian, but he is not mine, since I am a woman of independent means. I never liked him, drunken sot that he is, and I never shall. And I shall never forgive Tess for not bringing us onto the season herself.’

Tess’s husband travelled a great deal, checking on his holdings all over England. Tess had taken to travelling with him, and was away from London as often as she was present, so Rafe, with Lady Griselda’s help, was bringing Annabel out this season.

‘You came out when you married Draven,’ Annabel pointed out. ‘You have no particular need for Tess’s help.’

‘Draven…’ Imogen said, and her whole face and voice changed, softened and looked like the old Imogen, before she became so harsh, so hard and shrill.

Annabel held her breath, but Imogen didn’t dissolve into tears. Instead she said, after a moment, ‘He was beautiful, wasn’t he?’

‘Very,’ Annabel confirmed. Just don’t ask me whether he was a reasonable person or a rational man, she added silently.

‘I loved his dimple,’ Imogen said. ‘When we married, I…’ she stopped.

Annabel saw a glimmer of tears in her sister’s eyes and surreptitiously pulled a handkerchief from her bedside table. She kept a supply there. But Imogen shook her head.

‘Do you know the problem with being married only a matter of two weeks?’ she asked.

Annabel figured that was a rhetorical question.

‘The problem is that I don’t have many memories,’ Imogen said, her voice tight. ‘How many times can I remember kissing Draven for the first time? How many times can I remember his asking me to marry him? If we’d just had more time, even a month or two, I would have feasts of memories, enough to last me for years.’

Annabel handed her the handkerchief. Imogen wiped away a tear snaking down her cheek.

‘There will be other memories to treasure, someday,’ Annabel ventured.

Imogen turned on her with a flash of rage. ‘Don’t try to suggest that anyone could replace Draven in my heart! I loved him from the moment I reached girlhood, and I shall never, ever love another man as I loved him. Never.’

Annabel bit her lip. She always seemed to say the wrong thing. Perhaps she should inform Lord Rosseter that she wished to marry him immediately; at least it would get her out of the house. ‘I didn’t mean to imply that you would forget Draven,’ she said, controlling her voice so that no shade of irritation entered. ‘But you’re very young to talk of never, Imogen.’

‘I’ve never been young in that respect,’ Imogen said flatly.

Annabel decided to try for a new subject. ‘I have decided to marry Lord Rosseter,’ she said brightly.

Imogen didn’t appear to have heard her. ‘Rafe said something similar to me, this very evening in the carriage. He actually implied…’ she turned to Annabel and hesitated. ‘I probably shouldn’t say this to you, since you’re unmarried.’

Annabel snorted.

‘He accused me of missing the pleasure of the marital bed!’

‘Oh. And are you?’ Annabel inquired. It seemed a reasonable, if impertinent, inquiry, given Imogen’s behaviour on the dance floor.