Kiss Me Annabel

‘Of course not! I miss Draven. But not…or rather – if Draven were…’

Annabel rescued her. ‘Well, I can see Rafe’s point. I should think that anyone could reasonably have assumed that you were missing those particular pleasures, given the way you looked at Ardmore on the dance floor.’

‘Nonsense!’ Imogen snapped. ‘I was merely being seductive. The same as you always are.’

‘I never act in that way,’ Annabel stated.

‘Well, of course, you don’t have the knowledge that I do,’ Imogen said pettishly. ‘You’re just a maiden, after all. I was able to be much more direct because I understand what happens between a man and a woman in the bedchamber.’

Annabel did not trust herself to speak.

‘At any rate,’ Imogen continued, ‘I have definitely made up my mind to take Ardmore.’

‘Take him?’ Annabel inquired, giving her a direct look.

‘Make him part of my retinue,’ Imogen said, waving a hand in the air. ‘That’s all I’ll say on the subject to a maid, even if you are my sister.’

Annabel ignored her provocation. ‘Be careful, Imogen. I would be very, very careful. That earl does not look like a tame pussycat to me.’

‘Nonsense,’ Imogen said crossly. ‘Men are all the same.’

‘All right,’ Annabel said. ‘Make him your cicisbeo, if you wish. But why put on such an exhibition while dancing? Why embarrass yourself in such a fashion?’

‘I was expressing our mutual –’

But they had been siblings for a long time. ‘Whatever it was you were expressing, it wasn’t a desire to bed Ardmore.’

‘Yes, it was!’ Imogen flared, and then the words died in her throat. She had been so certain that she was being inviting and sensual. But perhaps she had failed at that too. She glanced at Annabel. It was tempting to confide in her…

No. She couldn’t bear to tell Annabel of her marital failures, Annabel who had the ability to make any man within ten yards start panting.

‘You could talk to Tess about it,’ Annabel said now, showing that uncanny ability that sisters sometimes have to guess what another is thinking.

‘There’s nothing to discuss,’ Imogen said, coughing to cover the rasp in her voice. ‘I thoroughly enjoyed myself dancing with Ardmore, and I look forward to more happy hours with him.’

‘You sound like a vicar accepting a new post,’ her sister observed.

What did Annabel know about anything? Imogen couldn’t talk to her, and she couldn’t talk to Tess either, because for all Tess was married, she was happy.

She took a deep breath. ‘I am enthralled by the pleasure I shall share with Ardmore,’ she said.

‘Perhaps not a vicarage…a bishopric,’ her sister mused, clearly unimpressed.

Imogen turned away.

Five

Lady Mitford’s garden party was savoured by each member of the ton lucky enough to receive an invitation. Of course, they savoured it for different reasons. Mothers of nubile girls found that the romantic bowers Lady Mitford placed around her gardens were excellent enclosures for nurturing intimacies that were not too intimate.

Those who were, for whatever reason, uninterested in mating games enjoyed Lady Mitford’s considerable efforts toward producing true Renaissance cuisine. There was the year, for instance, when a pie was split open to reveal five cross and extremely undercooked doves who promptly flew into the air. When one of them dropped a noxious substance on the head of an upstart young lord, the pie was deemed an enormous success.

Finally, the day was appreciated by those with a sense of irony. Ewan Poley, Earl of Ardmore, would have put himself in the latter category. In fact, this was by far the most entertaining gala he had yet attended in England.

Lady Mitford had positioned herself and her husband at the far end of a great stretch of lawn, the better so that entering guests could admire the spectacle. They were a plump couple stuffed into brilliant Renaissance clothing; Lord Mitford’s canary-yellow stockings were particularly noteworthy, as they were echoed by some thirty servants stationed about the lawns. The couple sat on gilded armchairs that had a suspicious resemblance to thrones, under a sky-blue silk canopy that rippled in the breeze. Around their feet frolicked a number of small dogs and a real monkey, tied to Lady Mitford’s chair with a silk ribbon. Ewan tried not to mark the fact that the monkey appeared to be squatting on Lady Mitford’s silk slipper and enjoying a private moment.

He bowed before her. ‘This is a tremendous honour, Lady Mitford. I cannot thank you enough for including me in your invitation.’

‘Wouldn’t have missed you,’ she barked at him, sounding for all the world like one of her small dogs. ‘I do believe I had at least eight requests for your inclusion – all from mamas, of course.’

Lord Mitford gave him a conspiratorial smile. ‘Our gala is quite known for the matches that have ensued.’

They were an odd couple; Lady Mitford was wearing a high coned hat more suited to the reign of King Richard than that of Queen Elizabeth. Lord Mitford looked as kingly as a carnival barker, and the monkey, the dogs and the silk canopy spoke of that carnival as much as a Renaissance fête. But the Mitfords’ eyes were merry, and it was clear that they enjoyed their own eccentricities as much as did everyone else.

Lady Mitford raised a beringed finger and pointed off in the distance. ‘I understand that you have a particular interest in a lovely widow. She is over there, next to the rose arbour.’

For a moment Ewan blinked. How could she know that Lord Mayne had recommended his widowed sister as a possible spouse?

‘Lady Maitland has grieved enough,’ his hostess said with a benign smile. ‘She would do well to forget the tragic death of her young husband and turn to you.’

With a smile and a bow, Ewan turned and walked toward the rose arbour where, presumably, the passionate Imogen was to be found. Then, as the Mitfords turned to greet another guest, he walked in the opposite direction.

He had just spied Holbrook’s other ward, and strangely enough for his lamentable memory, he even remembered her name: Annabel. She was the one who wouldn’t dance with him, who called him a lad. He hadn’t been called a lad since his grandfather died, and that was years ago.

He slowed to watch her. She was all honey and gold. Soft loose curls were pulled to the top of her head and then tumbled onto her shoulders. Her dress was that of an unmarried lady, from what he could see: cream silk and lace that flowed from just under her breast and made her legs seem as long as a colt’s. But she was no youngster. Her eyes glowed with wit and intelligence…so why was he just a lad to her?

Ewan strolled over, mentally dismissing the man she was smiling at so brilliantly. He was the sort of man who would always be ruled by others.

‘Miss Essex,’ he said, bowing.

She turned to him, her eyes dancing. ‘Ah, Lord Ardmore,’ she said. ‘May I introduce Lord Rosseter, if you have not already met?’

Rosseter bowed rather punctiliously. Before he realised what he was doing, Ewan shifted his body slightly, just slightly, so that he stood with a wider stance. And Rosseter caught the message. Ewan saw in one glance that he was a man of innuendo and secret messages, the type who would never express himself openly.

With an unhurried, overly elegant sweep of his cloak over his arm, Lord Rosseter made some practised excuse to Miss Essex and walked away. She blinked after him, looking quite surprised. There were likely very few men who walked away from her, Ewan thought with some amusement.

‘He’ll be back,’ he said to her, discarding the idea of offering a practised gallantry.

She answered with a twinkle in her eyes. ‘I certainly hope so.’

Well, she couldn’t have said that more clearly. Apparently she intended to marry the sleek little coward she’d singled out from the herd. Which was entirely her prerogative, Ewan reminded himself. Naturally he would prefer to see a countrywoman make better choices.

‘I met your guardian last evening,’ he said.

‘I saw that you did,’ she answered, the smile disappearing from her face.

For a second he didn’t follow her, then he remembered Rafe’s furious interruption of his dance with her sister. For the life of him, he couldn’t see a single resemblance. The black-haired lass was all ice and fury, while her sister’s face was as beautifully shaped as an Italian Madonna and fifty times more sensuous. He’d never seen such a deep lower lip, nor eyes of that particular shade of blue. He pulled himself together. ‘In fact, your guardian visited my chambers last night.’

Now her smile was truly gone. ‘I’m very sorry to hear that,’ she said stiffly.

He found himself grinning at her. ‘He took me to his club, a place called White.’

‘White’s,’ she corrected him.

‘I have a terrible memory for details.’ And why was he grinning at her like a lummox who’d had too much sun?

‘Mine is the opposite,’ she confided. ‘Sometimes I think it would be a blessing to be able to misplace a name or a number.’

‘I should think that would be a useful trait in a place like this,’ Ewan said, giving the garden a cursory glance. It was filling with Englishmen, clustering under the fluttering silk pavilions that housed food and drink.

‘It is useful,’ she agreed.

They seemed to have finished that subject. ‘So you are the daughter of the late Viscount Brydone?’ he asked, knowing the answer.

She nodded.

‘I bought a horse from him once.’

‘Blacklock, grandson of Coriander.’

He blinked at her.

‘I never forget names, remember? Your factor managed the transaction. Father asked for sixty pounds and your factor managed to buy the horse for forty. Disappointing for papa, but still lovely for the rest of us.’ She bit those words off as if she never meant to say them.

‘Why on earth was it lovely for you?’ he asked. From the corner of his eye he saw a determined-looking gentleman in lavender breeches heading directly toward Annabel, holding a glass of champagne as his admission ticket.

She raised her eyes, and there was a wry companionship in them. ‘Because we ate meat at night for three months. Ate our fill,’ she clarified.

Ewan blinked at her. She was a polished glowing statue of perfection, as beautiful as Venus and five times more sensuous. ‘Your father’s stables were known through Roxburghshire up to Aberdeenshire for their magnificence,’ he noted.

‘Indeed,’ she said. ‘Every man has his virtues.’

She was not only beautiful, but she had an ironic turn of phrase. He would quite like to bring her home, if only because he felt a smouldering heat in his loins at the very sight of her. So, in fact, it was better that she had decided on Rosseter. For she was one to put a man into a feverish sin of the flesh, beyond the natural, respectable love of a man for his wife. She looked as if she might drive a man to despair if she closed the door even one night.

The very thought filled him with horror. He bowed smartly. ‘Miss Essex. It’s been a pleasure.’

The gentleman in lavender started up at her right shoulder like a puppet. ‘Miss Essex,’ he simpered, ‘I’ve brought you a glass of heaven. You do know that champagne is nothing more than a glass of stars, don’t you?’

She turned to him and smiled so kindly that Ewan expected to see the poor lad melt at her feet. If he didn’t die of the embarrassment of being condescended to in such a manner. ‘Just what I was hoping for,’ she said.

Ewan bowed and walked away. He needed to find Mayne. Mayne and his cheerful, widowed sister.

Imogen Maitland was well aware that she had transformed into a fury out of a classical play. She knew she was behaving abominably toward her sisters, snapping at them like an untamed dog. She knew she ought to be grateful to Rafe for his kindness and generosity, taking her back into his house after she eloped in such a scandalous manner. Instead, she wanted to kill him, every time she saw his indolent manner and the drink he always held. And she wanted to kill her sisters too: Tess because her husband loved her, and he was alive. Annabel because she so effortlessly made men adore her. Josie…well, Josie was in the schoolroom, so Imogen exempted her from her gallery of hatred.

It was shocking, how all that grief inside her had turned to hate. She saw their shocked eyes when she snapped at them, the rage in Rafe’s face when she taunted him. And yet…there it was.

They simply didn’t understand.

None of them had ever had anything terrible happen to them. Never. Rafe had lost his brother and parents, but he probably just drank an extra glass in their memory. That didn’t seem quite fair, but she didn’t want to think about it. Annabel had her whole life in front of her, and Tess –

Tess made Imogen’s heart hurt so much that she couldn’t stand it. Tess’s husband loved her. Really loved her. Felton looked at Tess with the emotion so stark in his eyes that it was enough to make Imogen vomit. He couldn’t even wait to be private; he kissed her in public. He…

Imogen bit her lip savagely. Lord knows he probably cherished his wife in the bedchamber.

She stared intently at a boy dressed as a Renaissance page, who was putting on a demonstration of archery. Don’t think about it…

If she had just had more time with Draven, he would have loved her the same way.

Tears were pressing hotly at her eyes, but she wasn’t going to cry here, in Lady Mitford’s garden. Of course Draven loved her. He said so, just before he died, didn’t he? He did. He did. He loved her.

The truth of it was as black as the coldest ice. He just didn’t love her the way that Lucius loved Tess.

The eternal circle chased in her mind: if they’d had time…if she’d been more seductive, more knowing, more beautiful…

She turned from the archery tent and began to walk quickly in the opposite direction. Lady Whittingham was strolling toward her with her feckless husband; Imogen smiled, fighting the tears. Lady Whittingham turned her head away and walked on.

For a moment Imogen paused as if she’d been struck in the stomach. Then she remembered that she’d burned her bridges at the ball the night before…Ardmore…their dance…Rafe. But she couldn’t bring herself to care. Likely she wouldn’t have been invited to this garden party had the invitations not gone out the previous week. But who cared for that?

The question, the eternal question, flooded back into her mind and she walked on, Lady Whittingham’s snub forgotten.

She was beautiful. Everyone said so. Her modiste said so; her maid said so; she saw the truth reflected in the eyes of men who passed her. If only it was a problem with the way she looked, she thought bitterly. Then she could simply resign herself to a loveless life and become a nun.

What good was beauty when she’d failed to make Draven love her? Beauty wasn’t enough. She needed the quality that Annabel had, that melting, sensual look that she had. It wasn’t fair that her sister had it, since Annabel was a virgin.

Since she was about to bump into a table offering glasses of ratafia, she took one even though she despised the drink.

Surely Draven had been happy enough. Except…the doubts followed her. Perhaps if she had been more enticing, Draven would have loved her, really loved her. She could have made that Scottish earl want her. She saw it in his eyes when she pressed against him.

There was a whisper of protest in her mind, but she ignored it.

Perhaps she could learn how to please a man in the bedchamber. How to make him delirious with desire for her so that he loved her, whether he wished to or no. That’s how Tess had done it. Imogen had seen her: she let her husband kiss her at the racetrack, surrounded by people. Lucius had kissed Tess in the open, where anyone might see them. She herself would never have allowed Draven such a liberty.

Fool! She was a fool! If she had enticed Draven into such liberties, perhaps he wouldn’t have left her and walked down to the track, and found out that his jockey didn’t want to ride that devil of a horse, and decided to ride him…he would have stayed at her side.

Safe.

Alive.

The ratafia was so sickly sweet that the danger of tears receded. She drained the glass. Why should she sit about mourning Draven when she could be –

The pain caught her heart and wrenched it so hard that she almost gasped aloud.

How could Draven be dead? Automatically she started to count to ten but it was too late. She could feel a sob tearing its way up her chest.

The only person who loved Draven besides herself was Draven’s mother. And when Lady Clarice had seen that Imogen was not carrying a child, she simply gave up. She stopped eating, caught a chill…leaving Imogen in a world of fools who didn’t know Draven, who didn’t remember how exquisitely funny he could be, how full of life, how…

Tears made the world blurry but one of Lady Mitford’s pavilions loomed before her, offering a bench and a canopy of fluttering white silk.

She sat down and launched into a familiar routine. First, she sat rigidly upright. She had discovered that one was less likely to dissolve into tears if one’s backbone was straight. Then she counted her breaths: one, two, three. Finally, she turned her thoughts to Rafe’s behaviour the previous night. How dare he? How dare he presume to say anything to her about her behaviour? He wasn’t her brother, nor an uncle, nor anything to her. He was simply the guardian she had before marrying. He was nothing to her now, and yet he presumed – he presumed!

Her eyes narrowed and the tears were gone.

Thank goodness. There was nothing she hated more in the world than letting people see she was crying. She had enough pity from her own sisters. Pity or patronisation: it was all the same, and none of it helped this awful bitterness that she could taste in her mouth. Like metal. It wasn’t exactly grief; grief tasted more like tears.

Draven was gone. She pushed herself off the bench.

Six

Annabel was just growing a trifle impatient when she saw Lord Rosseter strolling back toward her. There he was.

She had dressed carefully, given that Rosseter had made a formal offer that very morning. As per her instructions, Rafe had accepted, and all that remained was for Rosseter to personally request her hand.

She was wearing a dress of straw-coloured muslin, trimmed in silk tassels. It was demure yet flattering. Rosseter was dressed in a morning coat of pale brown stripes lined with yellow. His cravat was not too elaborate: just precisely right for a garden party. The rightness of it all, even down to the polished tips of his extremely expensive boots, warmed her soul. This was a man who would understand her desire to wear silk next to her skin at all times: understand it, and never question her. She would never have to count pennies again.

She gave him a lavish smile on the strength of it. He smiled faintly in return and turned to meet her chaperone. But Lady Griselda sent him off to bring her a glass of lemonade.

‘I wanted a moment,’ Griselda said, giving her a smile bright with conspiratorial pleasure. ‘I think the pavilion to the far right corner of the garden is the proper place. I strolled by earlier and there’s no entertainment planned for that pavilion, so you won’t be interrupted by a caterwauling singer abusing a lute. It’s covered in rose silk, which has a most flattering effect on the complexion – not that you need it, my dear. And finally, if you wish to allow him a small expression of his devotion, you are unlikely to be seen by more than twenty or thirty, and that should ensure that the news travels far faster than an announcement in The Times would do.’

‘An excellent suggestion,’ Annabel murmured. Now that the moment was at hand, she just wanted to move on. To be safely married, and never have to even think of worrying about money again.

‘Remember, your married life begins now,’ Griselda said. ‘Be kind but firm. Your every expression will inform Lord Rosseter what liberties he may or may not take. You must train him to understand your every glance. Do you understand, Annabel?’

‘I think so,’ Annabel said.

Rosseter had begun walking back toward them, trailed by a page carrying a tray with a glass of lemonade for Griselda.

‘Now, look at that,’ Griselda said. ‘You’ve made a good choice, dear. He acts decisively.’

‘I suppose so,’ Annabel said.

‘It’s not every man with the providence to think ahead and avoid the possibility of staining his clothing,’ Griselda told her. ‘And I like the fact that he’s a bit older than you are. It gives him a sense of depth.’

‘How old do you think he is?’ Annabel said, watching him drift toward them, raising a white hand in response to a remark tossed to him by a friend.

‘Oh, at least – well, let’s see. I was married to Willoughby when I first met him, but he was by no means a newcomer to the season…I would guess forty-three or forty-four. Seasoned but not antique. Perfect!’ she said brightly.

Twenty years older than she was…it was a bit more of a gap than Annabel had thought. Rosseter’s face was ageless, though, so perhaps it didn’t matter. After all, men didn’t age the way women did.

‘No one’s ever caught him,’ Griselda said. Rosseter had stopped and was exchanging greetings with one of the royal dukes, Clarence. ‘But you seem to have taken him effortlessly, my dear. A true triumph.’

‘Thank you,’ Annabel murmured. Rosseter seemed to be truly engaged in talking to His Royal Highness. He wasn’t even glancing her way in apology. Annabel felt a prickle of annoyance. He knew perfectly well that she was awaiting his proposal. Was it too much to ask that he actually do that particular deed, rather than chatter nonsense with a fat overgrown lummox of an English prince?

As she watched, Rosseter turned to the boy following him and murmured something, and the boy started hurrying toward them with the lemonade.

Annabel turned to Griselda, but Griselda spoke before she even opened her mouth.

‘I absolutely agree. Absolutely. Clarence is no reason to delay a proposal of marriage. Rosseter needs to be taught a lesson.’

Annabel knew precisely the man to do it. She had just happened to notice that the Scottish earl had shown up again and was standing off to her right, watching an exhibition of tumbling.

‘Perhaps you should –’ Lady Griselda began, but Annabel ignored her. She didn’t need to leave her chair. Instead she looked directly at Ardmore, allowing a little smile to play around her mouth.

His rumpled dark red hair and sculpted shoulders made him look like a medieval knight. In fact, she wouldn’t mind seeing him pull back an arrow at the archery…

Not for Ardmore, the drifting, sophisticated walk of Rosseter. Ardmore walked through the crowd directly toward her, not even taking his eyes from hers.

‘Do you remember what I said about him?’ Griselda squeaked next to her. ‘That is not a man to toy with!’

Annabel wrenched her eyes away and smiled at her chaperone. ‘I’m not going to toy with him, Griselda. He’s a countryman, and I think he can be a friend. I’m simply going to ask him to accompany me to the archery stand.’

‘Ah, archery.’ Griselda watched Ardmore walking toward them. ‘I do like a man with a broad set of shoulders.’

Annabel noticed from the corner of her eye that Rosseter had seen who was approaching. Undoubtedly, he would now conclude his conversation with the duke. Without thinking about it, she rose and walked toward Ardmore. He truly was a complete opposite of her chosen husband. Every inch of him was Scots, from those sturdy, muscled legs to his strong chin and angled cheekbones. She had no problem imagining him as an ancient Pict, painted blue and wearing just a –

No. She snapped her imagination back where it belonged. The man walking toward her was a Scottish earl in exactly the same cast as her father. In fact, if it turned out that he had a set of racehorses into which he poured every penny in the house, the similarity would be complete.