Kiss Me Annabel

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Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-one

Twenty-two

Twenty-three

Twenty-four

Twenty-five

Twenty-six

Twenty-seven

Twenty-eight

Twenty-nine

Thirty

Thirty-one

Thirty-two

Thirty-three

Thirty-four

Thirty-five

Thirty-six

A Note About Shrews, Coneys and Reading to Six-Year-Olds

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Praise

By the same author:

Copyright

About the Publisher

One

London

April, 1817

The day the Scotsman came to Lady Feddrington’s ball, Annabel’s sister decided to give him her virtue, and Annabel decided not to give him her hand in marriage.

In neither case had the Scotsman indicated a particular interest in undertaking such intimate activities with an Essex sister, but his participation was taken for granted. And, naturally, both of these decisions took place in the ladies’ retiring room, which is where everything of importance takes place at a ball.

It was in those middle hours, when the initial excitement has worn away and women have an uneasy feeling that their noses are shiny and their lips pale. Annabel peeked into the retiring room and found it empty. So she sat down before the large mirrored dressing table, and started trying to pin her unruly curls so they would stay above her shoulders for the rest of the evening. Her sister Imogen, Lady Maitland, plumped down beside her.

‘This ball is nothing more than a breeding ground for parasites,’ Imogen said, scowling at her reflection. ‘Lord Beekman has twice asked me to dance with him. As if I would even contemplate dancing with that plump toadlet. He should look lower…perhaps in the scullery.’

She looked magnificent, a few gleaming black curls falling to her shoulders, and the rest piled high on her head. Her eyes sparkled with the displeasure of receiving too much attention. In all, she had the magnificent rage of a young Helen of Troy, stolen by the Greeks and taken from her homeland.

It must be rather annoying, Annabel thought, to have nowhere to direct all that emotion except toward unwary gentlemen who do nothing more despicable than ask for a dance. ‘There is always the chance that no one has told the poor toadlet that Lady Maitland is such a very grand person.’ She said it lightly, since mourning had turned Imogen into a person whom none of them knew very well.

Imogen flashed her an impatient look, twitching one of her curls over her shoulder so that it nestled seductively on her bosom. ‘Don’t be a widgeon, Annabel. Beekman is interested in my fortune and nothing more.’

Annabel raised an eyebrow in the direction of Imogen’s virtually nonexistent bodice. ‘Nothing more?’

A sketch of a smile touched Imogen’s lips, one of the few Annabel had seen in recent months. Imogen had lost her husband the previous autumn, and after her first six months of mourning she had joined Annabel in London for the season. Currently she was amusing herself by shocking respectable matrons of the ton by flaunting a wardrobe full of mourning clothing cut in daring styles that left little of her figure to the imagination.

‘You have to expect attention,’ Annabel pointed out. ‘After all, you dressed for it.’ She let a little sarcasm creep into her tone.

‘Do you think that I should buy another of these gowns?’ Imogen asked, staring into the mirror. She gave a seductive roll of her shoulders and the bodice settled even lower on her chest. She was dressed in black faille, a perfectly respectable fabric for a widow. But the modiste had saved on fabric, for the bodice was nothing more than a few scraps of cloth, falling to a narrow silhouette that clung to every curve. The pièce de résistance was a trim of tiny white feathers around the bodice. The feathers nestled against Imogen’s breasts and made every man who glimpsed them throw caution to the wind.

‘No one has a need for more than one dress of that pattern,’ Annabel pointed out.

‘Madame Badeau has threatened to make another. She complains that she must sell two in order to justify her design. And I should not like to see another woman in this particular gown.’

‘That’s absurd,’ Annabel said. ‘Many women have gowns of the same design. No one will notice.’

‘Everyone notices what I wear,’ Imogen said, and one had to admit it was a perfect truth.

‘’Tis an indulgence to order another gown merely to allow it to languish in your wardrobe.’

Imogen shrugged. Her husband had died relatively penniless, but then his mother had fallen into a decline and died within a month of her son. Lady Clarice had left her private estate to her daughter- in-law, making Imogen one of the wealthiest widows in all England. ‘I’ll have the gown made up for you, then. You must promise to wear it only in the country, where no one of importance can see you.’

‘That gown will fall to my navel if I bend over, which hardly suits a debutante.’

‘You’re no ordinary debutante,’ Imogen jibed. ‘You’re older than me, and all of twenty-two, if you remember.’

Annabel counted to ten. Imogen was grieving. One simply had to wish that grieving didn’t make her so – so bloody-minded. ‘Shall we return to Lady Griselda?’ she said, rising and looking one last time at the glass.

Suddenly Imogen was at her shoulder, smiling penitently. ‘I’m sorry to be so tiresome. You’re the most beautiful woman at the ball, Annabel. Look at the two of us together! You’re glowing and I look like an old crow.’

Annabel grinned at that. ‘A crow you’re not.’ There was a similarity to their features: they both had slanting eyes and high cheekbones. But where Imogen’s hair was raven black, Annabel’s was the colour of honey. And where Imogen’s eyes flashed, Annabel knew quite well that her greatest strength was a melting invitation that men seemed unable to resist.

Imogen pulled another curl onto the curve of her breast. It looked rather odd, but Imogen’s temper was not something to risk lightly, and so Annabel held her tongue.

‘I’ve made up my mind to take a cicisbeo,’ Imogen said suddenly. ‘To hold off Beekman, if nothing else.’

‘What?’ Annabel said. ‘A what?’

‘A gallant,’ Imogen said impatiently. ‘A man to take me about.’

‘You’re thinking about marrying again?’ Annabel was truly surprised. To the best of her knowledge, Imogen was still dissolving into tears every night over her husband’s death.

‘Never,’ Imogen said. ‘You know that. But I don’t intend to let fools like Beekman spoil my enjoyment either.’ Their eyes met in the mirror. ‘I’m going to take Mayne. And I’m not talking about marriage.’

‘Mayne!’ Annabel gasped. ‘You can’t!’

‘Of course I can,’ Imogen said, looking amused. ‘There’s nothing to stop me from doing anything I wish. And I believe that I would like the Earl of Mayne.’

‘How can you even consider such an idea? He jilted our own sister, practically at the altar!’

‘Are you implying that Tess would be better off with Mayne than with Felton? She adores her husband,’ Imogen pointed out.

‘Of course not. But that doesn’t change the fact that Mayne deserted her!’

‘I have not forgotten that point.’

‘But for goodness’ sakes, why?’

Imogen cast her a scornful glance. ‘You have to ask?’

‘Punishment,’ Annabel guessed. ‘Don’t do it, Imogen.’

‘Why not?’ Imogen turned to the side and regarded her figure. It was exquisite in every curve. And every curve was visible. ‘I’m bored.’

Annabel saw a glint of cruelty in her sister’s eyes and caught her arm. ‘Don’t do it. I’ve no doubt you can make Mayne fall in love with you.’

Imogen’s teeth shone white when she smiled. ‘Neither have I.’

‘But you might fall in love with him as well.’

‘Inconceivable.’

Annabel didn’t really believe Imogen would love again either. She had encased herself in ice after her husband died, and it would take time to melt away.

‘Please,’ she said. ‘Please don’t do it, Imogen. I don’t care about Mayne, but it wouldn’t be good for you.’

‘Since you are nothing more than a maiden,’ Imogen said with her new, bitter smile, ‘you have no idea what would be good for me, at least as pertains to men. We can have this discussion once you have some experience of what it means to be a woman.’

Imogen was clearly longing for a pitched battle of the kind they used to have when they were children. But as Annabel opened her mouth to deliver a scathing retort, the door opened and their chaperone, Lady Griselda Willoughby, waltzed in. ‘Darlings!’ she trilled. ‘I have been looking everywhere for the two of you! The Duke of Clarence has arrived, and –’

Her words died as her eyes moved from Annabel’s furious face to Imogen’s rigid one. ‘Ah,’ she said, sitting down and adjusting her exquisite silk shawl around her shoulders, ‘you’re squabbling again. How very glad I am that I have only a brother to plague me.’

‘Your brother’, Imogen snapped, ‘is hardly anyone to desire as a family member. In fact, we were just talking of his manifold virtues. Or rather, the lack thereof.’

‘I have no doubt but that your assessment was correct,’ Griselda said serenely, ‘but it was a patently unpleasant comment, my dear. I notice that when you are angry your nose becomes quite thin…You might wish to think about that.’

Imogen’s nose flared magnificently. ‘Since I have no doubt but that you will wish to rebuke me as well, I might as well tell you that I have decided to take a cicisbeo!’

‘An excellent decision, my dear.’ Griselda opened a small fan and waved it lazily before her face. ‘I find men so useful. In a gown as narrow as the one you wear tonight, for example, one can hardly walk with ease. Perhaps you could choose a particularly strong man who can carry you about London.’

Annabel bit back a smile.

‘You may fun all you like,’ Imogen said through clenched teeth, ‘but let me be very clear about my decision. I have decided to take a lover, not a jumped-up version of a footman. And your brother Mayne is my primary candidate.’

‘Ah,’ Griselda said. ‘Well, likely it is wise to start with someone so very experienced in these situations. Mayne does tend toward married women rather than widows; my brother has a genius for avoiding any woman who might prove eligible for matrimony. But mayhap you can persuade him otherwise.’

‘I believe that I can,’ Imogen stated.

Griselda waved her fan meditatively. ‘An interesting choice lies ahead of you. Were I to take a lover, for example, I should wish to continue the affair beyond two weeks. My dear brother certainly has had many ladies on whom to practise, and yet he invariably drifts to another woman within the fortnight. Moreover, I myself would find the notion of being compared to the many beautiful women who had come before me unnerving, but I expect I am simply squeamish.’

Annabel grinned. Griselda looked a perfectly docile, perfectly feminine lady. And yet…

Imogen looked as if she were thinking. ‘Fine!’ she said finally. ‘I’ll take the Earl of Ardmore, then. Since he’s only been in London for a week or so, he can’t possibly compare me to anyone else.’

Annable blinked. ‘The Scottish earl?’

‘The very one.’ Imogen gathered up her reticule and shawl. ‘He’s not worth a penny, but his face can be his fortune, in this case.’ She caught her sister’s frown. ‘Oh, don’t be such a pinched ninny, Annabel. Believe me, the earl won’t get hurt.’

‘I agree,’ Griselda put in. ‘The man has a palpable air of danger about him. He won’t get hurt, Imogen. You will.’

‘Nonsense,’ Imogen said. ‘You’re simply trying to talk me out of a decision I’ve already made. I’m not willing to sit around in the corners, gossiping with dowagers for the next ten years.’ That was a direct insult to Griselda, who had lost her husband years ago and had (to Annabel’s knowledge) never entertained a thought either of a lover or a husband.

Griselda smiled sweetly and said, ‘No, I can see that you’re an entirely different kind of woman, my dear.’

Annabel winced, but Imogen didn’t notice. “Now I think on it, Ardmore is an altogether better choice than Mayne. We are countrymen, you know.’

‘Actually, that’s a reason not to distract him,’ Annabel had to point out. ‘We know how hard it is to live in an old rambling house in the north country without a penny to support it. The man has come to London to find a rich bride, not to have an affair with you.’

‘You’re a sentimentalist,’ Imogen said. ‘Ardmore can take care of himself. I certainly shan’t stop him from courting some silly miss, if he wishes. But if I have a cavalier servente, the fortune hunters will leave me alone. I shall just borrow him for a while. You’re not planning to marry him, are you?’

‘The thought never crossed my mind,’ Annabel said with something less than perfect truth. The Scotsman was absurdly handsome; a woman would have to be in her grave not to consider him as a consort. But Annabel meant to marry a rich man. And she meant to stay in England. ‘Are you considering him as a possible spouse?’

‘Certainly not. He’s lummox without a fortune. But he’s pretty, and he dresses so sombrely that he matches my clothing. Who could want more in a man?’

‘He doesn’t appear to be a man to fool,’ Griselda said, serious now.

‘If he needs to find a rich wife, you ought to be straightforward,’ Annabel added. ‘He may well think that you would consider matrimony.’

‘Pish,’ Imogen said. ‘The role of a hidebound moralist doesn’t suit either of you. Don’t be tedious.’ And she swept out of the room, closing the door behind her with a little more force than necessary.

‘Though it pains me to admit it,’ Griselda said meditatively, ‘I may have mishandled that situation. If your sister is determined to make a scandal, she would have done better to direct herself toward Mayne. At this point, it is almost a rite of a passage for young women to have a brief affaire with my brother, and so the ensuing scandal doesn’t really take fire.’

‘There’s something about Ardmore that makes me wonder if she can control him as easily as she thinks she can,’ Annabel said with a frown.

‘I would agree,’ Griselda said. ‘I haven’t exchanged a word with him, but he has little in common with the average English lord.’

Ardmore was a red-haired Scot, with a square jaw and broad shoulders. To Annabel’s mind, he was a world away from Griselda’s sleek brother.

‘No one seems to know much about the man,’ Griselda said. ‘Lady Ogilby told me that she had it from Mrs Mufford that he’s poor as a church mouse and came to London specifically to find a dowried bride.’

‘But didn’t Mrs Mufford spread that rumour about Clementina Lyffe running off with a footman?’

‘True,’ Griselda said. ‘And yet Clementina is happily married to her viscount and shows no propensity whatsoever to court the household staff. Lady Blechschmidt generally can scent a fortune hunter at fifty yards, and there was no sign of Ardmore at her soirée last night, which suggests he was not invited. I must ask her if she has any pertinent information.’

‘His absence from that particular event may simply indicate an intolerance for boredom,’ Annabel remarked.

‘Tush!’ Griselda said, laughing. ‘You know Lady Blechschmidt is a great acquaintance of mine. I must say, it is unusual for there to be such mystery about a man; if he were English we would know everything from his birth weight to his yearly income. Did you ever meet him when you lived in Scotland?’

‘Never. But Mrs Mufford’s speculation about his reasons for coming to London is likely true.’ Many a Scottish nobleman hung around her father’s stables, and they were all as empty in the pocket as her own viscount of a father. In fact, it was practically a requirement of nationality. One either remained poor or married a rich Englishman – as Imogen had done, as Tess had done and as she herself meant to do.

‘Ardmore doesn’t look the sort to be fooled by your sister,’ Griselda said.

Annabel hoped she was right. There was a brittleness behind Imogen’s artful exposure of her bosom that had little to do with desire.

Griselda rose. ‘Imogen must find her own way through her grief,’ she said. ‘There are women who have a hard time of it, and I’m afraid she’s one of them.’

Their eldest sister, Tess, kept saying that Imogen had to live her own life. And so had Annabel.

For a moment a smile touched Annabel’s lips. The only dowry she had was a horse, so she and the Scotsman were really two of a kind.

Scottish pennies, as it were.

Two

Lady Feddrington was in the grip of a passion for all things Egyptian, and since she had the means to indulge every whim, her ballroom resembled nothing so much as a storage house kept by tomb raiders. Flanking the large doors at one end were twenty-foot-high statues of some sort of a dog-human. Apparently they originally stood at the doors of an Egyptian temple.

‘At first I wasn’t certain that I quite liked them. Their expressions are not…nice,’ Lady Feddrington had told Annabel. ‘But now I’ve named them Humpty and Dumpty. I think of them rather like superior servants: so silent, and you can tell in a glance that they won’t drink to excess.’ She had giggled; Lady Feddrington was a rather silly woman.

But Annabel had to admit that from the vantage point of the other side of the room, Humpty and Dumpty looked magnificent. They gazed down on the dancers milling around their ankles with expressions that made the idea that they were servants laughable.

She pulled a gauzy piece of nothingness around her shoulders. It was pale gold, to match her dress, and embroidered with a curling series of ferns. Gold on gold and worth every penny. She threw a glance at those imposing Egyptian statues again. Surely they should be in a museum? They made the fluttering crowds around them look dissolute.

‘Anubis, god of the dead,’ a deep voice said. ‘Not the most propitious guardian for an occasion such as this.’

Even after having met him for only a moment, she knew Ardmore’s voice. Well, why shouldn’t she? She had grown up surrounded by that soft Scottish burr, though their father threatened to disown herself and her sisters if they used it. ‘They look like gods,’ she said. ‘Have you travelled to Egypt, my lord?’

‘Alas, no.’

She shouldn’t have even asked. She, if anyone, knew the life of an impoverished Scottish nobleman all too well. It involved hours spent trying to eke a living from tenants battered by cold and hunger, not pleasure trips up the Nile River.

He slipped a hand under her arm. ‘May I ask you to dance, or should I request the pleasure from your chaperone?’

She smiled up at him, one of her rarer smiles that didn’t bother to seduce, but just expressed companionship. ‘Neither is necessary,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I’m sure you can find someone more appropriate to dance with.’

He blinked at her, looking more like a burly labourer than an earl. She’d come to know quite a lot about earls – aye, and dukes and other lords too. Their chaperone, Lady Griselda, considered it her duty to point out every man within eyesight who carried a title. Mayne, Griselda’s brother, was a typical English lord: sleek and faintly dangerous, with slender fingers and exquisite manners. His hair fell in ordered waves that shone in the light, and he smelled as good as she herself did.

But this Scottish earl was another story. The earl’s red-brown hair fell in thick rumpled curls down his neck. His eyes were a clear green, lined with long lashes, and the out-of-doors sense he had about him translated into a kind of raw sensuality. While Mayne wore velvet and silk, Ardmore was plainly dressed in a costume of black. Black with a touch of white at the throat. No wonder Imogen thought he would complement her mourning attire.

‘Why do you refuse me?’ he asked, sounding surprised.

‘Because I grew up with lads like yourself,’ she said, letting a trace of a Scottish accent slip into her voice. Lad wasn’t the right word, not for this huge northerner who was so clearly a man, but that was the sense she meant. He could be a friend, but never a suitor. Although she could hardly explain to him that she meant to marry someone rich.

‘So you’ve taken a vow not to dance with anyone from your own homeland?’ he asked.

‘Something like that,’ she said. ‘But I could introduce you to a proper young lady, if you wish.’ She knew quite a few debutantes endowed with more-than-respectable dowries.

‘Does that mean that you would decline to marry me as well?’ he asked, a curious little smile playing around his mouth. ‘I would be happy to ask for your hand, if that would mean we could dance together.’

She grinned at his foolishness. ‘You’ll never find a bride if you go about behaving in such a way,’ she told him. ‘You must take your pursuit more seriously.’

‘I do take it seriously.’ He leaned against the wall and looked down at her so intently that her skin prickled. ‘Would you marry me, even if you won’t dance with me?’

You couldn’t help but like him. His eyes were as green as the ocean. ‘I certainly will not marry you,’ she said.

‘Ah,’ he said, sounding not terribly disappointed.

‘You cannot ask women to marry you whom you barely know,’ she added.

He didn’t seem to realise that it wasn’t entirely polite to lean against the wall in a lady’s presence, nor to watch her with lazy appreciation. Annabel felt a flash of sympathy. He would never be able to catch a rich bride at this rate! She should help him, if only because he was her countryman.

‘Why not?’ he asked. ‘Compatibility is not something one discovers after five encounters rather than one. One must make an educated guess.’

‘That’s just it: you know nothing of me!’

‘Not so,’ he said promptly. ‘Number one, you’re Scottish. Number two, you’re Scottish. And number three –’

‘I can guess,’ she said.

‘You’re beautiful,’ he finished, a fleeting smile crossing his face.

He had his arms crossed over his chest now and was smiling down at her like a great giant.

‘While I thank you for the compliment, I have to wonder why on earth you came to London to find a bride, given your first two requirements,’ Annabel said.

‘I came because I was told to do so,’ he replied.