Kiss Me, Annabel

Page 34

He knew it too. He gave her a derisive look through his lashes and said, “Perhaps just kisses. But no kisses in the bedchamber, mind.”
“I’m not begging you,” she said with a sniff. “I can do perfectly well without kissing you at all.”
“You know, we Scots are different from yon English,” he said to her.
“I’ve noticed that!”
“Then you’ll have noticed that we have no fear of saying the truth. And the truth is, lass, that you just tricked me into keeping on with our kisses, which means that you can’t do without those either. And another truth is that I’ve got no control when I’m around you.”
“None?” she asked, with some curiosity.
He shook his head. “So it’s going to be up to you, Annabel, love. You’ll have to rein us in. Kisses only. And nothing in the bedchamber, mind. I think we’d better set a limit. Ten a day should be more than enough.”
Annabel grinned at him. There was something enormously satisfying about having this great mountain of a man admit that he had no control around her. It went some way toward making up for the humiliation of the way they got engaged, and the humiliation of his not wanting to marry her immediately. “In that case,” she said, “I’ll thank you to open that door, Lord Ardmore, and we’ll disappoint the crowd.”
“Not Lord Ardmore,” he said.
“Ewan.”
At his smile, she almost kissed him again.
He seemed to guess her thought before it even flashed in her mind, and his smile deepened. “By my count, we’re up to five kisses today.”
She leaned forward and rapped on the door. “Perhaps we should start with half measures,” she told him. “Given your lack of control.”
“Nay, I’ll have my full share,” he promised her.
Fourteen
At first glance, the inn yard of the Pig and Cauldron was a flurry of activity. Far from there being a ring of people around their carriage, no one seemed to be paying attention to it at all, except for the groomsman holding open their door. And his eyes were rigidly fixed on the sky, Annabel noticed.
Then, as she walked down the steps, she realized that a great deal of the activity was the result of their arrival. The courtyard seemed to be full of men wearing Ewan’s colors, black and dark green, leading horses hither and thither and hoisting trunks.She turned to her husband. “How many outriders came with us?”
“Six before and six after,” he said, looking around. “Oh, there’s Mac.”
A slight, bespectacled man holding a few papers in his hands came toward them through the organized chaos.
“And how many groomsmen?” Annabel inquired.
“The usual number,” Ewan said. “Four behind each carriage.”
Annabel had been so benumbed that morning that she had hardly noticed the color of their carriage, let alone that it wasn’t traveling alone. Now she slowly turned around. They had ridden in a gleaming coach, painted dark green and picked out in black. There were two additional coaches drawn up at the side of the courtyard, both in the same colors, if slightly more serviceable-looking.
She was starting to have a very peculiar feeling. Either her future husband was a spendthrift, or—or—She turned to him, but the bespectacled man had appeared and was talking to Ewan.
“Annabel, I’d like to introduce you to Mr. Maclean, my factor,” Ewan said. “Mac and I have been together these twelve years now, and I don’t know what I’d do without him. Mac travels ahead of us, and will meet us at each stop. You’d better call him Mac as well, if he doesn’t mind.”
Annabel held out her hand. Mr. Maclean had rather sweet brown eyes and a harassed expression. He took her hand rather tentatively, then dropped it and bowed. So she curtsied.
“Lady Ardmore,” he said. “Welcome to the Pig and Cauldron. The inn eagerly awaits your arrival.” He turned to Ewan. “You’ve the best chamber, my lord, and the innkeeper’s wife is preparing a special dinner for you, in honor of the occasion. They’re quite excited, so if you could spare a moment to greet them, it would be most appreciated.”
“Of course we can,” Ewan said. He tucked Annabel’s hand under his arm. “Come along, then, wife.” The glance he sent her was full of mischief.
“How did you obtain the best chamber, given that you hadn’t even intended to travel to Scotland until a few days ago?” she asked. “Did the innkeeper send whoever was originally in the chamber away?”
“I’m not sure of the details,” Ewan said, steering her around a cobblestone knocked out of its place. “I leave all that to Mac.”
When they reached the door of the inn, the innkeeper strode toward them. He was a tall man with a bald head, a cheerful smile and a strong smell of cider about him. “It’s an honor to have you choose my inn for your wedding night, Lord Ardmore, my lady. May I escort you upstairs to your chamber? Your private dining room is here to the right.”
Two minutes later Annabel was sitting in a comfortable armchair. Her husband was talking with Mac. His valet had arrived and then Elsie, her maid. There was talk of hot baths. And a minute after that, the room was empty but for her husband, who was coming toward her with a most purposeful look in his eyes.
“Ewan,” she said, “why do you travel with so many outriders?”
“Because of what happened to Rosy. I would never risk anything of that nature happening to you. It’s worth spending a whole year’s harvest to travel in safety.”
“Oh,” Annabel said, confused.
He leaned over her chair, bracing himself on the arms, and said, “Kiss number six?” He was quite appealing, this almost-husband of hers.
“I think not,” she said primly. “I would like a bath. In my chamber, if you please.”
“Now, Annabel, you know this chamber has to be shared by the two of us.” His eyes had an unholy glee about them.
“Then out the door with you!”
He laughed and strolled to the door. “I’ll send your maid up with the hot water and await you in our dining room…wife.”
Of course, he had his kisses. There was one behind the dining room door, just before the landlord’s daughter brought in a second course. There was another in the curve of the stairs, when they heard cultured voices in the anteroom below and Ewan thought they shouldn’t go down the stairs just yet. He had another outside their room.
That left two kisses.
And that left the two of them.
He went below while Elsie helped Annabel change into her bedclothes. Then she jumped into bed and waited. After a half hour or so, he strolled in, and now he had the same cidery sharp apple smell as the innkeeper.
“The man makes excellent cider,” he told her.
“It’s a good thing Rafe isn’t here,” she said, just to make conversation.
He looked as if he couldn’t remember who Rafe was. “Are you planning to wear that scrap of silk to bed?” he asked, his voice gone still and deep.
Annabel looked down at herself. She was wearing a French nightgown of pale pink silk, the color of the youngest of spring roses. Surely he’d seen a fashionable nightgown before? She pulled up the sheet a bit higher, almost to her breasts. It was a large bed, after all. “That I am,” she said. “ ’Tis the nightgown that Tess gave me for my wedding.”