Kiss Me, Annabel

Page 45

“Discomfort!” Mayne’s mind was reeling. His servants thought he’d gone for a ride in the park. He had no—
“I have no clothes!” he almost shouted.
Imogen patted his knee, precisely as if he were a small child who’d lost his favorite bobble. “Don’t worry. I told Rafe’s manservant to pack a valise for you.”
Rafe’s clothing? Was she mad? “Where is your maid?” he snapped at his sister.
“She follows us,” Griselda said. “Believe me, Garret, if I could think of another way to save Annabel from this marriage, I would have.”
“There’s nothing so terrible about the match,” Mayne objected.
“The poor girl cried before she left for Scotland. She cried,” Griselda said.
“Women always weep at weddings.”
“Annabel never cries,” Josie put in.
“I wept when Father told me I was to marry Willoughby,” Griselda said reflectively, not meeting her brother’s eyes.
“Willoughby was a fine fellow,” Mayne said. Then, when Griselda said nothing, “Wasn’t he?”
“Of course he was,” she said. “I can’t think why I brought up such a dismal subject as my short-lived marriage. Poor Willoughby.”
Mayne could hardly remember his brother-in-law’s face; after all, the fellow had fallen dead at the supper table only a year or so after marrying. Overeating, or so his parents had said at the time. He’d always thought Willoughby was a jolly fellow. But perhaps Griselda would have preferred to marry someone else.
“You could have remarried anytime these ten years,” he said, staring at his sister.
“True enough.” She closed her eyes again. “I can’t think why I haven’t bothered to do so.”
“Sarcasm has never been your forte, Griselda,” Mayne observed.
“Annabel cried on hearing that she had to marry Ardmore,” Imogen said pointedly. “And she only stopped once we came up with a scheme for her to return to us in six months. That marriage is doomed before it has even begun. Saving her from such a fate is worth some small disruption in our schedules and a little discomfort!”
“Why would you talk of a little discomfort, when apparently you think I am comfortable wearing Rafe’s clothing? You could have sent me a message last night. My manservant might then be in the carriage with your maid.”
“You wouldn’t have come with us,” Imogen said.
“Yes, I would have!” he retorted.
“No. You would never bestir yourself for something that concerns you so little,” Imogen flatly contradicted him.
Mayne ground his teeth.
“Unfortunately, I agree with Imogen on that point,” Griselda said. “We’re a selfish pair, the two of us. I myself would manifestly prefer not to be traveling into the wilds of Scotland.”
“But here you are,” Mayne pointed out. “With your maid. Whereas apparently I am expected to make the trip without my servant or even a change of clothing.”
“It will do you good, Garret,” she said, staring at him with all the arrogance of an elder sister. “You’ve grown too attached to your attire. You don’t want to turn into a man milliner, and all out of boredom.”
He felt such a surge of rage that there was no speaking about it. So he lapsed into his corner and closed his eyes. Maybe he’d just sleep all the way to Scotland.
Nineteen
For the next few days, Annabel and Ewan kept resolutely to ten kisses per day and no questions. Every once in a while one of them would start to ask a question and stop. And sometimes the other would answer, just for the pleasure of it and although it was not a kissing question.
Annabel felt as if somehow she ended up doing all the talking. Ewan got out of her, by turns and twists and sympathetic eyes, the truth about her father’s circumstances.“So he gambled away all the money in the house?” he said one afternoon, when they were rumbling along the road.
“It wasn’t like that!” Annabel protested. “Papa never gambled.”
“Aye, but taking the money from the estate and backing a horse, whether it’s on the track or in your own stable, is gambling.” He eyed her over the cribbage board. “And I’ll tell you, lass, that I don’t like the fact he made you into his bookkeeper either.”
“I like keeping track of numbers,” Annabel said rather lamely.
“Then he should have kissed your feet for it,” Ewan said. His eyes were laughing again, and he dropped to the carriage floor between them and started on with some nonsense about kissing her feet.
But Annabel couldn’t help thinking about it. Ewan would never gamble, not at the track, nor with his own horses. He was a different sort of man from her father.
They were into the highlands by now. “I’m thinking that perhaps we might ask Father Armailhac to marry us on the very day we arrive,” Ewan said at luncheon. “Would you be agreeable, darling?”
There was something about the way darling rolled from his tongue in a Scottish burr that made Annabel think that she could never say no to him, not if he called her that. A fact that should be concealed obviously. So she pretended to think about it.
“Rafe would be happy to hear that you had followed through on your obligations,” she said.
“Yes, and just imagine. The more time that passes, the more likelihood that I’ll lose interest and run for the hills.”
She had to smile at the look in his eyes. “ ’Tis a serious consideration,” she agreed.
“Of course, Uncle Pearce would likely step in and marry you, just to save the family name, and given as you’re such a ruthless cardplayer.”
“I’ve always thought maturity was an excellent thing in a spouse.”
“Damn it, Annabel,” he groaned, running his hand through his hair so that it stood straight up. “Will you marry me immediately? Please? I’m dying here.”
“I thought you didn’t care who you married.”
“Now I do,” he said flatly.
“Then I shall,” she said. “And that’s an honest answer.”
The smile on his face flew straight to her heart. “I’m saving my kisses for tonight,” he said. “And Annabel—I’m giving you warning right here that I’m breaking that foolish rule about no kissing in our bedchamber. You’re mine. I shall consider this the moment I asked you to marry me, and forget entirely that business in London.”
She swallowed.
“I’ll ask Mac to send a message to Father Armailhac,” Ewan said. “And then I’ll ride outside this afternoon, because otherwise I won’t be able to keep my kisses until evening.”
Annabel was startled at how much her heart lightened at the sight of long stretches of dark forest. She liked England’s tidy green fields and neat little thickets. But there was something glorious about looking out of the carriage window at a rolling hill covered with thick fir. Great birds—kites? hawks?—flew in wide circles over the deep green treetops. Ewan rode by her window, his hair blowing back in the wind, looking red-haired and brawny and Scots to the bone.
Annabel’s heart sung. “You’re turning into a fool,” she muttered to herself. “He’s making you into a fool.”