Kiss Me, Annabel

Page 67

“The Battle of Flodden, 1513,” Ewan remarked, bringing her to the left wall. “The first Earl of Ardmore had these tapestries woven in Brussels as a warning to all future Ardmores to avoid war. He lost two sons in the battle.”
Annabel peered at the tapestries, which were positively littered with men and horses. The light was not the best.
“The ground is covered with dead young men,” Ewan pointed out. “This tapestry and the warning in it saved our lands from being taken over by the Butcher in1745.”
A faint chill of ancient, raw stone hung in the air, and Annabel shivered. Living in a castle didn’t seem quite as romantic as it did in fairy tales. But Ewan was leading her through a door to the right, and then they were in a warm, cheerful parlor, heated by a trim iron stove set in the enormous stone fireplace, but otherwise not looking very different from any of Rafe’s best sitting rooms.
“My father ruthlessly modernized,” Ewan explained. “He was fascinated by Count Rumford’s inventions, and had several Rumford stoves installed, and a Rumford range placed in the kitchen that provides heated water. You can look at all this later. For now, why don’t I show you to your chambers?”
Annabel murmured something.
The master bedchamber was dominated by an enormous bed. Over it hung a canopy of wildly entwined and colorful flowers, embroidered by a master.
“It’s lovely,” she said, awed.
“My parents brought it back from their wedding trip,” Ewan said. “Shall we travel to celebrate our wedding? Perhaps up the Nile?”
“I will go nowhere in a coach for the foreseeable future,” Annabel stated.
He laughed. “Then we’re stuck here for the moment. I’m afraid that the coastline is some distance.”
Annabel sighed and walked into the bathroom. She stopped still in surprise. The walls were tiled blue and white, with a frieze of laughing mermaids, and the bath itself was made of white marble. It was everything the Kettles’ cottage was not: light, clean and exquisitely fashioned, designed to make a woman feel both serene and beautiful.
“Mac had the bathtub sent from Italy,” Ewan said. “I do believe that it’s large enough for two.”
There was just a hint of laughter in his voice, but Annabel didn’t meet his eyes, turning away instead. She was feeling about as sensual as a dishclout, and the last thing she wanted to do was share a bathtub.
Her maid, Elsie, bustled into the chamber, followed by footmen carrying Annabel’s trunks on their shoulders.
“Perhaps we might sup in a half hour?” Ewan asked. There was nothing in his voice to indicate that Annabel had just snubbed his invitation…if that was an invitation.
“Miss Annabel must decide on a gown for the evening,” Elsie said anxiously. “Then it must be sponged and pressed, and she needs to bathe, and her hair—”
“It’s only six o’clock,” Annabel said to Ewan, although to tell the truth, she felt like collapsing onto the bed and missing whatever there was for supper.
“We eat early in the Highlands,” he said. “It grows dark quickly, even though summer is coming.”
Annabel shivered.
As soon as he was gone, Elsie began clucking like a nervous chicken. “I’ll run the bath,” she said. “Although whether that great behemoth will actually fill with hot water is another thing. I’ve no doubt but what I’ll have to call for buckets in the normal way of things.”
“I could wear the plum-colored sarcenet tonight,” Annabel said.
“The one with the falling lace in front?” Elsie said, thinking about it. “At least the sleeves are long, which will keep you warm. There’s a powerful damp here, for all it’s almost June. The sarcenet has a nice high bosom.”
Annabel nodded. It seemed that future dress decisions were likely to be based on the chill in the air.
“It’s at the bottom of one of the trunks, and will have been protected from the worst of the dust. We can sponge the lace thoroughly and it will dry in a twinkle.” Elsie ran into the bathroom but trotted directly back into the bedroom. “I’d better find the gown first, and perhaps the housekeeper might have someone sponge it for me. Whether I’ll be able to find Mrs. Warsop is another question. It’s monstrously large, this place.”
“The footmen can direct you.”
“I never thought to work in a castle,” Elsie told her. “Never!”
“I never thought to marry a man who lived in one either,” Annabel said, a slight untruth given her girlhood dreams. “Now let’s see if we can get this bath to work.”
Of course it did. Hot water gushed from the taps into the smooth marble bath.
“The mermaids are a bit heathen to my mind,” Elsie said with a sniff. “Not but what this is a most godly household, miss. Do you know that they have chapel on Sundays and the staff attends with the family, rather than going to the village?”
“You needn’t join them if you don’t wish to. I’ll speak to Lord Ardmore.”
“I wouldn’t miss it,” Elsie said earnestly. “The service is given by a monk, a real one. And though my mum never held with Catholics—thought them a terrible heathen lot, always kissing pictures and the like—the Father seems quite lovely, rather like my grandfather. Plus, I wouldn’t want to miss the service, it might seem as if I were putting on airs, and that would never go over well with Mrs. Warsop.”
Annabel cautiously put a toe into steaming water, and a second later she was leaning back in blissfully hot water.
“That’s right, then,” Elsie said. “If you don’t mind, miss, I’ll just take this dress down to Mrs. Warsop and ask her to have it sponged for me. I wouldn’t like anyone to iron it whom I don’t trust, but sponging is another matter.”
“Don’t hurry,” Annabel said, wiggling her toes so that little ripples spread through the bath.
The door swung shut behind Elsie, and Annabel lay back and tried to think clearly. She would be marrying a man who was utterly her opposite. She prided herself on logical thinking, whereas Ewan seemed to embrace the idea of acting without forethought. How else could they have ended up at the Kettles’? She believed in the power of money; he believed in God. How long would it be before he wished that he had married someone who enjoyed endless prayer services?
Annabel regarded her pink toes. A better woman than she would send the earl into the sunset on his own, castle, money and all. A better woman would recognize that the holy part of him would never be matched in her. He would be happier married to a psalm singer like himself, a more virginal woman. And she would be happier without a broken heart.
Because she was in love with him. There wasn’t any doubt in Annabel’s mind about that: she was as crazed with love as ever Imogen was for Draven Maitland, and she’d always thought Imogen was fairly mad with the emotion.
Wasn’t there the faintest possibility that Ewan might fall in love with her? Sometimes good things happened. Perhaps it was her turn. Annabel tried to imagine a white-haired old man looking at her from a cloud and deciding to toss a windfall in her direction, but she gave up after a moment. The whole idea of religion eluded her.
The truth was that Ewan was unlikely to fall in love with someone as greedy as herself, someone who had no understanding of his religion, and not a whiff of charitable doings about her either. The only thing they had between them was—was this lust. The thought made her cheeks hot.