Kiss Me, Annabel

“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 smoldering 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.