Kiss Me, Annabel

Annabel smiled sweetly at her. “It must be those Scottish winds. They fairly howl, don’t they? Ruinous for one’s complexion.”

Ewan turned around from giving Gregory a bear hug. “Nana, Annabel is Scottish, so don’t play off your tricks on her. She’s got the backbone of a Pict.”

“You found a Scotswoman by going all the way to London?” Nana snapped. “You could have had Miss Mary from next door if that’s what you wanted. These yellow-haired types are flighty, you know that. She’ll likely go in childbirth.”

A charming welcome, to Annabel’s mind.

But Nana wasn’t done. “Still, she’s got good broad hips,” she said, eyeing Annabel’s midsection.

Perfect. She was both sickly and plump.

“This is Gregory,” Ewan said, leading her away. Gregory had white, white skin and hair as black as soot, with eyelashes to match. He would break some woman’s heart one day, unless he disappeared into a monastery. He looked at Annabel with a great deal of curiosity and then bowed as elegantly as if she were Queen Elizabeth.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Gregory,” she said, taking his hand. “Ewan has told me quite a lot about you.”

His cheeks turned red so fast that she didn’t have time to blink. “You told her I’m a miserable singer!” he cried, turning to Ewan.

But Ewan just reached out and tousled his black curls. “Told her that you caterwaul like a cat in heat,” he said cheerfully. “But mayhap Annabel has had voice training and she can—”

She shook her head.

“Ach, then, we’re stuck with your miserable voice, lad,” he said, giving Gregory another hug.

And just like that the red spots disappeared from his cheeks and Gregory gave Annabel a sheepish grin from within the circle of Ewan’s arms. She wasn’t the only one who felt safe around the Earl of Ardmore.

Uncle Tobin and Uncle Pearce were like salt and sugar. Uncle Tobin, the hunter, was lean and tall and keeneyed. He bowed with great flair and twirled his mustache. “I knew Ewan would strike gold in London!” he said, giving her a very appreciative looking-over.

Annabel curtsied and gave him her very best flirting-with-old-men smile. He warmed up like a winter stove and told Ewan that he’d made a damn fine choice.

Uncle Pearce was as plump as Tobin was thin, and as irascible as Tobin was gallant. He had shiny black eyes that looked like river rocks, and a double chin. “Play speculation, do you?” he growled at her. “With any skill at all?”

“No,” she said.

“We’ll try your paces after supper,” he said gloomily. “But I’ll warn you, missy, I play for high stakes. I’ll likely have your jointure by Friday next.”

“No card games tonight,” Ewan said. “I’m sure Annabel is exhausted from traveling all day, Uncle.”

“Tomorrow, then,” Pearce said, shrugging at the idea that exhaustion trumped cards. Annabel had a sinking feeling that the family sat around and played cards with Pearce every night.

A moment later she was holding the hand of Father Armailhac, and he was smiling at her in such a way that she forgot to give him one of her carefully selected expressions and actually smiled back.

He was the kind of monk who made you grin, no two ways about it. As she had with Nana, she’d built up a picture in her mind that was entirely mistaken. She thought of monks as dressed in black with cords tied around their straining middles. From what she’d heard, they crossed themselves every other moment, carried around any number of necklaces on which they counted out prayers and wore little black caps on the backs of their heads.

True, Father Armailhac was wearing a black cassock. But he didn’t look serious, nor likely to pull out a string of beads and mumble a prayer over them. In fact, he looked like a llama Annabel had seen once at a fair. His hair was woolly, and his face narrow, like a llama’s. He had the gentle eyes and thick eyelashes of those animals, along with an amiable curiosity that wasn’t in the least cloying.

“My dear,” he said, putting both his hands on hers. He had the rushing syllables of a Frenchman, but his English seemed impeccable. “This is a true pleasure. I had no idea when I sent Ewan to England that there were such lovely Scotswomen to be found there.”

Annabel felt herself blushing.

He chuckled and turned to his right. “May I introduce my comrades? This is Brother Bodine, and Brother Dalmain.” The two monks smiled at her. “Brother Dalmain,” Armailhac continued, “is Scots by birth, and so ’tis he who persuaded us to come to this country and take care of Rosy. And here is Rosy. I’m sure that Ewan has told you of her.”

He drew from behind him, rather like a mother cat pushing forward one of her kittens, one of the smallest, prettiest women Annabel had ever seen. She had her son’s creamy skin, and his soft black curls, but without any of the angularity of a young boy. Instead she looked about fifteen, if not younger. And yet…

Obviously she was older. She held Father Armailhac’s hand tightly, and now Annabel could see there were wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. She smiled obediently, and then curtsied. Her eyes showed no curiosity, and she said nothing. She curtsied again, and Annabel realized with a start that she would have kept curtsying if Father Armailhac had not quietly told her to stop.

The idea of anyone hurting this fairylike child of a woman was agonizing. “Oh, dear,” she breathed, turning to Ewan. He was standing behind her, waiting. Rosy’s wandering eyes caught at his boots and a frown creased her face. Then slowly her eyes traveled up his breeches, and her fingers grew white on Father’s arm.

“It’s all right, Rosy,” Armailhac said to her. “It’s just Ewan, come back from England with his beautiful bride. Of course you know Ewan.”

But she didn’t stop frowning until her eyes reached Ewan’s face, and then slowly the pinched frown smoothed out and she smiled at him, as cheerful as any child on Christmas morn. Only then did he step forward and kiss her cheek.

Annabel swallowed.

But Father Armailhac bent his head to the side, like a curious robin, and said to her, “There’s no need to be sorry for Rosy, my dear.”

“I think there is. Why, she—she—” Annabel waved her hand, and she meant it all, all the things that Rosy had lost: Ewan, and Gregory, and the castle…

“God’s given her a wonderful gift in return,” he said, and he didn’t even sound preachy. “Joy.”

Annabel looked back at Rosy, and sure enough, her face was lit with laughter. After a moment she went over to take Gregory by the hand and began pulling him away.

“Oh, Rosy,” he groaned. “I don’t want to play now.”

But she reached up and touched his cheek and smiled at him, and with a sheepish nod of his head, he allowed himself to be pulled away.

“Doesn’t she speak?” Annabel asked.

“Never. But I don’t think she misses it.”

“May I introduce you to your new home?” Ewan asked, holding out his arm.

“Of course,” Annabel said weakly. She had wanted a knight in shining armor with a castle, hadn’t she?

The castle had great doors hewn from oak that swung open to reveal a vast antechamber, large enough to receive a king and all his court. The ceiling arched far above them, the stone looking solid, ancient and dirty. The walls were hung with tapestries.