Kiss Me, Annabel

by Eloisa James

  “There’s something about Ardmore that makes me wonder if she can control him as easily as she thinks she can,” Annabel said with a frown.

  “I would agree,” Griselda said. “I haven’t exchanged a word with him, but he has little in common with the average English lord.”

  Ardmore was a red-haired Scot, with a square jaw and broad shoulders. To Annabel’s mind, he was a world away from Griselda’s sleek brother.

  “No one seems to know much about the man,” Griselda said. “Lady Ogilby told me that she had it from Mrs. Mufford that he’s poor as a church mouse and came to London specifically to find a dowried bride.”

  “But didn’t Mrs. Mufford spread that rumor about Clementina Lyffe running off with a footman?”

  “True,” Griselda said. “And yet Clementina is happily married to her viscount and shows no propensity whatsoever to court the household staff. Lady Blechschmidt generally can scent a fortune hunter at fifty yards, and there was no sign of Ardmore at her soirée last night, which suggests he was not invited. I must ask her if she has any pertinent information.”

  “His absence from that particular event may simply indicate a intolerance for boredom,” Annabel remarked.

  “Tush!” Griselda said, laughing. “You know Lady Blechschmidt is a great acquaintance of mine. I must say, it is unusual for there to be such mystery about a man; if he were English we would know everything from his birth weight to his yearly income. Did you ever meet him when you lived in Scotland?”

  “Never. But Mrs. Mufford’s speculation about his reasons for coming to London is likely true.” Many a Scottish nobleman hung around her father’s stables, and they were all as empty in the pocket as her own viscount of a father. In fact, it was practically a requirement of nationality. One either remained poor or married a rich Englishman—as Imogen had done, as Tess had done and as she herself meant to do.

  “Ardmore doesn’t look the sort to be fooled by your sister,” Griselda said.

  Annabel hoped she was right. There was a brittleness behind Imogen’s artful exposure of her bosom that had little to do with desire.

  Griselda rose. “Imogen must find her own way through her grief,” she said. “There are women who have a hard time of it, and I’m afraid she’s one of them.”

  Their eldest sister, Tess, kept saying that Imogen had to live her own life. And so had Annabel.

  For a moment a smile touched Annabel’s lips. The only dowry she had was a horse, so she and the Scotsman were really two of a kind.

  Scottish pennies, as it were.

  Two

  Lady Feddrington was in the grip of a passion for all things Egyptian, and since she had the means to indulge every whim, her ballroom resembled nothing so much as a storage house kept by tomb raiders. Flanking the large doors at one end were twenty-foot-high statues of some sort of dog-human. Apparently they originally stood at the doors of an Egyptian temple.

  “At first I wasn’t certain that I quite liked them. Their expressions are not…nice,” Lady Feddrington had told Annabel. “But now I’ve named them Humpty and Dumpty. I think of them rather like superior servants: so silent, and you can tell in a glance that they won’t drink to excess.” She had giggled; Lady Feddrington was a rather silly woman.

  But Annabel had to admit that from the vantage point of the other side of the room, Humpty and Dumpty looked magnificent. They gazed down on the dancers milling around their ankles with expressions that made the idea that they were servants laughable.

  She pulled a gauzy piece of nothingness around her shoulders. It was pale gold, to match her dress, and embroidered with a curling series of ferns. Gold on gold and worth every penny. She threw a glance at those imposing Egyptian statues again. Surely they should be in a museum? They made the fluttering crowds around them look dissolute.

  “Anubis, god of the dead,” a deep voice said. “Not the most propitious guardian for an occasion such as this.”

  Even after having met him for only a moment, she knew Ardmore’s voice. Well, why shouldn’t she? She had grown up surrounded by that soft Scottish burr, though their father threatened to disown herself and her sisters if they used it. “They look like gods,” she said. “Have you traveled to Egypt, my lord?”

  “Alas, no.”

  She shouldn’t have even asked. She, if anyone, knew the life of an impoverished Scottish nobleman all too well. It involved hours spent trying to eke a living from tenants battered by cold and hunger, not pleasure trips up the Nile River.

  He slipped a hand under her arm. “May I ask you to dance, or should I request the pleasure from your chaperone?”

  She smiled up at him, one of her rarer smiles that didn’t bother to seduce, but just expressed companionship. “Neither is necessary,” she said cheerfully. “I’m sure you can find someone more appropriate to dance with.”

  He blinked at her, looking more like a burly laborer than an earl. She’d come to know quite a lot about earls—aye, and dukes and other lords too. Their chaper-one, Lady Griselda, considered it her duty to point out every man within eyesight who carried a title. Mayne, Griselda’s brother, was a typical English lord: sleek and faintly dangerous, with slender fingers and exquisite manners. His hair fell in ordered waves that shone in the light, and he smelled as good as she herself did.

  But this Scottish earl was another story. The earl’s red-brown hair fell in thick rumpled curls down his neck. His eyes were a clear green, lined with long lashes, and the out-of-doors sense he had about him translated into a kind of raw sensuality. While Mayne wore velvet and silk, Ardmore was plainly dressed in a costume of black. Black with a touch of white at the throat. No wonder Imogen thought he would complement her mourning attire.

  “Why do you refuse me?” he asked, sounding surprised.

  “Because I grew up with lads like yourself,” she said, letting a trace of a Scottish accent slip into her voice. Lad wasn’t the right word, not for this huge northerner who was so clearly a man, but that was the sense she meant. He could be a friend, but never a suitor. Although she could hardly explain to him that she meant to marry someone rich.

  “So you’ve taken a vow not to dance with anyone from your own homeland?” he asked.

  “Something like that,” she said. “But I could introduce you to a proper young lady, if you wish.” She knew quite a few debutantes endowed with more-than-respectable dowries.

  “Does that mean that you would decline to marry me as well?” he asked, a curious little smile playing around his mouth. “I would be happy to ask for your hand, if that would mean we could dance together.”

  She grinned at his foolishness. “You’ll never find a bride if you go about behaving in such a way,” she told him. “You must take your pursuit more seriously.”

  “I do take it seriously.” He leaned against the wall and looked down at her so intently that her skin prick led. “Would you marry me, even if you won’t dance with me?”

  You couldn’t help but like him. His eyes were as green as the ocean. “I certainly will not marry you,” she said.

  “Ah,” he said, sounding not terribly disappointed.

  “You cannot ask women to marry you whom you barely know,” she added.

  He didn’t seem to realize that it wasn’t entirely polite to lean against the wall in a lady’s presence, nor to watch her with lazy appreciation. Annabel felt a flash of sympathy. He would never be able to catch a rich bride at this rate! She should help him, if only because he was her countryman.

  “Why not?” he asked. “Compatibility is not something one discovers after five encounters rather than one. One must make an educated guess.”

  “That’s just it: you know nothing of me!”

  “Not so,” he said promptly. “Number one, you’re Scottish. Number two, you’re Scottish. And number three—”

  “I can guess,” she said.

  “You’re beautiful,” he finished, a fleeting smile crossing his face.

  He had his arms crossed ove
r his chest now and was smiling down at her like a great giant.

  “While I thank you for the compliment, I have to wonder why on earth you came to London to find a bride, given your first two requirements,” Annabel said.

  “I came because I was told to do so,” he replied.

  Annabel didn’t need any further information. Everyone knew that rich brides were to be found in London, and poor ones in Scotland. The man was hoping that her finery meant she had a dowry to match.

  “You’re judging on appearances,” she told him. “My only dowry is a horse, although, as I said, I’d be happy to introduce you to some appropriate young ladies.”

  He opened his mouth, but at that moment Imogen appeared at her shoulder. “Darling,” she said to Annabel, “I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” Without pausing, she turned to the earl. “Lord Ardmore,” she purred, “I am Lady Maitland. What a pleasure to meet you.”

  Annabel watched as the earl bent over her sister’s hand. Imogen was looking as beautiful as any avenging goddess. She gave Ardmore a look that no man, especially a man in search of a dowry faced with a wealthy young widow, would consider resisting. In fact, it looked very much like one of Annabel’s own come-hither glances.

  “I have an unendurable longing to dance,” Imogen said. “Will you please me, Lord Ardmore?”

  Unendurable? But Ardmore wasn’t laughing; he was kissing Imogen’s hand again. Annabel gave up. The man would have to find his own way out of Imogen’s net. Imogen had always been thus: once she made up her mind, there was no stopping her. “I shall return to my chaperone,” Annabel said, curtsying. “Lord Ardmore, it has been a pleasure.”

  Lady Griselda was holding court in a corner of the room, their guardian sprawled beside her with a drink in his hand. Not that there was anything unusual in that; the Duke of Holbrook always had a drink. He came to meet Annabel when he saw her winding her way through the crowd.

  Now that she had come to know a number of English nobility, she was more and more surprised by how unducal Rafe was. For one thing, he refused to go by his title. For another, he was as far from scented and curled and sartorially splendid as could be imagined. At least his valet managed to get him into a decent coat of blue superfine for the evening, but when he was at home he tended toward comfortable pantaloons and a thread worn white shirt.

  “Griselda’s driving me mad,” he said without formality. “And if she doesn’t succeed, Imogen will finish me off. What the devil is she doing, dancing attendance on that Scottish fellow? I don’t even know the man.”

  “She’s decided that she wants a cicisbeo,” Annabel told him.

  “Stuff and nonsense,” Rafe muttered, running a hand through hair that was already wildly disarranged. “I can escort her wherever she needs to go.”

  “She’s being plagued by fortune hunters.”

  “For God’s sake, why’d she choose a penniless Scot to dance about with, then?” Rafe bellowed, only belatedly glancing about him.

  “Perhaps she won’t care for him on further acquaintance,” Annabel said, trying to see whether she could glimpse Lord Rosseter anywhere. At the moment Rosseter was her first choice for spouse.

  “She’s making an ass of herself,” Rafe said.

  For some reason, Imogen’s antics always drove Rafe to distraction, especially since she’d returned to London and begun to order gowns that fit her like a second skin. But no matter how much he bellowed and raged, she merely smirked at him and said that widows could dress precisely as they wished.

  “Surely it’s not as bad as that,” Annabel said absently, still searching the crowd for Rosseter.

  She caught Lady Griselda’s eyes, who called: “Annabel! Do come here for a moment.”

  Their chaperone was nothing like the dour old ladies who generally earned that label; she was as good-looking as the infamous, altar-deserting Earl of Mayne. It went without saying that none of them held her brother’s behavior against Griselda; she had been devastated when Mayne galloped away from Rafe’s house approximately five minutes before he was due to marry Tess.

  “What on earth is Rafe bellowing about?” Griselda inquired, without much real concern in her voice. “He’s turned all plum-colored.”

  “Rafe is worried that Imogen is making an exhibition of herself,” Annabel told her.

  “Already? She is a woman of her word.”

  Annabel nodded over to the right. A waltz was playing, and the Earl of Ardmore was holding Imogen far too tightly. Or perhaps, Annabel thought fairly, Imogen was doing the holding. Whatever the impetus, Imogen swayed in his arms as if they were in the grip of a reckless passion.

  “Goodness me,” Griselda said, fanning herself. “They’re quite a couple, aren’t they? All that black on black…Imogen certainly was correct about the aesthetics of choosing Ardmore as a partner.”

  “Nothing will come of it,” Annabel assured her. “Imogen was just blustering. I’m sure of it.” But the words died in her mouth as Imogen threw an arm around the earl’s neck and began caressing his hair in an outrageously intimate fashion.

  “She wants a scandal,” Griselda said matter-of-factly. “The poor dear. Some widows do suffer through this sort of thing.”

  She made it sound as if Imogen were coming down with a nasty cold.

  “Did you?” Annabel asked.

  “Thankfully not,” Griselda said with a little shiver. “But I do believe that Imogen’s feelings for Lord Maitland were far deeper than mine for dear Willoughby. Although,” she added, “naturally I had all proper emotion for my husband.”

  Imogen was smiling up at Ardmore, her eyes half closed as if—Well. Annabel looked away.

  What Imogen wanted, Imogen took. She had loved Draven Maitland for years, and never mind the fact that he was betrothed to another woman. The moment Imogen had a chance, she somehow sprained her ankle in such a way that she had to convalesce in the Maitland household. That ankle injury was remarkably fortuitous. The next thing Annabel knew, her sister had eloped with Draven Maitland. In fact, given Imogen’s strength of will, Annabel rather thought that Ardmore might have to find and woo his bride in the next season.

  “Have you seen Lord Rosseter?” she asked Griselda.

  But Griselda was mesmerized—as doubtless were most of the respectable women in the room—by Imogen’s behavior on the dance floor. “Imogen is not my duty,” she said to herself, fanning her face madly.

  Annabel looked back at her sister. Imogen could not have made her intentions to engage in a scandalous affair more clear. She was clinging to Ardmore as if she’d turned into an ivy plant.

  “Oh, Lord,” Griselda moaned. Now Imogen was caressing Ardmore’s neck, for all the world as if she meant to pull his head down to hers.

  Annabel’s elder sister Tess dropped into a chair beside them. “Can someone please explain to me why Imogen is behaving like such a wanton?”

  “Where have you been all evening?” Annabel asked. “I thought I caught a glimpse of you and Felton earlier, but then I couldn’t find you.”

  Tess ignored her question. “She may ruin herself with this behavior! People will draw the conclusion that she is Ardmore’s mistress.”

  “And they’ll be correct,” Griselda put in calmly. “How are you, my dear? You look blooming.”

  But Tess just stared at Griselda. “Imogen has taken a lover? I knew she was distraught, but—”

  “She calls it taking a cicisbeo,” Annabel put in.

  On the dance floor Imogen was dancing thigh to thigh with the Scotsman, head thrown back in an attitude of sensual abandon.

  “We have to do something,” Tess said grimly. “It’s one thing to take a cicisbeo, if that’s what she wants. But at this rate she’ll create such a frightful scandal that she won’t be invited to parties.”

  “Oh, she’s already beyond the pale on that front,” Griselda said, a little too cheerfully for Annabel’s comfort. “Remember, she eloped with her first husband. And after this exhibition…Well, she
’ll still be invited to the largest balls, of course.”

  But Tess had raised her three younger sisters from the time their mother died, and she wasn’t going to resign herself to Imogen’s disgrace so easily. “That will not do,” she stated. “I’ll just put it to her that—”

  Annabel shook her head. “You are not the one to give advice. The two of you only reconciled a matter of weeks ago.” Tess looked rebellious, so Annabel added firmly, “Not unless you wish to engage in another squabble with Imogen.”

  “It’s all so absurd,” Tess muttered. “We never really quarreled.” Just then Lucius Felton came up, dropped a kiss on his wife’s hair, and winked at Annabel.

  “Give me a chance and I’ll scare up a reason to stop speaking to you myself,” Annabel said, smiling at him. “All this marital affection is hard to stomach.”

  “Imogen apologized very prettily,” Tess said. “But I still think her behavior was remarkably unjustified.”

  “Your husband—” Annabel began.

  “Is alive,” Tess said, accepting the point. “But does that mean I have to allow my sister to ruin herself without saying a word?”

  But Annabel had a twinge of sympathy with Imogen, seeing the way Lucius brought Tess’s hand to his lips before he left to bring her a glass of champagne.

  “Do you think that Ardmore is aware that Imogen has only just been widowed?” Tess asked. “Perhaps you could appeal to his better self. Weren’t you just speaking to him?”

  “He has no idea that Imogen is my sister,” Annabel said doubtfully. “I could—”

  “It wouldn’t make any difference,” Griselda put in. “Imogen made it quite clear earlier in the evening that she fully intends to create a scandal, if not with this gentleman, then with my own dear brother. And frankly, if this is the way she intends to go about it, I’m grateful she didn’t choose Mayne. I still have fond hopes for a nephew at some point and my brother may have slept with most of the available women in the ton, but he’s never put on a public exhibition.”