Kiss Me, Annabel

by Eloisa James

“Better than that. I had a proper heated bath put into the master bedchamber a few years ago.”

  “A welcome addition,” she said.

  But she didn’t want to meet his eyes. For the last nights, after her cold lessened and they took to their journey again, she had kept to her own bedchamber. They hadn’t spoken about the fact that the supposedly married Earl and Countess of Ardmore were occupying two bedchambers. In fact, they hadn’t really spoken about anything since they left the Kettles’ house. Ewan spent a great deal of each day on horseback, and since Annabel stayed up most of the night, staring at the ceiling, she had a continual nagging headache.

  Now she kept thinking that she probably looked like a veritable hag in her dusty traveling clothing. Her nose was still faintly red. What would the staff think of her? Not to mention Ewan’s family?

  She looked back at the castle below. The outriders played a piping call on a trumpet.

  “ ’Tis customary,” Ewan told her, leaning forward to look out the window. “I don’t normally announce myself like a king, I promise you that.”

  The carriage seemed to pick up speed, rushing down the hill, and now Annabel could see that the great front doors were standing open and people were pouring out and lining themselves up in rows to the left and right. It was a far cry from her father’s rotting shell of a house and the four servants he’d managed to keep on reduced wages.

  Ewan was grinning down at the castle, his eyes sparkling. Then the coach drew up with a great rattle of gravel flying from the wheels. There was a cheer from the assembled servants.

  The family stood in front. She knew at once who Gregory was. He was a skinny little shrimp of a boy, dressed all in black, with a serious expression.

  Nana was more of a shock. She was a long way from the sweet, white-haired lady whom Annabel had imagined. Instead, she appeared to be wearing a straw-colored wig from the Elizabethan era. She had a beak of a nose and a slash of red lip rouge under it. All in all, she looked like a cross between a Roman emperor and Queen Elizabeth herself.

  Ewan, naturally, was shouting hellos to all and sundry, and dragging her toward the group at a speed that didn’t allow her to walk in a dignified manner. Nor smooth her hair. But Annabel straightened her back and told herself that she was a viscount’s daughter.

  He brought her to his grandmother first. The old woman looked from the tip of Annabel’s hair to the tip of her toes. Her eyes slowly narrowed, and Annabel had the unnerving sensation that Ewan’s grandmother knew precisely why they had to marry.

  “Well!” the countess said after a long moment. “You look older than I expected. But then, Englishwomen do age at a faster rate.” Her black eyes were bright with scorn.

  Annabel straightened her back. This old woman would either conquer her or be conquered. “Whereas you don’t look a day over eighty,” she said, curtsying as if she stood before Queen Elizabeth herself.

  “Eighty!” Nana roared. “I’ll have you know, girl, that I’m not seventy-one.”

  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 th
ere 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.

  “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 anoth
er 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.

  Elsie came back, gasping and holding her sides. “These stairs, miss! To reach the housekeeper’s chambers, I have to go down the back stairs, and then down another set on the left, and then up again, and then down once more!”

  Annabel stepped out of the bath into a towel warmed before the fire.

  “Your gown for this evening is ready. Mrs. Warsop offered to do it with her own hands, and a beautiful job she’s done. Do you know, she and Mr. Warsop have been married these forty-three years? And he’s been the butler here at the castle since he was a lad.”