Ever Yours, Annabelle

by Elisa Braden

  He needed to see her. Wanted to know who she was.

  Like a swelling tide, the crowd surged in the direction of the glass doors, and as it did, the spaces between bodies tightened. Several people moved between him and his siren, but he could still see her. Silver silk. Pearls amidst dark curls.

  A loud, shrill, feminine voice echoed through one of the open doors, berating some unfortunate soul over wanton behavior. Apparently, a scandal was erupting. Now. At Lady Gattingford’s ball. The furor was separating him from the one female for whom he’d felt the slightest twinge of interest since arriving in London.

  God preserve him from the ton’s hypocrisies.

  Scowling his frustration, Robert watched as three more bodies pushed between him and his siren. This was not going to work. From her brief conversation with her blonde companion, he’d gathered she enjoyed gossip. Short of shouting to draw her attention—which would only make him look mad—she was unlikely to find him more compelling than the salacious goings-on occurring on the terrace.

  He halted, letting the crowd flow around him. Bloody hell. He must find another way. Perhaps Lady Wallingham could help. He knew the blonde companion’s name—Lucinda—and the girl’s twin sister was Margaret. He doubted many twins occupied such aristocratic circles. The dowager likely could identify the siren from her association with them. Once he knew who she was, he would obtain an introduction. A proper one. Face to bosom—er, face.

  Turning against the flow of the crowd, Robert fought his way toward the ballroom’s raised entrance. He wondered whether eight was too early to call on Lady Wallingham. Probably. To the beau monde, any hour prior to noon was deemed impolite. His leg protested as he climbed the two steps onto the raised end of the ballroom where the doors to the entrance hall stood open. Just as he passed through the nearest set, he paused.

  He could not say what stopped him. An odd shimmer of heat on his neck. A queer hesitancy to leave her behind.

  Whatever it was, it turned him around at precisely the right moment. Or, perhaps, the wrong one. She’d drifted to the rear of the crowd, halted in the center of the emptying floor. And she was facing him. Looking at him. Indeed, staring at him.

  Something seized him hard in its grip. Fire and pain. Longing so deep it was starvation.

  Her skin was pearl, her hair twists of honeyed chocolate. Her nose and chin were round, as were her eyes, darkly fringed, too big for her face. She was part cherub and part sprite. Her lips trembled. Formed his name.

  Robert.

  Bloody, everlasting hell.

  This was no siren. This was his Bumblebee.

  Without thinking, he examined her from pearls to slippers, shamefully pausing at her bounteous bosom. He swallowed. It could not be. Annabelle Huxley was a girl. Precocious and funny. Small and innocent. She was not lovely and curved with a wry, womanly laugh and ample hips.

  Annabelle Huxley did not make him hard.

  His eyes came back to hers. The plump, bespectacled companion from earlier tugged at her arm. Annabelle shook her head. Pressed pink lips together. Blinked as sadness replaced surprise. Retreated a step. Grimaced as though she fought a grievous pain. Then slowly pivoted away, letting her companion tug her toward the terrace.

  It should not be her. Could not be her. And yet it was.

  Annabelle. She was here.

  Blood pounded in his ears. And in other places where it had no right.

  Seven years. Seven brutal years.

  He gripped his cane. Leaned into it, ignoring the jagged tension in his leg after hours of standing. Hux hadn’t warned him she was in London—not that he should have done. Robert had long ago forbidden him to speak of her.

  A fool. That’s what he’d been.

  A starving man might avoid gazing upon food, might never hear it mentioned. But the hunger remained.

  And, as he staggered out of Lady Gattingford’s ballroom, as he mounted Methuselah and forced his leg to bend, as he rode from the lamp-lit mews into a colder, blacker alley, he wondered for the first time in seven years what a starving man might do when reminded of his deprivation. Faced with that which once nourished him, what might he do to possess it again?

  He gripped the reins and glanced up at the crescent moon, faintly glowing behind a shifting cloud. An answer came quickly, but it brought no comfort. On the contrary. It chilled him deeper than the frigid night.

  He was a Conrad. He had the steel of Saxon warlords, Norman invaders, and Prussian crusaders running through his veins. Warriors might sacrifice for a cause of sufficient importance. But, in time, their true nature would always rise.

  Warriors did not go hungry.

  Warriors saw what they wanted. And fought to claim it.

  *~*~*

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “A young lady’s pastimes must be just interesting enough to be sufferable. Anything more entertaining than tepid tea invites gossip. Which is why the clever girls make gossip their pastime.”

  —The Dowager Marchioness of Wallingham in a letter to the Marquis of Mortlock regarding proper assessment of matches for one’s offspring.

  *~*~*

  Dearest Robert,

  My drawings have improved of late—even Jane says so. I suspect the cause may be all the time spent rambling about the countryside with my sketchbook, trying not to think about you. Needless to say, I have found greater success with the former than the latter.

  Ever yours,

  Annabelle

  —Letter to Robert Conrad dated April 14, 1811

  *~*~*

  “Is it your aim to give me apoplexy?”

  Annabelle Huxley’s heart stopped before resuming its rhythm with a hard kick. Glancing over her shoulder, she arched a brow at her sister Jane and tucked her package beneath her arm. “I shall specify what was not my aim—to be followed.”

  Jane nudged her spectacles higher on her nose and gave a snort. “Obviously. You managed to leave Ned and Estelle behind easily enough,” she said, abandoning her post near the shadowed brick doorway on Catherine Street and falling in alongside Annabelle as they headed for the Strand, where their footman and lady’s maid waited with the coach. “But you forget how well I know your methods of evasion.”

  Annabelle clutched her package tighter. “Let it be, Jane.”

  “What business have you with a publisher?”

  Nodding a greeting as they passed a finely dressed couple she recognized, Annabelle feigned nonchalance. “I enjoy Mr. Green’s paper.”

  “Green’s Daily Informer is nothing but scandalmongering disguised as news.”

  “Yes. And?”

  Jane chuckled. “I thought you preferred to be the wellspring of gossip. Its grand deliverer, if you will.”

  “I do. A grand deliverer must have the finest sources if she is to maintain her influence—”

  “By the time a rumor appears in the Informer, it is already days old. Weeks, in some instances.”

  Silently, Annabelle cursed her sister’s perceptive nature. Jane was a year younger, yet she often seemed a great deal wiser than other girls of nineteen—or twenty, for that matter. “It is worth reading. Even Lady Wallingham thinks so.”

  “Rubbish and rot. Your allowance is sufficient to have that paper delivered to Berne House every morning, should you desire. There is certainly no need for an elaborate ruse in which you enter the publisher’s premises and exit with a mysterious package you clearly wish me to ignore.”

  Annabelle cast her sister a sidelong glance. Considered by many too shy, plump, and plain for success in the marriage mart, Jane did not seem formidable to most. But Annabelle knew her best—well enough to be alarmed by the determined gleam in her eye.

  “Jane—”

  “You are one of Mr. Green’s sources, I suspect.”

  Annabelle’s stomach tightened. She slowed their pace, pausing to pretend perusal of a jeweler’s shop window.

  Jane stopped beside her. “The truth, n
ow,” she murmured, sidling closer. “I shan’t tell Mama and Papa, if that is what concerns you.”

  “You mustn’t tell anyone.”

  “Agreed.”

  Annabelle sighed. Looped her arm through Jane’s and drew her in tight against her side, leaning into the window as though they examined the trio of gold crosses gleaming in the afternoon sun. “You have seen the work of Edward Yarrow Aimes, have you not?”

  Behind her spectacles, Jane frowned and blinked. “The caricaturist? The one Lady Wallingham has vowed revenge upon for his portrayal of her as an imperious purple dragon wearing a ridiculous plumed turban and an ermine cape?”

  “The very same.”

  “He is deeply despised, Annabelle. Do not say you are acquainted.”

  Annabelle kept her eyes upon the crosses. She cleared her throat. “Acquainted. No. I would not say that.”

  “More than acquainted?”

  Finally, Annabelle slid her gaze to meet her sister’s. Jane’s eyes were much like hers—large, dark, and round. Their brown hair was similar, too. Their noses. Their voices. Certainly, few would mistake them for anything other than sisters. They even shared a tendency to flush at the slightest provocation. Yet, they were vastly different people. In a crowded room, Jane’s shyness drove her to freeze into silence or hide amongst the wallflowers, whereas Annabelle viewed large gatherings as opportunities for friendship, connection, and information. Jane loved nothing better than to wallow in a good book with a steaming cup of coffee. Annabelle preferred the stories of those around her—real people in the real world—to works of fiction. And she liked tea. Coffee was too bitter.

  Although they were close, their differences meant they did not always understand one another. But no one was a truer or more loyal friend than Jane. Of that, Annabelle had little doubt.

  “He is me.” She whispered the confession, barely a breath.

  Jane’s eyes rounded to ridiculous proportions behind her small spectacles. “You …”

  “I am him. Or is it ‘he’?”

  “You …”

  “His work is—”

  “You …”

  “—mine. That is why I was—”

  “You are …”

  “—visiting Mr. Green’s offices.”

  “… Edward. Yarrow. Aimes.” Jane’s voice was even raspier than usual.

  Patience eroding, Annabelle tightened her grip upon her sister’s elbow. “Remember your promise.”

  Nodding, Jane nudged her spectacles higher. “Bloody hell, Annabelle.”

  Annabelle frowned and glanced around the bustling street, relieved to see no one paid them any attention. “Mind the vulgarities.”

  She snorted. “Vulgarities I learnt from you.”

  “Which makes it no more acceptable—”

  “Do you realize how many people have wished for your premature demise? Aloud. And loudly.”

  “Only the hypocrites.”

  “That is everyone,” Jane hissed.

  Annabelle raised her chin. “My work exposes the truth of who they are. If they find it objectionable, they should write a letter of protest to themselves.”

  “Annabelle.” Jane’s small hand clutched her wrist. “Quite apart from the ravaging your reputation shall suffer should anyone discover you have masqueraded as a man—and for a rather extraordinary pursuit, I might add—you have angered a great many powerful people. It is too dangerous. You must stop.”

  “Don’t be silly.” Again, she raised her chin. Jane did not understand. Annabelle needed her work—it gave her a purpose, filled vast chasms of emptiness that had plagued her for years. Well, perhaps “filled” was overstating the matter. At least her caricatures offered a distraction. “I am good at it,” she explained.

  Jane clicked her tongue. “That is not the point.”

  “Then, what is? Nobody else knows my secret. Even Mr. Green believes I am Edward Yarrow Aimes’s sister.”

  “Are you certain?” Jane squinted, tapping her own temple. “A bit dim, is he?”

  “No. Quite astute, actually.”

  “Assume he knows, then. Bloody hell, Annabelle.”

  “Stop saying that.”

  “What is in the package?”

  Annabelle tightened her jaw and gripped the brown-paper-wrapped bundle. “Nothing of import.”

  Jane’s lips pursed. “If that is true, you shouldn’t mind telling me.”

  She blew out a breath of exasperation. “Oh, very well. My last submission was … declined. Mr. Green has requested a new one. The package contains his notes and the preliminary proof for—”

  “Declined? For what reason?” Jane’s ferocious frown forced her spectacles down her nose. Her knuckle pushed them up impatiently.

  Warmth spread outward from the center of Annabelle’s chest. She swallowed a smile and squeezed her sister’s hand. How lovely it was to have such support. For nearly a year, she’d done this alone. Mr. Green was not the gentlest of editors.

  “He felt my treatment of Lady Victoria Lacey’s scandal showed too much sympathy for Lady Victoria and too much condemnation of Lady Gattingford’s display of outrage.”

  Jane blinked. “But Atherbourne seduced her. He clearly meant his actions as retribution against Blackmore.”

  Shrugging, Annabelle sighed. “Yes. Unfortunately, Mr. Green believes readers of the Informer will be more gratified by a simpler tale: A duke’s saintly sister falls from her lofty perch, breaking her engagement and her halo in one disastrous night.”

  “Do you agree?”

  Annabelle pulled her sister into motion, pretending to browse the Strand’s odd assortment of shops, before answering. “I agree it is in Man’s nature to prefer simple answers—and to revel in the downfall of those we envy.” She glanced at Jane, noting her frown. “But, do I think appealing to those preferences moral? No. The aim of my work is to reveal truth. Mr. Green’s aim is to sell more papers.”

  Jane nibbled her lower lip. “At the Gattingford ball, Mama was acting as Lady Victoria’s chaperone.”

  Yes. Their mother’s guilt over the incident had made Berne House a rather weepy, distressing place over the last two days.

  “If you accede to Mr. Green’s demands—”

  “It will make everything worse,” Annabelle finished. “For Lady Victoria and for Mama.”

  They passed a bookshop, and as though books were magnets and Jane made of iron filings, Annabelle quickly found herself tugged toward the shop’s window. “He is your publisher,” Jane murmured, peering longingly at a three-volume set titled Sense and Sensibility. “What will you do?”

  This was not the first time Annabelle had been forced to choose between the moral path and the commercial one, but it was more personal than such a quandary had ever been. She knew Lady Victoria Lacey. She knew the Duke of Blackmore. And she certainly knew her own mother. These were not mere figures of gossip. They were real people making difficult choices, making mistakes for which the consequences were dire.

  She understood. She’d made mistakes of her own.

  “I don’t know, Jane,” she whispered. “But I must decide soon.”

  “You should refuse his revisions.”

  “He will stop publishing my work.”

  “Splendid. All the better.”

  “Jane.”

  Her sister nodded toward the novel she’d been eyeing. “You see that? Good sense should prevail above the whims of sentiment. I don’t wish to echo Lady Wallingham—”

  “Heaven forefend.”

  “—but, no matter how much you enjoy this pursuit, straying from convention causes problems for a lady, Annabelle. Your work has incurred enemies. The risk of discovery is too great to continue.”

  Annabelle raised a brow. “I note this novel of which you are so fond was written ‘by a Lady.’”

  Jane sniffed. “An entirely different matter.”

  “Not so different. I, too, am a lady.”


  “Her stories are fictional.”

  “Mine are truthful.”

  “Precisely! The ton loathes truth. They will truss you up and roast you like a leg of lamb should they ever discover your connection to Edward Yarrow Aimes.”

  “So long as you tell no one, they will never know, will they?”

  “Hmm. A perilous assumption, I daresay.” Predictably distracted when a customer exited the small bookshop carrying a sizable stack of volumes, Jane drifted toward the shop’s entrance.

  Annabelle rolled her eyes and tugged her book-mad sister toward their coach. “Come. Ned and Estelle will be wondering whether we have been carted off by brigands.”

  On the return to Mayfair, Annabelle contemplated the alterations she must make to her illustration. Her original drawing had portrayed Lady Victoria—previously dubbed “The Flower of Blackmore” for her graceful, virtuous demeanor—as a white rose being robbed of her petals by a roguish, masked highwayman while a braying donkey in a gown made of rotting lemons declared Victoria spoiled goods.

  Mr. Green wanted her instead to draw Victoria as a tarnished, wilting bloom casting off her own petals in a deliberate seduction of an intoxicated highwayman.

  “Tell Aimes to make her a temptress,” he’d barked, shoving his notes across his desk and tapping the package with an ink-stained finger. “Like Eve. Put an apple in her hand, if it helps. And dispense with the ass. Readers won’t like their own judgments coming out of a donkey’s mouth.”

  Annabelle had gritted her teeth before carefully considering her answer. Ordinarily, she communicated with Mr. Green through correspondence, which gave her ample time to formulate her responses to his demands. But this had been short notice—he expected a new illustration within a few days’ time. So, sitting across from the white-haired, large-toothed publisher, she’d had to bite her tongue until it bled.

  “Do you think it wise to portray the Duke of Blackmore’s sister in such a fashion, Mr. Green?”

  His head had remained bent over the column he appeared to be editing out of existence. “I think it is what readers want, Miss Aimes. What dukes want matters little.”