“Don’t worry, my lord,” Sissy said. “I know all about Annabel’s beating you at two-handed whist. She tells me everything.”
“Everything?” His gaze narrowed on Annabel. “Did she tell you the terms of our wager?”
“Certainly.” Sissy patted Annabel’s rigid hand. “Though she took quite a chance. Her mother’s ring means a great deal to her. She should never have risked it in a card game.”
When a wicked glint appeared in his eye, Annabel froze, her heart nearly failing her right there. Surely he wouldn’t reveal … Oh, Lord, he couldn’t possibly mean to …
“Ah, but if she hadn’t, I wouldn’t have accepted the bet. I needed something very tempting to convince me to take a chance on your husband’s brewery.” He had the audacity to wink at her. “Fortunately, Miss Lake was more than eager to provide the … right temptation.”
Annabel scowled at him. Teasing wretch. He was enjoying dangling her reputation by one finger in front of her. Though she supposed she deserved it for agreeing to that daft wager in the first place.
“She always says it’s a lucky ring, too,” Sissy went on.
“Does she?” The smile playing over his lips got on Annabel’s nerves.
“But I don’t believe it,” Sissy went on. “If it were lucky, then Rupert wouldn’t have—” She broke off suddenly, with a quick glance at Annabel. “I’m sorry, dear. After all these years, I forget that it’s still very fresh to you.”
At least Sissy’s words wiped the smug smile from Jarret’s face. Still, the stare he leveled on them was almost as disconcerting.
“Who’s Rupert?” he asked.
“Aunt Annabel’s fiancé,” Geordie chimed in. “He died in the war right after Father and Mother married. He was a great hero, wasn’t he, Mother?”
“Yes, Geordie, a fine and courageous man,” Sissy said softly. “But it’s painful for your aunt to talk about. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“Nonsense.” Annabel forced herself to sound calm. “It was a long time ago, when I was just sixteen. And we were betrothed for only a short while. Papa said we were too young to marry and asked that we wait until I was eighteen. Then when I was seventeen Rupert’s brother died in France, and in a storm of vengeful fervor, Rupert insisted on enlisting in the army. He died in the Battle of Vittoria, not long after he left England.”
Although she’d stopped grieving for her youthful love, it unnerved her to speak of him to Jarret after last night’s kisses. It was unsettling to expose one’s life in such a pitiless recitation.
Not that Jarret would care. She was just a woman who’d tricked him into doing something he didn’t want to do, an impediment to his easy life. What did it matter what she’d suffered?
Yet she could feel his gaze on her, probing, curious.
“And you never married,” he said, his tone neutral. “You must have loved him very much.”
“Yes.” She’d loved him as any girl loves her first sweetheart, with a pure, oblivious passion that counted no cost.
She sometimes wondered if perhaps Papa had been right about their being too young. Other than proximity and the intoxication of youthful desires, what had she and Rupert had in common? She’d liked to read and play cards; he’d liked to hunt partridges and bet on the races in Burton. What if they hadn’t consummated their love? Might she have found another man to love after his death, someone who shared more of her interests?
It didn’t matter. What was done was done.
She forced a bright smile to her lips. “In any case, it’s all in the past.” She met Jarret’s gaze. “So, you said you had questions about the brewery’s operations. This is as good a time as any to discuss those, don’t you think?”
His eyes searched her face, and he gave a small nod. “Why not?”
Although that launched them into the difficult matter of Lake Ale and its problems, she was thankful to leave the painful subject of Rupert behind. She only hoped they were done with it. It wouldn’t do to have Jarret know too many of her secrets.
JARRET FOUND HIS conversation with Annabel about the brewery intriguing. She knew a great deal more than he’d have guessed. He’d had no idea that barley for the malt had become so dear or that barrel makers were demanding higher pay.
More importantly, the plan she laid out for saving her brother’s company was not only sound, but it might actually work. After he’d left Gran’s this morning, he’d talked to an East India Company captain he knew from the gaming hells, and the man had confirmed everything Annabel had told him. The captain had even boasted about how much money he’d made on the first shipment of Allsopp’s pale ale.
This project looked less risky by the moment. Though there was still the issue of the ill brother, and that was worrisome.
It was a pity she couldn’t run the project herself. But as long as her brother owned it, no man would ever deal with her on matters of business. Women had no rights in such cases. Gran had been able to survive only because her husband had died and left the business to her, and even then she’d had to fight tooth and nail for every gain.
Annabel was certainly a fighter, but Hugh Lake was the only one who could make decisions, and from what Annabel was telling him, he continued to make them. She just performed the daily work, along with the brewery manager.
The situation seemed very odd. Worse, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Annabel wasn’t telling him everything. She evaded certain questions, skirted certain concerns. Was that because she didn’t know the answers? Or because she didn’t want to tell him the answers?
Then there was young George’s odd behavior. Once they started talking of Lake Ale, the boy fell silent, almost as if commanded not to speak. And Mrs. Lake grew decidedly nervous whenever her husband was mentioned. It gave him pause, especially since Annabel seemed perfectly at ease.
Utterly different from when she’d discussed her fiancé.
He shot her a quick glance. Even her unfashionable day dress of muddy-colored serge didn’t dim the high color in her pretty cheeks and the animation in her gold-flecked eyes as she talked about the business. It wasn’t hard to believe she’d once been betrothed. Perhaps the men in Burton weren’t so mad, after all.
She hadn’t denied loving that Rupert fellow deeply. And clearly she had, or she wouldn’t have stayed true to him even after his death. Rupert must have been a stalwart gallant, young and handsome and full of courage. Died a hero, eh? Just the sort of man that women worshipped.
He scowled. It made his own life look wasted, even though he’d had no desire to be a soldier.
And what about her wasted life, closing herself up in a spinster’s box, keeping all men at bay because she’d lost her true love at seventeen? That was a romantic fool’s path, and she was no romantic fool.
She was an attractive, vibrant woman. A sensual woman, the sort of woman who met a man’s kiss with the enthusiasm it properly deserved. No missish vapors for Annabel. She seized the moment, the hour, the day, with a true lust for living. So why was she pouring her energies into looking after her brother’s children and her father’s brewery? She ought to be settled with some squire or wealthy merchant, gracing his table with her presence and his bed with her passion.
That thought didn’t appeal to him, either. Why, he wasn’t sure. He barely knew the woman. He had no reason to care whether she married some other chap.
Yet he did.
“I hate to interrupt you, Annabel,” Mrs. Lake said, “but we’re coming up on Dunstable, and his lordship might like to pause here for a little refreshment.”
Annabel laughed. “You only want to stop and see your friend Mrs. Cranley at the Bear Inn.” She cast Jarret a conspiratorial glance. “They knew each other as girls. The woman is a walking gossip rag, and Sissy drinks up every word.”
Mrs. Lake tipped up her chin. “What’s wrong with keeping up with what’s going on in the world? Especially if his lordship doesn’t mind. I really am hungry.”
“Then let’s s
top there.” Jarret was restless, and so was the boy. “I could use something to eat myself.”
Though Annabel rolled her eyes as he gave the command to his coachman, Mrs. Lake looked very pleased, and young George finally relaxed.
After they reached the Bear Inn and Jarret helped the ladies descend, Mrs. Lake hurried George inside, leaving Jarret to accompany Annabel. Annabel fell back to put a little distance between her and her family and murmured, “Thank you for not revealing the real terms of our wager.”
“I take it that your sister-in-law wouldn’t approve?”
“It would most assuredly shock her.”
“Not as much as it shocked me, I warrant,” he said under his breath. And intrigued him. And made him want to get her into a corner for another hot kiss.
He frowned—there he went again, letting his cock think for him.
Ahead of them, a woman rushed forward to greet Mrs. Lake. “How lovely to see you again, my dear! I take it that your mission to London was successful?”
This had to be Mrs. Cranley. She looked like a typical innkeeper’s wife—ruddy-cheeked, round, and ready to gossip.
“It went better than even we expected,” Mrs. Lake chirped. “His lordship was kind enough to offer his brother’s carriage so that we might travel in comfort to Burton.”
“His lordship?” Mrs. Cranley cast him an assessing gaze. “I thought you intended to ask Mrs. Plumtree for help.”
“Unfortunately she couldn’t come, but her grandson has agreed to help us instead. Lord Jarret Sharpe, may I present Mrs. Cranley? She and her husband own this inn.”
As Mrs. Cranley heard his name, a palpable change came over her face. Though she curtsied stiffly and murmured a greeting, her demeanor showed that she considered Jarret one of the devil’s minions. Or perhaps the devil himself. Apparently his reputation had preceded him.
As soon as she straightened, she grabbed Mrs. Lake’s arm in one hand and Annabel’s in the other. “Come, my dears, we must talk.”
“Stay with his lordship, Geordie,” Mrs. Lake admonished the lad.
Wonderful. Now he was reduced to watching the cub like some tutor on the Grand Tour.
“And make sure you visit the necessary, Geordie,” Annabel added.
“Aunt Annabel!” the boy protested, his face flushing a bright red.
As she and his mother went off with the innkeeper’s wife, Geordie turned to Jarret. “They always talk as if I’m in leading strings. It’s damned embarrassing.”
Jarret resisted the urge to point out that using words like damned wouldn’t help the situation with his aunt and mother. “Sorry, George, but to them, you’ll always be in leading strings, no matter how old you get.”
The idea seemed to appall George. “Does your mother treat you like that?”
“No.” A sudden tightness in Jarret’s throat made it hard for him to speak. “She died when I was a little older than you.”
“Oh, right, I forgot.” George shoved his hands in his pockets. “That’s awful. I wouldn’t like Mother and Aunt Annabel to die, but sometimes I wish they would just leave me alone. Like when Toby Mawer is around.”
“Who’s Toby Mawer?”
“My archenemy. He’s seventeen and bigger than me. And he’s always hanging about in the field behind our house with his friends, waiting to torment me.”
“Ah. I had an archenemy in school named John Pratt. Always taking my things.”
“Exactly. He tried to take the watch Father gave me for Christmas, but I outran him.” His words came out in a great rush. “He’s always calling me Georgie-Porgie. And one time, when he saw Mother kiss me on the cheek, he called me a mama’s boy. Why does she have to kiss me when the lads are watching?”
“Because women have deplorable timing for things like that. I used to cringe when Mother fussed over me while my friends were around. Although now that she’s gone …”
He caught himself before he could reveal that he would give his right arm to have his mother fussing over him again. That watching Mrs. Lake and Annabel coddle the lad roused a ridiculous resentment in him. George had no idea how fragile such caring could be, how easily it could be snatched away—
God, he was turning maudlin. This was what came of letting people into one’s life. One started to yearn for things one had no business yearning for.
He clapped George on the shoulder. “Enough about that. Why don’t we get a table while the ladies are off gossiping?”
The inn wasn’t crowded at this time of day, so it took them little time to find a place. Jarret ordered what George suggested the ladies might like, then decided to make good use of his time alone with the lad. “So, how long has your father been ill?”
George’s face closed up. “I … I … well … awhile. A long while.”
A long while? That didn’t sound like the sort of illness Annabel had described.
“Then it’s serious,” he said, feeling for the boy.
“No … I mean … yes.” He smiled weakly. “I’m not really sure.”
Odd. “And he doesn’t go to the brewery at all?”
“He goes sometimes,” the lad hedged, “when he’s not … feeling so ill.”
“And when he doesn’t go, your aunt goes. Do you go with her?”
“No.” His expression was troubled.
Jarret well remembered the pain he’d felt at being packed off to school instead of being allowed to be useful to his family. “Why not?”
“Because everyone says it’s too dangerous for me.”
It seemed that several things were too dangerous for poor Geordie, according to his mother and aunt. “And you wonder how it can be too dangerous for you, but not too dangerous for a woman.”
“I-I didn’t say that.”
But his lower lip quivered, and Jarret knew that he’d thought it. Jarret would have wondered much the same thing in George’s place. Boys of twelve chafed at being told that a woman could do things better than they could, even if it were true.
“Father says women don’t belong in the brewery,” George ventured.
“Ah.” No wonder Annabel was so defensive on the subject. Yet clearly she went there anyway. Did her brother allow it because he had no choice, given his illness? Or did Annabel have to go for other reasons?
Once again, he got the feeling that there was more here than met the eye. “What do you think about women in the brewery?”
George blinked. Clearly no one ever asked him his opinion. “I don’t rightly know, since I’m not allowed there myself. Aunt Annabel seems to like it, and Mother says she does a good job.”
“And your father? What does he say about her prowess?”
Her voice answered from behind him. “He says I should get a husband and leave brewery matters to his manager.” Annabel glowered at him. “But you didn’t need to interrogate my nephew just to learn that, did you?”
Jarret met her glower with a raised eyebrow. Well, well. There was definitely more here than met the eye. Annabel was keeping secrets. The question was, what kind? And how might they affect him and this scheme of hers?
One way or the other, he would find out.
Chapter Eight
Annabel was already cranky because of Mrs. Cranley’s nonsense, and finding Jarret quizzing poor Geordie only made it worse. If Jarret found out the real reason that Plumtree Brewery was failing, there would be no more help from him.
But she didn’t think he’d learned that, or he’d be angry at her. No anger showed on his face, only the sort of wariness he’d worn from the beginning.
Good. Right now they had far more pressing concerns.
“I have bad news,” she went on in a low tone. “Apparently a man present at our card game in London happened to pass through here this morning. He told Mrs. Cranley that a Miss River from Wharton gambled with your lordship at a tavern last night.”
A thin smile tipped up his lips. “A ‘Miss River’? And your friend, Mrs. Cranley, didn’t make that connection?”
>
“Fortunately, no. And she’s no friend to me. Since her informant made … certain nasty insinuations about your ‘scandalous conduct’ toward ‘Miss River,’ Mrs. Cranley is full of concern about our traveling with you.” Her voice turned bitter. “She says you’re a notorious seducer of innocents, and we should tell you to go on while we stay here until the mail coach comes through.”
His face turned stony, with only the glitter of his blue-green eyes betraying his anger. She felt a moment’s pity for him. He must tire of the gossip.
Then again, the only one who would really suffer from the gossip was her, if anyone ever connected “Miss River of Wharton” to “Miss Lake of Burton.” She wished she could give Mrs. Cranley a piece of her mind about rumormongering, but that would only focus the woman’s attention in the wrong direction.
This was Annabel’s punishment for having accepted Jarret’s wager. She should have realized that the men in the tavern would make lurid assumptions about what a rogue like Jarret must have asked her to do in payment for the bet. Men always assumed the worst about women, and she ought to be used to that by now. Especially when their assumptions hadn’t been far off the mark.
A door opened behind Jarret, and Annabel groaned. “Sissy is coming. Honestly, I think we should just leave. I don’t know how much of a fuss that foolish woman will make if we stay, and you shouldn’t have to put up with her nonsense.”
With eyes that brooked no argument, Jarret leaned back to cross his arms over his chest. “I’m used to gossip. Besides, I’ve already ordered.” His smile was forced. “Let her say what she will. I’m not budging until I get my roast loin of pork.”
Sissy strode up, looking anxious. “I don’t think my friend will say anything, my lord. I told her how kind you’ve been to us and how false the gossip is.” She took a seat across from Jarret on the other side of Geordie. “Mrs. Cranley is no fool—I’m sure now that I’ve explained to her about your fine character, she’ll understand.”
Somehow Annabel doubted it.
Nervously, Sissy unfolded her napkin. “Though it’s probably just as well that she didn’t guess ‘Miss River’s’ true identity. I swear, I can’t believe the awful things people dream up. Whoever this wretched traveler was, he ought to be shot for claiming that you and Annabel were wagering for something as salacious as—”
A Hellion in Her Bed Page 10
