Enchanting the Earl (The Townsends)

by Lily Maxton

  She withdrew her arm and pulled back, grateful to have something else to focus on.

  The tapestry in question was similar to the one in the great hall—it was another aristocratic hunt, but this time they’d cornered a roaring bear instead of a shrieking boar.

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “It’s rather gruesome. All of the tapestries are rather gruesome.”

  “They did call it the dark ages,” she pointed out. “Not without reason, I’m sure.”

  “Do you like them?”

  She thought about that. “I like the history. I like that they go with the castle. As far as subject matter, I would prefer something more courtly to look at. I do feel quite bad for the objects of the hunt. But I didn’t have much choice. These were what I found, and there is that old saying—beggars should be no choosers.” Her lips curved self-deprecatingly.

  He was silent, strangely contemplative, strangely intent, until she found herself speaking. “You should take your next turn.”

  He tossed the knucklebones on the table, and this time, he managed to scoop all of them up and catch the ball with no trouble.

  She felt a pang of disappointment that she’d lost, but he looked so pleased with himself that she couldn’t stay disappointed for long. “What is your forfeit?” she asked.

  “It should probably be something embarrassing,” he said. “I could make you write a poem as horrible as mine was. But I’ll subdue my baser instincts.”

  She huffed slightly; he simply couldn’t resist that little slight, could he?

  But when he spoke, her reluctant amusement faded. “Tell me about your childhood.”

  Her whole body tensed. She almost would have preferred a poem. “Are you certain?” she asked. “I’m sure you could think of something better, and don’t you wish to embarrass me?”

  His mouth twitched in just the barest promise of a smile. “I should have known you’d argue about anything. You realize it’s not very good sport to haggle over a forfeit?”

  Perhaps not, but she couldn’t understand why he would even want to know about her childhood.

  “I’m waiting, Miss Lockhart,” he said, with all the drollness of a bored schoolteacher.

  He looked a little amused and more relaxed than she’d seen him, and she wasn’t quite sure what to do with him when he was amused and relaxed, even though this was a good sign for her endeavors.

  She sighed and looked down at the surface of the table as she spoke. “It’s a tired story, I’m afraid. There was a girl who grew up in Edinburgh. She was…happy, I think, though it’s been so long that it’s difficult to remember.” She observed the intricate blue veins that webbed the back of her hand. Yes, she thought she’d been happy. “One day her mother began to waste away before her eyes, until there was nothing left of her except a plot in a graveyard. And her father followed not long after, from an ailment of the heart. She was ten years old.”

  She paused here, faltering slightly. She was glad she’d started the story in third person, because the second half was the more difficult one to tell. She didn’t miss her parents, or, if she did, she’d been missing them so long that the hole felt like an inexorable part of her.

  “She wasn’t sent to a workhouse or left on the street. She was…lucky, she was told. She was shuffled between relatives of her parents. She was…too spirited, perhaps, and she was told enough times how undesirable a trait it was that she started to believe it and hide it the best she could. Once she had that under control, she was mostly ignored, often she was put to work, but she had a roof over her head and food in her stomach. Things could have been worse.”

  A breath escaped her, as soft as a sigh. “Throughout the years, she heard some rumors about a scandalous relation. An aunt, who’d once been an actress, and had love affairs, and married a man whose family couldn’t have disapproved more, and she thought this aunt sounded quite wonderful, but no one seemed to know where she’d gone. All they knew was that she’d lived in St. Andrew’s Square for a brief time but lived there no longer. This girl, a woman by this time, sent a tentative letter to the address, asking if they knew where her aunt had gone, and the new owners directed her to Llynmore Castle.”

  Annabel glanced up, saw that instead of sagging in his chair with boredom, as she’d feared, Theo was leaning forward, intent on her story. So she looked down again and continued. She was leaving out Fiona, but it didn’t change the core events very much.

  “She had a little money saved. She took a stagecoach most of the way and walked the rest. She didn’t tell her aunt she was coming. She didn’t…” Her voice faltered. “She had feared that if her aunt had time to think about it, she would decide against it. So she simply arrived one day, bedraggled and tired. And something…well, something rather miraculous happened. She found a kindred spirit.

  “Her aunt didn’t really care that her niece liked to go outside without shoes on, or that she rarely put on her bonnet and gloves, or that she laughed a little too loudly, or rode a little too fast. She was simply happy to have her there. She didn’t put her to work, but she didn’t ignore her, either. She…she accepted her from the very moment she came in, trailing mud all over the floor.”

  It was still a surprise, when she thought about it. How quickly and unquestioningly Frances had made Annabel a part of her life. She still worried it might all vanish in an instant, and still, occasionally, woke up in the middle of the night not knowing what house she was in.

  “And that, I suppose, is all there is to tell.”

  There was nothing but silence in the room. Annabel found it extremely difficult to lift her gaze to Theo’s.

  “I didn’t think it was a tired story at all,” he said.

  She met his dark eyes, and for the life of her, she couldn’t read his expression. It was intent, yes, and compassionate, too, and perhaps almost angry? Or was it annoyance? It was a strange mix of emotions, and she didn’t know if she was deciphering them correctly.

  But she didn’t want to try too hard—she felt raw from reliving all of that, out loud, in front of Lord Arden. Raw, and cut to the quick, and more vulnerable than she wanted to be.

  If he’d meant to unsettle her, he’d succeeded.

  The next time she looked at him, his expression was already closing, as though whatever he’d felt about her story were things he didn’t want to feel.

  “Does that satisfy the forfeit?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  She stood up as quickly as she could without looking like she was running away. “I promised Catriona I’d help with breakfast. She’s not used to having so many people to serve.”

  He rose as well, still trying to cling to proper behavior in his actions, at least, if not always in the things he said. “She’ll be back to just you and your aunt, soon enough.”

  Because they would all be somewhere else, soon enough, were the unspoken words.

  Annabel bit back a frustrated sigh. As she stepped from the room, her spine stiffened with new resolve.

  He might be stubborn, but no man was immovable.

  She would see to that.

  Chapter Twelve

  Lord Arden returned looking windswept that evening. The rain had stopped earlier in the day, and he’d taken the cart out to meet some of his tenants and observe his slate quarry. Annabel had to force her gaze from straying toward him. He was disheveled, for once, and she liked it, against her own better judgment. His hair was falling over his forehead, his cheekbones were slightly flushed, his clothing was rumpled.

  It felt too intimate, as though she’d caught him in a moment of dishabille.

  He tugged at his cravat, and she found herself unwillingly entranced by the hollow at his throat.

  She cleared her own suddenly dry throat.

  They sat down to a dinner of mutton, while Lord Arden’s siblings asked about his tenants.

  “There were a few families who only speak Gaelic,” he was saying, in response to a question. “Luckily, Mr. Camero
n translated for me.”

  Annabel looked up quickly, met his gaze, and looked back down at her plate. Mr. Cameron was still in his employ, then. Theo was not, perhaps, as stubborn as he appeared. She felt a wash of something in her chest, something as light and transient as hope. It was not an emotion that had rewarded her well in the past, but she found herself reaching for it, all the same, clinging to its promise.

  If Lord Arden could forgive Ian Cameron, perhaps he could forgive her, too. Perhaps everything would work out for the best.

  “How is Mr. Cameron?” Frances asked, with a feeble cough.

  Annabel blushed. She’d forgotten to tell her aunt that Lord Arden was on to them. She glanced at him again, and just as before, he was looking at her when their eyes met. But this time, instead of studying her impassively, his eyes were narrowed.

  She lifted her shoulder and presented him with the most cheerful smile she could muster.

  She heard him exhale, so forcefully it was almost a snort.

  “He is quite well, as far as I can tell. But how are you?” he asked Frances. “Do you need an extra shawl? A posset? It might help with your cough.”

  She waved him off. “I’m fine.”

  “Are you certain? It distresses me to see a woman who was once a great beauty, I’m sure, turn into such a frail, lifeless creature.”

  Eleanor gasped.

  “Theo!” Georgina said.

  Frances straightened infinitesimally. “My lord, I’m not quite that frail!”

  “No,” Theo said with a steely grin. “You sound heartier already. It makes me wonder if I imagined the extent of your illness.”

  Frances’s eyes widened, and she looked to Annabel, who nodded in answer to the unspoken question.

  Her aunt deflated at once at having her role snatched from her so abruptly. But she rebounded quickly from the disappointment, as she always did. She glanced at Theo in a manner that was almost coquettish. “A great beauty? Do you truly think so?”

  “I feel like something is going on that I’m oblivious to,” Robert said.

  Catriona came in with another dish. Theo had just opened his mouth to speak when a sudden unearthly yowl pierced the air.

  Catriona stumbled. “Damned cat!” she swore. The dish fell from her hands, landing with a clatter on the floor.

  Annabel glanced under the tablecloth to see Willoughby streaking away in a black blur, pride wounded but unharmed.

  “Did you step on Willoughby’s tail—”

  Something shattered. At first, she didn’t realize what it was, but then she saw Theo. He was shaking and pale. His skin was clammy—sweat glinted on his forehead, visible even in candlelight—and his breath sawed in and out of his lungs in ragged gasps. In his trembling hand, he held the remains of a whisky glass. He’d squeezed it so hard that it had broken apart.

  Blood trickled from his palm, staining the tablecloth in dark droplets.

  But it wasn’t just his hand that was shaking, his whole body was.

  She was the first one out of her chair, moving quickly in that frozen moment. She didn’t know what force propelled her out of her seat. She just knew that she couldn’t stand the way he looked in that moment—lost and confused and terrified.

  She moved to his side. Slowly reached for his hand, which was startlingly cold. Gently turned it over and pressed a handkerchief to his wound.

  For one heartbeat, two, she thought he would let her help him. But then he yanked his arm from her grip, wrenching so hard that she stumbled back. He pushed to his feet, staring at her wildly, and she wondered if he knew where he was.

  “Lord Arden,” she whispered. When he didn’t respond, she repeated it, even more softly.

  “I…” His voice was shaking as much as his body. He flinched, his mouth slamming shut. Finally, desperately, he shook his head and stalked from the room without another word. He didn’t look back.

  Annabel heard the rest of them, murmuring behind her, concern in their voices, but she couldn’t tear her gaze away from the spot where he’d stood.

  Where he’d looked so heartbreakingly alone.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Theo seriously contemplated leaving and never coming back, but he didn’t have anywhere else to go. He’d had moments before, where he was startled, where—he didn’t know how to describe it really—but he lost himself. To fear. To dread, like an anvil crushing his chest. His mind was not his own. His body was not his own. But he’d never had so many people witness one of these moments before. And Annabel… Most of all, he hated that Annabel had seen him like that.

  After a sleepless night, he worked up whatever tattered bits of courage he still had left and went to the drawing room to eat breakfast. He was on edge. He didn’t want to see his family, or anyone else, but he knew he must. He couldn’t escape from his duties, and a better man wouldn’t want to.

  But he did wonder if it was possible to throw himself into his work so completely that he forgot who he was. And where he’d been. That he forgot everything racing through his mind and became like a ship with no anchor, floating on the open sea.

  Clouds were hanging low in the sky, ominous, heavy clouds, when Annabel stomped into the room and drained a cup of coffee before devouring a barley cake and marching out again. She hadn’t even sat down.

  He blinked, and it took him a second to find his voice. “Where are you going?” he called.

  She stuck her head back in the doorway. “Riding,” she said, disappearing again.

  “Riding?” he repeated. He’d expected her to say something about the night before, to say anything, but she’d surprised him yet again.

  A pause, and then her head reappeared. “Yes, my lord,” she answered, sounding vaguely condescending. “It involves a horse and a saddle.”

  “I know what riding is,” he snapped. “Why are you going now? It looks like it might rain.”

  She peered at the window. “I think it will hold off.”

  He surveyed her innocent face, and suspicion took hold of his gut. Annabel never looked innocent—wild, sometimes—devious, certainly—thoroughly tantalizing…well, he shouldn’t notice something like that. “I’m coming with you.”

  “That’s fine,” she said.

  She disappeared again, and this time when he called her name, she didn’t pop back into the doorway.

  Damn. He had the uncomfortable feeling that he was being manipulated. He had the even more uncomfortable feeling that if he let her go simply because he was scared to ride, when he’d told her clearly that he wouldn’t let her out of his sight, he’d look abysmally weak.

  And he didn’t want to look any weaker to her than he already must.

  He swore, set down his coffee cup roughly, and followed her.

  By the time he reached the stable, she’d already saddled two horses with the help of the stable boy. His horses. At least she was wearing a dress and not those skin-tight breeches.

  “I see you’re making use of my property.”

  She shrugged. “We’re practically family.”

  “Not quite,” he said drily, knowing she was just trying to bait him. He didn’t consider being distantly connected by a short-lived marriage anything close to being family, and he certainly didn’t view her with anything close to familial regard.

  It was unfortunate that he didn’t—if anything, he viewed her too much the other way, and it seemed to be getting worse the longer he was around her. Which meant his vow to keep an eye on her had been an ill-advised course of action. Well, to tell the truth, it hadn’t been advised at all, but rather a thing born from anger and frustration and betrayal, and no small dose of feeling like a fool.

  Wolves. Good God…he’d known there weren’t any wolves in Scotland and he’d still found himself wondering.

  But a vow was a vow. He’d backed into this corner himself. And even if it was an ill-advised course of action, at the moment, it was his only course of action—he didn’t quite trust her not to attempt to sabotage him again,
somehow, or corrupt his sisters.

  He could only hope his solicitor made haste on that letter.

  “We could wrangle up some of the Highland horses, if you prefer,” she said with what he thought was supposed to be a demure smile, but Annabel was not capable of demure, so it looked more challenging than anything.

  “No, I do not prefer,” he said. “This will take enough time as it is.”

  She lifted her eyebrows. “Time away from what?”

  She had a good point. He didn’t have anything so pressing to do that it couldn’t wait for an hour or two.

  While the stable boy held the horse, Annabel stepped onto the mounting block, and without waiting for Theo’s assistance, swung herself into the saddle. He realized too late that she wasn’t using a side saddle, and when her yellow gown bunched and slid upward, he was instantly mesmerized by the curve of her long, stockinged legs.

  The maddening, wretched woman.

  “Are you incapable of behaving in a decent manner?” he said through gritted teeth.

  She stared down at him—she could have been Marie-Antoinette—sitting with her legs on both sides of the horse, looking down at him with the cool imperiousness of a queen. But there was something decidedly un-queen-like about the shimmer of wily amusement in her eyes, of excitement, and anticipation, something that was somehow pure, but also a bit unholy.

  It was an expression that was, he was starting to realize, essentially Annabel.

  With a concerted effort, he drew his attention from her. The stable boy had dragged the mounting block to the chestnut gelding. A pit of fear formed in Theo’s stomach as he glanced from the mounting block to the horse—a great chasm of distance. Too far to bridge. Too far to even attempt.

  After last night, why had he thought he could? How much of a fool was he?

  Annabel leaned forward. “Do you want me to take your cane?”

  If it was anyone else, he might have been insulted, but Annabel spoke the words with such calm detachment that no frustration rose to meet them.