Taming of Annabelle

by Beaton, M. C.

  Rebellion surged up in Annabelle again. Why would he not be open with her? If he had heard aught from Lady Godolphin to make him take her in dislike, then he should tell her, instead of pointedly abandoning her in this public way.

  The Duchess had noticed this piece of by-play and her mouth was curled in a little satisfied smile.

  Annabelle accepted the first of her courtiers and then proceeded to flirt for the rest of the evening with all the men in general and Sir Guy in particular. The reason she singled out Sir Guy was because she already knew him. She felt safe with him: in her eyes he was a middle-aged bachelor.

  When Annabelle was led off into a lively country dance by Mr Charles Comfrey, Sir Guy found his friend, James Worth, at his elbow.

  ‘Well, what do you think, James?’ he asked, watching Annabelle’s pretty figure moving across the polished floor. ‘Does the disappointed wife take the bait?’

  ‘Oh, yes, definitely. Absolutely,’ said Mr Worth.

  ‘And yet, I am not sure,’ mused Sir Guy. ‘There is a certain tension between them. They are not indifferent to each other, no matter how hard they try. I took her driving this afternoon, dear James.’

  ‘And how did that go?’

  ‘Not at all. For the simple reason that someone had sawed a neat line in my axle so that the wheel would fall off in the most public way possible – which it did. If Brabington was behind it – and I’m sure he was – then I have one more reason to thirst for revenge. War has been declared in earnest.’

  ‘Talking about war,’ giggled Mr Worth, ‘why isn’t our fire-eating hero back to the wars?’

  ‘Just married. He will return soon.’

  ‘Then that will leave the field clear.’

  ‘You do not understand me. I do not want an easy field. I want the so-dear Marquess right here in London so that all may witness his humiliation.’

  ‘I’ faith, you are a hard man, Guy!’

  Sir Guy turned quickly away from him to bow before Annabelle, who looked as glittering as the jewels about her neck. Her large eyes sparkled like sapphires and were every bit as hard.

  ‘Do you wish to dance?’ asked Sir Guy. ‘It is the waltz.’

  Annabelle looked across the room. The Marquess was asking Lady Coombes to dance – again.

  ‘No,’ she said brightly. ‘I think I would like some refreshment.’

  ‘Very well.’ He tucked her hand in his and led her into an adjoining room where refreshments were being served.

  ‘Goodness, it is hot,’ said Annabelle restlessly.

  He handed her a glass of iced champagne which she drank thirstily.

  ‘There is quite a pretty garden outside,’ he said, leading her to one of the long windows at the end of the refreshment room which overlooked a terrace with steps leading down into the night blackness of the garden. ‘Would you care to step outside with me for a little fresh air?’

  ‘I do not know if I should. We have no chaperone.’

  ‘You forget. You are a married lady now and may dispense with such conventions.’

  He opened one of the long windows as he spoke. A damp, warm breeze blew in on Annabelle’s face. She turned and looked back to the ballroom, but there was no longer any sign of her husband among the shifting throng of dancers.

  She felt a dull ache in the pit of her stomach. ‘Very well,’ she said, ‘but only for a moment.’

  They walked together along the terrace and down a shallow flight of mossy steps. A faint mist lay over everything, pearling the grass and condensing in heavy drops like tears to plop from the bushes.

  There was a small round pond in the centre.

  ‘I believe it is stocked with goldfish,’ said Annabelle.

  ‘Very romantic.’

  ‘No, I do not like goldfish. These ones are fat and vacant-eyed.’

  ‘We should have brought some bread and fed them.’

  ‘Stoopid!’ laughed Annabelle, momentarily forgetting her woes. ‘To feed fish on a damp night! We are quite mad to be promenading thus. I am sure the hem of my dress will be quite ruined. Let us return.’

  ‘Alas, I would rather stay here. The moonlight is enchanting.’

  ‘There is no moonlight.’

  He came very close to her. ‘There is moonlight in the twin pools of your eyes. Deep in the mysterious blue depths. I gaze into your eyes, Annabelle, and I feel myself drown.’

  ‘Sir! You forget yourself. We must return.’

  She was suddenly nervous. He was so close to her, she could feel the heat from his body, see the strange glitter of his eyes.

  She took a half step back and he caught her hand in his.

  Then Annabelle looked a little to the side of him, her fears all at once forgotten as a small movement caught her eye.

  It seemed as if a long, black, thin shadow was slowly stretching out of the bush. It was like a strange branch growing towards Sir Guy.

  She opened her mouth to exclaim something when the branch or pole made a sudden thrusting jab.

  It caught Sir Guy full in the middle of his waistcoat, and, with a startled exclamation, he lost his footing on the wet ground and toppled backwards into the pool.

  Annabelle ran up and down the edge of the pool, making little helpless cries of distress.

  To her relief, Sir Guy’s head appeared and he sat up, reminding her that the pool was only three feet deep.

  ‘What the ******?’ shouted Sir Guy.

  ‘A branch pushed you,’ babbled Annabelle, ‘and I must go. I really must go. It will look very odd if we are found here like this. Do, pray, let me go into the house and send the servants.’

  And paying no heed to Sir Guy’s strangled shout she ran quickly up the steps, along the terrace, and, taking a deep breath, slid quietly into the refreshment room.

  The sounds of voices and laughter and music poured in from the ballroom. The refreshment room was empty save for the presence of the Duke of Allsbury who was pouring himself a glass of wine.

  ‘Your grace,’ said Annabelle, ‘Please send a servant into the garden. I – I was standing by the window and heard a terrible splash and a cry for help. I fear someone has fallen into the pool.’

  ‘What!’ barked the Duke. ‘Some fellow has become bosky again and has decided to swim with my goldfish? I’m really tired of this. In my day, men knew how to hold their wine. Here, you!’ to a footman. ‘There’s someone in the pool. Go and get him out.’

  Annabelle waited in a fever of apprehension. It had seemed so innocent to stroll with Sir Guy in the garden. But now she could imagine the startled questions and explanations. And Sir Guy had proved to be overwarm in his attentions.

  But the servant returned and said that the garden was deserted and there was no sign of anyone in the pool.

  Annabelle heaved a little sigh of relief. What had happened? Had her eyes been playing her tricks? Perhaps there had been no mysterious branch at all and Sir Guy had merely lost his footing.

  She glanced down at the hem of her dress and saw that it was a little damp. She slipped quietly around the edge of the music room and out and down the stairs to the ante-chamber which had been set up as a special room for the ladies to repair their faces and hair and to leave their cloaks.

  An elderly maid was in attendance. Annabelle sat down in front of a looking glass and opened her reticule. If she fiddled with her hair and pretended to rearrange it for a few minutes, it would give the hem of her gown a chance to dry.

  The room was divided by several screens. Behind each screen stood a toilet table and looking glass, the idea being that the ladies could paint or powder in privacy.

  Annabelle took some pins and a brush from her reticule, and began to twist a few stray curls back into place.

  ‘Well, what do you think of the Brabingtons?’ came a female voice from behind another screen. Annabelle froze with the brush halfway to her hair.

  ‘Very odd,’ laughed another female voice. ‘Only just married and never together.’

  ‘Well
,’ said the first, ‘one love match for that vicarage family is surely enough. We never thought to see dear Sylvester quite so taken. Ah, but Brabington. What a man! What shoulders! And he has the best legs of any man in London!’

  ‘Legs!’ giggled the second. ‘Priscilla, you are too bold. If Lord Brabington could only hear you!’

  ‘Mayhap I shall tell him myself, and quite soon,’ rejoined the one called Priscilla with a little laugh.

  Annabelle sat very still. Lady Priscilla Coombes. She had recognized her voice.

  All at once, the first pangs of possessiveness began to assail Annabelle. He was her husband, her property. How dare he rouse such ambitions in other women?

  ‘How dare you rouse such ambitions in Sir Guy Wayne?’ sneered the voice of her conscience.

  ‘Oh, be quiet!’ Annabelle said to her conscience, and a young lady who had come round the screen quickly backed away in fright.

  ‘That’s that,’ Annabelle told her reflection with a sort of gloomy satisfaction, ‘I hang from trees, I gossip, I fall in love with my brother-in-law, and now I talk to myself. What else?’

  But the words ‘fall in love with my brother-in-law’ rang strangely in her ears. ‘Sylvester,’ she whispered. But there was no answering warmth or longing. In her mind he was a charming cardboard figure, a toy of her schoolgirl days, something once cried over with childish fervour, something now barely understood. Annabelle began to wonder if she had loved and lost – or if she had ever loved at all.

  She went slowly back to the ballroom, plucking at the blue scarf around her shoulders in a nervous, unsure way, looking out at the world as if she were seeing for the first time.

  There was no sign of Sir Guy Wayne. There was no sign of her husband either. An anxious Lady Godolphin came bustling up. The Marquess had searched everywhere for her, she said, and having failed to find her, had gone home.

  ‘He said he would walk,’ said Lady Godolphin, ‘so you may take the carriage.’

  Annabelle looked at Lady Godolphin fully for the first time, seeing the anxious worry and concern under the layers of paint.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said gently. ‘Lady Godolphin. I owe you a most humble apology. I was told about Colonel Brian and sworn to secrecy. I had no right to break such a confidence. I would not cause you pain for anything in the world.’

  ‘Well, now,’ said Lady Godolphin, crushing Annabelle to a chest full of jewels. ‘If you ain’t the sweetest thing that ever was.

  ‘Now if you hadn’t of said all that, I wouldn’t be getting married. So it all worked out for the best. God moves in mischievous ways, as your dear father would say.’

  ‘He does indeed,’ said the Marchioness of Brabington.

  EIGHT

  Somehow Annabelle was not surprised to learn that her husband had arrived home and promptly gone out again. She felt very odd, thinner, older, as if the other Annabelle, the careless, thoughtless one had left, leaving behind a pale, formless person.

  She was very quiet as Betty undressed her, until she seemed to rouse herself, and said, ‘You may have my pink muslin gown to take back to Hopeworth with you. You’ve always liked it.’

  ‘You mean take it back for Miss Deirdre,’ exclaimed Betty.

  ‘No, I mean for you to wear,’ said Annabelle. ‘It would not look well with Deirdre’s red hair.’

  That set Betty crying. She couldn’t bear to go away and leave Miss Bella alone in London. It didn’t seem right. Annabelle forced herself, despite her fatigue, to soothe the maid, and eventually sent Betty away reassured.

  She climbed into bed and thought about her husband. She wondered why he had married her and then she realized that he had married her for love – a love which seemed to have disappeared. She remembered the warmth of his gaze, the feel of his lips against hers, his long, hard body pressed against her own. A large tear rolled down her cheek and sparkled in the lace at the throat of her nightgown.

  Perhaps tomorrow would bring some changes. Perhaps there was something she could do or say that would bring the warmth back to his eyes.

  In a coffee house, not very far away, the Marquess sat entertaining the vicar, the Reverend Charles Armitage, and his friend Squire Radford.

  They had talked of the war, they had talked of the economy and they had talked of the political situation until at last a silence fell on the group.

  ‘Well,’ demanded the vicar at last. ‘How goes Bella?’

  ‘Better, I hope,’ said the Marquess, turning his glass in his fingers so that the diamonds on his rings winked and sparkled.

  The Squire gave a delicate cough. ‘And did you follow our advice and behave badly?’

  ‘I have behaved very badly,’ said the Marquess ruefully.

  ‘And is it working?’

  The Marquess looked thoughtfully at his wine. ‘Annabelle is very angry, very upset, but at least I do not think I have allowed her much peace to think of anyone else.’

  ‘That Guy Wayne is a bad ’un,’ said the vicar.

  ‘He has his uses,’ said the Marquess. ‘And I have made sure that he appears only ridiculous.’

  ‘Better be careful,’ growled the vicar. ‘These snakelike men can strike hard and fast when you least expect it.’

  ‘I am not afraid of him,’ said the Marquess calmly. He refilled his glass. ‘What a pair of reprehensible old sinners you are,’ he grinned. ‘Now what gave you the idea that the ladies like villains?’

  ‘Oh, mere observation,’ said the vicar hurriedly. ‘Don’t play the game too long. Are you going back to the wars?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said the Marquess. ‘They have given me certain duties in town. They expect me to sell out, you know.’

  ‘And will you?’

  ‘I don’t know. When the Season is ended, I shall see. But,’ the Marquess roused himself, ‘it is time I went. Do not worry about Sir Guy Wayne. There is nothing he can do.’

  The following morning brought Annabelle a letter from Minerva. She turned it over and over in her fingers, and then with an exclamation of impatience broke open the seal and read the contents, holding the letter far away from her so that any recriminations on Minerva’s part might not leap off the page and stab her as painfully as they might do if she held the paper closer.

  But the letter was simple and direct. Minerva apologized for not having written before. They were held at Dover since there was something about their ship which needed to be repaired and involved a great deal of nautical terms which she did not understand.

  Minerva went on to talk about the happiness of marriage and the beauties of Dover. Then followed a long historical and geographical description of the town. Annabelle’s eyes flew across the lines. She turned the page. ‘And so, dear sister,’ Minerva ended, ‘you have been much in my Thoughts. Sylvester has just come to tell me we are to sail in the morning and since we shall be at sea for some long time, it will be quite a while before I can write to you again. Be happy in your Marriage, Annabelle, and cherish your husband who is a fine man and most Worthy of you. Remember, that although I do not write, you are never absent from my Thoughts. It is always best to remember that the Good Lord expects us to cherish that which we have. For if we do not, they will be Taken from us. Yr. Loving Sister.’

  Annabelle let the letter drop in her lap and stared across the room with unseeing eyes.

  Minerva knew. It was in that last paragraph. Minerva knew of her younger sister’s infatuation for Lord Sylvester. Annabelle knew her sister too well. That which she had was clearly Lord Brabington. Except, it seemed as if she had no hold on him at all!

  Sir Guy Wayne had spent a restless night after his ducking in the goldfish pool.

  He wondered whether Annabelle had pushed him, or if someone or something else had thrust him backwards. He had left by the garden gate and had had to walk home in his wet clothes because he could not bear to make a fool of himself in front of his own servants by waiting outside for his carriage, dripping wet, and with bits of weed hanging from his clo
thes.

  He realized his thirst for revenge was so fierce that it was stopping him from all logical thought. Around eight in the morning he at last fell into a heavy sleep for one hour, and awoke feeling clear and confident.

  He ate a hearty breakfast and carefully turned over in his mind all he knew of the Marquess of Brabington. And then he recalled a recent and fascinating bit of scandal. The Marquess was rumoured to have had a liaison with a certain high-flyer, Harriet Evans. The scandalmongers had whispered that the Marquess had been seen driving Harriet in the Park the very day after his wedding and that Annabelle had been present in another carriage with her little sister.

  His pale eyes took on a shine of triumph. He would not rush into any plot, but would think of how to use this new weapon very carefully.

  Harriet Evans had made the mistake of falling in love with her latest lover, a younger son with too many gambling debts and not much in funds to pay them with. Harriet was extravagant. And yet Harriet had remained peculiarly faithful to this young spendthrift. It followed that Harriet would be in sore need of money.

  It was a damp, grey morning when he finally left his lodgings in St James’s Street, but he felt the sun was shining on him as he cheerfully tooled his repaired phaeton in the direction of the village of Islington.

  Harriet Evans lived in a pretty little villa which had the appearance of having woken up one morning to find itself surrounded with other buildings. It looked as if it ought to be standing alone in a pleasant bit of park instead of sandwiched between two tall houses in Frog Lane.

  Sir Guy rang the bell and waited. The house seemed silent, although a wisp of smoke rose from one of the chimneys.

  He tried the bell again but it was of one of the organ stop variety where you are never sure whether the wire you are tugging is still connected to a bell.

  After some deliberation he rapped on the door with his cane, and called out, ‘Halloa there?’