Diana rolled her eyes and Annabelle found it difficult not to laugh. She greeted her friend with a hug.
“Hello, Diana. Cresswell informed me you were out here.” She turned to her brother.
“Hello, Robert.”
Diana squeezed her arm. “Annabelle, you look delightful.” Honest admiration mixed with ill-concealed surprise in her tone.
Annabelle couldn’t hide an amused smile. “Thank you.”
She looked down at her dress. The skirt tiered to her ankles in several layers of bottle-green gauze cut like Gypsy scarves. The high-waisted bodice ended in small cap sleeves that ended in points like the skirt. She liked the gown. It made her think of woodland fairies.
Recalling her previous discussion with Diana about fashion, she said, “I believe I am finally finding my style.”
Diana looked at her with a critical eye. “Yes, I do believe you are.”
“Annabelle has always had her own style,” Robert asserted.
Annabelle smiled at her brother’s staunch support. “Thank you, Robert. You’re the best of brothers. Aunt Griselda did not tell me you were planning to call today.” They must have made their plans after Ian and she left the theater the night before. “It’s a glorious day for meandering in the garden.”
Diana laughed. “Robert is regaling me with his knowledge of herbs.” Robert drew himself up. “Now that my sister is here, there is no reason for you to bore yourself with my company. I’m sure MacKay will appreciate Aunt’s herb beds even if you do not.”
Diana patted his arm soothingly. “Calm down, Robert. I have no intention of abandoning you just because Annabelle has joined us. I’m sure she would be delighted to hear your thoughts on gardening.”
Annabelle nodded. “Delighted.”
Robert laughed. “I’m not in the least bit fooled. You two baggages can go gossip.
MacKay will be here soon enough.”
Diana reached up and planted a kiss on her husband’s cheek. “Very well, dear, but we won’t desert you completely. We will go have our coze on that stone bench over there.”
Robert smiled at his wife, obviously forgetting that he considered public affection unseemly. Diana indicated that Annabelle should follow her.
“Wait a moment.” Annabelle did not move. “Robert, did you say that Ian was coming to call this morning?”
She did not want to face Ian today. Her body still reacted every time she thought of their time in the carriage. She had woken twice in the night, hot and aching after dreaming about him. She was not ready to confront him in the flesh.
“We are going to the museum. MacKay told me that you wanted to go.”
She did want to go, just not today. Besides, she had plans today. Not that she had any intention of telling Robert. She’d listened to more than she wanted to from him on the subject of her involvement in women’s rights already.
“He did not ask me about today.” She frowned.
Robert said, “I’m sure it was an oversight.”
“Indeed.” She moved away from Robert to look at her aunt’s prize rosebush. It was not yet in bloom, but buds had formed on several of the branches. “Then he will not be disappointed when you and Diana are his only companions on the excursion.”
“Do you have other plans today?” Diana’s obvious regret pricked at Annabelle’s determination not to go. Now that her friend was married, excursions together were not nearly as common as they once were.
“It’s simply that I’m not sure I want to spend the day with Ian.” She knew her friend would understand and from the look of compassion on Diana’s face, she was right.
Robert was not so easily swayed, however.
“Annabelle, it is time you stopped being so intractable about this. MacKay is courting you. How will you know if you wish to marry him if you do not spend time with the man?”
She sighed. “Robert, he wants to marry me because he thinks I’m an aging spinster desperate for marriage.”
“He is being practical. I wish you would be a little more so. I want to see you married.”
She would be deeply offended if she did not know that her brother was motivated by genuine love and concern for her. He truly believed that she would be happy as a wife and mother.
“Ian’s reasons for marrying me don’t make any sense.” Robert jumped to defense of his friend. “MacKay’s views are logical based on what he wishes to do for his tenants.”
“What of his wife?” Diana asked.
Robert turned to her. “Diana, you and I both know that Annabelle is all that is wonderful in a woman and will make an excellent wife. Ian will be the ideal husband for her.”
Annabelle had heard enough. Ideal? When the man refused to even discuss love.
Even after what they had shared in the carriage. “Will he love me as you love Diana?
Will he be unfashionably willing to live in my pocket as you often seek to be with Diana?”
Her heart constricted at the thought of Ian expressing even a fraction of the devotion to her that Robert showed his wife. “Will he cherish me and care only for me and never look at another woman with that look men get when a beautiful woman enters the room?
Will he be an ideal lover as well as husband?” She knew her words were improper, but they were torn from the very depths of her soul.
The skin on Robert’s neck turned a rosy shade. He tugged at his cravat. “Annabelle, those are not questions that I could possibly answer and I hope you would not pose them to MacKay.”
How unfair of Robert to think that she did not need the very things he gave his wife.
“Are these not promises you made to Diana in your courtship?” The blush spread from his neck to his face and her brother refused to meet Annabelle’s eyes. “That is not the point. You should not be discussing these things with me.”
“But, Robert, you have just told me I cannot discuss them with the man you think I should consider marrying. Is it because Diana is lovely and I am plain? Do I not deserve the same care and consideration?”
“You are all that is lovely, Annabelle. I won’t hear you criticizing yourself this way.” He frowned fiercely at her. “It is simply something not done. A lady does not discuss these things,” replied Robert, this time sounding quite desperate.
She had shocked her brother enough. It was not his fault that Ian wanted to marry her for all of the wrong reasons.
Diana brushed her husband’s coat sleeve to gain his attention. When he turned to face her, she spoke. “Robert, there are many women of the
ton
who would be pleased to accept a gentleman without their affections being engaged.” Robert nodded, obviously pleased at the agreement of his wife. Annabelle, who knew her friend better, waited for Diana to take up her defense. She was not disappointed.
“In fact, that is the norm for a society marriage, but your parents had something different. We have something different and that is all that Annabelle wants.”
Robert frowned, looking harassed. “Yes but, Diana, you and Annabelle must see that if the other is the norm it is because love between suitable parties is not.”
“Perhaps, but if I could not be married to you, I would rather not be married at all,” replied his wife.
Diana’s voice had risen in agitation and Annabelle sensed that something lay behind her friends words, something she did not understand.
Robert remained oblivious. “Sweet sentiments, to be sure. However, if all the
ton
felt as you do, many successions would die out.”
“Are you saying that you do not share my sweet sentiments?” Her friend sounded truly distressed. Annabelle felt guilty for starting a quarrel between Robert and Diana.
“That is a foolish question, dearest. I did marry you.” Diana’s face blanched. “Yes, but I cannot help thinking you would not have done so if I had not been eminently suitable.” She spoke in almost a whisper.
Robert drew her near and kissed her. Annabelle smiled through her surprise. Her brother was human after all.
“You are intent on quarreling over nothing of import.” He brushed his wife’s cheek.
“You were suitable and we are married. Can we not cease this discussion?” He waited for Diana to answer.
Finally, she nodded. “Yes. I’m sorry. I still think Annabelle is entitled to marry for love if she wishes to.”
“No one is going to force her to marry MacKay.” Annabelle almost laughed at Robert’s words. Her brother suffered under a delusion if he thought anyone was capable of forcing her to marry. Love was the only thing that could drive her to enter the wedded state.
The skin on the back of her neck prickled. She turned slowly toward the house, knowing what she would find. Ian stood framed in the doorway. He looked much too virile in his coat of blue superfine and buff pantaloons that accentuated his muscled thighs. Memories of how those hard thighs felt under her own made her cheeks grow warm.
Ian walked toward her, ignoring both her brother and sister-in-law, until he stood mere inches away. He caressed her face with his gaze. He took several moments to look
at her before speaking. She waited, not even breathing, for him to say something. How would he respond to her after last evening?
He reached out and touched her cheek. “Hello, Belle. I’ve missed you.” The words, spoken after a separation of less than twenty-four hours, should have seemed absurd. They didn’t.
“I missed you too, Ian.”
All thought of refusing to accompany him and the others on their outing fled from her mind.
* * *
Blackmail could be a tidy source of income. Who would have believed that his luck could have changed so completely? First, to have stumbled on the truth about Lady Annabelle’s fortune. Now this, a tidy packet of letters that would raise an ugly scandal if they were made public, had fallen into his lap.
To think the letters affected Lady Hamilton, his intended’s best friend and sister-in-law. The entire
ton
knew how her husband indulged her. It was too good to be true, for anyone but William. When he was finished plucking Lady Hamilton’s plump purse, he would find a way to use the letters to further his advantage with Lady Annabelle. There would be a way. His luck demanded it.
William walked into the seedy pub, tugging his cloak more firmly about his face. His cohort should be waiting at a table near the fireplace. He spied Thorn. The man looked like a proper villain, unlike William. William could never have carried off the blackmail bit. He was too refined.
“How did it go?”
Thorn jumped. “Ah, it’s you, guv. Went just like you said it would. She turned white as a bloody sheet on a nobleman’s bed. She’ll pay alright.” William nodded. He knew it. Lady Hamilton
loved
her husband and her husband had a horror of scandal. Another tidbit the entire
ton
was privy to.
“Send her a message where to meet you with the money.” Thorn shifted in his seat and slid a sidelong glance at William. “I don’t write so good, guv.”
What was the weasel up to? Stench from the man’s unwashed body assailed William’s nostrils and he wanted to gag. Soon, he would not need to consort with any but his own class. For now, this degenerate was a necessary part of his plan.
“You will write the note.”
The miscreant shrugged. “I’m thinking I might need a little more loot to go on. This is a risky business.”
William leaned across the table and curled his fingers around Thorn’s throat. The other man’s eyes began to bulge.
“You will send the message and you will accept the risk. You have given your word and a gentleman keeps his word.”
The dirty man bobbed his head. William let go of the other man’s throat, satisfied when his associate choked and wheezed an apology before making a hasty exit from the stew.
Soon, very soon, William would have the money he needed to court his prey properly.
It would not be necessary if that stupid Scotsman had stuck with the Caruthers. The beauty had not been subtle at all in her preference for him. None of Lady Annabelle’s other suitors worried William. She did not look at them like they mattered, even if they were proper Englishmen.
Not like she looked at Graenfrae.
William had seen her with the Scotsman in her aunt’s box the night before. So had everyone else in the theater. The way the barbarian had drug her from the theater had been on everyone’s tongue. The oaf did not have a clue how to court a lady properly.
William would show the boorish Scot, as he engaged Lady Annabelle’s affections for himself.
He laughed and the tavern wench who had come to serve his ale stepped back quickly.
“It’s daft, you are.”
Her words could not touch him. She would see. Everyone would see.
William’s luck had changed.
Chapter Nine
The classic Greek columns of the British Museum struck a discordant note with the bustle of London. Carriages and pedestrians vied for space on the busy thoroughfare in front of the museum’s entrance.
Ian longed for the quiet solitude of Graenfrae.
Annabelle must make up her mind to marry him soon. He would not last the Season breathing the brown air of London and listening to the cacophony of sounds that greeted him at every turn. Annabelle certainly didn’t mind the bustle. She sat next to him, her eyes darting alertly from one scene to the next.
After their initial greeting she had looked at everyone but him and tried to evade speaking to him at all. The lass was going to drive him daft. One minute she was soft and willing in his arms and the next denying she wanted to marry him. Her eyes had devoured him in her aunt’s garden and now she wouldn’t look at him if his pantaloons caught fire.
“It won’t work, you ken.” He spoke near her ear so that Hamilton and his wife would not hear.
She jolted, but she continued to keep her gaze fixed on the approaching museum.
“What do you mean?”
He waited patiently for her to meet his eyes.
Finally, she turned her head and repeated her question. “What won’t work?”
“Ignoring me, Belle. I’ll have my way in the end and pretending I’m not here isn’t going to change that.” He wanted to smile when her eyes narrowed. He could feel her body tensing next to him.
“I thought we were going to discuss this later,” she hissed.