Eloisa James - Kiss Me Annabel

For a moment Ewan blinked. How could she know that Lord Mayne had recommended his widowed sister as a possible spouse?

‘Lady Maitland has grieved enough,’ his hostess said with a benign smile. ‘She would do well to forget the tragic death of her young husband and turn to you.’

With a smile and a bow, Ewan turned and walked toward the rose arbour where, presumably, the passionate Imogen was to be found. Then, as the Mitfords turned to greet another guest, he walked in the opposite direction.

He had just spied Holbrook’s other ward, and strangely enough for his lamentable memory, he even remembered her name: Annabel. She was the one who wouldn’t dance with him, who called him a lad. He hadn’t been called a lad since his grandfather died, and that was years ago.

He slowed to watch her. She was all honey and gold. Soft loose curls were pulled to the top of her head and then tumbled onto her shoulders. Her dress was that of an unmarried lady, from what he could see: cream silk and lace that flowed from just under her breast and made her legs seem as long as a colt’s. But she was no youngster. Her eyes glowed with wit and intelligence…so why was he just a lad to her?

Ewan strolled over, mentally dismissing the man she was smiling at so brilliantly. He was the sort of man who would always be ruled by others.

‘Miss Essex,’ he said, bowing.

She turned to him, her eyes dancing. ‘Ah, Lord Ardmore,’ she said. ‘May I introduce Lord Rosseter, if you have not already met?’

Rosseter bowed rather punctiliously. Before he realised what he was doing, Ewan shifted his body slightly, just slightly, so that he stood with a wider stance. And Rosseter caught the message. Ewan saw in one glance that he was a man of innuendo and secret messages, the type who would never express himself openly.

With an unhurried, overly elegant sweep of his cloak over his arm, Lord Rosseter made some practised excuse to Miss Essex and walked away. She blinked after him, looking quite surprised. There were likely very few men who walked away from her, Ewan thought with some amusement.

‘He’ll be back,’ he said to her, discarding the idea of offering a practised gallantry.

She answered with a twinkle in her eyes. ‘I certainly hope so.’

Well, she couldn’t have said that more clearly. Apparently she intended to marry the sleek little coward she’d singled out from the herd. Which was entirely her prerogative, Ewan reminded himself. Naturally he would prefer to see a countrywoman make better choices.

‘I met your guardian last evening,’ he said.

‘I saw that you did,’ she answered, the smile disappearing from her face.

For a second he didn’t follow her, then he remembered Rafe’s furious interruption of his dance with her sister. For the life of him, he couldn’t see a single resemblance. The black-haired lass was all ice and fury, while her sister’s face was as beautifully shaped as an Italian Madonna and fifty times more sensuous. He’d never seen such a deep lower lip, nor eyes of that particular shade of blue. He pulled himself together. ‘In fact, your guardian visited my chambers last night.’

Now her smile was truly gone. ‘I’m very sorry to hear that,’ she said stiffly.

He found himself grinning at her. ‘He took me to his club, a place called White.’

‘White’s,’ she corrected him.

‘I have a terrible memory for details.’ And why was he grinning at her like a lummox who’d had too much sun?

‘Mine is the opposite,’ she confided. ‘Sometimes I think it would be a blessing to be able to misplace a name or a number.’

‘I should think that would be a useful trait in a place like this,’ Ewan said, giving the garden a cursory glance. It was filling with Englishmen, clustering under the fluttering silk pavilions that housed food and drink.

‘It is useful,’ she agreed.

They seemed to have finished that subject. ‘So you are the daughter of the late Viscount Brydone?’ he asked, knowing the answer.

She nodded.

‘I bought a horse from him once.’

‘Blacklock, grandson of Coriander.’

He blinked at her.

‘I never forget names, remember? Your factor managed the transaction. Father asked for sixty pounds and your factor managed to buy the horse for forty. Disappointing for papa, but still lovely for the rest of us.’ She bit those words off as if she never meant to say them.

‘Why on earth was it lovely for you?’ he asked. From the corner of his eye he saw a determined-looking gentleman in lavender breeches heading directly toward Annabel, holding a glass of champagne as his admission ticket.

She raised her eyes, and there was a wry companionship in them. ‘Because we ate meat at night for three months. Ate our fill,’ she clarified.

Ewan blinked at her. She was a polished glowing statue of perfection, as beautiful as Venus and five times more sensuous. ‘Your father’s stables were known through Roxburghshire up to Aberdeenshire for their magnificence,’ he noted.

‘Indeed,’ she said. ‘Every man has his virtues.’

She was not only beautiful, but she had an ironic turn of phrase. He would quite like to bring her home, if only because he felt a smouldering heat in his loins at the very sight of her. So, in fact, it was better that she had decided on Rosseter. For she was one to put a man into a feverish sin of the flesh, beyond the natural, respectable love of a man for his wife. She looked as if she might drive a man to despair if she closed the door even one night.

The very thought filled him with horror. He bowed smartly. ‘Miss Essex. It’s been a pleasure.’

The gentleman in lavender started up at her right shoulder like a puppet. ‘Miss Essex,’ he simpered, ‘I’ve brought you a glass of heaven. You do know that champagne is nothing more than a glass of stars, don’t you?’

She turned to him and smiled so kindly that Ewan expected to see the poor lad melt at her feet. If he didn’t die of the embarrassment of being condescended to in such a manner. ‘Just what I was hoping for,’ she said.

Ewan bowed and walked away. He needed to find Mayne. Mayne and his cheerful, widowed sister.

Imogen Maitland was well aware that she had transformed into a fury out of a classical play. She knew she was behaving abominably toward her sisters, snapping at them like an untamed dog. She knew she ought to be grateful to Rafe for his kindness and generosity, taking her back into his house after she eloped in such a scandalous manner. Instead, she wanted to kill him, every time she saw his indolent manner and the drink he always held. And she wanted to kill her sisters too: Tess because her husband loved her, and he was alive. Annabel because she so effortlessly made men adore her. Josie…well, Josie was in the schoolroom, so Imogen exempted her from her gallery of hatred.

It was shocking, how all that grief inside her had turned to hate. She saw their shocked eyes when she snapped at them, the rage in Rafe’s face when she taunted him. And yet…there it was.

They simply didn’t understand.

None of them had ever had anything terrible happen to them. Never. Rafe had lost his brother and parents, but he probably just drank an extra glass in their memory. That didn’t seem quite fair, but she didn’t want to think about it. Annabel had her whole life in front of her, and Tess –

Tess made Imogen’s heart hurt so much that she couldn’t stand it. Tess’s husband loved her. Really loved her. Felton looked at Tess with the emotion so stark in his eyes that it was enough to make Imogen vomit. He couldn’t even wait to be private; he kissed her in public. He…

Imogen bit her lip savagely. Lord knows he probably cherished his wife in the bedchamber.