Eloisa James - Kiss Me Annabel

‘You shall be the King and Queen of May!’ Lady Mitford said happily. ‘Of course, it isn’t quite May yet, but we thought this was so appropriate to our festival. Lord Mitford and I had planned to be the king and queen ourselves, but since the two of you entered so fully into the spirit of the day, we looked at each other and with one breath, we decided to crown you instead!’

Griselda was laughing and clapping her hands, so Lady Mitford’s suggestion must be acceptable from a chaperone’s point of view. Annabel hesitated but Ardmore took the decision from her. Without pausing to ask her, he put his hands around her waist and swung her into the pony cart. She gasped but the next second he was in the seat next to her, and the trumpets were blowing again. Lady Mitford handed up a wreath of flowers.

‘You must do it,’ Ardmore said to her, sotto voce. ‘Look how happy it’s making her!’

Surely enough, Lady Mitford was cackling with pleasure.

‘There’s something wrong, though,’ Ardmore said. He narrowed his eyes. ‘You don’t look exactly right.’ Suddenly his hand darted out and with an unerring touch he pulled three hairpins from her hair.

Annabel gasped. Her hair fell down around her shoulders, rolls of soft golden curls that had taken her maid a full hour to pin to her head. ‘How dare you!’ she said, looking up at him.

But he was settling the wreath of white flowers back on her head. ‘Hush,’ he said. ‘You’re a queen.’

His thigh brushed against hers as the donkeys started off with a jerk around the garden.

‘This is so humiliating,’ she hissed at him.

But he was grinning broadly. They began a circuit of the garden, Annabel smiling at all the guests and silently cursing her companion. Lord Rosseter looked up at the cart and then turned away. Annabel added a particularly virulent curse to her silent tirade. But actually, she wasn’t terribly worried about Rosseter. He would come back, if she wished him to. Or he wouldn’t, and she’d find someone else. His censoriousness was a bit worrying.

Then they were back at the beginning, and Lady Mitford was begging to send the cart around the back of the house. ‘It’s just to show the household. They all take such interest in our little Renaissance festival, bless their hearts. I know they’d want to see the king and queen.’

So Ewan sent the donkeys around the back of the house as commanded. But it seemed Lady Mitford had misjudged the enthusiasm of her household, for there wasn’t a soul to be seen, just curtains drawn against the afternoon sun. The donkeys stopped and began chomping on a rosebush that flanked the kitchen door.

‘Perhaps she’s alerting the staff to our presence this very moment,’ Ewan suggested. There was something about Annabel that made him feel reckless, as if champagne were pouring through his veins.

She folded her hands primly. ‘I believe we should turn the cart about. It’s not proper for us to be alone.’

He put down the reins. No man of blood and bone would turn down this opportunity. That wasn’t innocence he glimpsed in Annabel’s eyes, but awareness of him as a man. And Ewan was a man of action, rather than words.

He lowered his head so slowly that she had time to squeak, or say no, as proper maidens did when they were about to be kissed. But she didn’t say a word, just looked at him with smoky blue eyes.

His lips brushed hers. They were soft, like the petals of the roses the donkeys were eating, and he wanted to eat her, all of her…He rubbed his lips across hers again, stronger now. But she didn’t say anything, or make a sound, so he let his lips wander down from that little curve in the corner of her mouth, thinking of her neck, that creamy soft neck, but he didn’t want to leave. So he came back and she parted her lips a little and he slipped in between one breath and the next.

And then he had her in his arms, cradling her, and the air was thick with the smell of roses and their tongues were tangling. Her mouth was hot and not at all like that of an innocent maiden but rather – He pushed aside the memory of his first kiss with Bess, a friendly milkmaid. Because this kiss was nothing like Bess’s, had nothing in common with Bess’s…

Annabel had her arms around his neck before she knew what was happening, before she realised that her heart was beating so rapidly that she couldn’t breathe – that must be why she couldn’t breathe – because she couldn’t. Breathe, that is. Not with the way he was kissing her, as if time had stopped and there was nothing left in the world but the King and Queen of May and a cart full of flowers.

Perhaps it was because he was Scots. He kissed long and slow, and there was none of the jostling sense she’d had from Englishmen, as if they kissed while thinking about how to get hold of one of her breasts and wring it like a pump handle. Ardmore’s hands were on her back, but they hadn’t moved since drawing her close, and he didn’t seem to have anything else in mind than the slow tangle of their tongues. It was almost maddening.

In fact, it was maddening. Annabel had been in London for precisely two months, and she’d already been kissed by several men. All of whom punctiliously asked Rafe for her hand in marriage. But their kisses were enough to make her reject their proposals. They pawed and breathed hard, and she couldn’t see sharing a bed with someone who sounded asthmatic.

As far as she could see, Ardmore had the opposite response to her. Here they were, just sitting and kissing, and kissing, and her blood was racing but he seemed as calm as ever. He had those great labourer’s hands spread on her back but he didn’t pull her close to him. And yet she – she – she felt boneless and as if she were about to slump against his chest.

The inequality was unnerving. She pulled back. When he opened his eyes, she revised her idea that he was untouched by the kiss, because there was something deep and hot in his eyes that sent a tingle straight down her thighs. ‘We must return,’ she said, keeping her hands around his neck.

He didn’t even say anything, just smiled his lazy Scottish smile and bent his head to hers again. And she couldn’t help it: she opened her mouth to him and he started kissing her again. And now she could see the attraction of just kissing. Just letting his tongue…well. She was trembling. Trembling from a kiss.

This time he pulled back. And his eyes were even darker and wilder but he had a thoughtful look too. ‘Will you marry me?’ he said. His hands still hadn’t moved from her back.

‘No,’ Annabel said, feeling a pang of regret. It’d be nice to marry a man who kissed so well. But kissing wasn’t a prerequisite for marriage, and money was.

He didn’t say anything, just looked at her. ‘I spent years dreaming of getting out of Scotland,’ she said awkwardly, not wanting to mention money because it – was too – unpleasant.

He nodded. ‘I’ve seen that happen with lads in the village.’

‘Well, then,’ she said.

He looked at her once more. ‘Are you sure? Because I won’t ask you again. I need to finish this marriage business and return home.’

She smiled at that. ‘I am sure.’

‘You could never marry a Scotsman.’

‘No.’

‘I regret your decision.’

Then they were back in the garden, and Imogen was waiting for them. Her eyes were alight with a brilliant glow that made Annabel uneasy just to see her. But she looked exquisite, like a black-haired princess in a fairy tale.

Before Annabel quite knew what had happened, the King of May had wandered off on the arm of her sister without a backward glance. Annabel took off the wreath of flowers and tossed it into the pony cart.

Two gentlemen bounded up to her like overgrown hounds and demanded the pleasure of bringing the Queen of May to the pavilion for supper.