Eloisa James - Kiss Me Annabel

‘In that case, may I point out that Miss Annabel Essex is doing the season,’ Felton said. ‘The second of Rafe’s wards,’ he explained to Ewan. ‘Dowried with Milady’s Pleasure, and since I gather that you are likely putting Warlock to stud, the combination would be quite interesting.’

So the golden-haired Scotswoman was called Annabel.

But the duke shook his head. ‘It’ll never fly. Begging your pardon, Ardmore, but Annabel has a penchant for rich and titled Englishmen. She’d be an uncomfortable wife for a penniless Scottish earl, and that’s the truth of it.’

Felton opened his mouth but Ewan caught his eye and he closed it.

‘Ah, a dowry problem,’ Mayne said thoughtfully.

The waiter returned with a decanter of the Tobermary, which was just as good as Ewan remembered.

‘Do you like poetry?’ Mayne asked.

It seemed an odd question. ‘Not particularly.’

‘Then Miss Pythian-Adams won’t do. She’s got a hefty dowry, but I’ve heard she’s memorised the whole of a Shakespeare play. At any rate, she does drop bits and pieces into conversation. Maitland used to complain when they were engaged that she made him read aloud the whole of Henry VIII. Apparently it took an afternoon.’

‘No,’ Ewan said. ‘That won’t do.’

‘So that’s why you’re in London.’ Rafe stared at him over a mere inch of liquid left in his glass.

‘To find a wife,’ Ewan agreed. ‘As I told you earlier, Your Grace.’ The duke was definitely showing his whisky now.

‘Sometimes I think that I need one of those too. She could take care of all these wards of mine. They’re going to have me in Bedlam.’

‘Don’t be a fool,’ Mayne said to him. ‘No one would marry a drunken sot like yourself unless she wanted your title and money.’

Somewhat to Ewan’s surprise, Rafe took no umbrage at his friend’s harsh assessment.

‘You’re probably right,’ he said, with a yawn that appeared likely to break his jaw. ‘I have to go to bed. Come up with a few names for Ardmore here, Mayne.’

‘Miss Tarn,’ Mayne said, his eyes narrowed in thought. ‘She’s quite beautiful; her dowry is more than adequate; by all reports, she’s an expert horsewoman.’

‘My wife says she’s in love with a Frenchman named Soubiran,’ Felton said. ‘Her father doesn’t approve of the connection, but Miss Tarn has dug in her heels.’

‘In that case, Lady Cecily Severy,’ Mayne said. ‘Eldest daughter of the Duke of Claire. Not bad-looking and the dowry is obviously magnificent.’

‘This is her third season,’ Felton put in.

‘She does lisp,’ Mayne admitted. ‘But her dowry surely trumps the lisp.’

‘She pretends that she’s approximately five years old,’ Felton said crisply. ‘Talks in baby talk to her suitors. Puts some men off.’

‘I would consider myself one of them,’ Ewan said.

‘Third choice, then,’ Mayne said. ‘Lady Griselda Willoughby. She’s a young, beautiful widow, with a large estate and a cheerful disposition. She thinks she doesn’t want to marry, but in fact she would make a happy wife and mother. And her reputation is impeccable.’

Silence followed this suggestion. Ewan thought Lady Griselda sounded just fine. He nodded.

‘Lady Griselda is Mayne’s sister,’ Felton said.

Ewan looked at Mayne. ‘Your sister?’

Mayne nodded. ‘Mind you, she’s been courted by many a man, and none of them has had the least success.’ He eyed Ewan narrowly. ‘But I have a feeling that you might have more luck than most. She’s only thirty, and there’s more than enough time for children.’

‘He doesn’t have an estate,’ Rafe said, his voice turned to a dark-toned growl by exhaustion and liquor.

‘She doesn’t need it. Her jointure alone was excellent, but Willoughby’s estate is also extensive.’

Felton nodded. ‘I would agree with your assessment of Lady Griselda’s holdings.’

‘She says she doesn’t want to marry again,’ Mayne said. ‘But I’m fond of her.’

Ewan translated that into a typical English understatement of a loyal love for his sister. Lord, but Englishmen were strange. Here was a man who looked like a rake-hell if he ever saw one, and yet…it seemed he was truly being offered a wife.

‘I would be honoured to meet Lady Griselda,’ he said.

‘Good, that’s settled,’ Rafe said, with another yawn. ‘I’m off. Ardmore, would you like me to drop you at Grillon’s, or will you find your own way home?’

Ewan rose and bowed to the two men.

‘Perhaps we could talk about your stables at some point,’ Felton said.

Ewan recognised the spark in his eye as being that of a man with an abiding passion for horses. ‘I would be delighted,’ he said, bowing again.

Mayne rose in turn. ‘Have you been invited to Countess Mitford’s garden party tomorrow afternoon?’

‘Yes.’ Ewan hesitated. ‘I thought not to go. I found the last garden party painfully tedious.’

‘This won’t be. Countess Mitford models herself on the ancient Renaissance families of Italy. She holds only one party a year, and it’s not to be missed. I shall escort my sister.’

‘Come along,’ Rafe said grumpily. ‘Aged whisky gives one the same headache as its younger brethren, damn it.’

Ewan bowed again.

Everything had changed since Tess married. For years, the four of them would curl up in bed, huddling under threadworn blankets in the winter, wearing chemises because they had no nightgowns…talking. Josie was the baby, who sometimes sounded the eldest of all of them because of her biting wit. Imogen next youngest, with her passion for Draven Maitland that had thrived for years before he even noticed her existence. Annabel was two years older than Imogen and had spent her adolescence managing the finances of the household, exhausted by the burden of it and tired, bone-tired, by the poverty of their father’s house. She had talked incessantly of London, of silks and satins, and of a man who would never make her count a penny. And Tess was the eldest…Tess, who had worried about all of them and kept her fears to herself.

But Josie was in the country under the care of her governess, Miss Flecknoe, and Tess was in her husband’s bed. Which left only two sisters to squabble, Annabel thought gloomily.

Imogen was in a sullen mood tonight, sitting with her lips pressed together, scowling at the bedpost at the end of the bed.

‘He’s got no right to act in such a fashion,’ she said. ‘He has no right! ’

Annabel jumped. Her sister’s voice was as sharp as the north wind. ‘Rafe is our guardian,’ she pointed out.

‘I can do whatever I wish, with whomever I wish,’ Imogen said. ‘He may be your guardian, but he is not mine, since I am a woman of independent means. I never liked him, drunken sot that he is, and I never shall. And I shall never forgive Tess for not bringing us onto the season herself.’

Tess’s husband travelled a great deal, checking on his holdings all over England. Tess had taken to travelling with him, and was away from London as often as she was present, so Rafe, with Lady Griselda’s help, was bringing Annabel out this season.

‘You came out when you married Draven,’ Annabel pointed out. ‘You have no particular need for Tess’s help.’

‘Draven…’ Imogen said, and her whole face and voice changed, softened and looked like the old Imogen, before she became so harsh, so hard and shrill.

Annabel held her breath, but Imogen didn’t dissolve into tears. Instead she said, after a moment, ‘He was beautiful, wasn’t he?’

‘Very,’ Annabel confirmed. Just don’t ask me whether he was a reasonable person or a rational man, she added silently.