Kiss Me, Annabel
Eloisa James

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This Kiss is for you!

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Thirteen

Fourteen

Fifteen

Sixteen

Seventeen

Eighteen

Nineteen

Twenty

Twenty-one

Twenty-two

Twenty-three

Twenty-four

Twenty-five

Twenty-six

Twenty-seven

Twenty-eight

Twenty-nine

Thirty

Thirty-one

Thirty-two

Thirty-three

Thirty-four

Thirty-five

Thirty-six

A Note About Shrews, Coneys and Reading to Six-Year-Olds

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Praise

By the same author:

Copyright

About the Publisher

One

London

April, 1817

The day the Scotsman came to Lady Feddrington’s ball, Annabel’s sister decided to give him her virtue, and Annabel decided not to give him her hand in marriage.

In neither case had the Scotsman indicated a particular interest in undertaking such intimate activities with an Essex sister, but his participation was taken for granted. And, naturally, both of these decisions took place in the ladies’ retiring room, which is where everything of importance takes place at a ball.

It was in those middle hours, when the initial excitement has worn away and women have an uneasy feeling that their noses are shiny and their lips pale. Annabel peeked into the retiring room and found it empty. So she sat down before the large mirrored dressing table, and started trying to pin her unruly curls so they would stay above her shoulders for the rest of the evening. Her sister Imogen, Lady Maitland, plumped down beside her.

‘This ball is nothing more than a breeding ground for parasites,’ Imogen said, scowling at her reflection. ‘Lord Beekman has twice asked me to dance with him. As if I would even contemplate dancing with that plump toadlet. He should look lower…perhaps in the scullery.’

She looked magnificent, a few gleaming black curls falling to her shoulders, and the rest piled high on her head. Her eyes sparkled with the displeasure of receiving too much attention. In all, she had the magnificent rage of a young Helen of Troy, stolen by the Greeks and taken from her homeland.

It must be rather annoying, Annabel thought, to have nowhere to direct all that emotion except toward unwary gentlemen who do nothing more despicable than ask for a dance. ‘There is always the chance that no one has told the poor toadlet that Lady Maitland is such a very grand person.’ She said it lightly, since mourning had turned Imogen into a person whom none of them knew very well.

Imogen flashed her an impatient look, twitching one of her curls over her shoulder so that it nestled seductively on her bosom. ‘Don’t be a widgeon, Annabel. Beekman is interested in my fortune and nothing more.’

Annabel raised an eyebrow in the direction of Imogen’s virtually nonexistent bodice. ‘Nothing more?’

A sketch of a smile touched Imogen’s lips, one of the few Annabel had seen in recent months. Imogen had lost her husband the previous autumn, and after her first six months of mourning she had joined Annabel in London for the season. Currently she was amusing herself by shocking respectable matrons of the ton by flaunting a wardrobe full of mourning clothing cut in daring styles that left little of her figure to the imagination.

‘You have to expect attention,’ Annabel pointed out. ‘After all, you dressed for it.’ She let a little sarcasm creep into her tone.

‘Do you think that I should buy another of these gowns?’ Imogen asked, staring into the mirror. She gave a seductive roll of her shoulders and the bodice settled even lower on her chest. She was dressed in black faille, a perfectly respectable fabric for a widow. But the modiste had saved on fabric, for the bodice was nothing more than a few scraps of cloth, falling to a narrow silhouette that clung to every curve. The pièce de résistance was a trim of tiny white feathers around the bodice. The feathers nestled against Imogen’s breasts and made every man who glimpsed them throw caution to the wind.

‘No one has a need for more than one dress of that pattern,’ Annabel pointed out.

‘Madame Badeau has threatened to make another. She complains that she must sell two in order to justify her design. And I should not like to see another woman in this particular gown.’

‘That’s absurd,’ Annabel said. ‘Many women have gowns of the same design. No one will notice.’

‘Everyone notices what I wear,’ Imogen said, and one had to admit it was a perfect truth.

‘’Tis an indulgence to order another gown merely to allow it to languish in your wardrobe.’

Imogen shrugged. Her husband had died relatively penniless, but then his mother had fallen into a decline and died within a month of her son. Lady Clarice had left her private estate to her daughter- in-law, making Imogen one of the wealthiest widows in all England. ‘I’ll have the gown made up for you, then. You must promise to wear it only in the country, where no one of importance can see you.’

‘That gown will fall to my navel if I bend over, which hardly suits a debutante.’

‘You’re no ordinary debutante,’ Imogen jibed. ‘You’re older than me, and all of twenty-two, if you remember.’

Annabel counted to ten. Imogen was grieving. One simply had to wish that grieving didn’t make her so – so bloody-minded. ‘Shall we return to Lady Griselda?’ she said, rising and looking one last time at the glass.

Suddenly Imogen was at her shoulder, smiling penitently. ‘I’m sorry to be so tiresome. You’re the most beautiful woman at the ball, Annabel. Look at the two of us together! You’re glowing and I look like an old crow.’

Annabel grinned at that. ‘A crow you’re not.’ There was a similarity to their features: they both had slanting eyes and high cheekbones. But where Imogen’s hair was raven black, Annabel’s was the colour of honey. And where Imogen’s eyes flashed, Annabel knew quite well that her greatest strength was a melting invitation that men seemed unable to resist.

Imogen pulled another curl onto the curve of her breast. It looked rather odd, but Imogen’s temper was not something to risk lightly, and so Annabel held her tongue.

‘I’ve made up my mind to take a cicisbeo,’ Imogen said suddenly. ‘To hold off Beekman, if nothing else.’

‘What?’ Annabel said. ‘A what?’

‘A gallant,’ Imogen said impatiently. ‘A man to take me about.’

‘You’re thinking about marrying again?’ Annabel was truly surprised. To the best of her knowledge, Imogen was still dissolving into tears every night over her husband’s death.

‘Never,’ Imogen said. ‘You know that. But I don’t intend to let fools like Beekman spoil my enjoyment either.’ Their eyes met in the mirror. ‘I’m going to take Mayne. And I’m not talking about marriage.’

‘Mayne!’ Annabel gasped. ‘You can’t!’

‘Of course I can,’ Imogen said, looking amused. ‘There’s nothing to stop me from doing anything I wish. And I believe that I would like the Earl of Mayne.’

‘How can you even consider such an idea? He jilted our own sister, practically at the altar!’

‘Are you implying that Tess would be better off with Mayne than with Felton? She adores her husband,’ Imogen pointed out.

‘Of course not. But that doesn’t change the fact that Mayne deserted her!’

‘I have not forgotten that point.’

‘But for goodness’ sakes, why?’

Imogen cast her a scornful glance. ‘You have to ask?’

‘Punishment,’ Annabel guessed. ‘Don’t do it, Imogen.’

‘Why not?’ Imogen turned to the side and regarded her figure. It was exquisite in every curve. And every curve was visible. ‘I’m bored.’

Annabel saw a glint of cruelty in her sister’s eyes and caught her arm. ‘Don’t do it. I’ve no doubt you can make Mayne fall in love with you.’

Imogen’s teeth shone white when she smiled. ‘Neither have I.’

‘But you might fall in love with him as well.’

‘Inconceivable.’

Annabel didn’t really believe Imogen would love again either. She had encased herself in ice after her husband died, and it would take time to melt away.

‘Please,’ she said. ‘Please don’t do it, Imogen. I don’t care about Mayne, but it wouldn’t be good for you.’

‘Since you are nothing more than a maiden,’ Imogen said with her new, bitter smile, ‘you have no idea what would be good for me, at least as pertains to men. We can have this discussion once you have some experience of what it means to be a woman.’

Imogen was clearly longing for a pitched battle of the kind they used to have when they were children. But as Annabel opened her mouth to deliver a scathing retort, the door opened and their chaperone, Lady Griselda Willoughby, waltzed in. ‘Darlings!’ she trilled. ‘I have been looking everywhere for the two of you! The Duke of Clarence has arrived, and –’

Her words died as her eyes moved from Annabel’s furious face to Imogen’s rigid one. ‘Ah,’ she said, sitting down and adjusting her exquisite silk shawl around her shoulders, ‘you’re squabbling again. How very glad I am that I have only a brother to plague me.’

‘Your brother’, Imogen snapped, ‘is hardly anyone to desire as a family member. In fact, we were just talking of his manifold virtues. Or rather, the lack thereof.’

‘I have no doubt but that your assessment was correct,’ Griselda said serenely, ‘but it was a patently unpleasant comment, my dear. I notice that when you are angry your nose becomes quite thin…You might wish to think about that.’

Imogen’s nose flared magnificently. ‘Since I have no doubt but that you will wish to rebuke me as well, I might as well tell you that I have decided to take a cicisbeo!’

‘An excellent decision, my dear.’ Griselda opened a small fan and waved it lazily before her face. ‘I find men so useful. In a gown as narrow as the one you wear tonight, for example, one can hardly walk with ease. Perhaps you could choose a particularly strong man who can carry you about London.’

Annabel bit back a smile.

‘You may fun all you like,’ Imogen said through clenched teeth, ‘but let me be very clear about my decision. I have decided to take a lover, not a jumped-up version of a footman. And your brother Mayne is my primary candidate.’

‘Ah,’ Griselda said. ‘Well, likely it is wise to start with someone so very experienced in these situations. Mayne does tend toward married women rather than widows; my brother has a genius for avoiding any woman who might prove eligible for matrimony. But mayhap you can persuade him otherwise.’

‘I believe that I can,’ Imogen stated.

Griselda waved her fan meditatively. ‘An interesting choice lies ahead of you. Were I to take a lover, for example, I should wish to continue the affair beyond two weeks. My dear brother certainly has had many ladies on whom to practise, and yet he invariably drifts to another woman within the fortnight. Moreover, I myself would find the notion of being compared to the many beautiful women who had come before me unnerving, but I expect I am simply squeamish.’

Annabel grinned. Griselda looked a perfectly docile, perfectly feminine lady. And yet…

Imogen looked as if she were thinking. ‘Fine!’ she said finally. ‘I’ll take the Earl of Ardmore, then. Since he’s only been in London for a week or so, he can’t possibly compare me to anyone else.’

Annable blinked. ‘The Scottish earl?’

‘The very one.’ Imogen gathered up her reticule and shawl. ‘He’s not worth a penny, but his face can be his fortune, in this case.’ She caught her sister’s frown. ‘Oh, don’t be such a pinched ninny, Annabel. Believe me, the earl won’t get hurt.’

‘I agree,’ Griselda put in. ‘The man has a palpable air of danger about him. He won’t get hurt, Imogen. You will.’

‘Nonsense,’ Imogen said. ‘You’re simply trying to talk me out of a decision I’ve already made. I’m not willing to sit around in the corners, gossiping with dowagers for the next ten years.’ That was a direct insult to Griselda, who had lost her husband years ago and had (to Annabel’s knowledge) never entertained a thought either of a lover or a husband.

Griselda smiled sweetly and said, ‘No, I can see that you’re an entirely different kind of woman, my dear.’

Annabel winced, but Imogen didn’t notice. “Now I think on it, Ardmore is an altogether better choice than Mayne. We are countrymen, you know.’

‘Actually, that’s a reason not to distract him,’ Annabel had to point out. ‘We know how hard it is to live in an old rambling house in the north country without a penny to support it. The man has come to London to find a rich bride, not to have an affair with you.’

‘You’re a sentimentalist,’ Imogen said. ‘Ardmore can take care of himself. I certainly shan’t stop him from courting some silly miss, if he wishes. But if I have a cavalier servente, the fortune hunters will leave me alone. I shall just borrow him for a while. You’re not planning to marry him, are you?’

‘The thought never crossed my mind,’ Annabel said with something less than perfect truth. The Scotsman was absurdly handsome; a woman would have to be in her grave not to consider him as a consort. But Annabel meant to marry a rich man. And she meant to stay in England. ‘Are you considering him as a possible spouse?’

‘Certainly not. He’s lummox without a fortune. But he’s pretty, and he dresses so sombrely that he matches my clothing. Who could want more in a man?’

‘He doesn’t appear to be a man to fool,’ Griselda said, serious now.

‘If he needs to find a rich wife, you ought to be straightforward,’ Annabel added. ‘He may well think that you would consider matrimony.’

‘Pish,’ Imogen said. ‘The role of a hidebound moralist doesn’t suit either of you. Don’t be tedious.’ And she swept out of the room, closing the door behind her with a little more force than necessary.

‘Though it pains me to admit it,’ Griselda said meditatively, ‘I may have mishandled that situation. If your sister is determined to make a scandal, she would have done better to direct herself toward Mayne. At this point, it is almost a rite of a passage for young women to have a brief affaire with my brother, and so the ensuing scandal doesn’t really take fire.’

‘There’s something about Ardmore that makes me wonder if she can control him as easily as she thinks she can,’ Annabel said with a frown.

‘I would agree,’ Griselda said. ‘I haven’t exchanged a word with him, but he has little in common with the average English lord.’

Ardmore was a red-haired Scot, with a square jaw and broad shoulders. To Annabel’s mind, he was a world away from Griselda’s sleek brother.

‘No one seems to know much about the man,’ Griselda said. ‘Lady Ogilby told me that she had it from Mrs Mufford that he’s poor as a church mouse and came to London specifically to find a dowried bride.’

‘But didn’t Mrs Mufford spread that rumour about Clementina Lyffe running off with a footman?’

‘True,’ Griselda said. ‘And yet Clementina is happily married to her viscount and shows no propensity whatsoever to court the household staff. Lady Blechschmidt generally can scent a fortune hunter at fifty yards, and there was no sign of Ardmore at her soirée last night, which suggests he was not invited. I must ask her if she has any pertinent information.’

‘His absence from that particular event may simply indicate an intolerance for boredom,’ Annabel remarked.

‘Tush!’ Griselda said, laughing. ‘You know Lady Blechschmidt is a great acquaintance of mine. I must say, it is unusual for there to be such mystery about a man; if he were English we would know everything from his birth weight to his yearly income. Did you ever meet him when you lived in Scotland?’

‘Never. But Mrs Mufford’s speculation about his reasons for coming to London is likely true.’ Many a Scottish nobleman hung around her father’s stables, and they were all as empty in the pocket as her own viscount of a father. In fact, it was practically a requirement of nationality. One either remained poor or married a rich Englishman – as Imogen had done, as Tess had done and as she herself meant to do.

‘Ardmore doesn’t look the sort to be fooled by your sister,’ Griselda said.

Annabel hoped she was right. There was a brittleness behind Imogen’s artful exposure of her bosom that had little to do with desire.

Griselda rose. ‘Imogen must find her own way through her grief,’ she said. ‘There are women who have a hard time of it, and I’m afraid she’s one of them.’

Their eldest sister, Tess, kept saying that Imogen had to live her own life. And so had Annabel.

For a moment a smile touched Annabel’s lips. The only dowry she had was a horse, so she and the Scotsman were really two of a kind.

Scottish pennies, as it were.

Two

Lady Feddrington was in the grip of a passion for all things Egyptian, and since she had the means to indulge every whim, her ballroom resembled nothing so much as a storage house kept by tomb raiders. Flanking the large doors at one end were twenty-foot-high statues of some sort of a dog-human. Apparently they originally stood at the doors of an Egyptian temple.

‘At first I wasn’t certain that I quite liked them. Their expressions are not…nice,’ Lady Feddrington had told Annabel. ‘But now I’ve named them Humpty and Dumpty. I think of them rather like superior servants: so silent, and you can tell in a glance that they won’t drink to excess.’ She had giggled; Lady Feddrington was a rather silly woman.

But Annabel had to admit that from the vantage point of the other side of the room, Humpty and Dumpty looked magnificent. They gazed down on the dancers milling around their ankles with expressions that made the idea that they were servants laughable.

She pulled a gauzy piece of nothingness around her shoulders. It was pale gold, to match her dress, and embroidered with a curling series of ferns. Gold on gold and worth every penny. She threw a glance at those imposing Egyptian statues again. Surely they should be in a museum? They made the fluttering crowds around them look dissolute.

‘Anubis, god of the dead,’ a deep voice said. ‘Not the most propitious guardian for an occasion such as this.’

Even after having met him for only a moment, she knew Ardmore’s voice. Well, why shouldn’t she? She had grown up surrounded by that soft Scottish burr, though their father threatened to disown herself and her sisters if they used it. ‘They look like gods,’ she said. ‘Have you travelled to Egypt, my lord?’

‘Alas, no.’

She shouldn’t have even asked. She, if anyone, knew the life of an impoverished Scottish nobleman all too well. It involved hours spent trying to eke a living from tenants battered by cold and hunger, not pleasure trips up the Nile River.

He slipped a hand under her arm. ‘May I ask you to dance, or should I request the pleasure from your chaperone?’

She smiled up at him, one of her rarer smiles that didn’t bother to seduce, but just expressed companionship. ‘Neither is necessary,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I’m sure you can find someone more appropriate to dance with.’

He blinked at her, looking more like a burly labourer than an earl. She’d come to know quite a lot about earls – aye, and dukes and other lords too. Their chaperone, Lady Griselda, considered it her duty to point out every man within eyesight who carried a title. Mayne, Griselda’s brother, was a typical English lord: sleek and faintly dangerous, with slender fingers and exquisite manners. His hair fell in ordered waves that shone in the light, and he smelled as good as she herself did.

But this Scottish earl was another story. The earl’s red-brown hair fell in thick rumpled curls down his neck. His eyes were a clear green, lined with long lashes, and the out-of-doors sense he had about him translated into a kind of raw sensuality. While Mayne wore velvet and silk, Ardmore was plainly dressed in a costume of black. Black with a touch of white at the throat. No wonder Imogen thought he would complement her mourning attire.

‘Why do you refuse me?’ he asked, sounding surprised.

‘Because I grew up with lads like yourself,’ she said, letting a trace of a Scottish accent slip into her voice. Lad wasn’t the right word, not for this huge northerner who was so clearly a man, but that was the sense she meant. He could be a friend, but never a suitor. Although she could hardly explain to him that she meant to marry someone rich.

‘So you’ve taken a vow not to dance with anyone from your own homeland?’ he asked.

‘Something like that,’ she said. ‘But I could introduce you to a proper young lady, if you wish.’ She knew quite a few debutantes endowed with more-than-respectable dowries.

‘Does that mean that you would decline to marry me as well?’ he asked, a curious little smile playing around his mouth. ‘I would be happy to ask for your hand, if that would mean we could dance together.’

She grinned at his foolishness. ‘You’ll never find a bride if you go about behaving in such a way,’ she told him. ‘You must take your pursuit more seriously.’

‘I do take it seriously.’ He leaned against the wall and looked down at her so intently that her skin prickled. ‘Would you marry me, even if you won’t dance with me?’

You couldn’t help but like him. His eyes were as green as the ocean. ‘I certainly will not marry you,’ she said.

‘Ah,’ he said, sounding not terribly disappointed.

‘You cannot ask women to marry you whom you barely know,’ she added.

He didn’t seem to realise that it wasn’t entirely polite to lean against the wall in a lady’s presence, nor to watch her with lazy appreciation. Annabel felt a flash of sympathy. He would never be able to catch a rich bride at this rate! She should help him, if only because he was her countryman.

‘Why not?’ he asked. ‘Compatibility is not something one discovers after five encounters rather than one. One must make an educated guess.’

‘That’s just it: you know nothing of me!’

‘Not so,’ he said promptly. ‘Number one, you’re Scottish. Number two, you’re Scottish. And number three –’

‘I can guess,’ she said.

‘You’re beautiful,’ he finished, a fleeting smile crossing his face.

He had his arms crossed over his chest now and was smiling down at her like a great giant.

‘While I thank you for the compliment, I have to wonder why on earth you came to London to find a bride, given your first two requirements,’ Annabel said.

‘I came because I was told to do so,’ he replied.

Annabel didn’t need any further information. Everyone knew that rich brides were to be found in London, and poor ones in Scotland. The man was hoping that her finery meant she had a dowry to match.

‘You’re judging on appearances,’ she told him. ‘My only dowry is a horse, although, as I said, I’d be happy to introduce you to some appropriate young ladies.’

He opened his mouth, but at that moment Imogen appeared at her shoulder. ‘Darling,’ she said to Annabel, ‘I’ve been looking everywhere for you!’ Without pausing, she turned to the earl. ‘Lord Ardmore,’ she purred, ‘I am Lady Maitland. What a pleasure to meet you.’

Annabel watched as the earl bent over her sister’s hand. Imogen was looking as beautiful as any avenging goddess. She gave Ardmore a look that no man, especially a man in search of a dowry faced with a wealthy young widow, would consider resisting. In fact, it looked very much like one of Annabel’s own come-hither glances.

‘I have an unendurable longing to dance,’ Imogen said. ‘Will you please me, Lord Ardmore?’

Unendurable? But Ardmore wasn’t laughing; he was kissing Imogen’s hand again. Annabel gave up. The man would have to find his own way out of Imogen’s net. Imogen had always been thus: once she made up her mind, there was no stopping her. ‘I shall return to my chaperone,’ Annabel said, curtsying. ‘Lord Ardmore, it has been a pleasure.’

Lady Griselda was holding court in a corner of the room, their guardian sprawled beside her with a drink in his hand. Not that there was anything unusual in that; the Duke of Holbrook always had a drink. He came to meet Annabel when he saw her winding her way through the crowd.

Now that she had come to know a number of English nobility, she was more and more surprised by how unducal Rafe was. For one thing, he refused to go by his title. For another, he was as far from scented and curled and sartorially splendid as could be imagined. At least his valet managed to get him into a decent coat of blue superfine for the evening, but when he was at home he tended toward comfortable pantaloons and a threadworn white shirt.

‘Griselda’s driving me mad,’ he said without formality. ‘And if she doesn’t succeed, Imogen will finish me off. What the devil is she doing, dancing attendance on that Scottish fellow? I don’t even know the man.’

‘She’s decided that she wants a cicisbeo,’ Annabel told him.

‘Stuff and nonsense,’ Rafe muttered, running a hand through hair that was already wildly disarranged. ‘I can escort her wherever she needs to go.’

‘She’s being plagued by fortune hunters.’

‘For God’s sake, why’d she choose a penniless Scot to dance about with, then?’ Rafe bellowed, only belatedly glancing about him.

‘Perhaps she won’t care for him on further acquaintance,’ Annabel said, trying to see whether she could glimpse Lord Rosseter anywhere. At the moment Rosseter was her first choice for a spouse.

‘She’s making an ass of herself,’ Rafe said.

For some reason, Imogen’s antics always drove Rafe to distraction, especially since she’d returned to London and begun to order gowns that fit her like a second skin. But no matter how much he bellowed and raged, she merely smirked at him and said that widows could dress precisely as they wished.

‘Surely it’s not as bad as that,’ Annabel said absently, still searching the crowd for Rosseter.

She caught Lady Griselda’s eyes, who called: ‘Annabel! Do come here for a moment.’

Their chaperone was nothing like the dour old ladies who generally earned that label; she was as good-looking as the infamous, altar-deserting Earl of Mayne. It went without saying that none of them held her brother’s behaviour against Griselda; she had been devastated when Mayne galloped away from Rafe’s house approximately five minutes before he was due to marry Tess.

‘What on earth is Rafe bellowing about?’ Griselda inquired, without much real concern in her voice. ‘He’s turned all plum-coloured.’

‘Rafe is worried that Imogen is making an exhibition of herself,’ Annabel told her.

‘Already? She is a woman of her word.’

Annabel nodded over to the right. A waltz was playing, and the Earl of Ardmore was holding Imogen far too tightly. Or perhaps, Annabel thought fairly, Imogen was doing the holding. Whatever the impetus, Imogen swayed in his arms as if they were in the grip of a reckless passion.

‘Goodness me,’ Griselda said, fanning herself. ‘They’re quite a couple, aren’t they? All that black on black…Imogen certainly was correct about the aesthetics of choosing Ardmore as a partner.’

‘Nothing will come of it,’ Annabel assured her. ‘Imogen was just blustering. I’m sure of it.’ But the words died in her mouth as Imogen threw an arm around the earl’s neck and began caressing his hair in an outrageously intimate fashion.

‘She wants a scandal,’ Griselda said matter-of-factly. ‘The poor dear. Some widows do suffer through this sort of thing.’

She made it sound as if Imogen were coming down with a nasty cold.

‘Did you?’ Annabel asked.

‘Thankfully not,’ Griselda said with a little shiver. ‘But I do believe that Imogen’s feelings for Lord Maitland were far deeper than mine for dear Willoughby. Although,’ she added, ‘naturally I had all proper emotion for my husband.’

Imogen was smiling up at Ardmore, her eyes half closed as if – Well. Annabel looked away.

What Imogen wanted, Imogen took. She had loved Draven Maitland for years, and never mind the fact that he was betrothed to another woman. The moment Imogen had a chance, she somehow sprained her ankle in such a way that she had to convalesce in the Maitland household. That ankle injury was remarkably fortuitous. The next thing Annabel knew, her sister had eloped with Draven Maitland. In fact, given Imogen’s strength of will, Annabel rather thought that Ardmore might have to find and woo his bride in the next season.

‘Have you seen Lord Rosseter?’ she asked Griselda.

But Griselda was mesmerised – as doubtless were most of the respectable women in the room – by Imogen’s behaviour on the dance floor. ‘Imogen is not my duty,’ she said to herself, fanning her face madly.

Annabel looked back at her sister. Imogen could not have made her intentions to engage in a scandalous affair more clear. She was clinging to Ardmore as if she’d turned into an ivy plant.

‘Oh, Lord,’ Griselda moaned. Now Imogen was caressing Ardmore’s neck, for all the world as if she meant to pull his head down to hers.

Annabel’s elder sister Tess dropped into a chair beside them. ‘Can someone please explain to me why Imogen is behaving like such a wanton?’

‘Where have you been all evening?’ Annabel asked. ‘I thought I caught a glimpse of you and Felton earlier, but then I couldn’t find you.’

Tess ignored her question. ‘She may ruin herself with this behaviour! People will draw the conclusion that she is Ardmore’s mistress.’

‘And they’ll be correct,’ Griselda put in calmly. ‘How are you, my dear? You look blooming.’

But Tess just stared at Griselda. ‘Imogen has taken a lover? I knew she was distraught, but –’

‘She calls it taking a cicisbeo,’ Annabel put in.

On the dance floor Imogen was dancing thigh to thigh with the Scotsman, head thrown back in an attitude of sensual abandon.

‘We have to do something,’ Tess said grimly. ‘It’s one thing to take a cicisbeo, if that’s what she wants. But at this rate she’ll create such a frightful scandal that she won’t be invited to parties.’

‘Oh, she’s already beyond the pale on that front,’ Griselda said, a little too cheerfully for Annabel’s comfort. ‘Remember, she eloped with her first husband. And after this exhibition…Well, she’ll still be invited to the largest balls, of course.’

But Tess had raised her three younger sisters from the time their mother died, and she wasn’t going to resign herself to Imogen’s disgrace so easily. ‘That will not do,’ she stated. ‘I’ll just put it to her that –’

Annabel shook her head. ‘You are not the one to give advice. The two of you only reconciled a matter of weeks ago.’ Tess looked rebellious, so Annabel added firmly, ‘Not unless you wish to engage in another squabble with Imogen.’

‘It’s all so absurd,’ Tess muttered. ‘We never really quarrelled.’ Just then Lucius Felton came up, dropped a kiss on his wife’s hair, and winked at Annabel.

‘Give me a chance and I’ll scare up a reason to stop speaking to you myself,’ Annabel said, smiling at him. ‘All this marital affection is hard to stomach.’

‘Imogen apologised very prettily,’ Tess said. ‘But I still think her behaviour was remarkably unjustified.’

‘Your husband –’ Annabel began.

‘Is alive,’ Tess said, accepting the point. ‘But does that mean I have to allow my sister to ruin herself without saying a word?’

But Annabel had a twinge of sympathy with Imogen, seeing the way Lucius brought Tess’s hand to his lips before he left to bring her a glass of champagne.

‘Do you think that Ardmore is aware that Imogen has only just been widowed?’ Tess asked. ‘Perhaps you could appeal to his better self. Weren’t you just speaking to him?’

‘He has no idea that Imogen is my sister,’ Annabel said doubtfully. ‘I could –’

‘It wouldn’t make any difference,’ Griselda put in. ‘Imogen made it quite clear earlier in the evening that she fully intends to create a scandal, if not with this gentleman, then with my own dear brother. And frankly, if this is the way she intends to go about it, I’m grateful she didn’t choose Mayne. I still have fond hopes for a nephew at some point and my brother may have slept with most of the available women in the ton, but he’s never put on a public exhibition.’

Tess’s eyes narrowed. ‘She was considering Mayne?’

‘Yes, Mayne,’ Annabel confirmed. ‘I believe she had some quixotic idea of punishing him for leaving you at the altar.’

‘That’s foolish,’ Tess said. ‘Mayne punishes himself quite enough.’ She turned to Griselda. ‘Did he come tonight?’

‘Of course,’ Griselda said, startled. ‘He was just inside the gaming room, last time I looked. But –’

Tess was already gone, heading like an arrow to the room where the men sat around their cards, hoping their wives wouldn’t drag them onto the ballroom floor.

‘I was going to say,’ Griselda added, ‘that I believe he intended to leave for his club. I barely have a chance to see my own brother now that he has given up philandering. He won’t stay at a ball over a half hour.’

Annabel looked back at Imogen. Would this waltz never end?

But at that moment Rafe shouldered his way onto the floor. Before Annabel could take a breath, the red-haired Scotsman was bowing, and Rafe had swept Imogen away.

Imogen was as surprised as her sister. One moment she was gliding around the ballroom with Ardmore, thoroughly enjoying every scandalised glance directed at her, and the next she was jerked from his arms by her ex-guardian. ‘And just what do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded, holding her body as far from Rafe’s as was possible.

‘Saving your miserable little self,’ he snapped back. ‘Do you have any idea what a disgrace you’re making of yourself?’ Rafe’s hair was standing up on end and his normally grey-blue eyes were black with rage.

Imogen raised an eyebrow. ‘Just remind me again where your authority over me lies?’

‘What do you mean?’ He swung her into a brisk turn and began back up the ballroom floor.

‘What right have you to interrogate even the smallest aspect of my behaviour? I ceased to be your responsibility the moment I married Draven.’

‘I only wish that were the case. As I told you when you broached that ludicrous idea of renting a house, I consider myself still your guardian, and you’ll live with me until you marry again. Or grow old enough to govern yourself, whichever comes first.’

She smiled at him, a movement of her lips belied by her angry gaze. ‘This may surprise you, but I don’t agree with your assessment of my situation. I’m planning to set up my own establishment in the very near future.’

‘Over my dead body!’ Rafe snapped.

Imogen glared at him.

‘I don’t know what you’re playing at with Ardmore,’ Rafe said, ‘but you’re ruining yourself for nothing. The man is looking for a bride, not a flirtation with a silly widow with no plans to marry.’

Suddenly he looked sorry for her, as if his anger were draining away. The last thing Imogen wanted was sympathy from her drunken oaf of a guardian. ‘For nothing?’ she said, taunting him. ‘You must be blind. Ardmore’s shoulders, his eyes, his mouth…’ She gave a little shiver of supposed delight.

Which turned into something quite different, although it took her a moment to realise it. He was shaking her! Rafe had dropped her hand and given her a hard shake, as if she were a child in the midst of a tantrum. ‘How dare you!’ she gasped, feeling pins slide from her hair.

‘You’re lucky I don’t drag you out of here and lock you in your chambers,’ he snapped. ‘You deserve it.’

‘Because I find a man attractive?’

‘No! Because you’re a liar. You said you loved Maitland.’

She flinched. ‘Don’t you dare say that I didn’t.’

‘It’s a pretty way you’ve chosen to honour his memory,’ Rafe said flatly. He had dropped his hands from her shoulders.

A wash of shame tumbled over Imogen’s body. ‘You have no idea –’

‘No, none,’ he said. ‘And I don’t wish to know. If I ever have a widow, I certainly hope she doesn’t mourn me in your fashion.’

Imogen swallowed. Thankfully, they were at the end of the room, because she could feel the tears swelling in her throat. She turned on her heel without another word and walked through the door. Rafe came behind her, but she ignored him, heading blindly for the front door.

At the side of the room, Annabel sighed. Her little sister had always been passionate to a fault, and unfortunately Rafe, comfortable Rafe who liked everyone, had taken a sharp dislike to Imogen almost from the first. As the two of them left the room, the storm of gossiping voices around them reached a high cackle, like hens experiencing a visit from the neighbourhood fox.

‘If Rafe wanted her to marry that Scot,’ Griselda remarked, ‘he couldn’t have done more to force the match.’

‘She won’t marry Ardmore,’ Annabel said.

‘She may not have a choice,’ Griselda said darkly. ‘After Rafe put on such a paternal performance, Ardmore will likely guess that given a modicum of scandal, Rafe will force a marriage, and he could use her estate, if the tales are true.’

‘She won’t marry him,’ Annabel repeated. ‘Have you seen Rosseter tonight?’

Griselda’s eyes brightened. ‘Ah. All that land in Kent and no mother-in-law. I approve, my dear.’ Griselda was always to the point.

‘He’s a nice man,’ Annabel reminded her.

Her chaperone waved her hand. ‘If you believe that silence is golden.’

Annabel settled her scrap of gold silk around her shoulders. ‘I see nothing wrong with his lack of verbosity. I can talk enough for both of us, should the need arise.’

‘He’s dancing with Mrs Fulgens’s spotty daughter,’ Griselda said. ‘But have no fear. Rosseter is not a man to overlook imperfections, is he?’

Annabel looked in the direction of Griselda’s nod to find Rosseter leaving the ballroom floor. He wasn’t the sort of man who immediately struck you as handsome: certainly he was no big, burly man who tossed women around the ballroom as if they were bags of wheat. In his arms one floated around the floor. He had a narrow, pale face with a high forehead and grey eyes. He tended to look expressionless and rather detached; Annabel found that a refreshing change from the puppies who begged her for dances and sent her roses with rhyming poems attached.

Rosseter had sent her only one bouquet: a bunch of forget-menots. There was no poem, only a scrawled note: These match your eyes, I believe. There was something deliciously offhand about his note. She had made up her mind on the spot to marry him.

Now he dispensed with Daisy, as Griselda had predicted, and drifted in their direction. A second later he was bowing in front of Lady Griselda, kissing her hand and saying in his unemotional way that she was looking particularly lovely.

When he turned to Annabel he didn’t bother with a compliment, simply kissed the tips of her fingers. But there was a look in his eye that warmed her heart. ‘Madame Maisonnet?’ he asked, indicating her costume with one slim hand. ‘A superb choice, Miss Essex.’

Annabel smiled back. They didn’t speak as they danced. Why should they? As far as Annabel could tell – and she could always tell what men were thinking – they were in perfect harmony. Their marriage would be riven by neither tears nor jealousy. They would have beautiful children. He was extremely wealthy and so her lack of a dowry would not bother him. They would be kind to each other, and she could talk to herself if she lacked breakfast conversation.

For someone with as little tolerance for inane chitchat as she had, the prospect was entirely pleasing. In fact, the only drawback she could think of was that conversation with oneself held few surprises. Neither did Rosseter’s farewell to her that evening. ‘Miss Essex,’ he said, ‘would it be acceptable to you if I spoke to your guardian tomorrow morning?’ His hand was snow-white, slim and delicate as he pressed her fingers in a most gratifying manner.

‘That would make me quite happy, Lord Rosseter,’ Annabel murmured.

She was having trouble suppressing a grin. Finally – finally! – her heart’s desire was within reach. She had longed for this moment for years, ever since her father discovered that she had a gift for figures and promptly dumped the entire accounting of the estate in her lap. From the time she was thirteen years old, Annabel had spent her days bargaining with tradesmen, shedding tears over a ledger book that showed far more minuses than pluses, pleading with her father to sell the most expensive animals, begging him not to spend all their money at the track…

And was rewarded by his dislike.

But she had kept at it, well aware that her financial management was often the only thing between her sisters and true hunger, the only thing holding off the ruin of the stables her father held so dear.

Her father had called her Miss Prune. If she approached while he was standing with friends, he would roll his eyes at her. Sometimes he would take out a coin and toss it in her direction, and then joke with his friends that she kept him on a tighter string than the worst of wives. And she would always pick up the coin…bend down and pick it up because that was one coin saved from the huge maw of the stables. Saved for flour, or butter, or a beautiful hen for the supper table.

So she had turned to dreaming of the husband she would have someday. She had never bothered imagining his face: Lord Rosseter’s face was as acceptable as that of almost any wealthy Englishman. What she had imagined were sleeves clad in gleaming velvet, and cravats that were white as snow and made of the finest linen. The kind of clothes that were bought for beauty, not to last. Hands in that flawless state that screamed manual labour was unnecessary.

Rosseter’s hands would do perfectly.

Three

Grillon’s Hotel

After midnight

Ewan Poley, Earl of Ardmore, was fairly certain that he was obeying Father Armailhac’s instructions to the letter. ‘Go to London,’ he had said. ‘Dance with a pretty girl.’

‘And just what am I supposed to do with this pretty girl?’ Ewan had inquired.

‘Surely the spirit will move you,’ Father Armailhac had said. For a monk, he had a wicked twinkle at times.

And so far, Ewan had met a multitude of pretty girls. Due to his terrible memory, he couldn’t remember any of their names, but he reckoned he must have danced with half of London by now. Thanks to his title, he had been showered by invitations within a few days of his arrival; it seemed that the English were not quite so blasé about Scottish titles as was rumoured in the north country. Yet it seemed to him that Father Armailhac had meant he should meet a particular girl, one whom he could contemplating wooing and bringing back to Scotland.

He had no objection to marrying, although he couldn’t say he felt passionate enthusiasm for the idea. His mind slid easily from marriage to the long, clean rows of his stables, the golden fields of spring wheat just beginning to sprout. He could give this marrying business another fortnight. Then he would return home, married or no.

The black-haired lass he had danced with this evening seemed more than ready to hop before the altar. But what was her name? He couldn’t remember. She had clung to him like a limpet, which he didn’t care for much. Yet perhaps the lady was desperate, widowed as she was, and likely with naught more than a small dowry.

His manservant appeared at the door, a silver plate in his hand. Ewan might not be enjoying London much, but Glover was ecstatic. All his ambitions were fulfilled by being in the city, as he called it, during the season. ‘Your lordship, a card has arrived.’

‘At this hour? Just put it over there,’ Ewan said, nodding at the mantelpiece. It was crowded with cards and invitations from people he’d never heard of.

Glover bowed but didn’t move toward the fireplace. ‘Your lordship, this card is from the Duke of Holbrook. And’ – Glover lowered his voice to an awed whisper – ‘His Grace has condescended to wait.’

Ewan sighed. A duke. Perhaps the man was desperate to send one of his daughters off into the supposed wilds of Scotland. He’d figured out soon enough that the English thought of Scotland as a wilderness of crazed warriors and grim religious dissenters.

He glanced at his cravat in the mirror. Glover was brokenhearted at his refusal to change his customary black for the gaudy waistcoats Englishmen wore to balls. But he looked fine and, more importantly, Scottish. Scotsmen wore kilts if they felt the need for a little colour, even if they weren’t allowed to wear them in this country.

‘His Grace awaits you in the sitting room,’ Glover said.

‘Aye.’

‘If you’ll excuse the boldness, my lord,’ Glover said, hesitating.

Ewan raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes?’

‘A duke of the realm,’ Glover said, trembling with the excitement of it. ‘Try to avoid Scottish phrases such as aye. ‘Twill make an unpleasant impression on His Grace.’

‘I’m not marrying him,’ Ewan said, but then softened. ‘But thank you for the advice, Glover. I shall do my best to appear reasonably English.’ Not that he would ever wish to mimic an Englishman, not in a hundred years.

The duke was a messy sort, Ewan saw with some relief. In fact, the sort who would take no offense at an occasional aye. Ewan had already had several conversations with the perfumed, sleek type of English nobility, and he didn’t care for them. No more did they him.

This duke was dressed in clothes that looked comfortable rather than elegant. His stomach strained comfortably over the waist of his pantaloons, and as Ewan stood in the doorway of the room, his guest threw back a glass of brandy that Glover must have given him with all the enthusiasm of one of Ewan’s labourers greeting the evening.

‘Your Grace,’ Ewan said, entering the room. ‘This is indeed a pleasure.’

The duke straightened like a bloodhound and turned around. Ewan almost took a step back. Bloody hell, the man looked enraged. And now he remembered precisely where he’d met him before. If you could call it a meeting; the duke had snatched the black-haired lady from his arms and danced with her himself.

‘Do you know who I am?’ he said. His voice was as deep and burly as his figure.

‘According to your card, you are the Duke of Holbrook,’ Ewan observed. He moved over to the sideboard. ‘May I offer you another drink?’ He dropped the Your Grace part as it made him feel faintly servant-like.

‘I am the guardian of Lady Maitland,’ the man announced.

‘Quite so,’ Ewan murmured, pouring himself a stiff glass. ‘Well, I am the Earl of Ardmore, hailing from Aberdeenshire, if you were not already aware of the fact.’

‘Lady Maitland,’ Holbrook insisted. ‘Imogen Maitland.’

Imogen must be the black-haired charmer from the ballroom. ‘If I have offended you or the lady in any way, I offer my sincere apologies,’ Ewan said, striving for diplomacy.

‘Well, I should say you have!’ the duke huffed.

‘How?’ Ewan inquired. He kept his tone easy and even.

‘All London is talking of the two of you,’ Holbrook snapped. ‘Of your tasteless exhibition of waltzing.’

Ewan thought for a moment. He had two alternatives: to tell the truth, or to take responsibility. Honour demanded that he not reveal the fact that Holbrook’s ward had clung to him with all the expert passion of a Bird of Paradise. He was no fool: the black-haired Imogen was far less moved by his beauty than she had pretended to be. He caught some sort of emotion in her eyes, but it didn’t seem to be pure lust, even if that was the emotion that she was flaunting.

‘I apologise in every respect,’ he said finally. ‘I was bowled over by her beauty and I gather it led to my actions being interpreted in an unpleasant light.’

Holbrook narrowed his eyes. Ewan gazed back at him, wondering if all dukes in England were so undisciplined in their emotions and dress.

‘I’ll have that drink now,’ the duke said.

Ewan picked up his personal decanter and poured him a healthy glass. Holbrook had the distinct atmosphere of a man who enjoyed a good brandy, and Ewan had brought with him several flasks of the best aged whisky to be found in Scotland.

Holbrook took one large sip and then looked at Ewan in surprise. He sank into a couch and took another sip.

Ewan sat down opposite him. He could see that Holbrook understood exactly what he was drinking.

‘What is it?’ Holbrook said, his voice hushed.

‘An aged single malt,’ Ewan said. ‘A new process and one likely to change the whisky industry, to my mind.’

Holbrook took another sip and sat back, ‘Glen Garioch,’ he said dreamily. ‘Glen Garioch or – possibly – Tobermary.’

Ewan gave him a real grin this time. ‘Aye, Glen Garioch it is.’

‘Bliss,’ Holbrook said. ‘Almost, I could let a man who knew his whisky marry Imogen. Almost!’ he said, opening his eyes again.

‘I’ve no particular desire to marry her,’ Ewan said agreeably.

He realised his mistake when Holbrook’s eyebrows drew into a ferocious scowl.

‘Although I would consider myself immeasurably lucky to do so,’ Ewan added. ‘She is a lovely young woman.’

‘Rumour has it that you’re in England precisely to find a wife,’ the duke growled. But he was sipping his liquor again.

‘The rumour is correct,’ Ewan said. ‘But not necessarily your ward.’

‘Ah.’

They sat in silence for a while, enjoying the whisky.

‘I expect the truth of it is that Imogen threw herself at you, and you’re being too polite to tell me so to my face,’ the duke said as gloomily as was possible when one is holding a glass of ’83 whisky distilled by Glen Garioch.

‘Lady Maitland is an exquisite young woman. I’d be more than happy to marry her.’

The duke caught his eye, and then: ‘Damned if you don’t mean it. Don’t care who you marry, is that it?’

‘I take a reasonable interest in the subject,’ Ewan protested. ‘But I will admit that I’m rather anxious to return to my lands. The wheat is sprouting.’

The duke looked as if he had never heard the word sprout. ‘Are you telling me that you’re a farmer?’ he asked. ‘One of those gentlemen who dabble about with experimental methods. Turnip Townshend, wasn’t that his name?’

‘I’m not quite as engrossed as Mr Townshend,’ Ewan murmured, letting another sip of liquor burn its complex, golden way down his throat.

‘This is delicious,’ the duke said, clearly discarding a subject of little interest to him. ‘This whisky is utterly –’ he stopped. ‘Wheat? Do you have anything to do with whisky production, then?’

‘My tenants supply some grain for the distilleries in Speyside,’ Ewan said.

‘No wonder you know your drink so well.’ The duke seemed quite struck by this. ‘Been thinking about giving up the tipple,’ he said suddenly.

‘Indeed?’ Ewan had to admit that the duke was putting away the best whisky there was to be had in Scotland at a fantastic rate, and showing little signs of it. Perhaps he had fallen into the way of drinking too much.

‘But not tonight.’

Ewan decided the appropriate response to that revelation would be to pour the duke another generous portion, so he did so.

‘Your estate is in Aberdeenshire?’

Ewan nodded.

‘There’s a lovely horse up there,’ the duke said, thinking it over. ‘I haven’t seen him for a year or so, but –’

‘Warlock,’ Ewan put in. ‘He strained a fetlock last July.’

‘Exactly! Warlock. Belongs to a friend of yours, does he?’

‘I own Warlock,’ Ewan said.

Now the duke’s eyes were definitely warm. ‘Good man. Out of Pheasant, wasn’t he?’

‘Pheasant by way of Miraculous,’ Ewan said.

‘I don’t suppose you’re thinking of breeding his line, are you?’

‘I already have a yearling who’s showing definite possibilities.’

The duke had shed his sleepy, pleasant manner and was sitting bolt upright, looking more awake than Ewan had seen him, except perhaps at the ball when he was in such a rage. ‘I’ve three offspring of Patchem sitting in my stables, two mares and a colt. The daughters are my wards, and each one of them came with a horse for a dowry. Their father was a bit of a featherhead and he doesn’t seem to have thought carefully about the business. I was thinking of breeding the mares, since neither shows much racing ability.’

A horse for a dowry? He’d only heard of such a thing once, and that was from the golden-haired beauty at the ball. Who had told him to look elsewhere, because she only had a horse for a dowry. Apparently she didn’t think it important to note that the particular horse was from the line of Patchem.

‘I should like to see a horse with Warlock’s and Patchem’s bloodlines,’ he said.

They sat in comfortable silence for a few moments, the duke slumping back into his boneless, indolent stance.

‘You’ve gone about finding a wife the wrong way,’ Holbrook said, after a while.

‘I’ve gone to fourteen events in the last week,’ Ewan observed. ‘Four balls, a number of afternoon gatherings and one musicale. I did ask a young lady to marry me this evening, but she declined.’ He didn’t think it necessary to note that the woman was apparently one of Holbrook’s wards, not when the duke had only barely gotten over his annoyance at Ewan’s behaviour with another of those wards.

‘That’s not the way of it. These things are handled between men. The key is to figure out which woman you wish to marry before you go to the ballroom.’ The duke’s voice had just the slightest husky edge now, a golden burr of whisky. But all in all, Ewan thought he held his liquor better than any man he knew except old Lachlan McGregor, and McGregor had given his life to the practice.

‘I’ll take you along to my club,’ the duke continued. ‘We can have it all fixed up in a moment.’ He rose and Ewan was rather amazed to see that the man wasn’t even unsteady. ‘Not that you can have Imogen,’ he said with a sudden roar, ‘even if she does come with a mare for a dowry. We’ll do the horse breeding on the side.’

‘I wouldn’t think of it,’ Ewan said, looking around for the card case that Glover had brought for him. He didn’t find it, so he simply followed the duke out the door. The only sign that Holbrook had imbibed the better part of a flask was a certain talkativeness.

‘You see,’ the duke said in the carriage as they were trundling off to his club, ‘the poor girl lost her husband a mere six months ago. The man fell on the racetrack, racing one of his own horses: a yearling that should never have been put to the bridle.’

‘Aye,’ Ewan said. He’d heard that story somewhere, but as was often the case, the name of the rider eluded him.

‘Imogen had loved him for years.’ Holbrook was leaning back against the cushions, having no problem whatsoever keeping his balance as the carriage swung around corners and rumbled down cobblestone streets. ‘She picked him out when she was a mere nursling, and they ended up eloping. And then he died but a matter of weeks later.’

‘Weeks!’ Ewan said, struck by the misfortune of that. And then: ‘Of course, that would be Draven Maitland.’

‘The same.’

‘Ah,’ Ewan said. He had met young Maitland a few times, since the man used to race the Scottish cycle before returning to England for the English racing season. Maitland was a rash, foolish young man whom Ewan had rather disliked.

The duke took a little flagon out of his pocket and took a sip, but shook his head. ‘This is like drinking pisswater after that whisky of yours. At any rate, poor Imogen is not quite herself, due to the shock of the whole thing, as you can imagine.’

The carriage stopped in front of an imposing, pillared building. Ewan had no idea what part of the city they were in. ‘Aren’t these clubs for members only?’ he asked.

The duke waved his hand dismissively. ‘No one will question my bringing a guest in for a drink. I’ll put you up for membership, if you’d like. But it is a hell of an expense,’ he tossed over his shoulder. ‘Not worth the money, I should think.’

Ewan agreed with him. Surely men stewed in liquor all offered the same tedious company, and if it was their society he wished, the men in his local tavern would do.

The duke seemed to know precisely where he was going. They were greeted by a solemn-faced individual, who bowed deeply and intoned a welcome to ‘White’s’. Then the duke trundled past a few rooms that seemed to be filled with gamblers and finally arrived in a library.

It was a magnificent room. The few bits of wall that weren’t covered with books were papered in a deep crimson. There was a fire burning in a generous hearth, and comfortable chairs scattered about the room in groupings that offered intimacy. The duke didn’t hesitate. ‘Come,’ he threw over his shoulder, heading to a corner.

Four high-backed chairs were grouped with their backs to the room. In one of them was a scion of English nobility of just the sort that Ewan disliked. He had black curls tossed in one of those styles that Ewan had just figured out was a style, rather than the effect of an unexpected rain shower. And he was wearing a waistcoat of such riotously embroidered beauty that Glover would have grown weak at the knees. Ewan could only be glad that his manservant was not with him: the last thing he wanted was to find himself dressed in a garnet-coloured jacket, as if he were a man milliner.

Ewan saw with one glance that the gentleman seated next to the man milliner was a man of power. He had a face that bespoke the ability to move nations, if he wished. His very quietness radiated power and presence. Perhaps he was one of those royal dukes, although he had heard tell that the dukes were on the plump side.

‘I’ve brought along a Scottish earl,’ Holbrook said without ceremony. ‘Seems a decent fellow, and keeps a whisky in his chambers that’s full of the devil. Plus he’s the owner of Warlock, who won the Derby two years ago, if you remember. Ardmore, that sprig of fashion is Garret Langham, the Earl of Mayne. And this is Mr Lucius Felton. As for myself, I go by Rafe amongst friends.’

Without waiting for a response, he signalled to a footman. ‘Ask Penny if they have any aged Glen Garioch whisky in the house.’

‘They don’t,’ Ewan said, bowing to the gentlemen, who had stood up and were doing the pretty. ‘Aged malts aren’t exported for sale yet.’

The duke collapsed into a chair. ‘I suddenly have a deep interest in visiting our northern neighbours.’

Now that the Earl of Mayne was on his feet, Ewan could see immediately that the man was no man milliner, for all his deep red jacket seemed to catch the gleam of the firelight. He had tired eyes and a dissolute droop to his mouth, but he was a man to be reckoned with.

‘Ardmore,’ Mayne said. ‘It’s a pleasure.’ He had a strong handshake. ‘Didn’t I see you dancing at Lady Feddrington’s house?’

‘You and the rest of London,’ the duke put in darkly.

‘I danced most of the evening,’ Ewan noted, shaking hands with Felton.

‘He’s in need of a wife,’ Rafe said. ‘And since I’m not giving him Imogen, for all she’s thrown herself at his head, I thought we could find him someone ourselves. After all, we didn’t do badly with you, Felton.’

‘Least said about that, the better,’ Mayne muttered.

The duke was finally showing the effect of all that whisky and he grinned rather owlishly at Ewan. ‘What Mayne is trying to say is that after he jilted one of my four girls, Felton stepped in and married her.’

Mayne was looking at Ewan with just a faint curl of a sardonic smile on his face; Felton was grinning outright. Englishmen were far stranger than he’d heard. ‘How many wards do you have?’ he asked finally.

‘Viscount Brydone had four daughters,’ the duke allowed, his head falling back. ‘Four, four, four. All sisters. One is still in the schoolroom, that’s Josie. Imogen is one of them, and Tess was the eldest, until Felton here took her away.’

Felton was smiling. Yet a Scotsman would never stay in the company of a man who had jilted his wife. Never. One look at Mayne’s face and you knew he was a dissipated trifler.

Felton must have seen that fact in his eyes, for he said easily, ‘Unfortunately, I had to force Mayne to jilt his bride. I decided she would do better married to me than to him.’

‘Ruined my reputation,’ Mayne said.

‘Nonsense,’ the duke snorted. ‘The jilting was merely one in a line of scandals you’ve tossed to the wind. So who can Ardmore here marry? You know the ton, Mayne. Find him a bride.’

Ewan waited with faint curiosity for Mayne’s response, but at that moment a plump waiter appeared.

‘Your Grace, we haven’t a drop of Glen Garioch in the house. Would you like some Ardbeg or Tobermary?’

Rafe looked at Ewan.

Ewan bent toward the man and said, ‘We’ll try the Tobermary.’

The plump man bowed and took himself off, and Rafe said dreamily, ‘A man who knows his liquor is more precious than rubies.’

‘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.

Four

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.

‘I loved his dimple,’ Imogen said. ‘When we married, I…’ she stopped.

Annabel saw a glimmer of tears in her sister’s eyes and surreptitiously pulled a handkerchief from her bedside table. She kept a supply there. But Imogen shook her head.

‘Do you know the problem with being married only a matter of two weeks?’ she asked.

Annabel figured that was a rhetorical question.

‘The problem is that I don’t have many memories,’ Imogen said, her voice tight. ‘How many times can I remember kissing Draven for the first time? How many times can I remember his asking me to marry him? If we’d just had more time, even a month or two, I would have feasts of memories, enough to last me for years.’

Annabel handed her the handkerchief. Imogen wiped away a tear snaking down her cheek.

‘There will be other memories to treasure, someday,’ Annabel ventured.

Imogen turned on her with a flash of rage. ‘Don’t try to suggest that anyone could replace Draven in my heart! I loved him from the moment I reached girlhood, and I shall never, ever love another man as I loved him. Never.’

Annabel bit her lip. She always seemed to say the wrong thing. Perhaps she should inform Lord Rosseter that she wished to marry him immediately; at least it would get her out of the house. ‘I didn’t mean to imply that you would forget Draven,’ she said, controlling her voice so that no shade of irritation entered. ‘But you’re very young to talk of never, Imogen.’

‘I’ve never been young in that respect,’ Imogen said flatly.

Annabel decided to try for a new subject. ‘I have decided to marry Lord Rosseter,’ she said brightly.

Imogen didn’t appear to have heard her. ‘Rafe said something similar to me, this very evening in the carriage. He actually implied…’ she turned to Annabel and hesitated. ‘I probably shouldn’t say this to you, since you’re unmarried.’

Annabel snorted.

‘He accused me of missing the pleasure of the marital bed!’

‘Oh. And are you?’ Annabel inquired. It seemed a reasonable, if impertinent, inquiry, given Imogen’s behaviour on the dance floor.

‘Of course not! I miss Draven. But not…or rather – if Draven were…’

Annabel rescued her. ‘Well, I can see Rafe’s point. I should think that anyone could reasonably have assumed that you were missing those particular pleasures, given the way you looked at Ardmore on the dance floor.’

‘Nonsense!’ Imogen snapped. ‘I was merely being seductive. The same as you always are.’

‘I never act in that way,’ Annabel stated.

‘Well, of course, you don’t have the knowledge that I do,’ Imogen said pettishly. ‘You’re just a maiden, after all. I was able to be much more direct because I understand what happens between a man and a woman in the bedchamber.’

Annabel did not trust herself to speak.

‘At any rate,’ Imogen continued, ‘I have definitely made up my mind to take Ardmore.’

‘Take him?’ Annabel inquired, giving her a direct look.

‘Make him part of my retinue,’ Imogen said, waving a hand in the air. ‘That’s all I’ll say on the subject to a maid, even if you are my sister.’

Annabel ignored her provocation. ‘Be careful, Imogen. I would be very, very careful. That earl does not look like a tame pussycat to me.’

‘Nonsense,’ Imogen said crossly. ‘Men are all the same.’

‘All right,’ Annabel said. ‘Make him your cicisbeo, if you wish. But why put on such an exhibition while dancing? Why embarrass yourself in such a fashion?’

‘I was expressing our mutual –’

But they had been siblings for a long time. ‘Whatever it was you were expressing, it wasn’t a desire to bed Ardmore.’

‘Yes, it was!’ Imogen flared, and then the words died in her throat. She had been so certain that she was being inviting and sensual. But perhaps she had failed at that too. She glanced at Annabel. It was tempting to confide in her…

No. She couldn’t bear to tell Annabel of her marital failures, Annabel who had the ability to make any man within ten yards start panting.

‘You could talk to Tess about it,’ Annabel said now, showing that uncanny ability that sisters sometimes have to guess what another is thinking.

‘There’s nothing to discuss,’ Imogen said, coughing to cover the rasp in her voice. ‘I thoroughly enjoyed myself dancing with Ardmore, and I look forward to more happy hours with him.’

‘You sound like a vicar accepting a new post,’ her sister observed.

What did Annabel know about anything? Imogen couldn’t talk to her, and she couldn’t talk to Tess either, because for all Tess was married, she was happy.

She took a deep breath. ‘I am enthralled by the pleasure I shall share with Ardmore,’ she said.

‘Perhaps not a vicarage…a bishopric,’ her sister mused, clearly unimpressed.

Imogen turned away.

Five

Lady Mitford’s garden party was savoured by each member of the ton lucky enough to receive an invitation. Of course, they savoured it for different reasons. Mothers of nubile girls found that the romantic bowers Lady Mitford placed around her gardens were excellent enclosures for nurturing intimacies that were not too intimate.

Those who were, for whatever reason, uninterested in mating games enjoyed Lady Mitford’s considerable efforts toward producing true Renaissance cuisine. There was the year, for instance, when a pie was split open to reveal five cross and extremely undercooked doves who promptly flew into the air. When one of them dropped a noxious substance on the head of an upstart young lord, the pie was deemed an enormous success.

Finally, the day was appreciated by those with a sense of irony. Ewan Poley, Earl of Ardmore, would have put himself in the latter category. In fact, this was by far the most entertaining gala he had yet attended in England.

Lady Mitford had positioned herself and her husband at the far end of a great stretch of lawn, the better so that entering guests could admire the spectacle. They were a plump couple stuffed into brilliant Renaissance clothing; Lord Mitford’s canary-yellow stockings were particularly noteworthy, as they were echoed by some thirty servants stationed about the lawns. The couple sat on gilded armchairs that had a suspicious resemblance to thrones, under a sky-blue silk canopy that rippled in the breeze. Around their feet frolicked a number of small dogs and a real monkey, tied to Lady Mitford’s chair with a silk ribbon. Ewan tried not to mark the fact that the monkey appeared to be squatting on Lady Mitford’s silk slipper and enjoying a private moment.

He bowed before her. ‘This is a tremendous honour, Lady Mitford. I cannot thank you enough for including me in your invitation.’

‘Wouldn’t have missed you,’ she barked at him, sounding for all the world like one of her small dogs. ‘I do believe I had at least eight requests for your inclusion – all from mamas, of course.’

Lord Mitford gave him a conspiratorial smile. ‘Our gala is quite known for the matches that have ensued.’

They were an odd couple; Lady Mitford was wearing a high coned hat more suited to the reign of King Richard than that of Queen Elizabeth. Lord Mitford looked as kingly as a carnival barker, and the monkey, the dogs and the silk canopy spoke of that carnival as much as a Renaissance fête. But the Mitfords’ eyes were merry, and it was clear that they enjoyed their own eccentricities as much as did everyone else.

Lady Mitford raised a beringed finger and pointed off in the distance. ‘I understand that you have a particular interest in a lovely widow. She is over there, next to the rose arbour.’

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.

She stared intently at a boy dressed as a Renaissance page, who was putting on a demonstration of archery. Don’t think about it…

If she had just had more time with Draven, he would have loved her the same way.

Tears were pressing hotly at her eyes, but she wasn’t going to cry here, in Lady Mitford’s garden. Of course Draven loved her. He said so, just before he died, didn’t he? He did. He did. He loved her.

The truth of it was as black as the coldest ice. He just didn’t love her the way that Lucius loved Tess.

The eternal circle chased in her mind: if they’d had time…if she’d been more seductive, more knowing, more beautiful…

She turned from the archery tent and began to walk quickly in the opposite direction. Lady Whittingham was strolling toward her with her feckless husband; Imogen smiled, fighting the tears. Lady Whittingham turned her head away and walked on.

For a moment Imogen paused as if she’d been struck in the stomach. Then she remembered that she’d burned her bridges at the ball the night before…Ardmore…their dance…Rafe. But she couldn’t bring herself to care. Likely she wouldn’t have been invited to this garden party had the invitations not gone out the previous week. But who cared for that?

The question, the eternal question, flooded back into her mind and she walked on, Lady Whittingham’s snub forgotten.

She was beautiful. Everyone said so. Her modiste said so; her maid said so; she saw the truth reflected in the eyes of men who passed her. If only it was a problem with the way she looked, she thought bitterly. Then she could simply resign herself to a loveless life and become a nun.

What good was beauty when she’d failed to make Draven love her? Beauty wasn’t enough. She needed the quality that Annabel had, that melting, sensual look that she had. It wasn’t fair that her sister had it, since Annabel was a virgin.

Since she was about to bump into a table offering glasses of ratafia, she took one even though she despised the drink.

Surely Draven had been happy enough. Except…the doubts followed her. Perhaps if she had been more enticing, Draven would have loved her, really loved her. She could have made that Scottish earl want her. She saw it in his eyes when she pressed against him.

There was a whisper of protest in her mind, but she ignored it.

Perhaps she could learn how to please a man in the bedchamber. How to make him delirious with desire for her so that he loved her, whether he wished to or no. That’s how Tess had done it. Imogen had seen her: she let her husband kiss her at the racetrack, surrounded by people. Lucius had kissed Tess in the open, where anyone might see them. She herself would never have allowed Draven such a liberty.

Fool! She was a fool! If she had enticed Draven into such liberties, perhaps he wouldn’t have left her and walked down to the track, and found out that his jockey didn’t want to ride that devil of a horse, and decided to ride him…he would have stayed at her side.

Safe.

Alive.

The ratafia was so sickly sweet that the danger of tears receded. She drained the glass. Why should she sit about mourning Draven when she could be –

The pain caught her heart and wrenched it so hard that she almost gasped aloud.

How could Draven be dead? Automatically she started to count to ten but it was too late. She could feel a sob tearing its way up her chest.

The only person who loved Draven besides herself was Draven’s mother. And when Lady Clarice had seen that Imogen was not carrying a child, she simply gave up. She stopped eating, caught a chill…leaving Imogen in a world of fools who didn’t know Draven, who didn’t remember how exquisitely funny he could be, how full of life, how…

Tears made the world blurry but one of Lady Mitford’s pavilions loomed before her, offering a bench and a canopy of fluttering white silk.

She sat down and launched into a familiar routine. First, she sat rigidly upright. She had discovered that one was less likely to dissolve into tears if one’s backbone was straight. Then she counted her breaths: one, two, three. Finally, she turned her thoughts to Rafe’s behaviour the previous night. How dare he? How dare he presume to say anything to her about her behaviour? He wasn’t her brother, nor an uncle, nor anything to her. He was simply the guardian she had before marrying. He was nothing to her now, and yet he presumed – he presumed!

Her eyes narrowed and the tears were gone.

Thank goodness. There was nothing she hated more in the world than letting people see she was crying. She had enough pity from her own sisters. Pity or patronisation: it was all the same, and none of it helped this awful bitterness that she could taste in her mouth. Like metal. It wasn’t exactly grief; grief tasted more like tears.

Draven was gone. She pushed herself off the bench.

Six

Annabel was just growing a trifle impatient when she saw Lord Rosseter strolling back toward her. There he was.

She had dressed carefully, given that Rosseter had made a formal offer that very morning. As per her instructions, Rafe had accepted, and all that remained was for Rosseter to personally request her hand.

She was wearing a dress of straw-coloured muslin, trimmed in silk tassels. It was demure yet flattering. Rosseter was dressed in a morning coat of pale brown stripes lined with yellow. His cravat was not too elaborate: just precisely right for a garden party. The rightness of it all, even down to the polished tips of his extremely expensive boots, warmed her soul. This was a man who would understand her desire to wear silk next to her skin at all times: understand it, and never question her. She would never have to count pennies again.

She gave him a lavish smile on the strength of it. He smiled faintly in return and turned to meet her chaperone. But Lady Griselda sent him off to bring her a glass of lemonade.

‘I wanted a moment,’ Griselda said, giving her a smile bright with conspiratorial pleasure. ‘I think the pavilion to the far right corner of the garden is the proper place. I strolled by earlier and there’s no entertainment planned for that pavilion, so you won’t be interrupted by a caterwauling singer abusing a lute. It’s covered in rose silk, which has a most flattering effect on the complexion – not that you need it, my dear. And finally, if you wish to allow him a small expression of his devotion, you are unlikely to be seen by more than twenty or thirty, and that should ensure that the news travels far faster than an announcement in The Times would do.’

‘An excellent suggestion,’ Annabel murmured. Now that the moment was at hand, she just wanted to move on. To be safely married, and never have to even think of worrying about money again.

‘Remember, your married life begins now,’ Griselda said. ‘Be kind but firm. Your every expression will inform Lord Rosseter what liberties he may or may not take. You must train him to understand your every glance. Do you understand, Annabel?’

‘I think so,’ Annabel said.

Rosseter had begun walking back toward them, trailed by a page carrying a tray with a glass of lemonade for Griselda.

‘Now, look at that,’ Griselda said. ‘You’ve made a good choice, dear. He acts decisively.’

‘I suppose so,’ Annabel said.

‘It’s not every man with the providence to think ahead and avoid the possibility of staining his clothing,’ Griselda told her. ‘And I like the fact that he’s a bit older than you are. It gives him a sense of depth.’

‘How old do you think he is?’ Annabel said, watching him drift toward them, raising a white hand in response to a remark tossed to him by a friend.

‘Oh, at least – well, let’s see. I was married to Willoughby when I first met him, but he was by no means a newcomer to the season…I would guess forty-three or forty-four. Seasoned but not antique. Perfect!’ she said brightly.

Twenty years older than she was…it was a bit more of a gap than Annabel had thought. Rosseter’s face was ageless, though, so perhaps it didn’t matter. After all, men didn’t age the way women did.

‘No one’s ever caught him,’ Griselda said. Rosseter had stopped and was exchanging greetings with one of the royal dukes, Clarence. ‘But you seem to have taken him effortlessly, my dear. A true triumph.’

‘Thank you,’ Annabel murmured. Rosseter seemed to be truly engaged in talking to His Royal Highness. He wasn’t even glancing her way in apology. Annabel felt a prickle of annoyance. He knew perfectly well that she was awaiting his proposal. Was it too much to ask that he actually do that particular deed, rather than chatter nonsense with a fat overgrown lummox of an English prince?

As she watched, Rosseter turned to the boy following him and murmured something, and the boy started hurrying toward them with the lemonade.

Annabel turned to Griselda, but Griselda spoke before she even opened her mouth.

‘I absolutely agree. Absolutely. Clarence is no reason to delay a proposal of marriage. Rosseter needs to be taught a lesson.’

Annabel knew precisely the man to do it. She had just happened to notice that the Scottish earl had shown up again and was standing off to her right, watching an exhibition of tumbling.

‘Perhaps you should –’ Lady Griselda began, but Annabel ignored her. She didn’t need to leave her chair. Instead she looked directly at Ardmore, allowing a little smile to play around her mouth.

His rumpled dark red hair and sculpted shoulders made him look like a medieval knight. In fact, she wouldn’t mind seeing him pull back an arrow at the archery…

Not for Ardmore, the drifting, sophisticated walk of Rosseter. Ardmore walked through the crowd directly toward her, not even taking his eyes from hers.

‘Do you remember what I said about him?’ Griselda squeaked next to her. ‘That is not a man to toy with!’

Annabel wrenched her eyes away and smiled at her chaperone. ‘I’m not going to toy with him, Griselda. He’s a countryman, and I think he can be a friend. I’m simply going to ask him to accompany me to the archery stand.’

‘Ah, archery.’ Griselda watched Ardmore walking toward them. ‘I do like a man with a broad set of shoulders.’

Annabel noticed from the corner of her eye that Rosseter had seen who was approaching. Undoubtedly, he would now conclude his conversation with the duke. Without thinking about it, she rose and walked toward Ardmore. He truly was a complete opposite of her chosen husband. Every inch of him was Scots, from those sturdy, muscled legs to his strong chin and angled cheekbones. She had no problem imagining him as an ancient Pict, painted blue and wearing just a –

No. She snapped her imagination back where it belonged. The man walking toward her was a Scottish earl in exactly the same cast as her father. In fact, if it turned out that he had a set of racehorses into which he poured every penny in the house, the similarity would be complete.

His smile was all in his eyes. ‘I have been watching a demonstration of jousting. I begin to imagine myself in a suit of armour,’ he said, those eyes glinting with laughter.

‘And here I was imagining you a Pict,’ she said, putting her hand on his arm and walking away from Rosseter as if he didn’t exist.

One eyebrow shot up. ‘One of my naked and bloodthirsty ancestors?’

‘And mine,’ she said sedately.

‘In that case, why don’t we try our skill at the bow and arrow?’ he asked, playing directly into her hands.

She glanced back over her shoulder and found Rosseter bowing unhurriedly before Griselda, doubtless apologising for sending the lemonade by servant rather than his own hand. She turned slightly so that Rosseter could see her face and smiled up at Ardmore.

His eyebrow went up again. It was a good thing that she would never even consider marrying him, because that eyebrow could be really annoying in the long run. There was nothing about Rosseter that was irritating, thank goodness.

If Ardmore had any brains at all, he’d know precisely what she was doing and as her countryman, he should be supportive. Helpful, even.

Sure enough: ‘Do you want me to walk more slowly so that he can catch up?’ Ardmore asked. There was laughter glinting in his voice. Apparently he had decided to be helpful.

‘No,’ she said tranquilly. ‘I think an exhibition of archery should do it.’

‘I see what you mean,’ he said. ‘Englishmen are distressingly slight in their frames, aren’t they? Weedy, almost. But you needn’t worry about your children,’ he added. ‘After all, you have a Pict or two in your background. Most likely the boys won’t get too weedy.’

‘My children will not be weedy! At any rate, women dislike being towered over, you know.’

‘I’ve never noticed that,’ he said, and she thought with annoyance of all those Scottish women who had built up his confidence to these unprecedented heights.

They stopped at the archery tent. A breeze flapped the silk roof, carrying with it a smell of April flowers. There was a pile of bows in the corner. The attendant took one look at Ardmore and handed him one that appeared to have been made out of half a sapling.

Ardmore squinted at the targets, posts with circles painted on them. They were adorned with silk flags, the better to look antique, one had to suppose, and positioned at farther and farther distances.

Then he stripped off his jacket. He was wearing a shirt of thin linen. Annabel had to admit that it wasn’t threadworn and actually appeared to be quite lovely material; perhaps it was woven on his estate. He stretched the bow back experimentally. Great muscles rippled on his back, clearly visible through the clinging linen. He turned to the attendant, taking a handful of arrows. He handed all but one to her and gave her a lazy smile. ‘In case you haven’t noticed, your chosen one is approaching. He seems to have found himself an escort.’

Annabel looked about. ‘Oh, that’s my chaperone, Lady Griselda. You met her last night when we were first introduced.’

‘I told you I can’t remember anyone’s name.’ Then he blinked. ‘Did you say Lady Griselda?’

She nodded.

He turned. Griselda was chattering with Rosseter, and looking far too pretty and young to be a widow. In fact, if Annabel hadn’t loved her so much, she would have been jealous of her perfect ringlets and lush figure. She looked precisely like what she was: a merry, gossip-loving, adorable lady. A perfect –

Annabel glanced up at the medieval knight next to her, who was all but standing with his mouth open.

‘The Earl of Mayne’s sister?’ he asked.

Griselda and Rosseter moved into a patch of sunlight. Her hair gleamed like the proverbial gold.

‘Do you know Mayne?’ she asked.

‘I met him last night,’ Ardmore muttered. He turned about and drew the bow back again, but without fitting an arrow.

At that moment, Griselda walked up to them with a twinkling smile. Rosseter bowed with all the tempered nonchalance of an irritated Englishman. Ardmore seemed to be in an excellent mood. He flexed the bow again; Annabel was quite certain now that he was only doing so to show off his muscles, and not for her benefit either.

If Griselda stretched her blue eyes any wider, they’d likely fall out of her head.

‘Shall we have a friendly match?’ Ardmore said to Rosseter.

‘I have no interest in sports,’ Rosseter said evenly. Characteristically, there was no disdain in his tone or anything that a man might take insult from.

‘In that case, how about a match between countrymen?’ Ardmore said to Annabel.

Griselda laughed. Rosseter shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He said nothing, but she felt his disapproval.

‘All right,’ Annabel said. She turned to the attendant and gave him a melting smile. The boy scrabbled about and handed her a bow. It was ash, with a pretty curve, but good for nothing. Annabel took a closer look at the bows. ‘I’ll try that yew,’ she said.

It had a sweet curve. She pulled back the string experimentally. Luckily, the small sleeves of her dress didn’t impede her arms in any way.

Ardmore was grinning now, obviously as aware of Rosseter’s disapproval as she was. And Griselda was laughing. Then Ardmore drew back his great bow again, muscles flexing through his shirt.

Annabel looked away and met Rosseter’s eyes. She read approval in his face: Rosseter thought she was avoiding a display of gross masculinity by looking to him rather than Ardmore.

She picked up her bow and Rosseter put a gloved hand on hers. ‘You needn’t do this,’ he said.

‘I enjoy archery,’ she said noncommittally, turning so that his hand slid away. The boy handed her a clutch of arrows.

Rosseter lowered his voice. ‘There’s no need to put the Scot in his place. Leave him to his grotesque posturing; Lady Griselda seems to enjoy it.’

She glanced over and, sure enough, Griselda’s dimples were in full play. She was handing him arrows and Ardmore was plunking them into the target, one after another.

‘Kind of her,’ Rosseter remarked. ‘I’m sure they won’t even notice if we go for a stroll.’ He put his hand on her bow this time.

‘That would be impolite,’ she said, matching his expressionless tone perfectly.

‘Ah,’ he said.

She took that as assent, not that she needed it. Ardmore turned around and said, ‘Now, then, Miss Essex, what’s our challenge?’

She walked over to him, eyeing the targets. ‘Three arrows each. You’re for that far one, and I’ll take the one with the red flag, in the middle.’

‘Go for the blue one; it’s closer,’ he said generously.

Annabel glanced up and saw that he thought to win. A smile touched her lips. ‘The centre of the target, of course, is that black dot,’ she told him.

‘I’m aware of that.’

‘Good,’ she said sweetly. ‘I just wanted to make sure, given that you seemed to have some trouble hitting it during your practice run.’

A slow grin spread over his face. ‘But there must be a forfeit if this is to be a proper competition, Miss Essex.’

Rosseter intervened. ‘Of course there will be no forfeit. That would give it the coarse air of a public exhibition.’

‘But you see,’ Ardmore said, ‘we Scots are quite coarse.’

Annabel frowned at him. Rosseter clearly wasn’t entranced with her nationality, and she didn’t wish to remind him of it.

‘The forfeit is a request,’ Ardmore said. ‘A favour that can be demanded at any time and must be paid without question.’

‘Miss Annabel has no need whatsoever to ask you for a favour,’ Rosseter said, and now she could hear a thin disdain behind his well-bred tones.

‘One never knows,’ Ardmore said, selecting an arrow. ‘She has already made several requests of me, and of course I am always glad to help a countrywoman.’

Annabel fitted her own bow. Griselda was giggling and helping Ardmore draw on the archer’s glove handed to him. Naturally Rosseter just stood to the side as she drew on her own glove.

Suddenly there was a spray of those high, arching trumpets that Lady Mitford liked so much. ‘A contest!’ shouted the trumpeter. ‘An archery contest commences at once!’

Rosseter’s thin nostrils flared as he stepped back. Annabel realised that he was really angry now. In fact, if she didn’t back out of the contest, he might simply stroll away in his elegant striped morning coat and dismiss the idea of marrying her. That was likely how he had remained single all these years.

In a moment they had an audience, a circle of women in fluttering dresses of white and pink, a sprinkling of gentlemen with admiring eyes. Ardmore drew back his bow and let it fly. Annabel suddenly realised that drawing back her bow would make her breasts push forward in an unseemly manner. She glanced at Rosseter. He was still there, waiting for her to make a decision. Didn’t it bode well for their marriage that the two of them had no need to exchange a word to know precisely what the other was thinking?

She moved forward to take her shot.

‘It appears you didn’t quite hit the target,’ she said to the Scot, allowing just a trace of regret to deepen her voice.

He squinted at it. ‘It looks good to me.’

‘Hmmm.’ She drew back her bow and paused for a moment, looking for that black spot in the centre of her target. Then she let fly and the arrow flew like a bird to its nest. She smiled and glanced up at her opponent. He wasn’t looking at her target, but at her, and he looked a bit distracted. She glanced down. She had felt her gown strain over her chest when she drew back; after all, such light muslin wasn’t designed for sport.

Rosseter was still there, his mouth thin with distaste. Apparently he had decided to give her a second chance.

The attendant hurried over to the targets, his yellow tights flashing in the sun. He stooped next to her target and then rose. ‘Miss Essex wins!’ he cried.

‘Second,’ Ardmore said, drawing back his bow again.

It was a good shot; Annabel had to give him that. But he was holding his elbow just a fraction of an inch too high in the air. Sure enough, to her eyes the arrow was slightly off target, although he turned to her with a smile that suggested he thought it was square.

‘I have heard that spectacles can be quite helpful as one grows older,’ she said to him sweetly. She drew back her arrow and let it fly immediately. Truly, she had chosen a target that was too easy.

There was quite a cheer when the attendant announced the winner of that round.

But when she looked at Ardmore and thought to see him showing the strain of competition, or even a flash of competitive spirit, he was just laughing. ‘No matter how this attempt goes, you’ve won my forfeit. I believe my mistake was in not allowing you to go before me.’

‘That would have been more polite,’ Rosseter put in.

Ardmore bowed and motioned to her.

She moved forward, aware of the two men watching her intently. She shook her curls back over her shoulders; they could be distracting. Then she pulled the bow back, slowly, slowly. She could feel her breasts coming forward and up, straining from the bodice of her muslin gown. Finally she let the arrow slip and it sailed home. It was slightly off its target because she’d held the arrow too long.

Ardmore took her place. He drew back the bow just as slowly as she had. Broad shoulders flexed, and he flashed a glance at her. His eyes were almost – almost – guileless, but not quite. She nearly burst out laughing but instead she gave him a delicious smile, one of her very best. For a moment he looked as if he’d been clopped in the forehead. She stepped back. Unless she’d missed her bet, he had held that arrow too long, and his elbow was jutting high again.

Sure enough, he missed the target altogether.

Lady Mitford popped up in front of them, beaming happily. ‘I do so love it when my guests fall into the spirit of the times!’ she trilled. ‘Now Lord Mitford and I have a most lovely surprise for the two of you.’

She beckoned wildly with her arm and a flower-covered pony cart came into view, being dragged along by two miserable-looking donkeys. Flowers had been woven into their manes and tucked behind their ears.

‘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.

Willy-nilly, she glanced over her shoulder. Ardmore had got himself between Lady Griselda and Imogen now. He was bending his head toward Griselda.

‘I’d love to come,’ she said coolly. ‘Why don’t you both escort me?’

They bobbed around her, showing every sign of men who would kiss and grab, kiss and pant. Englishmen, both of them.

Seven

Ewan had almost made up his mind. The one lass he could truly fancy didn’t want him, or so she said. And he had enough sense to know that dragging a woman back to Scotland when she was bent on marrying an Englishman with a title was not a good start to a marriage. But the black-haired Imogen had such potent despair in her eyes that he felt it in the pit of his stomach.

Even now she seemed determined to drag him off to some solitary bench, as if he were a prize pig at the fair. He didn’t mind, as long as all those tears she was saving didn’t overflow and drown the two of them. She would be a good choice for wife, surely. She was beautiful, and if he gave her time to recover from her grief, she’d likely be a pleasant partner in all respects. He certainly didn’t want a wife who started increasing on the spot: he had more than enough to do without worrying about children for a few years.

All in all, Imogen seemed a suitable alternative. Of course, her guardian was fiercely against the idea, but perhaps the duke would be more amenable on seeing how much his ward wanted to marry him. Why, she looked at him as if she wanted nothing more than to bed him on the spot. She must be desperate to return to Scotland.

He could appreciate it; he felt the same way. London was nothing more than a smoky, smelly mess. His carriage had become tangled in traffic that morning and they ended up standing still as a stock for over an hour.

This party wasn’t so bad. But all the high-pitched voices and the repeated shrilling of trumpets were like to give him a headache, if he’d been prone to them. Likely it was a rain-soaked day in Scotland, the kind where you can almost see the lush grass reaching up to meet the branches of trees. And the only sound would be the rain, and perhaps a bird singing, and it would seem as if the very dog daisies were praising God for the beauty of it all. For a moment he closed his eyes, but –

‘Lord Ardmore,’ she was saying, and the misery in her voice was written plain. The poor lass was in a bad way.

He opened his eyes and looked down at her. Imogen, her name was. Imogen, Lady Maitland. He felt a spark of gratitude at being able to remember. ‘Lady Maitland,’ he said.

‘I’d like to speak to you privately, if I may.’

‘Of course. There’s a bit of land down at the bottom of the garden that’s marshy and less frequented by all these folk,’ he told her.

She gave him a dewy smile that almost had him convinced that she was longing for him to drag her down there and have his way with her. ‘How very astute of you to remark the place,’ she cooed.

He thought about defending himself – after all, he hadn’t been searching out trysting places – but gave up. Instead he held out his arm and they tripped along together in silence.

‘Has your husband been gone long?’ he asked. For all his reasoning that she would be a good candidate for marriage, he felt a queer reluctance to deepen the conversation.

‘Long enough,’ she said, giving him that look again. ‘I hardly think of him.’

Well, if that wasn’t a lie, he’d never heard one before.

They walked along some more, she taking little mincing steps because her dress was so narrow it was binding her at the knees. ‘Perhaps I’d better carry you down this last bit,’ he said as they neared the slope. ‘That is, if it won’t create a scandal.’ He glanced back toward the party, but no one appeared to be watching them.

‘I don’t care about scandal,’ she said. An idiot could tell that was true. So he scooped her up and carried her down the hill until they reached a wrought-iron bench under a large willow. The tree hung over the riverbank, emerald-green strands meeting the surface of the water and dropping below. It looked like an old dowager trailing her yarns behind her.

But Imogen was looking at him again, all fiery invitation. Ewan felt supremely uncomfortable. This was worse than the day when Mrs Park, down in the village, caught him stealing plums and threatened to tell his papa. He cleared his throat but somehow the marriage proposal just refused to word itself.

She leaned toward him, and her bosom rubbed against his arm. She was a nicely proportioned woman, though she hung it out for all the world to see. Then she started running a finger over his chest.

He cleared his throat again. She looked at him, all expectant. The offer of marriage just refused to come out.

So she spoke instead, and of course her voice was all low and husky, like the Whore of Babylon’s, Ewan had no doubt about that. ‘This affair is so tedious,’ she said, slipping a finger under the buttons of his jacket and caressing his shirt.

‘I’ve been enjoying it,’ he said awkwardly, trying not to move backward. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings. She was as vulnerable as a newborn calf.

‘I haven’t,’ she said, and she forgot that husky innuendo in speaking the truth. But it was back a moment later. ‘I’d very much like to…get to know you better, Lord Ardmore. May I call you Ewan?’

Now, how in the world had she learned his first name? He’d practically forgotten it himself, he’d been Lord Ardmore’d so much in the past few weeks. ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘And I’d like to know you better as well.’

‘In that case…why don’t we spend some time together?’ The silky whisper was almost mesmerising, as was that hand wandering over his chest.

He swallowed. ‘Of course.’

‘Good.’ She straightened. ‘I’ll come to you at eleven o’clock.’ She looked about to stand up and leave.

‘Wait!’ He grabbed her wrist. ‘Are you saying…what do you mean, you’ll come to me?’

A little scowl knit her brow and perversely, he felt the first pang of attraction for her. ‘I’ll come to you,’ she said painstakingly. ‘Since I’m not currently living in an establishment of my own – although I mean to buy a townhouse just as soon as I have a moment on my own – I shall come to you, rather than the other way around.’

‘At eleven o’clock,’ he repeated.

She nodded, quite businesslike now.

‘At night?’ he clarified.

That scowl was back. ‘Of course. I’m generally quite busy taking calls in the morning.’

‘Ah.’ Well. They appeared to have different ideas in mind. ‘I’m not the man for that,’ he said, rather apologetically.

‘No?’ She looked stunned.

‘No. I’ve come to London to find a wife, you see.’

Now the scowl was really ferocious. In fact, it wasn’t adorable anymore, and reminded him dangerously of his Aunt Marge who once broke half a set of Spode china. Against his uncle’s head.

‘We’ve no real desire between us,’ he said gently.

‘Yes, we have!’ she snapped.

Ewan glanced up the hill, but there was no one watching. Then he reached out and tilted her head back, lowered his mouth to hers, and kissed her. It was pleasant enough, but nothing more. To compare it to that kiss he shared with her sister would be blasphemy.

‘You see, lass?’

She glared at him. ‘If you don’t wish to bed me, you needn’t make a song and dance about it.’

The pain in her eyes was so great that he instinctively put an arm around her shoulder. ‘Don’t touch me!’ she shouted. ‘There are men out there who are more than eager to – to do whatever I wish.’

‘I’ve no doubt of that,’ he said, but she had pulled away from his arm.

‘Don’t you dare pity me!’ she hissed. ‘The Earl of Mayne will do just fine. He’s not a limp Scotsman. I can guess why you travelled to London to find a bride! It’s because all my countrywomen knew that you had problems in the bedchamber, didn’t they? I’ve heard that sort of news travels fast.’

‘Thankfully, no,’ he said. But a sense of alarm was growing in his chest, and he grabbed her hand. ‘You can’t turn to Mayne; I met him last night.’

‘He wants me,’ she said, struggling to free herself. ‘He wants me, and you don’t, and that’s all there is to it.’

‘He’s too old for you.’

Her lip curled. ‘Mayne is in his early thirties. Since he was engaged to my own sister, I know all about him. And believe me, in all the pertinent facts, he’s in prime working order!’

‘He’s not old in years, in other things,’ Ewan said, knowing the truth about Mayne without hesitation. It was written on his face…a man didn’t reach thirty and above without leaving his scandals in his eyes. ‘Mayne’s a rakehell, a man who’s slept with far too many women. He’s tired.’

‘Ha!’ she said. ‘Tired may be how you’d excuse yourself, but I assure you that Mayne has never disappointed a woman.’

‘And there’ve been so many of them.’

‘Which means it will be all the more pleasurable for me,’ she said defiantly. ‘If you don’t let go of me, I’m going to scream.’

‘In that case, you’ll have to marry me,’ he said, and finally the words were easy enough. This poor girl needed rescuing more than any waterlogged kitten he’d ever pulled from the millpond. She was in a desperate way. ‘Marry me, Imogen. Marry me.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘I’ll never marry again, so would you please let go of my hand?’

‘Not until you promise to consider marrying me.’

‘Absolutely not. Release me, if you please.’

‘I’ll release you if you come to my chambers at eleven o’clock tonight,’ he said.

Her eyebrows rose. ‘Have you changed your mind, then?’

‘A woman with such spirit is always worth a second thought,’ he said, hoping she would fall for that nonsense. Which she did. A more naive scrap of a girl he’d never met. Now the only question was whether he could keep her from doing herself some sort of injury to her soul from which she’d never recover.

‘I’ll come to your chambers, but I’ll never marry you,’ she said clearly.

He let go of her wrist. ‘I’m staying at Grillon’s Hotel. Is this your first tryst, Imogen?’ As if he didn’t know the answer to that.

She raised her chin. ‘Yes, it is.’

So he was as crude as he could be, to shock her into thinking about what she was doing. ‘Affaires aren’t like marriages, you know. You needn’t bring a nightgown, because we’ll sleep naked, of course. And I do hope that your husband taught you how to pleasure a man.’

Colour crept into her white cheeks, but he was remorseless.

‘I’m fond of the coney’s kiss, if you catch my meaning, lass. Of course, a woman of the world, such as you are, won’t need any instruction in such matters.’

But she had more courage than he gave her credit for. ‘I don’t know everything about pleasuring a man, or perhaps I know nothing,’ she said.

He could have cried at the look in her eyes.

‘I’m willing to learn.’

‘Then say it: coney’s kiss.’ He bent toward her, knowing how large he was, deliberately looming over her. ‘Say it, why don’t you?’

‘No.’

‘Do you know what a coney is?’

‘No!’

‘Then why won’t you say it? Go on: coney’s kiss. Say it.’ He shaded his voice with a dark erotic desire, giving her a liquorish smile, the kind the villain in a melodrama always gives to the poor serving maid. ‘Coney’s kiss.’

She stared at him, all anger, confusion, and revulsion.

‘If you’re embarking on a life of ill repute, you’ll have to learn many such a phrase.’

She jumped away and flew up the slope, so fast that her slippers hardly touched the ground.

Had that worked or not? And if not, what the devil was he to do at eleven o’clock? A stupider idea he had never had.

What the devil was he to do?

The Herb Garden

Common wisdom had it that there were few things more disagreeable than coming face to face with a woman whom one has jilted.

But the Earl of Mayne had never felt that reluctance when it came to Tess Essex, now a happy Mrs Felton. In fact, he considered himself quite the injured party, given that he had traded in the shreds of his reputation after Felton told him to get out so he could marry Tess himself. Now everyone thought him a despicable rake, who had left a woman at the altar, whereas Felton was hailed as the knight who stepped in to save a lady’s reputation and future.

And considering that the Feltons were nauseatingly happy, he rather thought he should take credit for the match. In fact, it was amazing how he seemed to leave a trail of happily married women in his wake. First there was Countess Godwin – and he counted it quite a success that he could think of her without wincing, a full year later – and now there was Tess. Both of them were, by all accounts, blissfully happy, and never mind the fact that he was turning into a permanent bachelor.

Since the countess had rejected him, he hadn’t had even a simple intrigue. Nor a mistress. People didn’t quite realise it; sometimes he couldn’t believe it himself. At this point, he hadn’t been in a woman’s bed in a year, and given the apathetic state of his interest in the female sex, it was likely to be years more.

Tess smiled at him as he kissed the tips of her fingers, and that made him think about how well they would have got along as a married couple, if only his best friend hadn’t decided to take her away.

‘Feeling sorry for yourself again?’ she suggested sweetly.

‘I could have been a happy man,’ he grumbled.

She smiled at that and walked on, her fingers light on his arm. ‘I need to ask a favour.’

In his experience, when a married woman asks you for a favour, it’s often something that leads to pistols at dawn. Still…‘Has Felton been misbehaving?’ he asked with some surprise. It was positively unnerving to sit about with his old friend, the way that smile kept creeping onto his face.

‘Not yet,’ she said. ‘No, it’s about Imogen.’

‘I met her Scottish beau last night. Rafe was doing his best to persuade the man to marry elsewhere, but I gather Imogen has her own plans. What’s the matter, don’t you care for him?’

‘It’s not him that I’m worried about,’ Tess said. ‘She would do better with you.’

Mayne blinked. ‘With me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are you talking about marriage or something other?’

‘Other,’ she said, just as calmly as if she were discussing raspberry syllabub.

He cleared his throat. ‘I’m not quite sure how you missed this pertinent fact, m’dear, but I’m not exactly a proper matron’s first choice. And, more to the point, your sister hasn’t chosen me for that honour.’

‘Yes, but you’re quite experienced in all that…’ She indicated that with a wave of her hand. ‘And Imogen –’

‘Does your husband have any idea you’re speaking to me on this matter?’

‘Of course not,’ she said tranquilly. ‘Lucius is much occupied with affairs of business.’

‘I think he would still be interested to know that you’re – you’re –’ But he couldn’t think of a polite way to phrase exactly what she was suggesting.

‘Let me be more clear,’ she said. ‘You haven’t had a mistress since the Countess Godwin returned to her husband, am I right?’

He waited for that sour twinge of bitterness, but it didn’t come. ‘I have not.’

‘Imogen does not truly wish to take a lover. But she seems wilfully self-destructive at the moment…I’m not sure why. At this rate, she will bankrupt her reputation and ruin herself. She’s throwing herself out of the ton. Perhaps so she’ll never be eligible for marriage again.’

‘Ah,’ Mayne said. He could almost understand that kind of grief.

‘But hardly anyone takes notice of your affaires, and if they do, the scandal seems to wear off within days.’

‘Humph.’ It wasn’t an attractive picture.

But she didn’t stop there. ‘I’d like you to dislodge the Earl of Ardmore, if you please. You can reuse some of those compliments you wasted on me.’

‘Tess –’

Quick as a cat, she turned on him before he could even voice all the reasons why this plan of hers would never work. ‘You owe me.’

He opened his mouth, but she raised her hand to stop him. ‘I know that you were merely obeying Lucius when you jilted me, but the truth of it is that you acted as you did from loyalty to your friend, and not loyalty to me, your betrothed. And when Lucius asked you to say nothing to me, you simply galloped away without a second thought. What if I hadn’t wished to marry Lucius? What then?’

‘That’s an absurd line of questioning, because you did.’ But he didn’t need her frown to see that she had a good point. ‘All right,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll cut out the poor Scot. He probably thinks to marry her, you know. I rather liked him last night, and I’m fairly sure that he said he has to marry well.’

‘He’ll find someone.’

Another thought struck Mayne. ‘What about Rafe? He’ll slay me.’

‘I’m sure you two can work it out between yourselves. Perhaps a fistfight?’ She needn’t sound so condescending.

‘Right. A fistfight. Maybe I can get Rafe drunk first and just trip him up.’

She patted him on the arm. ‘You males know precisely the best way to solve these little problems amongst you.’

‘Tess. You do realise what this is going to do to my reputation, don’t you?’

She cocked her head to the side and looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Imogen is an extremely beautiful young woman, but also a grievously sad one. If you could see your way to having this affaire without engaging in any intimacies, I’d be very grateful.’

‘That’s off the subject. I was pointing out that my reputation is going to be destroyed by first jilting one Essex sister, and then having a highly improper affair with a second, widowed Essex sister.’

‘Yes,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘But darling, if you were going to miss your reputation, you should have noticed years ago, when it first went missing. Now, if you could get right to work, I’d be very grateful. Because so far today Imogen hasn’t shocked anyone, but she has a gleam in her eye that I don’t like.’

Mayne sighed. ‘And just how do you interpret that gleam?’

‘She had just this look when she went riding over to the Maitland house, and the next thing I knew she had sprained her ankle, and a day after that she’d eloped with Draven Maitland, and the devil take the hindmost. Imogen simply doesn’t consider reputation very important. You two should get along very well.’

That was another slur, but Mayne let it pass. Obviously, he was being pointed like a bullet in the direction of Imogen, and since there was no way to escape it, he might as well give in.

Eight

Mayne found Imogen was sitting at the banquet next to her sister Annabel. There was a strange sense of isolation about her. Mayne had seen that time and again; he knew precisely what was happening. Imogen was being given the cold shoulder by the ton.

He walked over and sat down next to her. She was eating pigeon pie, and (thankfully) looked unperturbed. Some women dissolved into tears at their first snub; others felt deprived if they didn’t receive at least one cold shoulder of an evening.

‘May I join you?’ he said, giving her the special smile he reserved for future chères amies.

‘Of course.’ She looked indifferent.

‘I am so happy to see that you are out of mourning,’ he said softly.

‘In that case, you’ll be disappointed to learn that the fact I’m wearing black means I’m still in mourning.’

‘Black suits you like no other woman,’ he said, gazing soulfully into her eyes. She did have beautiful eyes, with bewitchingly long eyelashes. In the old days he would have been after her like a hound scenting a fox.

‘Actually, black makes me sallow,’ she said. ‘But once I told my modiste to lower my bodice as far as it would go, every man I meet seems to find it a satisfactory colour.’

Of course, his gaze automatically shifted to her breasts, and then flew back to her mocking face. ‘There was no need to call my attention to such a lovely aspect of your figure,’ he said, with just a touch of asperity.

‘Actually, there was,’ she said, taking a deep draught of wine. ‘You hadn’t noticed, had you?’

‘I was entranced by the cupid’s bow of your mouth,’ he said.

‘Nice phrase,’ she said, obviously unimpressed.

He suppressed a sigh. Apparently he’d lost his touch, but he couldn’t bring himself to give a damn. He could report failure to Tess, and this little episode would be over. After all, in his experience a woman bent on sending her reputation into flames usually succeeded. There was no reason for him to burn to a crisp with her.

But then Imogen glanced at him over her shoulder and said, ‘So who put you up to my seduction?’

‘What?’

‘You don’t know Annabel well enough, so my guess would be Tess.’ She must have read the truth in his eyes. ‘Tess! Who would have thought that she could stop thinking about her delectable husband long enough to give me a thought?’

The thought of Tess and her husband seemed to give her a pang, because she got a queer look on her face, like a little girl lost in a storm, and Mayne felt some of his resolution to walk away slip.

‘Thank you for the letter you sent after Draven died,’ she said, abruptly changing the subject.

‘I was sorry to miss the funeral. Maitland was a good man with a horse. And a humorous story,’ he added.

‘He was funny, wasn’t he?’ Imogen said. ‘I –’ She looked away from him and drank some more wine.

Someone brought him a plate of food. He took a bite and choked on its sweetness. Imogen looked back at him, all mocking again, and said, ‘In the Renaissance, spices were the only way to preserve meat. I think there might be quite a lot of nutmeg in this food. The recipes are all authentic.’

‘Good.’ He signalled the waiter for wine. Which wasn’t quite normal because there were strange, small objects floating about in his glass, but he could live with that.

‘How well did you know Draven?’ She asked it very casually, as if the answer meant nothing to her, but Mayne hadn’t spent his twenties sleeping with married women without learning the ins and outs of a casual question. Imogen very likely knew the answer; she just wanted to talk about her husband. His mother had been the same, after his father died.