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 behavior 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 savored by each member of the ton lucky enough to receive an invitation. Of course, they savored 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 honor, 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 arbor.”
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 arbor 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 realized 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 practiced 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 practiced 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 smoldering 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 th
e 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.