Ever Yours, Annabelle Read online

  “Your best hope—dare I say, only hope—of finding a suitable bride lies here in London. With my capable guidance, of course.”

  Eventually, they reached their destination. Not before he’d decided a preferable fate would be to leap from the barouche and break his one good leg, but the dowager’s endless, relentless diatribe did halt. As the carriage pulled to a stop—in front of a decrepit cobbler’s shop, no less—he threw the door wide and gathered up his cane.

  “Do not even contemplate it, young man.” Her voice was an icy, imperial command.

  Suddenly, he understood why this woman’s son answered her summons with compliance. Still, he could not spend another two hours trapped in the kingdom’s slowest carriage being lectured about the dangers of insufficient marital congress.

  “I’m afraid I must go, my lady.”

  “Go?” Green eyes flared. “Go where, pray tell?”

  Anywhere. Anywhere was better. “I’ll take a hack. I must retrieve my horse.”

  “You will wait here,” she snapped as her coachman assisted her from the carriage. “I won’t be a moment.”

  He shook his head, bracing his hand on the side of the carriage.

  “Mr. Conrad, if you are not here when I return, I shall be sorely vexed. Your grandfather will hear of your refusal of my assistance.” Her narrowed gaze blazed emerald fire. “Perhaps you do not care for my opinion of your worth, but I suspect you do care for his.”

  The last sentence, spoken in a quiet tone, hit him hard. He lowered himself onto the seat. Closed the carriage door. Watched her wave away her coachman and enter the cobbler’s shop, unconcerned by its cracked window and dented door.

  For the first few minutes, he wondered what the devil he was doing. She was an old woman, for God’s sake. A friend of his grandfather’s, it was true. But still, just a woman. She could not dictate whether he must sit or stand, nor prevent him from going where he pleased.

  It was also true that some people—male or female—commanded respect. The Dowager Marchioness of Wallingham was one.

  He rubbed his eyes, slumped against the seat, and sighed. When his hand fell, it brushed paper. The newspaper she’d been reading was folded in half, opened to one of the interior pages. There, tucked inside, was a separate print. A caricature. The sketch featured a round, bloated prince in front of a gilded mirror, asking a tall, long-nosed general whether he should wear the large gold crown or the larger gold crown for his war victory ball. The prince was portrayed as a slovenly boar draped in ermine and jewels while the general was represented as a lean, noble hound wearing a suit of armor.

  Robert smiled at the wit.

  Then frowned at the familiarity.

  He traced a finger along the forms of the boar, the points of the tusks. The hound’s eyes, disappointed yet accepting.

  Why did it seem so familiar? He searched for the artist’s name.

  Edward Yarrow Aimes. He’d never heard of him.

  But there was something. The use of animals with exaggerated features, perhaps.

  It reminded him of …

  Annabelle. She’d drawn in a style much like this. Amusing sketches of her family and neighbors, mishaps such as John’s first attempt to drive a phaeton. She’d captured them all, sending him dozens along with her many letters. The eyes of the animals were always most telling.

  Once again, he traced the hound’s features. The artistry was more polished, to be sure, yet somehow the same.

  Quickly, he refolded the pages to view the title of the publication. Green’s Daily Informer. The contents included advertisements for “miraculous” face creams, lady’s maids seeking employment, and lengthy columns of gossip. It took only a minute’s reading to conclude the caricature was better quality work than anything in the entire publication, yet they shared the same publisher.

  Perhaps Edward Yarrow Aimes had published his work in the past, somewhere Annabelle would have seen it when she was young. She must have mimicked his style of caricature to tell stories about her own life. Yes, that made sense. She was simply a follower of this man’s work. He wondered if she was still sketching away in her little notebooks. He hoped so. His Bumblebee was a rare talent.

  He turned back to the caricature for one last look. Again, it made him smile.

  When he set the paper aside and glanced up, a jolt shook him. He felt disoriented, as though he’d conjured a vision from his thoughts. For there, on a side street across the bustling Strand from where he sat, was Annabelle. She was arguing. With a man.

  Inside his chest, darkness pounded like a battle drum.

  The man was of middling height. Lean. Wearing a plain coat and worn hat. His hair was white, his teeth too large for his mouth.

  Cold sliced through his belly. Annabelle was small and lovely in her green spencer and white skirts. Her shallow-brimmed bonnet failed to disguise the challenging tilt of her chin, the flush upon her cheeks.

  The man stood close to her. Too damned close. He was leaning forward, saying something she didn’t like, for her lips tightened and gloved hands clutched the package she held tighter against her middle.

  No lady’s maid hovered nearby. No footman. Not even one of her sisters. Just Annabelle and this white-haired man arguing on a busy thoroughfare at midday.

  What in bloody hell was she thinking? And who in bloody hell would dare behave in so familiar a fashion with an earl’s daughter?

  With his Bumblebee.

  Everything inside him coiled tighter. Forced him to rise. He threw open the barouche’s door and yanked himself down to the street. It only took a moment to grasp his cane and close the door. But by the time he’d found an opening to cross the Strand, the white-haired man was disappearing down the side street.

  And his Bumblebee was climbing into a hack, alone.

  The hack pulled away before he could reach it. Before she knew he’d seen her meeting a strange man in an even stranger location. As he watched the black vehicle roll westward, only one thought occupied his mind.

  He must stay in London.

  “You did not go far, boy. That is to your credit.”

  Reluctantly, he took his eyes from the disappearing hack. Lady Wallingham stood beside her barouche wearing a faintly smug expression. Her plumes bobbed in the breeze. She raised a brow in expectation.

  Robert returned to hand her up into the carriage, then followed to lower himself onto the opposite seat. Resolve hardened his gut. “I shall be staying in London,” he said, his voice resonant with a purpose he hadn’t felt in years.

  She sniffed. “Good.”

  “I will require your assistance.”

  “Naturally.”

  He breathed, steadying himself with the rhythm, forcing his fists to relax on the seat. He glanced about, focusing on the side street where he’d seen Annabelle. His eyes fixed upon the spot until Lady Wallingham’s carriage pulled into motion.

  “Tell me, my lady,” he said softly. “What do you know of Annabelle Huxley’s suitors?”

  *~*~*

  CHAPTER SIX

  “The best advice I can offer is to follow my advice. This one simple rule improves mortal existence in ways both great and small.”

  —The Dowager Marchioness of Wallingham in a letter to the Marquis of Mortlock regarding advice for grandsons attempting to navigate the marriage mart.

  *~*~*

  Dearest Robert,

  My brother is both perfectly daft and utterly charming. This morning, he dressed in a footman’s livery—wig included—to deliver crumpets, bacon, and tea to my bedside. He insisted he’d taken gainful employment within the household because he’d spent his last farthing on a map of the Pyrenees.

  What a silly goose. Plainly, his aim was to comfort me. During my fever, the nightmares have returned. I cannot tell Mama and Papa or even Jane, for none of them will understand.

  I ached to feel your hand around mine when I awakened. John offered his instead. It was not
the same, but it was something.

  Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps John is not so daft, after all.

  Ever yours,

  Annabelle

  —Letter to Robert Conrad dated December 27, 1811

  *~*~*

  “Good heavens. What if he marries a Spanish girl?” Meredith Huxley, the Countess of Berne, glanced up from her son’s latest letter, brown eyes round and wide. “I don’t speak a word of Spanish.”

  Annabelle raised a brow at her mother and closed her small sketchbook to take a sip of tea. “John is touring the Continent, Mama.” She nodded toward the newly opened crate cluttering the center of the parlor. “I am certain he intended Mr. Goya’s painting as a gift to you and Papa, not a declaration of matrimony.”

  Mama frowned toward the crate, which Annabelle’s two youngest sisters, Eugenia and Kate, were gleefully emptying of its straw and miscellaneous contents. “Genie, do stop elbowing your sister,” Mama admonished.

  Eugenia huffed and planted her hands on her hips. “Katie pinched me first!”

  “You stole the bonnet he sent me!” Kate protested, tugging Genie’s arm and reaching for the apple-green silk confection.

  “It doesn’t suit you,” Genie answered flatly, holding the bonnet high to force Kate into leaping. “Your head is too small. Perhaps when you are thirteen—”

  “I am almost twelve.”

  Genie snorted. “In ten months.”

  “Give it back, stupid Genie!” Kate snapped. “John meant it for me—”

  Mama blew out a breath and resumed examining John’s letter. “Kate, do stop calling your sister stupid.”

  Kate narrowed her gaze upon Genie with a gleam of vengeance. “Thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows.”

  “Katherine Ann Huxley,” came Mama’s warning. “What did I just tell you?”

  Kate’s cheeks flushed as she fumed in Genie’s direction. “I did not say ‘stupid.’ I was quoting Shakespeare.”

  “You will both conduct yourselves as ladies, or you may both retire to your bedchambers until dinner.”

  Genie’s triumphant grin made Kate’s fists curl at her sides.

  “Eugenia, give Kate her bonnet.”

  Genie’s grin faded. She harrumphed—or as nearly as a girl of thirteen came to it—and tossed the green bonnet onto the crate’s remaining straw. Kate snatched it up promptly.

  Annabelle’s youngest sister was small for her age, as Annabelle once had been, so the bonnet slid down comically over Kate’s ears and brow. Genie crossed her arms and smirked. Undeterred, Kate tied overlong ribbons beneath her chin, tucked and plucked the hat into a more appropriate position, and paraded about the room as though on stage at Drury Lane.

  “Do you suppose they serve lamb in Spain?” Mama nibbled her lip and turned John’s letter over as though searching for clues. “If he brings home a Spanish bride, I should like her to feel welcome in her new home.”

  Annabelle shook her head and glanced toward Jane, who sat curled in a chair near the fireplace, reading. Jane was always reading. Annabelle had even caught her with her nose in a book at Lady Gattingford’s ball. At this rate, the only husband Jane might hope to land was a bookseller.

  Annabelle attempted to catch her third-youngest sister’s gaze, but Maureen was preoccupied with staring wistfully out the parlor window. At seventeen, the prettiest of the Huxley sisters often stared wistfully. Annabelle suspected it had to do with waiting to have her own season. More than anything, Maureen longed to be swept into soul-stirring love with a dashing suitor then danced into a life of domestic bliss. But Papa could only afford to launch two daughters at a time.

  Annabelle should probably marry soon and spare the family any more of Maureen’s melancholy sighs. At the thought of marriage, she stifled a grimace. Thus far, few gentlemen had made a lifetime of mingling sundry bodily fluids worth contemplating.

  Only one. The one she could not have.

  “Spaniards are a handsome people. Perhaps she will be beautiful. Oh, I do hope so.”

  Annabelle rolled her eyes. “Mama.”

  “Surely she could learn to speak English.”

  “A month ago, you were convinced he would bring home an Athenian. Before that, a Venetian.”

  “Thank heaven he did not take up with a French girl. Too haughty by half. Although, the dinner menu would have been far easier.”

  “Not everything is about food, Mama.”

  “A surprising number of things are, dearest.”

  “John falls in love with places, not women. New art, new lands, new adventures. He is infatuated with exploring.” Annabelle took a sip of her tea, which had gone lukewarm. “I’d wager he shan’t marry until that particular appetite is quenched, which will not be for some time.” She returned her cup to its saucer and flipped open her sketchbook. “The world is a big place.”

  Mama hmm’d and squinted suspiciously at John’s letter.

  Annabelle studied her most recent drawing—the one Mr. Green had demanded, refusing to bend an inch, growing ever more impatient. Yesterday, she’d gone to see him again, and they’d quarreled. She’d argued her case for running the original caricature. He’d glared with dismissive contempt and said if she did not deliver the revisions he’d ordered, he would find another artist who would.

  At this point, she could not decide which she hated more—her publisher or the drawing she’d just finished.

  “It is a lie,” she whispered to herself. Gritting her teeth, she tore the page from her sketchbook and crumpled the drawing into a ball. Then she heaved to her feet and tossed the ball into the fire. Wandering to the window where Maureen sat pining for her own season, Annabelle laid a hand upon her sister’s shoulder and released a wistful sigh of her own. A soft hand came up to cover hers.

  “Annabelle,” Maureen murmured, searching Grosvenor Street as though it held clues to life’s deeper mysteries. “Do you suppose a lady recognizes the man she is meant to wed? Upon first sight, I mean.”

  A twist of sadness squeezed and tightened. “Some, perhaps.” Annabelle certainly had, for all the good it had done her.

  “I wonder.” A wistful sigh. “Lady Victoria Lacey appeared most content with her betrothal to Lord Stickley, and yet she was lured away by a stranger.” Maureen shook her head. “Was it a failing of character? Or might she have accepted Lord Stickley too soon?”

  Annabelle’s chuckle was wry. “You haven’t seen Lord Atherbourne, dearest. I believe that might answer your question. Heavens, the man could seduce a lamppost. Or a block of frozen marble. Even Lady Wallingham, should he venture such a horrid enterprise.”

  Distracted from her melancholy, Maureen turned her gaze up to Annabelle’s. Like Papa’s and John’s eyes, Maureen’s were more gold than brown. Her hair was also a lighter shade than the other Huxley sisters, and her features similarly rounded, but daintier. She was lovely. Yet Maureen’s form was not her most appealing aspect. No, her substance—kind, sincere, sweet—made her a favorite with everyone she encountered.

  Now, she grinned and twinkled. “The dragon? Oh, I should like to see that.”

  “No, I don’t think you would.” Annabelle gave a mock shudder. “Nauseating thought. Better to imagine the lamppost.”

  “He must be very handsome, indeed.”

  “Hmm. Yes. Devastatingly so.” Annabelle had considered drawing him as the fallen angel Lucifer but had decided against it. He might be devilish in some ways, but the viscount had recently suffered great losses—his entire family, in fact—and he was a war hero, besides. Inwardly, she grimaced. Caricaturing was beginning to feel less like truth-telling and more like cruelty.

  She glanced back at the settee, where her sketchbook lay on the blue-silk cushion. Then she looked at her mother. Regret over failing in her duties as Lady Victoria’s chaperone had eroded Mama’s cheerful determination. Worrying over imagined foreign brides was the least of it. Annabelle had recently discovered Mama and Pa
pa arguing in Papa’s study. Mama had been weeping while Papa murmured that it was two in the morning, and she would feel better once the sun had risen. Annabelle did not know if Mama had felt better after sleeping, but given the redness of her eyes, she assumed not.

  How much worse might matters be when Lady Victoria’s fall from grace was mocked by the pen of Edward Yarrow Aimes? Still, Annabelle must answer Mr. Green’s demand for revisions somehow. Her deadline was mere days away.

  “Oh! Papa has returned from his club,” Maureen observed. “With a companion, it would seem.”

  Annabelle turned back to the window, spotting their father’s lean, distinguished form striding down Grosvenor Street. He spoke animatedly to the man at his side. Broad. Dark-haired. Solid. Larger than Papa, though of similar height. It was his shoulders. They were intimidatingly wide. And his arms were heavily muscled beneath his greatcoat. Through the rain’s soft veil, she watched him. He walked with great assurance for a man with a cane.

  “Is that …?”

  Annabelle’s stomach flopped like a fish. “Yes.”

  “Do you wish to see him?”

  The concern in Maureen’s voice echoed Annabelle’s despair. She could not answer, could not say what her heart roared.

  Yes.

  Yes, yes, yes.

  But seeing him would never be enough.

  As it happened, she hadn’t any choice in the matter. Papa entered the parlor with his dark, dour companion within minutes.

  “Stanton!” Mama cried, popping to her feet and crushing John’s letter to her bosom as she spun toward the door. “I did not expect you to return from White’s until two.” She paused, her eyes flaring as Papa’s companion followed him into the parlor. “Who is …?” The man removed his hat and leaned upon his cane. “Oh my word,” she murmured, her voice choked. “R-Robert? Dear boy, is that you?”

  Papa’s grin was wider than the sky. “Indeed it is, Meredith. And doesn’t he look well?” He clapped a hand on Robert’s broad shoulder, shaking him a bit like a proud father whose son had come home from Oxford. Or from war.