Once Upon a Wager (24 page)

“I think she believes a marriage between us would be mutually beneficial.”

“She's a starry-eyed romantic, then. I'm shocked.”

“It is the way of most marriages, as you very well know,” Alec said.

“True, but it doesn't have to be that way. You deserve the chance to find out.”

“This isn't a time to be thinking about myself.”

“You do know that it's acceptable to consider your own wants and needs on occasion?”

“You are not helping, Benjamin.”

“If it were me, I'd wait until the bill was passed before announcing my intention to court another woman.”

“But that is disingenuous.”

“I prefer to think of it as hedging one's bets. And we all know that Lord Fitzsimmons is a gambling man. He'll understand.”

“I can't do that,” Alec sighed. “I'm meeting with my steward this afternoon, and the Hertford ball is being held this evening. It will have to be done tomorrow, but only God knows what I will say.”

“For once, leave your head, with all of its notions and responsibilities, out of it,” Marworth said. “Just speak from your heart.”

Alec gave a grim laugh. “Who's the starry-eyed romantic now?”

• • •

“I did not think I would live to see it,” Aunt Sophia said as Annabelle entered the breakfast room at Marchmain House. “You have slept past noon—and since I am not given to fits of paranoia, which would have me wondering if you are alarmingly ill—I see this as a very encouraging development. I'm having a positive influence on you.”

“Of course you are. That and the fact that I am overtired,” Annabelle replied as she took a seat at the Georgian satinwood morning table. Canby appeared with a small pot of tea and a plate of sweet rolls with creamed butter. She poured herself a cup of the freshly steeped blend, swirling in a small spoonful of sugar, and glanced with contentment at her surroundings. She wasn't used to seeing the sun shining so brightly in this room. Normally, she slipped in here after dawn, when the light was more muted and tinged with pink. At this hour, though, it made the room sparkle, its rays bouncing off of the silver tea service on the sideboard.

Everything seemed to sparkle this morning.

“I hope I'm not interrupting your meal, Aunt Sophia.”

“Don't be silly, my dear. This is when the civilized world breaks its fast. So you did not sleep well?”

“No, I found myself wandering the halls just before dawn.”

“Did that wandering have anything to do with the Earl of Dorset?” her aunt asked between bites of a buttered crumpet.

Annabelle nearly dropped her teacup. Did Aunt Sophia know that Alec had slept in the library last night? Could she possibly know what happened between them? “Why would you say that?” she asked, trying for nonchalance.

“I know you were upset by his presence here last evening. Did the two of you argue when I left the library?”

She felt a rush of relief. “No, we did not argue. Well, at first we did, because I wouldn't believe him.” She proceeded to tell Aunt Sophia what had happened. Well, not all of it, of course, but rather the pertinent details about Mother, and Alec's vow, and her own disillusionment.

“Oh, Annabelle, I wish I'd known. I've said before that it is pointless to regret past actions, but I do. Most sincerely in this instance. I should have made inquiries from abroad once I received that last, nonsensical letter from Charlotte.”

“You would only have learned what Mother wanted you to know, Aunt Sophia, and you have nothing to be sorry for. In these past few months, you've taught me to live my life again. Father, too. His letters continue to improve, don't you think? He will be here soon, which is a miracle all by itself. And I'm just so happy to know that Alec did not abandon me. We can be friends again.” She couldn't seem to stop babbling.

“Is that what you want?” her aunt asked, with not a little suspicion. “To be friends with Lord Dorset … and nothing more?”

She was saved from answering by Canby's return. He was carrying the most beautiful arrangement—a mix of pink hydrangeas, French lilacs, and glossy white peonies with starburst centers—and her heart leapt in her chest.

One early summer day when Annabelle was twelve years old, she, Alec, and Gareth had been racing horses through the forests at the edge of Arbury Hall. She was winning the race, although there was every chance that the boys—really, they were men by then—were allowing her an unfair advantage.

Near the end of the course, she'd found herself in a sunlit field full of flowers. They were everywhere, an untamed riot spreading all the way to the horizon in bold slashes of color. She'd been by them any number of times, but on that day, she drew her horse up short, and watched as they swayed in the morning breeze. Alec noticed her unusual behavior, and teased her that admiring flowers was the start of bad things indeed. “Next, you will be oohing and ahhing over silks and satins and darling little hats, and you will expect men to spout poetry to you. There will be no more horse racing then.”

She'd stuck her tongue out at him in response. “I don't have the slightest idea what you mean.” But she'd wondered if he were right, if it marked the beginning of something strange and wonderful.

He'd smiled down at her, because his horse was easily a hand higher than her own. “It means that you are growing up, bit by bit. Someday, you will be a beautiful woman, and lovesick men will want to give you flowers.”

He'd leapt off of his horse to wander in the fields, snapping off an assortment of blossoms at their stems, before returning to give her an elaborate bow. “Let me be the first to offer a tribute to your beauty, my lady.”

She could still remember the rush of pleasure as she looked first into his smiling, handsome face, and then down at his makeshift bouquet—a mix of pink hydrangeas, French lilacs, and glossy white peonies with starburst centers.

“Annabelle … Annabelle! Come out of the clouds and back to the breakfast room, if you please. Who are the flowers from?”

“I'm sorry,” she replied, embarrassed again. “I was caught up in a memory.”

Canby set the arrangement on the breakfast table and turned to offer Annabelle the accompanying card, which was engraved with the Carstairs family crest. Heart fluttering, she turned it over. There was a short note, written in Alec's familiar hand, saying that he would think of her all day before he saw her this evening at the Hertford ball. He had signed it simply, just his first name. Like an infatuated schoolgirl, she clutched the note close to her heart before she could stop herself. “Alec Carstairs sent the flowers.” She felt exhilarated, as if the world was full of promise, and no dream was too foolish.

“Well, that answers my question,” Aunt Sophia said. “Not just friends, then.”

Hertford House dominated Manchester Square with an enormous stone facade five bays wide and three stories high. Its front entrance, centered beneath a large Venetian window and balcony, was flanked by high Romanesque marble columns, and the entire property was set in an elaborate garden, protected from the street by tall iron gates. So many carriages clogged the road leading to the mansion that it took more than an hour just to move around Manchester Square.

The annual Hertford ball was the biggest fete of the Season, and Isabella Seymour-Conway, the marchioness, was one of society's most influential hostesses. According to Aunt Sophia, she was also an especially close friend of the prince regent—the kissing kind—which explained why she'd just returned from an extended stay in rural Ireland. Supposedly, it was a common punishment for wives who courted scandal.

Annabelle could not judge her. She'd learned that passion could seduce you, hold you in its sway, and make you do shocking things. When she thought of the intimacies she'd shared with Alec and of her own uninhibited responses, her entire body flushed with warmth. Not that she regretted anything they had done. Something so wonderful could never be wrong. Unless, of course, her heart was crushed in the end.

When they reached the front door at last, she and Aunt Sophia were helped from their carriage and ushered into the home's front hallway by a phalanx of footmen, each dressed in the distinctive silver and blue Hertford livery. It was less a hall, though, than a cavernous, two-story room dominated by a broad double staircase. A long line of the ton's elite snaked up the steps, which led into the ballroom above, where an orchestra was at play. Annabelle recognized a few faces, smiling when she did. For the most part, though, she waited nervously for her turn at the top of the stairs, when she and Aunt Sophia would be announced to the assembled guests.

Was Alec already here? This ball might be a spectacle of sights and sounds, but he was the only person she wanted to see.

When the Hertford's butler announced their arrival, it seemed as if every set of eyes—lorgnettes and quizzing glasses, too—swerved toward them as the din in the room quieted to a murmur. She took a deep breath as she and Aunt Sophia stepped down into the elaborate ballroom, lit with hundreds of candles, and shining with satins and silks.

• • •

“Miss Layton, will you honor me with the quadrille this evening?” Viscount Petersham called out, barely visible in the crowd that collected as she and Aunt Sophia finished their introductions in the receiving line. Annabelle felt as if she were being swallowed whole. Were balls always such a crush of people? “Make way,” Petersham called out again, nudging aside a young gentleman whom she'd met on Rotten Row last week, as well as several matrons with their sons. When she saw what he was wearing, her mouth nearly dropped open in surprise.

Dressed in shades of gold, from his heavily embroidered cutaway coat right down to the bell-shaped buckles on his jeweled evening shoes, he simply glowed, like the mythical King Midas. The brown tones he wore exclusively were nowhere in sight.

“Lord Petersham,” marveled Aunt Sophia, clearly impressed. “If we were not at war with the French, I would compare you favorably with the brilliance of Versailles.”

“You're too kind, Lady Marchmain,” he said as he stopped in front of them. “These sartorial flourishes come easily when the exquisite Miss Layton is your inspiration.”

Had she missed something? So many people were around her that Annabelle found it difficult to concentrate. “I wanted to pay tribute to your spectacular eyes, Miss Layton,” he continued, “but I couldn't decide between the purest cerulean and the sparkling hues of a sapphire. How lucky that your golden tresses, in all of their glory, offered me the perfect palette. I hope you are pleased.”

For a moment, Annabelle was speechless.

“I am … touched, Lord Petersham. Indeed, I don't quite know what to say. You've gone to a great deal of trouble.”

“I do nothing by half measure, my dear. If I may pencil my name onto your dance card, I shall look forward to telling you all about my new barouche, which is also gold. Its lovely sky-blue trimmings are particularly dashing. There's nothing else like it in all of London.”

“I don't doubt it, Petersham,” Lord Marworth said as he pushed forward and offered an elegant bow. “Lady Marchmain, how lovely you are this evening. Miss Layton, may I also ask you to honor me with a dance?”

“I'm flattered,” Annabelle said, smiling as she extended her card, which dangled from her gloved wrist by a silken ribbon. Before either gentleman could sign it, however, a gruff, much older man maneuvered a path through the crowd. “Don't let them waste your time, Miss Layton,” he called out. “Neither of these dandies knows how to please a woman.”

Lord Petersham drew back in affront.

Annabelle was certain that she'd never met the man. He was slight of stature, with a bald head and a nose that was hooked like a talon. Surprised as she was by his indelicate comment, however, she was even more shocked when he turned to Aunt Sophia with a lascivious grin. “Too bad you are past the age for childbearing, missy. I would snap you up instead of going after the young one. I'd wager you know what to do with a man behind closed doors.”

Several in the crowd stiffened with indignation, but Aunt Sophia merely smiled. “Lord Higgins, you made a similar proposal thirty years ago. If I recall, I said I would snap something off.”

The old lord raised his nose a notch and turned toward Annabelle. “Miss Layton, we have not been introduced, but if you'd do me the great honor of becoming my wife, you'd save me a lot of trouble, and we could get on to the baby making.”

Were she not so horrified by the prospect, she would have laughed out loud at his audacity. Had she stumbled into the center of a circus? “My lord, you don't even know me!”

“I don't need to, my dear,” he replied with a leering smile. “You are beautiful and well placed, and that's all you need to be.”

“You, sir, are an outrage!” Petersham gasped, as several gentlemen closed around Lord Higgins, bent on removing him from the ballroom. Luckily, the first strains of a Scottish reel started up, and Lord Marworth seized the opportunity to lead Annabelle onto the dance floor with an amused grin.

• • •

Alec was trying to concentrate on what Lord Fitzsimmons was saying. He was. But when Annabelle had arrived, descending into the ballroom like a princess, her eyes sparkling, every sensible thought raced from his head. She was dressed in a white silk gown overlaid with embroidered tulle, the pattern a delicate tracery of flowers on trailing vines. Its short, puffed sleeves and sloping neckline highlighted the sweep of her shoulders, while the fitted bodice drew his eyes toward her breasts, then down to her waist and the sensuous curve of her hips. A flurry of excited whispers had followed her into the ballroom, and the men who'd tracked her so relentlessly these past weeks watched her too, eyes covetous as they swept her from head to toe.