Secrets of a Summer Night (7 page)

“That was a great lapse in judgment on his part,” came her mother’s indignant reply.

Smiling, Annabelle reached down and squeezed Philippa’s gloved hand. “Thank you, Mama. But I had better set my sights on a far more attainable target.”

As guests continued to arrive, some went immediately to their rooms to refresh themselves with a midday nap, in anticipation of the supper and welcome dance that would be held later. Gossip-minded ladies congregated in the parlor and cardroom, while the gentlemen played billiards or smoked in the library. After their maid finished unpacking their clothes, Philippa decided to doze in their room. It was a small but lovely bedchamber, with flowered French paper on the walls and windows swathed in pale blue silk.

Too impatient and excited to sleep, Annabelle reflected that Evie and the Bowman sisters had probably arrived. Even so, they would want some time to restore themselves after traveling. Rather than endure hours of enforced inactivity, Annabelle decided to explore the grounds outside the manor. It was a warm, sunlit day, and she craved exercise after the long carriage ride. Changing into a blue muslin day dress shaped with rows of tiny box pleats, she left her room.

She slipped out a side entrance, passing a few servants on the way, and walked into a gentle flood of sunlight. There was something wonderful about the atmosphere at Stony Cross Park. One could easily imagine it as some magical place set in some far-off land. The surrounding forest was so deep and thick as to be primeval in appearance, while the twelve-acre garden behind the manor seemed too perfect to be real. There were groves, glades, ponds, and fountains. It was a garden of many moods, alternating tranquillity with colorful tumult. A disciplined garden, every blade of grass precisely clipped, the corners of the box hedges trimmed to knife blade crispness.

Hatless, gloveless, and infused with a sudden sense of optimism, Annabelle breathed deeply of the country air. She skirted the edge of the terraced gardens at the back of the manor and followed a graveled path set between raised beds of poppies and geraniums. The atmosphere soon became thick with the perfume of flowers, as the path paralleled a drystone wall covered with tumbles of pink and cream roses.

Wandering more slowly, Annabelle crossed through an orchard of ancient pear trees, sculpted by decades into fantastic shapes. Farther off, a canopy of silver birch led to woodland beds that appeared to melt seamlessly into the forest beyond. The graveled path ended in a small circle, where a stone table had been centered. Drawing closer, Annabelle saw the thick stubs of two melted candles that had been burned directly on the stone surface. She smiled a bit wistfully, realizing that the privacy of the clearing must have been the perfect setting for some romantic interlude.

Inured to the dreamy atmosphere around them, a line of five fat white ducks waddled across the graveled circle, heading to a raised pool on the other side of the garden. It appeared that the ducks had been long accustomed to the multitude of visitors at Stony Cross Park, for they ignored Annabelle completely as they passed by. They quacked loudly in anticipation of reaching the artificial pond, their progress so comically animated that Annabelle couldn’t help laughing.

Before her amusement had faded, she heard the crunch of a heavy footstep on the gravel. It was a man, who was evidently returning from a walk in the forest. He had lifted his head to stare at her with an arrested expression, his dark gaze meeting hers.

Annabelle froze.

Simon Hunt
, she thought, shocked beyond the power of speech to see him there at Stony Cross. She had always associated him with town life — she usually saw him indoors, at night, confined by walls and windows and starched neckties. However, in these day-lit natural surroundings, he seemed a different creature altogether. His broad-shouldered build, so irreconcilable with the narrow cut of evening clothes, seemed utterly right for the rough weave of a hunting coat and the shirt that had been left open at the throat, no cravat anywhere in sight. He was darker than
usual, his skin burnished amber from a great deal of time spent out of doors. The sun glanced off his close-cropped hair, striking a rich shimmer from thick locks that were not quite black, but an intense shade of brown. His features, finely delineated by sunlight, were hard and prominent and striking. The few touches of softness in his face… the thick crescents of his dark lashes, the lush curve of his lower lip, were all the more intriguing for their uncompromising setting.

Hunt and Annabelle stared at each other in silent bemusement, as if someone had posed a question that neither of them knew how to answer.

The moment lengthened uncomfortably, until Simon Hunt finally spoke. “A pretty sound, that,” he said softly.

Annabelle struggled to find her voice. “What is?” she asked.

“Your laughter.”

Annabelle experienced a sharp little ache in her midriff that was neither pain nor pleasure. The disarming stab of sensation was unlike anything she had ever experienced before. Unconsciously she put her fingers over the spot just beneath her ribs. Hunt’s gaze shot to her hand before easing slowly back up to her face. He moved nearer to the stone table, closing some of the distance between them.

“I hadn’t expected to see you here.” His gaze moved over her in a disconcertingly thorough sweep. “But of course, it’s the logical place for a woman in your situation.”

Annabelle narrowed her eyes. “In my situation?”

“Trying to catch a husband,” he clarified.

She responded with a haughty glance. “I am not trying to ‘catch’ anyone, Mr. Hunt.”

“Casting the lure,” he continued, “setting the hook, reeling in your unwary prey until he lies gasping on the deck.”

Her mouth clamped into a taut line. “You may set your mind at ease, Mr. Hunt, as I have no intention of separating you from your precious freedom. You’re the very last on the list.”

“What list?” Hunt contemplated her in the tense silence that followed, working it out for himself. “Ah. You’ve actually made a list of potential husbands?” Amusement danced in his eyes. “It’s a relief to hear that I’m not in the running, as I have resolved to avoid being padlocked into marriage at all cost. But I can’t seem to stop myself from asking… who is at the top of the list?”

Annabelle refused to answer. Even as she cursed her own tendency to fidget, she could not keep from reaching over to the lumpen stub of a candle and picking at it with the edges of her fingernails.

“Westcliff, probably,” Hunt guessed.

Annabelle made a scornful sound, half-sitting on the table. The aged stone surface was sun-warmed and glossy-smooth. “Certainly not. I wouldn’t marry the earl if he fell to his knees and begged me.”

Hunt laughed richly at the blatant lie. “A pedigreed lord, with his fortune? You’d stop at nothing to get him.” Casually, he sat on the opposite side of the table, and Annabelle steeled herself not to shrink from his proximity. Usually a conversation between a gentleman and a lady was underwritten by the understanding that there were certain things a gentleman would never do… he would not embarrass or insult her, or take advantage in any way. However, with Simon Hunt there were no such guarantees.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“I’m a friend of Westcliff’s,” he said easily.

Annabelle was unable to imagine the earl claiming someone like Hunt as a friend. “Why would he associate with you? And don’t try to claim that you have anything in common with him — the two of you are as different as chalk from cheese.”

“As it happens, the earl and I do have some common interests. We both like to hunt, and we share a remarkable number of political beliefs. Unlike most peers, Westcliff does not allow himself to be chained by the restrictions of aristocratic life.”

“Good Lord,” Annabelle mocked, “you seem to view nobility as a condition of imprisonment.”

“I do, as a matter of fact.”

“Then I can hardly wait to incarcerate myself and dispose of the keys.”

That made Hunt laugh. “You would probably do quite well as a peer’s wife.”

Recognizing that his tone was far from complimentary, Annabelle frowned at him. “If you dislike the peerage so much, I wonder that you spend so much time among them.”

His eyes glinted wickedly. “They have their uses. And I don’t dislike them — it’s just that I have no desire to be one of them. In case you haven’t noticed, the peerage — or at least the way of life they’ve known ’til now — is dying.”

Annabelle reacted with a wide-eyed glance, genuinely shocked by the statement. “What do you mean?”

“Most landholding peers are losing their fortunes, seeing them divided and shrunken by ever-increasing numbers of relatives who require support… and then there is the transformation of the economy to contend with. The rule of the great landowner is fast coming to a end. Only men like Westcliff — who is open to new ways of doing things — will weather the change.”

“With your invaluable assistance, of course,” Annabelle said.

“That’s right,” Hunt said with such self-satisfaction that she couldn’t help laughing.

“Have you ever considered making at least a pretense of humility, Mr. Hunt? Just for the sake of politeness?”

“I don’t believe in false modesty.”

“People might like you more if you did.”

“Would you?”

Her nails dug into the soft pastel-colored wax, and she flashed Hunt a quick glance to measure the depth of mockery in his eyes. To her bewilderment, there was none. He seemed seriously interested in her answer. As he watched her intently, she felt a dismaying tide of pink creep over her face. She was not at all comfortable in this situation, conversing alone with Simon Hunt while he lounged beside her like a lazy, inquisitive pirate. Her gaze fell to the large hand he had braced on the table, the fingers long and clean and sun-browned, with nails cut so short that the crescents of white were barely visible.

“ ‘Like’ may be going a bit far,” Annabelle said, releasing her biting grip on the candle. The more she tried to control her flush, the worse it became, until it surged into her hairline. “I suppose I could tolerate your company more easily if you would try to behave like a gentleman.”

“For example?”

“To begin with, the… the way you like to correct people…”

“Isn’t honesty a virtue?”

“Yes… but it hardly makes for the best conversation!” Ignoring his low laugh, she continued. “And the way you talk so openly about money is vulgar, especially to those in higher circles. Nice people pretend that they don’t care about money, or how to earn it, or invest it, or any of the other things you like to discuss.”

“I’ve never understood why the enthusiastic pursuit of wealth should be held in such disdain.”

“Perhaps because such pursuit is accompanied by so many vices… greed, selfishness, duplicity—”

“Those aren’t my faults.”

Annabelle raised her brows. “Oh?”

Smiling, Hunt shook his head slowly, the sunlight glittering on his sable locks. “If I were greedy and selfish, I would keep most of the profits from my businesses. However, my partners will tell you that they have been handsomely rewarded for their investments. And my employees are well paid by anyone’s standards. As for being duplicitous — I think it’s fairly obvious that I have the opposite problem. I’m truthful — which is very nearly unpardonable in civilized society.”

For some reason, Annabelle could not help grinning back at the ill-bred scoundrel. She pushed away from the table and dusted her skirts. “I’m not going to waste any more of my time telling you how to be polite when it’s perfectly obvious that you don’t wish to be.”

“Your time wasn’t wasted,” he said, coming around to her. “I’m going to lend some deep consideration to changing my ways.”

“Don’t bother,” she said, the smile lingering on her lips. “You’re a hopeless cause, I’m afraid. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to continue my walk through the garden. Have a pleasant afternoon, Mr. Hunt.”

“Let me come with you,” he said softly. “You can lecture me some more. I’ll even listen.”

She wrinkled her nose at him impudently. “No, you won’t.” She started off on the gravel path, aware of his gaze on her back until she disappeared into the pear orchard.

J
ust before supper on the first evening of the party, Annabelle, Lillian, and Daisy met in the downstairs receiving room, a spacious area set with clusters of chairs and tables where many of the guests had chosen to congregate.

“I should have known that dress would look a hundred times better on you than me,” Lillian Bowman said gleefully, hugging Annabelle and holding her at arm’s length to gaze at her. “Oh, it’s torture, being friends with someone so ravishing.”

Annabelle was wearing another of her new gowns, a yellow silk with fluttering tulle skirts caught up at narrow intervals with tiny bunches of silk violets. Her hair was pinned at the back of her head in an intricately braided plait. “I have many flaws,” Annabelle informed Lillian with a smile.

“Really? What are they?”

Annabelle grinned. “I’m hardly going to admit them if you haven’t already noticed.”

“Lillian tells everyone about her flaws,” Daisy said, her brown eyes twinkling. “She’s
proud
of them.”

“I do have a terrible temper,” Lillian acknowledged smugly. “And I can curse like a sailor.”

“Who taught you to do that?” Annabelle asked.

“My grandmother. She was a washerwoman. And my grandfather was the soap maker from whom she bought her supplies. Since she worked near the docks, most of her customers were sailors and dockers, who taught her words so vulgar that it would curl your hair ribbons to hear them.”

Laughter rustled in Annabelle’s chest. She was thoroughly charmed by the mischievous spirit of two girls who were unlike anyone she had ever known before. Unfortunately, it was difficult to imagine either Lillian or Daisy being happy as the wife of a peer. Most gentlemen of the aristocracy wanted to marry a girl who was serene, regal, self-effacing… the kind of wife whose sole purpose was to make her husband the focus of admiring attention. However, enjoying the Bowmans’ company as Annabelle did, she thought it would be a pity for either of them to have to repress the innocent audacity that made them so beguiling.