The Worldly Widow (26 page)

"You
'
re making a mountain out of a molehill,
"
she protested. "Besides, I
'
m not publishing anyone
'
s name. I
'
ve changed them all to protect the guilty. Take today
'
s chapter, which I
'
ve just translated, for example. 'Sir Spider,
'
Monique calls one of her admirers. In my edition, I shall change his name to 'Sir Beetle.
'
"

"That
'
s not much of a change,
"
he pointed out.

She laughed. "No. But 'Sir Spider
'
won
'
t be able to sue me for libel in a court of law. That
'
s all I care about.
"

"Who is the fellow? Do you know?
"
he asked casually.

"I haven
'
t a clue. But he
'
s certainly one of Monique
'
s more colorful characters.
"

He became absorbed staring at the inkpot on Annabelle
'
s desk. "I suppose he
'
s a bit of a libertine,
"
he finally offered.

"Well of course. Otherwise he wouldn
'
t be in the girl
'
s diaries.
"

"What does she have to say about him?
"

"Plenty. And not anything that a lady would repeat to a gentleman. You
'
ll just have to wait until the thing is published, if you
'
re really interested.
"

He smiled weakly. "You
'
ve developed a thorough disgust for him, I presume.
"

"Certainly not. In fact, he
'
s an attractive rogue with no malice in him, in spite of his amorous adventures, which according to Monique are legion.
"

"She was probably exaggerating. They do, you know.
"

Annabelle slanted him a keen look. "You know his identity! That
'
s it, isn
'
t it?
"

"No, no! Really, I don
'
t.
"

"If I didn
'
t know better,
"
she mused, "I
'
d suspect that you and 'Sir Spider
'
were one and the same person. However
…
"

"Yes?
"
He seemed to be hanging on her next words.

"Sir Spider has a penchant for beautiful though featherbrained widgeons. So I knew he could not be you.
"

Swallowing a sigh, Dalmar said, "Will you be having any lunch?
"

It took a minute for it to register in Annabelle
'
s brain that Dalmar had changed the subject. "Lunch,
"
she repeated blankly. "Oh, I always go home and eat with my son.
"

"I
'
ll come with you,
"
he returned in a voice that brooked no argument. "Get your hat and coat.
"

They were in the outer office before she turned on him and asked, apropos of nothing, "How do you feel about Homer
'
s
Odyssey
?
"

Cautiously, he answered, "Like most boys, I loved it. Why?
"

Her eyes lit up with that fanatical gleam he was coming to know so well. "I
'
ve got just the book for you,
"
she exclaimed, and darted back into her office. In a moment she returned and held out a slim volume bound in maroon calfskin.

"More Tales of the Settl
e
rs,
"
he read from the cover, "and published in New York, of all places. What has this got to do with Homer
'
s
Odyssey
?
"

"
Think, Dalmar—adventurers in uncharted territory with horrendous, hair-raising trials and tribulations to overcome before they find what they
'
re after. It
'
s an old legend but…
"

"
…
dressed up in a suit of new clothes,
"
he finished for her.

She threw him a brilliant smile. "I think you
'
ve got the makings of a publisher,
"
she told him, and held out her gloved hand, palm up.

"What?
"
he asked at a loss, examining the proffered hand.

Saucily, she answered, "You owe me ten shillings. That
'
s the price of the book, and I ought to warn you, at Bailey
'
s there
'
s no haggling the price down.
"

He could not help himself. With a great whoop of laughter, he dragged her into his arms and kissed her swiftly and hard. "Now I know why I want to marry you, Annabelle Jocelyn. By the time I
'
m forty, you
'
ll have made me a millionaire.
"
Annabelle was flustered, but not so flustered that she forgot about the ten shillings. He paid up without demur.

It was hours later before it occurred to her that Dalmar had shown a remarkable awareness of Monique Dupres
'
s diaries. She herself had never mentioned them to him. Assuming that Albert had let slip something when her attention had been engaged elsewhere, she dismissed the matter from her mind.

Chapter Ten

T
hree weeks later, as October drew to a close, Annabelle held out her left hand for the inspection of her good friend and companion Mrs. Beatrice Pendleton. On her third finger glittered a ruby and pearl betrothal ring which Lord Da
lm
ar had given her the night before.

"When and where will the marriage take place?
"
asked Bertie, her eyes lifting to slant her employer a brazen I-told-you-so look.

"December,
"
said Annabelle emphatically, "and in York, with my father officiating.
"

"You surprise me. Somehow I thought Dalmar would procure a special license and have the thing done before you had time to change the garters on your stockings.
"

Annabelle smiled at her friend
'
s perspicacity. In truth, it had taken every ounce of her logic to persuade the Earl to a more moderate course. Even the betrothal ring was a little precipitous, in her opinion. Apart from their immediate family, there had been little time to inform their acquaintances of their intentions. For most of them, their first intelligence of what was afoot would come that very evening at a ball which Lord Dalmar was hosting in his newly refurbished house in Cavendish Square.

Annabelle absently stirred the small silver spoon in the third cup of tea she had poured for herself that morning. "Patience is a virtue that Dalmar is going to have to learn.
"
Carefully she began to enumerate the reasons she had given the Earl for the
delay in their marriage.
"
To begin with, my father can
'
t drop everything and come to London. Nor can I drop everything and go to York. There are things happening at Bailey
'
s, critical things which cannot be left in abeyance at this moment. And there
'
s no question of having some other priest perform the ceremony. Good grief, I
'
m a vicar
'
s daughter. My father would never understand such unseemly haste. By Christmas or the new year, things at Bailey
'
s should be on a more even keel. Plenty of time then to think of getting married.
"

Bertie darted her friend a troubled look. Very gently she said, "Are you sure, my dear?
"

"I beg your pardon?
"

Choosing her words carefully, Annabelle
'
s companion observed, "Are you sure you won
'
t find some other excuse to put off the wedding once Christmas is upon us? Forgive me, Annabelle, I know that I
'
ve all but pushed you into this step in the last number of weeks, but if you
'
re not absolutely certain…
"

Annabelle chuckled. "You
'
re beginning to sound like Dalmar. I
'
ll tell you what I told him. This isn
'
t a delaying tactic. Albert is already in Manchester. The presses are going night and day. The bookbinders have cleared the decks. Bailey
'
s first cheap edition of a work of fiction is almost ready for dispatch. I can
'
t be expected to drop everything now. Put your mind at rest, Bertie. I said I would marry Dalmar, and I shall.
"

Leaning forward across the small breakfast table, Bertie asked, "Why
are
you marrying him, Annabelle?
"

Annabelle
'
s eyes widened a fraction. "Why, for all the reasons you gave me, Bertie, and a few that you didn
'
t. Richard needs a father, and Dalmar, for some reason I can
'
t fathom, has the boy in his pocket.
"

"Yes, the Earl has worked a wonderful change in Richard in the last number of weeks. If you ask me, the boy was too old for his years. Dalmar knows how to shake the child out of himself. I don
'
t think I
'
ve heard Richard laugh so much in the two years since I
'
ve been with you. I should think that Dalmar will make a wonderful father.
"

Annabelle
'
s artfully rouged cheeks deepened a shade. With
head averted, she said, "Yes, well, I was an only child myself. It
'
s my hope that Richard will have a few siblings before he
'
s very much older, if only to take him down a peg or two. Moreover, Dalmar is persuaded that Richard suffers from a surfeit of petticoats. I daresay there
'
s something in what he says.
"

'Surely you
'
re not marrying the man merely to provide a father for Richard?
"

''Of course not,
"
disclaimed Annabelle calmly. "If that were the case, I would have married long since. I think I told you that Dalmar has promised that once we
'
re wed, he
'
ll allow me to pursue my publishing interests without interference?
T
here
'
s not many men who would do as much, I don
'
t mind telling you.
"

Skeptically, Bertie asked, "Do you trust him to keep his word?
"

"Implicitly,
"
answered Annabelle.

It was a question she did not have to think twice about. As one week had slipped into the next, she
'
d begun to understand something of the Earl
'
s character. He never made promises he could not keep, and he expected as much from those who were close to him. The small white lies which were woven into the fabric of polite social intercourse he eschewed as if they had been the invention of the devil (which Annabelle, as a daughter of the manse, knew perfectly well they were). Unthinkingly, since leaving her father
'
s roof, she had picked up the habit, something which Dalmar warned her he would not tolerate under any circumstances.

"Do you love him?
"

The question startled Annabelle. The delicate teacup which she
'
d been holding
to her lips jerked, sending
droplets of tea over the white
linen table cover.

Flustered, Bertie said, "I beg your pardon. I had no right to ask such a question.
"

Annabelle carefully used her table napkin to dab the front of her pomona green silk. Her lashes lifted, and her blue eyes, faintly hooded, regarded her friend
'
s flushed cheeks.

"Bertie,
"
said Annabelle quietly, "I married for love once before, remember? I
'
m not like to make the same mistake
twice. I
'
m very fond of Dalmar. One might even go so far as to say I admire the man. We understand each other. When he makes those vows to me in front of witnesses, you may be sure that he
'
ll keep them. He
'
s not the sort of man to humiliate his wife by flaunting his ladybirds in public. Richard likes him. You said yourself that Dalmar will make a wonderful father. I would not marry him if I did not believe he would make an excellent husband. Wh
at more could a woman ask for?"

"Nothing, I suppose,
"
answered Bertie, studiously involved in buttering a slice of dry toast.

There was another, more compelling reason for her marriage to Dalmar which Annabelle chose not to reveal to her companion. Quite bluntly, David Falconer had proved to be something of a nemesis.

For years she
'
d listened to sermons from the pulpit on the boring topic of the sins of the flesh. Obviously she had not been paying attention. For some obscure reason, she had always supposed that she was immune to that particular temptation
…
until the Palais Royal. And in the weeks following her shocking fall from grace, she had persuaded herself that she had been the victim of a set of circumstances which could never again be repeated. Annabelle Jocelyn just wasn
'
t that sort of girl! She could not have been more mistaken. Where David Falconer was concerned, as he was at some pains to prove to her, Annabelle Jocelyn was
exactly
that sort of girl. When he had been sedated almost senseless, his appeal had been powerful. In full possession of all his faculties, the man was irresistible. It was either marry the rogue or burn. He left her no alternative.

For all that she
'
d been a married woman and madly in love with her husband, she was totally confused by the lush sensations and achy feelings Dalmar could evoke so effortlessly with one word, one soft look, an accidental touch that wasn
'
t accidental. She
'
d had words, looks, and touches— dozens of
'
em in her day, and not one had done more than gratify her feminine vanity. Dalmar was different.

David Falconer was a walking, talking, living, breathing invitation to a rocky road that led straight to hell—or heaven, as he would have it, Need, naked and unashamed, blazed at her
from eyes that were endlessl
y gray, endless with wanting. N
ot in a hundred years could she explain even to herself the conflicting images which haunted her. He was the lazy lion surreptitiously stalking his prey. He was the stray lamb, defenseless and lonely, in search of a refuge. Every logical cell in her brain urged her to pull up the drawbridge and man the defenses; every feminine instinct in her body coaxed her to wrap him in her arms and protect him from a cruel world.

Pushing thoughts of Dalmar to the back of her mind, she concentrated on what her companion was saying. "Diaries?
"
she asked.

"Yes. How far along with them are you?
"

Annabelle grimaced. "I
'
ve finished the translation, thank heavens. And what a beastly bore it was!
"

"You surprise me. If it
'
s boring, how do you expect people to buy the book when it
'
s published?
"

"It
'
s not the content of the book that
'
s boring, Bertie. It
'
s only that I scarcely know what I
'
m reading when I
'
m in the throes of translation. Once Albert polishes my prose and puts the finishing touches to it, it will be quite racy. I should be thankful that it
'
s not his version of the manuscript that marches through my mind when I go to bed or I
'
d be up all night.
"
Observing her friend
'
s blank look, Annabelle went on to explain. "I
'
ve given up counting sheep-—or perhaps it
'
s the other way round. They
'
ve given me up. What I mean to say is, my head scarcely touches the pillow, but page by page, my brain sifts through every word in Monique Dupres
'
s horrid manuscript.
"

"In French?
"

"Oh yes. In the original. It
'
s more effective than a sleeping draught, I can tell you.
"

Bertie laughed. "And to think I always envied you your prodigious memory.
"

"As I
'
ve told you before, it
'
s not exactly memory,
"
explained Annabelle patiently. "I
'
m as like to forget a name or an appointment as you are.
"

"But not if it
'
s written down.
"

"Something like that.
"

"And you can recall a whole book at one go, I think I once
heard you mention.
"

"Only if I study it.
"

"You must have walked off with all the prizes at school, you horrid girl!
"

"Oh I never went to school. My father tutored me at home.
"

"Just as well! You would have been the most unpopular girl in class.
"

Faintly uncomfortable with this turn in the conversation, Annabelle observed, "Yes, well, when Albert returns from Manchester, the manuscript should be ready to go to press.
"

"Ah,
"
said Bertie noncommittally, and carefully adjusted the cuff of her blue kerseymere spencer.