A Hellion in Her Bed (12 page)

With a sigh, Sissy glanced at the clock. “I do hope something dreadful hasn’t happened. Shouldn’t he be here by now?” Jarret had sent a note saying he would arrive at ten-thirty, and it was nearly eleven.

“I’m sure he’s merely taking his sweet time,” Annabel said dryly, “as lords are apt to do.”

“He’s coming!” Geordie shouted from the window where he’d been keeping watch for the last half hour.

The sudden leap of her pulse made Annabel scowl. “How do you know it’s him?”

“There’s a crest on the door and everything.” Geordie puffed out his chest. “Just wait until that lout Toby Mawer sees me drive up in a marquess’s coach. He’ll be green with envy!”

Annabel scarcely had time to steady her nerves before Jarret strode into the common room, full of confidence and arrogance and all things lordly, from his well-tailored morning coat of Sardinian blue superfine to the highly polished sheen of his black Hussar boots. It would make any woman grow wobbly in the knees.

Not her, of course. Her knees were quite unwobbly, thank you very much.

As she rose, his gaze met hers. “Miss Lake,” he said in the husky voice she remembered from last night. “Forgive my tardiness. There was an issue with the horses.”

“We can hardly complain, my lord,” she said as she held out her hand, “given your generosity in taking us to Burton.”

He pressed her hand briefly, his gaze running over her with an easy familiarity that made her shiver. Something dark and knowing flickered in his eyes before he smoothed his features into a cordial smile.

Now
her knees were wobbly.

Sissy cleared her throat, and Annabel started. “Lord Jarret, may I present my sister-in-law, Cecelia Lake. Sissy, this is Lord Jarret Sharpe.”

As they made the requisite bows and curtsies, accompanied by murmured pleasantries, Geordie hurried to Sissy’s side.

Sissy laid her hand on Geordie’s arm. “And this is my son, Geordie.”

“George,” Geordie corrected her. He held out his hand manfully. “George Lake, at your service. Very good of you to let us use your carriage, sir. I hope it doesn’t inconvenience you too much.”

A lump stuck in Annabel’s throat to hear Geordie sound so grown up. He must have been practicing that introduction for the past hour.

“Not at all,” Jarret said with nary a trace of condescension. “Happy to help you and your family.”

When Geordie fairly preened at being treated like a man, she could have kissed Jarret. For all his bluster, Geordie was sensitive, and they didn’t need one of his fits of pique today.

“Shall we go, then?” Jarret offered Annabel his arm, leaving Geordie to follow suit with Sissy.

Annabel took it, fighting to quell the sudden tripling of her pulse. They had walked exactly this way last night, and it hadn’t affected her so. But that was before he’d kissed her. Now she was intensely aware of the tension in his body, the flexing of his muscles beneath her hand … the rosemary scent of Hungary Water.

“You look well today, Miss Lake,” he said.

Sissy snorted behind her.

When Jarret shot Annabel a quizzical glance, she said, “My sister-in-law wanted me to dress more extravagantly for a ride in a marquess’s coach.”

Amusement gleamed in his eyes. “And of course, being thoroughly unimpressed by rank, you refused.”

“It looks like rain,” she said defensively.

His only response was an insolent arch of his brow.

When they reached the coach and he handed her in, she caught sight of Sissy’s face and groaned. Her sister-in-law wore a speculative look that showed she’d noticed how comfortable Annabel and Jarret were together.

Oh, dear. She would have to be more careful with herself around him.

Geordie paused next to Jarret before climbing in. “Would it be all right if I rode up top with the coachman?”

“Certainly not!” Sissy and Annabel said in unison from inside the carriage.

Jarret eyed them askance. “It’s fine with me, ladies.”

“It’s too dangerous,” Sissy said.

“What if there’s an accident?” Annabel added. “That’s no place for a boy. Get inside, Geordie. You are
not
riding up there.”

Grumbling about being treated like a child, Geordie climbed in and plopped down in the seat opposite them. Even after they were settled and Jarret had ordered the coachman to drive on, he sulked, arms crossed over his chest.

But the boy couldn’t stay immune to the sights of London for long. Soon he was peeking out the window at the spectacle of a barge being loaded on the river, and then he gasped as they took a corner speedily, with almost no jostling.

“This is a berline coach, isn’t it, my lord?” he asked.

“Indeed it is.”

“With two underperches and full underlock?”

“I have no idea,” Jarret drawled.

“Geordie has an avid interest in carriages,” Annabel explained.

“It has to have full underlock,” Geordie went on. “It turns too neatly for anything else.” He bounced on the seat. “And it’s well sprung, too. It must have cost you a fortune!”

“Geordie!” Sissy chided. “Don’t be rude.”

“Actually, I don’t know what it cost,” Jarret said. “It belongs to my brother.”

“Oh. Right,” Geordie mumbled. “It’s your brother who’s the marquess.” He peered up at Jarret. “Perhaps that’s why you don’t look like a lord.”

Jarret blinked. “How is a lord supposed to look?”

“They carry quizzing glasses and fancy canes.”

“Ah, yes.” His lordship seemed to be trying hard not to smile. “I must have left mine in the other carriage.”

Geordie’s face lit up. “You have another carriage? What sort? A curricle? Or a phaeton? Oh, it has to be a phaeton—that’s what all the lords drive!”

“It’s a cabriolet, actually.”

“A cabriolet,” Geordie whispered in awe. “I’ve heard of them, but I’ve never seen one. Do you race it?”

“No. I leave that to my younger brother. Perhaps you’ve heard of him—Lord Gabriel Sharpe.”

Now Geordie was in raptures. “Your brother is the Angel of Death?”

“Where did you hear that?” Annabel asked sharply.

“From Mother. It was in one of her gossip papers.”

Sissy turned red. “My lord, please forgive my son. He has a tendency to speak without thinking.”

Jarret laughed, then shot Annabel a veiled glance. “A family trait, I suppose.” When she glared at him, he added, “It doesn’t matter. I know what they call my brother.”

They all fell silent.

After several moments, Sissy said, “We are very grateful to you for coming to the aid of Lake Ale like this, sir.”

A cynical expression crossed his face. “I hope we both don’t come to regret it. I’ve barely dipped my toe into the ale business, and this is a new area for me. Indeed, if not for our wager, I wouldn’t even—”

He caught himself with a groan.

“Don’t worry, my lord,” Sissy said. “I know all about Annabel’s beating you at two-handed whist. She tells me everything.”

“Everything?” His gaze narrowed on Annabel. “Did she tell you the
terms
of our wager?”

“Certainly.” Sissy patted Annabel’s rigid hand. “Though she took quite a chance. Her mother’s ring means a great deal to her. She should never have risked it in a card game.”

When a wicked glint appeared in his eye, Annabel froze, her heart nearly failing her right there. Surely he wouldn’t reveal … Oh, Lord, he couldn’t possibly mean to …

“Ah, but if she hadn’t, I wouldn’t have accepted the bet. I needed something very tempting to convince me to take a chance on your husband’s brewery.” He had the audacity to wink at her. “Fortunately, Miss Lake was more than eager to provide the … right temptation.”

Annabel scowled at him. Teasing wretch. He was enjoying dangling her reputation by one finger in front of her. Though she supposed she deserved it for agreeing to that daft wager in the first place.

“She always says it’s a lucky ring, too,” Sissy went on.

“Does she?” The smile playing over his lips got on Annabel’s nerves.

“But I don’t believe it,” Sissy went on. “If it were lucky,
then Rupert wouldn’t have—” She broke off suddenly, with a quick glance at Annabel. “I’m sorry, dear. After all these years, I forget that it’s still very fresh to you.”

At least Sissy’s words wiped the smug smile from Jarret’s face. Still, the stare he leveled on them was almost as disconcerting.

“Who’s Rupert?” he asked.

“Aunt Annabel’s fiancé,” Geordie chimed in. “He died in the war right after Father and Mother married. He was a great hero, wasn’t he, Mother?”

“Yes, Geordie, a fine and courageous man,” Sissy said softly. “But it’s painful for your aunt to talk about. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“Nonsense.” Annabel forced herself to sound calm. “It was a long time ago, when I was just sixteen. And we were betrothed for only a short while. Papa said we were too young to marry and asked that we wait until I was eighteen. Then when I was seventeen Rupert’s brother died in France, and in a storm of vengeful fervor, Rupert insisted on enlisting in the army. He died in the Battle of Vittoria, not long after he left England.”

Although she’d stopped grieving for her youthful love, it unnerved her to speak of him to Jarret after last night’s kisses. It was unsettling to expose one’s life in such a pitiless recitation.

Not that Jarret would care. She was just a woman who’d tricked him into doing something he didn’t want to do, an impediment to his easy life. What did it matter what she’d suffered?

Yet she could feel his gaze on her, probing, curious.

“And you never married,” he said, his tone neutral. “You must have loved him very much.”

“Yes.” She’d loved him as any girl loves her first sweetheart, with a pure, oblivious passion that counted no cost.

She sometimes wondered if perhaps Papa had been right about their being too young. Other than proximity and the intoxication of youthful desires, what had she and Rupert had in common? She’d liked to read and play cards; he’d liked to hunt partridges and bet on the races in Burton. What if they hadn’t consummated their love? Might she have found another man to love after his death, someone who shared more of her interests?

It didn’t matter. What was done was done.

She forced a bright smile to her lips. “In any case, it’s all in the past.” She met Jarret’s gaze. “So, you said you had questions about the brewery’s operations. This is as good a time as any to discuss those, don’t you think?”

His eyes searched her face, and he gave a small nod. “Why not?”

Although that launched them into the difficult matter of Lake Ale and its problems, she was thankful to leave the painful subject of Rupert behind. She only hoped they were done with it. It wouldn’t do to have Jarret know too many of her secrets.

J
ARRET FOUND HIS
conversation with Annabel about the brewery intriguing. She knew a great deal more than he’d have guessed. He’d had no idea that barley for the malt had become so dear or that barrel makers were demanding higher pay.

More importantly, the plan she laid out for saving her brother’s company was not only sound, but it might actually work. After he’d left Gran’s this morning, he’d talked to an
East India Company captain he knew from the gaming hells, and the man had confirmed everything Annabel had told him. The captain had even boasted about how much money he’d made on the first shipment of Allsopp’s pale ale.

This project looked less risky by the moment. Though there was still the issue of the ill brother, and that was worrisome.

It was a pity she couldn’t run the project herself. But as long as her brother owned it, no man would ever deal with her on matters of business. Women had no rights in such cases. Gran had been able to survive only because her husband had died and left the business to her, and even then she’d had to fight tooth and nail for every gain.

Annabel was certainly a fighter, but Hugh Lake was the only one who could make decisions, and from what Annabel was telling him, he continued to make them. She just performed the daily work, along with the brewery manager.

The situation seemed very odd. Worse, he couldn’t shake the feeling that Annabel wasn’t telling him everything. She evaded certain questions, skirted certain concerns. Was that because she didn’t know the answers? Or because she didn’t want to
tell
him the answers?

Then there was young George’s odd behavior. Once they started talking of Lake Ale, the boy fell silent, almost as if commanded not to speak. And Mrs. Lake grew decidedly nervous whenever her husband was mentioned. It gave him pause, especially since Annabel seemed perfectly at ease.

Utterly different from when she’d discussed her fiancé.

He shot her a quick glance. Even her unfashionable day dress of muddy-colored serge didn’t dim the high color in her pretty cheeks and the animation in her gold-flecked eyes as she talked about the business. It wasn’t hard to believe she’d
once been betrothed. Perhaps the men in Burton weren’t so mad, after all.

She hadn’t denied loving that Rupert fellow deeply. And clearly she had, or she wouldn’t have stayed true to him even after his death. Rupert must have been a stalwart gallant, young and handsome and full of courage. Died a hero, eh? Just the sort of man that women worshipped.

He scowled. It made his own life look wasted, even though he’d had no desire to be a soldier.

And what about
her
wasted life, closing herself up in a spinster’s box, keeping all men at bay because she’d lost her true love at seventeen? That was a romantic fool’s path, and she was no romantic fool.

She was an attractive, vibrant woman. A sensual woman, the sort of woman who met a man’s kiss with the enthusiasm it properly deserved. No missish vapors for Annabel. She seized the moment, the hour, the day, with a true lust for living. So why was she pouring her energies into looking after her brother’s children and her father’s brewery? She ought to be settled with some squire or wealthy merchant, gracing his table with her presence and his bed with her passion.

That
thought didn’t appeal to him, either. Why, he wasn’t sure. He barely knew the woman. He had no reason to care whether she married some other chap.