Annie's Song (16 page)

Lamplight shimmered in the unruly sable curls that framed her small face, accentuating the color of her eyes, which, at the moment, reminded him of blue pools of crystal-clear water. Her frock, a faded pink garment better suited to a child, hung on her even more loosely than before, the well-worn cloth clinging softly to the subtle curves of her body. Perfection in miniature, that was Annie, lovely in a way that somehow outshone the more voluptuous beauties he’d been attracted to in the past.

Maddy’s suggestion that he should make this a bona fide marriage chose that moment to reenter his mind. As much as he hated to admit it, even to himself, it was tempting to do just that. Incredibly tempting. The physical aspects of marriage to such a beautiful girl would be no great hardship for him, or for any other man, as far as that went. But more than that, making this a marriage in fact would be far less complicated than his original plan. Unfortunately, the guilt he felt for even thinking along those lines constituted a barrier he couldn’t seem to work his way past. There were codes of decency to be observed if a man wanted to respect himself, and a girl with Annie’s disabilities was not fair game.

After turning up the lamps, Alex joined her at the table, positioning his chair across from hers in the hope that she might feel more at ease if he kept his distance. Since it was his plan to communicate with her by drawing pictures, he took it as a good sign that she seemed fascinated by the sketchpad and pencil.

“Hello, Annie,” he said softly.

Pulling her gaze from the drawing pad, she stared fixedly at his mouth. Her expression said more clearly than words that she hadn’t grasped what he said. It was not an encouraging start. Somehow he had to make her understand that her intake of food had nothing to do with her increasing waistline.

Neatly covered by a towel, Annie’s supper plate sat at his elbow, the nearly untouched helpings of food forming telltale mounds beneath the linen. Shoving aside the pad and pencil, he grabbed the plate, uncovered the food, and forked up some green beans. Her expressive eyes reflecting a willfulness that surprised Alex nearly as much as it amused him, Annie immediately clamped her mouth closed. She obviously had no intention of surrendering without a fight.

Feeling far more nervous than the situation warranted, he flashed her what he hoped was a confident smile and touched her lower lip with the tapered end of a bean. At the contact, she jerked back, almost reflexively, and looked down her nose at the fork tines. With her movement, the light from a wall lamp fell directly across her face.

For an endlessly long moment, Alex stared at her mouth, then slowly lowered his hand. Forgetting all his good intentions to watch his language in the girl’s presence, his voice raspy with rage, he said, “That heartless bitch!”

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Startled by his tone and the sheer volume of his voice, Maddy shot to her feet. “Holy mother, what is it?”

Alex pushed up from his chair and circled the table. At his sudden advance, Annie scrabbled to get away. Before she could make any headway, he caught her by the shoulder. Though her terrified expression caught at his heart, he anchored her where she sat and cupped her small chin in one hand.

Eyes wide, her face as pale as milk, she went instantly still, as if she were afraid to so much as breathe.

Naturally she was afraid, he thought with scathing self-derision. What reason had she not to be? Douglas had committed the most heinous of crimes against her, and now she was being held prisoner by a man she must surely believe was a monster.

Trembling with emotions difficult to identify, let alone control, Alex rubbed his thumb lightly across her lower lip. Puncture marks! Impotent anger roiled within him. “Oh, honey, I am so sorry.”

Maddy hovered at his elbow. “Master Alex?”

Managing to keep his voice carefully even, Alex said, “The nurse jabbed her with a fork.” My fault, a little voice whispered inside his head. All my fault. Never again, no matter what the time constraints, would he fail to verify an employee’s references. He might not have felt so bad if he’d had to pay the price for his own neglect, but instead a helpless girl had suffered the consequences. For that, he would never forgive himself.

Her green eyes aching with sympathy, Maddy leaned forward to see the marks on Annie’s lip for herself. “Oh, ye poor wee lass. Was there nothing she did not think to do to ye?”

“Apparently not,” Alex ground out.

“And us going about our business downstairs, never guessing.” Maddy touched a hand lightly to Annie’s hair. “I swear to ye, lass, if I’d known, I’d have snatched the old witch bald.”

Annie couldn’t imagine why they were both so upset over a couple of tiny sores that were nearly healed.

Maddy had tears in her eyes, and Alex looked ominously angry. Initially she’d believed he was furious with her.

But no ... Gazing up at him, she saw dark shadows of regret in his eyes, and she couldn’t believe, even for a minute, that emotion like that could be feigned. To add to that impression, the grip of his hand on her chin was incredibly gentle, the caress of his thumb across her mouth so light it made her skin tingle.

He clearly felt bad about the way the nurse had treated her.

His reaction was the exact opposite of anything Annie might have expected from him. Relentless, that was how she had imagined him, the kind of man who took what he wanted, the devil take anyone who got in his way. Yet there he stood, the features of his face taut, his large body shaking with rage that was directed not at her, but at the woman who had hurt her.

For days, she had lived in constant fear of him. In the dead of night, when she knew the household was asleep, she’d lain awake until exhaustion claimed her, staring at the door, terrified that he might come, convinced that it was only a matter of time until he would. Now that impression of him was being shattered, not measure by measure so she might slowly grow accustomed to the change, but with one fell blow.

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Like a band of rubber that had been stretched taut and then released, Annie went limp with an overwhelming sense of relief. Past experience warned her to be wary. A part of her couldn’t so easily forget all the times she’d been tricked into trusting people, only to discover too late that they meant to harm her. But another part of her wanted desperately to believe in this man.

It was undoubtedly the height of foolishness, but mistake or no, she couldn’t resist doing just that.

Maybe it was the gentleness with which he touched her or the remorse she read in his eyes, or perhaps she was just tired of feeling afraid. At this point, she was too weak from hunger and too heartsore from being abandoned by her parents to analyze her reasons. She only knew that the warmth of his strong fingers on her skin made her feel safe. Wonderfully safe.

Crazy, so crazy ... But it was how she felt.

When he finally released her to resume his seat, Annie was so preoccupied with studying him that she scarcely heeded Maddy, who ambled back to the bed. Tonight he wore a white shirt with a turned-down collar and wide cuffs, similar to the ones her father favored. But there all similarity ended. His sleeves were folded back over his muscular forearms, and instead of a tie, he wore his collar open, the front plackets hanging loose to reveal an expanse of well-padded chest. In the lamplight, his burnished skin gleamed, its darkness striking a startling contrast to his amber eyes and perfectly straight, white teeth.

Unlike her papa and all of his haughty acquaintances, Alex Montgomery dressed more for comfort than fashion, she decided, his manner one of careless disregard. Yet, despite that, he managed to project a commanding presence.

The flickering light from the wall lamps played over him, molten in the tousled waves of his sun-streaked hair. With his head slightly bent, his carved features were limned with amber, the planes of his face in shadow, which denned the sharp blade of his nose, the square angle of his jaw, and the deep slashes that bracketed his mouth. Mesmerized, she gazed at his lips, the upper sharply etched, the lower full and moist.

“Shall we try again?” he asked.

Though she knew it had to be her imagination, Annie thought she actually heard his voice, its timber low and deep. It was something that happened to her a lot, imagining she heard things she knew she couldn’t.

Pretend sounds, she called them, but for all of that, they seemed absolutely real. Always before, it had happened with ordinary, familiar things—her mother’s voice, the barking of a dog, the slamming of a door. The only explanation Annie could think of was that she saw the sound being made, knew it from memory, and, because her brain expected her to hear it, she thought she actually did.

Only she’d never heard Alex Montgomery’s voice. Her father’s was thinner and less husky, so Annie knew she wasn’t recalling that and making a substitution. No. As unexplainable as it seemed, she’d imagined hearing this man’s voice. This man’s, and no other.

A prickly feeling crawled up her spine.

After what had happened to her up at the falls, she couldn’t dredge up much enthusiasm for being friends with any man. Despite her yearning to trust Alex, he looked alarmingly wide across the shoulders to her in that moment, a huge wall of muscle that stood between her and everything she held dear—her childhood home, her parents, the forests she loved.

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He reclaimed the fork, speared more beans, and pressed them upon her. Annie glanced uneasily at Maddy, hoping she might intervene.

By lightly nudging her mouth, Alex reclaimed her attention, his eyes glinting with determination. “You’re dealing with me now, Annie, and I say you have to eat your supper.”

Annie preferred to deal with Maddy, thank you very much. She wished she could tell him that, among other things. Did he think she wanted to remain here, locked up in this cheerless room, day after endless day? She wanted to go home. To accomplish that goal, she had to be thin the next time her mother came to see her.

Recalling the strength in his fingers, she gulped in nervous dismay. If he decided to force her ... An awful, achy sensation centered in her chest, reminding her of the time she’d accidentally swallowed an unchewed mouthful of apple. Tears stung her eyes, and she blinked furiously to chase them away.

His face went hard, a muscle along his jaw bunching and then relaxing as he ground his teeth. Studiously avoiding her eyes, he said, “No foolishness, young lady. I am not a man easily affected by tears. You’re going to eat. We can do it the easy way or the hard way. That’s entirely up to you.”

In the vain hope that she might sway him as she had Maddy, Annie started to puff air into her cheeks.

The instant she did, he gave his head a shake and tossed the fork back onto her plate. At his sudden movement, she jumped with a start and ducked, just in case he had a mind to box her ears as her mother so often did. Freezing with his hand suspended in midair, he stared at her for a long moment. Then, barely moving his lips in a way that suggested he might be whispering, he bit out a word she’d never seen or heard anyone say before. She frowned in puzzlement.

At her look of bewilderment, he groaned visibly. Then he ran a hand over his face and blinked to bring her back into focus. Annie had the unpleasant feeling he regarded her as an extremely vexatious problem and was wishing with all his heart that she would miraculously disappear. She wished she could oblige him. Blink, gone. No more Annie.

After hauling in a deep breath, he said, very slowly and succinctly, “Annie, love, you are not fat.”

If not fat, then what did he call it? Her stomach wasn’t extraordinarily large yet, but at the rate it was growing, it soon would be. At the beginning of butterfly season, she had been able to look down between her bubbies and see her toes. Now all she saw was her belly. And what was worse, her frocks always seemed to get dirty there. Little wonder her parents didn’t want her anymore.

“Honey, you have to eat,” he said, his expression going from stern to cajoling. “Won’t you do that for me? I don’t want to have to force you, and I’m sure you don’t want me to.”

He leaned even closer, and to her surprise, he curled his hand over her cheek. His palm was so large and wonderfully warm that she was sorely tempted to bury her face there so he wouldn’t see her cry. He was going to think she was nothing but a big old blubber baby, at this rate, and for reasons that totally escaped her for the moment, she didn’t want him to think that.

“Listen to me, hmm? You are not fat.” Smiling slightly, he repeated the last two words. “Not fat!” With that, he shoved her plate out of his way and reached for the sketchpad. “I had hoped to avoid this, but it looks as if there’s no help for it. Pay close attention, all right? This will only take a few minutes.”

As he began to draw, an intent frown creased his forehead. Curious in spite of herself, Annie swiped at
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her wet cheeks and sat a little straighter so she might see. Though she had always done so secretly, she loved to sketch. Alex seemed to be fashioning a full-length figure of a woman standing in profile.

As she watched him draw, Annie detected a movement of his lips from the corner of her eye. She glanced up in time to see him finish with” ... not very good at this, I’m afraid.”

She had to agree; he had very little, if any, artistic talent. The woman he was trying to draw had a head that more resembled a misshapen ball, and her hair looked like a crop of wiggly worms. From there, she went from bad to worse, with a nose more like a bird’s beak and arms that resembled thick lengths of rope with frayed ends for fingers. As drawings went, it wasn’t just poor, it was awful.

Because her mother had allowed her to utter no sound for so many years, Annie very seldom got an urge to laugh. But this was one of those rare moments. Alex looked so serious about the drawing, his lower lip caught in his teeth, his thick brows pulled together in concentration. He was clearly giving this his very best effort. But even when he tried to make the sketch look better, it remained one of the poorest attempts she’d ever seen.