Nicola Cornick (16 page)

Annabella was twisting her hands together in dis
tress. She knew she was getting into a terrible tangle. ‘Oh, this is all so stupid! I never meant—’

‘You will oblige me by telling me exactly what you did mean.’ There was steel in the smooth tones now.

‘Very well!’ Annabella’s green eyes were suddenly defiant. ‘A good friend warned me about you, Sir William. He said that you were not a man to be trusted! He said,’ Annabella added, with unforgivable exaggeration, ‘that you had made your money conspiring with pirates and that in the American Wars you forgot your duty sufficiently to abandon a fellow ship to its fate and save your own skin!’

She thought later that she had been fortunate Will had not struck her. Out of her own hurt and misery she had spoken more wildly than she had intended, but it was no excuse. She saw the stark fury in his face as he stared at her, then he turned away as though he wished to turn his back on her forever. After a moment of silence she took an impulsive step forward, touching his arm tentatively, but he shook her off as though she were contaminated.

‘Stories such as those are so vile they do not warrant any explanations,’ he said at length, in a low voice. ‘And for you to believe them…’ He shook his head slowly.

‘But I did not!’ Annabella was really frightened now. She had thought him so calm, so slow to anger. Little had she known! But then, she had impugned his honour and integrity with her words, and he would not forgive her that…

‘This is all so foolish,’ she said helplessly. ‘I told you I never believed ill of you! The rumours were
idle malice, prompted by jealousy, nothing more! You must believe me!’

Will shrugged indifferently. ‘If you say so. I suppose it does not matter now.’ He swung round and his blue gaze chilled her to the bone. ‘Well, I must keep you no longer, Mrs St Auby. Pray give my best wishes to your sister and to James Mullineaux.’

He was holding the door open for her, still with that detached, cold courtesy that was somehow more frightening than any anger. Annabella hesitated, uncertain how to reach him, wanting only to banish this hostile stranger, who looked on her with such formality and dislike.

‘Will…’ she said beseechingly, using his name for the first time in a desperate attempt to put matters right before it was too late.

‘Good evening, Mrs St Auby.’

He was not going to relent. The unshed tears bright in her eyes, Annabella raised her chin and marched out of Challen Court, praying that she would not disgrace herself by crying until she was out of sight.

The journey back to Oxenham was a nightmare for Annabella, as she could not see where she was going. The tears came in floods, blurring her vision, dripping on to her cloak and pretty muslin dress. Fortunately the horses knew their own way home, for Annabella was utterly incapable of giving them direction. She abandoned them in the stableyard and ran into the house, oblivious of the wooden-faced footmen in the hall, and cried all over Alicia’s silk evening gown when her sister emerged to see what on earth was going on.

‘Oh, Alicia, it was so dreadful! I am sure that he has nothing but contempt for me…I thought his sister-in-law was his mistress, and the poor woman is but recently bereaved, and he had wanted to marry me and now he has told me that he will not press his claim to Larkswood, but I wish he would…’ Annabella’s voice dissolved into a wail of inconsolable despair.

Alicia bore all this with fortitude and steered her sister into the library away from their dinner guests. She asked no questions, simply sitting with her arm around Annabella until the sobs had abated a little.

Annabella raised a face blotchy with tears. ‘There was the poor woman standing by the side of the road in the extremes of pain and misery, and all I felt was a vicious jealousy, and it was the most
lowering
thing imaginable! And then when he came out into the courtyard and smiled on her with
such
tenderness, I wanted to scratch her eyes out! Oh, Alicia, I know I should be ashamed of myself, but I can’t because I love him, you see, and it is so painful…’ And her tears started afresh.

Alicia, abandoning hope of the delicious fillet of beef which would be rapidly congealing on her plate in the dining-room, hugged her sister all the harder. ‘Love can be a very difficult matter,’ she allowed. ‘If you have never felt like this before—’

‘I haven’t.’ Annabella wept piteously. ‘I cared nothing for Francis, and I was nothing but a stupid child to imagine him as a way of freeing myself from our father. It took me very little time to realise my mistake! And then, when I met Sir William, I thought
I had been given another chance, but I threw it all away…’

‘Surely it cannot be so bad—’

Annabella raised drowned green eyes to meet her sister’s gaze. ‘There is worse!’

‘Surely not!’

Annabella was determined to make a clean breast of matters. ‘I called him a traitor!’ she announced tragically.

Not surprisingly, Alicia was somewhat startled at this extraordinary statement. ‘Go back to the beginning and tell me the whole story,’ she besought Annabella. ‘I cannot make head nor tail of this!’ This was hardly surprising, since her sister had been crying so much as to be practically unintelligible. Annabella blew her nose, took a deep breath and related the whole of her meeting with Amy Weston once again, and the events which had followed.

‘So, when Will explained about the money he had inherited, I realised that the scurrilous story I had heard about him consorting with privateers was false,’ Annabella finished, ‘and I said so. I was too upset to be thinking properly, Liss, or I would never have breathed a word! But then, of course, Sir William thought that I had believed the rumours about him and became unbearably stuffy! I was so angry with him for thinking the worst of me that I told him the whole tale! It was stupid and childish of me, but I was so furious!’ Her voice caught on a sob. ‘Oh, it was dreadful, dreadful! And now we will never be comfortable together again!’

A small frown marred Alicia’s forehead. ‘So there
were rumours that Will had made a fortune through piracy? I have never heard such tales!’

‘Oh, worse than that.’ Annabella grimaced. ‘At least, I suppose it’s worse…Which would you say was the greater dishonour, Liss—to be accused of piracy, or cowardice in battle?’

Alicia looked as though she would have liked to put her head in her hands. ‘Oh, Annabella! You didn’t—’

‘I know it was foolish of me…’ Annabella looked away from her sister’s accusing gaze, on the verge of bursting into tears again. ‘You need not reproach me—I shall never forgive myself!’

Alicia bit her lip. ‘Cowardice in battle?’ she repeated carefully. ‘Were there specific facts mentioned, or was this just another wild tale?’

Annabella made a hopeless gesture. ‘I don’t know! It was something to do with Lake Champlain—a few years ago—in ’14, I think he said…’

‘Who said?’

‘Captain Jeffries…’ And Annabella dissolved once more into tears.

‘That troublesome man! Well, I have never heard these charges!’ her sister said stoutly, ‘and we all know Will Weston is too fine a man for them to be even remotely true! But you know how dangerous gossip can be. Such talk is very damaging, Annabella—’

‘Oh, do not!’ Annabella wept. ‘I know! I never believed it, but Will thinks I did, and now he will never speak to me again!’

Alicia thought that this was probably true and was too honest to try to comfort her sister with false prom
ises. To impugn the reputation of a man like Will Weston was no light matter. She made a mental note to ask James if he had heard anything of such rumours, and shepherded her unresisting sister to the door.

‘You had best go to bed, Annabella,’ she said gently. ‘Matters will seem better in the morning. Fordyce, a tray for Mrs St Auby in her room, if you please. I will rejoin my guests for dessert.’

But, in the event, all of Cook’s delicacies were wasted on Annabella, for they turned to dust and ashes in her mouth.

Annabella felt no better the next day, nor the one after that. Her days at Oxenham had fallen into a pattern: riding early in the morning, visits with Alicia, visits from neighbours and friends, trips out, walks about the estate, talking to her grandmother, playing with Thomas, and helping her sister entertain the guests in the evening. There seemed to be any number of sports and entertainments devised purely for pleasure. It was not an onerous existence and was, in fact, rather a pleasant one. Alicia had summoned her own dressmaker to provide Annabella with a wardrobe of clothes, she had every material need satisfied and she had the affection of her family.

Compared to the drab routine of life with the St Aubys, it was well nigh blissful. And yet, Annabella felt that she did not have a place. James and Alicia would never have treated her as a poor relation and Lady Stansfield had even indicated her intention to alter her will to include Annabella, but she had no function to fulfil in the pattern of life at Oxenham.
And she was not sure how long this could continue. She began to long fervently for Larkswood to be finished so that she could go back to a place that was her own.

It was five weeks before Amy Weston made her appearance in local society. She had been delivered of a boy, called Peter after his late father, and both mother and baby were thriving. Alicia had called early to convey their welcome and best wishes but, not surprisingly, Annabella had felt herself unequal to another visit to Challen Court. Her misery over Sir William was never far from her thoughts and it was more than she could bear to see him again. She had thought herself unhappy before, but this second misunderstanding between them, based on so foolish an error, was almost too much to stand. Once or twice she thought of asking James to intercede for her with Will, but could not bear the thought of her apologies being rejected.

When Alicia announced a few days later that she was giving a dinner in Mrs Weston’s honour, Annabella almost invented a sick headache out of pure terror, but she knew she had to face Will some time. She managed to work herself up into a fine anticipation of the evening, but in the event it proved to be a sad disappointment. Alicia had prudently placed Will at quite some distance from Annabella down the table and when she did dare to raise her gaze to meet his, it was to notice that he scarcely even glanced in her direction. To Annabella’s besotted gaze he looked compellingly attractive but frighteningly forbidding.
Annabella’s company was monopolised by an elderly neighbour of James and Alicia, Sir Dunstan Groat, who was much taken with her prettiness, called her a buxom little wench, and spent a large part of the evening ogling her.

Amy Weston made a special point of thanking Annabella for her help that day at Challen, but when the gentlemen rejoined the ladies after dinner, Will steered her away to more congenial company and poor Annabella was left feeling as though she had the plague. She was asked to sing, but the occasion reminded her too sharply of the time she had sung at Mundell, and her voice faltered sadly on the notes. The applause at the end was merely polite. All in all, it was a miserable evening, and Annabella retired early to bed, pleading a headache.

The second time they met, it was easier. Their mutual friends, the Linleys, hosted an evening party with impromptu dancing; although Will did not ask Annabella for a dance, he did at least manage to be civil to her and exchange a few pleasantries. Once again, Sir Dunstan Groat monopolised her company, which Annabella bore with as much equanimity as she could. She still felt very miserable. The dispute over Larkswood had been painful enough, but the misunderstanding about the gossip was so silly and could have been avoided if only she had thought. Now it only served to underline the permanent estrangement between herself and Will. Annabella could visualise a series of empty social occasions, stretching into infinite time, at which they met and smiled stiffly, exchanged a few words and separated once more. It
could not be worse. But, of course, it could be worse, for he could marry…Once again, she went to bed with a headache and awoke feeling unrefreshed.

As the late summer days slid into autumn, Annabella and Will were often in each other’s company. In some ways, matters grew easier; in other ways, they were more difficult. Though Will never asked her to dance at any of the events they attended, Annabella found that they could at least converse pleasantly enough on superficial topics. Once, she had started to try to apologise for their misunderstanding, only to be cut off by the cold look in his eyes and harsh words of rejection. She did not try again. Then there was the torment just of seeing him, particularly when he was in company with some lady of his acquaintance. Annabella was miserably aware that envy was becoming one of her besetting sins.

On the morning following one party, when Will had paid such particular attention to a certain Miss Watts that eyebrows were raised, Annabella rose early, determined to shake off her blue devils with a ride. The day was bright, with a soft wind off the downs and the promise of an Indian summer heat when the sun got up. The mist lay wreathing the fields as Annabella and her groom set out. She was surprised to feel her spirits lifting almost immediately. The cool air stung her cheeks to rose pink and ruffled her hair. She let her feelings dictate a speed that was perhaps a little unwise, galloped across the fields and left the toiling groom on his old bay horse far behind.