Secrets of a Summer Night (26 page)

If only Annabelle could obliterate the memory of the music room alcove from her mind… she dreamed of it with startling clarity and awoke in stewing torment, with the sheets tangled around her legs and her skin burning fever-hot. She was bedeviled by thoughts of Simon Hunt, the memory of his scent and warmth and his provoking kisses… the hardness of the body beneath the elegant black evening suit.

Despite the wallflowers’ promise to tell each other everything about their romantic adventures, Annabelle could not bring herself to confide in any of them. What had happened with Hunt had been too private and too personal. It was not something to be scrutinized by eager friends who knew no more about men than she did. And had she tried to explain the experience to them, she knew they would not have understood. There were no words to describe such soul-stealing intimacy and the devastating confusion that had followed.

How in God’s name could she feel this way about a man she had always despised? For two years she had dreaded seeing him at social events — she had considered him to be the most unpleasant companion imaginable. And now… and now…

Shoving aside the unwanted thoughts, Annabelle retreated to the Marsden parlor one day, hoping to divert her churning mind with some reading material. Under her arm, she carried a heavy tome inscribed with gilded letters on the front:
Royal Horticultural Society — Findings and Conclusions of Reports Submitted by Our Respected Members in the Year 1843.
The book was as heavy as an anvil, and Annabelle wondered grimly how anyone could find so much to say about plants. Setting the book on a small table, Annabelle began to lower herself to the settee by the window, when something about the chessboard in the corner caught her attention. Was it her imagination, or…

Eyes narrowing in curiosity, Annabelle strode to the table and stared at the configuration of chessmen, which had remained undisturbed all week long. Yes… something was different. She had used her queen to capture Simon’s pawn. Now her queen had been taken from the board, and set precisely to the side.

He’s come back
, she thought with a sudden blaze of feeling that went all through her body. She felt certain that Simon Hunt was the only one who would have touched the chessboard. He was there, at Stony Cross. Her face turned paper white except for the flags of heat that scorched the crests of her cheeks. Realizing that her reaction was all out of proportion, she struggled to calm herself. His return meant nothing — she did not want him, could not have him, and must avoid him at all cost. Closing her eyes, she breathed deeply and concentrated on governing her pulse, willing her rampaging heart to slow its recalcitrant beat.

When she had finally regained herself, she looked down at the chessboard, trying to understand his last move. How had he taken her queen? Rapidly she calculated the previous locations of the pieces. Then she realized… he had lured her forward with the defensive pawn, positioning her perfectly for capture by his rook. And with her queen having been eliminated, her king was threatened and…

He had put her in check.

He had tricked her with that humble pawn, and she was in jeopardy. Letting out an incredulous laugh, Annabelle turned from the chess table and paced around the room. Defense strategies filled her head, and she tried to decide on the one he wouldn’t expect. Obeying her instinct, she turned and headed back to the chessboard, smiling as she wondered what Hunt’s reaction would be, once he discovered her counter-move. As her hand hovered over the board, however, the flood of warm excitement died away completely, and her face turned to stone. What was she doing? Continuing this game, maintaining even this fragile communication with him, was pointless. No… it was dangerous. There was no choice to be made between safety and disaster.

Annabelle’s hand trembled a little as she reached for one chess piece after another, arranging them neatly in the box, methodically packing the game away. “I resign,” she said aloud, her throat painfully tight. “I resign.” She swallowed against the painful lump that the words engendered. She wasn’t fool enough to allow herself to want something… someone… who was so obviously wrong for her. When the chess box was closed, she backed away from the table and stood looking at it for a moment. She felt faded and abruptly weary, but resolute.

Tonight. Her ambiguous courtship with Lord Kendall would have to be resolved this evening. The party was almost over, and now that Simon Hunt had returned, she couldn’t afford to risk having everything ruined by another complication with him. Squaring her shoulder, she went to tell Lillian, and together they would come up with a plan. The evening would end with her betrothal to Lord Kendall.

“T
he trick is all in the timing,” Lillian said, her brown eyes gleaming with enjoyment. Surely no military officer had ever conducted a campaign with more determination than Lillian Bowman currently displayed. The four wallflowers sat together on the back terrace with glasses of cool, pulpy lemonade, giving every appearance of indolence, while in reality they were carefully plotting the evening to come.

“I’ll suggest a nice before-supper walk through the garden to awaken our appetites,” Lillian said to Annabelle, “and Daisy and Evie will agree, and we’ll bring our mother and Aunt Florence and anyone else we happen to be talking with — and hopefully by the time we reach the clearing on the other side of the pear orchard, you will be seen
in flagrante delicto
with Lord Kendall.”

“What is
flagrante delicto?
” Daisy asked. “It sounds illegal.”

“I don’t know, precisely,” Lillian admitted. “I read it in a novel… but I’m sure it’s just the thing to get a girl compromised.”

Annabelle responded with a half-hearted laugh, wishing that she could feel even a modicum of the Bowmans’ enjoyment of the situation. A fortnight ago, she would have been beside herself with glee. But somehow it felt all wrong. There was no pleasurable anticipation in the prospect of
finally
prying a proposal out of a peer. No sense of excitement or relief, or anything remotely positive. It felt like an unpleasant duty that had to be done. She concealed her apprehensiveness while the Bowman sisters plotted and calculated with the expertise of seasoned conspirators.

However, it seemed that Evie, who was more observant than the rest of them put together, perceived the true emotions behind Annabelle’s facade. “Is this what you w-want, Annabelle?” she asked softly, her blue eyes filled with concern. “You don’t have to do this, you know. We’ll find another suitor for you, if you don’t want Kendall.”

“There’s no time to find another one,” Annabelle whispered back. “No… it must be Kendall, and it has to be tonight, before…”

“Before?” Evie repeated, tilting her head as she regarded Annabelle with soft perplexity. The sun illuminated her scattered freckles, making them glint like gold dust on her velvety skin. “Before what?”

As Annabelle kept silent, Evie lowered her head and drew a fingertip along the edge of her glass, collecting fragments of sweetened pulp that had clung to the rim. The Bowman sisters were talking animatedly, debating the question of whether or not the pear orchard was the best place to waylay Kendall. Just as Annabelle thought that Evie would abandon the side conversation, the girl murmured softly, “Have you heard, Annabelle, that Mr. Hunt returned to Stony Cross late last night?”

“How do you know that?”

“Someone told my aunt.”

Meeting Evie’s perceptive gaze, Annabelle couldn’t help thinking that woe befall anyone who ever made the mistake of underestimating Evangeline Jenner. “No, I hadn’t heard,” she murmured.

Tilting the glass of lemonade slightly, Evie stared into the depths of sugar-clouded liquid. “I wonder that he never took you up on your offer of a kiss,” she said slowly. “After all the interest that he’s sh-shown to you in the past…”

Their gazes met, and Annabelle felt her face redden. Her eyes implored Evie to say no more, and she shook her head quickly.

Understanding passed like a shadow over Evie’s face. “Annabelle,” she said slowly, “would you mind awfully if I didn’t come along with the others to catch you with Lord Kendall tonight? There will be m-more than enough people to witness it. No doubt Lillian will bring an entire crowd of unsuspecting witnesses. I would be s-superfluous.”

“Of course I wouldn’t mind,” Annabelle said, and asked with a sheepish smile, “Ethical reservations, Evie?”

“Oh, no, I’m not being hypocritical. I’m quite ready to admit guilt by association… and wh-whether or not I come to the garden tonight, I’m part of the group. It’s just that…” She paused and continued quite softly. “I don’t th-think you want Lord Kendall. Not as a man — not for what he truly is. And now after having come to know you a little better, I… I don’t believe that marriage to him will make you happy.”

“But it will,” Annabelle argued, her tone sharpening until it had caught the Bowmans’ attention. They stopped chattering and stared at her curiously. “No one could possibly come closer to my ideal than Lord Kendall.”

“He’s perfect for you,” Lillian agreed firmly. “I hope you’re not trying to sow seeds of doubt, Evie — it’s far too late for that. We’re hardly going to jettison a perfectly good plan now, when we’ve almost achieved victory.”

Evie shook her head instantly, seeming to shrink in her chair. “No, no… I wasn’t tr-trying to…” Her voice faded to a mumble, and she threw Annabelle an apologetic glance.

“Of course she wasn’t,” Annabelle said in Evie’s defense, summoning a reckless smile. “Let’s go over the plan once more, Lillian.”

Lord Kendall reacted with amused complacency when Annabelle Peyton urged him to slip away with her for an early-evening walk through the garden. The air was soft with twilight, settling damply over the estate with no breeze to stir the thick atmosphere. With most of the guests dressing for dinner, or idling and fanning themselves in the card room and parlor, the outside grounds were mostly unoccupied. No man could be unaware of what a girl wanted when she suggested an unchaperoned walk in such circumstances. Apparently not adverse to the prospect of a stolen kiss or two, Kendall allowed Annabelle to coax him along the side of the terraced gardens and behind the drystone wall covered with climbing roses.

“I rather think we should have enlisted a chaperone,” he said with a slight smile. “This is decidedly improper, Miss Peyton.”

Annabelle flashed him a smile. “Steal away with me just for a moment,” she urged. “No one will notice.”

As he went with her willingly, Annabelle became aware of the growing weight of guilt that seemed to press on her from all sides. She felt as if she was leading a lamb to the slaughter. Kendall was a nice man — he didn’t deserve to be tricked into a forced marriage. If only she had more time, she might have been able to let things progress naturally and pry a genuine proposal out of him. But this was the last weekend of the party, and it was imperative that she bring him up to scratch now. If she could just get this part of her plan over with, things would be so much easier from then on.
Annabelle, Lady Kendall
she reminded herself grimly. Annabelle, Lady Kendall… she could see herself as a respectable young matron who lived in the peaceful world of Hampshire society, taking occasional trips to London, welcoming her brother home from school on the holidays. Annabelle, Lady Kendall would have a half dozen fair-haired children, some of them endearingly fitted with spectacles like their father. And Annabelle, Lady Kendall would be a devoted wife who would spend the rest of her days trying to atone for the way she had deceived her husband into marrying her.

They reached the clearing beyond the pear orchard, where a stone table had been set in a graveled circle. Coming to a stop, Kendal looked down at Annabelle, who had leaned back against the edge of the stone table in a studied pose. He dared to touch a stray curl that had fallen to her shoulder, admiring the glints of gold in the pale brown strands. “Miss Peyton,” he murmured, “by now it must be evident to you that I’ve developed a decided preference for your company.”

Annabelle’s heart had begun to hammer high in her throat, until she thought she might choke on it. “I… I have found great pleasure in our conversations and walks together,” she managed to say.

“How lovely you are,” Kendall whispered, drawing closer to her. “I’ve never seen eyes so blue.”

A month ago, Annabelle would have been overjoyed for this to happen. Kendall was a nice man, not to mention attractive, young, and wealthy, and
titled
… oh, what the devil was wrong with her? Her entire being was suffused with reluctance as he bent over her flushing, tightening face. Agitated, bewildered, she tried to hold still for him. Before their lips could meet, however, she wrenched away with a muffled gasp and turned away from him.

Silence descended in the clearing.

“Have I frightened you?” came Kendall’s inquiry. His manner was gentle and quiet… so different from Simon Hunt’s arrogance.

“No… it’s not that. It’s just… I can’t do this.” Annabelle rubbed her suddenly aching forehead, her shoulders stiff amid the florid puffs of her peach silk gown. When she spoke again, her voice was heavy with defeat and self-disgust. “Forgive me, my lord. You are one of the nicest gentlemen I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing. Which is exactly why I must leave you now. It’s not right for me to encourage your interest when nothing could come of it.”

“Why do you think that?” he asked, openly confused.

“You don’t really know me,” Annabelle said with a bitter smile. “Take my word for it, we’re an ill-matched pair. No matter how I tried, I wouldn’t be able to keep from trampling you eventually — and you would be too much of a gentleman to object, and we would both be miserable.”

“Miss Peyton,” he murmured, trying to make sense of her outburst, “I can’t begin to understand—”

“I’m not certain that I understand it, either. But I am sorry. I wish the best for you, my lord. And I wish…” Her breath came in irregular spurts, and she laughed suddenly. “Wishes are dangerous things, aren’t they,” she murmured, and left the clearing quickly.