Kiss Me, Annabel

  To Ewan’s disappointment, he didn’t get to explain the jest, because saying it aloud seemed to bring the meaning home. She gasped, and a tiny giggle escaped. “Lucky Mr. Kettle,” she said.

  “Yes, I expect the poor peddler just couldn’t measure up,” Ewan whispered back.

  “That’s wicked!”

  Ewan kissed her neck. “So how do you like churning?”

  “It’s fierce work,” Annabel said, leaning against him in a boneless fashion that he entirely approved. “Poor Peggy. It’s too hard, all this work and the baby on top of it. Do you know that the baby might come along any moment, Ewan? And what will she do, with no woman for miles about?”

  “I expect Kettle will help her,” Ewan said. An idea was beginning to sprout in his mind. A wicked one, for sure.

  “It’s a disgrace,” she grumbled, as if she didn’t even realize that he was kissing her ear. But she did; he could feel the little tremor through her body when he nipped her. “Kettle should take her somewhere where she can be properly tended.”

  “He’ll take care of her,” Ewan said.

  “A woman needs another woman at times like this! And she shouldn’t be lifting a heavy butter churn either.”

  Ewan threw caution to the wind. “You owe me a kiss,” he said.

  She met his eyes and tilted up her strawberry-red mouth, as tempting a mouth as had any self-respecting siren in the Mediterranean Sea.

  But he held back, just touching her with a whisper kiss, as light as silk and fine as down.

  “You owe me a forfeit,” he stated.

  A little flush of pink rose in her cheeks. “Yes.”

  “I think I shall claim my forfeit here,” he said thoughtfully.

  She looked around the dusty, sunlit clearing, alarmed. “Here?”

  But he didn’t feel like talking. Their tongues touched and for a moment Ewan heard her breathing, all shallow and fast. The blood surged to his groin. Slowly he pushed his knee between her skirts and then pulled her up and against him. She was like molten wax in his hands, soft and hot. She had her eyes closed, of course, and she had that luscious dazed look that he was starting to get addicted to.

  “Annabel,” he said, and his voice came out so raw and low that it surprised him.

  “Yes?” She didn’t open her eyes, though, just leaned against him.

  “My forfeit. May I take it now?”

  “Do you want to take my clothing off?”

  The question hung in the lazy afternoon air. They were surrounded by the sound of bees, and a faint clopping as Kettle’s cow moved uneasily around its stall. “Of course I do,” he growled into her ear. “But I won’t ask for that.”

  “Are you going to take your clothes off?” There was a thread of hopefulness in her voice that set his heart to pounding again.

  But he shook his head. “No. It’s nothing to do with clothes.”

  She turned her cheek and rested against his chest. “Then of course you may have your forfeit. You won it fair and square, after all.”

  Ewan grinned against her hair. It was like that play by Shakespeare, the one a company of traveling players had put on in the castle courtyard. He hadn’t liked it all that much at the time, but now he saw it differently—now that he had a wife of his own.

  “Have you read Mr. Shakespeare’s plays?” he asked.

  “What?” And then: “Yes, most of them.”

  “There was a play in which a man marries a woman whom no one else will have,” he said, tightening his arms around her. “She has a beautiful younger sister, I remember that.”

  “She’s a shrew,” Annabel said, leaning against him. “It’s called The Taming of the Shrew, and I certainly hope that you don’t think I’m akin to the shrew in question.”

  “Nay, you’re no shrew,” he said.

  “What’s the play got to do with anything?” she asked. “I haven’t thought about it for a few years…Isn’t he quite unpleasant to his wife?” And then: “Don’t you think the coaches have been a long time coming?”

  But Ewan had decided it would be better if he didn’t remind Annabel of the details of that particular Shakespearean plot. Not when he had in mind to use the same stratagem himself. The husband in The Taming of the Shrew took his wife off into the country and cured her of being shrewish. Likely the same stratagem would work to cure Annabel of her fear of being poor. Anyone could see that the Kettles were as sweetly set up as any couple in Christendom. If he and Annabel stopped a day or two here, she would learn what it was like to be poor but not prey to the whims of a gambling man. They could rely on each other. A slow smile curled his lips. Because there wouldn’t be anyone else there to rely on.

  As if in answer to Annabel’s question, he heard a rumbling sound in the distance that sounded like one of his heavy, slow luggage carriages coming to bring them to the next village. So he didn’t hesitate.

  “I’d like to put Kettle and Peggy into that carriage,” he said.

  She opened her eyes. “Oh, Ewan, that’s a lovely idea!”

  “Mac can settle Peggy at the inn, or with the midwife, and stay with them until the baby is born. You said it was a matter of a day or two.”

  “That’s what Peggy thinks,” Annabel said. “I haven’t the faintest notion about babies myself.”

  “Well, as long as it takes,” Ewan said.

  Annabel beamed at him. “That is a wonderful thing to do!”

  “But…” Ewan said.

  She frowned. “But?”

  “Someone has to stay here and take care of the cow, the chickens and the house,” Ewan pointed out.

  “One of the footmen? Surely one of them came from the country,” Annabel said promptly.

  “I claim my forfeit,” Ewan said. “We stay.”

  “We what?”

  “We stay and take care of Peggy’s butter and Kettle’s cow.” His lovely, luscious girl was looking utterly confused. “It’ll only be a day or two,” he told her. Then he gave her a butterfly kiss, one of the ones that didn’t count. “It’s not as if we’re in any particular hurry. Think of us as Good Samaritans.”

  “Good what?”

  “Never mind. We’re in no hurry. We have a week or more of traveling left before we reach my lands, you know. A break would be enjoyable.”

  “Enjoyable!” She seemed stunned.

  He shrugged, loving the way her breasts jiggled against him.

  Unfortunately, she drew away and stood up straight, staring at him as if he’d grown another head. “You think it would be fun to live here, in this place—in that house? Are you cracked?”

  He bit back a grin. “No. ’Twould be a good thing to do.”

  “Ewan Poley, if you think I’m some sort of self-sacrificing hymn-singer who’s going to follow you all over creation while you tend to savages, you should think again! I’m no missionary. I’ve no wish to travel to India!”

  At that Ewan had to laugh. Anyone farther from a missionary than his silk-adorned, luxury-loving fiancée couldn’t be imagined. “I’m no missionary either,” he said finally. The coach was rumbling into the clearing. He caught her hands. “To help Peggy,” he said. “And because…”

  “Because?” she said, glaring at him.

  “Because we might enjoy it.”

  “You are cracked,” she said with utter conviction.

  “I’d like to be alone with you,” he whispered, taking her hands up to his mouth. “I’d like to watch you make butter.” He kissed her, even though it was breaking the rules of the game, since he hadn’t asked a serious question first. “I’ll show you how to milk a cow,” he whispered against her mouth.

  “Well, that’s a mighty enticement,” Annabel grumbled.

  The coach had stopped, and Ewan’s outriders were filling the quiet air with boisterous conversation. He could see that Mac was waiting to speak to him.

  “Please?” he said, not touching her again.

  She bit her lip. “Just for a day or two?”

  He nodd
ed.

  “Do you really mean all alone? Without my maid?” She looked horrified.

  He hesitated. What did he know about ladies? Perhaps she couldn’t get along without a maid.

  “Oh, never mind,” she grumbled. “I had no maid for twenty years. I suppose I can survive a day or two.”

  He smiled at her. “Your maid can help Peggy when her time comes.”

  “But I want my own sheets,” she said suddenly.

  Ewan nodded. “Of course. We use our own sheets in inns; why not here?”

  “Do you truly wish to stay here all alone?” The idea seemed to both fascinate and horrify her. “It’s so scandalous.” She half whispered it. “We’re not married.”

  He nodded, still not touching her. “But we will marry. And we already share a bed every night.”

  “Staying here will be good for you,” she said finally, staring at him with narrowed eyes. “I can see that you’ve no imagination, Ewan Poley. None. You’ve no idea how hard it is to live under these circumstances, and I think this will be good for you!”

  He swallowed his grin and turned to Mac.

  She caught his arm. “I want my trunk with my clothing!” she said urgently.

  Ewan nodded. Of course they would wear clothing.

  Most of the time.

  Twenty-one

  Annabel watched the two carriages trundle their way down the road with an overwhelming sense of disbelief. She was standing in the middle of a dusty, deserted little square, and her only companion was a man to whom she was not married.

  “I must have lost my mind,” she said, stunned by the truth of it.

  Ewan looked rather surprised as well. “Mac clearly thinks I’ve lost mine. I should warn you that I’ve never known him to be wrong on any subject. Do you know, I actually had to order him to stay away until the baby is born? I never order Mac to do anything.”

  “Perhaps the child will arrive quickly.”

  “The shock of entering an inn might do it,” Ewan said. “Peggy looked ready to collapse with excitement.” Her eyes had glowed with fierce joy on being told that she was being sent to an inn and would have a midwife to attend her.

  “What shall we do now?” Annabel asked, staring around the clearing.

  The forest pressed on all sides rather cozily, as if it were protecting the little houses. Without the outriders and the carriages, there was no sound but some birds in the woods.

  “We should milk the cow,” Ewan said. “Kettle said it was overdue for attention. Apparently the animal finds its way to the field and then comes back to its stall when it’s time for milking.”

  The cow turned out to be a rusty brown animal with an annoyed look in her eye. She slammed the wall of her stall with her rear hoof by way of greeting.

  “She seems annoyed,” Annabel observed. “My father always said to avoid a horse’s stall when they have that look in their eye.”

  “She’s annoyed because it’s past milking time,” Ewan said, taking off his coat.

  He moved toward her and the cow launched another solid thunk that could easily cave in a man’s chest.

  “I would suggest she wait,” Annabel said, backing up a little. “Perhaps she’ll be more accommodating in the morning.”

  “Wait?” Ewan said. His hair was all rumpled. He was rolling his sleeves past his elbows. “Cows don’t wait.” He walked into the space next to the stall and began feeling along the wall. “Here it is.”

  He slid open the bottom section of the low wall. “Obviously Kettle has himself a cantankerous animal, so he’s fixed it so that he can milk her without being gelded in the process.” Ewan reached his hands through the open space to milk the cow.

  “You’re quite good at that,” Annabel said after a time.

  “Between the two of us, we can handle the milk,” Ewan said, looking up at her. “I can milk the cow and you can make it into butter. This will be easy.”

  “Hmmm,” Annabel said. Ewan’s hair curled into the white linen of his shirt in a very distracting way. “Have you ever cooked?”

  “Never!” Ewan said cheerfully. “You?”

  “No.”

  “ ’Twill be an experiment, then.” He pulled the pail of milk toward him and slid the panel shut. Finally he forked some hay into the manger and they left.

  As they walked down the path, Ewan wrapped his free arm around Annabel’s waist. “I’m rather astonished by how improper this is.”

  “So am I!” Annabel said, turning her mouth so that his kiss landed on her cheek. “We are not married.”

  “Fool that I am,” he lamented. “I should have trotted you off to that bishop before you even combed your hair.”

  Annabel could feel her cheeks growing rosy. If anyone knew her circumstances, she would be disgraced. More disgraced than any lady she could remember hearing about in her life.

  “Look!” she said. “It’s one of Peggy’s chickens!” A scrawny white chicken missing a number of feathers around its neck was scratching around to the side of the clearing. “There must be a coop. The chickens should go inside for the night. A fox might eat them.”

  The chicken looked at them suspiciously. Annabel took a step nearer and it clucked angrily and flew onto a short stump. “That chicken looks like a wild chicken,” Ewan said. “It doesn’t want to go into the coop for the night.”

  “There’s no such thing as a wild chicken. We can’t let it be eaten; Peggy only has three hens. Come here, you stupid bird.” She tried clucking to it, but the chicken just turned its bony head and fixed her with an uncivilized eye.

  “That is not a tame animal,” Ewan said. “I think—”

  But at that moment Annabel made a lunge for the chicken and caught it by one wing. The chicken opened its red throat and squawked as if it were being made into stew on the spot. “Help!” Annabel yelped. “Take it, take it!”

  “Absolutely not,” Ewan said, laughing. “Throw it in the coop.”

  “Where is the coop?” Annabel asked, looking around wildly.

  The woods were falling into peaceful twilight, and Annabel couldn’t see any structure other than the little houses and Kettle’s stable.

  The chicken was twisting and snapping viciously. “I think she means to bite you,” Ewan observed. He opened the door to the house. “Here!”

  A flurry of feathers swept through the air in tune with the chicken’s infuriated cackling. Annabel slammed the door and jumped back, losing her balance. She was halfway to the ground when Ewan caught her around the waist.

  “Thank you!” Annabel said, gasping. “Do you see Peggy’s other chickens?”

  “No,” Ewan said, his hands lingering at her waist. “But she has one less pail of milk than she had a moment ago.”

  Annabel looked down. Foaming milk was spreading over the dusty ground. “You dropped it!”

  “It was you or the milk. I chose you.”

  Annabel pulled away and gave him a frown. “I was going to make that into butter. I thought I might make so much butter that Peggy wouldn’t have to worry about it for weeks.”

  Ewan tried to look remorseful.

  “The first thing we should do is heat some water,” Annabel said, going to the door of the house.

  “For baths?” Ewan said. It was his devout wish that Annabel would find it necessary to take a bath. Of course, he would serve as her maid…

  “There’s no bathtub,” Annabel reminded him. “For cooking. I’m growing hungry, aren’t you?”

  Now he thought about it, he was ravenous. He followed her into the house. “What shall we cook?”

  “Potatoes,” Annabel said, pointing to a box by the wall.

  “We could roast the chicken,” Ewan said, thinking of how hungry he was.

  Annabel looked at the white chicken. It was sitting on top of Peggy’s butter mold with its wings fluffed up. It looked very comfortable. “You’d have to kill it. We can’t do that.”

  “I could do it,” Ewan said with conviction. “I’m hungry.??
?

  “That chicken was Peggy’s wedding present from her neighbors,” Annabel said, pouring water from a bucket by the door into a pan. “Potatoes will have to suffice.” She added them to the water and hung the pot over a little hook that swung into place over the fire.

  Ewan threw on another log. Annabel was trotting about the house, putting Peggy’s things neatly into their places. Then she threw open her trunk. “I know I have something in here…” She pulled out a towel and soap, and kept burrowing. Finally, with a happy noise in her throat, she pulled out a length of cloth. “Look at this, Ewan!”

  He looked. It was dark red and seemed nice enough.

  “This is going to be a tablecloth and a curtain!” Annabel said triumphantly. He started to laugh and she scowled at him. “No scoffing.” She rooted around some more in the trunk and pulled out a small sewing box. In a few moments she had the cloth ripped and was sitting on a chair by the fire, her head bent over a seam.

  “If only the ton could see you now!” Ewan said.

  She turned to the next seam. “You’d be surprised at the things I know how to do, Ewan Poley!”

  “I’m more fascinated by what you don’t know,” he said, and was gratified to see a sweep of warm color rise in her cheeks.

  An hour later, the lantern glow was reflecting rosy light back from a neatly stitched curtain over the one window. The chicken had gone to sleep.

  Annabel was sticking a long fork into the potatoes, trying to scoop them out of the pot, when she poked a bit too hard and the support that held the pot over the fire collapsed.

  Ewan jumped back, just avoiding being splashed by boiling water. With a great hiss, the fire went out. The potatoes bounced and rolled about the floor getting covered with ashes, and the chicken woke up and fluttered its wings like an eagle, screeching at them irritably.

  “Oh, no,” Annabel cried, running after a potato. “Catch them, Ewan!”

  “They won’t make it as far as the woods,” he said, but he started chasing them.

  “My goodness, they’re filthy,” Annabel moaned, putting potatoes onto the table. “Will you get me some water?”

  He walked to the bucket next to the door and then paused. It was pitch-dark outside. “Annabel, where is the water?”