“The more you match words with those sorts, the less respect you gain.”
Elsie scowled. “All but that maid of Lady McFiefer. If her mistress is half as bad as she is, you’ll have a pretty time with her. Apparently Lady McFiefer’s daughter thought to marry his lordship, though to hear them talk in the servants’ hall, half the county thought the same of their daughters.”
She put the brush down. “I’m putting out your primrose sarcenet with the gossamer net.”
“That’s far too grand,” Annabel objected. “I can’t go downstairs dressed in a ball gown, Elsie.”
“You must,” her maid said. “They’re all speculating on why his lordship married you, instead of Lady McFeifer’s daughter. I caught a glimpse of her. She’s beautiful enough, but she’s brassy. You can tell she’s not meant to be a countess by the look of her. Whereas you look like a countess.”
“But Elsie—”
“There’s that gown you haven’t worn yet, the French one.” Elsie laid it gently on the bed.
Annabel bit her lip. The frock was of pale gold crepe, trimmed all about the bottom with pale French roses, with a ribbon of green intermixed. It was meant to be worn for a formal dinner, since its bosom was extremely low and it had a slight train. On the other hand, it was both exquisite and expensive, and in her opinion, those two qualities were needed to bolster her courage.
“You’ll wear it with the double row of pearls from Mrs. Felton,” Elsie said, scurrying about the room. “And more of those French roses in your hair.” She had her jaw firmly set.
“All right,” Annabel said. “I’ll wear the gown, but I’ll not wear the slippers.”
Elsie scowled and Annabel wondered just how it happened that she ended up ruled by her maid instead of the other way around.
The moment she put her jeweled foot onto the stone steps leading down into the entranceway, the noise died. Some fifty heads swung upward. One hundred eyes stared at her. Only the footmen near the door looked up and away. Everyone else seemed transfixed.
Annabel paused for a moment, to let them satisfy their curiosity, and then smiled, a smile she knew quite well made her look delectable. The faces below her responded appropriately, and she walked the last steps to the entrance hall.
Lady Ardmore elbowed her way through the crowd. “Miss Essex,” she called, coming to the bottom of the stairs. “In the absence of my son, I welcome you to Ardmore Castle.”
There was a happy hum in the entrance.
“I am most pleased to be here,” Annabel said, sinking into a deep curtsy. A moment later she was surrounded by cheerful faces. As fast as a pair of guests were whisked up the steps to find a chamber for the night, more seemed to flood in the front door. Footmen staggered in and out and, belying Elsie’s doom-filled notions about lack of food, the footmen seemed to be laden down with hams and bottles of spirit. Around an hour later Annabel heard a raucous squeaking outside that came closer and closer.
Lady Ardmore hadn’t been out of motion, whisking here and there, bawling at a friend of hers and dispatching more with footmen. Now she trotted up to Annabel. “That’ll be the heart of the party arriving. The pipers are here. Where’s Ewan?”
Annabel shook her head. “I haven’t seen him.”
“Ardmore!” his grandmother howled. She caught sight of Mac down on the front steps, supervising the arrival of what appeared to be an entire suckling pig, ready roasted. “Mac, find Ardmore! The pipers are coming!”
Mac cocked an ear and then dashed around the house and toward the stables. But before he could reappear, a flood of men swept down the road, led by bagpipes. Two men were prancing unsteadily before the pipers, leading the pack with their dance.
Lady Ardmore drew Annabel outdoors, to the top of the steps. The throng milling about the courtyard drew back as the revelers approached, allowing the two leaders to prance up the stairs followed by ten pipers.
“They’re the head of the Crogan clan,” Nana said, under cover of the pipers’ squealing. “Using the wedding as an excuse to get cast away, not that they need such an excuse on a normal day.”
“Your neighboring clan?” Annabel said, watching the two men half stagger, half dance up the stairs to them. They were an unsavory pair, with flaming red hair that stood straight from the domes of their heads. They wore kilts and their hairy stout legs looked unattractively chilled.
“The same. I wonder where Ewan is. He should—”
But whatever Ewan should have done was lost as the Crogans lurched up the last stair, smiling liquorish smiles and looking Annabel up and down as if she were a tailor’s dummy. “Well, now, isn’t this nice, Crogan?” said the short one.
“Sure is, sure is,” said the taller one. “I’m thinking—do you know what I’m thinking, Crogan?”
Lady Ardmore interrupted. “There isn’t a soul here that cares what you think, Crogan.” She poked at one of them with her stick. “Nor yet you either, Crogan. Keep your manners.” There was a shrill note in her voice that made the Crogans blink.
“Do you have the same name?” Annabel asked, trying to edge backward so as not to get caught by their breath again.
“She’s very pretty,” the shorter Crogan said to his brother, staring at Annabel’s breasts.
She stepped backward again.
“Now, brother,” the other Crogan said genially. “Iffen our little monk has decided to have himself a taste o’ the best, we can’t begrudge him that. But we can’t forget the old ways either.”
Before Annabel knew what was happening, a strong arm curled around her and she was pulled sharply to the left down the steps. The last she saw was the rest of the clan genially throwing Ewan’s footmen to the ground, while she was literally carried away over the shoulder of the larger Crogan.
“What are you doing!” she shrieked at him, beating his meaty shoulder.
The man ran surprisingly fast for someone barely able to keep his balance the moment before. In a second they were into the trees and Crogan was thrashing along, his brother chugging behind him as if he knew precisely where he was heading.
“What are you doing?” Annabel shrieked again, and this time she got hold of some of his red hair and pulled it as hard as she could.
“Ouch!” he cried, and put her down, careful not to let go of her arm. “I thought you were a Scots. They said you were!”
“I am!” Annabel said, glaring at him.
“Well, stap my vitals, if you aren’t a pretty thing!” he said, his eyes falling to her bosom again.
“Lord Ardmore will kill you if you lay a hand on me,” Annabel said.
“We’d never do that,” said the fat one. “But you’re Scots, aren’t you?”
“What has that got to do with it?” she screamed. “Let me go!”
“Our brothers have gone for Ardmore,” the thin one said. “And we’ve you. Take out the feathers, Crogan.”
“What?”
“You’ve to be blackened,” he said, grinning like a fool. “You know what that is, surely, or aren’t you from hereabouts?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” she said. The fat one was taking what looked like a bag of feathers from his rucksack.
“You must be blackened,” he repeated. “ ’Tis a pity that you have such a pretty dress on.” He reached out to touch the lace around her bosom. “But we have our instructions. Perhaps—”
But Annabel saw his dirty hand coming out to her breast and her scream was instinctive.
The Crogan holding her arm jumped. “Hush, now!” he said. “We’re not going to hurt you!”
But Annabel was just getting into her stride. He tried to get a beefy hand over her mouth, and she bit him and screamed again.
“Damnation, Crogan,” he grunted. “Would you get over here with that treacle, then? I’m thinking this one’s a tartar as will rival Ardmore’s grandmother. I’m thinking—”
Annabel kicked him with her jeweled shoes as hard as she could.
/> “Ouch!” he said, and: “Ouch! I’m thinking we should put in some Hail Marys for poor Ardmore—”
The shorter Crogan had finished mixing up something that was unmistakably a pot of black treacle. Annabel twisted as best she could, screaming at the top of her lungs.
There wasn’t a sound in the woods other than her own screams and the panting complaints of the Crogan who was holding on to her. But suddenly she heard a clear, sharp voice cry, “Stop that!”
“Help me!” she screamed. She was about to steel herself to bite the Crogan again when there was an oof! and he dropped her arm and flew away to the side.
Since she was in the midst of trying to kick him, Annabel fell smack on the ground and it took her a moment to pull herself from the tangled roots and leaves. Her hair was all over her eyes, and she couldn’t see a thing.
She could hear, though. She heard a smack and a cry, a howl of pain and another crack that sounded like a head. She brushed her hair out of her eyes and looked up.
Rosy was standing over the shorter Crogan with a big rock in her hand. He was out cold, his cheek nestled in a little puddle of black treacle. Rosy looked extremely pleased, and not in the least befuddled. “I hit him,” she said cheerfully.
“So you did,” Annabel said, blinking at her.
Then she heard another thunk, and spun about.
It was Ewan. He had the bigger Crogan on the ground, the one who had been holding her. He was beating him mercilessly. “If you ever dare to touch her again,” he said—thunk!—“I’ll kill you.” Crack! The man’s head snapped back. “I’ll kill you as easily as I’d feed slop to a hog!” Ewan said. His voice was so savage that Annabel’s mouth fell open.
“Do you hear me, Crogan?” he shouted.
“Yesth,” the man said. “I wathn’t—”
“You were touching her,” Ewan said, lifting him up into the air like a sack of meal and letting him fall again.
“I wasthn’t!” Crogan wailed. “Ah, God, I won’t ever come near her again. ’Twasn’t me!” he wailed. “ ’Twas your gran—”
Ewan drew back his fist again and walloped Crogan on the chin. The man gave a groan and his eyes rolled back into his head. He was out cold.
“Ewan!” Annabel breathed, putting a hand on his arm as he started to pick up Crogan and shake him back into consciousness.
“I’ll find Father Armailhac,” Rosy said, her voice as clear as a bell. She ran away, and Annabel snapped her head back to Ewan.
Ewan had dropped Crogan back on the leaves.
He was breathing as if he’d run ten leagues, so he concentrated on rolling down his sleeves. He, Ewan Poley, Earl of Ardmore, had just lost control for the first time in his life. Well, perhaps not exactly for the first time.
He took a sideways glance and saw that she was all right. His Annabel. They’d frightened her, but they hadn’t really touched her. The feathers lay spilled on the ground, and a pot of treacle was soaking into other Crogan’s hair.
So that first horrible glance he’d had, that first stark terror when he heard her screams, was incorrect. They weren’t ravishing her: the Crogans were merely up to their stupid, drunken pranks again.
Finally he had to meet her eyes, because she had her hand on his arm. He knew she would have that little pucker between her brows, so he looked.
And almost closed his eyes against the beauty of her, all rumpled hair the color of gold coins falling over his arm, and her eyes, with their seductive tilt, and the intelligence of her face, and the courage there too.
“Are you all right?” she whispered.
“He didn’t touch me, the drunken fool,” Ewan said.
“Drunken or not,” Annabel shuddered, “I’m so grateful that you saved me, Ewan.”
“I was going to kill him,” he said slowly. “Kill him.”
Annabel looked at him.
“Do you remember when I was foolish enough to say that I couldn’t see myself losing my soul?” Ewan asked.
She nodded.
“There’ll be nothing difficult about it at all. When I saw him touch you—”
He stopped.
“I would kill him again and again,” and there was a savagery in his tone that went through Annabel like a piercing wind. “God, Annabel, it’s not a question of how or whether I could damn my soul. How many times would I damn myself for you? Ask me that.”
“How many?” she said faintly, her eyes searching his face. She stopped breathing to hear his answer.
“Till the gates of hell close,” he said flatly.
“Oh, Ewan,” she whispered, taking his face in her hands. “I can’t—” There were tears welling up in her eyes.
“What’s that to cry about?” he said. But there was something in her face that made his heart lighten. “Until I met you, I was never in the way of sin. But now I’m losing my temper right and left, changing myself—and on the verge of killing one of my neighbors.”
She started to laugh, but the tears were still there too. And she was kissing him all over his face, loving him, loving the smell of him and the taste of him, until his arms came around her and he stopped all those butterfly kisses and just devoured her mouth…as if there were no one in the world but the two of them, and the quiet woods around them.
“Annabel?” Ewan whispered after a while. His voice was rough and husky. “Have you forgiven me for desiring you too much yet?”
She blinked at him and started to laugh.
“I love you,” he said hoarsely. “But damn, Annabel, even if I try not to desire you, it’s not going to work.”
She laughed again. “You never understood, did you?”
“Likely I never shall. I don’t know what’s made you so happy about the fact I nearly slaughtered a neighbor.”
She put her hands on his heart, loving his confusion…loving him. “You said you would damn yourself for me,” she said.
“That’s no badge of honor.”
“For me it is,” she said achingly. “No one’s ever valued me so much before, Ewan.”
“I’m not sure that I’ve ever cared much for anyone before you. Oh, I love Gregory and Annabel and Nana, but—” He stopped.
“Since your parents died,” she finished for him. She smiled through her tears. “Do you remember how you told me that you didn’t care about your money, so you kept collecting it?”
“But I care about losing you,” he said, his voice suddenly raw. “I would die before I would let you go.”
“If you—” She swallowed and then looked up at him. “I don’t know how to say it.”
There was something close to tears in his eyes as well. “Will you guard my soul for me, then, Annabel Essex?” he asked, and his Scottish burr was as strong as she’d ever heard it.
“Oh, yes,” she whispered. “Yes, yes, I will, Ewan Poley. And will you guard mine for me?”
“ ’Twould be my honor,” he whispered. “My love.”
Thirty-five
When the future Countess Ardmore appeared in the door of the great north ballroom that evening, everyone gasped. Miss Annabel Essex was utterly exquisite, like a French lady in La Belle Assemblée, from the tips of her jeweled slippers to the perfection of her glowing curls. Lady MacGuire turned away with a scowl, but her daughter Mary’s mouth fell open.
“Just look at that gown, Ma,” she said, clutching her parent’s arm. “No wonder Ardmore didn’t want me.”
“It’s French,” her mother said with a snort. And then, reversing her opinion of the last three years: “Ardmore’s no great catch, after all. Not with all those monks and that crazed young woman in the house.” She nodded toward a plump, rather short young lord, bobbing around on his tiptoes trying to get a glimpse of the future countess. “The young Buckston would be a good match for you.”
Miss Mary pouted. “Buckston doesn’t have a castle and he’s fat. Besides…” She watched Lord Ardmore walk across the room to greet his betrothed. He looked at Miss Essex as if he’d never seen a woma
n before. “Buckston will never look at me like that. Maybe he’d greet a roast turkey with such enthusiasm, but never a wife.”
So Lady MacGuire looked across the room too. After a moment she nodded slowly, as if she were remembering something from a far distant past. “The cream of Scottish nobility is here tonight, Mary. You look about this room and find someone who will look at you in just that way. You’re a beautiful young lady, and don’t you forget it!”
But Mary was watching the way Ardmore and Miss Essex were dancing together and the way she was laughing up at him. “Ma!” she squealed. “Look at that!”
Her mother looked. “Such manners!” she snorted. “I’ve never seen the like!”
“He kissed her right in front of all of us,” Mary said, awed.
On the other side of the ballroom, Imogen pulled her little sister close and gave her a hug. “Did you see that?” she whispered. “Did you see that?”
“Of course I did,” Josie said. “I suppose this means that your plan worked and mine didn’t.” She sounded a little grumpy.
“I didn’t have a plan,” Imogen said happily. Ewan was turning Annabel in circle after circle while everyone watched. He was the picture of a man in love. “Lady Ardmore did.”
“Really? It must have been an excellent stratagem. I must ask her for the details,” Josie said. “For my study of men in love.”
It was hours before Ewan managed to get Annabel alone. It seemed she had to dance with every drunken Scotsman in the whole of the country. He kept losing sight of her, and then having to find her to make sure that she wasn’t being pawed by an overenthusiastic clansman. At some point Father Armailhac found him leaning against the wall and watching Annabel dance.
“You seem to be counting your blessings,” he said, with his gentle smile.
“There are many to count,” Ewan said. “Has Rosy said much more?”
“No. I doubt she will ever be talkative. But she is content to use her few words, and I think, unfortunate though it was for the younger Crogan, that encounter in the woods was a wonderful thing for her. She defended herself (or so she thinks of it), and in the process she found her voice again. A blessing indeed.”