by Mary Balogh
“Eighteen years old,” he said, “and never been kissed, I daresay.”
“I certainly have been kissed,” she said, bristling.
He grinned.
“Have you?” he said. “How many times? And by whom? I may have to challenge someone to pistols at dawn.”
“By Jamie Sewell,” she said triumphantly. “Yesterday, during my party.”
“Sewell?” He frowned in thought. “The one with too many teeth and oily hair?”
Jamie did have a rather toothy smile, which he flashed about frequently when there were young ladies in the vicinity.
“He does not have oily hair,” she said, “except when he forgets to wash it.”
He chuckled.
“Did you enjoy it?”
“Oh, Reggie,” she said. “I did not.”
His grin held.
“Why not?”
“His lips were so dry” she said. “And he pressed too hard. My teeth almost cut the inside of my mouth—”
She was aware of the sudden rush of color to her cheeks, and she laughed. What was it about Reggie that made her relax and treat him like her closest friend at the same time as she ached with unrequited love for him?
“That was a nasty experience for you to have on your eighteenth birthday,” he said, his eyes dancing with merriment. “You are likely to remember it all your life unless some other memory obliterates it pretty soon.”
“Yes,” she said, still smiling. “I will have to remember all the dancing and gifts and fine food.”
“Or your second kiss,” he said.
“Oh, I—” She was about to protest that she was not going to allow Jamie within ten feet of her for at least the next year or two. But somehow all the air had been sucked away from about the oak tree, and while her breath was suspended, she understood what he meant.
She closed her mouth and swallowed awkwardly.
“If you are offering your services, Reggie,” she said, “it is really quite unnecessary. I would hate to have two disappointing kisses to remember.”
And she laughed again.
“Well, that does it,” he said, taking a step forward. “I cannot go away from here with that slight on my manhood.”
“I did not mean—” She set a hand against his chest as though to hold him away.
“Oh, yes, you did,” he said. “I have to prove myself now. And give you a happier memory.”
And even as her knees threatened to give out beneath her he leaned closer and set his mouth to hers. Mouth rather than lips. His lips were parted, and she could feel the warm, moist flesh beyond them. It was a light touch, but it enclosed her own lips, and indeed seemed to enclose her in magic and heat and longing.
She felt his tongue touch the center of her lips and rub lightly back and forth across the seam so that a sensation to which she could not put a name stabbed downward through her whole body to come to rest between her inner thighs. And then his tongue was pressing through her lips and past her teeth right into her mouth.
And then both it and his mouth were gone.
Annabelle opened her eyes to find herself gazing into his mere inches away. His eyes looked a mile deep, and she could feel herself falling into them.
“Reggie,” she said so softly she was not sure any sound had actually passed her lips.
“Anna.” She felt rather than heard the sound of her name.
And then one of his arms slid about her shoulders, the other about her waist, and he drew her away from the tree and against him. She wrapped her own arms about him, and he kissed her again.
Annabelle lost all track of time and place, though afterward she guessed that the kiss lasted no longer than a minute or two.
He was the one who ended it. He tipped his head back from hers, his arms still about her.
“Better?” he said.
She stared at him, uncomprehending.
“Than the first,” he explained.
“Oh,” she raised her eyebrows. “Yes. Really much better. But I daresay it was Jamie’s first as well, you see, whereas I would guess you have had a great deal of practice.”
His eyes laughed into hers.
“You will remember it?” he asked.
She considered the question.
“Sometimes,” she said. “When I have nothing better to do.”
He laughed and released her. He took a step back.
“Will you?” she asked. “Remember, that is.”
“Oh, always,” he said, setting his right hand over his heart. “Forever and a day.”
She laughed.
“Reggie,” she said, “that was really very naughty of you.”
“It was, wasn’t it?” he agreed. “I am going to have to be off, Anna. I have a thousand and one things to do before leaving tomorrow.”
She felt a little as if her stomach had dropped into her shoes. She smiled at him.
“And I am going to have to hurry home,” she said. “We have a houseful of guests, and I have been truant for long enough. Besides, Miriam Sewell is coming over some time today, and Jamie is going to bring her.”
He grinned once more, turned away, and strode off back in the direction of the stepping stones without another word or a backward glance.
Annabelle fought tears. There was no point in even trying to fight the empty, bereft feeling within.
That had not really been a kiss, just a demonstration. It had meant nothing whatsoever to him.
And everything in the world to her.
She pushed away from the old oak and strode off back in among the trees. It would not do for him to see her standing there looking dazed and forlorn when he got to the other side.
Reggie.
Ah, Reggie.
7
For three weeks Annabelle saw very little of her betrothed, and even when she did, it was always in company with other people. They drove in Hyde Park in an open barouche one afternoon, their mothers seated opposite them. Those two ladies, strangely enough, appeared to get along well with each other. Annabelle was glad about that.
There was a visit to the theater one evening, one to a private concert, another to a ball at which they danced twice together, and there was a dinner at Havercroft House, to which Reginald Mason was invited but not his parents. It was a deliberate snub, Annabelle guessed. The other male guests were all peers of the realm, and the conversation centered almost exclusively about the business of the Upper House, of which they were all members. It seemed to Annabelle that her father deliberately steered it that way. It was a breach of good manners unusual for him, for it precluded the ladies from participating. It also precluded her betrothed, and that, she suspected, was the whole point.
She was made to feel humiliated on his account—and that, surely, was part of the point too.
Her father, who had always indulged her and loved her, had been hurt, and he was not going to forgive her in a hurry.
And now, less than a week before the nuptials, they—Annabelle and her parents—had been invited to take tea with the Masons and a few members of their family who had come to town for the wedding.
Annabelle’s father was determined not to go. But Mama put her foot down, something she rarely did, though it was almost always effective when she did.
“Mr. Mason’s money is good enough for you, William,” she was saying sharply on the day the invitation arrived, as Annabelle set her hand on the drawing room door to join them, “and his son is good enough for your daughter, even if only as a punishment. It behooves you, then, to accept a civil invitation to tea when it is offered.”
“Mason will boast of it for a decade,” Papa complained as Annabelle stayed where she was on the other side of the door for a moment longer.
“And you will grumble about it for twice as long,” Mama retorted. “Enough, William! Mr. Mason is just a man, when all is said and done.”
“Precisely,” he said. “He is a man, not a gentleman.”
Annabelle pushed the door open, and no more w
as said on the subject except that Mr. and Mrs. Mason had invited them to tea and they were going.
“And no sulking when you are there, miss,” her father told her. “You will mind your manners.”
Mama merely looked at him, her eyebrows arched up onto her forehead.
All three of them presented themselves for tea at the Mason house on Portman Square on the appointed afternoon.
Annabelle felt her mother stiffen and her father freeze when the butler threw back the drawing room doors to announce them. The room was large and square—and it was almost bursting at the seams with people. It was also all but pulsing with the sound of loud, hearty conversation and laughter, most of the former conducted in broad north country accents.
And then silence fell, almost as if every conversation in the room had been sliced with a sharp knife, cutting off sentences and leaving even words unfinished.
Every head turned their way.
Mr. and Mrs. Mason hurried toward them, both of them smiling warmly, both with hands outstretched. Reginald Mason was coming more slowly behind them.
“Havercroft!” Mr. Mason boomed, and Annabelle could only guess at how startled her father felt about having his hand grasped by Mr. Mason’s two and pumped vigorously up and down. “Grand of you to come. And you too, Lady Havercroft.” He repeated the hand pumping with her. “And Lady Annabelle, as lovely as ever.”
He folded her into a bear hug and kissed one of her cheeks.
Mrs. Mason, meanwhile, was bobbing curtsies and welcoming her guests to her home with considerably less volume than that employed by her husband. She did hug Annabelle after him, though.
“How nice to see you again, my dear,” she said. “You look lovely in pink. It adds color to your cheeks. Come and meet our family. A few of them have come all the way from the north of England for Reginald’s wedding. And we invited a few close friends too. I hope you don’t mind.”
The few family members looked like a vast number to Annabelle. So did the close friends, though she had no way of knowing which were which. The Masons, she concluded, had a different definition of a few than her own.
Reginald Mason was bowing politely and murmuring something largely inaudible.
“Let me introduce you to everyone,” Mrs. Mason said, tucking Annabelle’s arm beneath her own and patting it reassuringly. “They are all eager to meet you.”
Her son was offering Mama his arm.
“Come and meet everyone, Havercroft,” Mr. Mason was saying in his booming voice as he rubbed his hands together.
And they proceeded about the room, all of them, Annabelle smiling and inclining her head as everyone was introduced by name and their relationship to everyone else was explained until she felt as if her head must be spinning on her neck. She was making a vain attempt to commit all the details to memory and to remember which face went with which details.
“There is no test at the end of it all,” Mrs. Mason said, patting Annabelle’s hand as they stood smiling at the last group of six equally smiling people who all resembled one another to a remarkable degree. “You are not expected to remember everyone, my dear.”
Everyone obligingly laughed and assured her that indeed she was not.
“But you will know them all eventually,” Mrs. Mason said. “You will be married to Reginald, and we are a close family.”
Her father, Annabelle saw in a quick glance, was looking his haughtiest and most aristocratic. She could be sure that he was making no attempt whatsoever to memorize faces and names or who was second cousin or first cousin twice removed to whom. Her mother, on the other hand, was smiling graciously—even warmly—at everyone.
“You may sit over here if you wish,” Mrs. Mason said when everyone had been introduced. She indicated a group of three empty chairs, which had clearly been set up and kept empty for their use. “You may relax and enjoy your tea. Everyone is satisfied now that they have met you. My family and Bernie’s have not met a real live earl and countess before. And of course, they were all eager to meet Reginald’s bride.”
Annabelle’s father sat down without further ado.
Her mother, still on Reginald Mason’s arm, was talking with the last group to whom they had been introduced. She was being polite.
And so must she, Annabelle thought. She had hurt Papa lately. Deeply hurt him and forced him into doing something that would perhaps forever humiliate him. Not that she was responsible for his reckless investments and expenditures, it was true. But she might have released him by marrying the Marquess of Illingsworth. He would have felt far less shame over that solution to his problems than this.
She loved him. She loved both him and Mama. She would make all this up to them if she possibly could.
She smiled at Mrs. Mason.
“If you do not mind, ma’am,” she said, “I will talk with some of your other guests and perhaps retain at least some of their names for future reference. Mrs. Duffy over there is your sister, is she not? And her daughter is Helen?”
As soon as Mrs. Mason, looking very pleased indeed, confirmed the identification, Annabelle crossed the room to those two ladies and their group and began a conversation with them. She moved from group to group for the next hour, speaking with almost everyone in turn.
She actually rather enjoyed herself. A north country accent might be vulgar by her father’s definition, but it was attractive to her ears. She liked the hearty laughter these people did not even try to restrain when something amused them—and much did.
She liked them, and she felt that they liked her—or that they were prepared to do so after getting to know her a little better. Surely many of them, if not all, knew the story of her elopement with Thomas Till, but no one shunned her or looked coldly or disdainfully at her.
Her mother was also moving about the room, on Reginald Mason’s arm for a while and then alone.
Her betrothed, Annabelle saw with a twinge of unease, had moved from her mother to her father, who had been sitting in haughty isolation, bowed and scraped over by everyone who passed close by him but approached by none except the servant who fetched him tea and cakes.
Reginald Mason first stood addressing her papa and then sat in the seat next to his. He was talking and smiling. Her father appeared to be listening, a curl of distaste to his lips.
Oh, dear, was this wise?
“Lady Annabelle,” one fresh-faced, gap-toothed, pretty young girl asked—Annabelle tried in vain to remember her name, “what is your wedding dress like? Are you allowed to say?”
“I am not,” Annabelle said. “But I can tell you how I stood on a pedestal for what felt like ten hours while I was being fitted for it, being turned and prodded and poked as though I were a turkey roasting on the fire.”
There was a burst of hearty laughter, and she proceeded to embellish the story.
“It doesn’t matter what the dress looks like, lass,” one of Reginald’s maternal cousins said—he was Harold? Horace? Hector? “You would look just grand in a sack.”
Another burst of laughter.
Papa and Reginald Mason were gone from their chairs. And from the room.
Both of them.
Together?
~~~
People had been hurt, Reggie had realized earlier while awaiting the arrival at the house of his betrothed with Havercroft and the countess. Four people in particular. He had known it from the start, of course, but actually seeing it was different from imagining it.
His father was ecstatic over the turn of events. But he was not a heartless man. Far from it. Despite his wrath over Reggie’s extravagance and his declaration that if his son was unhappy with his imminent marriage then he deserved to be, actually his son and his wife meant more to him than all his wealth or ambitions combined. Reggie was quite secure in that knowledge. His father would be miserable with regret if it turned out that the marriage he had insisted upon really was an unhappy one.
So would both mothers. They were very different in personality: his mother open
ly warm and loving, Lady Havercroft more cool and reserved. But he did not doubt that they both deeply loved their children and would suffer greatly if they believed those children to be doomed to unhappiness.
Reggie felt the burden of guilt over having exposed these three people to anxiety. It was time to set their minds at least partially at ease. It was time openly to reconcile himself to the fact that he was going to spend the rest of his natural life with Lady Annabelle Ashton and to make a public effort to show some regard for her. It must not be too lavish, or no one would believe him. But there must be an end to the open hostilities.
It was Havercroft who worried him most, however. The man had been humiliated, first by his unexpected financial losses and the need to recoup them by arranging a judicious marriage for his daughter, and then by the need to marry her to him, the son of a man he hated probably above all others.
Reggie did not find him a pleasant man, and if he wanted, he could choose to look on the downfall of such an arrogant, cold man with some glee. But Havercroft, his future wife’s father, was to be his father-in-law. Reggie guessed that somewhere deep inside the icy exterior there was love for his wife and daughter—a love they returned.
It was going to be more difficult to reconcile Havercroft to the marriage than it would be to reassure the other three. Reggie somehow considered it important to try, though.
His opportunity came during tea, when the countess and her daughter mingled with his family members and his parents’ friends rather than sit apart with Havercroft as the untouchable aristocrats. The earl sat in a lone state and in stony dignity. No one else dared approach him, even if anyone had felt so inclined.
Reggie dared.
“Being a member of a large family,” he said cheerfully as he stood beside the earl’s chair, a cup of tea in one hand, “can be a marvelous thing on special occasions. It is, alas, a little intimidating for outsiders.”
Havercroft looked up from his plate. His eyes were steely. “I do not intimidate easily, Mason,” he said.
Reggie continued, undeterred. “But the thing is with my family,” he said, “that they will open their arms to include outsiders who are precious to one of their number, and make insiders out of them in no time at all.”