by Sara Bennett
Terry, watching her face, thought Annabelle truly was afraid of her mother, and yet she was brave, too, and willing to go against her wishes despite the consequences.
“We’ll be safe soon,” he said, trying to sound as if he weren’t a little afraid, too. Although Terry found himself more afraid of Annabelle’s brother than her mother. Something about the look in the Duke of Somerton’s eyes when he settled them on Terry was quite terrifying. Not that he’d ever tell Annabelle so. She thought of him as her brave hero and he fully intended to live up to it.
He realized that until now he’d never imagined someone like Annabelle would have any reason to be miserable with their life. To have money and position and a grand house seemed perfection in itself and that Annabelle should wish for another life would have seemed bizarre to Terry only a short time ago. Now he understood that such a life came with its own form of bars and bolts—its own type of prison—just as his own life did.
He was beginning to feel quite grown up.
“Aren’t you worried you’ll be punished for running away?” he asked suddenly, and then wished he’d bitten his tongue when she gave him a strange look.
“Aren’t you?” she countered.
He shrugged. “I’m nothing. You’re the sister of a duke.”
Annabelle smiled. “Then we must be certain not to let them catch us, mustn’t we?” She clasped his hand in hers and held it tight. “I’m so glad you’re my friend, Terry. I don’t know what I would have done without you to help me.”
A wave of pride swept over him, and with it a kernel of shame. Because the truth was Terry did not think of Annabelle as his friend. Well, not really.
In the beginning he’d thought of her as an opportunity for himself, a pattern of thinking he now realized he’d learned from his father. Then, when he got to know her and understand her, he began to like her for herself and not for who she was. And now, well, he loved her.
Not the sort of lustful love that he’d felt for girls before, a feeling that was more like a physical urge than anything emotional. This was something far more pure. He wanted to help her, save her, make her happy. He wanted to sacrifice himself for her well-being.
He knew he was a bloody idiot. His friends would soon tell him so if he tried to explain to them. But he couldn’t seem to help it.
He wanted to be her hero.
“Lady Annabelle!”
The hero jumped, but Annabelle faced their discoverer with a raised eyebrow and a cool smile.
“Lizzie. I hope you haven’t told Mother I am out here.”
“Of course not,” Lizzie Gamboni retorted.
Terry thought she looked flushed and cross, her fair hair fluffy about her face, the buttons on her pelisse crooked as though she had dressed in the dark in a hurry. And yet there was something oddly endearing about her.
“Well, now you have found me what are you going to do?” Annabelle dared her. “You know how miserable I am. Will you give me up? They will keep me prisoner until the wedding if you do. Lock me into some horrid little room with only bread and water.”
“Annabelle, I won’t give you up,” Lizzie said, and Annabelle’s shrill voice quavered to a stop. “I would never do that. But I do wish you would be careful and—and think before you act.”
Annabelle sighed and took her hand. “You are a true friend, Lizzie.” She turned and smiled back over her shoulder at Terry, reached to claim his hand, too. “You are my only friends in this cruel world.”
Terry found himself looking into Lizzie’s pale eyes. Was there a plea in them? A plea to take care with her charge? Well, there was no need to ask him that. He would never harm Annabelle; he would only ever do what she wished him to.
“We had best go indoors now,” Lizzie said, lowering her gaze and turning away, leaving Terry feeling strangely bereft. “Come, Annabelle.”
Annabelle went without argument, and Terry watched them disappear into the starlit darkness, Annabelle’s hair dark as a raven’s wing, Lizzie’s fair as a dove.
Chapter 13
“I’m sure you’ve been overfeeding that goat,” Eugenie greeted Sinclair at Erik’s compound the next afternoon. “He’s grown quite fat.”
Sinclair raised his brows. “I will tell Barker,” he said.
“Genie,” Jack murmured, uncomfortable. “Somerton has been very kind to Erik. Perhaps Barker just doesn’t know what sort of food is good for goats.”
“Should you be calling His Grace by his name, Jack?” she said sharply.
“He asked me to,” Jack retorted, puzzled. “Why? What should I call him?”
Sinclair’s brows were still raised as he waited for her answer.
She changed the subject. Just because she was cross with him didn’t mean she should be rude. “Here I am berating you for making our goat too comfortable when I should be thanking you for taking him in.” She looked up at him from beneath the brim of her straw bonnet, a wry smile in her eyes. One of her wayward curls danced against her cheek in the summer breeze.
Sinclair smiled back, as if she’d reacted exactly as he expected. “Barker mentioned to me that he thought your goat might like several lady goats to keep him company. What do you think of that, Jack? Should I ask your father’s permission to go ahead?”
Eugenie bit her lip while Jack deliberated.
“No, you needn’t ask Father,” he said at last. “He’d only make you pay him again. Genie says that wasn’t fair, and I think she’s right.”
Eugenie sighed with relief. Jack was right. She could just imagine her father demanding a fee for Erik’s stud services. “If Barker believes that is best for Erik then that is good enough for us,” she said firmly.
“Father says we were lucky you didn’t take us to the magistrate for having a dangerous animal,” Jack went on blithely.
Sinclair was suddenly looking very dukelike.
“My meeting with your goat is probably a constant topic of conversation in your household,” he said coolly. “I imagine it causes you all a great deal of hilarity.”
“No,” Jack said thoughtfully, before Eugenie could stop him. “That isn’t Father’s favorite story. Do you want to know what his favorite story is?”
“I’m sure the duke would much rather not,” Eugenie said, putting a restraining hand on Jack’s shoulder.
“But indeed I would,” Sinclair retorted, his lips growing frighteningly thin. In a moment he would be curling one of them in that hateful sneer. “Tell me, Jack, what is your father’s favorite story?”
“You tell him, Genie,” her brother begged. “You tell it better than I do.”
Eugenie sighed.
“Yes, please tell me, Genie,” Sinclair mocked, a light in his eyes she found discomforting.
“Very well. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Eugenie settled herself, gazing out over the green pastures. “Long ago there was a bereavement in a wealthy family. As was proper, the coffin with its sad occupant was returned to the house and placed in the parlor on the night before the burial was to take place. The family retired for the night, but they’d hardly begun to sleep when they were woken by a terrible wailing from the parlor. When one of them crept downstairs to investigate they saw a white shapeless form. Terrified, they remained upstairs, huddled together, awaiting the morning and convinced that their departed loved one was taking some sort of revenge from beyond the veil. When the dawn finally came they ventured downstairs, armed with all manner of weapons to protect themselves against the physical and the spiritual, only to discover they had been burgled. The so-called ghost had in fact been a thief, keeping them upstairs, while his accomplices went about the business of robbing them.”
When the story finished there was a silence, and Jack—who normally laughed along with his father—glanced uncertainly from one to the other. “Don’t you think that was a good trick, Somerton?”
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br /> “I think the family must have felt very sad, Jack. First they lost their loved one, and then they lost their precious possessions. I wonder how you would feel if it happened to you.”
Jack shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t have many precious possessions,” he said at last. “Only my mouse and the magpie with the broken wing, but he’s nearly well now.” He glanced over toward the stables and his face brightened. “Can I go and look at the horses?”
Sinclair touched his shoulder. “Of course you can.”
Jack set off, soon breaking into a run, and Eugenie wondered whether he was eager to get to the stables or eager to escape the dawning realization that his father wasn’t Sir Perfect.
She turned to Sinclair, perhaps to excuse her brother’s naivety, or her father’s disreputable sense of humor, but before she could speak he put a hand to her cheek, brushing away the rebellious curl.
“You worry about Jack, don’t you?”
She knew she should step away and tell him not to touch her, but after what they had done last night it would have seemed disingenuous. “Yes. I think Jack’s a good boy but I don’t know that I can always nudge him in the right direction.”
“If he comes to Somerton I will keep an eye on him,” Sinclair said gently. He bent and brushed his lips against her skin, his arm slipping about her slender waist and drawing her against his side.
“You must stop this,” Eugenie said, but she closed her eyes, unable to help losing herself in the pleasure.
She’d found it difficult to sleep last night. The memory of being held in the duke’s arms, of the temptation that he represented, kept her tossing and turning until almost dawn, her body aching for his touch.
She knew it was her own fault for staying but still she was inclined to blame him for leading her astray. And as she knew only too well, Sinclair did not have marriage to her on his mind.
“You are deep in thought.”
His intimate tones brought her back to the present.
Sinclair was watching her with an intensity that made her nervous. “You have a frown,” he said, reaching with the tip of his finger to smooth the crease from her brow. “Something is making you unsettled. What is it?”
“Household matters.” She dismissed it with a shake of her head.
“Tell me,” he demanded.
Eugenie affected a laugh. “Oh Sinclair, I’m sure you don’t want to hear about the twins’ misdemeanors and our servant woes and the fact that we have no money to pay the butcher.” It was meant to sound lighthearted but her annoyance colored the words so that they came out with a sting to them.
“And I don’t have to remind you that I can solve all those concerns.”
“Oh? With a wave of your magic wand?” she retorted, but again it wasn’t humor she heard in her voice but something almost waspish.
“If you accept my offer then you will be able to leave all your worries behind you.”
Eugenie gave him a sharp look and there was a burn of temper in her cheeks. “What a pleasant opinion you must have of me, Your Grace. So you imagine I could ride off with you into some cozy nook, and leave my family to struggle on without me?”
In contrast to hers, his voice remained calm. “If you wish to help your family out of their financial troubles, if their current situation would interfere with your own desires, then I will see to it.”
See to it? As if it were something so minor it was barely worth mentioning. Her family and her reputation and her future happiness! Well, if he thought she was going to allow him to solve all her woes with a stroke of his pen, then he was badly mistaken. Did he imagine she had no pride?
“Don’t you think that sounds like asking them to sell their daughter for their own benefit? I’ve heard such things happen in the slums of London, but not in rural Gloucestershire. Besides, surely it is against the law?”
His lip curled in that way she loathed. Eugenie clenched her hands into fists.
“You are being overly emotional. This is a practical solution where all parties benefit.”
“You make it all sound so simple,” she burst out a little wildly.
“Because it is.”
Eugenie looked up into his eyes and wondered how he could be so obtuse. Did he really imagine she could bear to have him “save” her like this, in payment for the use of her body? And yet he saw it all so differently from her, like a businessman coldly signing a mutually acceptable deal. A practical solution. Well, Eugenie refused to go along with it. She wasn’t going to be his mistress. There was a man out there, somewhere, who would be her perfect husband and who would be every bit as handsome and appealing as Sinclair—she just had to find him.
“I want you, Eugenie,” he said, his breath warm against her ear. “I’m willing to do anything I can to have you.”
They had each been so engrossed in their contrary thoughts that they had not heard someone approaching, but now that person’s querulous voice brought them to their senses.
“Sinclair? Who is this young lady?”
He muttered a curse beneath his breath but when he turned around he was perfectly composed. “Mother, I did not hear you.”
“No, you were otherwise engaged,” she retorted. Her dark eyes didn’t leave Eugenie. “Please introduce me.”
Eugenie looked back at the Dowager Duchess of Somerton and found herself surprised by what she saw. This wasn’t a woman like her own mother, overwhelmed by life. The Dowager Duchess was dressed in a gray silk skirt and close-fitting jacket, decorated with fine lace, accentuating her still fine figure. Her graying hair was swept up in a flattering style, covered with a small confection of silk and ribbons.
There was a distinct resemblance to her son, perhaps more in her expression than her actual features—an air of haughtiness that characterized them both.
Sinclair had finished introducing them.
“Belmont?” the dowager duchess declared, as Eugenie made her careful curtsey. “Never heard the name. Do they live locally?”
“Sir Peter, my father, and Mrs. Belmont, my mother, live in Belmont Hall, in the village, Your Grace,” Eugenie said evenly, determined to be polite even if Sinclair’s mother wasn’t. “Actually, it is my brother who His Grace invited to Somerton. I am here as his companion. He is ten, you see, and very good with His Grace’s horses.”
The dowager duchess was staring at her as if she was speaking a foreign language. “Indeed,” she replied at last, cold as frost, and turned back to her son. “When you are done with Miss Belmont, Sinclair, I wish to speak to you in my rooms.”
And with that she turned and was gone.
“My mother believes she lives in another age,” Sinclair said apologetically.
“I really should be going home now anyway,” Eugenie said, and began to walk a little shakily toward the stables to fetch Jack. She was angry, and upset, and she didn’t want him to see either.
“There is no need . . .” he began.
“I think there is. Good-bye, Your Grace.” The slight emphasis on the ‘good-bye’ was her way of letting him know this really was a last farewell. After last night’s tender embraces she might have been able to convince herself that there was a slight chance of winning Sinclair, but not now. His mother’s behavior had made up Eugenie’s mind well and truly.
He didn’t follow her. Eugenie expected he was keen to get back to his mother and be told he must not associate with the peasants. Insufferable woman! To speak to her so! Was she so above the rest of the world that she did not need to show good manners? It certainly explained a great deal about Sinclair.
Eugenie could not imagine how she ever thought it would be possible to marry him. She was someone to look down upon. How she could have believed for a moment she would fit into the life he lived and the world he occupied? Well, she knew the cold, hard truth now.
She refused to glance back
ward, even though this was the last time she would see him. How could she have let her silly tongue and her overactive imagination to get her into this scrape in the first place? Husband hunting, in her opinion, was a very overrated occupation! And as for the reaction of her friends. . .
She’d have to make up some tale. If worse came to worst, Eugenie told herself, she could always run away with a circus and become a bareback horse rider. It seemed preferable to telling them the truth.
Chapter 14
As Sinclair expected, his mother was waiting for him, back perfectly straight, hands clasped in her lap, chin high. Her dark eyes followed him to his chair opposite her and something perverse made him fling himself down into the soft leather, rather than seating himself fastidiously, as he usually did.
She winced. “Sinclair,” she said, as if she was in pain. “Whatever is wrong with you? No, don’t answer me. I believe I already know, and that is what I wish to speak to you about.”
“Can you read my mind, Mother?” he said in mock surprise.
Her dark eyes bored into his and eventually she shamed him into the reaction she wished.
“My apologies, Mother. That was childish. Tell me what you wish to speak to me about.”
“I will, but first I think I should mention the time you have been spending playing with your paints. I know my brother encouraged you but I thought we had dealt with that problem years ago. It is childish and pointless, Sinclair, and you must stop it. All those shameless hussies. If you had wanted to paint landscapes perhaps I could have accepted it, but naked females! Such things are not for gentlemen and particularly not for dukes. I simply will not allow you.”
He was speechless, and then he was angry. “How do you know . . . ?”
“I always commanded loyalty from my servants, and they still tell me what is happening at Somerton.”
She sounded smug, and that infuriated him even more. “How dare you set your spies on me!”