by Evie Dunmore
“It’s on its way,” came a smooth voice from the dark.
They both started.
How long had Montgomery been standing there in the shadows?
In the flickering light, it was impossible to gauge his mood as he strolled closer.
Was he cross with her because of Lord Marsden?
“Montgomery,” Peregrin said. “I shall leave Miss Archer in your hands, then.” He nodded at Annabelle. “Miss.”
He ambled back into the house, and Montgomery stared after him as if he were of a mind to order him back. Instead, he said: “Are you hiding out here, miss?”
She cringed. “I’d call it a strategic evasion.”
He made a soft noise, a huff, a scoff?
“Thank you,” she began, “thank you for . . .” Protecting me?
Because that was what he had done with his little intervention, from his own peers, no less.
“It’s not worth mentioning,” he said.
“You repeatedly implied that I had a problem with authority,” she said lightly. “I’m beginning to agree with you.”
Montgomery leaned back against the balustrade. “A problem with authority, or with stupidity?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The argument put forward tonight had a blatant logical flaw. I imagine the temptation to point it out was overwhelming.”
She gave a baffled laugh. “Indeed it was.”
For a moment, they were looking at each other, and his lips were twitching as if trying not to smile. That was when she noticed that she was smiling rather widely at him.
She turned away to the dark gardens below the terrace. “Isn’t the whole point of an authority figure that he can’t be challenged, no matter what?”
“No,” he said, “first, Marsden is not your commander in chief. And second, a leader who doesn’t know what he is doing will eventually face mutiny.”
“Are you making a case for leadership based on merit, Your Grace?” It came out decidedly more sarcastic than she had intended, to him who was placed at the helm of the ship thanks to his birthright alone.
He was quiet for a long moment, and she realized that she was taking something out on him that had nothing to do with him: frustration over Marsden, the Marchioness of Hampshire, and, possibly, his liaison. And he let her, like a big cat would let a kitten claw at it.
“Tell me,” he said, “how frustrating is it to be surrounded by people considered your betters when they don’t hold a candle to your abilities?”
She stared into the dark, briefly lost for words.
How? How did he know these things about her?
And why did him knowing urge her to spill more secrets to him? To tell him that it was like a slow drip of poison, this daily flattering and placating of men for a modicum of autonomy; that she sometimes worried it would one day harden both her heart and her face?
She shook her head. “It is how it is, Your Grace. I have always struggled with just following my betters. I suppose it’s a defect in me.”
“A defect,” he repeated. “You know, the most important lesson I learned during my time at Sandhurst was on leadership. People have many motivations to follow someone, but a soldier will only ever follow a man for two reasons: his competency, and his integrity.”
It was not really a surprise to hear he had been at Sandhurst rather than Oxford or Cambridge—enough aristocratic families sent their sons to the renowned military academy, and truth be told, military suited Montgomery.
“I believe that,” she said, “but I’m not a soldier.”
“Perhaps you are. At heart.”
Now she looked at him. What a whimsical thing to say for a man like him. Her, a soldier. But oh, it resonated, it plucked at something deep inside her chest. It almost hurt. “A soldier must be discerning as his very life depends on his leader’s competency,” she murmured.
He gave a shrug. “As a woman’s life depends on the competency of the men in her life.”
“You will find it can be the other way around,” she said dryly, thinking of Gilbert, unable to make the money last until the end of the month, or her father, forgetting to eat because he was immersed in a book.
“Is that why you have not married? Because the men in Kent are incompetent?”
He tossed it at her casually, as if it weren’t a shocking intrusion on her privacy.
She was too stunned to even attempt a reply.
Twin flames were dancing in his eyes, mirroring the flicker of the torches.
“I have spoken out of turn,” he said when she remained silent.
Astutely observed, Your Grace, you have. Somehow she didn’t think it had been an accident. Very few things he did or said seemed to be accidental.
“I don’t wish to marry,” she said. “My reasons are my own.”
The door behind her creaked, and a footman appeared with her coat.
She huddled into the protective shell, grateful for the interruption because now they were just silent together, her and Montgomery, pretending to study the night sky.
“Why did you put stars on the library ceiling?” she asked.
“The ceiling was my father’s idea,” he said. “He had a liking for that sort of thing.”
“For astronomy?”
She could feel rather than see his wry smile.
“No,” he said, “for costly, whimsical things.”
She might have quite liked the late duke. “Why the winter sky, though?”
Montgomery went quiet, in a way that said she had touched on something intimate.
“Because I was born in winter,” he finally said. “It depicts the sky over Montgomery Castle on the night of my birth.”
Something in his voice forbade a reply. Perhaps he liked it as little as she did, revealing private pieces of himself. And yet, he just had. A piece for a piece. He was a fair man, after all.
“Have you really never seen fireworks?” he asked.
“No. They are rather thin on the ground in the Kentish countryside.”
“Then stay for the house party,” he said, “if you forgive the rather spontaneous nature of the invitation.”
For a second time in the space of a few minutes, he shocked her. Her thoughts swarmed like bees; it was a ludicrous proposition, she should not even consider it. And how would she pay Gilbert if she did not work for yet another week? The dresses, perhaps; she could sell these ill-fitting, good-quality dresses to seamstresses . . .
The door the footman had closed swung open, flooding the terrace with laughter from the sitting room. Lady Lingham’s long shadow fell between them. “There you are,” she said, sounding pleased. “Duke, I must steal Miss Archer away from you. I’m having all the ladies taste the first batch of Lingham sherry.”
* * *
As the carriage jostled back to Claremont, Annabelle’s eyelids were drooping, deliciously heavy from Lingham sherry and too much mint julep. She had to send a note to Hattie tomorrow morning. She needed a dress, because holy Moses, she was going to a ball.
Montgomery’s face was as dark and brooding as on the ride to the manor, or possibly darker. Why had he invited her to the party? Why was his grimness so appealing? Her imagination drifted, pretending that they were alone in the carriage, in a different life, where she could lean across the footwell and kiss his stern mouth, gently, persistently, offering feminine warmth until his lips softened against hers and the tension left his shoulders. It had been a lifetime since she had kissed a man, but she remembered the joys of it so well when she looked at him . . . the slick brush of a tongue, the feel of hard, eager planes of muscle against her palms, her blood turning sweet and heavy like molasses . . .
He turned his head toward her as if she had whispered his name.
She smiled at him drowsily.
His eyes darkene
d like the skies before a storm. The sudden, heated intensity transfixed her, pulled at her, and she was falling, falling forward into the depths of him as he threw the gates wide open for a beat. She heard a soft gasp and realized it had come from her own lips. There it was, the fire she had sensed behind the ice, smoldering at a thousand degrees hotter than leaping flames. Oh, they had it wrong, the people who called him cool and aloof. He was a man who did not do things by halves, and he knew. So he leashed himself. Untether him, and he would burn as hotly as he was cold, and the dark force of her own passion would crash against his like a wave against a rock rather than pull him under.
He is my match.
The thought hit like a splash of cold water.
It was one thing to dream. But the connection between him and her didn’t feel like a dream anymore. It felt real. And that could not be.
She shivered.
On the bench across, Montgomery had clenched his hands to fists by his sides.
* * *
She was swaying on her feet with fatigue when she reached her room at Claremont. It took a moment to register the large rectangular parcel on the end of her bed.
She drew closer.
It was wrapped in green paper, tied with a red satin bow. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been given a present, but that was her name on the tag affixed to the ribbon.
She untied the bow with clumsy fingers.
The smell of new wool rose from the box when she lifted the lid.
It was a coat. Hunter green, with generous fur trimmings on cuffs and collar.
She looked at it stupidly for a moment. Then she reached for the little note.
Dear Miss Archer,
Claremont servant staff wishes you a merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.
Your servant,
Ramsey
She slid her arms into the coat, and it enveloped her like a downy blanket. She turned back and forth in front of the vanity table mirror. Perfection. A classic, timeless cut rather than the current fashion. Rabbit fur, not mink, but excellently made, promising to keep her warm, quite possibly, forever.
Someone had really thought this through.
She sank onto the bed.
The staff had been unwaveringly polite to her, but why would they make such a gesture?
It was Montgomery who scowled every time he saw her coat. But he would have violated all the rules of propriety by giving her such a gift directly, making it impossible for her to accept.
She ran her fingers over one soft fur cuff.
This went beyond politeness. Which raised the question: what did Montgomery want?
Chapter 14
A few days earlier, after the greenhouse, it had seemed perfectly reasonable to order her a coat—hers was useless, and he was in a position to fix that, so he had. He quickened his pace, his boot heels pounding the stable’s flagstone floor. He had been deluding himself; he’d known it the moment he had wanted to take Marsden outside last night. The truth was, he wanted Annabelle Archer, commoner, bluestocking, and suffragist, in his bed, under him, with a carnal urgency he hadn’t felt since . . . he couldn’t remember.
He rounded the corner to the horse stall and stopped dead, for there she stood as if he had conjured her up. The morning light from the window behind her cast a fiery halo around her hair, and she looked tall and radiant in a hunter-green coat.
A tide of primal satisfaction filled his chest. He liked seeing her wear something he had picked, and he hadn’t been sure she would. Sure enough, she was observing him warily.
Apollo whinnied, shrill and unabashed in a bid for his attention.
“Shh.” He placed a hand on the horse’s nose without taking his eyes off her.
Only when her expression turned bemused did he realize he had not yet said a word.
“Good morning, miss.”
She curtsied. “Merry Christmas, Your Grace.”
“Ah. Yes.” Very eloquent, that. He cleared his throat. “What brings you to the stable this early?”
Somehow, they had drifted closer together, and he could smell her now, her warm floral essence that edged out dust and leather and horse. His blood began to buzz like last night in the carriage, when her sleepy smile had gone straight to his cock . . . when he had nearly made a grab for her like a Neanderthal.
She took a small step back. “I received a Christmas gift from the staff.” She gestured over the coat.
“I see,” he said. “It suits you.”
She clasped her hands before her primly, but there was a heat in the depths of her eyes that warmed him all over.
“Would you please thank them on my behalf,” she said. “It’s too generous. It’s exactly what I need.”
He could give her so much more.
Except, he couldn’t.
It went against the very nature of his being to not go after what he wanted, but this was different. She was vastly below his station, and a guest under his roof. Manners, if not honor, demanded that he not bother her with his attentions, for how could she possibly refuse him if she wished?
A good thing their time alone together was at an end. He had filled the next two days with appointments in the city to avoid the last-minute madness leading up to the house party, which had been a reasonable plan before she had walked into his life.
“I’m going to London today,” he said, and she blinked at the sudden coolness of his voice. “And I had a missive from Lady Lingham. She suggests you take Mr. Peter Humphrys as your escort for the ball.”
The warmth he had been basking in faded from her eyes. “That’s very considerate of her ladyship, Your Grace,” she said. “I’m indeed in need of an escort.”
He stared after her as she left, unable to shake the impression that he had offended her in some way.
* * *
“You said emerald green.” Annabelle’s gaze flashed between Hattie and the open dress box on her bed.
“I know,” Hattie said, “but isn’t this much more exciting?”
“It’s . . .” She didn’t even know what this color was. Garish pink did not quite describe it.
“It’s magenta,” Hattie supplied. “It’s very modern.”
She breathed slowly through her nose. She’d stand out like a peacock tonight; there was no chance in Hades that she’d find another dress on time. House party guests had begun arriving shortly after breakfast; there was an endless stream of carriages pulling up below her windows. She could either wear magenta or not go to the ball at all.
“You dislike it.” Hattie sounded small.
“I’m sure you meant well.”
“Oh. Oh, no. You really are cross.” Hattie’s face flamed hot red like a torch. “I didn’t mean—it’s just that everyone with green eyes will wear emerald tonight, when magenta is the perfect foil for your coloring, a complementary color contrast if you will. And you always wear such dreary things . . . Oh dear, that came out wrong. I just . . . I couldn’t help it. I heard myself say, ‘I’ll take the magenta.’”
Annabelle lifted the dress. A gauzy petticoat appeared beneath, then a pair of white midlength gloves. Two smaller boxes still sat unopened on the counterpane. The first contained an exquisitely embroidered velvet choker, the second a set of earrings, large pearl drops affixed to square, rose-colored stones.
“Those will be on loan,” Hattie said quickly, “for I know you wouldn’t accept those, right?”
“Right,” Annabelle said, exasperation grappling with a strange tightness in her chest. Hattie had put a lot of thought into this ensemble. How could she explain that this would make her look like an impostor? Like a vicar’s daughter playing lady for a night?
She considered the dress. It seemed less bright now, but it looked awfully narrow, a princess sheath cut she’d only ever seen in magazine clippings in the college�
��s common room.
“This requires a . . . a corset that goes down to midthigh, doesn’t it?”
Hattie’s eyes widened at the mentioning of unmentionables. “It does. Why?”
Annabelle looked at her with comical despair. “Mine finishes at the waist.” The type that had gone out of fashion years ago and posed no problem with her dated dresses.
Hattie wrung her hands. “Borrow one of mine?”
“But you are much shorter than I.”
“And if we asked—”
“I can hardly ask random ladies to borrow their . . . undergarments,” Annabelle hissed. They were both red in the face now.
“Blast.” Hattie slumped onto the bed. “I’ve really made a mess of it, haven’t I? And here I thought at least one of us would look stunning tonight.”
Annabelle sat down next to her. “Whatever do you mean?”
Her friend smoothed a hand over the magenta silk. “I’m going to look hideous. Mama picks my dresses, and she is clueless. I’ll be wearing pastel, with not a hint of cleavage in sight.”
A reluctant grin tugged at the corner of Annabelle’s mouth. “And so you planned to dress vicariously through me.”
Hattie gave a sulky shrug.
Annabelle took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “You put a very . . . complete outfit together for me, and I thank you for that, truly.”
Hattie hesitantly squeezed back. “But what about the, eh, underclothes?” she whispered.
She’d do what she usually did. “I will have to be practical about it.”
That meant hoping her natural shape would fill the dress, and, Lord help her, possibly not wearing any drawers in case they would bunch and show through the clinging fabric . . .
Catriona burst through the doors, looking around wildly. “Have you seen my glasses?”
“Catriona,” Hattie exclaimed, “you look different.”
Catriona turned her head in her direction and blinked. Her face looked startlingly bare and unlike the Catriona they knew. Pretty, though. The spectacles had hidden large Celtic blue eyes fringed with long, black lashes.