The Official Essex Sisters Companion Guide (23 page)

Chapter Seventeen

For the next two weeks, Annabel and Ewan kept resolutely to ten kisses and no questions. Every once in a while one of them would start to ask a question and stop. And sometimes the other would answer, just for the pleasure of it and although it was not a
question
. So she found out that his brother and sister had been twins and still small babes when they died. She found out that he remembered his mama but not his father, and the omission of that memory bothered him.

In turn, he got out of her, by turns and twists and sympathetic looks, the truth about her father’s circumstances. And the truth about her being her father’s bookkeeper, and even a few of the unkind things her father said to her. But she said nothing about wanting to marry a rich man. Besides, she was beginning to hope. It seemed to her that Ewan had no concern with money.

Of course, it might be that he merely had a remarkably careless attitude toward his estate. But that didn’t make sense either, because he obviously did care about his lands and the people who lived on them. So the only conclusion she could draw was that money was of no concern to him.

She couldn’t imagine that . . .
no concern
with money.

They talked endlessly about Imogen. Ewan thought she was a reckless girl who would come to grief. “After all,” he said, “first she eloped with her poor husband—and I get the feeling she probably forced the man over the border herself—and then she threw herself at me. A dangerous woman.”

Annabel knew she should defend her sister, but something in her liked the fact that Ewan showed no signs of wishing that Imogen had been the one to marry him. After all, he had set up an assignation with Imogen, for all she had decided not to go through with it.

“Are you asking me about how I dissuaded her?” he said hopefully.

“No!” she said.

He sighed. “I was as coarse to her as I could be, thinking I’d scare her off. You see, she threatened to go off with the Earl of Mayne. I met him the previous night, and he wasn’t a man to be toyed with. He’d clearly had many a lover, and I didn’t think she should be indulging in such antics with Mayne,” he said, shaking his head at her. “So I told her to come along to my room, and then I did my best to give her a fear of debauchery. And my plan worked like a charm.”

“How did you do it?”

“Now that’s a question,” he said, and the smile in his eyes deepened.

“I take it back,” she said hastily.

“You want to know what I said to her?”

Annabel let her smile be an answer.

“I suppose these are all relevant points, in the long run,” he said. There was a wicked glint in his eye. “I told her that she would have to sleep with me naked. That there’d be no nightgowns between us. Of course,” he added, “I wasn’t thinking about scraps of silk.”

A surge of desire swept over Annabel’s body at the look in his eyes. No nightgowns! “You mean adulterous women don’t—”

“Never,” he said, shaking his head. “Didn’t you know that, lass?”

“No, in fact, now that I—”

“
Never
. No more than do man and wife wear clothing in bed together. And then I told her that I hoped she knew how to pleasure a man.”

Annabel frowned at him. “That wasn’t a very nice thing to say!”

“I didn’t want to be nice,” he said painstakingly. “I wanted that silly girl to reject the idea of forgetting her husband and risking her soul in the bargain. And then I said something else, and I do think that the last was what changed her mind.”

“What was it?” Annabel demanded.

He looked at her.

“Oh, all right, it’s a question,” she said.

“I told her that I was particularly fond of a coney’s kiss.”

She blinked at him. “A what?”

He shook his head. “So much to learn . . . and only a lifetime to do it in.” He was laughing at her again, but Annabel was possessed by curiosity.

“Imogen knew what this kiss was? I can’t believe it!” Annabel was the one who had talked to women in the village, since she was the one who did all their bargaining. Imogen had stayed at home, mooning over Draven. How could she know what this kiss was, if Annabel had never heard of it?

“Have we done this kiss already?” she demanded.

He laughed even louder. “No. And now I believe you owe me a kiss.”

These days their kisses started as if they had never left off the last one. Their mouths met, hungry, open, seeking each other’s taste . . . he kept his hands to himself
though. And she kept her hands tangled in his hair and didn’t try to direct him. Sometimes she still kept her mouth shut, and made him beg and plead silently for entry until he could slip past her guard, into the sweetness. Sometimes she thought those were the best kisses, and sometimes she thought a wild tangling, in which they were both shaking within a second or two . . . sometimes she thought
those
were the best kisses. And then there were the ones that Ewan didn’t count: the little morning touch on her cheek or an eye, the sweetness of their lips just touching over the bolster at night.

At the end of this kiss, her chest was heaving like that of a heroine in a melodrama and she felt mad, maddened by desire for him. But he sat down on the coach seat opposite her. “Was
that
a coney’s kiss?” she asked.

He just grinned. “Nope. Want to play cards?” He was teaching her
vingt-et-un
, so that Uncle Pearce would be able to fleece her without feeling guilty.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, after beating her in four straight games.

“Really?” she asked sweetly. “You must be wishing for a nap, then.”

“I’ve still got that special license,” he said, watching her. “I’m thinking that perhaps we might ask Father Armailhac to marry us on the very day we arrive. Would you be agreeable, darling?”

There was something about the way
darling
rolled from his tongue in a Scottish burr that made Annabel think that she could never say no to him, not if he called her that. A fact that must be concealed, obviously. So she pretended to think about it.

“Rafe would be happy to hear that you had followed through on your obligations,” she said.

“Yes, and just imagine. The more time that passes, there’s the more likelihood that I’ll lose interest and run for the hills.”

She had to smile at the look in his eyes. “’Tis a serious consideration,” she agreed.

“Of course, Uncle Pearce would likely step in and marry you, just to save the family name, and given as you’re such a ruthless cardplayer.”

“I’ve always thought maturity was an excellent thing in a spouse.”

“Damn it, Annabel,” he groaned, running his hand through his hair so that it stood straight up. “Will you marry me tomorrow? Please? I’m—I’m dying here.”

“That’s a question,” she whispered, looking at him from under her lashes.

“I’ll ask you a hundred,” he said achingly. “If you’ll marry me tomorrow.”

“Then I shall,” she said. “And that’s an honest answer.”

The smile growing on his face flew straight to her heart. “I’m saving that kiss for tonight,” he said huskily. “And Annabel—I’m giving you warning right here that I’m breaking that foolish rule about our bedchamber.”

She swallowed.

“I’ll be taking a ride now,” Ewan said. “Otherwise I won’t be able to keep my kiss until this evening.”

They were well into Scotland now, and Annabel was startled to feel how much her heart lightened at the sight of long stretches of dark forest. She liked England’s tidy green fields and neat little thickets. But there was something glorious about looking out of the carriage window at a rolling hill thick with towering firs. Great birds—kites? hawks?—flew in wide circles over the deep green treetops, as if they looked for fish in a
deep sea. Ewan rode by her window, his hair blowing back in the wind, looking red-haired and brawny and Scots to the bone.

Annabel’s heart sang. “You’re turning into a fool,” she muttered to herself. “He’s making you into a fool.”

But there seemed nothing wrong with foolery, not on a crisp afternoon in May when her near-husband had smiled at her in such a way. He stayed on horseback the whole of that afternoon, and by the time they trundled into the village of Inverurie, she was exhausted and tired of jolting along on pitted roads. England’s roads were better; there was no two ways about it.

So she snapped at Ewan when he handed her from the carriage, and when he kissed her forehead, she insisted that
was
his last kiss. And then she stamped off to their chamber.

This inn was empty. Clearly they could have separate rooms. Plus, they were deep into Scotland now and there were no Englishmen around to send home tales of how the Earl and Countess of Ardmore behaved at an inn. She wallowed in a zinc bathtub and thought about that for a while.

It would serve him right if she demanded her own chamber. He meant to kiss her in bed. Perhaps even remove the bolster. Perhaps even—

But the thought made her squirm, and that made her self-conscious, so she sat up and vigorously rubbed her arms with almond soap. Annabel had never been very good at ladylike restraint. Nor had she much ability to lie to herself. She wanted those kisses of his. She wanted to know what the coney’s kiss was. She wanted everything he could give her.

So why cut off her nose to spite her face?

“I’d like to wear a dinner gown tonight, rather than my traveling dress,” she said to Elsie, her maid.

Elsie looked a little panicked. “It’ll show the creases,” she objected. “And I haven’t time to press it before you’re expected downstairs.”

“I didn’t think of that,” Annabel said.

“We’ll be at the castle tomorrow,” Elsie said. “And then—”

“The
castle
?”

Elsie nodded. “Yes, we should be there tomorrow, and then I’ll have everything washed and ironed in a moment. The dust that’s got into the trunk from this trip, well, you simply wouldn’t believe it, my lady. The top layer of clothing is quite brown with dust, and never mind all that paper I . . .”

Annabel wasn’t listening. Her husband lived in a castle. Her husband rode in a coach with four outriders. Her husband . . . her husband didn’t sound like an improvident, penniless Scot like her feckless father. Her husband was something altogether different.

She almost felt ashamed at the rush of pure joy she felt. Shouldn’t it matter less to her that Ewan was rich?

She shook the thought away. Just because she might marry a man who believed in God didn’t mean that she had to start worrying about her soul right and left. She’d never thought of such a thing while in England, and she wasn’t going to turn into a Puritan just because she married one.

But she walked down the stairs with a singing heart, wearing her durable traveling dress of brown that didn’t show the dust or an inch of her bosom either.

He was waiting for her in their dining room. “The innkeeper has opened a bottle of an excellent claret,” he told her, giving her a glass.

“Thank you,” she murmured, looking at him as she sipped. Of course he was a rich man. It spoke in every movement he made, in the gleam of his boots, in the casual way in which he trusted Mac to handle everything, in the very beauty of his horses. In his castle.

“So tell me about your home,” she said, sitting down by the fire. Spring was just coming to Scotland, this far up, even though it was now nearing June.

“It’s an old pile of stones,” he said easily, sitting down opposite her. “It’s been in my family for ages. Luckily for all of us, my great-grandfather was a bad-tempered old fellow who stayed put when Prince Charles summoned the clans. Apparently he said that he didn’t give a damn who was on the throne, and a Hanoverian would be as witless as a Stuart. If you wished to make some changes, I’d be glad. No one’s touched the furniture since my mother died, and that’s over twenty years ago now. My grandmother’s not a very domestic type of woman.”

She was skilled at asking questions with her eyes by now.

“She likes to be out and about. Nana’s not the type to sit around the house and think about furnishings. She spends most of her day visiting the cottages.” And then, when she raised an eyebrow: “Quite a few people live and work on my land. They’re the cottagers and crofters, or so we call them. And Nana runs about interfering with their lives and generally making herself a nuisance, but I believe they like her, for all that. She’s very good at birthing babies.”

Annabel imagined a sweet-faced Scottish grandmother, bringing everyone jars of homemade jelly and strengthening broth. “She sounds like a lovely person,” she said. “You were very lucky to have her when your parents died.”

“I was lucky,” Ewan agreed. “Although I’m not quite certain most people would describe her as lovely. She’s—well. She’s just Nana.”

The claret was sliding down her throat and burning a path as it went, urging her to be reckless and brave . . .

“I have a question,” she said, putting down her empty glass. “What are you most afraid of in the world?”

“A facer,” he murmured, filling her glass again. “A true question. And if I say
nothing
, as you said you had no faults?”

She shrugged.

“Honesty, then. I’m most afraid of losing my soul,” he said. “’Tis easily said, and I hope, easily prevented. And the fear of it certainly doesn’t keep me up at night.”

“What could cause you to lose your soul?” she asked, frowning. She was starting to think that perhaps a more thorough education in the religious doctrine might be helpful in making her way through this marriage.

“Only a terrible fault,” he said, smiling at her. “I shouldn’t lose it for lust, for example.” His eyes lingered on her, and Annabel knew suddenly that it didn’t matter whether she wore her old traveling gown or a burlap sack. Ewan wanted her. He
lusted
for her.

“Then?” she prompted.

“Oh, something terrible,” he said lightly. “I’m telling you, lass, I don’t worry about it. Perhaps adultery. So the marvelous thing is that by marrying you, I’m saving my immortal soul.” He rose and brought her to her feet. “For I could never sleep with another woman after you, Annabel,” he said. His mouth was so close to hers that their breath mingled.