“I had hoped to spend some time alone with you,” he said. “I had hoped to become better acquainted with you, Annabelle.”
She darted him a glance. Josh laughed merrily behind them and Christobel shrieked and giggled. “There is another way back,” she said quickly, “over the hill. It is shorter but not as easy as this route.”
“We will allow the others to pass us, then,” he said, slowing his horse and drawing it to one side of the path so that within a minute they were at the back of the group.
“Annabelle is going to show me the difficult route home,” he told Robin and Pamela.
And then they were riding off through widely spaced trees, the voices of their companions disappearing off to their left.
“This goes uphill?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “There is a splendid view from the top.”
They rode in near silence until they came to the crest of the hill. As Annabelle had promised, there was a view down all four sides so that they could see the house and the lake off to one side of them, the river and Winwood Abbey to the other. Lord Wetherby directed his gaze to the lake and tried to pick out the little pieces of wilderness where he had stood with Rosamund the day before.
But, no, he would turn his mind from such thoughts. “Shall we get down for a while?” he suggested. “The wind seems to have died down considerably.”
He tethered their horses to a tree and they stood looking about them.
“What is it?” he asked, turning to her at last. The tension in her was almost a tangible thing. “Has something happened?”
“No,” she said.
He smiled gently at her. “We both know that your father has approved my suit and that I will be making you a formal offer within the next few days,” he said. “You probably know that your grandfather hopes to announce our betrothal on his birthday, at the ball. Does the thought disturb you? Would you rather it not be so soon? Or not at all?”
“It was first suggested when I was nine years old,” she said. “It would be strange if I were not ready for it, my lord.”
“Would you rather it had not been so arranged?” he asked.
“No,” she said, “I am content.”
“Content,” he said with a smile. “Yet you will not even call me by my name.”
“I will if you insist,” she said. “But it is difficult. You were twenty years old when we first met. You seemed years and years beyond me, a very grand gentleman.”
“Did I?” he said. “And doubtless I did nothing to make you feel more at ease. Twenty-year-olds do not always feel a great deal of respect for nine-year-olds. Is that the whole problem? Do I still seem like an elderly gentleman to you?”
“No, of course not,” she said. “And there is no problem.”
He set his hands on her shoulders and looked down into her eyes. It was rather like looking at a stone wall, he thought. What was behind her eyes had been carefully shut off.
“It would be desirable for us to become comfortable with each other, wouldn’t it?” he said. “We should try to be friends before I ask you to be my wife, don’t you think?”
She did not look away from his eyes. He saw her swallow and knew that she did so quite painfully.
“Kiss me,” she said suddenly. “Please kiss me . . . Justin.”
He hesitated. The stone wall behind her eyes had become pain. He lowered his head and kissed her slowly, his lips gentle and closed. Her own were clamped together in a rigid line.
“You don’t have to be afraid of me,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you, Annabelle, and I will never demand more than you are prepared to give.”
For answer she threw her arms up about his neck. “I am not afraid,” she said. “I want to kiss you.”
When he lowered his head again, she kissed him back with fierce passion, pressing closed lips against his own, thrusting her bosom against him, half-strangling him with her arms. He held her and gentled her, and rocked her against him afterward, her head against his shoulder.
Who was the man? he wondered. Someone she had met in London during the Season the year before? But he had not noticed or heard of anyone in particular. Someone at Brookfield? Unlikely. All the other house guests were her relatives, though some of them were of no very close relationship.
Most likely it was some poor ineligible soul from her own home. Though even an eligible gentleman would be beyond her grasp when she felt she had a nine-year-old “arrangement” to be honored.
