“You will excuse us, Wetherby?” the marquess asked.
“I shall enjoy listening to the music,” the earl said. “Lady Hunter has a great deal of talent.”
“It would have been far better to come up here tomorrow morning when there would be daylight coming through the windows,” Annabelle was saying to Lord Beresford as they stood in the gallery, holding up a branch of candles to the portrait of his grandfather, the Marquess of Gilford’s brother.
“Not at all,” he said. “Candlelight brings out the richness of a canvas.”
“And you knew where the painting was,” she said. “You did not need me to show it to you, Joshua.”
“Ah,” he said, “but if your brain is working, Annabelle, as I believe it is, you will know full well that visiting the gallery and gazing at the portrait were only excuses for getting you to myself for a while.”
She stiffened. “I want to go back downstairs,” she said.
“I have been doing you an injustice,” he said. “For several years, perhaps. I have been thinking of you as a child when you have been a woman for some time. You made me aware of it yesterday with a stinging slap across the face that I can still feel.”
“I know you meant nothing,” she said. “Let’s go back downstairs.”
He set down the candles on a table and looked about him. “Let’s sit in one of the windows and talk awhile, shall we?” he suggested.
Annabelle clasped her upper arms in a defensive gesture. “Talk about what?” she asked.
“About Annabelle,” he said. “About Annabelle the woman. I only ever knew Annabelle the child, and I was always extremely fond of her.”
“You were always horrid to me,” she said.
“Yes, wasn’t I?” He grinned. “But, you see, I have only ever been horrid to people I liked—if you exclude Bonaparte’s troops, that is. I have always ignored those I don’t. Come and sit down.” He gestured toward one of the windows and the padded seat that formed its sill.
Annabelle looked at the seat for a few moments before moving toward it. “Mama will be wondering where I am,” she said.
“Then Justin will be able to tell her you are with me,” he said. “Safe with your second cousin.”
She sat down, her back straight, her feet together, her hands clasped in her lap.
“Have you forgiven me?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Well, that was easy, at least,” he said. “What has it been like knowing for half your life who your future husband was to be?”
“I trust Grandmama’s judgment,” she said, “and Mama’s and Papa’s.”
“Do you like Justin?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Do you love him?”
“Love is something that grows,” she said. “I shall do my best to show Lord Wetherby affection when we are married, and I believe he will do the same toward me.”
“Yes,” he said, “you are probably right. You are going to accept him, then, Annabelle? You have no doubts?”
“Of course not,” she said.
“There has never been anyone else?”
She darted him a look before returning her gaze to her hands. “I am only eighteen,” she said.
“But as someone recently reminded me,” he said, “girls grow up far faster than boys. Has there ever been anyone?”
