Lord Beresford found her there.
“Have you been banished from the ballroom?” he asked. “Getting under everyone’s feet, were you?”
“Just like a naughty child?” she said. “No, of course not, Joshua. I need some fresh air.”
“Yes,” he said, “and something to cool off those cheeks. They have been on fire for almost three days. Come walking with me.” He held out a hand for hers.
“I must go inside soon,” she said.
“Why?” he asked. “Does it take you five hours to get ready for a dinner and ball?”
“Joshua,” she said, and looked helpless suddenly.
He took her hand and held it in a warm clasp. “Come walking with me,” he said. “We’ll stroll to the lake.”
“That’s a whole mile,” she said. “I must not be long.”
But she moved along at his side and glanced nervously at him a few times. He was strangely silent, strangely serious.
“I want to know,” he said when they were some distance from the house and wandering among the trees, “what you meant when you said you would have died if I had died.”
“Did I say that?” she asked brightly. “We were all very upset, Joshua. Grandmama scarce stopped crying for days. It was the not knowing, you see, the thinking that perhaps you had been dead for days or even weeks and we did not know it.”
“You were not talking about everyone,” he said. “You said that you would have died.”
“It is a way of speaking,” she said. “I meant I would have been upset.”
“Would you?” he asked. “Why?”
“You are my cousin,” she said.
“Second cousin.”
“Second cousin,” she said.
“Annabelle,” he said, “tell me what you meant.”
“Nothing,” she said. “I did not mean anything, Joshua.”
“Didn’t you?” He turned her to face him suddenly and backed her two steps against a tree. “Your betrothal is to be publicly announced tonight, isn’t it? And the notices sent to the London papers tomorrow? This is very definitely your last chance.”
“My last chance for what?” she asked him.
He looked down at her in exasperation and set a hand against the tree trunk beside her head. “I’ve always been fond of you,” he said, “fonder than of any of my other cousins. I have often thought that my great-aunt might have chosen me for you rather than Justin. But I suppose it’s only this week that these feelings have crystallized—now, when it’s too late, or almost too late, anyway.”
“I’ve got to go back, Joshua,” she said.
“I don’t want you to make a mistake,” he said. “I want you to be happy.”
“I am happy,” she said. “I have said that I will marry Justin, and I am happy.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
“Why are you so uncomfortable and so unhappy here with me, then?” he asked.
“I don’t like to be so alone with you,” she said. “I don’t like you so close.”
