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“I won’t ask you why Annabel, because that is a question that I’ll leave to her.” Lenora waved out her handkerchief, returned it to her reticule, and turned to face him. While she wasn’t smiling, she wasn’t frowning, which he took to be a good sign. “My sister has been planning her wedding day since she was five years old. Maybe that’s long enough. I will expect you at Clarenmore Park at seven o’clock sharp, Lord Whitmore.”
His shoulder sagged. “Yes, Your Grace.”
“Aside from my husband, whom I do not keep secrets from, I am not going to tell anyone of what I found here, Lord Whitmore. I trust that you will also be discreet, and are cognizant of what can happen to a lady’s reputation if it’s discovered that she has dallied with a gentleman outside of the bounds of marriage.”
“I would never say anything that would ever cause Annabel harm.”
“No,” she said, studying him closely, “I don’t believe you would. Be that as it may, if youdoend up hurting my sister, you won’t have to wait for the Duke of Monmouth to shoot you. I’ll do it myself. Good day, Lord Whitmore. It has been…interesting.”
“What did he sayto you?” Annabel demanded the instant Lenora emerged from the parlor. “What did you say to him?”
“Not here,” her sister said in an infuriatingly cryptic tone. “I rode Star, but she’s too slight of bone to carry both of us. We’ll have to walk her back to Clarenmore. Come along, Annabel. You can show me the path you took last night when you crept away from home and risked our family name, along with any chance Eloise might have at finding a suitable match.”
Her cheeks suffusing with color, Annabel bowed her head and followed Lenora out the door and across the field with Star, a pretty bay mare with a white marking in the middle of her forehead, walking between them.
“I’m sorry,” she said right before they reached the woods. “I did travel to Broadwin House with the best of objectives, but I was…distracted. Then I fell asleep, as did Ezra, and–”
“This time,” Lenora said wryly, “you can leave out the details. I have the gist, and Lord Whitmore has promised his discretion. If you wish, that will be the end of it.”
She ducked her head below Star’s neck to stare at her sister. “What do you mean, if I wish? Thatwasthe end of it. We’re not…we’re not going to have an affair.”
“I should hope not. You can discuss any future plans you and Lord Whitmore may or may not have tonight, when he joins us for dinner.”
“You invited himagain?” Annabel yelped.
“To the best of my knowledge, I never revoked his invitation.”
“But…but…”
“Lord Whitmore has shared his intentions with me, and I find them to be noble.”
“What plans?” she said warily.
Lenora adjusted her grip on the reins. “He would like to pursue a courtship.”
It was a good thing that Annabel was looking where she was going, or else she would have run smack into a tree. “A courtship? He wants tocourtme?”
“You enjoyed his company enough last night to throw every caution to the wind, and yet now you sound surprised at the prospect of a traditional, approved means by which to spend time together,” Lenora mused. “Interesting.”
“It’s not interesting! It’s…it’s…wrong.” She stopped. Put her hands on her hips. “I don’t want to do it. And I don’t want him to come tonight! How many times do I have to say it? Your insistence that he attend the dinner party was what led to my perilous actions in the first place! Had he not been invited, I never would have gone to his house to begin with.”
Lenora’s eyebrows rose. “Then it’smyfault you spent the night with him?”
“No. It’s just…you’re trying to push us together, and I don’t care for it.”
“I have invited several eligible bachelors to dinner. Am I trying to push you together with them?”
“Well, no, but–”
“What is it, Annie?” Empathy soaked into Lenora’s voice as she tied Star to a nearby branch and placed her hands on Annabel’s shoulders, drawing them close together amidst the snow and the trees. “You’ve been acting strangely since you and Lord Whitmore first met. On paper, he is all you’ve ever said that you wanted. A dashing earl to sweep you off your feet. Do you find him that intolerable? Has he mistreated you in any way?”
“It’s not that.” When the tears came, pin sharp and completely unexpected, Annabel used the hem of her cloak to wipe them away. “He has been kind to me. Gentle. Protective. I…I do like him. I am certainly attracted to him.”
“Then what is the matter, sweetling?”
“We’ve had to say goodbye to so many people that we’ve loved. Mother. Father. James. Even if he isn’t dead, he’s nothere. He’s not with us.” Her throat felt dry, as if it were coated in sand, which only made the tears come faster. “I don’t want to love someone else that it will hurt to lose.”
“Oh, Annie.” With tears of her own, Lenora wrapped her arms around Annabel and hugged her tight. “That’s the good and the bad part about love. It’s frightening, to give such a large part of your heart to another. But it’s also the only way that your heart can grow.”
