Secrets of a Summer Night (Wallflowers #1)(25)

Her mind swam with feverish thoughts, and she stood motionless and taut-framed, until a quiet voice nearly startled her out of her slippers.

“Interesting. What were you and Lord Hodgeham arguing about?”

Blanching, Annabelle whirled around to behold Simon Hunt, who had approached her with catlike quietness. His shoulders blocked the profusion of glittering light from the drawing room. In his utter self-possession, he seemed infinitely more threatening than Hodgeham.

“What did you hear?” Annabelle blurted out, cursing inwardly as she heard the defensiveness in her own voice.

“Nothing,” he said smoothly. “I merely saw your face as the two of you talked. Obviously, you were upset about something.”

“I was not upset. You misinterpreted my expression, Mr. Hunt.”

He shook his head, and stunned her by reaching out with a single fingertip to touch the upper part of her arm that was not covered by her glove. “You turn splotchy when you’re angry.” Looking down, Annabelle saw a pale pink patch of color, a sign of her skin’s wont to color unevenly during times of distress.

A quiver ran through her at that glancing brush of his fingertip, and she stepped back from him.

“Are you in trouble, Annabelle?” Hunt asked softly.

He had no right to ask something in that gentle, almost concerned manner…as if he was someone she could turn to for help…as if she could ever allow herself to do so.

“You would like that, wouldn’t you?” she retorted. “Any predicament of mine would delight you to no end—then you could step in with an offer of help and take advantage of the situation.”

His eyes were narrow and intent. “What kind of help do you need?”

“Nothing from you,” she assured him curtly. “And don’t use my first name. I’ll thank you to address me properly from now on—or better yet, don’t speak to me at all.” Unable to bear his speculative gaze for another moment, she swept past him. “Now if you’ll excuse me…I must go find my mother.”

Lowering herself to the chair beside the vanity table, Philippa stared at Annabelle with an ashen face. Annabelle had waited until they were safely enclosed in the privacy of their room before she had told Philippa the disastrous news. It seemed to take her mother a full minute to assimilate the information that the man whom she detested and feared most was a guest at Stony Cross Park. Annabelle had half expected her mother to dissolve into tears, but Philippa surprised her by tilting her head to the side and staring into the shadowy corner of the room with an odd, weary smile. It was a smile that Annabelle had never seen on her face before, a whimsical bitterness that indicated there was never any use in trying to improve one’s situation, as fate would invariably have its way.

“Shall we leave Stony Cross Park?” Annabelle murmured. “We can go back to London immediately.”

The question hovered in the air for what seemed to be minutes. When Philippa responded, she sounded dazed and contemplative. “If we did that, there would be no hope at all of your marrying. No…our only choice is to see this through. We are going to walk with Lord Kendall tomorrow morning—I won’t allow Hodgeham to ruin your chances with him.”

“He will be a constant source of trouble,” Annabelle said quietly. “If we don’t go back to town, it will turn into a nightmare here.”

Philippa turned toward her then, still smiling in that discomforting way. “My dear, if you don’t find someone to marry, then when we return to London, the real nightmare will begin.”

CHAPTER 8

Bedeviled by worry, Annabelle slept for a total of two, perhaps three hours. When she awoke in the morning, her eyes were shadowed, and her face was pale and weary. “Hell’s bells,” she muttered, soaking a cloth in cold water and pressing it to her face. “This will not do. I look a hundred years old this morning.”

“What did you say, dear?” came her mother’s sleepy query. Philippa was standing behind her, dressed in a worn robe and threadbare slippers.

“Nothing, Mama. I was talking to myself.” Annabelle scrubbed her face roughly to bring some color to her cheeks. “I didn’t sleep well last night.”

Coming beside Annabelle, Philippa regarded her closely. “You do look a bit tired. I’ll send for some tea.”

“Send for a large pot,” Annabelle said. Peering closely at her red-veined eyes in the looking glass, she added, “Two pots.”

Philippa smiled sympathetically. “What shall we wear for our walk with Lord Kendall?”

Annabelle wrung out the cloth before draping it on the washstand. “Our older gowns, I think, as it may be rather muddy on some of the forest paths. But we can cover them with the new silk shawls from Lillian and Daisy.”

After downing a cup of steaming tea and taking a few hasty bites of cold toast that a maid had brought from downstairs, Annabelle finished dressing. She studied herself critically in the looking glass. The blue silk shawl knotted over her bodice did much to conceal the worn bodice of the biscuit-colored gown beneath. And her new bonnet, also from the Bowmans, was wonderfully flattering, its periwinkle-shaded lining bringing out the blue of her eyes.

Yawning widely, Annabelle went with Philippa to the back terrace of the manor. The hour was early enough that most of the guests at Stony Cross Park were still abed. Only a few gentlemen who were bent on trout fishing had troubled themselves to arise. A small group of men ate breakfast at the outside tables, while servants awaited nearby with rods and creel baskets. The peaceful scene was undercut with an annoying clamor that was most unexpected for this hour.