Secrets of a Summer Night (Wallflowers #1)(58)

“How often do you visit the site?” Annabelle asked, taking a bite of pheasant cutlet dressed with a creamy watercress sauce.

“Daily, when I’m in town.” Hunt contemplated the contents of his wineglass with a slight frown. “I’ve stayed away for too long, actually—I’ll have to go to London soon, to check on progress.”

The idea that he would soon leave Hampshire should have made Annabelle glad. Simon Hunt was a distraction that she could ill afford, and it would be far easier to focus her attentions on Lord Kendall when Hunt had quit the estate altogether. However, she felt strangely hollow, realizing how much she enjoyed his company and how lifeless Stony Cross Park would seem once he had gone.

“Will you come back before the party ends?” she asked, devoting great concentration to mincing a morsel of pheasant with her knife.

“That depends.”

“On what?”

His voice was very soft. “On whether I have sufficient reason to return.”

Annabelle did not look at him. Rather, she lapsed into a restless silence and turned her unseeing gaze to the window aperture, through which the luxuriant melody of Schubert’s Rosamunde poured.

Eventually there came a discreet rap at the door, and a footman came in to remove the plates. Keeping her face averted, Annabelle wondered if the news that she had dined in private with Simon Hunt would soon be spread through the servants’ hall. However, after the footman left, Hunt spoke reassuringly, seeming to have read her thoughts. “He won’t say a word to anyone. Westcliff recommended him for his ability to keep his mouth shut about confidential matters.”

Annabelle gave him a worried glance. “Then…the earl knows that you and I are…but I am certain that he must not approve!”

“I’ve done many things Westcliff doesn’t approve of,” Simon returned evenly. “And I don’t always approve of his decisions. However, in the interest of maintaining a profitable friendship, we don’t generally cross each other.” Standing, he rested his palms on the table and leaned forward, his shadow covering her. “What about a game of chess? I had a board brought up…just in case.”

Annabelle nodded. As she stared into his warm black eyes, she reflected that this was perhaps the first evening of her adult life in which she was wholly happy to be exactly where she was. With this man. She felt the most intense curiosity about him, a real need to discover the thoughts and feelings buried beneath his exterior.

“Where did you learn to play chess?” she asked, watching the movements of his hands as he set the pieces in their previous formations.

“From my father.”

“Your father?”

One corner of his mouth lifted in mocking half smile. “Can’t a butcher play chess?”

“Of course, I…” Annabelle felt a hot blush sweep over her face. She was mortified by her tactlessness. “I’m sorry.”

Hunt’s slight smile lingered as he studied her. “You seem to have a mistaken impression of my family. The Hunts are solidly middle-class. My brothers and sisters and I all attended school. Now my father employs my brothers, who also live over the shop. And in the evenings they often play chess.”

Relaxing at the absence of censure in his voice, Annabelle picked up a pawn and rolled it between her fingers. “Why didn’t you choose to work for your father, as your brothers did?”

“I was a stubborn hellion in my youth,” Hunt admitted with a grin. “Whenever my father told me to do something, I always tried to prove him wrong.”

“And what was his response?” Annabelle asked, her eyes twinkling.

“At first he tried to be patient with me. When that didn’t work, he took the opposite tack.” Hunt winced in reminiscence, smiling ruefully. “Trust me, you never want to be thrashed by a butcher—their arms are like tree trunks.”

“I can imagine,” Annabelle murmured, stealing a circumspect glance at the wide expanse of his shoulders and remembering the brawny hardness of his muscles. “Your family must be very proud of your success.”

“Perhaps.” Hunt gave a noncommittal shrug. “Unfortunately, it seems that my ambition has served to distance us. My parents won’t allow me to buy them a house in the West End; nor do they understand why I should choose to live there. Nor does my investing strike them as a suitable profession. They would be happier if I turned to something more…tangible.”

Annabelle regarded him intently, understanding what had remained unspoken in the spare explanation. She had always known that Simon Hunt didn’t belong in the upper-class circles in which he often moved. However, until this moment it had not occurred to her that he was similarly out of place in the world that he had left behind. She wondered if he was occasionally lonely, or if he kept himself far too busy to acknowledge it. “I can think of few things more tangible than a five-ton locomotive engine,” she remarked, in response to his last comment.

He laughed, and reached for the pawn in her hand. But somehow Annabelle couldn’t seem to let go of the ivory piece, and their fingers tangled and held, while their gazes locked intimately. She was shocked by the radiant warmth that flooded from her hand to her shoulder, then diffused through her entire body. It was like being drunk on sunlight, heat spilling in streams of sensation, and along with the pleasure came the sudden, alarming pressure behind her eyes that heralded tears.