A Matter of Class (6 page)

Annabelle's nostrils flared and she glared. He looked politely back at her as though he had asked her if she would like some tea.

From beyond the door into the music room there was a male throat-clearing followed by a female murmuring. And then silence.

Well, two could play his game. Her eyes narrowed.

“I understand, Mr. Mason,” she said, “that you are
extravagant
.”

His eyebrows, which had returned to their normal place above his eyes a few moments ago, arched upward again.

“It is a deadly sin indeed,” he said, “and I am guilty as charged.”

“I have heard,” she said, “that you need a whole
extra
room
for all your clothes since your dressing room is not large enough to accommodate them all. And that your gambling debts are high enough to finance a small country for a decade. Are you weak-willed by nature? And irresponsible? And foppish?”

There was a distinct male chuckle from the next room followed by a female shushing and silence.

He stared long and hard at her, his lips pursed.

“How small a country are we talking about here?” he asked. “I fear your informant may be prone to exaggeration—which is really quite unusual for a gossip.
Half
a decade may be more accurate. Perhaps three-quarters. But should we reserve the insults for later, after we are married? Our parents must be waiting with some anxiety to hear the outcome of this
private
encounter.”

“I beg your pardon,” she said haughtily, lifting her chin and looking at him along the length of her nose, “but is it not premature to refer to the time
after we are married
? I have not heard you offer me marriage yet. And I certainly have not accepted that offer.”

“But you will,” he said. “Hear my offer and accept it, that is. You really have no choice, do you? Till is probably halfway across the American Wild West by now and still running.”

“I have exactly as much choice as you,” she said. “A man's debtors can become rather nasty, I have heard, when his father is not forthcoming with the funds to pay them.”

He nodded slowly for a few silent moments.

“Touché,” he said. “Ours is sure to be a match made in heaven, I see. We will doubtless live happily ever after. Is there another cliché to better describe the bliss of our future union?”

“A love to outlast all loves?” she suggested. “A melding of souls for all eternity?”

“There is no need to exaggerate,” he said crisply, and he came striding toward her across the room until he was only a foot or so away.

Annabelle had to tip back her head slightly to look into his face. She could smell his cologne, feel his body heat. She swallowed and then wished she had not. The sound of it seemed to fill the room.

He seemed very large and . . .
virile
.

“Tell me, Lady Annabelle,” he said, “do you still have tender feelings for Till?”

She narrowed her eyes at him again.

“I do,” she said, “And tell me, Mr. Mason, do you need all those clothes you purchased?”

“I do,” he said, one corner of his mouth lifting in a
mocking smile. “Especially the boots. Ten pairs in the last ten weeks if memory serves me correctly, each more fashionable than the last. You look more becoming with color in your cheeks and light in your eyes. You looked like a ghost when I arrived with my parents.”

Was
that
why he had been so obnoxious? To bring a flush to her cheeks and a spark to her eyes?

And then his voice dropped so low that she scarcely heard what he said.

“Do you suppose they can see as well as hear?”

“Possibly,” she said just as softly.

He pursed his lips again.

“We will proceed to business, then,” he said, his voice at normal volume again and brisk and businesslike.

He took her right hand in his—which was warm in contrast with her own—and he . . .

Oh, yes, he really did. He went down on one knee before her.

“Lady Annabelle,” he said, looking up at her, his very dark eyes soulful, almost worshipful, and surely many fathoms deep, “will you do me the great honor of marrying me and making me the happiest of men?”

She could not stop herself from feeling a great welling of emotion. She had always dreamed of such a
moment. What woman did not? And here it was. But it was a
public
moment even though their parents were hidden from sight, and this was all a charade, performed for their benefit.

“I will,” she said. And she said it softly, for him only. If they wanted to hear it in the music room, let them strain their ears.

He lifted her hand to his lips, and she felt the pressure of them against her fingers and the warmth of his breath against the back of her hand. There was a soreness in her throat as she fought—foolishly—against the tears that threatened.

This was not right. This was
really
not right.

Which was probably the understatement of the century.

And yet . . . Oh, and yet . . .

He did not even have time to look up or get to his feet before the music room door opened fully and their parents surged back into the drawing room, Papa looking stern and perhaps relieved, Mr. Mason smiling broadly and rubbing his hands together, Mrs. Mason smiling happily, and Mama's eyes glistening with unshed tears—though she was smiling too.

Her answer must have been audible after all, Annabelle thought a moment before Mr. Mason grasped the hand of his son, now back on his feet, and pumped it heartily up and down, while Mrs. Mason folded Annabelle to her ample bosom.

“My dear Lady Annabelle,” she said, “I have always dreamed of having a daughter, though nature denied me any other child but Reginald. And now I am to have one after all. No daughter will ever have been welcomed into a family more warmly than you will be into ours. Oh, except by your mama, that is. I am sure
she
has always made a fuss of you. You were always as pretty as a picture, even as a very little girl. Oh, my dear, I am so
happy
I could weep. And you will be happy too, mark my words, even if you may doubt it now. Reginald has been somewhat wild lately, but he has always been a good-hearted, affectionate boy.”

And then Annabelle found herself being folded to the large chest of her future father-in-law and kissed noisily on one cheek and called daughter.

Finally her mother hugged her tightly and wordlessly.

Her father was standing before the fireplace again as if he had not moved since the sound of carriage wheels
outside in the square had announced the arrival of the Masons.

“The betrothal announcement will be in tomorrow's papers, and the first banns will be called at St. George's on Sunday,” he said when everyone else had stopped hugging and kissing and laughing—those last two activities exclusive to the elder Masons. “On Monday there will be a betrothal ball here. Everyone will come, curiosity being the dominant characteristic of the
ton
. You will be saved from ruin, Annabelle, and you, Mason, will be elevated in rank by your marriage. Everyone will be satisfied that justice has been done and respectability preserved, and in one month's time, after your nuptials, you may live together for the rest of your lives as best you may.”

No mention of the fact that his own financial ruin had just been averted.

“Happily ever after, I am sure,” Mrs. Mason said, beaming.

“The Masons have always enjoyed long, grand marriages,” Mr. Mason said, rubbing his hands in what Annabelle realized was a habitual gesture when he was pleased. “We know a thing or two about loving, eh, Sadie?”

“I am quite sure, William,” Mama said with quiet dignity, “Annabelle and Mr. Reginald Mason
will
make the best of their marriage. I am hopeful that they will.”

“Hope costs nothing,” Papa said.

And all the while Reginald Mason stood a few feet from Annabelle and said not a word. Neither did she. He was looking at her with steady, unreadable eyes. She glanced at him but could not hold his gaze.

She should perhaps be smiling. But everything in her wanted to weep. She was not quite sure why.

She glanced at her betrothed again. Her
betrothed
. He looked back but said nothing.

She was going to be Lady Annabelle Mason.

Mrs. Reginald Mason.

It had all been accomplished in a twenty-four-hour period.

All sewn up right and tight.

T
he youth sprawled on the bank of the river was sucking on a blade of grass. He was feeling relaxed and sleepy in the heat of the summer sun. He half listened to the song of some unidentified bird hidden in the trees behind him and gazed up with half-closed eyes at the few small, fluffy white clouds that were scudding across the sky, blown by a wind that did not reach the ground.

A slight breeze would feel rather pleasant, but he would not move into the shade. He liked being just here.

It had been a favorite haunt of his as a child, even though technically he had been trespassing here, as he was now. It was Oakridge land. Why it should have always been more attractive to him than the land on the other side of the river a mere few yards away he did not know. Or perhaps he did. The other side belonged to his father. There was not that titillating feeling of danger there.

And of course the old oak tree was on this side.

He turned his head to look at it. It still looked rather impressive even through his fifteen-year-old eyes: large and solid and ancient. It had been a child's paradise. He had climbed it nimbly and endlessly as a boy—once he had conquered his fear of heights, that is. He had often sat in its branches, weaving imaginative tales in which he was a pirate or a highwayman or Robin Hood or a knight on the ramparts of his castle, the moat below and a horde of fierce barbarian attackers massed on his father's side of the water.

He had always ended up diving into the river, for he had never quite overcome his terror of climbing
down
the tree.

Besides, diving was a thrilling, dangerous thing to do.

It was a long time since he was last here. He had come for a few years, even after he went away to school, but for some unremembered reason he had stopped, and then he had forgotten all about this place. Until today, that was, when he had been wandering aimlessly about the perimeter of his father's park.

Actually it was quite rare for him to be at home. He was away at school most of the time, and during holidays he was often invited to spend a few weeks with school friends at their country homes. And his parents—his fa ther anyway—liked to travel and took him all over the British Isles during his holidays—and even to Europe when a lull in the wars allowed foreign travel.

It felt good to be home.

He dozed off for a minute or two, but it was not a deep sleep. He was aware of the world around him at the same time as he floated pleasantly on the surface of a fuzzy slumber. He heard the horse approaching.

He woke up fully and opened his eyes.

What now? Should he lie quietly here and hope horse and rider would pass on by without seeing him, as would probably happen? Or should he make a dive for the river and the safety of his own side of it?

That latter course of action would have been a great indignity even to his childhood self. It was unthinkable to his almost-adult pride. Besides, he was fully clothed, having crossed the river higher up, where it was narrower and there were enough large stones embedded in it to form a precarious sort of bridge.

He stayed where he was and relaxed into what he hoped would look like nonchalance if he
was
caught.

The horse drew closer, and closer yet. And then stopped.

Drat it, he had been spotted.

Reggie sucked on his grass stem and gazed up into the branches of the tree as though he were deaf.

“Oh,” a female voice said, sounding both surprised and delighted. “Hello.”

He knew immediately who she was, and it came to him in a rush that he had stopped coming here when
she
had. She had not been caught here with him—a disaster that would have had dire consequences for both of them—but she
had
been caught farther from the house than she was allowed to go alone, even though she must have been six or seven at the time. She had been more carefully guarded after that.

They had been childhood friends. They had not met often, it was true, but they
had
met. At first he had barely tolerated her but had insulted and teased and scowled at her. It had seemed beneath his eight-year-old dignity, after all, to have a five-year-old
girl
as a friend. But she had been a plucky, cheerful little thing—and a daring one too. Though she had never dived into the river, purely for the reason that she would get her hair wet and so betray her truancy when she returned home, she
had
climbed both up and down the oak tree and joined in all his games. She had steadfastly refused to be a damsel in distress, though. She had been his right-hand man in all his exploits. She had sometimes demanded that
he
be
her
right-hand man, but she had never won those battles. He had taught her to fish, and she had had a knack for catching them. Her gender had always betrayed her when she reeled them in, though. She had always detached the hook with swift tenderness and placed the fish gently back in the water. When he had jeered at her, she had stuck out her tongue at him and crossed her eyes.

He sat up now and turned toward her.

“You have managed to escape all your nurses?” he asked with contempt in his voice.