Nicola Cornick (7 page)

‘I fear I must decline, ma’am,’ Sir William’s lazy drawl was as unperturbed as ever. ‘I must escort Mrs St Auby back to town shortly.’

‘But can you not send her back in the carriage?’ Miss Hurst made her sound like an unwanted parcel, Annabella thought. ‘Surely the wretched girl—’ She broke off as Caroline and Annabella came into view, and bent a false, dazzling smile on them.

‘La, we were just saying that the carriage must be called to take you home, Mrs St Auby—’

‘But then I insisted on the pleasure of escorting you myself, ma’am!’ Sir William finished, without a flicker of expression.

Miss Hurst scowled. It was not becoming.

‘You are all goodness, sir,’ Annabella said politely. ‘Do not let me put you to any further trouble, however! It has been a delightful afternoon and I am most grateful to have the use of Viscount Mundell’s carriage—’

‘Lud, yes,’ Miss Hurst said, brightening, ‘a carriage with a crest on! What could be more exciting for Mrs St Auby?’

This time, a smile definitely touched the corners of Sir William’s firm mouth as his gaze rested on Annabella. ‘I insist, ma’am,’ he said, gently.

‘But you must not go yet,’ Marcus Kilgaren said, in his amused drawl. ‘Caro has monopolised you! Come and sit by me, Mrs St Auby, and tell me what you think of Sir William’s team. His cattle are accounted very fine, you know.’

It was some half-hour later that the party finally broke up. Miss Hurst bore an unresisting Viscount Mundell away to play croquet with Caroline Kilgaren,
whilst Marcus offered to escort Miss Mundell on a tour of the hothouses. Caroline had pressed Annabella to stay and join in the game, but Annabella had uncharitably suspected that Miss Hurst would take the opportunity to attack her ankles with the croquet mallet. She declined the offer and Caroline kissed her impulsively on the cheek, and said that she hoped they would meet again soon. Miss Hurst, by contrast, had frowned horribly as she watched Sir William’s curricle set off down the lime tree drive, and had had to be gently recalled to the game by her companions.

T
he following day was fine and bright when Annabella set out with a long list of commissions for Lady St Auby in the town. Her ladyship always sent her daughter-in-law on errands, arguing that she could not spare the maids and that Annabella never earned her keep. It was one of the less onerous of the household duties laid at her door, and today she was particularly light of step and of heart.

She matched a ribbon successfully in the drapers and bought Lady St Auby several pairs of gloves, resisting the impulse to buy herself silk stockings. What use would she have for such fripperies? What she needed was thick woollen ones to keep out the creeping chill of winter at the St Aubys’ Manor! She moved on to the butchers and the grocers, haggling for the cheapest cuts of meat and the damaged vegetables, for she knew Lady St Auby would chide her for over-spending and accuse her of pocketing some of the money herself. On impulse she bought herself an apple and ate it in the street, only to regret it when she turned the corner to see Mrs Eddington-Buck watch
ing her with malevolent eyes from the other side of the street. The apple incident would no doubt be reported to Lady St Auby. Annabella sighed. Sometimes it seemed that all possibility of spontaneity had been crushed out of her life.

A knot of people were coming down the street towards her, chattering and laughing together. With a slight shock, Annabella recognised Viscount Mundell strolling along with Caroline Kilgaren on his arm, Miss Hurst and Sir William following behind and Miss Mundell bringing up the rear. The sight of Miss Hurst’s smiling face upturned to Sir William’s was sufficient to keep Annabella still for a moment and then prompt her to run away. It was too late, however. With a glad cry, Caroline hailed her.

‘Mrs St Auby! What a delightful surprise! We had just called in Fore Street to find you from home, and here you are!’

Mundell took her hand, a broad smile on his face. ‘Delighted to see you again, ma’am! A fine day, is it not! Would you care to join us?’

‘Marcus is at the gunsmith’s—’ Caroline was saying, when Miss Hurst’s whispered aside to Miss Mundell could be heard,

‘She is a novelty in the same way as people will crowd about a freakshow booth…’

Annabella blushed bright red and even Caroline’s voice faltered.

Sir William spoke into the embarrassed silence, his tone expressionless but his blue eyes as cold as ice. ‘And will we see you at the concert tonight, Mrs St Auby?’

‘I…imagine not, sir.’ Annabella pulled herself to
gether. Lady St Auby was tone deaf and detested musical soirees. ‘I believe my mother-in-law has other plans for this evening.’

‘A pity.’ Sir William smiled warmly at her. ‘But perhaps you could join us for a while now?’

Despite the temptation of his company, there was nothing Annabella wanted less at that moment. Miss Hurst’s cold gaze was resting on the bulging contents of her marketing basket and to her horror Annabella could see the oxtails she had just bought lolling out of the corner of the brown paper parcel. She switched the basket to her other arm, out of sight, and gave Sir William a flustered look.

‘You are kind, sir, but I must be getting home. I have a hundred and one matters to attend to! Good day!’

She scurried down the street without a backward look, conscious only of her humiliation. They must think her nothing but a socially inept fool! Oh, Miss Hurst had been unkind, but she had been gauche! Would she never learn? And now they
certainly
would not pay her any further attention!

‘Mundell and his cronies have turned your head, you foolish girl!’ Lady St Auby, a malignant smile on her lips and predatory gleam in her beady eyes, was standing in the stone-flagged corridor of the Taunton house, watching with no little satisfaction as Annabella scrubbed the floor. ‘There, girl—no, not there, you booby—the stain is over on this side—’ and Lady St Auby deliberately smeared the mud over the piece of floor which Annabella had just cleaned.

Two days had passed since Annabella had met the
Viscount and his guests in town and in that time she had heard nothing further from them. Her excitement and confidence in the future, severely dented by the encounter, had waned further as time had passed and the inescapable facts became clear. They had dropped her. She had bored them with her awkwardness and lack of sophistication. Lady St Auby, quick to see Annabella’s unhappiness, had been delighted.

‘It’s as I would have thought,’ she continued spitefully now. ‘You have no graces to recommend you to the Quality. Why, they could see you for the little nobody you are! A man of Mundell’s distinction is not going to want his guests imposed upon by a fortune-hunting adventuress!’

Annabella sighed, biting back the intemperate retort which rose to her lips. Once, long ago, she had answered Lady St Auby in kind when her mother-in-law had indulged in one of her vituperative attacks. The response had been swift. She had not been given any food for several days. The same thing had happened when she had refused to perform the demeaning household tasks which Lady St Auby had demanded. Whilst her mother-in-law did not resort to physical violence as her son had sometimes done, her retribution was just as difficult to bear. And now she was angry and frustrated by the attention that had been shown to Annabella. It was there in her eyes as she looked at her daughter-in-law, a savagery that was just waiting for an opportunity to explode into life.

Annabella wrung out the dirty cloth and reached for the pail of water. At the same time, Lady St Auby leant forward and calmly tipped the bucket over so
the dirty dregs soaked Annabella’s skirt where she knelt on the rough floor.

It was too late for Annabella to avoid the tide of filthy liquid. She leapt to her feet, feeling the water soaking through her kerseymere skirt and the apron she wore on top of it. She lost her balance, stumbling and falling. Lady St Auby cackled with laughter.

The front door opened, although nobody had rung the bell. Lady St Auby froze. All Annabella could see, from her position on the floor in the retreating suds, was a pair of highly polished topboots.

Then: ‘You appear to be in some discomfort, ma’am,’ Sir William Weston said, carefully expressionless. ‘Allow me to help you.’

Her elbow was taken in a very firm grip. As she stumbled to her feet, her skirt dripping and sticking to her legs, Annabella could smell the faint scent of his cologne mingled with the aroma of fresh air that she had always loved. Her gaze fixed itself on his green waistcoat and stayed there. She did not dare to look up into his face. Of all the desperately undignified situations in which to be found…She discovered that she was shaking with mortification. There was no possible way to explain…

‘Sir William…’ Lady St Auby had at least the grace to appear a little abashed. ‘How do you do, sir. We were just—’

She was silenced by one searing flash of those blue eyes. ‘There is no need to say anything, madam. The facts speak for themselves. Mrs St Auby…’ his cold tone softened ‘…I was calling to see if you would be attending the subscription ball this evening—’ He broke off. Annabella had still not been able to look
him in the eye. Now she did look up as his grip tightened on her hand. He was standing, head bent, studying the raw, chapped skin of her fingers where the brush had scoured it. Then he let her go abruptly.

‘Will you come for a drive with me, ma’am?’

‘If you can wait whilst I change, sir—’ Annabella gestured clumsily towards her drenched skirt.

‘Of course…’

They were well clear of the town when Sir William reined in his horses and spoke again, and when he turned to her, Annabella realised that he was still angry. There was a tight set to his mouth and a glitter in his eyes. The butterflies in her stomach fluttered again. Whatever was he going to say to her?

‘Why did you not tell us—?’ he began, then broke off in frustration, slamming one fist into the palm of his other gloved hand. ‘Lady St Auby is unpardonable!’

Annabella fixed her gaze on the middle distance, which consisted of a very pretty millhouse, its wheel turning.

‘I have known you but a couple of days, sir,’ she said carefully, ‘and felt disinclined to confide my domestic arrangements to a group of strangers!’

The stormy blue gaze held her own eyes. ‘That is ungenerous of you, ma’am! Have we not given you every indication that we would all stand your friends?’

Annabella looked away unhappily. ‘Indeed, sir, but…’ She turned back to him and said in a rush, ‘Your very friendship is the goad which makes Lady St Auby worse! She cannot bear that Mundell’s set recognise me when she has always been below his
notice! It has always been a thorn in her flesh that I am Alicia’s sister and the Countess of Stansfield’s granddaughter. Before you all arrived in Taunton it did not matter, but now…’

Sir William’s eyes had narrowed with concentration and now he nodded slowly. ‘I see. Then you do not pretend that what I witnessed this morning was an accident?’

‘I collect you mean with the pail of water?’ Annabella was a truthful girl and just now it was making her uncomfortable. ‘No, I cannot pretend…Oh, she means no real harm—’

‘No harm!’ The words exploded from Sir William with all the wrath he would have preferred to visit upon Lady St Auby’s head. It was extraordinary, Annabella thought, that the placid exterior she had seen at the ball could conceal such a depth of feeling. She managed a watery smile.

‘No, truly, sir…She is unkind and malicious, but she does me no real harm!’

‘No,’ Sir William said through his teeth, ‘she simply makes you scrub her floors and no doubt a hundred other menial tasks besides!’

‘Well, I am the poor relation—’

‘Will you stop being so humble!’

They sat staring at each other. Then Sir William seemed to shake himself out of his bad temper. He gave her a slight smile.

‘I beg your pardon, ma’am. I have been most uncivil to you.’ He gave the horses the office to move off again. ‘We must—’ He stopped and started again. ‘If I could arrange for you to stay at Mundell until
you go to visit Alicia, would you be prepared to accept the invitation?’

It sounded like heaven to Annabella, but it also sounded dangerous. ‘You have more faith in my sister’s forgiveness than I dare have, sir,’ she said, trying to speak lightly. ‘If Alicia and I are unable to bury our differences—’

‘Then we must make other arrangements.’ Sir William sounded his usual cool, composed self once again. ‘You cannot continue living in that household!’

‘How very high-handed you sound, sir!’ Annabella marvelled sweetly, and saw some expression flare in his eyes before it was replaced by reluctant amusement.

‘Well?’ he challenged her. ‘If you wish to martyr yourself by staying there, pray do not let me interfere!’

To her amazement, Annabella found herself on the verge of giggling. How extraordinary! To be sunk in misery one minute, yet to feel this dizzy excitement the next! She cast a look at Sir William under her lashes. His stern expression had relaxed slightly; a smile still lingered around that firm mouth.

‘It would be delightful to stay at Mundell,’ Annabella capitulated, dismissing the fleeting thought of Miss Hurst, who would be far from delighted.

‘Thank you. Are there any other dark secrets that it would be useful for me to know before I make the arrangements?’ Sir William’s quizzical blue gaze rested on her thoughtfully, before returning to the road.

‘I think not.’ Annabella spoke demurely. ‘You have already provoked me into divulging far more about
my marriage than was seemly, and now you know the sordid truth of my existence with the St Aubys. That only leaves my quarrel with Alicia, and I imagine that she will have told you enough of that!’

Sir William shook his head slowly. ‘Your sister is remarkably loyal to you, Mrs St Auby! Oh, I believe that she told Caroline Kilgaren the whole of it, but the rest of us only know that there has been some sort of dispute between you. It would be a pity if it could not be resolved, for I imagine the two of you would get on famously. Now…’ he sighed ‘…I suppose I must take you back to that old harridan, but if you can be prepared for a remove to Mundell tomorrow, I will come to fetch you.’

He dropped her at the door of the house in Fore Street with a reminder about the subscription ball that evening. A couple of hours later, a pair of exquisitely made evening gloves were delivered to the house. Annabella looked at her sore fingers and smiled.

Lady St Auby was nervous. Previously she had not cared how Taunton society viewed her treatment of Annabella, for the girl had no one to champion her cause. Now, unexpectedly, she had acquired powerful protection, and that had changed the whole case. She made no demur when Annabella raised the subject of the ball and even sent her own maid along to help Annabella with her toilette. Pleading a sick headache to excuse herself, Lady St Auby told her daughter-in-law that Sir Thomas and Lady Oakston were only too happy to ask her to join their party for the evening. Annabella could not wonder at it.

There was a little awkwardness to begin with. Sir
Thomas had never acknowledged Bertram Broseley as an acquaintance, and had paid scant attention to his daughter even when Francis had been alive. Now, Annabella’s elevation to Mundell’s social sphere suddenly made her a worthwhile connection, but Sir Thomas did at least have the manners to feel the delicacy of the situation. Fortunately the Oakstons had a very lively and unaffected son, Julius, and an equally vivacious daughter Eleanor, who was just out. Annabella, happy in her new-found friends and excited at the prospect of seeing Will Weston again, was prepared to be generous.