Taming of Annabelle (5 page)

‘Indeed?’ His lordship stood calmly surveying her, obviously waiting for her to go on.

‘There are a lot of books here,’ said Annabelle.

‘Yes. We are in the library.’

‘Do you read much?’

‘When I am allowed time to do so . . . yes.’

‘I . . . I read a lot too.’

‘Then you are in the right place,’ said his lordship blandly, tucking his book under one arm and making for the door. ‘You will find something to suit your taste, I am
sure.’

‘Wait!’ said Annabelle desperately. Had he not noticed how fine she looked in the gown with the cherry ribbons? ‘Perhaps you could suggest something . . . ?’

‘No. I could not. I do not know your taste.’

‘Oh. Well . . . well then . . . you see it is so
strange
here.’

His face relaxed and he smiled. ‘I am surprised my conscientious Minerva left you to your own devices.’

‘Yes, she
is
very severe, isn’t she?’ said Annabelle with a giggle. ‘Does she bully you too?’

‘Oh, yes, quite dreadfully. But you have not answered my question.’

‘Minerva thinks I am lying down having a rest.’

‘And you could not?’ said Lord Sylvester, making a half turn towards the door.

‘No. I was too excited. And I wanted to see you.’

‘Here I am. And here I go. Old fogies like me need our rest, Miss Annabelle.’

‘You are not
at all
old,’ said Annabelle, her eyes glowing. ‘I
like
mature gentlemen.’

‘Thank you. I am glad I find favour in the eyes of my future sister-in-law. Now if you will . . .’

‘And . . . and . . . the men I have met have been so
dull.
’

‘There are many charming young men here, and you will meet them all this evening.’

‘What is that you are reading?’ asked Annabelle, coming to stand close to him.

‘Ovid’s
Metamorphoses
.’

‘May I see it?’

‘As you wish.’ Lord Sylvester held out the book to her and Annabelle looked down at the musty pages in an unseeing kind of way, racking her brains to say something that would keep
him.

Suddenly she hit upon an idea. ‘Will there be dancing this evening?’ she asked, turning a glowing face up to his.

‘Very possibly. After dinner. We often have dancing and cards when we have guests.’

Annabelle took a deep breath.

‘And will you dance with me?’

‘Yes I will dance with you, my child,’ he said, taking her hand and kissing it. ‘And now I must go.’

Annabelle stood alone in the library for a long time after he had left, holding the hand he had kissed to her cheek and staring out at the falling snow.

She had been right! He had noticed her. His feelings towards her were warm or he would not have kissed her hand. She turned their conversation over and over in her mind, reading into every
casual answer a double meaning, into every polite and bored gesture, hints of a growing passion being held well in check.

At last, she returned dreamily to her room, building dream upon dream, fantasy upon fantasy, so that when Minerva and her maid eventually arrived with their arms full of dresses for her to
choose from, Annabelle could only look at her sister with a sort of awkward pity, already imagining the engagement to be broken.

Despite protests from Minerva that her choice of gown was ‘a trifle old’ for her, Annabelle insisted on wearing a gown of sage-green China crepe, brocaded in stripes. It had the
fashionable high waist and low bosom. Her one piece of jewellery, a necklace of garnets, was clasped around her neck. Minerva had to admit the finished effect was breathtaking. But Minerva had
always considered Annabelle to be the beauty of the family, unaware that her own appearance in a white slip covered with soft grey gauze and with a simple string of pearls around her neck made her
the more elegant beauty of the two.

The Armitage sisters caused a small sensation when they walked into the Long Gallery where all the other guests were already assembled.

They were the last to arrive, Annabelle having changed her mind several times at the last minute over the choice of a fan.

The Misses Margaret and Belinda Forbes-Jydes were, Annabelle was pleased to note, nothing out of the common way, being both very short and having an unfortunate colour of sandy hair. Sally and
Betty Abernethy were more handsome, but Annabelle’s quick eyes at last remarked that Miss Sally had a slight cast in one eye, and that Miss Betty had a flat bosom. Lady Coombes was handsome
in a severe way, with black and grey hair exquisitely dressed. The Duchess and Lady Godolphin were sitting chatting in a corner, Lady Godolphin wearing the most hideous turban Annabelle had ever
seen.

She tried hard not to stare at Lord Sylvester and studied the other gentlemen.

The Duke of Allsbury, unlike his son, was short and tubby with a high, red colour and enormous cavalry whiskers. The other elderly gentleman with his face stained with walnut juice to a mahogany
colour was Colonel Arthur Brian. The Honourable Harry Comfrey and his brother, Charles, were both stocky young men, both wearing cravats tied in the Oriental, which meant they could barely turn
their heads. Lord Paul Chester was an elegantly dressed, vague young man with butter-coloured hair cut in a fashionable Brutus crop, and Mr John Frampton was a tall, handsome man with brown hair
and twinkling blue eyes. Mindful that the two latter gentlemen were friends of Lord Sylvester, Annabelle set herself to please. This she did by asking a deal of intelligent questions, listening
politely and carefully, and not talking over-much herself. After a few anxious moments, Minerva decided Annabelle was behaving very well indeed and went to join her fiancé.

‘Is not Annabelle in looks?’ she asked.

Lord Sylvester put up his quizzing glass and studied Annabelle, who had managed to attract the four young gentlemen of the company to her side.

‘She is very beautiful,’ he said, letting his glass fall. ‘Unfortunately, that is a fact of which she is well aware.’

‘You are too harsh, my love. She is very young.’

Lord Sylvester smiled down at Minerva. ‘When you call me “my love”, all I can think of is that it is too long since I held you in my arms.’

‘I kissed you last night,’ said Minerva blushing rosily.

‘I was thinking of something more intimate.’

Minerva blushed deeper. ‘I feel what we did that night was a sin,’ she whispered. ‘The circumstances were strange, dear Sylvester. I thought you were to be killed in a duel or
I would
never
have . . . never would . . .’

‘Oh, prim Minerva. Are you to keep me waiting until the wedding?’

‘Yes . . . no . . . I don’t know.’

A sudden overloud burst of laughter from Annabelle made Minerva swing around anxiously.

‘That girl is
quite
uninhabited,’ commented Lady Godolphin from close by.

At that moment, Annabelle caught her sister’s reproving gaze and once more became the picture of a modest miss. But although she had been charming her small court to perfection, she had
eagerly watched the exchange between Lord Sylvester and her sister out of the corner of her eye. They did not look like a couple in love, thought Annabelle, not knowing that Lord Sylvester’s
understated behaviour was, this time, very definitely covering the feelings of a man holding his passion in check.

Annabelle found to her disappointment that she was not to be seated next to Lord Sylvester at dinner. In fact, as the least distinguished of the guests, she was placed between Mr Charles Comfrey
and Mr John Frampton.

But Mr Frampton was very handsome. Annabelle decided it would do no harm to see if she could make Lord Sylvester jealous. No allowance had been made for her youth and so wine had been put in
front of her instead of lemonade.

Annabelle had had occasional glasses of wine at high days and holidays, but this wine was heavily fortified with brandy. Added to that, the fatigue of her journey now hit her, and she began to
feel very elated, very fascinating, and very beautiful. She basked in the warm admiration of Mr Frampton’s eyes and barely listened to what he was saying until something caught her attention.
Mr Frampton was talking about his young brother at Cambridge who had done exceptionally well in his examinations.

Here, Annabelle decided, was an opportunity to try out some of that delicious slang.

‘I have a friend at College,’ she said airily. ‘The nask, he calls it. He pays chummage, you know, so that he can get a room to himself. Not that he had much money. I told him
not to play in that low dive. That Greek ivory turner used a bale of bard cinque deuces on him so it’s all Dicky with poor Barry.’

There was a stunned silence. Mr Frampton took out a large pocket handkerchief and appeared to blow his nose. At last he emerged from behind it and said in a stifled voice, ‘Dear me, do you
have
many
friends in prison, Miss Annabelle?’

‘I don’t understand,’. said Annabelle blankly.

He looked down at her, his blue eyes twinkling. ‘Do you know what you have just said?’

‘Of course!’

‘Well, let’s suppose you don’t. You said you have a friend who is in the nask, or College, which is underworld cant for prison. I assume he landed there by getting into debt
after playing with loaded dice in a gambling hell. Paying chummage is the only way you can get a room to yourself in some prisons – that is you pay your two cell mates, or chums, a certain
amount of money to sleep on the stairs. And as for saying it’s all Dicky – oh, Miss Armitage, I do
hope
you don’t know what that means but I can only beg you never to use
that expression again.’

He gave her a sympathetic smile and then turned to talk to Sally Abernethy on his other side.

Annabelle sat very still, her face scarlet. It took her some time to realize that Mr Charles Comfrey on her other side had plunged into speech, but after a little while of appearing to listen to
him, she managed to regain her composure.

So well did she manage that when Mr Frampton turned back to her she was able to say with every appearance of ease, ‘You must excuse me, Mr Frampton. My wicked tongue does run away with me.
I was merely funning. I do apologize.’

‘Your apology is accepted,’ he smiled. ‘I am really quite unshockable, you know. And you had me well and truly fooled for I thought you were in earnest. Never did I think to
hear such words issuing from such a beautiful pair of lips.’

‘Mr Frampton!’ protested Annabelle, raising her fan and flirting with her large blue eyes over the top of it. ‘Now
you
shock
me
!’

They settled down to a light flirtation which lasted so pleasantly throughout the rest of the meal that Annabelle drank a great deal more wine without being at all aware of what she was
doing.

From where she sat at the far end of the table, Minerva could not see her sister and assumed all was well.

When the ladies retired to the Long Gallery to leave the gentlemen to their wine, Annabelle wandered off by herself to study the family portraits, standing with her hands behind her back and
looking so like a well-behaved child that Minerva settled down beside the Duchess, feeling quite at ease.

It was only when the gentlemen joined the ladies that Minerva began to feel there was something amiss.

Annabelle, not to put too fine a point on it, began to show off disgracefully. Minerva could not hear what she was saying because the Duchess was prosing on about curtain material, but she could
tell by the sight of her sister’s waving arms and flushed face that Annabelle was getting above herself.

She looked up and caught Lord Sylvester’s eye and gave a desperate little signal for help, nodding in Annabelle’s direction.

Lord Sylvester strolled up to the group of four gentlemen and five ladies who were surrounding Annabelle.

As he arrived, the Duchess finished talking, Minerva was watching Annabelle anxiously, and, in the silence, Mr Charles Comfrey said, ‘I say, do you think Brummell will approve of this
green coat of mine if I sport it at Almack’s or will he give me one of his famous set-downs?’

And clear as a bell, Annabelle’s overloud voice resounded around the Long Gallery. ‘Oh, you must be careful,’ she laughed. ‘No gentleman wears green any more. It is so
terribly Old Hat.’

There was a stunned silence.

‘DIS
graceful!’
snapped Lady Coombes, turning on her heel and walking away.

The young ladies looked blank. Mr Frampton turned away to hide his laughter, Mr Charles Comfrey looked stricken, Mr Harry Comfrey muttered, ‘Good Gad,’ Lord Paul Chester raised his
quizzing glass and studied Annabelle curiously as if he had just discovered some rare type of cockroach, and Lord Sylvester walked forwards with his charming smile and said, ‘I think we
should have some dancing to please the ladies. I have promised Miss Annabelle the first.’

Annabelle gratefully took his arm. She was aware she had said something dreadfully wrong, but Lord Sylvester’s suggestion was immediately hailed by cries of pleasure from the ladies. His
mother, explained Lord Sylvester, had hired musicians for the evening.

At that moment, the musicians were ushered in through a door at the far end and soon everyone with the exception of Lady Godolphin and Minerva and Colonel Brian were busy performing a country
dance.

‘What did my sister say that was so wrong?’ said Minerva to Lady Godolphin.

‘I ain’t telling you,’ said that lady roundly. ‘I wouldn’t soil my lips.’

‘Oh, dear,’ said Minerva sadly.

‘Furthermore, she looks downright boosey to me,’ said Lady Godolphin. ‘Better get her off to bed as soon as this set is over.’

Minerva waited as patiently as she could. The dance was at last over and Annabelle sank in a deep curtsy in front of Lord Sylvester and then found she could not get up.

He raised her to her feet and steadied her by putting an arm around her waist.

‘Bed for you, Miss Annabelle,’ he said.

‘I must speak to you. When shall I see you?’

‘Soon,’ he replied mockingly.

‘Where?’

‘I shall know where to find you.’