The Scoundrel's Lover (14 page)

“No, no of course not! No one knows what you’re doing or where you’re going,” her maid reassured her.

Annabelle almost sagged in relief, reaching out to support herself on her bed. “Thank God.”

“But you still risk yourself by going to that club. You wear a mask, yes, but what if your carriage were recognized? Or a gown was familiar? Or your voice?”

Annabelle covered her eyes with her hand for a moment. “I know. These are all things I have considered, Deirdre, but what am I to do? My brother needs
someone
looking out for him.”

“Is that—is that all you’re doing? Because I wonder if—” Deirdre blushed and then turned away suddenly, cutting off her words.

“What?” Annabelle asked.

Her maid shook her head, fiddling with the clothing stacked on the chair. “I shouldn’t.”

“Please,” Annabelle said, trying to keep her tone calm. “Please tell me what is on your mind.”

Deirdre turned to look at her. Her face was pale and her voice trembled as she said, “It isn’t my place, I know, but I see things and I hear things and I know you, Miss, after all these years. I wonder if you might
like
Mr. Rivers too much.”

Annabelle tensed. Her maid was out of line to bring this up and she would have been in her rights to reprimand her. It would certainly close the subject if she did. However, over the years Deirdre had become much more than a mere servant to her. She was a friend. One who had seen her through many a difficulty with kindness.

Deirdre was also the only person in her life who knew even a fraction of the truth about her current activities. She had no other confidante and no other person who would listen to her without judging. Certainly she couldn’t tell Georgina, of all people, about her obsession with Marcus.

And if she said something to her mother or Serafina? Well, that was like directly reporting to Rafe, himself. Her brother wouldn’t understand. He would likely be enraged at both her and Marcus.

“Have I gone too far?” Deirdre asked, voice trembling.

Annabelle reached out to cover her maid’s hand gently. “No, of course not. I’m only pondering your accusation. And I must admit that you are…right. I may like Mr. Rivers too much, it is true.”

Deirdre’s eyes went wide at the admission, and heat flooded Annabelle’s face.

“You needn’t look so shocked,” she said with a forced laugh. “He is handsome as can be, but also very intelligent and…
interesting
.”

“But he isn’t the kind of man you have claimed you wish to affiliate yourself with. Marry.” Her maid shook her head. “Unless you’ve changed your mind.”

Annabelle swallowed. Since her night with Marcus, she’d had an increasingly difficult time focusing on her goals. And yet she couldn’t change them. She’d come so far.

“No, I haven’t changed my mind,” she said softly. “I know the risks when it comes to spending time with Mr. Rivers. And I know the lines I cannot cross. And I
will not
cross them. Not when I’m finally so close to respectability.”

Deirdre’s face suddenly grew sad. “But Miss Annabelle, you are respectable. No one could look at you and think otherwise.”

Annabelle barked out a laugh. “But they do. They do and I’m certain you know it thanks to the very talk below stairs we discussed earlier.”

“There is a difference between a few snotty maids who need to be put in their place and Society at large,” Deirdre huffed.

“Oh, you dear. If you put someone in their place, then I adore you for it.” Annabelle let out a long, heavy sigh. “But there is no difference. What is said below stairs is fed from above. Because of my family and their antics, my chances at a staid, respectable future have been materially damaged.”

She shifted. That was what she’d told herself for so long: that it was Crispin and Rafe and even her father who had altered her future with their ways. As much as she loved them all, she sometimes felt resentment for their lack of thought.

But now she had to wonder…was
she
just as much to blame?

“After all,” she mused out loud. “Perhaps those around me can see my true self. My dark heart and the desires it makes me feel.”

Desires that had been powerfully awakened in Marcus’s bed. Desires that were stronger now rather than weaker.

“There is nothing dark about your heart,” Deirdre protested, her face a mask of horror at the suggestion.

Annabelle smiled at her maid’s defense, but her thoughts did not change. She knew what she was capable of. What she desired in the dark of night in her chamber, when her fingers found her sex and she shamefully gave herself release. Or worse, when she allowed Marcus to touch her and her body surrendered to everything it could not, should not have.

“I
can
control myself,” she said. “I
will
do so. Because if I do not take the chance laid out for me right now, I fear it will not repeat itself. And then my future will be—”

She cut herself off as errant thoughts of Marcus clouded her mind. Marcus touching her, kissing her, pleasing her…Marcus in her parlor as he had been in her brother’s parlor tonight. Of them laughing together, of making love completely, without the barriers she had erected in their arrangement.

“It cannot be,” she whispered. “I can’t let it distract me.”

But as she smiled at her maid, hoping to reassure Deirdre further before she surrendered to her bed, she knew she was already distracted. By Crispin, by her own desires, by Marcus.

And if she wasn’t careful, she could lose everything she was trying to build.

It had been months since Marcus had last sat on his horse outside of Mrs. Flynn’s gate, watching the house, waiting for a glimpse of Annabelle.

The first time he’d done it was after their initial meeting years ago. Mr. Flynn had still lived then and there had been nothing more joyful than their chaotic family, talking at once and welcoming all comers.

And yet Marcus had known he didn’t belong there that night. Just as he’d known he didn’t belong just twelve hours before in the same hall with the same family. He had stood to the side all those years ago, holding his drink, watching the merriment, happy to be there even if he wasn’t truly a part of it all.

Until Annabelle Flynn entered the room.

She was twenty-one then, her face fuller than it was now, her eyes a bit brighter and less jaded. She had burst into the room like sunshine through a dark veil, and suddenly he couldn’t think or breathe or move.

Rafe had introduced them, and he’d known she felt none of the same lightning bolt that had struck him. She’d smiled, of course, politely nodded. He thought he’d seen her take a second glance at him a short while later before she slipped away with a group of friends, but that couldn’t have been correct.

He hadn’t meant to ride his horse back to her father’s home the next day. He hadn’t meant to sit and watch through the gate at the courtyard to catch a glimpse of her as she boarded her carriage with her mother and her maid at her side. But he had. That day and other days.

Including this one.

The gate was open today, allowing him an unobstructed view of the courtyard. The courtyard where a carriage was parked. A carriage which belonged to a very rich and very titled-looking man who had strolled up to the door not half an hour before and gone inside, obviously welcomed and invited.

Marcus gripped the reins of his horse tighter.
This
was what Annabelle wanted. What she deserved. He couldn’t be peevish or foolish about it. He’d never thought she would be his, no matter how sweetly she surrendered.

He stared for a moment longer at the stranger’s carriage, then turned his horse and rode off. He needed to talk to someone about this drive, this desire, this woman.

And he knew the perfect person, the only person, who he could truly confide in.

Annabelle sat on the edge of the settee, hands folded in her lap, false smile plastered on her face, ankles crossed perfectly and stared at Lord Claybrook. He had arrived not half an hour before for a planned tea with her brother, Serafina and her mother.

Thus far they had chatted amiably about the weather, the roads, Society in general and Claybrook’s horses. No one could say that the gathering had not been perfectly pleasant. But she also couldn’t help but compare it to the one she’d recently shared with her family and Marcus.

Sitting with Claybrook was agreeable enough, yes, but he didn’t make her mother laugh. He didn’t melt into her family like he was born to be a Flynn. He didn’t make her body tingle.

Not that she wanted him to do the last. That sort of thing was exactly what she was supposed to be avoiding.

“Miss Flynn, would you care to take a walk in the garden?” Claybrook asked.

Annabelle jolted, yanked from her reverie with the unexpected question. She shot her mother and brother a look, and Claybrook followed her stare.

“With your family’s permission, of course,” he said.

Her mother smiled, but it was faint. “I see no objection.”

“Excellent,” Claybrook said as he rose to his feet and offered Annabelle an arm.

She got up and took it with a smile for her mother and her now-frowning brother, then allowed Claybrook to take her from the room. It was only as they walked through the hall together that she realized she’d never actually
agreed
to this little excursion. Claybrook had been satisfied with her mother’s permission if not her own.

She pushed that thought away as they exited the house into her mother’s beautiful garden. Breathing in a long waft of the fragrant, flowered air, she immediately began to relax.

“A pretty little garden, isn’t it?” Claybrook said as they moved down the pathway.

Annabelle shot him a look from the corner of her eye. Was he being dismissive? It was hard to tell.

“My mother oversees all gardening herself,” she explained. “This garden is her fourth child.”

“Fourth?” Claybrook asked.

“Well, yes. There is Raphael, Crispin and me.”

“Ah, yes. Your other brother.” Claybrook looked at her briefly.

She frowned. Did he truly forget she had a second brother? It wasn’t as if Crispin were dead or gone away. Although both those things were fears that often troubled her.

“Yes. He does not come into Society,” she said, somehow wanting to explain Crispin to his man who was…well, wooing her was the phrase, wasn’t it? Though she didn’t feel particularly wooed when Claybrook was with her. Although he held her arm, he never made an attempt for anything more. And they had never discussed anything deeper than the color of her gown.

But perhaps this topic would change all that.

Claybrook shifted as if uncomfortable. “No, he doesn’t make the rounds in the
ton
. But then, he isn’t a duke like your brother and he isn’t a lovely lady such as yourself.”

Once again, Annabelle frowned. Claybrook was definitely being dismissive this time. “He is a wonderful person, though,” she insisted. “Perhaps someday you will meet him.”

For the briefest of moments, there was an unguarded expression on her companion’s face. A look of disgust at the very idea of Crispin Flynn. But then it was gone, and Claybrook was benign again, devoid of any extreme emotion.

“Of course. Perhaps at your mother’s home or your brother’s one day.” He released her arm and stepped into the little circle of roses and lilies that made up the center of her mother’s garden. “My, isn’t this pretty.”

Annabelle pursed her lips together. So that was the end of the discussion regarding her brother, it seemed. And although she was somewhat relieved by the end of the exchange, she was also irritated.

This man didn’t know anything about her family, only rumor. Worse, he didn’t seem to
want
to know her family. Or at least not any part of it that wasn’t perfect. Which meant he wouldn’t want to know
her
if she proved not to be.

But perhaps that was unfair. After all, he had approached her, regardless of her disadvantages in Society. He had danced with her, after only a bit of hesitation. And he was here, coming to call, his carriage with its seal parked right in her drive where anyone could see.

And yet she still felt second class with Claybrook. Like all of this was
despite
who she was, not because of it. Like he was granting her a boon by his very existence in her life.

“You look too serious,” Claybrook said, motioning to the bench in the middle of her mother’s flowers. “Come, let us rest a moment.”

She pursed her lips but followed him, and they took their places on the bench. She noted that he was careful not to let their legs touch, despite how close they had to sit thanks to the size of the seat.

She watched him. He seemed perfectly content in this moment, smiling broadly and apparently unaware of her discomfort.

Yet, she had to be fair. As much as he avoided any knowledge about her life, she knew almost as little about his. He was titled and respectable, which had been all that mattered to her up until now. Wasn’t that just as dismissive and mercenary as anything Claybrook did? If she wanted him to open up, perhaps she had to express more interest first.

“You know, Lord Claybrook, you have met much of my family now, but I realize I know very little about yours,” she said.

“What?” Claybrook grunted, straightening up a bit. He examined her for a very brief moment and shrugged. “We have one of the finest pedigrees in England, of course. Titled for thirteen generations.”

Annabelle tried to smile. “Oh no, you misunderstand me. I meant your
family
.” When Claybrook’s face remained blank, she continued, “Do you have brothers or sisters?”

“Ah,” he said, the confusion clearing from his face. “I have two brothers and two sisters. The sisters are older, both married very well. My youngest brother married into the house of the Duke of Westenfield.”

His chest puffed out as he said that, as if somehow his brother’s marriage made him…
better
.

“I see,” she said. “And is your mother still alive?”

He shook his head. “No, she’s been in the ground since even before my father.”

“I’m sorry,” Annabelle said, reaching for his hand reflexively.

He looked at her fingers covering his and then pulled his hand away slowly. “It is nothing, I assure you.”

She frowned. In most cases she would assume his dismissal meant he wasn’t ready to share his grief, but in Claybrook’s case the fact truly didn’t seem to trouble him.

“Are you close to your siblings?”

He shrugged. “As close as is warranted. We see each other at the holidays sometimes.”

She waited for him to elaborate, but he seemed to have no desire to do so. In fact, he got to his feet and moved to examine a rose a bit closer. “Do you like hunting, Miss Flynn?”

She jolted at the closing of the prior subject. “I do not often go, but I have no objection.”

He smiled. “Excellent. I have the best hunting bitches in seven counties.”

She nodded as he launched into a long monologue about his dogs. After a few moments, she let her mind drift. This man was courting her, yes, and he seemed nothing but decent. But she knew nothing about him, he nothing about her, and that seemed to be just fine with him.

So as she looked at him, looked at the future he presented, she couldn’t help but feel that it was the most unsatisfactory conversation she had ever had with a person. And as her mind wandered, it of course landed firmly on Marcus. A place that was dangerous to go, and yet she couldn’t seem to steer her ship away from the rocks of his shore.

Marcus stood in the parlor and couldn’t help but smile. It was the same as it had ever been, bright…too bright…and decorated with wildly disparate items of furniture. Looking at the room was like a visual experience of a clanging bell. Yet it was anything but unpleasant.