“Of course,” Annabel said. “That makes a great deal of sense.” She could read the article later. At the moment…she just wanted him to get his proposal over with, so that she could retreat to her room and cry. She hadn’t cried since Father died. Not even when Imogen eloped, nor yet when Draven died. But this felt like the moment to resurrect the habit.
He took her hands in his. Go ahead, Annabel thought. Get on with it!
But he didn’t.
After a moment or so, she raised her eyes and looked at him. He had interesting eyes: deep-set and green. They made him look quite unlike the glossy Englishmen of her recent acquaintance, and more like the old farmers who used to be her father’s tenants, before he sold off all the land except the horse pastures.
“Annabel,” he said, “I don’t expect that you wish to marry me.”
True, she thought. She looked at his boots. They were nicely polished, at least.
He sighed, and when he spoke, his voice had taken on an even deeper, rumbling Scottish brogue. “What’s done is done. And I can’t pretend I’m unhappy about it, because I find you very beautiful.”
Annabel bit the inside of her lip. She’d always thought of her beauty as a gift from her mother. The gift that would get her out of Scotland and a life of poverty. “I’m very glad to hear that, Lord Ardmore,” she said.
Ewan didn’t know what to do. Her voice was utterly lifeless. She wouldn’t meet his eyes for more than a moment. “Am I such a bad bargain, Annabel?”
“Of course not,” she said. But then: “I have not read the article. Please do not take this amiss, but is there any way at all that my reputation could be recuperated without this drastic step?”
He shook his head. “To tell the truth, even our marriage may not quell the scandal. It’s a nice thing, I’m thinking, that Scotland is a good space from London. We can let this whole fervor die down. You see, Mr. Barnet confused Miss Imogen and yourself, and had you asking to end our liaison, and then when that was put together with my disheveled state…”
He didn’t need to continue. He was probably right about the need for them to disappear into Scotland. Annabel had a momentary streak of fear that she would cry every step of the way. She took a deep breath. “In that case, had you something you wished to ask me?”
He took her hands back. “I should like to marry you,” he said slowly. “I should like you to come with me to my land, to be my wife and a mother to my children, to live with me, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.”
Annabel fought a wild urge to flee. Somehow her slippers stayed nailed to the floor. “Yes,” she whispered.
He let go of her hands and pulled a thick piece of parchment from his inside coat pocket. “The moment I read that rag of a paper, I woke up a bishop and obtained a special license.” He gave her a sudden grin. “I had to show him the Messenger, but after that he agreed that the situation was quite urgent.”
She nodded.
“But I’d like to ask you a favor,” he said.
“Since you are saving me from a lifetime of disgrace,” she said, making a vain attempt to sound amusing, “I should think that you may ask many favors and I shall grant them.”
He ignored her pitiful attempt at humor. “With your permission, I would like to leave this special license unused.”
“Unused?” She frowned at him.
“You see, lass, I find the idea of marrying in such a godless, harum-scarum way not to my liking. But if we leave all these London folk with the impression that we have indeed married, and we travel to Scotland…perhaps we could marry there. There’s a church on my land, and a priest who lives there. And ’twould mean a great deal to me if Father Armailhac could wed us.”
“Will he have to call the banns?”
“No. We’ll have a hand-fasting, an ancient thing in Scotland, and none the worse for its antiquity. ’Tis a simple ceremony before friends, though Father Armailhac will make it a true ritual.”
“I don’t have a dowry,” Annabel said suddenly.
“I’ve heard quite the opposite.”
Her heart sunk. He thought she was wealthy. It was Rafe’s gifts, fine feathers given to a peahen who had scarcely a chemise of her own. She couldn’t even bring herself to speak or to look at him. Between them, she and Imogen had ruined him.
In fact, they were both ruined. Her dreams of a fine, rich groom were stolen from her by happenstance, Imogen’s foolishness and the intervention of a pair of robbers. His dreams of a rich bride were stolen away by the same factors.
“I’m sorry,” she said finally. “You are mistaken. I do not have a dowry.”
“Milady’s Pleasure?” he asked, raising her chin.
“Oh, Milady’s Pleasure…I have a horse. But I have no dowry. No proper dowry.”
“We shall do without it,” he said.
It had to be said. “I am truly sorry that my sister and I brought you to this pass,” she said, putting a hand on his sleeve. “If it weren’t for us, you would have found a young lady with a formidable dowry. An heiress. We have destroyed your hopes.”
“But I asked you to marry me before this even happened,” he said to her.
He really did have remarkable eyes, especially when he smiled. His eyes smiled more than his mouth. “You thought I was an heiress,” she pointed out.
“No, I had no such idea. I just liked your face, and that’s the truth of it.”
Annabel thought about the fact that she had been clothed in a gown that cost more than a yearly laborer’s wage, and that she had been wearing pearls in her ears and around her throat (a gift from Rafe). Ardmore would have had every reason to expect a notable dowry.
But he spoke first. “People have been talking about dowries ever since I got to this benighted town. I assure you that there were factors far more important to me—”
“I know,” she said. “The first being that your wife be Scottish.”
“And the second that she be Scottish,” he said, and there was that smile in his eyes again. It made gold flecks shine against the green. “But that was a mere jest. If I had been set on a Scottish bride, I’d not have come to this country. If you were English…” He tipped up her chin. “I’d be right where I am.” Then his head was coming toward her and warm lips descended to her mouth.
Annabel was miserable. She was ready to scream with the frustration and rage of it all, to burst into tears at the unfairness, to sob at the loss of her every dream for the future…and yet there was something immeasurably comforting in the gentle touch of Ewan’s lips. His arms came around her and she felt for a momentas if…as if…it was hard to think about it. His lips were drugging her mind, caressing her as if they were asking something.
She sighed and leaned against him…just for a moment. A moment’s comfort. And his arms tightened as if she were indeed sheltered from the world, being saved by a knight in shining armor who would sweep her off her feet, and put her on the back of his horse, and take her to his castle. She sighed again, at the foolishness of her old dreams…
And he took advantage of that sigh, slipped into her mouth and suddenly their kiss changed to something altogether different. Not thinking about it, Annabel put a hand on the back of his neck. His hands tightened on her back and suddenly she felt the hard press of his body against hers.