“Louisa!”
“No, listen to me,” Louisa interrupted. “Maybe he has money no one knows about.”
“Don’t you think he’d have said something if he did?”
“He hasn’t-”
“No, he hasn’t,” Annabel cut in, hating the way her voice was cracking. But it was hard. It was hard to think about Sebastian and all of the reasons why she shouldn’t marry him. “He said he’s not a pauper and he said we wouldn’t starve, but when I reminded him that there are eight of us, he made a joke about our growing thin!”
Louisa winced, then tried to dismiss it. “Well, we knew he wasn’t as wealthy as the earl. But really, who is? And you don’t need jewels and palaces, do you?”
“Of course not! If it weren’t for my family, I’d-”
“You’d what? What, Annabel?”
I’d marry Sebastian.
But she dare not say it aloud.
“You must think of your own happiness,” Louisa said.
Annabel let out a snort. “What do you think I’ve been thinking about? If I hadn’t been thinking about my own happiness I’d have probably asked the earl to marry me.”
“Annabel, you cannot marry Lord Newbury.”
Annabel stared at her cousin in shock. It was the first time she had ever heard Louisa raise her voice.
“I won’t let you do it,” Louisa said urgently.
“Do you think I want to marry him?”
“Then don’t.”
Annabel clenched her teeth together in frustration. Not at Louisa. Just at life. “I don’t have your choices,” she finally said, trying to keep her voice even and calm. “I am not the daughter of the Duke of Fenniwick, and I don’t have a dowry large enough to purchase a small kingdom in the Alps, and I wasn’t raised in a castle, and-”
She stopped. The stricken look on Louisa’s face was enough. “I didn’t mean it that way,” she mumbled.
Louisa was silent for a moment before saying, “I know. But do you know, I don’t have your choices, either. Men have never fought over me at White’s. No one has ever flirted with me at the opera, and I certainly have never been compared to a fertility goddess.”
Annabel let out a little groan. “You heard that, too, eh?”
Louisa nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Annabel shook her head. “It’s funny, I suppose.”
“No, it’s not,” Louisa said, but she looked as if she was trying not to smile. She stole a glance at Annabel, saw that she was also trying not to smile, and gave up. “Yes, it is.”
And they laughed.
“Oh, Louisa,” Annabel said, once her laughter had melted into a wistful smile, “I do love you.”
Louisa reached over and patted her hand. “I love you, too, cousin.” Then she pushed back her chair and stood. “It’s time to go down.”
Annabel stood and followed her to the door.
Louisa walked out into the hall. “Lady Challis says there are to be charades after supper.”
“Charades,” Annabel repeated. Somehow that seemed ridiculously appropriate.
Lady Challis had instructed her guests to gather in the drawing room before supper. Annabel had waited until the last possible minute to head downstairs. Lord Newbury was not stupid; she had been avoiding him for several days, and she suspected he knew it. Sure enough, when she entered the drawing room, he was waiting near the door.
So, she noticed, was Sebastian.
“Miss Winslow,” the earl said, intercepting her immediately, “we must talk.”
“Supper,” Annabel replied, managing a curtsy at the same time. “Er, I think it’s almost time to go in.”
“We have time,” Newbury said curtly.
Out of the corner of her eye, Annabel could see Sebastian moving slowly toward her.
“I spoke to your grandfather,” Newbury said. “It is all arranged.”
It was all arranged? It was on the tip of Annabel’s tongue to ask him if he even thought to ask her. But she held back. The second-to-last thing she wanted was to cause a scene in Lady Challis’s drawing room. Not to mention that Lord Newbury would probably take that as an invitation to propose to her then and there.
Which was the last thing she wanted.
“Surely this is not the time, my lord,” she hedged.
But Newbury’s face tightened. And Sebastian was edging ever closer.
“I am making an announcement after supper,” Lord Newbury told her.
Annabel gasped. “You can’t do that!”
This seemed to amuse him. “Really?”
“You haven’t even asked me,” she protested. She nearly bit her tongue out of frustration. So much for not giving him the opening.
Newbury chuckled. “Is that the problem, then? Your pretty little pride has been pricked. Very well, I shall give you your hearts and flowers after supper.” He smiled lasciviously, his lower lip jiggling with the exertion. “And perhaps you shall give something to me in return.”
He put his hand on her arm, then let it slide down to her bottom.
“Lord Newbury!”
He pinched her.
Annabel jumped away, but the earl was already chuckling to himself and heading off to the dining room. And as she watched him go, she began to feel the strangest sensation.
Freedom.
Because finally, after avoiding and procrastinating and hoping that something would happen so that she would not have to say yes-or no-to the man whose offer of marriage would solve all her family’s problems, she realized that she simply could not do it.
Maybe last week, maybe before Sebastian…
No, she thought, as lovely and magnificent as he was, as much as she adored him and hoped he adored her, he wasn’t the only reason she couldn’t marry Lord Newbury. He did, however, provide a splendid alternative.
“What the hell just happened?” Sebastian demanded, at her side in an instant.
“Nothing,” Annabel replied, and she almost smiled.
“Annabel-”
“No, really. It was nothing. Finally, it was nothing.”
“What do you mean?”
She shook her head. Everyone was heading in to supper. “I’ll tell you later.”
She was having far too much fun with her own thoughts to share them, even with him. Who would have thought that a pinch on the bottom would be what finally made it all come clear? It hadn’t even been the pinch, actually, but the look in his eyes.
Like he owned her.
In that moment she realized there were at least ten reasons why she could never, ever commit herself to that man in marriage.
Ten, but probably more like a hundred.
Chapter Twenty-two
One, Annabel thought happily as she took her seat at the table, Lord Newbury was simply too old. Not to mention that Two: he was so desperate for an heir that he’d probably injure her in the attempt, and certainly no woman with a broken hip could carry a baby for nine months. And of course there was-
“Why are you smiling?” Sebastian whispered.
He was standing behind her, supposedly on his way to his own seat, which was diagonal to hers, two seats closer to the head of the table. How anyone might think that her seat was on the way to his was beyond her, which brought her to a revision of Three: she seemed to have attracted the attention of the most charming and lovable man in England, and who was she to turn such a treasure away?
“I’m just happy to be down at the far end of the table with the rest of the peons,” she whispered back. Lady Challis was nothing if not a stickler for propriety, and there would be no deviations from the order of rank when it came to her seating arrangements. Which meant that with nearly forty guests between Annabel and the head of the table, Lord Newbury seemed miles away.