Chapter 3
“ I shall take Lady Annabelle straight up to bed.” Myrtle clucked as they walked into Heartwick Hall’s foyer. “I told her it was a most upsetting subject for an opera, but she would not listen. Now look at the poor child. Thank God you went to the opera house and brought her home, Your Grace.”
“I must speak to Annabelle first,” Frederick said in a voice that brooked no dissent. “In the drawing room, please.”
Annabelle’s heart sank, and she looked down miserably at the floor. She could see the barely restrained exasperation on his face as well as hear it in his voice.
In the carriage, Frederick had been curt and quiet but solicitous, explaining her emotional state to Myrtle as upset from the performance and leaving the old woman to fuss over her like a mother hen, settling her with cloaks and cushions like an invalid or a child. Despite the silence, Annabelle had known that there would be consequences for her actions that evening. Now, it was time to face them.
“Would it not be better to speak in the morning, Your Grace?” Myrtle pleaded. “My Lady is so very tired.”
“All is well, Myrtle,” Annabelle assured her quietly, approaching the drawing room door. “I will speak to His Grace before I retire for the evening. Please wait for me upstairs.”
Once the door closed and Myrtle’s footsteps faded away, Frederick turned to Annabelle.
“Take a seat,” he told her and walked over to the window, gathering his thoughts as an unhappy Annabelle waited anxiously.
“I did not know you were so untrustworthy,” he said finally, his bald accusation and icy tone unnerving her.
“Untrustworthy?” she said blankly, shaking her head.
“You deceived me. I suspect you also deceived Victoria and her cousins. How else would you call your behavior tonight if not untrustworthy?”
Annabelle stood up and faced him from across the room. “How dare you lecture me about deception the very day after bringing that woman into the house and encouraging me to deceive my brother and the Dowager Duchess about the circumstances in which I now find myself?”
“You do not know what you are talking about,” Frederick shot back. “It is entirely different. Neither you nor anyone else has been put in jeopardy because of my actions. As for my stepmother and Stephen, you may tell them whatever you like if you are willing to cause them unnecessary distress and manage the fallout. Tonight, in contrast, you put yourself in very real danger.”
“You are twisting everything!” Annabelle shouted at him, confused and angry.
“Do you not see how helpless you were tonight, Annabelle? What would have happened if I had not sent a messenger to check whether your family’s coach was at the opera house? What would have happened if I had not been there to intervene?”
She shook her head stubbornly, unwilling to admit that he was making a good point until he conceded his own errors in judgment.
“You had me followed? I cannot believe you did that, Frederick. Am I to be followed around during the entirety of my stay?”
“Yes, damn it all! You have proven to be untrustworthy. If I must follow you all over London to keep my promise to your brother, I will.”
“I am not a child who needs a nursemaid!” Annabelle shouted at him furiously. “I am one-and-twenty!”
“When you behave like a sensible adult woman, I shall treat you like one!” he shouted back. “You are just a damned, helpless… innocent!”
“And you Frederick Hayward are nothing but a… a… a…”
“Enough!” Frederick barked, holding up a hand to silence her before she could think of an insult. “You are under my roof, Annabelle. Until Stephen returns, you must listen to my guidance, behave as I instruct you to, and follow my commands.”
Annabelle began to cry with rage and frustration. She knew she was helpless and hated it, but it seemed there was nothing she could do to remedy the situation. She was hardly going to grow any taller, and developing a more assertive personality seemed almost unlikely. Everyone saw her as a child.
“I am just a burden, am I not?” she sobbed. “To my family and you. I must find a husband this Season, Frederick, if I do not want to be a burden forever. Can you even begin to understand? That is why I must go out and about and meet people, like this evening, and try… I do not know how to do it, but I must marry…”
“Marry?!” he repeated with what sounded like complete consternation.
“I know I am not wise in such matters. I thought Victoria might advise me, since she knows so many men, but it turns out they may not be the right sort of men to marry.”
“You never thought to ask me about this?” Frederick asked, to her surprise.
“Well, no,” she admitted, staring at him with consternation even greater than his own.
The fact was that such an idea would never have occurred to her, even if the unfortunate bedroom incident had never happened. Frederick was a man, and he was a rake. On both counts, he was not the first person she would have thought to consult on her marital ambitions.
Still, for some reason, her definite answer seemed to irk him.
“So, rather than consulting someone who has your best interests at heart and would have ensured your safety, you chose to deceive everyone and venture out to try your fortune with inadequate protection.”
“I was with Victoria!” she pointed out.
“Until you were not! Do you have any idea what that man could have done to you, Annabelle, if I had not been there to stop him?”
The apprehension on Frederick’s face appeared to be genuine as he railed. Annabelle felt a flash of insight and then a pang of compassion.
“Is this about me or Penelope, Frederick?” she said quietly. “Penelope is well. Maxwell saved her from Lord Silverbrook, did he not?”
“Yes, and I am grateful to him. I always will be. But she never asked me for help…” he trailed off as he frowned and wrestled with some internal puzzle.
Evidently, regardless of the happy ending to the matter, Frederick had not forgiven himself for ever allowing Lord Silverbrook to get so close to Penelope.
“I shall help you find a husband, Annabelle,” he stated unexpectedly, his blue eyes focusing again and boring into hers with great determination.
The fierceness and flush on his face made Annabelle recall the sight of him half-naked and rising from the floor to meet her gaze. Her stomach flipped and clenched as the image flashed through her mind, her heart beating faster and heat rising in her face.
She looked away from him and cast her eyes down to the floor, afraid of the powerful stream of sensations he was inadvertently stirring. Annabelle almost wished she could faint at will, as some young ladies claimed to be able to do, in order to escape the experience.
She gasped aloud as Frederick reached out a hand and gently tilted up her chin to meet his gaze again. Her face was burning. At her yelp, he immediately withdrew his arm, as though he had not realized what he was doing.
“You seem to doubt me,” he said, evidently misunderstanding her reaction to his offer. “I can help you, and I will.”
“How could a man like you help me marry? You are a rake!” Annabelle blurted, wondering what kind of game he was playing.
His expression hardened again at her words. “In which case, you must concede that I am in a far superior position than Victoria Crawford to advise you on what men find desirable in a woman. With my guidance, you could have every eligible man of the Ton eating out of your hand.”
“What do you mean?” Annabelle breathed, unable to tear her eyes away from his.
“To begin with, from now on, you must spend your nights with me…”