Chapter 7
ANNABEL WATCHED THE brOUGHAM DISAPPEAR DOWN THE GRAVEL drive under an approving moon.
James had deposited her in the same spot where he’d handed her into the carriage only a few hours ago—hours that changed something in her, even if she wasn’t sure what.
It was enough, for now, that she was floating.
She’d had only one glass of champagne all night, but felt drunk with pleasure, tipsy with the thrill of it, even if she was glad to be delivered back to the quiet of Kidlington House.
Annabel looked up to the star-sprinkled sky, spread her arms wide, and thanked the universe for bringing her here.
“On the contrary, Mrs. Lackington,” she repeated D’Evercy’s line with a hand to her heart, “I may have found the very thing to restore me!”
She minuetted to the door, realized she had no key, but then remembered she hadn’t locked it, just as Bunty advised.
Bunty. What a gift she’d given her, and set it up to succeed as if she knew Annabel better than Annabel knew herself.
She couldn’t imagine why Bunty hadn’t come to the ball, talking it up the way she had.
But Annabel would make a point of going to town tomorrow to thank her.
By then, surely, she’d have thought of the words to tell her precisely for what. She was a writer, after all.
The door wouldn’t budge until Annabel threw her hip into it.
She spilled into the dark, nearly tripping on the hem of her dress and giggling at her clumsiness after having just danced the best dance of her life.
She closed the door and felt for the light switch on the right.
A little jiggle usually does the trick. And with that, the three good bulbs of the giltwood chandelier flickered to life to reveal—Cassie!
She stood in the foyer in satin boxers, a VIRGINIA IS FOR LOVERS tank top, and a short kimono robe, casually flossing her teeth.
Annabel sucked in a breath and let out a short scream.
“Relax!” said Cassie. “It’s me.”
“You scared me to death!” Annabel put a hand on her pounding chest. “What are you doing here?”
“What are you wearing?” said Cassie, taking in her sister’s costume.
“I thought you were in London.”
“I was in London. But now I’m here.”
“But why?” Annabel asked, genuinely surprised.
“I’m taking a mini-hiatus from the vlog-slash-travel show and thought, why not a little detour to the English countryside?” She gave Annabel an awkward hug, more an air pat on the shoulder. “Can’t a girl visit her own sister?”
“You’ve never visited me before, anywhere,” Annabel said. “Wait, why are you flossing in the dark?”
“Well, why are there no light switches? Like, what century is this place from, anyway?”
“The nineteenth. But maybe the eighteenth. Maybe the late eighteenth?”
“Okay, that was not actually a question.” Cassie held up her phone. “And no cell service?”
“Or internet,” said Annabel.
Cassie served up her signature eye roll. “This should be fun.”
“But really, why are you here?”
Cassie shifted her weight to one hip. “Okay, truth. I’m on a mission from Mom. Since I was in the hood, more or less, she thought maybe we could use a little sister time.”
Annabel gave her a skeptical look.
“Okay. She asked me to talk to you about business school, or maybe a realtor’s license? One of those.” Cassie flossed a back molar. “She thinks you live in some fantasy dreamworld.”
“I don’t live in a fantasy dreamworld,” said Annabel.
Cassie moved her hand up and down to indicate Annabel’s over-the-top outfit, case in point.
Annabel glanced down. “This? No! It’s for a Regency Society, one of those historical re-creation things people do, you know, dress up in costume, throw balls, act like people in .
. . Regency society. Apparently, it’s the oldest one in England!
And god, they go all the way. I mean, the chandelier had actual candles, like a hundred candles. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Actual candles? Woo-hoo.”
“No, the whole thing.” Annabel was still living off the heady high, talking fast. “See, I didn’t plan to go.
But there was this invitation in the desk in there,” she said, pointing vaguely to the library, “and then I found this dress upstairs, in the attic. I mean, seriously, you would not believe it.”
Cassie didn’t believe it, at all.
“No, really! There’s a whole room upstairs full of them. Anyway, I couldn’t help trying this one on.” She looked down at the dress again, arms wide. “I mean, look how it fits me.”
“Okay, I give you that.”
“And then this carriage showed up—”
“A carriage.”
“A brougham, actually, with a coachman named James—he was in costume, too, even had a missing tooth—and James said to me in his best cockney accent, ‘I’m to take you to the assembly room ball.’” Annabel curtsied, giddy. “Where I danced with a ‘young man of large fortune’!”
“Seriously?”
“Well, no. He was pretending. Everyone was pretending. It’s what they do . . .”
Cassie’s brow flicked up, letting her sister make an own goal.
“. . . pretend.” Annabel heard how it sounded.
“Exactly,” Cassie said, then held up her piece of used floss. “Trash?”
Annabel crossed her arms. “I’m not going to business school.”
“Realtor?”
Annabel stood firm.
“But we’ve had our little chat?”
“I guess.”
“Good. Then I get to keep my Bloomingdale’s card. At least one more year. Till the vlog-slash-travel show takes off.”
“I thought it was a sure thing, sponsors and everything.”
“It’s a work in progress. We’re still in talks.”
“Right. Skims.”
“And a bunch of other ones, basically throwing free stuff at us.” Cassie held up the dead floss again.
“Kitchen.” Annabel pointed and led the way.
“We couldn’t find lights in there either.”
“We?” Annabel jiggled the toggle switch behind the refrigerator until it blinked on, revealing Billy, standing at the counter in baggy jeans and a T-shirt, eating her leftovers, looking stoned out of his mind.
He looked her up and down and raised his fork in greeting.
“Yo! Cinderella!”
Cassie turned to Annabel with a see-what-I-mean look on her face.
Billy took another hungry bite and wiped his mouth with a kitchen towel. “Hey, this shit is good. What is it?”
“Steak-and-kidney hotpot.”
Billy put the container down and gagged. Cassie looked at him a little adoringly and chuckled, which struck Annabel as odd. Her sister wasn’t the laugh-out-loud type. Annabel looked between them. The rules of the Regency she understood, but these rules she didn’t get at all.
“So, you two are . . .” Annabel wagged her finger between them.
“God, no,” said Cassie. “I mean, for a minute.”
“A hot minute,” said Billy, who leaned down to gulp water straight from the faucet.
Cassie turned to Annabel. “He’s cuter when you’re drunk off your ass.” She deposited her floss in the trash and headed back to the foyer. “Anyway, hope it’s cool. I took the room with the canopy bed—”
“Peach Blossom,” said Annabel, following her.
“And I won the green one,” said Billy, right behind them. “Rock-paper-scissors, dude.” He affected a posh English accent. “Yes, I will take the en suite bathroom with the big soaking tub, thank you very much.”
“You didn’t even know what en suite was till I told you,” said Cassie, clearly miffed to have missed out.
“That one’s called Pea Green.” Annabel drooped a little, feeling her cherished solitude slipping away.
Hours ago, she would have been grateful for their company, any company.
But now, well, things may have changed. Their arrival on the scene required a significant readjustment in her attitude.
“And how long . . . were you thinking of staying?”
“Basically, a week,” said Cassie.
“A week,” Annabel repeated, wondering how she’d get through it.
“We’re on mini-hiatus,” said Billy, “which is totally chill.”
“I heard,” said Annabel. “But you guys were so excited about ‘Lon-don’?”
“We did London,” said Cassie. “It doesn’t take that long.”
“But Notting Hill?” said Billy. “That shit was fire.”
“So, we’re pretty much just waiting to see where they want us to go next. You know, the people paying the bills? And we can chill here, right? I mean, unless it gets boring,” Cassie said. “How boring is it?”
“I told you,” said Annabel, back to her effervescent self. “It’s not boring at all!”
Here it was, Annabel’s tendency to lean toward the upside and make the best of a situation.
“I mean, who knows?” she said, swishing past to the bottom of the stairs. “Maybe you’ll want to go with me. To the ball tomorrow. For the officers of the regiment!”
Cassie and Billy looked at each other.
“Uh, thanks, but I’m pretty sure that’s the night I whiten my teeth,” said Cassie.
“Yeah, hey,” said Billy. “I’m not allowed that close to the fun barrier. I could explode.”
Cassie looked at him. “Okay, you’re still cute.”
“Suit yourselves,” said Annabel, with a hand on the banister and a foot on the first step. “But you might just be missing the most magical night of your life.”
With that, she picked up the skirts of her gown and floated upstairs, humming the tune she and D’Evercy had danced to.
“There it is.” Cassie turned to Billy. “You have just witnessed a classic Annabel moment.”