Chapter 3 #2
“And yet you put yourself—and me—in the untenable position of sharing overnight accommodations. I am an unmarried man. You, a young, unmarried lady of the ton. Your being here, under the same roof with me, unchaperoned—even in this storm and in these conditions--invites scandal of the worst sort.”
“As to that”—she pursed her lips and elevated her straight nose as if posing for a portrait—“And as I previously stated, I traveled here with a chaperone and with the added protection of registering at the inn under a false identity.” She looked so supremely pleased with herself, he nearly laughed. “As a widow, in fact.”
“How inventive,” he said dryly.
“Lady Valeria Woodville, in case you were wondering—”
“I was not.”
She went on as if he had not spoken. “—widow to your late cousin.”
“My what?”
She eyed him like a schoolmarm correcting a recalcitrant student. “I explained to the innkeeper and guide that I’m heading south to London, and wanted to stop off here to break up my journey and deliver the sad news.”
He simply stared, unable to conjure a single word.
She smiled as if delighted with herself. “In actuality, Lady Woodville is a character from The Law and the Lady, a novel I read recently.”
He could not think of a single thing to say to the woman. She was utterly mad.
“Since you asked,” she continued, arching a sardonic brow, “in the novel, Lady Woodville, having discerned how the bungling and inept authorities have mismanaged a case of probable murder involving her husband, decides to take on the investigation herself, and thereafter solves the mystery.” She preened.
“I thought her an appropriate choice for my alias.”
“No doubt.” He supposed that answered one question, then. She wanted him in for questioning.
“In any case, I should think it would look far more suspicious, not to mention, ill-mannered, for you to dump your dear, departed cousin’s widow at a lowly inn in the middle of a snowstorm rather than put her up for the night.”
It would look bad either way. And the truth was, much as he disliked her, he did not feel right about leaving her to fend for herself at the local village inn.
Not that the area teemed with villains, but if she was to be believed, she had already been accosted by pistol-toting criminals who may, or may not, have crossed the flats after her.
Much as it vexed him, honor demanded he put her up for the night. He could only pray the weather improved come morning enough to transport her back to Fenwick—and that no one would work out her true identity in the meantime.
In reality, the chance of that happening was extremely unlikely.
Still, some perverse need not to capitulate to her demands quite that easily urged him to say, “And what of your dress, Lady Woodville? You rather missed the mark, there.”
“My…dress?” She looked down at the pretty blue travel gown she wore, which had the unfortunate consequence of inviting him to do the same, something he’d been avoiding doing by sheer force of will.
The watered silk, with its extremely low-cut bodice and body-hugging corseting showed her figure off to perfection.
“It’s hardly widow’s weeds,” he said, annoyed with the unwelcome sexual awareness sparking through him. Perhaps he’d been too long without a woman’s charms.
“Oh.” She gave a ladylike snort. “If, on the extremely unlikely chance, any of the rustics inhabiting this desolate corner of the North know enough to ask, tell them I’m no longer in high mourning.
As it happens, I spent the last ten months swathed in black and I find I no longer have a taste for it. ”
Though she’d probably looked mouth-wateringly delicious even in that severe color, he thought, dourly.
He finished his brandy and rose from the chair. “The hour grows late and, thanks to your unanticipated arrival, I haven’t had my supper. I’ll show you to your chamber, my lady. Afterward, if you wish, you may join me in the dining room for the evening meal.”
“Thank you,” she said stiffly.
He started for the door. “I’ll send Nell with some water and towels for you, but I warn you now: Don’t expect to be waited on hand and foot, princess. I’ve a skeleton staff here, and they have tasks aplenty as it is.”
“Oh? I wonder why. Something to do with your spontaneous decision to relocate here ten months ago? Just why did you leave London with no word to anyone where you were heading?”
He reached the doorway and shifted to face her. “You raise an interesting point, Lady Montrose. I did not broadcast my destination. How did you come to know where I’d gone?”
She sauntered toward him, not stopping until she stood less than an arm’s reach from him. A feminine scent, elegant, and fresh despite her all-day journey wafted up at him. The same he’d noted when he carried her in his arms.
She lifted one shoulder in a graceful shrug. “When you answer my question, I’ll consider answering yours.”
***
Annabelle followed after the surly, long-legged viscount who did not bother to curtail his stride as he climbed the stone spiral staircase, two flights up.
She refused either to chase after him or admit his petty, ungallant behavior irked her, as he no doubt intended for it to do.
Instead, she took her time, silently congratulating herself on clearing the two important hurdles: Although nothing had gone according to plan, including the loss of her so-called chaperone, she had tracked her quarry, and had convinced him not to toss her out in the cold.
The latter bought her time to accomplish her ultimate goal of dragging him back to London for questioning by Scotland Yard in regard to his involvement in her brother’s suspicious death.
Appealing to his honor had proven a miscalculation on her part.
No matter. She would come up with something else.
By the time she reached him leaning one broad shoulder against the doorjamb in the open doorway to the guest chamber, he bore the distinct look of a man short on patience.
She sent him a triumphant smile, and swished past him. Inside, she made a show of inspecting the quaint chamber, her nose in the air.
“This will do,” she finally said, then glanced toward the doorway.
The empty doorway.
Odious man. He’d left without a by-your-leave.
She huffed and paced to the lone window, staring out at the wintry abyss. In the not-too-far distance, the sea churned, vast and majestic. Snow swirled in the air, silent and mesmeric as it fell, covering everything in a blanket of white.
The scene was oddly beautiful. So different from the city with its crowds and soot and litter—not that she’d admit as much to Lord Randall.
She wouldn’t give him an inch of congeniality. Would that she had known what sort of man he’d prove to be the first time she’d met him, at her brother’s engagement party.
It still rankled how utterly captivated by him she had been. She, who turned heads everywhere she went. She, who had men eating out of the palm of her hand by nothing more than a well-timed bat of her long, black lashes.
She recalled the moment she first set eyes on him.
There he’d stood, tall, broad of shoulder, dark-haired and dark-eyed and oozing magnetism the likes of which she’d never encountered.
Not even her golden-haired brother held a candle to his rugged good looks, and that was saying something.
Gaston had been beautiful. Their entire family was beautiful.
Caroline, her brother’s fiancée, had told her of her brother, of course, of his solid presence in her life, of his integrity and his easy charm.
But nothing could have prepared her for the sight of him chatting with his sister.
Something she’d said had caused him to smile a crooked smile, then laugh aloud, and Annabelle had literally stopped in her tracks to stare.
She probably should have waited for someone to bring him to her for a proper introduction, but she never had been good at curtailing her impulses, and, really, she’d expected him to be as befuddled by her as she was by him, so she’d pranced right up to the two of them.
Caroline had introduced them and in the next instant, her future had played out before her eyes. Not one wedding, but two would take place. It would be the talk of the ton, their two families bonded by a double marriage.
She didn’t realize until it was too late that he had somehow read the entire vision on her face.
All during the party, she peppered Caroline with questions about him, specifically concerning whether he had any prior agreements of a romantic nature.
Caroline, ever soft-spoken and kind, had given her an indulgent smile—and then, as gently as possible, warned Annabelle off.
Annabelle should have heeded the warning.