‘The duke, of course!’ Annabel said. ‘One of us must become the duchess, obviously, since he doesn’t seem to have one at hand. Duchess of Holbrook. The man isn’t married, although -’
‘Holbrook may well be promised in marriage,’ Imogen pointed out. ‘Look at Draven.’ Lord Maitland had been promised in marriage for two years or more, without showing the slightest interest in progressing toward the altar.
‘I doubt it,’ Annabel said. ‘And if not, I shall marry him. That way, my husband can give each of you excellent dowries. Perhaps you won’t marry as well as I, since there are only eight dukes in all England, not counting the royal dukes. But we shall find titled men for each of you.’
‘What a sacrifice,’ Josie said acidly. ‘I suppose you read all of Debrett’s in order to discover the names of those eight dukes?’
‘I shall steel myself to the task,’ Annabel said. ‘And mind you, given our guardian’s looks, I do consider it a sacrifice. The man will be positively potbellied before he’s fifty, if he doesn’t watch out.’
Imogen rolled her eyes, but Josie leaped in before her. ‘Sacrifice, Annabel? You’d marry an eighty-year-old man if you, could make yourself a duchess! Your Grace!’ she added for good measure.
‘I most certainly would not!’ Annabel retorted. Then she laughed. ‘Well, only if the man was very, very wealthy.’
‘You’re naught more than a money-grubbing flirt,’ Josie observed. ‘And who’s to say that this duke is any richer than Papa was? After all, Papa was a viscount, but his title was naught more than tin when it came to his pocket!’
‘If Holbrook has no money, I shan’t marry him,’ Annabel said with a delicate shudder. ‘I’d rather slay myself than marry a man as out at the elbows as Papa was. But don’t be foolish, Josie. Look at this house! Holbrook is obviously deep in the pockets.’
‘Don’t be disrespectful of your father,’ Tess broke in. ‘Annabel, truly, the duke may well be affianced, and it would be best not to think in such an improper fashion of the man who was kind enough to agree to be our guardian.’
Annabel raised one eyebrow and took a small mirror from her reticule. ‘Perhaps I’ll make him regret that arrangement, then,’ she said, rubbing her lips with a scrap of Spanish paper that she’d bought in the village before they left Scotland.
‘You’re revolting,’ Josie said.
‘And you’re a squib,’ Annabel replied. ‘I’m being practical. One of us has to marry, and immediately. Imogen has been telling us for two years now that she means to marry Maitland, and Tess has never made the slightest push to marry anyone – so that leaves me. One of us has to marry and take the others to her house. That’s what we always said.’
‘Tess could marry anyone she chose!’ Josie said stoutly. ‘She’s the most beautiful of us all. Don’t you agree, Imogen?’
Imogen nodded, but she had her arms clasped around her knees, and she was clearly paying not a whit of attention to the conversation. ‘She may marry anyone, other than Draven, of course,’ she said dreamily. ‘Just think, I might see him in a matter of hours … minutes really.’
Annabel ignored her comment, which was pretty much the way the girls had acted every time Imogen mentioned Maitland’s name for the past two years. ‘I agree with you as to Tess’s beauty,’ she told Josie, ‘but men aren’t prone to marry penniless girls who show no interest. Yet I am interested in marriage. Very interested.’
‘In the institution, not the man!’ Josie retorted.
Annabel shrugged. ‘Imogen is romantic enough for the rest of us. It’s Papa’s fault. He made me keep the books for all these years, and now numbers float before my eyes every time I think about matrimony.’
‘He didn’t precisely make you keep the books,’ Tess put in, a trifle wearily. She was tired of defending their father from Annabel’s charges, but Josie took any criticism of their papa very badly. There was no way to sugarcoat the fact that their papa had discovered Annabel had a gift for figures at the age of thirteen and dumped the entire financial accounting of the estate on her slender shoulders.
‘The important point is that I shan’t be keeping books any longer. I don’t want to think of numbers, or bills, or unpaid accounts ever again in my life. Thank goodness, men are silly enough to overlook my lack of dowry.’
‘You could try for a little modesty,’ Josie needled.
‘You could try for a little maturity,’ Annabel retorted. ‘I’m not being immodest. I’m simply being practical. One of us must marry, and I have the attributes that make men dazed enough to overlook lack of dowry. I’m not going to pretend to possess ladylike virtues that I don’t have in front of you three. It’s too late for that. If Papa truly wanted us to think like ladies, he wouldn’t have trained us to do exactly the opposite.’
‘Papa did wish us to be ladies!’ Josie protested. ‘He taught us to speak just like English ladies, didn’t he?’
‘Poppycock,’ Annabel said, but there wasn’t any real spite in her voice, just an amused acceptance. ‘Josie, if Papa had given a fig for his daughters’ futures as ladies, our lives would have been quite different. For one thing, he wouldn’t have pissed in the chamber pot right there in the dining room.’
‘Annabel!’ Tess said. ‘Keep your voice down.’
But Annabel just grinned at her. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I fully intend to counterfeit every ladylike quality that exists, until at least a week after I convince some bacon-brained peer to marry me and hand over his pocketbook.’
Tess sighed. It wasn’t easy to be an elder sister to Annabel, with her startling tawny hair and brazen belief in her own magnificence. The problem was that she and Imogen truly did look like the princesses in the fairy tale ‘Snow White and Rose Red’.
‘Well, you needn’t set your cap at Holbrook,’ she said. ‘I don’t think he’d make the best husband in the world.’
‘If he’s rich enough, he’s good enough. Frankly, I can’t marry just anyone,’ Annabel said. ‘I’ve very expensive tastes.’ She hopped off the bed and examined herself in the glass. ‘I may never have had a chance to indulge those tastes, but I’m certain they’ll be expensive when I do indulge them. I have no objection to considering the Earl of Mayne if he shows as much depth in the pocket as our guardian.’
‘You’re being shocking for the mere sake of it,’ Tess said.
Annabel ignored her, as she had ignored every piece of advice that directed itself toward proper ladylike behaviour. ‘The duke is a better bet. Higher title, and all that. I shall reel him in,’ she announced, ‘then I shall go directly to London. From the day I am married, I shall wear nothing but silk next to my skin.’
‘There’s a word for women like you,’ Josie observed.
‘And that word is happy,’ Annabel said. It was hard to offend Annabel, even though her smallest sister devoted herself to the task. Annabel was too – Annabel. Too sure of herself, too glowing, too sensuous, too loving. Too desired. ‘I can hardly believe that we have finally found our way out of
