turned from the archery tent and began to walk quickly in the opposite direction. Lady Whittingham was strolling toward her with her feckless husband; Imogen smiled, fighting the tears. Lady Whittingham turned her head away and walked on.
For a moment Imogen paused as if she’d been struck in the stomach. Then she remembered that she’d burned her bridges at the ball the night before…Ardmore…their dance…Rafe. But she couldn’t bring herself to care. Likely she wouldn’t have been invited to this garden party had the invitations not gone out the previous week. But who cared for that?
The question, the eternal question, flooded back into her mind and she walked on, Lady Whittingham’s snub forgotten.
She was beautiful. Everyone said so. Her modiste said so; her maid said so; she saw the truth reflected in the eyes of men who passed her. If only it was a problem with the way she looked, she thought bitterly. Then she could simply resign herself to a loveless life and become a nun.
What good was beauty when she’d failed to make Draven love her? Beauty wasn’t enough. She needed the quality that Annabel had, that melting, sensual look that she had. It wasn’t fair that her sister had it, since Annabel was a virgin.
Since she was about to bump into a table offering glasses of ratafia, she took one even though she despised the drink.
Surely Draven had been happy enough. Except…the doubts followed her. Perhaps if she had been more enticing, Draven would have loved her, really loved her. She could have made that Scottish earl want her. She saw it in his eyes when she pressed against him.
There was a whisper of protest in her mind, but she ignored it.
Perhaps she could learn how to please a man in the bedchamber. How to make him delirious with desire for her so that he loved her, whether he wished to or no. That’s how Tess had done it. Imogen had seen her: she let her husband kiss her at the racetrack, surrounded by people. Lucius had kissed Tess in the open, where anyone might see them. She herself would never have allowed Draven such a liberty.
Fool! She was a fool! If she had enticed Draven into such liberties, perhaps he wouldn’t have left her and walked down to the track, and found out that his jockey didn’t want to ride that devil of a horse, and decided to ride him…he would have stayed at her side.
Safe.
Alive.
The ratafia was so sickly sweet that the danger of tears receded. She drained the glass. Why should she sit about mourning Draven when she could be –
The pain caught her heart and wrenched it so hard that she almost gasped aloud.
How could Draven be dead? Automatically she started to count to ten but it was too late. She could feel a sob tearing its way up her chest.
The only person who loved Draven besides herself was Draven’s mother. And when Lady Clarice had seen that Imogen was not carrying a child, she simply gave up. She stopped eating, caught a chill…leaving Imogen in a world of fools who didn’t know Draven, who didn’t remember how exquisitely funny he could be, how full of life, how…
Tears made the world blurry but one of Lady Mitford’s pavilions loomed before her, offering a bench and a canopy of fluttering white silk.
She sat down and launched into a familiar routine. First, she sat rigidly upright. She had discovered that one was less likely to dissolve into tears if one’s backbone was straight. Then she counted her breaths: one, two, three. Finally, she turned her thoughts to Rafe’s behaviour the previous night. How dare he? How dare he presume to say anything to her about her behaviour? He wasn’t her brother, nor an uncle, nor anything to her. He was simply the guardian she had before marrying. He was nothing to her now, and yet he presumed – he presumed!
Her eyes narrowed and the tears were gone.
Thank goodness. There was nothing she hated more in the world than letting people see she was crying. She had enough pity from her own sisters. Pity or patronisation: it was all the same, and none of it helped this awful bitterness that she could taste in her mouth. Like metal. It wasn’t exactly grief; grief tasted more like tears.
Draven was gone. She pushed herself off the bench.
Annabel was just growing a trifle impatient when she saw Lord Rosseter strolling back toward her. There he was.
She had dressed carefully, given that Rosseter had made a formal offer that very morning. As per her instructions, Rafe had accepted, and all that remained was for Rosseter to personally request her hand.
She was wearing a dress of straw-coloured muslin, trimmed in silk tassels. It was demure yet flattering. Rosseter was dressed in a morning coat of pale brown stripes lined with yellow. His cravat was not too elaborate: just precisely right for a garden party. The rightness of it all, even down to the polished tips of his extremely expensive boots, warmed her soul. This was a man who would understand her desire to wear silk next to her skin at all times: understand it, and never question her. She would never have to count pennies again.
She gave him a lavish smile on the strength of it. He smiled faintly in return and turned to meet her chaperone. But Lady Griselda sent him off to bring her a glass of lemonade.
‘I wanted a moment,’ Griselda said, giving her a smile bright with conspiratorial pleasure. ‘I think the pavilion to the far right corner of the garden is the proper place. I strolled by earlier and there’s no entertainment planned for that pavilion, so you won’t be interrupted by a caterwauling singer abusing a lute. It’s covered in rose silk, which has a most flattering effect on the complexion – not that you need it, my dear. And finally, if you wish to allow him a small expression of his devotion, you are unlikely to be seen by more than twenty or thirty, and that should ensure that the news travels far faster than an announcement in The Times would do.’
‘An excellent suggestion,’ Annabel murmured. Now that the moment was at hand, she just wanted to move on. To be safely married, and never have to even think of worrying about money again.
‘Remember, your married life begins now,’ Griselda said. ‘Be kind but firm. Your every expression will inform Lord Rosseter what liberties he may or may not take. You must train him to understand your every glance. Do you understand, Annabel?’
‘I think so,’ Annabel said.
Rosseter had begun walking back toward them, trailed by a page carrying a tray with a glass of lemonade for Griselda.
‘Now, look at that,’ Griselda said. ‘You’ve made a good choice, dear. He acts decisively.’
‘I suppose so,’ Annabel said.
‘It’s not every man with the providence to think ahead and avoid the possibility of staining his clothing,’ Griselda told her. ‘And I like the fact that he’s a bit older than you are. It gives him a sense of depth.’
‘How old do you think he is?’ Annabel said, watching him drift toward them, raising a white hand in response to a remark tossed to him by a friend.
‘Oh, at least – well, let’s see. I was married to Willoughby when I first
