Kiss Me Annabel. Eloisa James

       Eight

      Mayne found Imogen was sitting at the banquet next to her sister Annabel. There was a strange sense of isolation about her. Mayne had seen that time and again; he knew precisely what was happening. Imogen was being given the cold shoulder by the ton.

      He walked over and sat down next to her. She was eating pigeon pie, and (thankfully) looked unperturbed. Some women dissolved into tears at their first snub; others felt deprived if they didn’t receive at least one cold shoulder of an evening.

      ‘May I join you?’ he said, giving her the special smile he reserved for future chères amies.

      ‘Of course.’ She looked indifferent.

      ‘I am so happy to see that you are out of mourning,’ he said softly.

      ‘In that case, you’ll be disappointed to learn that the fact I’m wearing black means I’m still in mourning.’

      ‘Black suits you like no other woman,’ he said, gazing soulfully into her eyes. She did have beautiful eyes, with bewitchingly long eyelashes. In the old days he would have been after her like a hound scenting a fox.

      ‘Actually, black makes me sallow,’ she said. ‘But once I told my modiste to lower my bodice as far as it would go, every man I meet seems to find it a satisfactory colour.’

      Of course, his gaze automatically shifted to her breasts, and then flew back to her mocking face. ‘There was no need to call my attention to such a lovely aspect of your figure,’ he said, with just a touch of asperity.

      ‘Actually, there was,’ she said, taking a deep draught of wine. ‘You hadn’t noticed, had you?’

      ‘I was entranced by the cupid’s bow of your mouth,’ he said.

      ‘Nice phrase,’ she said, obviously unimpressed.

      He suppressed a sigh. Apparently he’d lost his touch, but he couldn’t bring himself to give a damn. He could report failure to Tess, and this little episode would be over. After all, in his experience a woman bent on sending her reputation into flames usually succeeded. There was no reason for him to burn to a crisp with her.

      But then Imogen glanced at him over her shoulder and said, ‘So who put you up to my seduction?’

      ‘What?’

      ‘You don’t know Annabel well enough, so my guess would be Tess.’ She must have read the truth in his eyes. ‘Tess! Who would have thought that she could stop thinking about her delectable husband long enough to give me a thought?’

      The thought of Tess and her husband seemed to give her a pang, because she got a queer look on her face, like a little girl lost in a storm, and Mayne felt some of his resolution to walk away slip.

      ‘Thank you for the letter you sent after Draven died,’ she said, abruptly changing the subject.

      ‘I was sorry to miss the funeral. Maitland was a good man with a horse. And a humorous story,’ he added.

      ‘He was funny, wasn’t he?’ Imogen said. ‘I –’ She looked away from him and drank some more wine.

      Someone brought him a plate of food. He took a bite and choked on its sweetness. Imogen looked back at him, all mocking again, and said, ‘In the Renaissance, spices were the only way to preserve meat. I think there might be quite a lot of nutmeg in this food. The recipes are all authentic.’

      ‘Good.’ He signalled the waiter for wine. Which wasn’t quite normal because there were strange, small objects floating about in his glass, but he could live with that.

      ‘How well did you know Draven?’ She asked it very casually, as if the answer meant nothing to her, but Mayne hadn’t spent his twenties sleeping with married women without learning the ins and outs of a casual question. Imogen very likely knew the answer; she just wanted to talk about her husband. His mother had been the same, after his father died.