Page 35 of Somewhere Along The Way (Mackinnon #3)

Chapter Eleven

There were times Annabella remembered she was betrothed. There were other times when she did not

Sitting at her dressing table, with Betty brushing her hair, she was lost in thought.

It was past time for her to put in her appearance at breakfast, but she was unable to do any more than she was doing about it.

Annabella was lost in a brown study, wondering just why it was that the things most remembered were the things best forgot.

Memory, it seemed, had a life of its own, and a stubborn will as well.

How she wanted to forget. Forgetting had a way of making her mild-mannered and sweet-tempered, but whenever she remembered she was cross as crabs.

It boded ill for the daughter of the Duke of Grenville to be cross as anything, for tolerance, it seemed, was something her father preached, but had little of.

About that time Betty tangled the brush in something determined to stay where it was and gave Bella’s head a powerful yank.

“Ouch!” Bella said, coming out of her chair and giving Betty a cross look. Judging from the foul expression on Betty’s face, she didn’t seem to be faring any better than she was.

“What’s wrong with you this morning?” she asked Betty.

“Nothing, ma’am.”

Annabella sighed, lowering herself back down into her chair. “Fudge and stuff, Betty. Your face is as dark as Egypt. I’ve never seen you in such a pucker. Something is definitely wrong.”

“I dropped a tray in the hallway this morning and Her Grace saw it.”

“Is that all?”

“I broke all the dishes,” Betty wailed. “The teapot, the creamer, the cup and saucer—even the sugar bowl.”

“Did Mother say anything to you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Betty said between sniffles. “She said to His Grace, ‘I’ll settle Betty when I come back up.’”

“Oh, posh. You know as well as I that a settling from my mother isn’t any worse than a couple of swipes with a feather duster.

Here, give me the brush. You go to the basin and wash your face.

There are worse things that could happen to you, you know.

You’ve faced my mother before and lived to tell about it.

What if you had to face the Earl of Huntly every day for the rest of your life? ”

Betty burst into tears, and that set Annabella’s mood back one hour. Once again she was remembering the details of that which she wished most to avoid altogether.

When she went down to breakfast, she was what her mother referred to as “cross as crabs”.

She arrived too late for breakfast, the serving board having been cleared of the morning’s fare, so she settled for a cup of tea and a scone with her mother.

The duchess spent the next half hour trying to interest her in the latest bridal fashions from Paris.

Glancing out the window at the endless miles of purple heath stretching as far as the eye could see, beneath an aquamarine sky veiled with wisps of white, Annabella thought, How lovely and like a bride the world is.

As usual, anything that reminded her of weddings made her want to change the subject to one that centered on more pleasant thoughts.

Her father and brother had returned, their stories about their hunt for grouse keeping Annabella and her mother up half the night.

She wondered what it would be like to go hunting, then decided it wouldn’t be something she liked.

Directing her thoughts to something more to her liking, she wondered what it would be like to shoot Huntly.

Now that was something to think about. Drumming her fingers on the table, she asked her mother just how much longer they would be staying here at Dunford.

The duchess, who was spreading marmalade thickly over the top half of her scone, paused and looked at Annabella strangely. “A week, Bella. Our original plan was to stay one week. I’ve told you that at least ten times.”

“I know, but I kept hoping you and Papa would change your minds. I wish we were leaving sooner.”

“Bella, for heaven’s sake. We can’t go dashing about the Scottish countryside the way we do the streets of London.

Travel here takes time, and that means we must linger for at least a little while at each destination before we take off again.

One does not tour Scotland in the same manner one looks over the latest fabrics at Madame Toussard’s Dress Shop. ”

Annabella’s expression turned even more woeful. “Just the same, I wish we were leaving. I find this place excruciatingly boring.”

The duchess patted her hand. “I would imagine you are bored because you sit around moping most of the time. Why don’t you go for a walk? It’s lovely outside this time of the morning.”

“A walk,” repeated Bella. “You think a walk will cure anything.” Bella rose to her feet.

“Fudge and stuff. I wouldn’t be surprised if you recommended a walk to a dying man.

” She looked at her mother with pleading eyes and a lip that seemed bent upon trembling.

With a voice heavy with dramatic overtones, she said, “There are some things that a walk cannot cure, and a broken heart is one of them.”

With that, she ran from the room.

Gavin, who was just entering, found himself flattened against the wall. He watched Annabella until she disappeared, then exchanged glances with his mother.

“If you’ve come in here to visit, sit down,” the duchess said, spreading one last lump of marmalade. “If you came in here to ask me what’s wrong with your sister…don’t. I gave up trying to figure out a young woman’s mind after the second girl.”

“Today is Thursday,” Gavin said, giving his mother a sly grin. “I think Thursday is Bella’s day to be cross.”

“Every day is her day to be cross of late. I don’t understand how I could have nurtured that child all these years only to discover I don’t know her,” the duchess said, her curled hair bobbing backward and forward.

“Where did she learn such disobedience?” she asked.

Then, with a sigh of resignation, she answered, “From my side of the family.”

“It isn’t just disobedience. She doesn’t want to marry Huntly, Mama. Surely you know that?”

Tears sprang to his mother’s eyes as she began fishing beneath her sleeve for her handkerchief.

“Of course I know it,” she wailed. “I just don’t know what to do about it.

I’ve tried everything I can think of to get her excited about the wedding, but nothing I do seems to interest her.

I never thought she would persist this long.

If she doesn’t come around soon, I don’t know what I’ll do. ”

Lady Anne went on to impress upon Gavin the strain she was under, always trying to appear cheerful and happy when her heart was breaking over the sadness of her daughter.

“It isn’t easy being a mother, you know.

” She was sobbing now. “I don’t know how God could have been so careful to put mothers in charge of everyone else’s happiness, only to forget to put anyone in charge of theirs. ”

“Have you talked to Father?”

“Your father is a dear man,” she wailed, sobbing harder. “But sometimes he can be a completely unfeeling man.”

While Gavin listened to the duchess, Annabella went outside for that walk her mother was so fond of suggesting. After an hour, she could hardly say her spirits were elevated, but her mood had mellowed somewhat.

She sat for a moment upon a garden bench, thinking of her home in England, of cowslips and gillyflowers, feeling she had picked a bouquet of them, and now they would never grow again.

She walked for a while along the winding path bordered with rue and thistle but caught a scent of bay rum as it drifted over the hedge.

She heard the crunch of gravel and started to peek through an opening in the shrub, but decided not to.

She knew who walked on the other side. She knew the two paths came together just ahead, so she turned away, not wanting Ross to see her.

She stopped by the stables and looked through the fence, watching Lord Percival and the duke fussing over a new spindly legged colt trying to stand, but even there she felt left out.

Turning away from the paddock, a field of haystacks and fat, curly sheep caught her eye and she headed in their direction.

The sheep eyed her with curious interest as she approached, but soon they lost interest and went back to grazing.

She stepped over a ramble of stones where the fence was falling down, trying to decide if she was going to risk sitting on the tumbledown fence and ruining her skirts, or continue to stand.

Lost in thought, she did not hear the cadence of approaching footsteps, but she caught again the scent of bay rum.

“If it’s lost sheep you’re looking for, I’m afraid these already belong to someone.”

She turned around, her surprised look settling on him.

Ross stopped beside her, bracing one leg on the low fence, resting his arms on his knee.

He was standing close—too close—and she wondered if he could hear the frantic beat of a heart that felt too wild to be contained inside her chest. She wanted to say something, anything, to break the tension of silence that stretched to the point of snapping.

She wanted to turn and run. She would have left then, if he had not turned to look at her, stopping her with a gaze so intent it held her immobile and just a little frightened.

He lifted his hand, touching her cheek with one finger. “I’ve never known anyone with just one dimple.”

A cold shiver fluttered the length of her body. She wasn’t certain if it was because of his touch or the lazy way his eyes seemed to glide over her face. “You still don’t. It isn’t a dimple.”

“No?”

“It’s a scar.”