“Not too old, if possible.”
“And what constitutes as too old?”
She was nineteen, nearly twenty; what was too old? “Not above forty, I think.”
“A generous range.”
“Are you going to mock me all morning?” she snapped.
“It’s delightfully entertaining,” he drawled. “But in summary, you require a bookish man under forty who will be kind and allow you to rusticate year-round at his estate.”
She blinked in surprise. “Well, perhaps not year-round. I would like to continue seeing my family.”
“Noted. Already I can think of several gentlemen who might appeal.”
Annabelle raised her eyebrows. “You mean to say you are acquainted with men who can read?”
His bark of laughter disturbed Theo. “Vixen,” he said, and she thought she even heard a trace of affection in his voice.
She might have answered in kind had the Dowager Duchess not swept into the room unannounced.
During the Dowager’s illness, Annabelle had been given a reprieve from her judgemental eye and intense matchmaking. Something, of course, that was entirely unnecessary now she was so-called engaged. But what would the Dowager think of her shock engagement to Jacob?
She wanted to vomit.
“Duchess,” Theo said in surprise, rising immediately to her feet. Annabelle did the same, curtsying with her face turned to the floor. Jacob frowned in her direction, but she could do no more than listen to the rushing in her ears.
Most of her acquaintances thought she was stupid, but it was far worse to know the former Duchess of Norfolk shared their opinion.
“Are you well?” Theo asked, hurrying across. “You did not say you were well enough for a visit or we should have come sooner. I thought the physician said—”
“The physician! Bah!” The Dowager lowered herself into the nearest chair, gnarled hands gripping her cane tightly. “Seemed to think a bit of pneumonia would be enough to carry me off. But I’m not done yet.”
Annabelle sank back into her seat, staring at her hands. Jacob sat beside her, rather closer than before, his legs spread until his thigh almost touched her knee. She stared at the almost contact, her anxiety spiking. The Dowager had always managed to make her feel smaller than an ant. One look from her, and Annabelle was struggling to remember where her tongue was, never mind how to use it.
“I’ll call for Nate,” Theo said. “He won’t want to miss you.”
“Never mind my son,” the Dowager said, and although Annabelle wasn’t looking up, her heart was pounding, and she could almost feel the scratchy weight of the Dowager’s attention landing on her. “I’ve come to speak with Annabelle here. And you, young man, I presume are Lord Sunderland.”
“I am, ma’am.” His tone was crisp.
“Then I am glad you have finally seen sense.”
Jacob tensed beside her. “In what way, ma’am?”
“Marrying Lady Annabelle, of course,” she said, and Annabelle looked up to see the Dowager looking straight at her. “You may thank me, Annabelle, for being the one to prompt this lump into action. His mother would have been disappointed in him.”
The words penetrated, but it took a moment for them to lodge and make sense in her head. TheDowager had been the one to prompt the matter?
Annabelle’s mouth fell open as the full weight of meaning crashed into her.
“You?” Theo asked in hushed, disbelieving shock. “You were the one to put the announcement in the paper?”
“Well of course.” The Dowager sounded impatient, as though their shock was entirely unwarranted, but Annabelle couldn’t think past the fact her own family member had manipulated her into an engagement neither of them had wanted. “When Lady Ingram said something to me about Lady Annabelle and Lord Sunderland meeting clandestinely in Lady Cavendish’s garden, what else was I to say except they were engaged?” Her grey eyes were like a hawk’s, piercing and not necessarily friendly. “I expected the boy to do the right thing and offer, but when he didn’t, I made sure of it myself.”
Jacob stood, his back ramrod straight and his eyes blazing. “You,” was all he said, but his voice was like splitting ice, and Annabelle had the terrible premonition he was going to do something awful. Would he end the engagement over this? Blame her? The Dowager’s choices were nothing to do with her, but if he didn’t know that, or if he didn’t believe her—
“Oh, sit down,” the Dowager said impatiently. “I don’t have the time for theatrics at my age. Yes, it was I; and yes, no doubt you think me presumptuous, given you had no intention of doing the honourable thing.”
