“The Duke and Duchess of Norfolk,” the butler announced as they reached the drawing room. “And Lady Annabelle Beaumont.”
The moment they entered, Annabelle saw her brother, sitting with his mother as though no time had passed. He looked older and grimmer than she could remember. The seven years he had been absent had not been kind to him.
Her mother jumped to her feet and held out her hands. “My dears, you’re here! Finally! Look who it is.”
“Told you she had a favourite,” Theo muttered in Annabelle’s ear, and Annabelle stifled a laugh as Henry also rose, the worn expression on his face smoothing into a genuine smile.
“Theo,” he said “Anna. You’ve both grown so much since I last saw you.”
“Well Iammarried now,” Theo said, and Nathanial grinned, holding out his hand.
“You’ll probably thank me for taking her off your hands.”
“I can’t tell you how relieved I am,” Henry said, winking at Theo, who stuck her tongue out at them both.
As always in large gatherings, Annabelle was sidelined. Her personality wasn’t large enough to compete with the others’, and she found she didn’t particularly want to. Overt displays of emotion and affection weren’t something she was especially comfortable with either receiving or expressing, and having everyone fawn over her was something she had never liked.
Henry broke past Theo and stood before Annabelle. “Anna,” he said, his voice warm. She raised her gaze hesitantly to his face. The war had changed him. The young man she remembered had turned into a grim-faced man of thirty, with crow’s feet spreading from the corners of his blue eyes that held shadows she had not noticed in the past.
“How you’ve grown,” he said, still in that affectionate voice.
“I’m almost twenty now,” she reminded him.
“Yes, I haven’t forgotten.”
“And she’s engaged,” their mother said, hurrying to take part in the conversation. She placed a hand on Henry’s arm, looking up at him adoringly. Annabelle’s father had been such a disappointment to the whole family, it was hardly surprising that their mother now looked to her eldest son to save them.
Henry blinked at Annabelle in surprise. “Engaged?”
Annabelle wished everyone had kept her business a secret. With Henry back in Town, it would be even harder to extricate herself from this faux engagement when the time came.
“To Lord Sunderland,” Theo supplied. “Or Lord Jacob Barrington as you would have known him then.”
Henry’s jaw snapped shut, muscles flexing, and his eyes darkened. “Jacob Barrington?”
“He’s the Marquess now,” their mother said, giving Annabelle a rare approving look, as thoughshehad been responsible for the prior Marquess’s death. As though that was agoodthing.
Annabelle felt vaguely ill.
“What in the seven hells do you think you’re doing marrying Barrington?” Henry demanded. All the joviality that had been on his face previously had dissolved into anger Annabelle didn’t understand. There was something hard there, cultivated by the war no doubt, that was as sharp as a diamond-edged blade.
“With all due respect,” Annabelle said calmly, her heart pounding in her chest, “it’s not your business who I marry and who I don’t.”
Henry turned to their mother. “Does Father know about this?”
“Of course he does,” she said, confusion blooming. “And he has given his permission.”
“Of all the men in the world, Anna,” Henry snapped, “you had to choose a man who would mistake honour for licentiousness?”
Annabelle thought of the book of sonnets he had gifted her with that very morning. “With all due respect,” she repeated, her fingers clenching with impotent anger, “you don’t know him.”
“Oh, I know him well enough,” he said darkly. “And I know the kinds of things he’s done.”
“Well—”
“Did you know he ruined his brother’s betrothed?” Henry demanded. “They were all set to marry before Barrington seduced her so thoroughly, her own father cast her out.”
Annabelle went cold. No, she did not know that—all she knew was that the two brothers had not got along, but she had assumed that was because of brotherly bad blood, not because Jacob had . . .
