In any case, she’d never know. Her pride would not allow her to ask.
Hearing a soft scratch at the door, followed by the doorknob turning, she looked over her shoulder to see Babette entering the shadowed chamber. Folded over her arms, she carried what looked to Annabelle like a gown, fashioned of a deep rose fabric.
“What have you there?”
Babette moved to the wardrobe where she hung what was definitely a dress. A dinner dress by the glint and glimmer of whatever embellishments adorned the garment.
“I’d begun working on it before Lord Randall announced your departure,” she murmured. “I finished it today, along with your slippers.” She turned to Annabelle with an almost smug grin.
“How did you know?”
Babette ignored Annabelle’s query. She moved to the hearth to stoke the coals into renewed flames, then returned to the bath. “Shall I help you dry, milady? I have an idea for styling your lovely hair tonight. Wearing your new frock, your hair just so, you shall look positively stunning.” She plucked up a large, white towel from the stack and held it open for Annabelle, obscuring herself from Annabelle’s view and giggling. “The master will be quite undone.”
Annabelle rose, gooseflesh covering her skin, and stepped over the tub’s edge. “Babette, it hardly matters how I look for LordRandall. You know very well that he and I are…” What were they? Not friends, certainly, but not precisely enemies, anymore either.
Enemies did not put each other up for the night. They didn’t pay each other’s debts. Didn’t change their travel arrangements to make the trip more palatable for the other. They didn’t provide new gowns or delicious baths.
But they did track down those who’d colluded against their family.
Guilt and confusion enveloped her along with the fluffy towel in which Babette wrapped her, because sheshouldsee him as an enemy. He’d played a part in her brother’s death before scampering from the city like a rat to avoid questioning. Hadn’t he?
She closed her eyes. She would not be deterred from learning the truth before she returned home, she vowed, no matter what that said about her.
“You do not wish me to dress your hair?” Babette asked, her tone dejected as she squeezed the moisture from Annabelle’s tresses.
She eyed the dress hanging in the open wardrobe. Never had a gown held more appeal, primarily thanks to her abject desire not to re-don the one she’d arrived wearing. And she did enjoy Babette’s skill with her hair. Besides, she didn’t want to disappoint the woman who had done so many thoughtful things for her.
“I would dearly love for you to style my hair, and…Babette, thank you. For the tea. For the bath. For the dresses. For the slippers. You are…kind.”
Almost immediately, she questioned the impulse that led her to speak in such a personal manner with the maid. Her mother would be aghast if she witnessed the interchange.Ladies do not befriend the servants, she would undoubtedly say.
And yet, seeing Babette glow under the praise warmed her.
“Milady deserves to wear beautiful things,” she said softly. “Beautiful on the insideandout. She just needed someone to remind her.”
Annabelle did not feel beautiful on the inside. What had she ever done for someone else the way Babette seemed to do, and even grouchy Sterling seemed to do by second nature?
Even her goal of solving her brother’s death had less to do with aiding her mother as she claimed and everything to do with aiding herself.
***
At promptly eight o’clock that evening, with the gong of an unseen clock echoing in the corridor, Annabelle approached the arched dining hall entrance. At a glance, she took in the table set for two, the polished silver candelabras, reflecting their tapered candles’ stuttering flames, the crystal chandelier’s glowing candlesticks, and no sign of her host.
Disappointment so poignant the backs of her eyes stung shamed her to the core. She wasn’t simply anxious to prove his guilt. She hungered for the sight of him.
Squaring her shoulders, she stepped one foot across the threshold—then froze as a rush of wind stirred the fine hairs on her nape and rushed over her exposed skin. The ensuing rumble of masculine voices, one of which sent a shiver of recognition up her spine, had her peering down the corridor toward the foyer. The rapid clip of boot steps sounded, growing louder with each footfall.
A moment later, Lord Randall, wearing his black greatcoat, cheeks flushed and thick hair disheveled from the elements, appeared at the end of the hall. He rushed headlong in her direction with seemingly no notice of her presence.
She knew the moment he spotted her, as his eyes widened and he skidded to a halt, looking almost like a boy who’d been caught running indoors.
She shifted to face him.
His dark gaze drifted over her, moving from her head to her feet, then back. He swallowed, hard.
It was everything she could do to keep her lips from curving in a triumphant smile.Shehad done that to him.
“Lady Annabelle, good evening.”
