Annabelle by MC Beaton Read Free Book Online

lip in vexation as she held it up to the candlelight. Then she remembered a package of lace curtains in the bottom drawer of a closet in the powderroom. She brought them out of hiding, fetching her work basket, and began carefully and surely to snip and stitch until the sea green gown was covered in a delectable lace overdress with long prim sleeves.
    She thought briefly of Lady Emmeline as she stitched away busily. Her godmother had escaped with only a few minor burns. It was almost as if the letter had been a deliberate ruse to entice the Dowager Marchioness into a trap. Shaking her head over her lurid fantasies, Annabelle finally snuffed out the candles and went to bed.

Chapter Four
    Annabelle entered her godmother’s bedchamber late the following morning. At first she thought Lady Emmeline was dead. The waxy face on the pillow was bound tightly in bandages passing under the chin and ending in a bow on the top of her head. Her blond curls hung on a wig stand in the corner. Every available flat surface of the room was crammed with phials and bottles and boxes of creams and oils and unguents. A large gray and scarlet parrot wiped his beak against the bars of his cage and looked Annabelle over with all the hauteur of a patroness of Almack’s.
    The room was stiflingly hot. Lady Emmeline opened her eyes, saw Annabelle, and began to strip off her bandages.
    “This is the best way to firm the chin,” said that redoubtable old lady as soon as she could. “And stop staring at my face, child. ’Tis only oatmeal and water. The best cure for wrinkles there is.”
    Horley appeared like a grim shadow beside the bed. “Ah, Horley, hand me my hair,” said Lady Emmeline as Annabelle tried not to stare at her hostess’s shaven pate. “No, not the blond one, silly. ’Tis all smoke. I think the red will do to welcome my callers.”
    With all the expertise of a magician Horley popped a curly red wig on her mistress’s head. “Now, fetch my chocolate and my appointments. I shall not be stirring today,” said Lady Emmeline. “But there are engagements for Miss Quennell to fulfill. Ah, here we are. Youand Jimmy are to attend the Standishes’ breakfast. It is time you attended to your duties as a fiancée. Pray see that Jimmy does not drink too much. You will meet several of his fellow officers. Ah! how I envy you! When I remember the days … well, never mind.”
    In the short time before her departure for the Standishes’ breakfast, Annabelle found herself worrying over the fact that she had not thanked Lord Varleigh for his gift of the novel. Would he be at the breakfast? Should she send him a letter by one of the footmen? A letter would perhaps be best.
    A STRENGTHENING wind was pushing ominous-looking clouds across the sky when Lord Varleigh and Lady Jane Cherle arrived at the Standishes’ imposing mansion at Henley. The crowd of guests bore witness to the fact that it was now easier to attend engagements out of town with the advent of faster and better sprung carriages and Macadam’s hard, smooth-surfaced roads.
    “They have surely room enough in that great barracks of a place to serve our food instead of pushing us into a drafty tent in the garden,” pouted Lady Jane. The “drafty tent” was a smart red and white striped marquee capable of housing a hundred. “But then,” went on Lady Jane, “Maria Standish always was an ambitious woman. You know, if I don’t ask the Bloggs, then the Togs won’t come, and if I don’t ask the Fints, the Wints won’t bring the Mints to meet the Bloggs and the Togs. Shall we go in? I am still shaking after last night. Of course, your brave little friend, Miss Quennell, plunged all unheeding into the smoke but then, some of these country-bred girls have no
sensibility
,”
    “And you have an excess of it,” teased Lord Varleigh. Jane was wearing a flamboyant velvet gown in flaming scarlet which was intricately gored and flounced andruched. She looked just like an elaborately