Kiss Me Annabel. Eloisa JamesЧитать онлайн книгу.
Imogen had lost her husband the previous autumn, and after her first six months of mourning she had joined Annabel in London for the season. Currently she was amusing herself by shocking respectable matrons of the ton by flaunting a wardrobe full of mourning clothing cut in daring styles that left little of her figure to the imagination.
‘You have to expect attention,’ Annabel pointed out. ‘After all, you dressed for it.’ She let a little sarcasm creep into her tone.
‘Do you think that I should buy another of these gowns?’ Imogen asked, staring into the mirror. She gave a seductive roll of her shoulders and the bodice settled even lower on her chest. She was dressed in black faille, a perfectly respectable fabric for a widow. But the modiste had saved on fabric, for the bodice was nothing more than a few scraps of cloth, falling to a narrow silhouette that clung to every curve. The pièce de résistance was a trim of tiny white feathers around the bodice. The feathers nestled against Imogen’s breasts and made every man who glimpsed them throw caution to the wind.
‘No one has a need for more than one dress of that pattern,’ Annabel pointed out.
‘Madame Badeau has threatened to make another. She complains that she must sell two in order to justify her design. And I should not like to see another woman in this particular gown.’
‘That’s absurd,’ Annabel said. ‘Many women have gowns of the same design. No one will notice.’
‘Everyone notices what I wear,’ Imogen said, and one had to admit it was a perfect truth.
‘’Tis an indulgence to order another gown merely to allow it to languish in your wardrobe.’
Imogen shrugged. Her husband had died relatively penniless, but then his mother had fallen into a decline and died within a month of her son. Lady Clarice had left her private estate to her daughter- in-law, making Imogen one of the wealthiest widows in all England. ‘I’ll have the gown made up for you, then. You must promise to wear it only in the country, where no one of importance can see you.’
‘That gown will fall to my navel if I bend over, which hardly suits a debutante.’
‘You’re no ordinary debutante,’ Imogen jibed. ‘You’re older than me, and all of twenty-two, if you remember.’
Annabel counted to ten. Imogen was grieving. One simply had to wish that grieving didn’t make her so – so bloody-minded. ‘Shall we return to Lady Griselda?’ she said, rising and looking one last time at the glass.
Suddenly Imogen was at her shoulder, smiling penitently. ‘I’m sorry to be so tiresome. You’re the most beautiful woman at the ball, Annabel. Look at the two of us together! You’re glowing and I look like an old crow.’
Annabel grinned at that. ‘A crow you’re not.’ There was a similarity to their features: they both had slanting eyes and high cheekbones. But where Imogen’s hair was raven black, Annabel’s was the colour of honey. And where Imogen’s eyes flashed, Annabel knew quite well that her greatest strength was a melting invitation that men seemed unable to resist.
Imogen pulled another curl onto the curve of her breast. It looked rather odd, but Imogen’s temper was not something to risk lightly, and so Annabel held her tongue.
‘I’ve made up my mind to take a cicisbeo,’ Imogen said suddenly. ‘To hold off Beekman, if nothing else.’
‘What?’ Annabel said. ‘A what?’
‘A gallant,’ Imogen said impatiently. ‘A man to take me about.’
‘You’re thinking about marrying again?’ Annabel was truly surprised. To the best of her knowledge, Imogen was still dissolving into tears every night over her husband’s death.
‘Never,’ Imogen said. ‘You know that. But I don’t intend to let fools like Beekman spoil my enjoyment either.’ Their eyes met in the mirror. ‘I’m going to take Mayne. And I’m not talking about marriage.’
‘Mayne!’ Annabel gasped. ‘You can’t!’
‘Of course I can,’ Imogen said, looking amused. ‘There’s nothing to stop me from doing anything I wish. And I believe that I would like the Earl of Mayne.’
‘How can you even consider such an idea? He jilted our own sister, practically at the altar!’
‘Are you implying that Tess would be better off with Mayne than with Felton? She adores her husband,’ Imogen pointed out.
‘Of course not. But that doesn’t change the fact that Mayne deserted her!’
‘I have not forgotten that point.’
‘But for goodness’ sakes, why?’
Imogen cast her a scornful glance. ‘You have to ask?’
‘Punishment,’ Annabel guessed. ‘Don’t do it, Imogen.’
‘Why not?’ Imogen turned to the side and regarded her figure. It was exquisite in every curve. And every curve was visible. ‘I’m bored.’
Annabel saw a glint of cruelty in her sister’s eyes and caught her arm. ‘Don’t do it. I’ve no doubt you can make Mayne fall in love with you.’
Imogen’s teeth shone white when she smiled. ‘Neither have I.’
‘But you might fall in love with him as well.’
‘Inconceivable.’
Annabel didn’t really believe Imogen would love again either. She had encased herself in ice after her husband died, and it would take time to melt away.
‘Please,’ she said. ‘Please don’t do it, Imogen. I don’t care about Mayne, but it wouldn’t be good for you.’
‘Since you are nothing more than a maiden,’ Imogen said with her new, bitter smile, ‘you have no idea what would be good for me, at least as pertains to men. We can have this discussion once you have some experience of what it means to be a woman.’
Imogen was clearly longing for a pitched battle of the kind they used to have when they were children. But as Annabel opened her mouth to deliver a scathing retort, the door opened and their chaperone, Lady Griselda Willoughby, waltzed in. ‘Darlings!’ she trilled. ‘I have been looking everywhere for the two of you! The Duke of Clarence has arrived, and –’
Her words died as her eyes moved from Annabel’s furious face to Imogen’s rigid one. ‘Ah,’ she said, sitting down and adjusting her exquisite silk shawl around her shoulders, ‘you’re squabbling again. How very glad I am that I have only a brother to plague me.’
‘Your brother’, Imogen snapped, ‘is hardly anyone to desire as a family member. In fact, we were just talking of his manifold virtues. Or rather, the lack thereof.’
‘I have no doubt but that your assessment was correct,’ Griselda said serenely, ‘but it was a patently unpleasant comment, my dear. I notice that when you are angry your nose becomes quite thin…You might wish to think about that.’
Imogen’s nose flared magnificently. ‘Since I have no doubt but that you will wish to rebuke me as well, I might as well tell you that I have decided to take a cicisbeo!’
‘An excellent decision, my dear.’ Griselda opened a small fan and waved it lazily before her face. ‘I find men so useful. In a gown as narrow as the one you wear tonight, for example, one can hardly walk with ease. Perhaps you could choose a particularly strong man who can carry you about London.’
Annabel bit back a smile.
‘You may fun all you like,’ Imogen said through clenched teeth, ‘but let me be very clear about my decision. I have decided to take a lover, not a jumped-up version of a footman. And your brother Mayne is my primary candidate.’
‘Ah,’ Griselda said. ‘Well, likely it is wise to start with someone so very