“So, you’ve become … close with a woman you find extraordinary, despite her knowing nothing of your father or—”
“We made a bargain.” He rubbed his forehead, feeling a headache start behind his eyes. Briefly, he explained about the wager with Angus and Annie’s offer to teach him Highland tossing techniques in exchange for Lady Lessons. “We are at an impasse, I’m afraid. Perhaps she’ll persuade Angus to relent. Perhaps she doesn’t care to bother.”
A gust whistled outside, where swirling white gathered in little drifts on the windowpanes. Robert’s sigh blended into the sounds of a Highland winter. John glanced at his friend, whose eyes were sharp and speculative, despite his weariness.
“You think I should pursue her, don’t you?”
“I think if there were not something holding you here, you would have left Scotland long before now. It’s what you do, Hux. Leave. So, why haven’t you?”
John stared at his friend wishing he had the answer.
Robert drained the last of his whisky and set the empty glass on a low table. He rubbed his bad leg and released another sigh. “Do you remember when I told you that one day you’d find a woman who makes madness a pleasure?”
John frowned. “I am not in love with Annie Tulloch, Con.”
Robert chuckled. “No. Of course not.” He plucked up his cane and levered himself to his feet. “Certainly, you’ll be cheering as she waltzes away in the arms of some other chap, wearing the gowns you bought for her.”
Images flashed. Annie wearing plum silk as she vowed to love another man. Annie’s hand flashing with the ring of another man. Annie’s smile offering seductive fire to another man. Fury billowed upward like smoke, filling his chest and throat. It wouldn’t let him speak. It burned until he wanted to roar. Cheering? He wanted to slam his fist into his new mantel. He wanted to ride out in this dark blizzard, find her and demand she abandon her foolish scheme. The mere thought of her with anyone else drove him …
… mad.
Distantly, he sensed Robert beside him. Solid. Patient. Robert’s shadow blended with his own as the truth began to unfurl.
She mattered. He wanted her. Not for an hour. Not for a week.
Forever.
He wanted her in his kitchen. He wanted to watch those pretty hands making bread. He wanted her here in his study, teasing him about his fine manners and finer tea. He wanted to hear her pleasured cries echoing off the new paneling in his bedchamber. Feel her hair brushing his skin. Watch her cornflower eyes go soft then glow like blue fire.
He wanted his child in her belly.
His heart pounded, pulsing in his skin. Oh, God. Yes, that was it.
Annie swollen with his child. His ring upon her pretty finger. His claim fully made.
She’d be his wife.
Bloody hell. She could be his.
“It’s damned disorienting, I know,” Robert said quietly. “The first time you realize what’s happened, it changes who you are.” He patted John’s shoulder, and even that small nudge set him off balance. Perhaps it was the whisky.
John had to swallow twice before he could speak. When he finally did, his voice was thin and hoarse. “If—if I do pursue her, I must be certain she wants me.” He caught his friend’s sympathetic gaze. “Me, Con. Not my name. Not my fortune. Me.”
Robert nodded. He knew everything, of course. They’d been friends since John had dragged him home for Christmas pudding at age six. Robert knew about Jacqueline. And before Jacqueline, the governess.
They never talked about the governess. But Robert obviously remembered. The understanding was there in his eyes.
John could not marry a woman who only wanted the name he could give her.
Which left one solution: He must make Annie fall in love with him without telling her about his title.
As though reading his thoughts, Robert squeezed his shoulder and gave a half-smile. “Perhaps I should warn Miss Tulloch. Seems only fair.”
John raised a questioning brow.
“Whatever your other talents, Hux—and there are many—wooing females into abandoning all good sense is your particular specialty.”
True enough. Slowly, John’s grin grew. He hadn’t applied himself to the task in a long while, but he’d always excelled at it. And with Annie? Anticipation surged, heady as Highland whisky.
Robert chuckled. “Poor woman. She has little notion of what’s coming her way.”
Chapter Twelve
TlU
“Ooph!” Annie glared over her shoulder at Mrs. Baird, who was hoisting Annie’s bosoms by crushing her ribs. “This isnae a corset. Ergh. It’s—unh—a bluidy vise.”
“Nearly done,” Mrs. Baird huffed, giving the laces a firm yank. “There.” The yanking stopped. The dressmaker breathed a sigh of relief.
Annie would do the same if she could gather more than a teaspoon of air. She glanced down. What the devil had this contraption done to her bosoms? They were enormous. Hiked up from beneath, they resembled great mounds of rising dough.
Cupping herself incredulously, she felt the boning along her waist and intricate stitching flaring over her hips. “I look like a stuffed pigeon. What have ye done?”
Mrs. Baird chuckled, grasped her shoulders and turned her to face the full-length mirror in the corner of Annie’s bedchamber.
Annie gasped.
“What we’ve done, aye?” The dressmaker grinned, her lovely teeth gleaming in the light from the window.
“Wh—why do I … That’s not …” Swallowing, Annie wandered closer. She moved her hands along the center, where a wide busk separated her bosoms and drew a flat line down past her belly. The corset was exquisite—satiny-soft white cotton with flared rows of quilted stitching. She traced the delicate crisscross pattern over her hip.
“The quilting is trapunto. I used silk thread for strength.” Mrs. Baird turned away to sort through the gowns she’d brought with her. “Ye’ll find the corset does soften over time, but the stitching and boning will ensure it keeps its structure. Now, where did I put my pins? Ah! There.”
Slowly, Annie shook her head. Somehow, watching her own movements in the looking glass startled her. This woman with the small waist and swollen breasts and fine linen petticoat could not be her.
“Let’s begin with the morning gowns.”
Annie’s head spun. “I dinnae want to.”
Holding pins in one hand and a pile of flounced white in the other, the dressmaker tilted her head and gave a gentle smile. “Remember what we discussed? These are your garments. Fitting them properly does not mean ye must wear them. But I must finish my work.”
God, Annie wished she could hate this woman. But from the moment Mrs. Baird had arrived at MacPherson House—after fully twelve letters begging Annie to come to Inverness for her final fittings—the dressmaker had been nothing but kind. Firm to the point of motherliness, but kind.
And she was quite the most talented seamstress Annie had ever met. Once again, Annie traced the curvaceous stitching along her belly. It even extended onto the gussets covering her breasts, a wee panel of crisscrosses. “Trapunto,” she whispered.