Annie's Song by catherine anderson (2)

Glancing up at Maddy, who stood off to one side, he shook his head. “It’s no use. If she’s hurt, I’ll have to take your word for it. Are you certain I shouldn’t send for Dr. Muir?”

“As I said, I can tend her bruises,” Maddy said with a sniff.

“What blisters me, Master Alex, is that I don’t think ye believe what I said. She showed me how the woman shoved the food down her throat, I’m telling ye. And conveyed to me that she thinks she’s getting fat.”

Alex pushed to his feet and stepped away from Annie to lean a shoulder against the wall. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Maddy shot him a frosty glare and marched over to the small table to snatch up Annie’s supper plate. Forking up a lump of cold potatoes, she retraced her steps, smiling broadly at the girl. “Come now, Annie love, be a good girl and eat some of yer supper fer Maddy.”

Annie shook her head, which in itself amazed Alex. She actually seemed to understand what Maddy had said to her.

“But ye have to eat, love. Ye’ll take sick if ye don’t,” Maddy cajoled. “One bite, for me?”

Once again shaking her head, Annie shifted a wary glance toward Alex, then puffed out her cheeks and tried, without much success, to double her chin. Though she was far too thin to make herself look fat, no matter what faces she pulled, the message was clear. Alex gaped at her in absolute astonishment.

“My God,” he whispered.

Keeping her gaze fixed on Annie, Maddy continued to approach her, fork extended. “There’s a good girl. Eat yer supper for Maddy.”

Growing increasingly agitated, Annie straightened her legs and curled her hands over her waist to pat her stomach. Then, as though she held an invisible eating utensil, she pretended to stuff food into her mouth and chew. Afterward, she puffed air into her cheeks again and gave her head another shake.

With a victorious flourish of the fork, which nearly sent the potatoes flying, Maddy turned to Alex and said, “There, ye see?”

Alex pushed away from the wall. Goose bumps rose on his skin as he regarded the girl before him. For several long seconds, he couldn’t gather his wits enough to speak. When he finally did, all he managed was another, “My God.”

“What did I tell ye?” Maddy said smugly. “If that isn’t gettin’ her point across, I’ll put in with ye.”

“Maddy ...” Alex’s voice was hushed. “Do you have any inkling what this means? For her to draw a correlation between weight gain and eating—well, it’s downright incredible. She must have conceptual reasoning capabilities.”

“Not as stupid as ye thought, hmm, Master Alex? Why, when a body starts to think about it, it fair addles the mind.”

She presented Annie with her back to return the plate to the table. “If she can understand somethin’ like that, one has to wonder what else she might be able to understand. Or feel.

When ye snatch her babe from her arms, I wonder if she’ll pine for it?”

A horrible, weak sensation attacked Alex’s legs. Still reeling with amazement, all he could do was stare at his charge.

No, not his charge, his wife. His pregnant wife, whom his brother had raped and he had married. So he could take her child.

A piece of breeding flesh, Maddy had called her. A mindless object to be passed back and forth between him and her parents. The thought made him feel so sick he squeezed his eyes closed.

“Dear God, Maddy, what have I done?” A weighted silence settled over the room. Finally Maddy said, “Ye can’t undo what ye’ve done, Master Alex. What matters now is what ye do from here on out.”

Eight

Deeply troubled by the discovery about Annie, Alex paid a visit to her parents the following morning. After being shown into the parlor, he took a seat in a wing chair near the hearth so he might face Edie and James, who sat together on the horsehair sofa. Not exactly sure how or even where to begin, Alex pressed his fingertips together and studied the rose-patterned carpet to collect his thoughts, which at the moment seemed as difficult to gather as dust kittens in a high wind.

In the end, he decided that coming right out with it was his best course of action, and he recounted the events of the night before. He finished by saying, “After seeing Annie interact with my housekeeper, I am convinced she may be more intelligent than any of us thought.”

At Alex’s words, Edie went deathly pale. After a moment of silence that seemed to crash against his eardrums, she said,

“Stuff and nonsense. Our daughter was beset by a high fever that rendered her mentally disabled, Mr. Montgomery. We’ve explained that to you at length!”

“And you may be absolutely right. The question is, how severe is the mental disability? Have you ever tried to find out? The girl is capable of conceptual reasoning, Mrs. Trimble.

A true imbecile is not.” Moving forward to the edge of the chair, he gestured vaguely. “James, you’re an educated man.

Surely you understand what I’m saying. Your daughter can note a relationship between two seemingly unrelated events. If she were as feebleminded as you both believe, how would she be able to do that?”

Her spine snapping taut, Edie stood. “We both understand what you’re saying. We simply do not agree.”

“I’m not placing blame here,” Alex assured them in a more soothing tone. “Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m simply saying that Annie’s affliction may not be as severe as you think. I’d like to take her to Portland. Have a few tests done.

There are some excellent physicians up there who might—”

“No!” Edie cried shrilly. She glanced resentfully at her husband. “I feared this would happen! I begged you to arrange for her to be sent away until the baby was born. Now look! He wants tests!”

She said the word tests as though it were a vulgarity. Alex sighed. “Just a routine examination, Mrs. Trimble. Nothing extensive. What harm can come from that?”

“What harm?” she asked thinly. “It’s just the beginning. The next thing we know, you’ll be wanting to keep Annie at Montgomery Hall and never let her come home.”

James reached up to clasp his wife’s hand. “Now, Edie.

Alex hasn’t said that. You’re jumping to conclusions. Isn’t she, Alex?”

A suffocating sensation filled Alex’s chest. “Well, actually, James, I would like to talk to you about—”

“I knew it!” Edie tore her hand from James’s grasp. Glaring at Alex, she cried, “You gave your word, sir! A temporary arrangement, you said. In name only. You promised!”

Alex rubbed a hand over his face. “That was before I realized—”

“Before you realized what?” she demanded. “How dare you? You have the girl for three short days, and suddenly you think you know more about her than her own mother? You’re thinking about making the marriage permanent? How dare you!”

“I only want what’s best for Annie,” Alex said softly. “If she isn’t as retarded as you believe, Edie, imagine the heartache she’ll suffer if I separate her from her baby.”

“What’s best for Annie?” She gave a bitter laugh. “Shall I predict the future if you act on this madness, Mr.

Montgomery? After it’s too late, you’ll discover I am correct, that our daughter is indeed an imbecile. And in the end, you’ll do the easy thing and have her stuck away in one of those terrible sanitariums. She’ll be locked in a room and tended as though she’s an animal. I’ve spent fourteen years doing everything I can to prevent that.”

“I would never put Annie in an institution.”

“Wouldn’t you? You’re a young, attractive man. One day you’ll meet a normal young woman you’d like to marry. What will become of Annie then?’’

“I have never broken my word in my life,” Alex retorted. “I certainly won’t begin with my marriage vows. Annie will always have a home at Montgomery Hall.”

“You’re breaking your word right now,” she shot back.

“You promised to return my daughter to me, and now you’re shilly-shallying.”

“James,” Alex said wearily, “talk some sense to her. Please?

If there’s a chance, no matter how minute, that Annie may be trainable, how can we ignore it? What harm can a few tests do?”

The judge avoided looking directly into Alex’s eyes. “Do you really believe that we would neglect to have our daughter tested if we believed, even for a moment, that there was hope?

The only person I’ll try to talk some sense into is you, Alex.

Edie is Annie’s mother. She has cared for the girl since she was a newborn babe. Who knows better than she how severe Annie’s disabilities are?”

Under ordinary circumstances, Alex couldn’t have argued with that. But because of the judge’s previous candidness, he knew there was a whole lot more involved here than met the eye. Hereditary madness. They were ugly words and constituted the Trimbles’ greatest fear. A fear so overwhelming that neither of them could acknowledge it, both for different reasons, James because of his career, Edie out of guilt.

If Annie were tested ... if it were discovered that her mental disorder was due to hereditary madness and not from the effects of a high fever, then both of them were afraid they would pay a price, Edie in her marriage for deceptions she’d perpetrated thirty years before, the judge by losing his political credibility. Rather than take that risk, they kept Annie, their guilty secret, hidden from the world.

“We could keep the trip to Portland confidential,” Alex tried.

“No one need ever know a physician examined her.”

“I will not give my approval for any tests,” James said firmly.

Alex didn’t need the man’s approval, and the Trimbles both knew it. He didn’t feel it was circumspect to say as much, however. “I see.”

“Please trust that we love our daughter,” James added.

Drawing his lips into a grim line, Alex regarded this man, whom he’d once admired so greatly. If he thought he loved his daughter, then he had an entirely different definition of the word than Alex did. It wasn’t just his reluctance to have the girl tested, but everything else that had gone before—the drab wedding ceremony, the garden party taking precedence over Annie’s needs, and a dozen other things Alex couldn’t immediately call to mind. Love? That Trimble even used the word was a travesty.

“If we thought tests would bring anything new to light, anything at all,” James continued, “we’d have taken Annie to Portland ourselves years ago.”

Silence. A throbbing, accusing silence. In that moment, Alex knew that the Trimbles would fight him to their dying breath to keep Annie from being seen by any doctors. If he bucked them, things were going to get ugly. Very ugly.

He needed to think things through carefully before he reached any decisions, not because he particularly cared about safeguarding his relationship with his in-laws, but because Annie’s happiness might rest in the balance. If, as Maddy suspected, the girl was capable of feeling affection, then she undoubtedly loved her parents, whether they deserved it or not.

For her sake, Alex didn’t want to cause a rift, not without good reason.

Evidently mistaking his silence for a change of heart, Edie had regained some of her composure. In a quieter, more reasonable voice, she said, “I know how deceiving Annie’s behavior can be, Mr. Montgomery. On occasion she can display a measure of what may seem to be normal intelligence, but then she immediately regresses. Trust me on that. Though I detest the word, my little girl is an imbecile. All the wishing in the world can’t alter that.”

Exhausted beyond words, Alex sighed and ran a hand over his face again. He’d scarcely slept a wink last night. Annie ...

with her sweet face and bewildered blue eyes. He couldn’t get her off his mind. Maybe he and Maddy were grasping at straws. But, damn it, he had to be sure.

“I’m sorry,” he hedged. “I guess I shouldn’t have come. I’ve upset you both, and if you’re right, I’ve done so for absolutely no good reason. It’s just that I—” He shrugged. “Last night—watching her—I was so sure there might be some hope.”

Looking into Edie’s eyes, Alex could see her pain and knew she believed with all her heart that her daughter had inherited a strain of madness from her side of the family. Could it be she believed in it so strongly, and was so consumed with fear that her husband would divorce her over it, that she was blind to any other possibility?

“There is no hope,” she said shakily. “God knows I wish there were. For Annie’s sake, you’ve got to put all these doubts out of your mind.”

For Annie’s sake. Alex ground his teeth to keep from saying anything he might regret.

“In the space of three days, her condition has already begun to deteriorate,” Edie pointed out. “And to such a degree that she physically attacked her nurse. Allowed to continue, that sort of behavior will land her in an institution, Mr.

Montgomery. I know you came here this morning with all the best of intentions and that your heart is in the right place. But you must trust me absolutely in this. I didn’t dream up a bunch of rules for Annie to follow because it pleased me. I did it to safeguard her future. To do likewise, you must enforce them, just as you promised me you would. Otherwise she will become uncontrollable and all my years of work will go for naught. I don’t want my little girl in a madhouse.”

“That’s the last thing I want as well. Please believe that.”

“Of course we do,” James inserted.

Alex pushed to his feet. “I’m sorry that I’ve intruded on your morning.”

“Nonsense,” Edie scolded. “Annie is our daughter, and we love her.”

There was that word again. Love. Alex longed to ask these people if they even understood what it meant.

James rose and slipped an arm around his wife. “Exactly so.

I’m glad you came directly to us with your concerns. Neither of us would want it any other way.”

As Alex made his farewells to the Trimbles and left their home, his head was swimming with questions, none of which seemed to have easy answers. Were Annie’s parents so wrapped up in their own concerns that they had become blind to Annie’s? Or was it he and Maddy who were tilting at windmills?

“Mr. Montgomery! Mr. Montgomery! Wait, please!”

Alex heard the voice just as he gained the road at the end of the Trimbles’ driveway. Reining his black to a stop, he turned slightly in the saddle to see Edie dashing from the shade of a sprawling oak to cross the lawn, her ankle-length, flared skirt whipping like a blue flag behind her. From a distance, with her sable hair and slight build, he could almost believe she was Annie. At the thought, his throat went dry. If Edie was correct, Annie would never speak, much less call out to anyone.

At the drainage ditch alongside the road, she drew up, one hand pressed to her midriff as she struggled to regain her breath. Alex waited patiently for her to speak. Even after running such a distance, she was still pale, he noticed. Her eyes pleaded with his as she sought his gaze.

“I couldn’t let you leave without speaking with you about a matter of great concern to me,” she finally managed.

“I see. And what is that?”

The muscles in her throat grew distended as she swallowed and hauled in another ragged breath. “I must ask a great favor of you, Mr. Montgomery. In future, please don’t ask questions about Annie’s condition in front of the judge. If you have concerns, you must consult with me privately.”

“Why must I keep my concerns from the judge?” he asked, trying without success to read her expression.

“My husband is not well. He mustn’t be bothered with such trifles.”

Trifles? It was all Alex could do not to turn the air blue.

Annie’s future was a trifle? To protect her position as the estimable judge’s wife, just how far would this woman go?

Alex had a feeling he didn’t care to know. Not when Annie was the lamb she sacrificed. “I’m sorry,” he said stonily. “I didn’t realize the judge was in poor health.”

“Yes, well, it isn’t something he wants talked about. He has his career to consider, after all.”

Oh, yes, the judge’s damnable career. How could he have forgotten?

“I’m hopeful that James will grow better with proper treatment and rest,” she went on. “For the time being, however, it would be best if he doesn’t become overset. I’m fearful that turmoil of any sort, especially regarding Annie, may cause him to have a relapse.”

Looking into the woman’s eyes, Alex saw fear, all right, but he suspected it was for herself, not her husband. She had her secret to protect, after all. The irony of it was that her husband already knew that madness might run in her family and, for reasons beyond Alex, had neglected to inform her of it. Alex supposed that Trimble must be a believer in the old adage that to acknowledge something was to lend it strength.

How could two people live in the same house, make love, create children, and yet have so little honesty between them?

All Alex wanted was to get away from both of them. Away so he might think. He had some decisions to make. Damned important decisions. For Annie’s sake, he had to be sure he made the right ones. “I’ll bear the judge’s poor health in mind before approaching either of you with my concerns again. As I said, I had no idea he was ill.”

Edie closed her eyes briefly. When she lifted her lashes, tears spilled onto her pale cheeks. “I know you think badly of me, Mr. Montgomery. You think I’m a poor excuse for a mother, don’t you?”

That didn’t say it by half, but Alex could see no point in wounding her. She was already so pathetic he could scarcely bear to look at her. “I am not a man to make snap judgments about anyone.”

“No matter how it may appear, I’ve done what I thought best for my daughter,” she said shakily. “Always. It hasn’t been easy. The rest of my family demands my time as well. But I’ve kept her at home, never once begrudging her the hardships she has caused me. I believe many mothers would have taken the easy way out.”

Alex didn’t doubt that. He supposed that Edie in her own pitiful way had made her share of maternal sacrifices. She blinked and brushed at her cheeks. Something in her expression—Alex wasn’t certain what—almost made him feel sorry for her.

“I’ll bring my concerns to you from now on,” he promised her. With that, he tipped his hat and started to nudge his horse into a walk. “Good day, Mrs. Trimble.”

She threw up a hand. “Wait! Please. A moment more of your time, and then I’ll let you be on your way.”

“Yes?”

She caught her lower lip between her teeth. After a moment, she ceased worrying it to say, “I know you’ve given your word that Annie will be returned to us after the birth of the baby. But meanwhile there are some things about her you should know, things that I didn’t mention the other night in front of the judge.

Because of his poor health, you understand.”

“And what might those things be?”

Wringing her hands, she blurted, “Whatever you do, don’t ever allow Annie to be around a cat without supervision. And should you have guests in your home who have young children, you should never leave her alone with one of their infants. Not under any circumstances.”

“Would you care to explain why?”

“Isn’t it obvious? She wouldn’t do it on purpose, you understand, but I can’t help but be afraid she might do a small child or animal unintentional harm.” Fresh tears sprang to her eyes, and the corners of her mouth started to quiver. “Just heed what I say. Please!”

With that, she whirled away and retraced her path across the yard. For a long while, Alex stared after her.

After returning to Montgomery Hall, Alex retired to his study where he hoped to find some solitude. Maddy had different ideas. Before he could get comfortably settled in his chair, she tapped at the door and then entered without permission. One look at her told Alex that she would settle for nothing less than a complete recounting of his conversation with the Trimbles.

“Well?” she said.

Alex rose and stepped to the sideboard where he poured them each a measure of brandy. Because he seldom imbibed so early in the day, the housekeeper’s eyebrows lifted when he handed her a snifter. “That bad?”

Taking a turn before the multipaned windows that looked out onto the west gardens, Alex replied, “Let’s just say that after speaking with Annie’s parents again, I’m more confused than ever.” He stopped for a moment, running a critical gaze over the sculptured shrubs that bordered the rose beds. “Damn it, Maddy. I was so hopeful last night. I lay awake until daylight, a hundred possibilities racing through my head—that she’s not as retarded as her parents think, that maybe the fever affected her in some other way we haven’t even considered.

Her ability to speak, perhaps? Or her hearing.”

Looking as frustrated as Alex felt, Maddy said, “Well, it isn’t her hearing, rest assured of that. Most of the time when I call her name, she turns at the sound.” With a thoughtful frown drawing her brows together, she rubbed her glass between her palms. “I thought that was the whole reason fer wanting to have her tested, Master Alex, to find out exactly what’s the matter.”

Alex laughed bitterly. “If I decide to have her tested or even so much as suggest that I’d like to keep her in residence here after the baby’s born, I’ll have a battle on my hands.”

“The Trimbles have no legal rights, not anymore. Ye can do what ye like.”

“True, but they are Annie’s parents. If you’re correct, and she’s capable of developing emotional attachments, then an estrangement...” Alex let his voice trail away. After a moment, he said, “I don’t want her heart broken for no good reason.”

“No, we don’t want that. I’ve a feelin’ that the poor wee thing has suffered heartache enough in her short life.”

As briefly as possible, Alex related everything else that had been said during his conversation with the Trimbles, including Edie’s peculiar warnings, that Annie should never be left alone with a cat or anyone’s infant.

“That’s preposterous,” Maddy said with a huff. “The lass is harmless.”

“She wasn’t harmless last night when she attacked Mistress Perkins,” Alex reminded her. “She wasn’t exactly anybody’s angel when I brought her here in the carriage, either.”

“But she was provoked!”

Alex couldn’t deny that. He gazed into the amber depths of his brandy. When he glanced back up, he had made the decision to tell Maddy everything, even about Edie’s uncle and the Trimbles’ fear that their daughter might be mad. He didn’t let himself think about breaking James Trimble’s confidence. What he said in this room would never go past Maddy, and Annie’s future was at stake.

As he spoke, Maddy turned frighteningly pale. “Dear Lord in heaven,” she whispered when he had finished. “The lass isn’t mad, Master Alex. I’d stake me life on it.”

That was Alex’s feeling as well. “Nevertheless, I think that both the Trimbles are afraid she may be, which explains their reluctance to have her examined.”

Maddy shook her head sadly. “Because a doctor might discover she’s not simply tetched, but crazy?”

“That could destroy James Trimble’s political career, and if it did, I think his wife believes he would divorce her over it.”

“In other words, they can’t see the forest for the trees.”

Alex sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s you and I who aren’t looking at things clearly. Only time will tell, I guess.” He met Maddy’s gaze with a slight smile touching his lips. “Luckily, we have that time. It’s not as if we’ll be fiddling while Rome is burning. She’s only four months along. That gives us five more months to watch her and make a decision. If, after a few weeks, we both feel sure that she might be helped, I’ll take her to Portland, the devil take her parents.”

Maddy raised her snifter. “I’ll drink to that.”

Alex couldn’t help but grin. “It won’t be pleasant. If I decide to go against their wishes, they’re going to fight me with everything they’ve got.”

“They’ll find their match in the pair of us.” The housekeeper’s eyes teared slightly as she swallowed the rest of her brandy. Waving a hand before her face, she blinked and sucked air through her teeth. “Lands, but that stuff burns a path clear to me toes!”

Alex chuckled. “Well, have we reached a decision then?”

“More a decision in lieu of a decision, but, yes, we’ve reached one. We’ll be takin’ the lass to Portland for tests.”

“If we see signs that she may be trainable,” Alex amended.

“We’ll see signs.”

“Don’t get your hopes up, Maddy,” he cautioned her gently.

“I don’t want to see them dashed.”

“They won’t be,” she assured him with a challenging glint in her eyes. “The lass may never do arithmetic and the like, but she’s trainable. I’ll bet me garters on it.”

“I hope you’re right.” Feeling more relaxed than he had in hours, he rested a shoulder against the wall. “There’s another problem we haven’t addressed, that of a nurse. I know you’re busy, and I can’t expect you to assume the added responsibility of caring for Annie as well. We’re going to have to hire someone. Which reminds me. Where is she right now?’’

“In her room. I asked one of the maids to sit with her while I came down to talk to ye. The door is repaired, by the way.

Henry got the facing and lock replaced. Good as new.”

“He got to it quickly.”

“Yes, well, I did a bit of naggin’. Ye know Henry. If it can be put off until tomorrow...” Her voice trailed away.

“I’m sorry about the extra work, Maddy.”

She waved his apology away. “I don’t mind lookin’ after the girl. As far as I can see, there’s no reason she can’t tag along behind me while I attend me duties. She wasn’t kept locked in her room at home, was she?”

“No.”

“Well, then? If she gets away from me and runs off, it isn’t as if ye won’t know where to find her.”

With a nod, Alex conceded the point. His main concern was that, given to wandering in the woods as she was, Annie might venture away from the house and sustain an injury. Until her pregnancy was over, special measures had to be taken to safeguard her well-being. “If you’re sure you don’t mind looking after her. For obvious reasons, I don’t want her going outdoors without supervision.”

“I don’t mind.” Maddy studied him for a moment. “As fer not letting her go outdoors alone, mayhap ye could make time to accompany her?”

“Me?” The suggestion caught Alex by surprise. After his physical reaction to Annie the other morning in the carriage, he didn’t relish the thought of being alone with her. “It might be better if I assigned one of the household staff to escort her.”

Maddy pursed her lips. “Master Alex, after what happened with Mistress Perkins, how can ye even think of it? Annie should be treated as a member of yer family. She isn’t a pet or some such that ye can have walked by whoever’s handy.”

Knowing the housekeeper was right, Alex sighed. “I’ll look at my schedule and see if I can’t get away to spend some time with the two of you each afternoon.” He prayed she didn’t ask why he required her presence. Pulling his watch from his pocket, he checked the time. This afternoon, he had appointments with two men who were interested in purchasing one of his mares. “Well, now that we have that settled, I guess I should—”

“There is one other small matter,” Maddy interrupted.

Alex lifted an inquiring eyebrow.

“As I mentioned last night, somehow ye have to make Annie understand that her increasin’ proportions are from carryin’ an infant. She’s still off her food.”

Alex groaned. “Maddy, I don’t think she understands a word I say to her.”

“Then draw her a picture.”

“A picture? I can’t draw. Besides, given her nervousness around me, wouldn’t it be better if a woman explained it to her?’’

A twinkle came into Maddy’s eyes. “Don’t be lookin’ at me.

I can’t draw either. As fer me bein’ the one to explain it to her, that’s nonsense. Ye’re the lass’s husband.”

“I am her husband only by the loosest definition of the word.”

She raised her empty glass to him. “Which is a state of affairs ye should rectify. I’ve said so from the beginnin’.”

“The girl is—”

“Lovely.”

“No man with a shred of decency—”

“And she’s sweet as well.”

“Maddy, for God’s sake, be reasonable.”

“It seems perfectly reasonable to me,” she informed him cheerfully. “By law, she’s already yer wife. She’s carryin’ a child who’ll bear yer name. Ye’ve said yerself a dozen times that ye’ve no intention of marryin’ anyone else. Why not make this a marriage in fact?”

Leaving that question to hang in the air behind her, Maddy set her snifter on the sideboard and exited the room. After her departure, Alex gazed blankly at the floor. A marriage in fact...

He closed his eyes on the thought, but shutting out the world around him did little to alleviate the ache of loneliness deep inside him.

Nine

That evening after Annie’s supper, most of which she had once again refused to eat, Alex, with sketchpad and pencil in hand, went up to the nursery. Not wishing to frighten Annie any more than was necessary, he had arranged for Maddy to remain in attendance during their exchange. Happy to oblige, the housekeeper was already seated on the edge of the bed when he arrived.

Annie sat at the small table near the window, her hands clasped on her lap, her feet crossed at the ankle and hooked over a chair rung. When she caught sight of Alex opening the door, the little remaining color in her cheeks drained away.

Despite her obvious fear of him, she made no attempt, as she had the previous night, to vacate the chair and seek obscurity in a dark corner. Since he doubted she had suddenly developed a courageous streak, he could only assume her daring stemmed from the fact that Maddy sat nearby. She obviously felt safe as long as the older woman was there to protect her.

Annie’s erect posture afforded Alex a better look at her than he’d gotten last night, and he was dismayed by what he saw. In the last four days, she had dropped an alarming amount of weight. According to Maddy, she had eaten almost nothing since Mistress Perkins’s dismissal, a few bites at each meal and nothing more. Judging by her thinness, he guessed she had eaten as lightly the first three days of her stay, which explained, but did not excuse, the nurse’s bungled attempts to make her eat.

After this meeting, Alex hoped Annie would be a little more cooperative and stop starving herself. Otherwise, he’d have no choice but to improve upon Mistress Perkins’s methods.

Though he didn’t doubt his ability to overpower the girl and force her to eat, he hated for it to come to that. She had already suffered enough in this house without that being added to the list.

Lamplight shimmered in the unruly sable curls that framed her small face, accentuating the color of her eyes, which, at the moment, reminded him of blue pools of crystal-clear water.

Her frock, a faded pink garment better suited to a child, hung on her even more loosely than before, the well-worn cloth clinging softly to the subtle curves of her body. Perfection in miniature, that was Annie, lovely in a way that somehow outshone the more voluptuous beauties he’d been attracted to in the past.

Maddy’s suggestion that he should make this a bona fide marriage chose that moment to reenter his mind. As much as he hated to admit it, even to himself, it was tempting to do just that. Incredibly tempting. The physical aspects of marriage to such a beautiful girl would be no great hardship for him, or for any other man, as far as that went. But more than that, making this a marriage in fact would be far less complicated than his original plan. Unfortunately, the guilt he felt for even thinking along those lines constituted a barrier he couldn’t seem to work his way past. There were codes of decency to be observed if a man wanted to respect himself, and a girl with Annie’s disabilities was not fair game.

After turning up the lamps, Alex joined her at the table, positioning his chair across from hers in the hope that she might feel more at ease if he kept his distance. Since it was his plan to communicate with her by drawing pictures, he took it as a good sign that she seemed fascinated by the sketchpad and pencil.

“Hello, Annie,” he said softly.

Pulling her gaze from the drawing pad, she stared fixedly at his mouth. Her expression said more clearly than words that she hadn’t grasped what he said. It was not an encouraging start. Somehow he had to make her understand that her intake of food had nothing to do with her increasing waistline.

Neatly covered by a towel, Annie’s supper plate sat at his elbow, the nearly untouched helpings of food forming telltale mounds beneath the linen. Shoving aside the pad and pencil, he grabbed the plate, uncovered the food, and forked up some green beans. Her expressive eyes reflecting a willfulness that surprised Alex nearly as much as it amused him, Annie immediately clamped her mouth closed. She obviously had no intention of surrendering without a fight.

Feeling far more nervous than the situation warranted, he flashed her what he hoped was a confident smile and touched her lower lip with the tapered end of a bean. At the contact, she jerked back, almost reflexively, and looked down her nose at the fork tines. With her movement, the light from a wall lamp fell directly across her face.

For an endlessly long moment, Alex stared at her mouth, then slowly lowered his hand. Forgetting all his good intentions to watch his language in the girl’s presence, his voice raspy with rage, he said, “That heartless bitch!”

Startled by his tone and the sheer volume of his voice, Maddy shot to her feet. “Holy mother, what is it?”

Alex pushed up from his chair and circled the table. At his sudden advance, Annie scrabbled to get away. Before she could make any headway, he caught her by the shoulder.

Though her terrified expression caught at his heart, he anchored her where she sat and cupped her small chin in one hand. Eyes wide, her face as pale as milk, she went instantly still, as if she were afraid to so much as breathe.

Naturally she was afraid, he thought with scathing self-derision. What reason had she not to be? Douglas had committed the most heinous of crimes against her, and now she was being held prisoner by a man she must surely believe was a monster.

Trembling with emotions difficult to identify, let alone control, Alex rubbed his thumb lightly across her lower lip.

Puncture marks! Impotent anger roiled within him. “Oh, honey, I am so sorry.”

Maddy hovered at his elbow. “Master Alex?”

Managing to keep his voice carefully even, Alex said, “The nurse jabbed her with a fork.” My fault, a little voice whispered inside his head. All my fault. Never again, no matter what the time constraints, would he fail to verify an employee’s references. He might not have felt so bad if he’d had to pay the price for his own neglect, but instead a helpless girl had suffered the consequences. For that, he would never forgive himself.

Her green eyes aching with sympathy, Maddy leaned forward to see the marks on Annie’s lip for herself. “Oh, ye poor wee lass. Was there nothing she did not think to do to ye?”

“Apparently not,” Alex ground out.

“And us going about our business downstairs, never guessing.” Maddy touched a hand lightly to Annie’s hair. “I swear to ye, lass, if I’d known, I’d have snatched the old witch bald.”

Annie couldn’t imagine why they were both so upset over a couple of tiny sores that were nearly healed. Maddy had tears in her eyes, and Alex looked ominously angry. Initially she’d believed he was furious with her.

But no ... Gazing up at him, she saw dark shadows of regret in his eyes, and she couldn’t believe, even for a minute, that emotion like that could be feigned. To add to that impression, the grip of his hand on her chin was incredibly gentle, the caress of his thumb across her mouth so light it made her skin tingle. He clearly felt bad about the way the nurse had treated her.

His reaction was the exact opposite of anything Annie might have expected from him. Relentless, that was how she had imagined him, the kind of man who took what he wanted, the devil take anyone who got in his way. Yet there he stood, the features of his face taut, his large body shaking with rage that was directed not at her, but at the woman who had hurt her.

For days, she had lived in constant fear of him. In the dead of night, when she knew the household was asleep, she’d lain awake until exhaustion claimed her, staring at the door, terrified that he might come, convinced that it was only a matter of time until he would. Now that impression of him was being shattered, not measure by measure so she might slowly grow accustomed to the change, but with one fell blow.

Like a band of rubber that had been stretched taut and then released, Annie went limp with an overwhelming sense of relief. Past experience warned her to be wary. A part of her couldn’t so easily forget all the times she’d been tricked into trusting people, only to discover too late that they meant to harm her. But another part of her wanted desperately to believe in this man.

It was undoubtedly the height of foolishness, but mistake or no, she couldn’t resist doing just that. Maybe it was the gentleness with which he touched her or the remorse she read in his eyes, or perhaps she was just tired of feeling afraid. At this point, she was too weak from hunger and too heartsore from being abandoned by her parents to analyze her reasons.

She only knew that the warmth of his strong fingers on her skin made her feel safe. Wonderfully safe.

Crazy, so crazy ... But it was how she felt.

When he finally released her to resume his seat, Annie was so preoccupied with studying him that she scarcely heeded Maddy, who ambled back to the bed. Tonight he wore a white shirt with a turned-down collar and wide cuffs, similar to the ones her father favored. But there all similarity ended. His sleeves were folded back over his muscular forearms, and instead of a tie, he wore his collar open, the front plackets hanging loose to reveal an expanse of well-padded chest. In the lamplight, his burnished skin gleamed, its darkness striking a startling contrast to his amber eyes and perfectly straight, white teeth.

Unlike her papa and all of his haughty acquaintances, Alex Montgomery dressed more for comfort than fashion, she decided, his manner one of careless disregard. Yet, despite that, he managed to project a commanding presence.

The flickering light from the wall lamps played over him, molten in the tousled waves of his sun-streaked hair. With his head slightly bent, his carved features were limned with amber, the planes of his face in shadow, which denned the sharp blade of his nose, the square angle of his jaw, and the deep slashes that bracketed his mouth. Mesmerized, she gazed at his lips, the upper sharply etched, the lower full and moist.

“Shall we try again?” he asked.

Though she knew it had to be her imagination, Annie thought she actually heard his voice, its timber low and deep.

It was something that happened to her a lot, imagining she heard things she knew she couldn’t. Pretend sounds, she called them, but for all of that, they seemed absolutely real. Always before, it had happened with ordinary, familiar things—her mother’s voice, the barking of a dog, the slamming of a door.

The only explanation Annie could think of was that she saw the sound being made, knew it from memory, and, because her brain expected her to hear it, she thought she actually did.

Only she’d never heard Alex Montgomery’s voice. Her father’s was thinner and less husky, so Annie knew she wasn’t recalling that and making a substitution. No. As unexplainable as it seemed, she’d imagined hearing this man’s voice. This man’s, and no other.

A prickly feeling crawled up her spine.

After what had happened to her up at the falls, she couldn’t dredge up much enthusiasm for being friends with any man.

Despite her yearning to trust Alex, he looked alarmingly wide across the shoulders to her in that moment, a huge wall of muscle that stood between her and everything she held dear—her childhood home, her parents, the forests she loved.

He reclaimed the fork, speared more beans, and pressed them upon her. Annie glanced uneasily at Maddy, hoping she might intervene.

By lightly nudging her mouth, Alex reclaimed her attention, his eyes glinting with determination. “You’re dealing with me now, Annie, and I say you have to eat your supper.”

Annie preferred to deal with Maddy, thank you very much.

She wished she could tell him that, among other things. Did he think she wanted to remain here, locked up in this cheerless room, day after endless day? She wanted to go home. To accomplish that goal, she had to be thin the next time her mother came to see her.

Recalling the strength in his fingers, she gulped in nervous dismay. If he decided to force her ... An awful, achy sensation centered in her chest, reminding her of the time she’d accidentally swallowed an unchewed mouthful of apple. Tears stung her eyes, and she blinked furiously to chase them away.

His face went hard, a muscle along his jaw bunching and then relaxing as he ground his teeth. Studiously avoiding her eyes, he said, “No foolishness, young lady. I am not a man easily affected by tears. You’re going to eat. We can do it the easy way or the hard way. That’s entirely up to you.”

In the vain hope that she might sway him as she had Maddy, Annie started to puff air into her cheeks. The instant she did, he gave his head a shake and tossed the fork back onto her plate. At his sudden movement, she jumped with a start and ducked, just in case he had a mind to box her ears as her mother so often did. Freezing with his hand suspended in midair, he stared at her for a long moment. Then, barely moving his lips in a way that suggested he might be whispering, he bit out a word she’d never seen or heard anyone say before. She frowned in puzzlement.

At her look of bewilderment, he groaned visibly. Then he ran a hand over his face and blinked to bring her back into focus. Annie had the unpleasant feeling he regarded her as an extremely vexatious problem and was wishing with all his heart that she would miraculously disappear. She wished she could oblige him. Blink, gone. No more Annie.

After hauling in a deep breath, he said, very slowly and succinctly, “Annie, love, you are not fat.”

If not fat, then what did he call it? Her stomach wasn’t extraordinarily large yet, but at the rate it was growing, it soon would be. At the beginning of butterfly season, she had been able to look down between her bubbies and see her toes. Now all she saw was her belly. And what was worse, her frocks always seemed to get dirty there. Little wonder her parents didn’t want her anymore.

“Honey, you have to eat,” he said, his expression going from stern to cajoling. “Won’t you do that for me? I don’t want to have to force you, and I’m sure you don’t want me to.”

He leaned even closer, and to her surprise, he curled his hand over her cheek. His palm was so large and wonderfully warm that she was sorely tempted to bury her face there so he wouldn’t see her cry. He was going to think she was nothing but a big old blubber baby, at this rate, and for reasons that totally escaped her for the moment, she didn’t want him to think that.

“Listen to me, hmm? You are not fat.” Smiling slightly, he repeated the last two words. “Not fat!” With that, he shoved her plate out of his way and reached for the sketchpad. “I had hoped to avoid this, but it looks as if there’s no help for it. Pay close attention, all right? This will only take a few minutes.”

As he began to draw, an intent frown creased his forehead.

Curious in spite of herself, Annie swiped at her wet cheeks and sat a little straighter so she might see. Though she had always done so secretly, she loved to sketch. Alex seemed to be fashioning a full-length figure of a woman standing in profile.

As she watched him draw, Annie detected a movement of his lips from the corner of her eye. She glanced up in time to see him finish with” ... not very good at this, I’m afraid.”

She had to agree; he had very little, if any, artistic talent.

The woman he was trying to draw had a head that more resembled a misshapen ball, and her hair looked like a crop of wiggly worms. From there, she went from bad to worse, with a nose more like a bird’s beak and arms that resembled thick lengths of rope with frayed ends for fingers. As drawings went, it wasn’t just poor, it was awful.

Because her mother had allowed her to utter no sound for so many years, Annie very seldom got an urge to laugh. But this was one of those rare moments. Alex looked so serious about the drawing, his lower lip caught in his teeth, his thick brows pulled together in concentration. He was clearly giving this his very best effort. But even when he tried to make the sketch look better, it remained one of the poorest attempts she’d ever seen.

To stifle the horrified giggle that was trying to come up her throat, she had to hold her breath. He glanced up just then, and for a moment, he seemed to forget all about the sketch. Filled with questions, his eyes searched hers. She had a feeling he sensed she was about to laugh. He didn’t seem disgruntled about it, only confused. And troubled.

In that moment, Annie had the strangest feeling. It was as if he looked into her instead of at her, that he saw things in her eyes that others never had and probably never would. The breathless sensation in her chest intensified. She couldn’t drag her gaze from his, couldn’t move to break the tension.

Whatever was bothering him, he finally seemed to shake it off and began drawing again, this time to give the woman a huge stomach. Under the table, Annie touched a hand to her waist. His sketch was of her? As if he sensed her reaction, he looked up again, his mouth quirking slightly at the corners.

“Not very flattering, I know. But bear with me.”

Flattering? It was a word she didn’t know. Bewildered, she glanced back at the sketch.

Alex added some finishing touches to his drawing. Then he sat back to examine the work. Apparently satisfied, he turned the pad so she might view it. To her complete surprise, she saw that within the woman’s protruding abdomen he’d drawn an infant, recognizable as such only by its ruffled bonnet, gown and booties. For several endless seconds, she stared at it.

“Baby,” he said with exaggerated slowness, tapping the drawing as he spoke. Gesturing at her supper plate, then pointing to the infant’s slit of a mouth, he added, “You have to eat. To feed the baby. Do you understand, Annie? You’re not getting fat. There’s a baby growing inside you.”

Staring at him in stunned amazement, Annie hugged her waist. Her incredulity must have shown in her eyes. As though frustrated beyond endurance, he tossed down the pencil.

“Maddy, you come try. She doesn’t understand.”

Maddy rose from the bed and approached the table.

Pretending to hold an infant, she began to rock to and fro, smiling broadly. Then she pointed at Annie’s middle. “A wee one, lass. Isn’t it a wonder? Ye’re own wee babe. But ye must eat so it’ll grow hale and hardy.”

Annie understood all of that. The problem was, she couldn’t credit it. A baby? They were saying she had a baby inside her?

She looked down at her stomach.

As Annie regarded her waistline, Alex took advantage of the moment to study her. At one point while he’d been drawing, he could have sworn she’d been about to laugh, and every once in a while, her expression had implied a certain cognizance.

Not that her mental abilities or lack of them were the issue right now. What mattered was that she finally understood what was making her waistline increase. He could tell she’d gotten the message by the startled look in her blue eyes and the way she was leaning back in her chair to rest her hands over her stomach.

She was obviously wondering how a child had managed to take up residence inside of her. How could he possibly explain that to her? Through the thin layers of her clothing, she plunged a fingertip into her navel and wiggled it around.

Alex shot a glance at Maddy. With an expectant lift of her grizzled red eyebrows, the housekeeper met his gaze.

“Don’t even think it,” he said.

“But she thinks—”

“I don’t care if she thinks she swallowed a seed and it sprouted, I am not, I repeat not, drawing her a picture.”

“The poor wee lass!”

With that assessment, Alex was in complete agreement.

Annie was, without a doubt, a poor wee lass, and it was nothing short of criminal that she’d been thrust into this predicament.

Looking at her now, he could almost see her holding a child in her arms, its downy head nestled against her breast. Even if she was daft, that didn’t mean she was incapable of feeling love. Who was he to say what she thought or felt about anything? Or in what measure?

As those questions filled Alex’s mind, a dozen others rose to bedevil him, none of which he could answer. He only knew, with sudden and almost blinding clarity, that Maddy was absolutely right; no one had the right to snatch a babe from its mother’s arms. No one. He must have been mad to even consider it.

Before marrying Annie, he had convinced himself it was the only decent thing to do. He had seen it as his duty, not just to Annie, but to his brother’s child. Right now none of those reasons held water.

A searing sensation washed over Alex’s eyes as he watched Annie continue to poke curiously at her bellybutton. With a loud scrape of his chair, he pushed to his feet. No matter what he had promised her parents, how would he find it in his heart to separate her from the infant after its birth? The answer to that was simple: he couldn’t.

A little over an hour later, Annie was finally alone.

Measured in broad stripes by the barred window, moonlight spilled into her bedchamber. Limned with silver, the utilitarian furnishings and long forgotten children’s toys in the room took on a lifelike quality. Starkly defined by shadow, the carvings in the armoire door looked like a person’s face. The rocking horse in one corner actually seemed to move slightly, its mane and tail rippling as though touched by a light breeze. Annie imagined she could even hear the sound of children’s voices and laughter, ever so faint, ever so distant, from a time long past.

A sense of wonder filled her. If Alex Montgomery and Maddy weren’t lying, she would soon have a child of her own.

Her very own little baby. The thought made her throat tighten with gladness. Sometimes it was lonely, living in silence. The only pets she’d been allowed to have were wild creatures she had tamed—the animals in the woods and some mice in her parents’ attic. She had no human friends and little hope of acquiring any.

A baby ... Annie hugged her waist, so happy that it was difficult to contain herself. Someone of her very own to love.

It was the nicest thing that had ever happened to her, barring none. So nice that she was almost afraid to believe it might be true.

After positioning herself cross-legged in the center of the bed, she held her hands reverently over her waist. Alex had seemed convinced a baby was in there. Try as she might, Annie couldn’t imagine how it had gotten inside her. More importantly, how would it ever get out?

Jerking up her nightgown so she might better explore, she dived her fingertip into her navel again, wondering if the hole could possibly go clear through to her stomach. It didn’t seem to. Frowning, she pushed as hard as she could, not easing up until it began to hurt. No, a baby had definitely not sneaked in that way, and it wasn’t likely to get out that way, either.

When Annie had been a small child, her mother told her that babies were brought by fairies and left on people’s doorsteps during the night. It had always seemed a perfectly logical explanation to Annie, for if not from fairies, where else could babies come from? Even the newborn creatures in the forest seemed to appear at their mother’s sides as if by magic. Except for birds, of course. Annie knew they came from eggs. Mother birds, like domestic hens, laid the eggs and then sat on them until their chicks hatched.

Could it be that human babies came from eggs as well?

Maybe her mother had lied to her, and babies weren’t brought by fairies, after all. The thought made her heartbeat quicken.

Spreading her hands over her waist again, she palpitated the slight roundness. If there was an egg in there, it was already bigger than most. Surely it was due to come out soon.

And then what? She weighed far too much to sit on an egg without cracking it. So what was she supposed to do with it? If allowed to get cold, the chicks inside eggs never hatched.

Annie suspected that they died.

Despite the warmth of the summer night, she felt chilled at the thought of her baby dying inside its egg for lack of warmth.

Lying down, she drew the down comforter to her chin. She couldn’t let her baby die. She just couldn’t. She had to think of a way to keep it warm. But how?

As the warmth of the comforter began to envelop her, Annie found an answer to that question. When her egg came out, she could lie with it under the quilt. The heat from her body would keep her baby nice and toasty until it hatched.

Alex poured himself another glass of whiskey, tried to recall how many he’d already had, and then said to hell with counting. He didn’t want to think. He didn’t want to feel. To get staggering drunk, that was his aim.

To Annie, he thought, upending the glass. With two gulps, the whiskey was en route to his stomach, burning a path every inch of the way. He clenched his teeth and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Master Alex!”

Maddy’s scandalized whisper pierced the silence. Alex sat forward in his chair, turned, and with painstaking care, finally managed to focus on her. “Hello, Maddy. Care to join me?”

Planting her hands on her ample hips, she marched across the Persian rug. Casting a fiery glance at his whiskey jug, she tutted in disgust. “What are ye about with all of this imbibing here of late? Just this mornin’, ye were tippin’ the bottle, and now here ye are at it again. It isn’t like ye at all, if ye don’t mind me sayin’ so. And whiskey? I thought brandy was yer drink.”

“Every now and again, Maddy, a man needs something with a little more bite than brandy.”

“As if that’ll solve yer troubles?”

She had Alex there. “It isn’t my hope to solve my problems,” he admitted. “Only to forget them.” He tipped the glass to her. “All the best to you.”

“Hmm. And what problems are ye tryin’ to forget?”

Alex considered that question at length. “Be damned if I can recall.”

“Lord help us.” She perched on the arm of the chair catty-corner to his. After studying him for several moments, during which time Alex refilled and once again emptied his glass, she finally said, “It’s the wee lass, isn’t it? That’s what’s troublin’ ye. Ye feel bound by yer oath to return her to her mama, but yer heart’s tellin’ ye that would be wrong, terrible wrong.”

Leave it to Maddy to hit the nail on the head. Alex poured himself another drink and sat forward again to brace his elbows on his knees. Finding his knees proved to be a slight problem. When he managed, he discovered that they wobbled worse than a three-legged chair. “What the hell am I going to do, Maddy?” he finally asked.

“What ye always do,” she said gently.

“And what’s that?” he snapped, irritated by what he interpreted as evasiveness.

“The right thing.”

He groaned. “And just what is the right thing? I gave her parents my word, damn it. I’ve never gone back on my word in my life.”

A long silence fell over them. At last, Maddy said, “Ye also gave God yer word, did ye not? It seems to me that if it comes to a choice between honorin’ yer promise to God or to man, ye’ve got to choose God every time.”

Alex gave a bitter laugh. “Put like that, it sounds so simple, but it isn’t. You’re probably going to go hunting for the shotgun if I tell you this, but I’m going to anyway. Since bringing Annie here, I’m discovering that my sterling character is a little tarnished around the edges. I’m half afraid to be alone with her.”

“Why ever not?”

Alex glanced up, feeling suddenly sober. “Good God, Maddy. Do I have to draw you pictures as well? The girl’s mind may be impaired, but otherwise, she’s lovely.” At his housekeeper’s blank expression, he swore under his breath.

“To put it in terms you will understand, I’m a lecherous bastard. Is that clear enough for you?”

Maddy’s green eyes began to twinkle. “Ah,” she said.

“Ah? Is that all you can say? Jesus, Maddy. I’m not joking about this. The morning I brought her home, I—” He broke off, swirled the liquor in his glass until it sloshed over the edge, and then heaved an exhausted sigh. “If I keep her here, she’ll be constantly at hand. Over a period of time, I’m worried that the few scruples I have left may get swept under the dust ruffle.”

“Ye’d never lay a hand on the lass unless she was willin’, and well ye know it. Why, I’d venture to say ye’d kill any man who tried. I’m amazed ye let Douglas walk away from here in one piece.”

“He very nearly didn’t,” Alex admitted. “There was a moment when I came just that close to strangling him. Now I’m beginning to wonder if I’m not more like him than I thought.”

“Don’t be absurd. Ye’re nothin’ alike. Never have been, not even as young lads. He shot wee birds from the trees. Ye set their wings and nursed ‘em back to health. He kicked the dog.

Ye begged a treat from the kitchen to make it feel better. Over the years, he just got meaner, and ye went around behind him, tryin’ to set his wrongs aright.” She leaned forward to settle a kindly hand on his shoulder. “Alex, me boy, ye are no more like Douglas than day is like night.”

He squeezed his eyes closed. “What he did to Annie can’t be fixed, Maddy. And I’m terrified that by keeping her here, I’ll only wound her more.”

“Love has no sharp edges,” she reminded him. “And lots of love is what ye’ll be givin’ Annie if ye keep her here. Mayhap not the kind of love a man usually has fer his wife, but love nonetheless, and that will be more than she will ever have otherwise. As fer yer fears? The way I see it, ye’ve already plucked the goose by marryin’ the lass. Now all ye can do is wait to see how the feathers settle.”

With those words of wisdom, Maddy left the study. For a long while after the door closed, Alex sat and stared at the intricate pattern in the carpet. When he told the Trimbles of his decision concerning Annie, feathers were going to fly, all right.

A veritable blizzard of them.

Ten

Alex awoke shortly after dawn the next morning to a nasty headache and a ruckus loud enough to wake the dead. Shrill voices. The disturbance reminded him of the other night when Annie had sunk her teeth into Mistress Perkins’s finger. Not something he could comfortably ignore, hangover or no.

Wondering what sort of trouble his wife might be perpetrating this time, he groaned and swung out of bed.

After throwing on his clothes, Alex rushed from the master suite into the second-floor corridor and tracked the sound of raised voices directly to the nursery. Still barefoot, his shirt only partially buttoned, he stepped into the room, half expecting to see combatants writhing on the floor. Instead he found Maddy, three of the maids. Frederick the butler, and Henry the handyman, all gathered around Annie’s bed. One of the maids held a stack of neatly folded sheets in her arms.

“What in blazes is going on in here?” Alex barked.

Apparently at a loss, Maddy turned to face him with her hands uplifted in a gesture of helpless quandary. “Yvonne just came in to do the cleanin’ and change the sheets, as she always does each mornin’.”

“So?”

Stuffing his shirttails into his trousers, Alex crossed the room. With a sweeping glance, he took stock of the situation.

Annie, en deshabille in a long-sleeved, nearly transparent white nightgown, seemed to be the center of attention. She sat cross-legged in the center of her rumpled bed, both shapely legs bare to the knee, arms extended as if to ward off encroachers. Looking down at her, Alex was put in mind of a skater who had just taken a spill on thin ice and was terrified that the people gathered around her might come charging to her rescue, go crashing through, and take her down with them.

He rubbed a hand over his face and blinked, partly to clear the sleep from his eyes, but mostly because it was a nervous habit. Maddy said it made him look idiotic. But, oh, well.

When his vision cleared, Annie was still sitting there, her posture conveying more clearly than words that she wanted them to stay back. Regarding her, Alex couldn’t rid himself of the feeling that she was trying to protect something. The question was, what? A bunch of rumpled bedding?

“I don’t understand it,” Maddy mused aloud. “Yesterday mornin’ she got up without a fuss.” She looked to Alex. “What should I do?”

Alex had several ideas, the first of which was to dispense with Frederick and Henry. He couldn’t believe Maddy had allowed two men in here while his wife was so immodestly clothed. Through the bodice of her gown, her nipples shone like rosy little beacons. If he had noticed, he knew damned well Frederick and Henry had as well.

Hooking a thumb over his shoulder, he barked, “Out!”

Everyone but Annie jumped. Frederick went slightly wall-eyed, and a bright red flush crept up his neck. Henry, the less intelligent of the two, scratched above one ear and fastened a questioning blue gaze on his employer. “We just come to help, Mr. Montgomery.”

“Out!” Alex repeated through clenched teeth. His head was beginning to feel like a melon that had been dropped on cement. “Now! This is my wife’s bedchamber, for Christ’s sake!”

The maids, all three as nervous as titmice, hurried to leave with the men. Alex caught Yvonne, the sheet bearer, by her elbow. “Not you!”

With a frightened squeak, the maid froze, looking up at Alex as though he had sprouted horns. Since he’d never so much as raised his voice to the woman, he could only wonder why she seemed afraid of him.

Releasing Yvonne’s arm, he waited until both men and the other two maids had departed. Only then did he turn back to regard Annie. At the apex of her slender thighs, a shadowy triangle of darkness was clearly outlined under her gown.

Cross-legged. She had actually been sitting cress-legged in front of two men.

Shooting a glare at Maddy, he said, “Would you care to explain yourself, madam?”

“Just like I was sayin’, Master Alex. For reasons beyond me, she refuses to get out of bed this mornin’.”

“Not that! I meant—” Alex broke off. After looking into his housekeeper’s guileless green eyes for a second, he groaned and rubbed a hand over his face again, striving to regain control of his temper. “In future, Maddy, I would appreciate it if no other men were allowed in my wife’s bedchamber until she is properly dressed!”

Light dawned in Maddy’s expression. “Oh.” She glanced sideways at Annie. “Oh, of course. It was just— well, we had a bit of a situation in here, Master Alex. An emergency, if you will. And I—”

“A fire is an emergency. A tree falling on the house, that is an emergency. This” —he gestured with his hand—”is not! I do not appreciate your allowing her to be ogled. She may be daft, but you’re certainly not.”

“Yes.” Two bright spots of pink flagged her plump cheeks.

“Now that ye mention it, I can see yer concern. Indeed I can. I apologize. I just didn’t think, ye see. Her bein’ so childlike and all, it just didn’t occur to me that—” She broke off and blushed to the roots of her hair. “Well, Frederick and Henry, they’re like part of the family.”

Alex’s gaze cut to the front of Annie’s nightgown. In his estimation, childlike did not describe his wife’s anatomy.

Grasping for a calmness that continued to elude him, Alex drew in a deep breath and slowly exhaled. He was behaving like a possessive husband, and overreacting, at that.

Turning the full blast of his glare on Yvonne, he asked, “Is there a particular hurry to change my wife’s sheets?”

“N-no, sir. It’s just that since she came, I’ve made it my habit to do her room first. Before bringing up breakfast and dusting and the like.”

With exaggerated patience, Alex said, “Well, this morning, since my wife seems disinclined to begin her day, change your routine, Yvonne, and do her room last. Perhaps by the time you return, she will feel more enthusiastic about leaving her bed.” He started to check his watch, then realized he hadn’t gotten it off his dressing table. “It’s rather early, isn’t it? I’d be none too pleased if you rousted me out at this hour to change my sheets.”

The blond-haired Yvonne nodded and bobbed a little curtsy.

“Y-yes, sir.”

Alex glanced at Maddy. “If Annie wishes to stay abed on a Sunday morning, I can only applaud her good sense. Let her sleep, for God’s sake.”

With that, he returned to the master suite, his intention to follow Annie’s good example and be a layabout for the rest of the morning. It was the Sabbath, after all. Once in a blue moon, a man had a do-nothing day coming to him.

He had just unbuttoned his shirt when another loud knock came at the door. The sharp retort sent a pain lancing through his temples that made him wince. Striding across the room, he jerked the door open. “What now?”

Maddy stood in the hall. “I think ye’d better come. Annie’s behavin’ beyond peculiar, and I just can’t figure what to make of it.”

Before Alex could respond, his housekeeper, clearly beside herself, executed an abrupt about-face. Left with little alternative, he followed her back to the nursery. As he stepped into the room, he saw that Annie had finally chosen to vacate her bed and seemed to be searching through the layers of bedding for something.

“It looks to me as if she’s lost something,” he observed in a mild voice that belied his irritation. “What’s peculiar about that?’’

“What’s peculiar about it? What could she have lost?”

“God knows.” His headache growing worse by the second, Alex nearly groaned at the sound of his own voice. He’d think twice before upending a whiskey jug again. “What difference does it make what she’s looking for?”

Closing the distance with three long strides, Alex gained the bed. Annie, apparently unaware until that moment that he’d entered the room, gave a violent start when he came to stand beside her. Then, bending forward at the waist, she spread her arms protectively over her bedding. To indicate he had no intention of touching anything, Alex folded his arms and watched as she lifted the top sheet and peeked beneath it.

Curious, he leaned sideways and craned his neck to see as well.

Nothing. The girl was obviously daft. Since that wasn’t exactly news to anyone least of all to Maddy, Alex couldn’t fathom why she’d summoned him. A peculiar girl behaving in a peculiar manner was not, in his books, peculiar.

“Maybe there are bedbugs,” he said, knowing even before he made such a suggestion that Maddy would burst her seams at the mere thought. “In this house? Bite yer tongue!”

Perversely satisfied to have pricked her ire, he returned his attention to Annie to find that she had gone from peering under her bedding to searching under her pillow. Finding nothing there, she began to pat her comforter, carefully palpitating the folds as though feeling for lumps. “She’s definitely searching for something,” Alex said. “And hasn’t found it.” He lifted an eyebrow at Maddy. “A hair ribbon, perhaps?”

“She wasn’t wearin’ one when she went to bed.”

Alex glanced at the girl’s hands. No ring. It occurred to him he needed to rectify that. A simple gold band. He should purchase one straight away, he supposed. But, then again, maybe it would be better to wait and speak with her mother first. For all he knew, there could be a reason Annie had no rings or necklaces. She might swallow them or some god-awful thing. “A piece of jewelry?” he asked, knowing even as he did what Maddy’s reply would be.

“She has none.”

He heaved an exasperated sigh. “Well, she’s convinced she’s lost something, Maddy. Maybe an imaginary something.

Why can’t you just humor her?”

“But don’t ye find her behavior strange?”

Alex shot the woman an amazed look. “What do you expect? Normal?” Nearly blind with the pain pounding behind his eyes, he headed for the door. “Humor her, I said. Help her search. Have yourself a cup of coffee while she searches. I don’t really care, Maddy. Just leave me to my rest.”

Maddy bristled at his tone and called after him, “I think ye be needin’ some hair off the dog what bit ye. That’s what I’m thinkin’.”

Just the thought made his stomach roll.

Shortly after noon, Alex awoke to another knock at his chamber door. He couldn’t quite believe that on the one occasion he chose to sleep late, he could get so little peace.

“I’m coming!” he called. “Quit that blasted pounding! I’m not deaf.”

After dragging on his pants, he reached for his shirt and began putting it on as he crossed the room. He had one arm down a sleeve when Maddy cried, “Do hurry, Master Alex.

I’ve lost her!”

“You’ve what!” Picking up his pace, Alex lunged for the door, his shirt bunched around one elbow. Throwing the portal wide, he fastened an incredulous gaze on his housekeeper.

“Where have you lost her, for God’s sake?”

“Well, if I knew that, she wouldn’t be lost, now would she?”

Ignoring the sarcasm, he stepped past her into the hall. “Has she left the house?”

Maddy trotted alongside him as he moved toward the nursery. “When I brought her downstairs, I locked all the doors. If she got out, she had to go through a window.” She made a squeaky sound of distress and pressed her knuckles against her mouth. In a muffled voice, she cried, “I’ll never fergive meself if somethin’ has happened to her. There one minute and gone the next, she was. Just that fast. I really was watchin’ her, Master Alex. I swear it as I breathe.”

Drawing to a stop on the landing, Alex grasped the balustrade and leaned over to cast a glance about the hall.

Forgetting his headache, he bellowed, “Annie!”

“It won’t do any good, I tell ye. I’ve looked high and low.

As much as I hate to say it, I don’t believe she’s in the house.”

His pulse beginning to pound like a sledge in his temples, Alex headed for the stairs. Annie, pregnant and on the loose, unsupervised. He imagined her shinnying up a tree and falling.

Or tripping over a tree root. A dozen different accidents could befall her. Descending the steps three at a time, he called back over his shoulder, “Just calm down, Maddy. If she’s outdoors, it isn’t a major catastrophe. She knows her way about. I’m sure she probably went home.”

Taking jarring little steps, the plump housekeeper raced to keep apace with him. When he gained the first floor and began trying the front doors, she planted her fists on her hips and said,

“I told ye I locked ‘em all. Do ye doubt me word?”

“Of course not. I’m just checking to be sure.” Alex moved swiftly through the house to try all the other exits. All the doors were locked, just as Maddy claimed. “I don’t suppose you latched all the windows?”

Maddy pursed her mouth. “No, I didn’t think to do that. I’m sorry, Master Alex. I never dreamed she’d go out a window.”

Because he knew Maddy was usually pretty careful about relatching the windows after she’d had them open, Alex said,

“It can’t hurt to check all the latches. If we find one unfastened, it’ll be a good indication she’s slipped outside.”

Yelling for the staff, Maddy organized an efficient team to assist them in making their rounds. Within minutes, Alex met her back in the hall. “The parlor window was unfastened. She might have gone out that way.” At the housekeeper’s stricken expression, he softened his tone and clasped her shoulder.

“Maddy, would you stop? She’ll be fine. I’ll dress and ride over to the Trimbles’. I’m sure I’ll find her there.”

She nodded and sniffed. “I just pray nothin’ has happened to her. Such a sweet little thing, she is. I’ll never fergive meself.”

“I’m sure nothing has happened. As much as I hate to admit it, now that Douglas is gone, I doubt there’s a man in the area rotten enough to bother her, and aside from what Douglas did to her, she’s been wandering in the woods for years without getting hurt. The only reason I don’t allow it now is because of her pregnancy. Stop fretting. I’ll have her home in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. Mark my words.”

Annie was not at the Trimble place. Even more surprising to Alex was that neither of her parents seemed to be alarmed when he appeared on their doorstep, looking for his wife. Edie suggested that Alex might find her in the woods. Not that it was necessary for him to go out searching. It was Annie’s habit to roam, she reminded him, and had been for years.

Along toward dark, she would come home, either to Alex’s place or to the Trimbles’. If she chose the latter, her parents assured Alex they would send him a message so he could come collect her.

Still uneasy despite the Trimbles’ reassurances, Alex searched the woods before heading home. It was like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Open country stretched in all directions, and he knew Annie could be almost anywhere.

In the end, he had no choice but to return to Montgomery Hall and wait. If she hadn’t shown up by dusk, he would organize a search party.

As far as he was concerned, evening couldn’t come quickly enough. Until Annie was home again, he wouldn’t draw an easy breath. True, she’d been roaming the hills for most of her life. But that had been before her condition had become so delicate. He couldn’t quite credit her mother’s indifference.

All manner of accidents could befall a pregnant woman, especially someone like Annie who didn’t comprehend the dangers. Just the thought of her getting hurt made him feel panicky. Annie, with her tangled dark hair and big blue eyes.

In an amazingly short time, she had wormed her way into his heart and become more important to him than he cared to admit.

Expecting Maddy to still be in a stew, Alex didn’t tarry when he reached the stables. Quickly dismounting, he turned his horse over to a stableboy and went directly to the house. As he entered the hall, Maddy leaned over the upstairs balustrade and called down to him.

“She’s back. Safe and sound.”

Relief made Alex’s legs feel weak. Needing a moment to regain his composure, he leaned against the carved entrance doors, his gaze uplifted to Maddy’s beaming face. “Where was she?”

The housekeeper lifted her hands in a bewildered shrug.

“I’ve no idea. We were searching the house, and suddenly, there she was. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she oozed out from under a mopboard.”

Alex frowned. Recalling the unlatched parlor window, he said, “More likely, she came back in the way she went out.”

Annie suddenly appeared on the landing. Giving her a once-over, Alex was quick to note the telltale dirt smudges on her pale blue frock and white stockings. Her dark hair in its usual tangle of curls, she gazed down at him with those gigantic blue eyes, her expression unaccountably solemn.

Alex guessed that she realized, however vaguely, that she’d done something wrong and might be in trouble. So she would know he wasn’t angry, he made it a point to smile and wink at her. As nasty a scare as she’d given all of them, she couldn’t really be blamed; holding her accountable was out of the question.

The way to handle this, he assured himself, was to take extra precautions so it wouldn’t happen again. He looked at Maddy.

“Have you a minute or two you might spare? I think we need to set down some new rules around here, not just for the household staff, but also for ourselves. We can’t have her slipping outdoors again. Until the baby’s born, it isn’t safe. If she got injured while away from the house, she could very well bleed to death before anyone found her.”

At the suggestion, Maddy went as pale as whitewashed pickets. “I’ll be right down.”

Minutes later, Alex and his housekeeper met in his study.

Between the two of them, they outlined some safeguards they could enforce that would discourage, if not prevent, Annie from sneaking outside again, the most important being that, henceforth, all the exterior doors would be kept locked from the inside, day and night, and only Alex or Maddy would have the keys. The first floor windows, equipped with interior latches instead of locks, presented a bit more of a problem. It was decided, however, that if they were all kept closed and latched, Annie’s use of one of them as an escape route would be easy to detect. Once outside, the girl would be unable to relatch the window she’d used, and they would know for certain she had left the house. In that event, Alex could initiate an immediate search of the surrounding woods for her.

Comfortable with the preventive measures they were taking, Alex drifted off to sleep that night, confident that Annie was safe. Beginning tomorrow, he promised himself, he would set aside an hour or two every afternoon so he could spend some time with her. Doing what, he wasn’t certain. How did one entertain a feebleminded girl?

Ah well... Maddy seemed to think it was important that he and Annie become better acquainted, and to that end, Alex would happily sacrifice a bit of his time. Not that it would be easy. He usually spent his mornings doing paperwork in his study, and during the afternoons, he saw to the care of his thoroughbreds and the farm, or went to the rock quarry. As it was, he sometimes felt he was burning his candle at both ends, especially during the summer.

Nonetheless, the last thing he wanted was for Annie to feel frightened in her new home. If he could assuage her fears by spending an hour or so with her each day, it would be well worth the effort.

Alex’s plan proved to be a little more difficult to execute than he hoped. He juggled his schedule to make time for her the next day, but when he arrived at the house, Annie was nowhere to be found.

“What do you mean, she’s disappeared?” he demanded of Maddy.

“Well...” The housekeeper’s green eyes sparkled with unshed tears. “It’s just like yesterday, Master Alex. One minute she was there, and the next she wasn’t. Frederick was just leaving to go tell you.”

Spinning on his heel, Alex asked, “Have you checked the windows?”

“Yes. We checked ‘em all. Nary a one is unfastened.”

The housekeeper’s response brought Alex to a quick halt.

He turned to regard her. “None of them? Are you absolutely sure?”

“Nary a one.”

“Then she has to be in the house somewhere.”

“So one would think. Only she isn’t. We’ve looked everywhere, Master Alex. It’s like as if—” She broke off and hugged her waist. “It’s like as if she disappeared into thin air.”

Alex had seen that expression on his housekeeper’s face before and knew it boded ill. “Now, Maddy. Don’t let your Irish imagination get the best of you. The girl is flesh and blood. She can’t disappear into thin air any more than you or I.”

“Are ye sure?” she whispered. “There’s no denyin’ she’s a bit fey. Like that business of her searchin’ her beddin’. Did it again this mornin’, she did. Beyond peculiar, if ye ask me, a body searchin’ fer somethin’ she hasn’t lost.” She shivered slightly. “I know fer a fact that fey folks aren’t like the rest of us. Sometimes they see things we can’t, and they got talents that border on magic. Ye’ve heard the stories about how she tames the wild animals in the woods. That isn’t normal, and ye can’t argue it is.”

“I’m not saying she’s normal. I’m just saying that, for all her differences, she’s still very much human, Maddy, and thereby limited in what she can do. Disappearing into thin air? That’s silly. She’s either found herself a hidey-hole somewhere in the house, or she’s exiting by an upstairs window.”

“An upstairs window?” Maddy gasped and crossed herself.

“Dear Lord, if she fell, she’d break her fool little neck!”

“Exactly.” Alex headed for the stairs. “From now on, all the windows on the second and third floors must be kept fastened, too. We’ll attend to that right now. Then I’ll gather up some men to help me comb the woods. She’s probably wandering around out there, happy as a clam and completely oblivious to the panic she’s causing us.”

* * *

Ten minutes later, Alex was checking window latches in the ballroom, situated on the third floor, when he sensed a presence behind him. Skin prickling, he looked over his shoulder to see Annie standing in the open doorway. As had been the case yesterday, her shapeless frock was smeared with dirt, and there were smudges of dust on her cheeks. Since Alex knew she couldn’t possibly have gotten so dirty inside the house, he could only surmise she’d done as he suspected and climbed out a second- or third-floor window.

Just the thought made his pulse skitter. While doing roof repairs in the recent past, he had learned the hard way how treacherous some sections of that slate could be. One false step was all it might take. In most places, there was nothing to break a person’s fall. He had a good mind to drive nails through all the bottom window rails.

“Annie,” he said weakly. “Honey, where have you been?”

At the question, she retreated a step.

“Don’t be afraid. I’m not angry with you. Just concerned. I know you’ve been outside somewhere, and if you went out through one of these windows, you might have fallen.”

She backed up another step.

Moving slowly, Alex tried to close the distance between them. He had covered only a few feet when she bolted.

“Annie! Come back here. I won’t hurt you.”

His words fell on empty air. Alex heaved a disheartened sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. So he was supposed to spend time with her, was he? And how, exactly, was he going to accomplish that? By tying her to a chair, perhaps?

He followed the third-floor corridor to the landing. Grasping a newel post, he swung his weight onto the stairs and took the descent three steps at a time. Once on the second level, he headed directly for the nursery. Maddy, who was busy scolding Annie and checking her for injuries, didn’t notice when he entered the room.

“Oh, lass, ye can’t be takin’ off like this!” the housekeeper cried. “Me old heart won’t take it, ye understand? What did ye do? Go out an upstairs window? Lord help us! Ye could’ve broke yer silly neck. Don’t ye realize that?”

Alex made his way to the table where Annie was sitting.

Hunkering in front of her chair, he gazed solemnly into her eyes. The emotions he read there baffled him. She was afraid of being punished, that much was clear. But she also looked confused and a little self-righteous, as if she were being unjustly accused.

Alex gave her a thorough inspection, starting with her hair, which had bits of what appeared to be cobwebs clinging to the tendrils, and ending with her white stockings, which were smudged with dirt. Grayish colored dirt. Not red. Most of the soil thereabouts was a rust-red clay.

“Maddy, is there anyplace inside the house—say a closet or a storage room?—that might be filled with cobwebs and dust?”

Maddy sputtered at the suggestion. “Only the attic, and ye know very well it’s always kept locked. I have the only key, and I haven’t let it out to anyone since ye bought the new safe after Douglas left.”

Alex frowned. “You’re sure it’s locked?”

“Positive. With all those spiders and mice thereabouts?”

She shuddered. “It’s always kept locked.”

“Someplace else then?” Alex pointed out the smudges on Annie’s clothing. “If she’d been outside, the dirt on her frock would be reddish.” He touched a smudge on her knee. “This looks more like dust to me.”

“Dust?” The housekeeper glared at him. “I’ll have ye know that every crack and cranny of this house gets a thorough and regular cleanin’, no exceptions. I’d never allow any room, closet or otherwise, to get so filthy.”

Alex knew that to be so. But he still couldn’t put his suspicions to rest. Had Annie found a hidey-hole somewhere that Maddy had overlooked? “Tomorrow, I want you to keep a closer eye on her,” he instructed the housekeeper. “If you have to, enlist the help of a maid or two. When she slips away again, I want to know which direction she takes.”

Maddy’s Irish brogue became more pronounced with her building indignation. “She went out! Just look at her, all covered with dirt. She couldna get so soiled inside me house!”

Alex pushed to his feet and patted the older woman’s shoulder. “I’m sure she couldn’t, Maddy. But all the same, do as I ask, hmm? I’d really appreciate it. And meanwhile, when I’m up at the stables working, I’ll keep an eye on the exterior of the house to see if I can spot her sneaking out a window.”

Returning his gaze to his wife, Alex considered the situation and possible solutions. Because the girl had been allowed to wander at will when she lived at home, she probably found her existence at Montgomery Hall pretty confining in comparison, and he couldn’t really fault her for that. Arrangements needed to be made so she might have daily outings. Maddy didn’t really have time to accompany her. For that matter, neither did Alex.

He sighed with resignation. Annie was ultimately his responsibility and no one else’s. If she needed to be taken for daily walks, which she obviously did, then he was the likely candidate. Now that he’d decided to make her a permanent resident at Montgomery Hall, he couldn’t avoid being thrust into situations where he would be alone with her. Not indefinitely. To even try would be ludicrous. A marriage in name only or not, they were still married, and though his role as such would be limited, he was her husband.

A little self-control was in order, he thought determinedly.

If he didn’t have a good measure of that at his disposal already, then he’d damned well better acquire some.

Eleven

When Alex suddenly grasped Annie’s hand and drew her up from the chair, she couldn’t have been more surprised. On the heels of her surprise came dread. He meant to take her somewhere? It didn’t require a great deal of thought to guess his intentions. Both he and Maddy mistakenly believed she had sneaked outdoors and were upset with her. To ensure she wouldn’t break the rules again, Alex obviously meant to punish her.

In the past, Annie had endured her share of lickings, most of them meted out by her father in his study, all with his razor strop. From experience, she knew that the sting only lasted for a short while and that the bruises would go away within a few days. But that had been when her papa punished her. Alex Montgomery was twice his size and far stronger.

For the space of a heartbeat, she seriously considered running from him. But before she could act on the urge, she remembered the baby she was supposedly carrying. If, as she suspected, it was enclosed in a fragile egg, she couldn’t take any chances. Trying to run from Alex Montgomery would definitely pose a risk. His legs were long and powerfully muscled. In a footrace against him, she wouldn’t have a prayer.

And when he caught her? That didn’t bear thinking about.

Eggs, Annie knew, broke very easily. She doubted hers could withstand the crushing force of his arms around her waist.

As he led her out into the hall, she frantically searched her mind for some way she might tell him she hadn’t sneaked outside. All she’d done was go to the secret place for a little while. Where was the harm in that? At home, she’d done it all the time. Nearly every day during the rainy season. Her mama had never cared, let alone been angry.

Pulling her along behind him, Alex walked with a loose-hipped, powerful stride that made her blood run cold.

Watching the sway of his shoulders, she recalled the morning she’d seen him without a shirt. All that strength, and now he was about to unleash it on her.

Annie expected him to take her to his study as her papa had usually done. Instead, when they got downstairs, he headed straight for the entry doors. Keeping a firm hold on her wrist, he used his other hand to fish in his trouser pocket. Within seconds, he had drawn out a key, unlocked the doors, and pulled her onto the porch.

Guessing his intent, Annie’s heart began to kick violently against her ribs, and she glanced wildly around. Where did he plan to take her? In her estimation, there could only be one reason why he was taking her outside; he didn’t want anyone in his household to see how severely he punished her.

Oh, God... Annie was so frightened she could scarcely think.

She threw him a pleading glance, but he was too preoccupied with looking around to notice. Suddenly he smiled, his expression decisive, and led her down the front steps, angling right when they struck the drive. As they went around the corner of the house, they entered a beautiful garden, artfully crisscrossed with white stone paths. Roses bloomed in profusion, the varying shades of pink and red making brilliant splashes against the deep green backdrop of sculptured shrubs and grass.

Drawing her abreast of him, he slowed his pace, for all the world as though he wanted her to enjoy the stroll. All Annie could think about was the beating that was in store for her.

Sneaking glances at hie dark face, she saw the breeze catch his molten hair, whipping it into lazy waves across his high forehead. As though he sensed her regard, he turned and caught her studying him. She quickly looked away, then jumped with a start when he brushed gently at her cheek to push a tendril of hair from her eyes.

Their gazes locked. Annie’s feet suddenly felt numb. If she didn’t watch where she was going, she knew she might stumble. But for the life of her, she couldn’t look away from his gleaming amber eyes.

“Do you like roses, Annie?”

Roses? He was taking her someplace to beat her, and he expected her to admire his roses? Her attention became fixed on his smile—a lazy, slightly crooked grin that flashed his white teeth and deepened the creases at the corners of his mouth. He didn’t look angry, not in the least, and that frightened her more than anything else. A man had to be utterly coldhearted to inflict pain on someone when he wasn’t even mad at her.

Averting her face, Annie saw the stables up ahead of them, and her footsteps faltered. Once, a long time ago, her papa had taken her to the woodshed to punish her. In her recollection, that trip to the woodshed had preceded the worst licking of her life. A watery sensation attacked her legs. Between that and the numb feeling in her feet, it was difficult for her to remain standing, let alone walk.

As she expected, Alex headed directly for the outbuildings.

When they reached a long, narrow structure with an open-ended alley running lengthwise through its center, he turned to her and said, “I understand you like animals.”

Only if they had four legs, she thought acidly, and caught the inside of her cheek between her teeth, hoping the pain might distract her from worrying about what he might do to her. The entrance of the building yawned before her like a gigantic mouth. A little hysterically, she remembered the story her mother used to read to her years ago about Jonah being swallowed by a whale.

Left with little choice because his grip on her hand was relentless, she followed him into the alleyway. As the shadows fell over them, Annie’s nostrils were assaulted by a strong but not entirely unpleasant blend of scents, that of animals and hay, grain and leather, all adrift on a current of fresh air. As her eyes grew accustomed to the dimness, she glanced nervously around. Hanging from large nails along the wall to her left were all manner of riding accessories and grooming tools—gig saddles, brushes, mane combs, blanket pins, muzzles, harnesses and lunging lines. Taking a fast inventory, she spotted several leather straps. A bead of sweat broke loose near the nape of her neck and trickled icily down her spine.

Her worst fear was realized when Alex released her hand and stepped over to the wall to take something from a nail. As he turned back toward her, Annie glimpsed a loop of leather dangling from his fist. When she jerked her gaze back to his face, she saw that he was smiling still, his expression oddly tender. That look chased away the last shreds of her courage.

If he meant to punish her, which he surely did, how could he stand there and smile at her that way?

Running was out of the question now. Her feet felt as if they had put down taproots. She settled frightened eyes on his shoulders—broad muscular shoulders that blocked out the wall behind him. The loose fit of his white shirt did little to conceal the defined contours of muscle across his chest and along his arms. She didn’t want to think about how it would feel when he struck her, but unfortunately, her traitorous mind could focus on little else.

With no warning, he swung up the hand that held the leather.

Annie glimpsed the strap coming toward her face and reacted instinctively, bending forward and hugging her waist to protect her baby.

Alex was so startled when Annie jackknifed forward that for a moment all he could do was stand there and stare at her with his mouth hanging open. He’d been about to take her to the opposite end of the stable. Rosy, one of his mares, had recently dropped a foal. Though the horse was an incurable biter, her colt was a cute little bugger, all legs and ears, with a penchant for suckling on whatever caught his eye, buttons, fingers, elbows, or anything else that looked as if it might yield milk.

Alex had thought Annie might enjoy seeing him.

“Annie?” he finally managed to say.

She didn’t look up when he called her name. Judging by the way she was hugging her waist, it struck him that she might be in pain. His first concern was for the baby, and a dozen possibilities chased through his mind. Had she hurt herself while wandering in the woods? Horrible visions of her miscarrying right there in the stable swamped him. Dropping the muzzle he’d just taken from a nail, he grasped her slender shoulders and tried, with little success, to make her stand straight.

She was trembling. Trembling horribly. Alex threw a helpless look toward the house, wishing Maddy were with them. When it came to female complaints, especially those involving pregnancy, he was at a complete loss. Should he carry her to the house? Make her lie down?

“Christ!”

Leaning sideways, he pushed ineffectually at her hair, trying to part the wildly curly tresses so he might see her face. He finally resorted to going down on one knee and craning his neck so he could look up into her eyes.

“Annie love? Do you hurt someplace?”

By her pallor, Alex knew she was frightened half to death.

Every awful story he’d ever heard about pregnant women miscarrying and bleeding to death came back to haunt him.

The thought of Annie dying—God, she was so sweet, so impossibly and wonderfully sweet.

Half expecting to see blood soaking through the pink cloth, he glanced in anxious torment at the knee-length hem of her frock. Nothing. That was a good sign, wasn’t it? No hemorrhaging. Then again, maybe she just wasn’t bleeding that heavily yet.

“Honey, where does it hurt? Can you show me?”

Blue eyes that rivaled the size of saucers stared out at him from her small, pinched face. Smoothing her hair back, he cupped her cheeks between his hands.

“Annie, did you hurt yourself? Show me, honey. Here?” He dropped one hand to touch her waist. “How bad does it hurt?”

She jerked violently away and executed an awkward sidestep. Then she froze, staring at something on the ground.

He followed her gaze to the discarded muzzle, his brain not making a connection until she jerked her eyes back to his hand.

His empty hand.

It hit Alex then. For an awful moment, his stomach knotted so violently he thought he might vomit. Reenacted in slow motion, he saw himself drawing her up from her chair immediately after Maddy had scolded her. Taking her downstairs. Outside. Through the garden. Into the stables.

When he had swung the muzzle toward her, he had only been pointing the way to Rosy’s stall, but Annie had thought he meant to strike her.

Rage... It exploded inside Alex’s head in blinding shades of red. If James Trimble had been within his reach at that moment, he would have killed him. He balled his hands into throbbing fists.

Annie was all that mattered, not her bastard of a father.

Calm, he had to stay calm. To that end, he forced his lungs to expand, drawing in a shuddering breath. As he exhaled, her face broke through the haze of his anger. He’d never seen anyone look quite so terrified. Wanting desperately to wipe that look off her face, he searched his mind for some way—any way at all—that he might reassure her. The poor little thing didn’t understand anything he said to her. The one and only time he had been successful at communicating with her, he’d had to draw her a picture.

A picture ... Actions spoke louder than words. All he had to do was think of some way to look harmless. No easy task when the girl he wanted to convince was half his size and badly frightened.

Only vaguely aware of his movements or the decision that prompted them, Alex folded a leg under himself and sat unceremoniously on the dirt. It was the best idea he could think of, his hope being that she would feel less threatened if he placed himself at a physical disadvantage. Not that it gave her much of an edge. After working with horses for the majority of his life, he’d learned to move more quickly than most people, an ability that had saved his hide more than once.

If she decided to run, he could be on his feet before she could execute a full about-face.

Something cold and wettish was seeping through one leg of his trousers. Not caring to think about what manner of muck he might have encountered, he kept his attention focused on Annie. Bless her heart, she didn’t look capable of running. Her legs were shaking so badly, he was surprised her knees weren’t knocking.

Unable to think of anything else he might do to assuage her fears, Alex made a valiant attempt to smile. A horrible, artificial, crack-your-face smile, but it was the best he could muster. Through the tangled curtains of her dark hair, she gaped at him as if he’d gone mad. And perhaps he had. A grown man, lolling around in horse shit and grinning as though he liked it? If that didn’t qualify him for the madhouse, nothing much would.

On legs that still didn’t look capable of holding her up, she manage to retreat a step. Then she spun and ran from the stable.

Alex followed her with his gaze, relieved beyond words when he saw that she was heading for the house. The thought of having to pursue her through the woods right now didn’t hold a great deal of appeal. Neither did the thought of catching her.

The little minx didn’t fight fair.

As was his habit when nothing in his life seemed to be going right, Alex started to rub a hand over his face. At the last second, he caught himself short. Something brown was smeared across his palm. He took a cautious sniff. Then, in spite of himself, he snorted with laughter.

“Master Alex?”

The amazed male voice came from behind Alex. He shot a look over his shoulder to see Deiter, his head groom, standing in the tack room doorway. Wiry and gray-haired, the man had a face that resembled a strip of beef jerky. “Yes, Deiter?”

“Are you all right?”

The question made Alex start to laugh again, harder this time. When his mirth had finally subsided, Deiter asked,

“What are you doin’ down there, anyhow?”

“I’m really not sure. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Need any help?”

Alex sighed. “As a matter of fact, I believe I’m going to need all the help I can get.”

Despite all of Alex and Maddy’s efforts to prevent it, Annie disappeared nearly every afternoon of the next week, her destination unknown to anyone but her. Maddy tried to keep an eagle eye on her, but somehow Annie managed to sneak away. After each of her vanishing acts, Alex was summoned to the house, the staff was divided up into teams, and the windows on all three floors were checked.

None of them were ever found to be unlatched.

So... if not outdoors, where was Annie going? The question bedeviled everyone at Montgomery Hall, from Alex and Maddy on down to the youngest stableboy. By the end of the week, Alex was so baffled, he was about ready to put in with Maddy and start believing that Annie had a magical ability to disappear into thin air.

Except for one small thing. How did she get so dirty?

One afternoon, a week to the day after Annie’s first disappearance, Alex was summoned to the house and informed by Maddy that their mystery had finally been solved.

“I outsmarted her,” she told Alex proudly. “Pretended I was preoccupied with somethin’ else, I did. Waited fer the lass to slip away, and then I followed her. Ye’ll never guess where it is she’s gettin’ off to, Master Alex. Ye’ll never guess in a million years.”

Alex gazed at his housekeeper expectantly. When he realized she intended to say nothing more, he ground his teeth.

“Maddy, tell me, for God’s sake. Where does she go?”

“The attic!” she informed him, beaming with satisfaction.

“Up to the bleedin’ attic.”

“How? You assured me—absolutely no question, remember—that you kept it locked. Didn’t you check it?”

“I have the key,” she reminded him. “I didn’t see a need to check, knowin’ as I did that it couldn’t be unlocked.”

“But it obviously was!”

“Henry again,” she said by way of explanation.

“Henry?”

“When ye replaced the safe in yer study, I had him take the old one up to the attic. He must’ve forgot to lock the door.

When I asked, he assured me he did, and I saw no call to question his word.”

Alex sighed. “Trust Henry to think he locked it when he didn’t. I should’ve checked it myself.” Glancing up at the second floor landing, he frowned. “The attic? Of all the dirty, nasty places—” He shook his head. “Why in God’s name would she go up there?”

“Ye got me. That’s why I sent fer ye, to go fetch her down.

I’d go, but ye know how I hate mice. Frederick offered to go up, but Annie doesn’t see much of him, and I didn’t want her to get frightened. Our luck, she’d try to run and step in one of those rat traps.”

The unsprung traps in the attic weren’t Alex’s only concern, even though, as he recalled, the uppermost floor was littered with them. What worried him more was that the attic was probably stifling at this time of year, not to mention dark, dusty, and infested with spiders. Black widows being indigenous to the area, that was not a comforting thought.

Alex pushed past Maddy and made for the stairs.

“Do ye want me to send Frederick up to help ye search?” she called.

He never broke stride. “I think I can find her. Go on about your work, Maddy. I’ll bring her back down.”

The stairway that led to the attic was located on the third floor in the west wing. Envisioning Annie with a fatal spider bite, Alex took the treacherously steep and narrow steps at a breakneck speed. The door, rusty from disuse, squeaked eerily as he pushed it open. Wishing he’d thought to bring a lantern, he stepped into the semi-darkness. The only source of light came from strategically placed dormer and gable windows, their efficiency undermined by grime. The smell of dust and mildew burned his nostrils.

While he paused to get his bearings and allow his eyes to adjust, he heard faint scurrying noises that made his blood run cold. Rodents. Though he would never admit it to anyone, he harbored an irrational fear of the nasty little creatures. He wasn’t sure why. He could handle snakes. Spiders scarcely gave him pause. He wasn’t even particularly wary of large carnivores. But mice? On the rare occasion when one was spotted downstairs, he wanted to follow Maddy’s example and stand on a chair until Frederick came to dispense with it.

Sweat beaded on his forehead. From his right came a scratching noise, then a gnawing sound. The skin along his back and arms shriveled. Jesus. Over the years, he’d conquered his fear enough to face the occasional mouse. For the sake of his pride, he’d had no choice. But a legion of them?

He felt like Goliath must have while facing David. Only, in this confrontation, David had multiplied.

As his eyes grew accustomed to the dimness, Alex could make out the shapes around him. The replaced safe. Old pieces of furniture. A mirror that had once graced the parlor and was now so grimy it no longer reflected any light. Propped between two stacks of boxes, he saw several oil paintings covered with sheets and bound with twine. In a clutter at their base was an assortment of what appeared to be cooking pots.

Over everything lay a thick coat of dust, and stretching from object to object were filigreed webs, their intricately woven fibers adorned with dead moths and other hapless insects. The place wasn’t fit for man or beast. Yet Annie was up here somewhere.

Stepping forward, he barked his shin on an old trunk. Son of a bitch. “Annie!” he called gruffly. Venturing a few more steps, he stumbled into a huge iron caldron that had once been used for boiling laundry. “Damn it!” he said under his breath.

Then, more loudly, “Annie, where are you?”

As he wove his way through the haphazard assortment of castoff items that had collected there over the years, Alex reminded himself that his wife wasn’t able to answer him.

Fool that he was, he was yelling as though he expected a reply.

On the other hand, the attic was nearly as large as the three floors below, and he didn’t relish the thought of searching every square inch. Not when lack of light rendered him half blind and mice scurried in the shadows.

“Annie? Come on out, honey. Maddy has tea and cakes waiting for you.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. When he got the girl downstairs, he’d see to it she was given a treat of some sort.

Anything to cajole her out of hiding. “Did you hear me? Cakes.

God damn it!” Alex bent to rub his knee, which had connected painfully with the sharp corner of the antiquated safe.

“Honey? I know you’re up here somewhere. Won’t you come out? Please? It’s not safe up here.”

As he straightened, Alex heard a sound that he thought came from the east wing. Not a scurrying noise, but more of a thump.

Definitely too loud for a mouse or—God forbid—a rat.

Relieved to have at least pinpointed Annie’s general location, he turned and headed in that direction. To his immense relief, he found that the way had been cleared a few feet beyond the door, almost as if she had set things aside so they wouldn’t obstruct her path. He cringed at the thought of her moving heavy furniture. If worry was fatal, the girl was going to drive him to an early grave.

As he drew near the east section of the attic, the light seemed to grow stronger. Pondering its source, he remembered there was a flank of dormer windows in this wing.

Drawn to the illumination, he made steady progress, calling out loudly every few seconds. Even if Annie didn’t understand him, at least she wouldn’t be startled when he found her.

Stepping around a partition wall, Alex finally spotted his quarry. He stopped, not quite able to believe his eyes. Annie ...

only not the Annie he knew. Dressed in a pink morning dress and black kid pumps that she must have ferreted from his dead stepmother’s trunks, she was a veritable fashion plate, albeit an outdated one. With her dark hair drawn into a tousled and slightly off-center topknot of curls, which she’d secured with a bit of lace, she presented a perfect cameo in profile, the loveliest woman he had ever seen, barring none.

“Annie, what in the world?”

No response. Not even a twitch to indicate she’d heard him.

So stunned he couldn’t move, Alex simply stood there and gaped. Annie went on about her business, and busy business it was. With odds and ends of furniture, she had created a parlor of sorts, which he noticed was free of cobwebs and dust. On a three-legged table propped up with crates at one corner, she’d laid out chipped china and was pretending to serve tea.

Her imaginary guests, male and female dummies she’d fashioned by stuffing old clothes, occupied two of the three mismatched chairs she had appropriated from somewhere in the attic. The gentleman was a dapper fellow in a moth-eaten gray suit, the lady proportionately elegant in a faded blue gown trimmed with yellowed lace. Their heads, made from stuffed white stockings, were adorned with hats, the man’s a felt derby, the woman’s a wilted arrangement of silk flowers with a veil that swept over the upper portion of her face.

Alex couldn’t help but smile. It was a wonder that Maddy hadn’t been complaining about Annie’s dwindling supply of stockings. From the looks of things, the girl had sneaked berries from the breakfast table as well. Her stuffed guests had painted faces done in a suspicious shade of raspberry-red.

“Annie, this is incredible!” Alex exclaimed, and sincerely meant it. “Ingenious! Is there anything you haven’t—”

He broke off to watch as she poured imaginary tea. With a gracious smile at her guests, she began moving her lips.

Though she uttered no sound, she looked for all the world as if she were speaking. Her every movement was precise yet fluid, exactly as a lady’s should be.

“Sugar?” she asked the gentleman as she proffered the sugar bowl. Then, glancing toward the sunlight spilling through the windows, she said, “My, isn’t it a lovely day?” At least, that was what he thought she said. Inexpert at lipreading, he couldn’t be positive. After that, she continued to speak, but he had difficulty following the words.

Words ... Dear God. Soundlessly or no, she was talking.

Actually talking. It was like watching a child play make-believe. Only she wasn’t a child. And this wasn’t just make-believe to her, but reality. Her only reality.

Annie hadn’t been disappearing into thin air, as Maddy half believed. She’d been slipping from one world into another.

Once, years ago, Alex had been kicked in the gut by a full-grown stallion. The blow had staggered him. For several endless seconds, he hadn’t been able to breathe. His vision had blurred. For a crazy instant, he’d even felt as though his heart had stopped beating. That was how he felt now. As if, for a suspended moment, everything inside him lurched to a stop.

As feeling slowly began to return to his body, pain accompanied it—a relentless, mind-numbing pain centered in his chest. He’d heard people say their hearts were broken. A few times in his life, he had even used the expression himself.

But until now, the saying hadn’t really had meaning. The human heart didn’t actually break, after all. It didn’t come apart, piece by piece, and drop, along with a man’s stomach, to the region of his boots.

Like hell, it didn’t.

Annie Trimble, the town moron. Only she wasn’t a moron at all. She was deaf. Stone-deaf. And, God forgive him, he had been stone-blind.

Twelve

Stunned, Alex watched Annie touch a hand to her throat and coyly bat her lashes at the stuffed gentleman. Then, to his amazement, she stepped around the makeshift table, took the dummy’s arm to embrace him, and fell into a perfectly executed waltz step, her skirt swirling as she swept around the room.

A beautiful young woman, dancing to music no one else could hear, in the arms of a man she’d created with talented hands and a vivid imagination. With the dummy, she could be someone, a privilege that the rest of the world, including Alex, had denied her.

Without intending to, Alex shifted his weight, and a floorboard gave slightly beneath his foot. With the sharpened senses of a deaf person, Annie felt the wood give and immediately froze, her eyes huge and wary as she searched him out in the gloom.

Alex could see that she was frightened. After what had happened between them in the stable, knowing as he did that she expected him to beat her if she sneaked off, he was surprised she’d even found the courage to come here again.

Not that he blamed her for taking the risk. In this make-believe parlor, she could be whoever she wished, do whatever she wished. In comparison, the world that awaited her downstairs probably seemed like a prison. Stupid Annie, locked inside the house for her own protection. Stupid Annie, expected to eat what was set before her, to bathe when told, to dress like a ragamuffin child. She was a lump of flesh they tended, kept in a room with a barred window half the time, watched over as though she were a toddler the rest of the time. In her shoes, he would have risked a beating to come up here, too.

A beating... From her stricken expression, Alex guessed that physical punishment was not the only thing she feared. In coming here, he had discovered her secret. This world she had created was sacrosanct, and she undoubtedly saw him as an intruder who might destroy it. With the simple turn of a key, he could lock her out of the attic, prevent her from ever returning. Worse yet, and again with only the turn of a key, he could lock her in a room with a barred window and never let her out. Power. Ultimate authority. If he chose, he could make her life more of a hell than it already was.

Only he wouldn’t. Not for anything.

Seeing her like this, Alex was awestruck. And helplessly fascinated. All he wanted was to pass from his reality, which suddenly had very little to recommend it, into hers. Not to destroy, but to seek some small margin of common ground with her, if only for a few brief seconds.

Moving cautiously, ever so cautiously, he closed the distance between them. It was a gamble. He knew that. This was her world—a secret world—and he hadn’t been issued an invitation. But it was the only way he could think of that he might reach her.

When he came within arm’s length, he tapped her lifeless dance partner on the shoulder. Executing a polite bow, he said,

“May 1 have the honor of this dance?”

A study in motion, Annie still stood frozen with one foot extended to take a step, her slender body slightly off balance, the dummy clutched to her breast. Limned by silvery light from the windows behind her, she might have been an ice carving, too fragile and delicate to withstand the touch of a man’s hands. In the hollow of her throat, he could see a pulsebeat, and by its frantic rhythm, he took measure of her fear. He knew she might try to flee. He couldn’t blame her for that. After Douglas’s treatment of her, he hadn’t come into her life with much to recommend him, and in the time since, he’d done little to rectify the lack.

“Please, Annie? Just one dance,” he said huskily. “Surely your card isn’t full.”

There it was again—that confused, uncomprehending expression in her eyes. He’d seen it dozens of times before and mistakenly believed it to be a reflection of her stupidity.

Wrong. If anyone was an idiot, he was. While executing the bow, he had bent his head as he was speaking. The reason she looked bewildered was because she had missed part of what he said. That was why she always stared so intently at his face when he spoke to her, why she sometimes seemed confused.

Not realizing she was deaf, he had probably turned his head in the middle of a sentence. Or spoken indistinctly. Dear God.

The girl was anything but stupid. That she had learned, all on her own, to lip-read and mimic speech was indicative of an intelligence well above average.

Talking more slowly and forming each word precisely so it would be easier for her to follow him, Alex repeated himself.

Eyes large and luminous, she continued to stare at him for what seemed like endless minutes, each of which broke his heart just a little bit more. Moving cautiously so as not to frighten her, he extended his hand.

“Please, Annie?”

Trying to see things from her point of view, Alex doubted she would find the courage to refuse him. He, the possessor of the razor strop? He was standing nearly on top of her now and blocked her path to escape. She either had to dance with him or suffer the consequences. He felt bad about using her fear to his advantage. It was a poor way to start a relationship. On the other hand, it was better than making no headway at all. There would be time later to revise her opinion of him.

Looking none too sure of her decision, she finally relented and set her other dance partner aside. The poor fellow took a tumble and landed in a lifeless heap, which was exactly where Alex hoped he would stay. This was his dance. His wife. He felt like a man who had accidentally stumbled upon the end of a rainbow.

No, not a rainbow, he thought nonsensically. More like a beautiful butterfly emerging, almost magically, from its chrysalis. In that moment, that was how he saw Annie. He didn’t analyze the feeling. He had unveiled something incredibly precious, immeasurably lovely, and completely unexpected. When God saw fit to bestow such a gift, a man with any sense didn’t ask questions.

Nervous of frightening her any more than he already had, he touched a palm lightly to her waist, took her hand in his, and gently moved into a waltz. Accustomed to leading, she stumbled slightly and tromped on his toes, but her weight was so slight that Alex scarcely noticed. As if he could feel his toes.

Not with this girl in his arms. In the carriage that first morning, he had sensed the rightness, but he’d shied away from it, appalled by his feelings. Now he realized he should have trusted his instincts.

In retrospect, he looked back on the events that had drawn them together and believed with all his heart that an invisible hand had moved him and her about like pieces on a chessboard, aligning their positions, manipulating incidents, bringing them inexorably to a collision point. Fate? The Almighty? Alex didn’t know, nor did he care to guess. All that mattered was this moment and the feeling that it was wonderfully and perfectly right.

After a few turns on their imaginary dance floor, Annie relaxed and began to take her cues from him, floating with the music as gracefully as a butterfly drifted with a breeze. The music ... It was insane. He knew it was. But gazing down at her small face, he could almost hear the orchestra playing.

Annie, dancing to make-believe music, in a make-believe world, but no longer in the arms of a make-believe man. This fantasy world he’d invaded was all she had. Branded a moron.

Shunned for most of her life. No education. No companions.

An ugly secret that her parents had kept hidden. Rage roiled within him, but he tamped it down. Later he would let himself think about the how and why. Later he would place the blame.

For now, there was only the waltz and the girl he held in his arms.

It had been years since Alex had played make-believe. Too many years, perhaps, for there was a surreal feeling in the air around him. A feeling that anything might happen—if only he believed. He didn’t want to shatter that.

Even holding her at a polite distance filled him with a sense of wonder. Though small and delicately made, she fitted to his body as though she’d been fashioned for him. Against the side of his hand, he could feel her hip moving. Beneath his thumb, he detected the swelling due to her pregnancy. He yearned to draw her closer, to press his cheek to the curls atop her head, to drown in the clean smell of rose-and-glycerin soap that Maddy used to bathe her.

Unable to resist, he did exactly that.

Momentarily startled by the sudden closeness, Annie stiffened. But when he continued to dance, she finally gave in to the strength of his arm and let her body mold to his. He pressed his face against her hair and let his eyes fall closed.

Precious. It was the only word he could think of to describe her. God help him, he never wanted to let her go.

Not wishing to tire her, Alex eventually had to end the waltz.

When he stopped and drew away from her, she looked slightly disoriented, eyes unfocused, cheeks flushed, lips parted with breathlessness.

“Thank you, Annie,” he said slowly. “That was lovely.”

A dimple flashed in her cheek as she returned his smile.

“Yes, lovely.”

The words she mouthed but didn’t speak were nearly as audible to Alex as if she’d said them aloud, probably because they were the expected response. He had to learn to lip-read, he thought with a sense of panic. Straightaway, he needed to learn. Without circumstances to cue him, he would be at a loss when she tried to communicate with him.

Reluctant to leave the attic and this version of her, he cast his gaze about her parlor, searching almost frantically for an excuse, any excuse, to prolong the make-believe mood.

Inspiration struck when he spotted the chipped china on the table. Pretending she had issued him an invitation, he took the male dummy’s chair, picked up his empty cup, and extended it toward her for a refill. Even in the dimness, he could see the wariness returning to her eyes.

The magic of the waltz had ended. And now, like it or not, they were back to reality. Only Alex was no longer absolutely certain what reality was. Where it began, where it ended. He only knew this beautiful girl had been horribly wronged, and somehow he had to make it up to her.

To help her, the first thing he had to do was gain her trust.

He continued to hold out the cup, waiting, compelling her with his gaze. Something touched his pant leg. He ignored it.

In that instant, nothing mattered to him but Annie. Then came a ticklish sensation through his sock. Little pinpricks. Unable to block out the sensation, Alex moved his foot slightly and bent to brush at his ankle. As he did, his fingertips connected with a small, furry body.

“Son of a— Jeee-sus Christ!”

He and the teacup parted company, the cup shooting upward, Alex diving to swat at his trousers. Dimly he heard china shatter.

“Son of a bitch!” He leaped to his feet. “It’s going up my—Jesus Christ!”

A mouse. Up his trouser leg. Horror filled Alex. He started to dance again, alone this time and to a tune called hysteria. A goddamned mouse. And the little fiend was scrabbling for purchase, making a beeline for his crotch. Not in this lifetime.

Alex slapped at his leg. Big, mouse-squashing slaps, his intent murder. So fixed was his attention on the rodent that it took him a moment to realize Annie was hanging on his arm.

“Naah-ohh!” she cried.

No? Alex was so shocked to hear her make a sound that he forgot the damned mouse.

“Naah-ohh!” she cried again.

The word was distorted. An awful and not quite human sound. But to Alex, it was the most wonderful thing he’d ever heard. No. A simple expression, one that children learned at an early age and never forgot because adults said it to them so frequently. A word that Annie knew because she’d once heard it said herself.

Because she seemed so frantic to save the mouse, Alex forced himself not to slap his leg again. The last thing he wanted was to kill the revolting little thing and break her heart.

That would only drive another wedge between them. Panicked from the blows, the mouse continued its ascent. Alex clenched his teeth.

A scrabbling sensation well above his knee.

Then high on his thigh.

He stood it for one more second—undoubtedly the longest of his life—then swore and grabbed for the fly of his trousers.

If that mouse gained a few more inches— well, it didn’t bear thinking about. Alex could almost feel its small teeth sinking into his ballocks.

Forgetting about everything—Annie, propriety, decency—he dropped his pants. Its tiny claws hooked to his drawers, the mouse was hanging on for dear life. Seizing it by the tail, Alex jerked it loose and held it at arm’s length. A squirming little body. Shrill squeaking. God, it was his worst nightmare. Not sure what to do with the creature, he glanced at Annie only to discover she had clamped a hand over her mouth and looked as if she were about to burst with laughter.

It struck Alex then how ridiculous he must look. A grown man, dancing around on his tiptoes like a hysterical woman.

Trousers around his knees. Drawers flapping. A mouse dangling from one hand. He chuckled in spite of himself.

Bending to release his small captive, he shook his head.

“You, young woman, will be the death of me yet.”

Behind her hand, Annie made a sound that could only be stifled giggles. Alex refastened his trousers and belt. “You think it’s funny, do you?” Measuring off a scant inch between thumb and forefinger, he grinned and said, “Your little friend came just that close to meeting his maker.’’ Nudging a piece of china with the toe of his boot, he said, “Thanks to him, I think our tea party is over.”

She crouched to pat the floor-length hem of her skirt, located the mouse, which had found sanctuary at her feet, and lifted it in her cupped hands. Alex’s stomach did a turn when she kissed the rodent’s small head and then held it to her cheek.

As if it knew how close it had come to death, the creature curled into a quivering little ball. Annie kissed it again, stroked it with her fingertip, and then set it on the floor, shooing it away to safety with a light pat on its rump.

The moment she straightened and met his gaze, her smile vanished. Nervously, she toyed with the buttons at her bodice.

Then she intertwined her fingers and cracked her knuckles. He wondered if the sensation was as soothing when one couldn’t hear the hollow little pops. Judging by her tenseness, he didn’t think so.

With a sigh, he concluded that one turn around a dance floor was not enough to instill trust in a wary girl. Not that he had expected miracles, but he had hoped to see a little less fear in her eyes.

He finished tucking in his shirt and hunkered to clean up the mess he had made. Keeping a safe distance, Annie knelt to assist him. When they both happened to reach for the same shard of china, she jerked her hand back as if she feared he might grab her. Alex tried his best not to take it personally.

Earning her trust was going to take some time.

Acutely aware that the magic mood had been shattered as irreparably as the cup, he was filled with a profound sadness, but he pushed it away. There was no reason to feel sad. None at all. The waltz might be over, but Annie’s life had just begun.

If it was the last thing he ever did, he would see to that.

Conscious of Alex’s gaze on her and growing more nervous by the second, Annie pretended to be oblivious of everything but the tiny shards of china that she was picking up and adding to the pile on her palm. Foolish, so foolish. She should never have sneaked up here to his attic in the first place. From the beginning, she had known her disappearances upset him and Maddy. If she’d had half a brain, she would have expected him to eventually discover where she was going.

Now he knew the truth about her, and he’d probably send her away to that awful place her mama was always warning her about—the place where girls like her were locked up in little rooms and fed wormy gruel. Not only would she never be allowed to go outdoors again, but her mama said they were mean to the people there, frightfully mean.

A lump rose in Annie’s throat, and tears scalded her eyes.

She dumped the shards onto the table and brushed her hands clean, avoiding Alex’s gaze. If only he would leave. She could put her own clothes back on, take down her hair. Maybe, if she was very, very good and never came back up here again, he would forget all that he’d seen and not tell her papa.

She gave a little start when he suddenly grasped her chin and forced her to look at him. Annie blinked, but it was futile.

The tears in her eyes had nowhere to go but out, and they spilled over her lashes onto her cheeks.

“Hey...”

She imagined his voice, low and laced with gentle scolding.

For some reason, that made her want to cry all the harder. With leathery fingertips, he wiped the wetness from her cheeks. One corner of his mouth turned up in a crooked smile.

“Don’t be afraid, Annie love. Everything is going to be all right. I promise you that.”

It was easy for him to say. He wasn’t the one who might have to eat worms. Disconcerted by his penetrating gaze, she lowered her lashes. In response, he strengthened his grip on her chin and gave her a slight shake. Startled, she looked at him again.

“Trust me,” he said very slowly. “Do you know that word, trust? It means that I want you to believe I’m your friend. Can you try to do that?”

Annie gave him the blank look that she had perfected with fourteen years of practice. His smile deepened. “You can’t fool me. I know damned well you understand what I’m saying.”

With that, he released her and pushed to his feet. Uncertain what to do, Annie remained crouched at his feet. When she finally found the courage to lift her gaze to his, she found that he was smiling and had one hand extended to her. “Come on, let’s go downstairs. Maddy isn’t going to believe her eyes.”

Annie’s heart started to race. She cast a frantic glance at her own clothing, which she’d left folded over the rocker. He followed her gaze, then smiled and shook his head. “Just as you are. Come on.” When she made no move to obey him, he leaned down to grasp her arm and draw her up. “I’ll send a maid up to get your things,” he assured her. “Except for the mouse, of course. I’m afraid he’ll have to stay up here.”

She shot an anxious glance into the shadows. When she looked back at him, Alex said, “I’ll give strict orders that none of your little friends are to be hurt, I promise. So stop worrying.

I can’t say the same for the spiders, however.” Following her example, he peered into the darkness that encroached upon them. “Tomorrow or the next day, I’m going to send a whole crew up. If you’re going to spend time here, I want every inch of this place cleaned. As it is, it can’t be safe.”

Her sudden tenseness drew his gaze back to her.

“Don’t worry, Annie. They’ll leave everything the same.

Just no more dust and cobwebs.”

Nothing would ever be the same again. Annie tried to tug her arm from his grasp. He not only wanted her to go downstairs dressed as she was, but he intended to send a whole bunch of people up here? All of them would see her secret place. All of them!

“Come on, Annie.”

Refusing to take no for an answer, he drew her resolutely along behind him. As the light from the dormers began to fade and the gloom around them grew more dense, so did Annie’s dread. She couldn’t go downstairs like this. And somehow, she had to stop him from sending people up here as well. The games she played in the attic were a secret. Her mama said they had to stay a secret. If people found out, she’d be sent away.

By the time they reached the attic door, Annie’s fear had escalated to full-blown panic. She was shaking so badly, she felt sure Alex could feel it. Nonetheless, he drew open the door and pulled her out into the narrow stairway.

Thirteen

Alex slammed his fist against the Trimbles’ front door with such force that the wood shook in its frame. He heard footsteps scurrying to answer his summons, and the instant the portal swung wide, he shouldered his way into the house, nearly knocking the startled butler off his feet.

“Where is James?” he barked.

Clutching his lapels, the servant gave his shoulders a shrug to straighten his jacket. “I beg your pardon, sir, but—”

“Never mind. I’ll find him myself.”

Following a hunch, Alex strode directly to the parlor, thinking that, given the hour, Annie’s parents might be there.

He found the room empty. From there, he strode purposely along the corridor and began throwing open doors. He found James’s study, the day room, sitting room, and library unoccupied as well. At the end of the hallway, he came upon a set of mahogany panels. Butting them open with his shoulder, he burst through into the dining room and surprised his in-laws at their supper table.

One cheek bulging with food, James looked up, fork and knife suspended above his plate. Recognizing Alex, he struggled to swallow and said, “My God, what’s the matter? Is Annie all right?”

Edie, who was sitting at the opposite end of the long table with her back to the doors, sprang up from her chair, bumping her plate in the process and spilling her wine. Crimson splashed across the pristine white tablecloth and pooled around the base of a pretentiously ornate candlestick. “What on earth has happened?” she demanded. “Has she done something awful? What?”

Ignoring Edie, Alex stepped past her to advance on James.

When he reached the end of the table, he grabbed the smaller man by the shoulder seams of his dinner jacket and hauled him unceremoniously to his feet. “You selfish, heartless little bastard!” Alex bit out. “How could you do something so monstrous to your own daughter?”

James’s blue eyes went wide with fear, and his face drained of all color. “What in God’s name are you talking about?” He clutched at Alex’s wrists. “You’re about to rip my suit, young man.”

“Your suit?” Alex released the man so suddenly that he staggered, tripped backward over his chair, and sprawled on the floor. “If I rip anything, you miserable little worm, it’ll be your head from your shoulders.”

Struggling up on one knee, James grasped the chair arm to steady himself. “Explain yourself! You can’t come barging in here like this, making threats and raising a ruckus! There are laws to—”

“Laws?” Alex brought his fist down on the table. The serving bowls and candlesticks leaped at the force of the blow, all landing simultaneously with a loud crash. “There are common laws of decency, my friend, that were never written in any of your precious law books. Did you ever once observe any of them? Not with your daughter, that’s for damned sure.”

Alex leveled a finger at the other man’s nose. “Understand this, you pitiful son of a bitch. Annie will never return to this house.

Not as long as I draw breath. Consider my word on that part of our agreement broken, and you’d better give thanks to Almighty God that’s all I’ve decided to break.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” James said tremulously. “I’ve never mistreated our daughter.”

“Never mistreated her?” Alex gave a harsh laugh. “Aside from beating on her every time she stepped out of line, you’ve neglected to educate her. There are schools for the deaf! And all manner of things that can be done to help them! In all these years, you’ve never even so much as bought her an ear trumpet! But worse than that, you’ve let everyone in this town believe she’s a moron! How do you sleep at night? Can you tell me that? I sure as hell couldn’t.”

In the wake of that accusation, a stunned silence settled over the room. Through the haze of his anger, Alex brought James’s face into clearer focus. What he saw in the other man’s expression helped to douse his fury. Not guilt, as he expected, but incredulity mixed with profound relief. It struck Alex then that Annie’s parents didn’t know. As impossible as it seemed, they honestly didn’t know.

Shaking with the last vestiges of rage, he jerked out a chair and dropped onto it as though someone had dealt a blow to the backs of his knees. “She’s deaf,” he said hoarsely. “Not mad, not stupid. Deaf.”

Edie sank back onto her seat, one shaking hand clamped over her mouth, the other pressed to her waist. She stared at Alex over the tops of her white-knuckled fingers. After a moment, she dropped her hand. “Annie is not deaf! The girl can hear as well as you or I!”

Alex felt the anger building within him again. “That’s an out-and-out lie, and you know it. The girl is deaf. I saw proof of it myself just this afternoon. And don’t tell me you haven’t.

She didn’t invent that fantasy world I found in my attic overnight. She’s been playing those games for years. You had to have known about them! At one time or another, you must have come upon her when she was playing make-believe.”

The guilt that flashed in Edie’s eyes spoke for itself. Never had Alex slapped a woman, but his palm itched to do so now.

Just once, he wished she could see how it felt. She had certainly treated Annie to the experience often enough. “How could you ignore the needs of your own daughter?” he asked in a raw voice. “If helped, deaf people can live nearly normal lives.”

“She isn’t deaf!” Edie shot to her feet. “Do you think I wouldn’t know if such a thing were true? That I haven’t wished as much? Even prayed for it? She isn’t deaf, I tell you.

If she’s turned once when I call her name, she’s done so a thousand times. How dare you come bursting into our home, yelling obscenities and accusing us of mistreating her!” She ground a fist against her mouth to stifle a sob. “How dare you?”

His anger completely spent, disgust welling in its place, Alex stood up and pushed his chair back under the table. “And I thought I was blind? My wife is deaf. Stone-deaf.” He shot a glance at James, who stood behind his chair, gripping its back as though he couldn’t stand without the support. “Notice I said wife. I don’t use the term lightly. From this moment on, Annie is a Montgomery and as such is no longer affiliated with this household or anyone in it.”

Edie spun to watch as Alex left the room. When he reached the doors, she cried out, the sound more moan than word. He paused to look back at her, seeing her pain, yet separated from it. There was no room within him for sympathy, not for anyone but Annie.

“You can’t take our little girl completely away from us,”

she whispered raggedly. “You can’t do such a thing! No one could be that heartless.”

Alex regarded her with stony distaste. “Call it heartless if you wish, but that is exactly what I intend to do. I don’t want either of you anywhere near my wife. Your love, if anyone in his right mind can call it that, has caused her nothing but injury.” Looking directly at Edie, he said, “You, madam, are a pitiful excuse for a mother.” Turning his gaze toward James, he added, “And you, sir, have made a mockery of the word father.”

With that, Alex slammed out of the house, silently vowing that he would never again darken the Trimbles’ doorstep.

During the ride home, however, something kept digging at his memory. An elusive something. Something Maddy had once said. He had nearly reached Montgomery Hall when he finally recalled what it was. He and Maddy had been in his study, discussing Annie, and during the course of their conversation, Maddy had ruled out the possibility that Annie might be deaf. She turns when I call her name, she’d said.

As Alex rubbed down his horse and put him away in his stall, those words kept coming back to him. Edie Trimble had said basically the same thing. If she has turned once when I call her name, she has done so a thousand times.

Alex couldn’t find it in his heart to regret a single word he had said to the Trimbles. In his estimation, they had deserved all of that, and more. But he was filled with hope by what Edie had told him.

Could it be that Annie wasn’t completely deaf? Was it possible that she could hear certain sounds? Alex hurried up to the house, so excited he could scarcely wait to discuss the possibility with Maddy.

* * *

At precisely ten o’clock the next morning, Alex hovered outside the nursery, watching Maddy and Annie through the partially open door. The girl, once again dressed in a childish frock, sat at the table, her unfinished breakfast shoved aside, her chin propped on the heel of her hand. Gazing out the barred window, she ignored Maddy, who was making a great show of straightening the bureau drawers.

As Alex had instructed her earlier, the housekeeper suddenly looked up from her task and loudly called, “Annie!”

Alex nearly whooped with excitement when Annie turned and fastened questioning eyes on the other woman. Pretending nothing was amiss, Maddy opened another drawer and began refolding the clothes that lay on top. She waited several minutes, allowing Annie plenty of time to direct her attention back outdoors. Then she called the girl’s name again. As before, Annie glanced over her shoulder.

She could hear! Alex was so pleased he could scarcely contain himself. Maddy glanced toward the door, met his gaze through the crack, and winked conspiratorially. Alex grinned at her and nodded. After waiting a few minutes, he called Annie’s name himself. At the sound of his voice, which was lower in pitch, she never so much as blinked. He called a little louder. Still nothing. After the third try, Maddy yelled her name again, and as before, Annie immediately turned.

“She hears you!” Alex proclaimed as he shoved the door open and strode into the room. “It’s because you speak louder and your voice goes shrill when you call her, I think. Do you know what this means, Maddy?” Completely forgetting himself in his excitement, Alex snatched Maddy into his arms and swept her around the room in a two-step. “With the aid of ear trumpets, she may be able to hear us speaking to her. We’ll be able to teach her her letters! And to read! Maybe even to talk! Maddy, this is wonderful.”

Huffing from the unaccustomed exercise, Maddy cried, “Do stop, Master Alex. Me old heart cannot take all this dancing about!”

Releasing the older woman, Alex turned to Annie. She was watching him with her usual wariness, her blue eyes guarded.

Flashing her a grin, Alex swept one arm across his waist and executed a courtly bow. After he straightened, he said, “May I have the honor of this dance?’’

She stared up at him, clearly startled and more than a little suspicious. Then she slid a glance at Maddy. Dancing, Alex determined, was obviously a secret activity, one that could not be indulged in outside the attic.

To hell with that. ..

Determined, he closed the distance between them, grasped her hand, and drew her to her feet. Against her wishes, which she made quite apparent by going rigid and stumbling awkwardly within his arm, he swept her into a waltz step.

Deciding his toes could take that punishment and more, Alex stubbornly drew her around the room, his gaze fixed on her averted face.

“I don’t think she wants to dance,” Maddy needlessly pointed out.

Alex only smiled more broadly. “She loves to dance. She simply doesn’t want to dance with me.” As he spoke, Annie glanced up. Alex looked into her frightened eyes, wishing with all his heart that she could tell him what was going through her head. Memories of Douglas? Fear of him? Acutely aware of the stiffness of her body and her diminutive stature, he felt his conscience begin to smote him. Slowly he drew to a stop, his gaze still holding hers.

“All right, Annie love, you win this battle. I won’t force you to dance with me.”

The relief that swept across her face was so unmistakable that Alex chuckled. She could give him that stupid look until hell was besieged by snowstorms, and he’d never again fall for it. As long as he looked right at her and spoke distinctly, she understood him perfectly.

“Before I turn you loose, however, you have to pay a price,”

he added softly.

At that, her blue eyes darkened, and he felt her body grow even more rigid. Oh, yes, she understood.

“If you don’t want to dance with me,” he pressed, “then tell me so.”

Maddy drew in a sharp breath. “Master Alex! Fer shame. Ye know the poor wee lass can’t speak.”

“Oh, but she can,” he said, never taking his gaze from Annie’s. “And she will, or I’m going to hold her in my arms like this all day.”

Annie’s eyes widened. Alex grinned. “Well, Annie love?

Turn me down, or dance with me. It’s a very simple thing.”

Her mouth thinned into a mutinous line. Taking care not to exert too much pressure, Alex tightened his arm around her waist and drew her a little more snugly against him. She raised her chin, the picture of defiance. In response, he began to move around the room again, forcing her to move with him.

“Whisper it to me, Annie love. I know very well you can.”

“Oh, Master Alex, have a pity!”

He smiled slowly into Annie’s worried eyes. “Tell me no, Annie, or dance with me until dark. Your choice.”

He saw her mouth tighten. Then she swallowed. Looking down at her, seeing the struggle she was going through, Alex felt his whole body tense. Fixing her gaze on one of his shirt buttons, she finally parted her lips. And then, so quickly he almost missed it, she formed the word, “No.”

A burning sensation crawled up the back of Alex’s throat.

From her stony expression, he knew she hated him a little for forcing the issue, but he didn’t care. By winning this small battle, he had claimed a large victory for both of them.

When he released her, she staggered at the sudden lack of support. Alex caught her elbow to steady her. When her beautiful eyes met his again, he touched a fingertip lightly to her cheek.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

After leaving Annie, Alex closeted himself in his study to update his books. That order of business occupied him until lunch, which he ate at his desk. When the maid had cleared away the mess, he rocked back in his chair and propped his feet on his desktop, his folded arms tucked behind his head.

Gazing thoughtfully into space, he contemplated yet another problem that involved Annie, one that, until this moment, he hadn’t allowed himself to consider overmuch.

How could a man woo a timid deaf girl?

He allowed himself a few minutes to recall how he had felt while dancing with her in the attic yesterday, and he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he wanted her in his arms again. It was as simple and as complicated as that. The challenge would be to lure Annie back into his embrace.

Judging by her reaction to their waltz that morning, she wasn’t going to be an enthusiastic party to any sort of physical closeness.

Ordinarily, Alex might have gone about things in the usual way, but the direct approach wouldn’t work on Annie, and he knew it. For one, she was frightened of him after what Douglas had done to her, and understandably so. For another, her life until now had not prepared her for openness. Her parents had done such a thorough job of keeping Annie and her affliction in the background of their lives that they had made her guarded and secretive as well.

Seduction was his ultimate aim. The question was, how should he go about it? Several minutes passed, during which Alex conceived and discarded several ideas. Then a slow smile touched his mouth. How did a man seduce any woman?

He enticed her, of course, with something he knew she couldn’t resist.

That afternoon when Maddy came downstairs to oversee the maids in their various household tasks, Annie trailed along behind her as she had been doing for well over a week, the only difference being that today there was a watcher in the house. When he saw that his wife was downstairs, he retired to his study, leaving the door carefully ajar.

Taking up his position in his favorite chair, Alex upended the cooking pot that he had taken from the kitchen. Clamping the pot firmly between his knees, he began to pound on its bottom with a large metal spoon. The resultant sound raised a din to wake the dead. Not satisfied with the tone, he repositioned the pot until the percussion produced a high-pitched ping. Having warned Maddy, the maids, and Frederick in advance, Alex knew that none of them would seek out the source of the sound. Only one person would come ... if she could hear the noise.

Ping! Ping! Plunk! It was, without question, a godawful ruckus that he was raising, and he felt absolutely ridiculous. A grown man banging on a pot? He only prayed it would work.

Forcing himself not to look toward the door, he pounded incessantly on the kettle, uncertain if Annie could even hear it.

He had about given up hope when he glimpsed movement from the corner of his eye. With renewed enthusiasm, he beat the pot, struggling not to reveal his elation by smiling. In a moment, Annie’s worn shoes came into view, and he knew she was standing only a few feet away. He continued to wield the spoon, pretending he hadn’t seen her.

Drawn to the noise like metal shavings to a magnet, she came closer. Then closer still. Finally Alex allowed himself to look up. The expression on her face made making a fool of himself worth the embarrassment. Eyes huge and bewildered, she stood there in thrall, her gaze riveted to the spoon.

Alex allowed himself to grin, albeit only slightly, and stopped pounding. At the silence, she jerked and fixed her gaze on him. He held the spoon out to her.

“Want to have a go at it?”

The yearning reflected in her eyes was unmistakable.

Remembering what James had told him about Annie’s embarrassing behavior years ago over an organ at church, Alex felt his heart catch. Sound. To Annie, it was elusive and infrequent, a miracle that occasionally broke through the wall of silence that enveloped her. As a child, to her parents’

humiliation and her own damnation, she hadn’t been able to resist its lure in church and had pressed herself against the organ, making what her father had called “animalistic noises.”

As an adult, she was still helplessly drawn to it. Sound. A priceless gift to someone like Annie, and one that he could give her.

Watching the myriad emotions that crossed her face, Alex almost felt ashamed of himself for using sound as a seductive lure. Almost. She was his wife, and by fair means or foul, he meant for this to be more than a sham marriage, not just for his own sake, but hers. Given her affliction, she might never be able to lead a completely normal life, but he could give her something damned close. Love, laughter, companionship.

Soon they would even have a child to raise. Annie was going to play an active role as its mother. He would see to that.

Alex held out the spoon, tempting her without mercy and with only a twinge of conscience. Her lovely eyes went stormy gray with wariness. But he also saw yearning. A yearning so sharp it made him ache for her. In his hand, he held magic. All she had to do was reach out and take it.

Her whole body trembled as she came closer and reached out to grasp the spoon handle. Their fingertips brushed in the exchange, an electrical feeling to Alex and clearly an unsettling one for her.

“Go ahead. Pound on it,” he encouraged her.

She drew her gaze from his mouth back to the pot. A glint of excitement came into her eyes. Apparently reluctant to come too close, she leaned forward at the waist to clobber the pot. At the ensuing clank, she blinked. Actually blinked. Alex nearly shouted with jubilation.

“Go ahead! It won’t bite you.” And neither will I, he silently vowed. He couldn’t ruin this for her, not today. Maybe not ever. So much for seduction.

His throat tightened as he watched her smack the kettle bottom again. At the resultant sound, an amazed look swept over her face. Then she smiled. The radiance of that smile so transformed her face that all Alex could do was stare. She lifted her gaze to his, and a feeling arced between them that had nothing to do with seduction and everything to do with budding friendship.

For Alex, it had to be enough. For Annie, it was a new beginning.

Fourteen

That evening, Annie expected to be served her supper in the nursery as usual, but instead Maddy escorted her downstairs and into the dining room. Though Annie had never been in the room directly before a meal, she had visited there several times with Maddy during the day. The room’s hominess and sunshine-yellow accents had always appealed to her, probably because the color reminded her of being outdoors, which she sorely missed. A stone fireplace ran the length of one wall, its simplicity in keeping with the decor. Instead of Irish lace, the sideboard sported a simple, embroidered scarf with a tatted border. Upon it was arranged an assortment of rose-patterned china, utilitarian serving utensils, and a teapot with chipped gilt trim.

Despite its large dimensions, the room gave off an air of warmth, filling Annie’s mind with visions of cheerful fires on cold winter evenings and a close-knit family gathering for hearty meals. Alex reclined on a chair at one end of the long table, his hair agleam in the light from a crystal chandelier, the room’s only claim to elegance. With one arm hooked over the chair back and one booted foot propped on his opposite knee, he looked slightly bored and a whole lot impatient. When he spotted her coming into the room, he pushed quickly to his feet.

Stepping around the table, he extended one large hand to her.

In keeping with the room, he was comfortably dressed in a V-necked silk shirt the color of fresh cream, his biscuit-brown riding pants tucked into tall, umber boots. As he approached, Annie took the moment to study him, noticing yet again that he was nothing at all like her papa or the men she’d seen visiting at her parents’ house. Instead of the ruffles, jeweled stickpins, and ornate watch chains that those gentlemen usually favored, he wore a plain gold belt buckle and a simple watch chain, the latter tucked through a belt loop. No fancy silk vest. No sparkly rings. No funny-smelling perfume.

When Annie looked at Alex, she thought of sunshine and fresh air, not drawing rooms with the heavy draperies she so despised hanging over the windows. His tawny hair lay in wispy, sun-streaked waves over his forehead, slightly tousled, as though recently stirred by the wind. The collar of his shirt hung open, revealing the burnished planes of his chest. He even walked as if he were outdoors, with a careless air, his stride long and loose, his arms slightly bent and swinging at his sides.

When he came to a stop in front of her, he took her hand, then drew her back to the table, pulling out a chair to the immediate left of his. Realizing that the table had been set for two, she lifted a startled gaze to his. At home, she’d never been allowed to take her meals in the dining room.

“I think a wife should take the evening meal with her husband. Don’t you?”

Annie felt as if the floor had vanished from beneath ha feet.

She stood there staring up at him in shocked amazement, convinced she must have misread his words. The disgruntled look on his face told her otherwise. He had obviously spoken without forethought and hadn’t meant to divulge that bit of information to her.

Gently grasping her shoulder, he guided her around the chair, pushed her onto the seat, and then leaned down to lightly kiss her hair as he scooted her forward. Sitting sideways as she was, Annie’s left arm was toward the table, and in her discomfiture, she accidentally bumped her elbow against her teacup. Alex shot out a hand to rescue the china, his eyebrows arched in mocking query. He had clearly decided that the best way to handle this situation was to make a joke of it.

“I take it that is not the best news you’ve received all day.”

At her horrified look, he asked, “Surely not all week?” When her expression remained one of appalled incredulity, he said,

“I know I have my faults as a husband, but surely I’m not as bad as all that?”

Unable to tear her gaze from his, Annie carefully resettled her elbow near the edge of her plate. His wife? He had to be lying. He simply had to be. True, she knew very little about weddings. But she wasn’t that ignorant about them. Not so ignorant that she could have participated in one without knowing it.

Not that long ago, her older sister Elise had been married.

The ceremony, which Annie hadn’t been allowed to attend, had been conducted at the church, and all manner of elaborate preparations had taken place beforehand, not the least of which had been the creation of a beautiful white wedding dress for the bride. As Annie recalled, her parents’ house had been filled to the brim with flowers as well, and after the wedding, a horde of people had come there for a party, drinking punch, eating cake, and watching Elise open gifts.

Lots of gifts. More gifts than Annie had ever seen at one time, even under the Christmas tree.

Alex resumed his place at the head of the table, his posture relaxed, his manner one of resignation laced with self-derision.

Resting an elbow on the arm of the chair, he tugged on his ear and regarded her in thoughtful silence. After a long moment, he said, “I really didn’t intend to break it to you in quite that way, Annie. It was thoughtless of me, and I’m sorry if I’ve upset you.”

Upset? It was all Annie could do not to burst into angry tears.

If she was married, then why hadn’t her mama made her a dress? And why hadn’t she gotten bunches of presents? She liked presents, and she liked pretty dresses even more. No party, no cake, no ceremony at the church. Nothing. How could she possibly be married?

Alex was beginning to look a little upset himself. Annie thought maybe it was because he knew she was about to cry.

Trying to suppress the urge, she lowered her gaze to her hands where they rested on her lap. Then she noticed the grass-stain spots on her stockings, and the pressure behind her eyes grew even worse. Unlike her sisters, she never got anything. Instead of a white gown, silk slippers, and lace to wear over her face, all she got was icky old frocks, scuffed shoes, and stained stockings.

And no presents! Nary a one. That burned her most of all.

Alex caught her chin and forced her face up. Annie glared at him through a shimmer of tears. A muscle along his jaw started to twitch. “Sweetheart, don’t cry. Just because I—well, we’ve been married all along, right? Just because you realize it now, that doesn’t mean anything’s going to change.” He leaned down so he could look directly into her eyes, his manner cajoling. “I realize that you had an extremely unpleasant experience with Douglas.”

Douglas? Annie didn’t know a Douglas. She stared at him in bewilderment, wishing he’d stick to the subject, which in her mind was the pretty dress and gifts that she’d been cheated out of. And just when had their wedding taken place? she wanted to know. Had she somehow missed out on that as well?

He brushed the backs of his knuckles along her cheek. Little tingles spread over her skin wherever he touched her. At any other time, she thought it would probably be a wonderfully nice feeling, but as angry as she was, all it did was make her want to shudder.

“Annie, about what happened to you up at the falls that day ... “He rubbed his thumb under her eye to catch a stray tear.

“I don’t suppose it’s ever possible for a woman to completely forget something like that. But I want to make it clear to you, here and now, that I am nothing like my brother. What Douglas did to you was— well, it was despicable—and as long as I draw breath, no one will ever hurt you like that again.

Do you understand me, Annie? Never.”

At his words, Annie’s heart started to jump around inside her chest like a frightened bird. The falls, that awful man.

Douglas ... Alex’s brother.

“If and when the time comes that you and I—” He drew a fingertip across her lower lip, his amber eyes turning cloudy with what looked like tenderness. “Well, I guess it goes without saying that once you and I grow comfortable with each other, I’m hoping our relationship will change, that we’ll be able to enjoy the special kind of closeness that other couples do.”

Annie stiffened and tried to draw away. He tightened his grip on her chin, smiling gently. “Not right away, of course.

Don’t fly into a panic. And only if it’s what you want as well.

Unlike my brother, I’ll never be rough with you or cause you any pain. I promise you that. You have absolutely nothing to fear from—”

Annie jerked from his grasp and shot up from her chair. The room suddenly seemed airless, and her lungs grabbed frantically for breath. Pressing a hand to her throat, she retreated a step from him, her horrified gaze fixed on his dark face. As she moved away, he rose slowly to his feet.

“Annie...”

She shook her head in violent denial, then spun and ran from the room.

When Annie ran, Alex went after her, a little amazed at how quick she was on her feet, especially when they reached the stairs. Like a gazelle, she took the ascent in graceful bounds.