Annie's Song Part 5

"At least then I might have exercised some control in matters," she shot back. "Putting our daughter into inexperienced hands could undo all the years of training I've worked so hard to instill in her."

Alex rubbed his temple, silently cursing the headache that throbbed behind his eyes. Though he couldn't understand the woman, her concerns still had to be addressed. "Mrs. Trimble, I'll happily allow you to confer with the nurse I hire, if that's your worry. You can instruct her in Annie's care, just as you would have a nurse elsewhere."

Some of the rigidity eased from her slender body. "You truly wouldn't mind?"

Alex dredged up a smile, albeit a weak one. "Of course not.

It isn't as if this will be a marriage in fact. It's a convenient arrangement, nothing more. If anything, I'll be grateful for your input and experience in dealing with Annie."

For a long moment, she searched Alex's gaze. Then she finally returned his smile. "Perhaps this will be a workable situation, after all," she conceded.

"I certainly hope so. Otherwise, I wouldn't offer," Alex a.s.sured her.

"Annie is a difficult girl," she hurried to add. "She must be made to follow strict rules, you understand, or she becomes intractable. You may pooh-pooh my worries, but the fact is, if Annie becomes uncontrollable, it will necessitate her being committed to a sanitarium, and as her mother, I want to avoid that at all costs."

Finally, Alex began to understand what drove the woman.

As upset as she had been about Annie's being sent away, at least then she would have had some control over her care. Her objections to Alex marrying Annie stemmed from fear, nothing more. "I give you my word that I'll adopt all your rules for Annie and strictly enforce them," Alex promised her.

"And you can spend as much time as necessary instructing the nurse I hire so she will carry on with Annie exactly as you would if you were there to supervise."

Edie heaved a relieved sigh. "Thank you, Mr. Montgomery.

That makes me feel much more at ease with this situation."

Hoping that was the end of it, Alex rose from his chair, only to sit back down again when Edie Trimble launched into a long list of instructions regarding her daughter's care. Annie was never to be taken to town; crowds of people unsettled her.

Pencils or pens were taboo; the girl might injure herself with them. Never, not under any circ.u.mstances, was Annie to be allowed to make sound; once she got started, it was impossible to silence her, and the din she could raise was earsplitting.

By the time the woman wound down, Alex's head was swimming and he seriously doubted he would be able to remember anything she had told him. Even so, he promised to observe each and every rule to the letter. Anything to get out of there.

Before taking his leave, Alex shook hands with the judge on their agreement and promised to begin his search for a live-in nurse immediately. As he left the house, he paused in the foyer to gaze at the second-story landing, wondering which door along the upper hallway led to Annie's room. As ashamed as it made him feel to admit it, until that moment, Alex hadn't given much thought to Annie's reaction to all of this.

Recalling her terror of him four months ago, he could only pray she had forgotten all about Douglas and what he had done to her. If not-well, it didn't bear thinking about.

Five.

The wedding date was set for one week later, and Alex arrived on the Trimbles' doorstep at precisely ten o'clock on the appointed morning to make Annie his lawfully wedded wife. The plan sounded simple enough: a quick marriage, a few months of looking after Annie, and then he would send the girl back to her parents. What could possibly go wrong? It seemed to Alex the answer to that question was everything.

The instant he stepped into the house, he began to have doubts, a whole host of them.

Like a curious child who'd been sent upstairs while guests were present, Annie sat on the landing that overlooked the foyer, her small face bracketed by mahogany bal.u.s.ters, her eyes wide with bewilderment as she watched all the goings-on below. Reverend Widlow, the minister who was to officiate at the ceremony, had arrived just seconds before Alex and was being shown into the parlor by a servant. Two hired men were carrying one of Annie's trunks downstairs. Maids were scurrying to and fro. Anyone could see that something out of the ordinary was about to occur.

As Alex stepped into the foyer, Annie went absolutely still, and every drop of blood seemed to drain from her face. It didn't take a genius to figure out that she believed him to be Douglas. Given her intellectual disabilities, he could think of no way to disabuse her of the notion. As people were so fond of reminding him, he was the "spittin' image" of his brother.

To Alex, the resemblance didn't seem quite that p.r.o.nounced, but to Annie, who undoubtedly recalled everything about Douglas in a nightmarish blur, the differences between them might not seem so apparent.

Afraid of making her panic, Alex came to a dead stop. Even at a distance of twenty feet, he could feel her fear. Electrical, it hung in the air between them, raising goose flesh along his spine.

Six-two in his stocking feet, he stood a head taller than most men. For a score of different reasons, there had been a number of times when he wished he were smaller, but never quite so much as in that moment. Before entering the house, he'd removed his hat, so he couldn't jerk it off now to make himself look shorter. Judging by the stark terror in Annie's eyes, slumping his shoulders wasn't helping much, either. He was a big man. There was little he could do to disguise that fact.

With a girl like Annie, who had every reason to be frightened, that was a definite strike against him.

If she'd been able to communicate, he might have been able to rea.s.sure her. As it was, all he could do was stand there and try to convey with his gaze what he couldn't express with words, namely that he was not cut from the same cloth as his brother. He would never dream of harming her, or allow anyone else to, for that matter.

"h.e.l.lo, Annie," he said softly.

As he spoke, her attention shifted to his mouth, and an expression of total bewilderment crossed her face. Alex's heart sank, for he had hoped she might understand a few words, at least. Seeing that she didn't, he shoved his hands into his trouser pockets and made tight fists.

The way she stared at him made him feel like a monster. A very large monster. He flashed what he prayed was a harmless-looking smile, but his face felt so stiff he feared it was more a grimace. Deciding she might realize he wasn't Douglas if she got a better look at him, he moved a bit closer.

For some reason, he hadn't imagined her as being so small.

Narrow shoulders, tiny feet, fragile limbs. He doubted she'd tip the scales at a hundred pounds fully clothed.

Over the years, he had met a number of women he might have described as delicate, but even that seemed too st.u.r.dy an adjective for Annie. She put him in mind of handblown crystal.

Her face was heart-shaped, her features finely sculpted and as close to perfect as any he'd ever seen. Her short, straight little nose slanted from between dark, elegantly arched brows.

As he drew closer, she shifted her position slightly. By her tenseness, he guessed she meant to bolt if he made any sudden moves. A smothered smile spread warmth through his chest when he saw she had lifted one knee slightly. From her vantage point, she was decently covered. But looking at her from the ground up, such was not the case. Like most bloomers, hers had an opening at the crotch, and she wore no petticoats to obstruct his view.

He jerked his attention back to her face. Scalding heat inched up his neck. Looking into her eyes, he tried to ascertain if she'd noticed where his gaze had wandered. Those eyes.

Startlingly large and the color of a cloudless sky on a hot summer day, they were completely guileless.

A practical man to the marrow of his bones, Alex had never believed in all the nonsense men spouted during courtships. While looking into a woman's eyes, the closest he'd ever come to drowning was when he broke out in a sweat, and that from l.u.s.t. But Annie's eyes were different. He didn't feel as though he were drowning, exactly. But close. Mighty d.a.m.ned close. Sort of like a fish gaffed through both gills, her big blue eyes the line that was hauling him in.

She was such a helpless little thing. And so horribly vulnerable. Marrying her was the lesser of two evils, no question about that. But even so, he hated to be instrumental in bringing her more pain. It was like having a wobbly fawn in his rifle sights and pulling the trigger.

As he studied her, Alex noticed a bit of blue on a bal.u.s.ter to her right. To his surprise, he saw that she'd wrapped her hair ribbon around the post in a perfect spiral, similar to that on a barber pole or a peppermint stick. He wondered if she liked candy canes and made a mental note to buy her several the next time he went to town.

Sweets for the sweet...

"Alex, my good man."

The unexpected greeting made Alex jerk. He turned to see James Trimble emerging from the parlor. Given the reason for this gathering, he couldn't fathom why the man was grinning so broadly. As far as Alex could see, this was no occasion to celebrate.

"James," he said evenly.

By way of polite greeting, Alex knew he should probably say something more, but for the life of him, he couldn't dredge up a pleasantry. What could he say? That he was glad to see him? Frankly, he wasn't. Over the last week, he had come to like Annie's father less with each successive encounter. For years, he had admired the man. Now, after getting better acquainted with him, he knew him for the self-centered, insensitive b.a.s.t.a.r.d he really was. And those were his fine points.

Drawing up beside Alex, Trimble hooked his thumbs under his jacket lapels, rocked back on his heels, and said, "It's a fine morning for a wedding, wouldn't you say? Yes, indeed, absolutely perfect." When Alex didn't concur, his smile faltered, and with a true politician's knack for equivocation, he amended, "A trifle warm, perhaps. But at least we can count on it not to rain. Not that we couldn't use a good downpour."

The way Alex saw it, it was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a fine morning. As far as that went, it had been a rotten week as well. He was about to marry a girl without her consent. Whether Annie understood that or not, he did. Night after night, he'd lain awake to stare at his ceiling, telling himself that the end would justify the means, that he was doing the right thing. But was he? It was a question Alex couldn't answer with any certainty, not without a crystal ball and a seer to foretell the future. Not that he believed in such bulls.h.i.t.

He gave his future father-in-law's attire a scathing glance.

With a total lack of regard for the significance of the occasion, Trimble wore a loosely cut tan sack suit over a lightly starched white shirt and a V-necked, rose-colored cotton sweater. His matching tie was an even deeper shade of pink. It was a decidedly casual outfit, more appropriate for entertaining guests out on the lawn than for a wedding, even one as informal as this.

Conversely, Alex had been uncharacteristically particular about what he wore this morning. He'd ended up choosing a dark gray tailored suit and a heavily starched white shirt, the front of which was so stiffly polished it threatened to crack when he moved. Since he detested the smell of shirt enamel, a blend of wax and spermaceti that filmed his nostrils and clung bitterly to the back of his tongue, he couldn't help but resent the other man's informality.

With another broad grin, James slapped Alex's arm. "Got the bridegroom jitters, do you? Step into the parlor. I've got just the cure." With a conspiratorial wink, he leaned closer.

"My special stuff. Peach brandy, the likes of which you've never tasted."

As he was drawn toward the parlor, Alex looked back over his shoulder at Annie. Her big blue eyes were still riveted to him. He flashed her another smile, hoping to rea.s.sure her.

Before he could read her reaction, James led him through the archway into the other room.

Brandy and pompous a.s.ses. Over the next few minutes, Alex decided it was a particularly nauseating mixture. Neither Trimble nor the minister seemed to realize the magnitude of what they were about to do. Alex could think of nothing else.

True, his intentions were good, but that would not lessen the impact all this would have on Annie. Shortly after this mockery of a wedding took place, she would be carted away from the only home she'd ever known by a man who terrified her. The more Alex thought about that, the more inclined he was to agree with his housekeeper, Maddy, that this entire arrangement was a sin against G.o.d and all that was holy.

Finishing his brandy, the minister drew his watch from his pocket. A tall, portly man with thinning black hair the exact same shade as his suit, he made Alex think of funerals. He realized why when he noticed the man was wearing a black collar instead of the customary white. "Well, James?" he said.

"Let's get on with it, shall we? As I mentioned when we talked earlier in the week, I've a busy schedule. I managed to fit this in, but only just barely. I've two christenings and another wedding to do this afternoon, plus a funeral yet this morning that I didn't plan on." He gave a raucous laugh. "That's the trouble with dying parishioners. They never choose a convenient time."

A muscle began to twitch under Alex's eye, a purely nervous reaction to anger, one of the few outward signs he hadn't learned to control over the years. This wedding, he realized, was nothing more than a bothersome ch.o.r.e for both these men, an irritating necessity to be gotten out of the way with as little fuss as possible.

"When it comes to busy schedules, no one understands better than I." James set his half-empty snifter on the mantel.

"Well, Alex? Has that brandy given you enough false courage to say the two most dreaded words in the English language?"

He guffawed and winked at the reverend. "I've never known a bachelor yet who could say 'I do' without getting a case of cold feet, myself included."

Alex tightened his grip on the gla.s.s and set his back teeth to prevent himself from saying something he might regret. While James stepped to the archway to hail his wife, Alex gazed into the fireplace.

Had the good reverend been informed of the reasons for this sudden marriage? Given James's confident manner, Alex had a nasty suspicion that his future father-in-law had ensured the minister's cooperation by making a substantial donation to his church. Stained-gla.s.s windows and fancy steeple bells didn't come cheap. The thought sickened him. Money spoke with eloquence; no one knew that better than he. But men of the cloth were supposed to be above taking bribes.

Kitchen smells drifted into the parlor from somewhere at the back of the house-cinnamon, vanilla, and yeast dough-to mix nauseatingly with the sticky sweetness of his brandy. For a dizzying instant, he could have sworn the roses on the wool rug were moving. He blinked, craving the bracing effects the liquor might provide, but half afraid his stomach might rebel if he drank the rest of it.

Annie ... She was definitely not a cherished daughter. A well-kept secret, more like, one that was about to be spirited by sleight of hand from one household to another. And in a few months, after her child is born, she'll be spirited back home, he reminded himself.

That thought, along with the remainder of the brandy, bolstered his flagging determination. A week ago, he had made a decision for the good of Annie and her child. All his reasons for reaching that decision still stood. He could not allow his niece or nephew to be branded as unadoptable and raised in an orphanage. He absolutely could not.

When Edie Trimble entered the parlor, dragging her daughter behind her, Alex clenched his hand around his empty gla.s.s with such force that the crystal nearly shattered. Her eyes gigantic in her pale face, Annie glanced first at him, then at the minister, and lastly at her father. She was clearly not accustomed to being in the presence of guests, least of all a man who so greatly resembled her rapist. Plucking frantically at her mother's fingers to loosen her grip on her wrist, the girl dug in with her heels and put all her weight, slight though it was, into balking.

Edie rewarded Annie's efforts by digging her fingers into her forearm and giving her a hard shake. "Stop that!" she fairly shrieked.

Annie flinched and threw up her other arm to shield her face.

It was patently obvious to Alex that Edie might have slapped her had there been no one else in the room. His gaze shifted to the red fingerprints the woman had left on the girl's arm. With precise movements, he placed his snifter on the mantel and turned toward the minister.

"Let's get this business over with," Alex said with ill-concealed distaste.

Edie, perfectly turned out in a pink shirtwaist and a rose-colored skirt that coordinated nicely with her husband's outfit, cast him a startled glance. Alex met her gaze. He didn't give a rap if she guessed what he was thinking. Just because he had never struck a woman and had no intention of starting with her, that didn't mean he was above entertaining the notion.

As he strode toward the minister, he gave Annie's shabby blue frock a long look. A man of Trimble's means could certainly afford to dress his daughter in something better, especially on her wedding day. Farce or no, this was still a wedding. The toes of the girl's black shoes were worn down to rough leather. Her white ribbed stockings, revealed from the shin down by the schoolgirl length of her frock, were gra.s.s-stained. He'd seen orphans turned out more nicely.

At his approach, Annie began to struggle against her mother's hold again. He drew up several feet shy of where he had originally planned to stand. With her hair in a wild tangle of dark curls around her face and dressed as she was, she looked more like a child than a woman. A terrified child.

Not wishing to frighten her by staring, Alex tore his gaze away and focused his attention on the minister, who had opened his prayer book and was leafing quickly through the pages to find his place. His black suit had seen better days, he noticed, and standing so close to the man, he detected the acrid smell of stale sweat emanating from his whipcord jacket.

Given the warm morning, the rank odor was almost overwhelming. It was enough to turn Alex's stomach, and he wasn't pregnant. He shot a concerned glance at Annie.

Evidently unnerved by his scrutiny, she bent her head, concealing her face behind the thick curtains of her dark hair.

Alex wondered what she was thinking, if she had any inkling at all of what was about to happen. When her mother released her wrist, she glanced longingly over her shoulder at the door.

Then, obviously afraid to test Edie's temper by running, she began to fidget, scuffing the toes of her high-top shoes against the nap of the rose-patterned rug and tugging nervously on the b.u.t.tons of her bodice. He had to smile when she suddenly intertwined her fingers, turned her hands palm out, and extended her arms to pop her knuckles. A knuckle-popper himself, he understood how soothing the popping sensation could be when a person was nervous.

"Annie, stop that!" Edie scolded.

"Leave her be," Alex inserted in a low voice.

Edie's eyebrows, so very like her daughter's, shot nearly to her hairline. "I beg your pardon?"

"She's not hurting anything." Glancing toward the minister, he said, "Widlow, given the circ.u.mstances, let's skip the unnecessary parts and get down to business."

More than happy to oblige, the reverend found his place and marked the spot with a tattered red ribbon. Smiling vacuously at no one in particular, he coughed to clear his throat and, in a singsong voice, began the nuptials.

When the moment finally came for Annie to say "I do," Edie Trimble caught the girl's face between her hands and none too gently prompted her to nod her head. The minister never gave so much as a pause and rushed to finish the short ceremony.

Forgoing the privilege of kissing his bride, Alex gave her a wide berth and followed his parents-in-law and the minister to a small parlor desk, where the marriage doc.u.ments awaited their attention. After scrawling his name on the appropriate line, Alex stepped back so Annie might approach without feeling threatened. Duly witnessed by those present, her mark, which her father helped her to make, sufficed where her signature was required.

Just that simply, they were married. Alex could scarcely believe it. Ignoring the beaming faces of the minister and Annie's parents, he fixed his gaze on his bride. Still hovering near her mother, she stood with her head hanging again, a dejected posture that was beginning to wear on his nerves even as it caught at his heart. It occurred to him that she might be growing weary, and given her condition, that couldn't be good for her.

He met Edie Trimble's gaze. "So all would be ready after the ceremony, I instructed my driver to park my carriage out front and see to the loading of the trunks. If we head directly for Montgomery Hall, Annie will still have most of the day to settle in before you have to leave her there alone tonight."

Edie caught her lower lip in her teeth and glanced uneasily at her husband. Standing slightly behind Alex, James Trimble coughed nervously. "Dear G.o.d, did I forget to mention that we've had a change of plans?"

Alex shot the man a look. "A change in what plans?''

"Well, you see, Alex, I forgot to check my calendar when we arranged for the wedding to take place this morning." He glanced at the minister. "As I'm sure you gathered from our earlier conversation, Reverend Widlow was booked solid every other day this week, so we couldn't reschedule for another time."

"What exactly are you saying, Trimble?"

"I'm hosting a garden luncheon this afternoon. Edie is going to have her hands full, I'm afraid. You'll have to manage without her until tomorrow."

"Manage without her?" Alex knew his voice was rising, but he couldn't seem to help himself. "My managing without her isn't the problem, James, and you d.a.m.ned well know it. If Edie will be busy today, I'll leave Annie here until tomorrow.

When she makes the move to Montgomery Hall, she should have her mother with her. We all agreed on that."