And for one moment she forgot the past and she smiled, watching the spectacular birds. Then her smile faded and she started up the sandy path that led to the sweeping lawns behind the hotel, her muslin skirts whipping around her. She was questioning her judgment in accepting Lizzie's invitation to join her sisters and their husbands for the month of August. Supper last night had been a disastrous affair.
She should have gone to Europe, alone.
Where no one knew her, by damn.
A drop of water landed on her forehead, another on her nose. Annabel increased her pace. The large, whitewashed hotel with its long verandah and green shutters was ahead. Annabel saw a few couples leaving the verandah as the temperature dropped and the wind picked up. Then she saw a woman in a bright yellow dress waving madly at her.
Annabel smiled because she recognized Lizzie, who was as big as a cow. Her second child was due in two more months. "Hi," she said, arriving on the back porch beside her sister.
"Isn't the beach beautiful?" Lizzie said, but she looked worried, despite her smile.
"Yes, it is," Annabel said, sitting down on a wicker chair to don her stockings and shoes. She had tar and dirt on her feet.
"Well, there you are, we are waiting for you," said a disapproving voice behind them.
Annabel looked up to find Melissa standing in the doorway, her hands on her slim hips. "You didn't have to wait for me," Annabel replied.
"Annabel, you are not allowed down at the beach until after two o'clock!" '
Annabel stood up. "For God's sake, Missy, calm yourself. It's about to pour! No one was there."
"You will never find a husband if you continue to break all of the rules," Melissa retorted. "Sometimes I wonder just what goes on inside your head.",
"I don't want a husband," Annabel said as sharply, pushing past her to walk inside. A huge green and gold carpet covered the library floor. The room was empty, for it was dinnertime.
"Please don't fight," Lizzie cried, following them as they left the library and entered the dining room. "But Annabel, maybe you should obey the hotel's rules. They are very explicit."
"Everyone thinks you are fast, Annabel," Melissa said.
Annabel paused and turned sharply, so that she was nose to nose with her lovely sister. She smiled sweetly. "I know. And I don't care. Besides, it's the truth, isn't it?" She stared, knowing she was being belligerent, but unable to stop.
Lizzie grabbed Annabel's arm. "Ssh! Everyone is staring. Please, do not argue now." And she gave Melissa a stern look. "And please do not use that horrid word again in conjunction with our sister."
"You are always on her side," Melissa huffed, and she went to their table, sitting down beside John, who had jumped to his feet.
Annabel and Lizzie exchanged glances. "Do forgive her terrible mood," Lizzie finally said. "You know how upset she is right now."
"I am trying to be compassionate, but she makes it so very difficult," Annabel said. "The fact that she cannot conceive is not my fault-yet she is taking it out on me."
Lizzie nodded unhappily and took her hand. "Just ignore her," she whispered as they approached their table.
Adam was standing, waiting for them, and he smiled at both Lizzie and Annabel, holding out their chairs for them. "Isn't this place spectacular?" he asked Annabel. "Have you ever seen such views?"
Before she could respond and agree with him, at least about the countryside, Annabel realized that two couples at the very next table were openly staring at her. They had been as rude last night at supper. The women were about her own age, but they sported huge diamond rings on their left hands and had several young children with their nursemaids at an adjoining table. They were talking in hushed tones, but Annabel knew what they were saying. She could hear them. She was quite certain the ladies wished for it to be that way.
"It is absolutely true. Marion knows someone who was a guest at her wedding. She ran away with a burglar two years ago. That is her. Can you imagine? Leaving the poor groom at the altar like that? Talbot, has, of course, long since married. He would have none of her when she returned. How can she show herself in polite society?"
"What nerve," her friend agreed.
Annabel twisted in her seat and leveled a cold stare at the women. "It is actually quite easy to partake of polite society," she said. "It hardly requires nerve. One makes a few reservations, gets on a train, and voila, one arrives. But I would question whether this is polite society, actually." And she gave the flushing women her back. Annabel stared at her place setting. Her pulse continued to race.
As soup was served all around, Lizzie placed a hand on hers. "Don't let one rat get your spirits down. This is a wonderful hotel. Most of the guests are so very nice."
To you, perhaps, Annabel thought. "There is always a rat or two, everywhere I go, and I am thoroughly tired of it," she said. She was more than tired of hearing about how fast and willful she was, or that other popular refrain: poor, unfortunate, oh-so-wild Annabel Boothe. Other than the fact that she had been served up a very large dose of a broken heart by her own reckless nature, why, there was nothing unfortunate about her.
She did, after all, have her freedom. Which was all that she had ever wanted anyway. It was women like the two behind her who deserved pity, not herself.
Melissa leaned forward. "If you led an exemplary life, perhaps everyone would forget the past, Annabel. You choose to defy every norm there is-and then you expect people to like and accept you? How can anyone forget, for goodness' sake, when you refuse to let anyone forget!"
Annabel stared at her sister. Was Melissa right? If one entertained Missy's perspective, then she certainly was correct, but Annabel knew that she could not live the way her sisters did, or the way that most of society did. Was something wrong with her? Why was her nature so inquisitive, so reckless? "I do not want to discuss this," she said, lifting her soup spoon. The split pea soup was far too hot and she set it down abruptly.
Curiosity killed the cat.
Annabel inhaled, stabbed by words spoken by someone she did not wish to identify, not even in her mind. She had no wish to remember either his words or him.
"Our soups are getting cold," Adam said firmly, also taking up his spoon.
For a moment they sipped in silence. Annabel stared at her pea soup, having lost her appetite. In Europe no one seemed to find her behavior so odd that it was worthy of censure. But in Europe, she did not frequent society. Annabel had spent the holidays in Paris, where she had run into an acquaintance from the art class she had taken several years ago. Melissa would die if she knew that Annabel had kept such late hours that she had not arisen until the late afternoon, that she had passed the evenings at the theater and afterward in bistros and cabarets, drinking red wine and brandy and smoking cigarettes and cigars.
He had not disapproved of her. In spite of what she had done.
Braxton was haunting her again.
Annabel stared at her soup. It had been two years since the fateful day of her almost-wedding. He still, from time to time, appeared in her mind, haunting her oddly with bits and pieces of the brief time they had shared. Her heart was no longer broken, so she could not understand why this ghost of a memory would not go away and leave her in peace. What was even stranger was the fact that his expression in her mind's eye was always the same. It was filled with regret.
Which was romantic nonsense. The man was a thief and a charlatan, and while Annabel now felt that she was as much to blame as he was for what had happened-she had, after all, seduced him-she would never forgive him for leaving without a word the next day, or worse, for pretending to love her that night.