you were being such a dear to a sweet, plain girl. I was inordinately proud of you!”
He had the decency to feel beastly ashamed. “I didn’t know who she was when I saved that bloody cat of hers from almost certain death—with no regard for my own well-being, I might add.”
“Then how did you know who she was?”
He lowered his voice to a whisper again. “I had heard that an heiress had recently arrived in Bath who just happened to be plain and who walked about with cats. I didn’t have to possess the brains of Melvin Steffington to make the deduction.”
His sister gave him a hostile look. “I won’t have you using that poor girl. Or breaking her heart. From the way you treated her today, I—who know you well—thought you were attracted to her. So you can imagine how flattered she is by your attentions. You told her she was delightfully charming! You said she was like a breath of country air. You even agreed with her admittedly prejudiced father when he said she was pretty! I think you’re being appallingly wicked.”
“I thought I was kind to her. Gave up my entire afternoon. Didn’t even object to escorting what had to be the plainest maiden in all of Bath around the Pump Room for all to see. My reputation as a connoisseur of beauty is destroyed.” He frowned. “I even became a complete laughingstock chasing that blasted cat of hers around the Pump Room!”
“You’re horrid, and I’m ashamed of you.” Annie sprang from the sofa and stormed from the chamber.
* * *
While Digby assisted him into his meticulously fitted and spotless black jacket for the evening’s assembly, tied his cravat, and helped him into silken stockings, Appleton felt wretched. Instead of enlisting Annie’s help to win Miss Pankhurst’s affections, he’d angered his sister and shamed himself.
Still, he couldn’t tell Annie he was doing it for her and their sisters. If it were just him, he could have let the house in Bath go and eked by on the modest income from their small estate in Shropshire. But he had to provide for his sisters. Hefty dowries would be required for them to attract husbands suitable to their station. And the dresses and hats and gloves and all the finery three young ladies of refined taste needed! He had no choice but to marry an heiress.
Despite that cat business, Miss Pankhurst, thankfully, was not like one in her dotage. She seemed to be possessed of good sense, and he would vow that with a proper wardrobe—which her wealthy father had already promised—she would be tolerably handsome.
Fully dressed now, he stood at the foot of the stairs awaiting his sister and Miss Pankhurst when the door to Annie’s chamber opened. Annie came out first. She wore a rose-coloured gown and looked her usual lovely self. Appleton sighed. A pity. That damned Wolf would be sure to be attracted to her.
Then Miss Pankhurst came into view, and Appleton almost lost his breath.
Chapter 3
Had one of the Royal Princesses begun to glide down his modest stairway, Appleton could not have been more astonished. This vision in white coming toward him looked nothing like the dowdy Miss Pankhurst with whom he’d spent the better part of the day. Why had he not been aware of the rich deep, lustrous brown of her hair? It now swept back from her face in a most elegant fashion. Her face, too, looked very fine. Perhaps not beautiful, but there was nothing to give offense.
His eye quite naturally traveled along the drape of her snowy gown but froze at her breasts. He swallowed. Why had he not noticed how . . . how bountiful they were? Full and plump and everything a man could hope to find in a woman. How had she managed to conceal them? It wasn’t like Appleton not to notice when a woman was possessed of such an endowment.
Good manners demanded that he remove his gawk from her chesterly assets, and as he did so, the impression she gave, descending the staircase with her dark hair and large, dark eyes set against the gown’s white, reminded him of someone he’d once seen. Someone with whom he’d been favorably impressed.
Then he remembered.
At the London opera house, he’d fancied himself in love with the beautiful Italian singer Maria Cara, but none of his efforts to wrangle an introduction to the beautiful songstress ever succeeded.
Tonight, Miss Pankhurst reminded him of Maria Cara. Which explained why he’d