“Be quick about it,” she said in an aggrieved tone, “before Kendall turns around and sees you with your hand up my skirts.”

With a muffled laugh Hunt bent to his task, deftly picking the last of the prickly scales from her stocking. While he worked, Annabelle stared at the place on the back of his neck where the obsidian locks of hair curled slightly against firm, tanned skin.

Reaching for the discarded slipper, Hunt placed it on her foot with a flourish. “My rustic Cinderella,” he said, and rose to his feet. As his gaze passed over the blooming pink surface of her cheeks, friendly mockery flickered in his dark eyes. “Why did you wear such ridiculous shoes for a walk in the woods? I would have thought you’d have the good sense to put on a pair of ankle boots.”

“I don’t have any ankle boots,” Annabelle said, annoyed by the implication that she was some feather-wit who couldn’t select the appropriate footwear for a simple walk. “My old ones fell to pieces, and I couldn’t afford a new pair.”

Surprisingly, Hunt did not take advantage of the opportunity to mock her further. His face became impassive as he studied her for a moment. “Let’s join the others,” he said eventually. “They’ve probably discovered a variety of moss we haven’t yet seen. Or God help us, a mushroom.”

The pinching tightness eased from her chest. “I’m hoping for some lichen, myself.”

That elicited a faint smile, and he reached out to snap off a slender branch that protruded across the pathway. Following gamely, Annabelle picked up her skirts and tried not to think of how nice it would be to be sitting on the manor terrace with a tray of tea and biscuits before her. They reached the summit of a shallow incline and were greeted with a surprising vista of bluebells that blanketed the forest floor. It was like stumbling into a dream, the cerulean haze seeping between the trunks of oak and beech and ash. The smell of bluebells was everywhere, the perfumed air feeling heavy and rich in her lungs.

Pausing by a slender tree trunk, Annabelle curled her arm around it loosely and stared at the stands of bluebells with surprised pleasure. “Lovely,” she murmured, her face gleaming in the shadow cast by the canopy of ancient, interlaced branches.

“Yes.” But Hunt was looking at her, not the blue-bells, and one glance at his expression caused the blood to tingle in her veins. She had seen admiration on men’s faces before, and even something that she had recognized as desire, but never a look that had been this disturbingly intimate…as if he wanted something far more complicated than the mere use of her body.

Uneasy, she pushed away from the tree trunk and made her way to Kendall, who was talking with her mother while the group of girls had scattered to pick wanton armfuls of bluebells. Flower stems were trampled and broken as the feminine marauders gathered up their treasure.

Kendall seemed relieved by Annabelle’s approach, and even more so by the good-natured smile on her face. It seemed that he had expected her to be petulant, as most women would have been when they had been invited on a walk and then been ignored in lieu of more demanding company. His gaze alighted on Simon Hunt’s dark form, and his expression was leavened with a touch of uncertainty. The two men exchanged nods, Hunt looking self-assured, Kendall appearing somewhat wary. “I see that we’ve attracted yet more company,” Kendall murmured.

Annabelle gave Kendall her most dazzling smile. “Of course we have,” she said. “You’re the Pied Piper, my lord. Wherever you go, people follow.”

He blushed, pleased by the bit of nonsense, and murmured, “I hope that you have enjoyed the walk so far, Miss Peyton.”

“Oh, I have,” she assured him. “Although I will admit to having blundered into a patch of prickly fern.”

Philippa gave a soft exclamation of concern. “My goodness…were you injured, dearest?”

“No, no, it was a trifle,” Annabelle said instantly. “Just a little scratch or two. And the fault was entirely mine—I’m afraid I wore the wrong kind of shoes.” She stuck out her foot to show Kendall one of her light slippers, making certain to display a few inches of trim ankle.

Kendall clicked his tongue in dismay. “Miss Peyton, you need something far sturdier than those slippers for a tromp through the forest.”

“You’re right, of course.” Annabelle shrugged, continuing to smile. “It was silly of me not to realize that the terrain would be so rugged. I’ll try to choose my steps more carefully on the way back. But the blue-bells are so heavenly that I think I would wade through a field of prickly fern to reach them.”

Reaching down to a stray cluster of bluebells, Kendall broke off a sprig and tucked it into the ribbon trim of her bonnet. “They’re not half so blue as your eyes,” he said. His gaze dropped to her ankle, which was now covered by the hem of her skirts. “You must take my arm when we walk back, to avoid further mishap.”

“Thank you, my lord.” Annabelle gazed up at him admiringly. “I’m afraid that I missed some of your earlier remarks about ferns, my lord. You had mentioned something about…spleenwort, wasn’t it?…and I was thoroughly fascinated…”

Kendall obligingly proceeded to explain all one would ever want to know about ferns…and later, when Annabelle chanced to glance back in Simon Hunt’s direction, he was gone.

CHAPTER 9

“Are we really going to do this?” Annabelle asked somewhat plaintively, as the wallflowers strode along the forest path with baskets and hampers in hand. “I thought that all our talk of Rounders-inknickers was merely amusing banter.”