“And too male,” Annabel said, her heart aching for the sadness of it. She couldn’t even get near me without screaming. I would have married her, once we realized she was carrying a child, but back then she couldn’t even give a straight yes or no in the church. “She hasn’t been in her right mind since. “On the way that carriage was stopped by some ruffians. So when the time came, Rosy was sent to me in a carriage.” He stopped and his eyes darkened. “ ’Twas a marriage that my father and his great friend McKenna had worked out when we were wee bairns. “We were to marry, many years ago,” he said. “Now, do you truly think I’d bring home a wife if I had a fiancée all of my own waiting for me?” “Ach, but you’re a suspicious one, you are,” he said. She snatched her hand away, but a second later he was sitting next to her on the seat, and sure enough, he was laughing at her again. So who is Rosy?” she asked hastily, trying to move away from the subject of lovers. “Well, then,” she said, resisting a sudden urge to grin back at him. “I wouldna bring you home to meet my lover.” He had her hand again, but she pretended not to notice. “Never a lover of mine,” he said, and there was definitely laughter shining in those green eyes. The words that came to mind were such things as she’d heard around the stable, and not appropriate to be said aloud. “Why, who do you think Rosy is to me?” he asked, bantering with her as if such a thing were the subject for a tea party.

Kiss me annabel