Ten Things I Love About You by Julia Quinn

him Turtle.”
    “Frederick!” Louisa yelped, rushing forward to remove something—in all honesty, Annabel preferred not to know what—from his mouth.
    “It’s better than Frederick,” Annabel said. “Good heavens, that’s my brother’s name.”
    “Let go, Frederick,” Louisa muttered. Then, still grabbing at whatever was in his mouth, she looked back over at Annabel. “He deserves a dignified name.”
    “Because he’s such a dignified dog.”
    Louisa raised a brow, looking every inch a duke’s daughter. “Dogs deserve proper names.”
    “Cats, too?”
    Louisa let out a dismissive
pfft.
“Cats are entirely different. They catch
mice.”
    Annabel opened her mouth to ask how, exactly, that pertained to proper names, but before she made a sound, Louisa grabbed her forearm, hissing her name.
    “Ow.” Annabel reached down and tried to pry Louisa’s fingers loose. “What is it?”
    “Over there,” Louisa whispered urgently. Herhead jerked toward the left, but in a way that said she was trying to be discreet. Except she wasn’t. At all.
“Sebastian Grey,”
Louisa finally hissed.
    Annabel had heard the hearts-dropping-to-the-stomach expression before, and she’d said it, too, but this was the first time she actually understood it. Her entire body felt wrong, as if her heart was in her stomach and her lungs were in her ears, and her brain was somewhere east of France.
    “Let’s go,” she said. “Please.”
    Louisa looked surprised. “You don’t want to meet him?”
    “No.” Annabel didn’t care that she sounded desperate. She just wanted to be gone.
    “You’re joking, aren’t you? You must be curious.”
    “I’m not. I assure you. I mean, yes, of course I am, but if I am going to meet this man, I don’t want to do it like this.”
    Louisa blinked a few times. “Like what?”
    “I’m just—I’m not prepared. I—”
    “I suppose you’re right,” Louisa said thoughtfully.
    Thank God.
    “He will probably think you have loyalties toward his uncle and will prejudge you accordingly.”
    “Exactly,” Annabel said, latching onto this like a lifesaver.
    “Or he’ll try to talk you out of it.”
    Annabel cast a nervous glance toward the spot where Louisa had seen Mr. Grey. Subtly, of course, and without actually turning around. If she could just escape before he saw her …
    “Of course, I think you
should
be talked out of it,” Louisa continued. “I don’t care how much money Lord Newbury has, no young lady should be forced to—”
    “I haven’t agreed to anything yet,” Annabel practically cried. “Please, may we just go?”
    “We have to wait for my aunt,” Louisa said, frowning. “Did you see where she went?”
    “Louisa.”
    “What is
wrong
with you?”
    Annabel looked down. Her hands were shaking. She couldn’t do this. Not yet. She couldn’t face the man she’d kissed who happened to be the heir to the man she didn’t want to kiss but whom she probably was going to marry. Oh yes, and she could not forget that if she did marry the man she didn’t want to kiss, she was likely to provide him with a new heir, thus cutting off the man she did want to kiss.
    Oh, he was
really
going to like her.
    She was going to have to be introduced to Mr. Grey eventually, there was no avoiding it. But did it have to be now? Surely she deserved a little time to prepare.
    She hadn’t thought she was such a coward. No, she wasn’t a coward. Any sane person would flee in such a situation, and probably half of the mad ones, as well.
    “Annabel,” Louisa said, her voice sounding exasperated. “Why is it so important that we leave?”
    Annabel tried to think of a reason. She really did. But there was only the truth, which she wasnot prepared to share, so instead she stood there dumbly, wondering how on earth she was going to get out of this fix.
    But alas, that particular moment of panic was brief. To be replaced by a far, far more horrific moment of panic. Because it soon became