Chapter 12
Anne depressed a single key of her pianoforte. She studied her fingertip upon the ivory key and remembered back to a different instrument. Remembered the moment it had been packaged up and carried off by servants and sent wherever it was lost belongings went to cover a man’s debts.
There had been a time when she’d lay abed well into the early morning hours, staring at the canopy overhead, worrying. Worrying about her poor mother’s breaking heart. Worrying about her twin sister losing the one joy she had in life—her volumes of poetry. Worrying about the loss of Benedict’s games and toys and more—his innocence. Worrying about Aldora having to forsake a dream of love all to make a match to save.
Security had been a beacon. A talisman of hope she clung to. She had longed for the day she’d make her Come Out. Only, she’d entertained the most foolish of girlish musings that included security, a handsome gentleman, and love.
But first and foremost had always come security.
Now, the Duke of Crawford, with his increasing interest, represented the pinnacle of that great beacon. As the Duchess of Crawford, she’d never worry about material comforts, or more importantly, the comforts of her future children. There had always been the expectation, both real and self-imposed, amongst her family that Anne would make an advantageous match.
In her third Season, no longer a girl, Anne foolishly held onto hope for that last elusive dream—love.
She touched her fingers to the keys.
“The Duke of Crawford will make you a splendid match, Anne.”
Her fingers slipped and the dissonant chords echoed through the spacious parlor. “Mother,” she murmured.
Her mother sailed into the room. The firm set to her mouth, the fire in her blue eyes spoke of a determined point to her visit. She stopped at the edge of the ivory upholstered sofa and planted her arms akimbo. “Well?” She motioned to the seat beside her.
For one, infinitesimal moment, Anne thought of sticking her tongue out and banging an obscene ditty on the keyboard. “Well, what?”
“Don’t be insolent, Anne,” she snapped.
Reluctantly, Anne shoved to her feet. The delicate bench scraped the hardwood floor. She wandered over to the King Louis chair and sat, hands folded demurely upon her lap. Ever the dutiful daughter. The daughter Mother hung all her hopes upon, who in spite of that faith remained unwed.
After two Seasons and a bit of a third.
Mother carefully arranged her skirts. “You know, of your sisters and brother, only you really know the truth of your father.” She directed that statement down at her pleated satin skirts.
Yes, her siblings had somehow remained insulated from that truth of their vile father. “Mother?” she asked, cautiously. But for the handful of unkind matrons when Anne had made her Come Out, little was said of the philandering late earl. She’d smiled brightly through all the impolite whispers.
Her mother snapped her head up so quickly Anne imagined she hurt the muscles of her neck. “It is, of course, no secret your father didn’t love me.” Bitterness made for an ugly smile on the countess’ face.
Anne’s heart ached for the pain her mother had known—still knew. She reached for her hand.
“Bah, do not give me your pity, Anne,” she said with a wave.
Anne pulled her fingers back.
“If you don’t have a care, you’ll become me.”
She wrinkled her brow.
“I see the way you stare at Stanhope,” she hissed. “Stare at him when you can have Crawford.”
Anne stiffened. “How very mercurial you make it all seem.” She wondered if this was how Harry and her sisters saw her—cold and calculated, counting ribbons and dreaming of the title duchess.
Her mother bristled at Anne’s terse words. “Were you mercurial when you cried about your ribbons?”
She winced at her private shame being tossed in her face by her mother.
“Was it mercurial when they took your sisters books?” her mother continued relentless. “Or when Aldora chose to marry for—”
“Aldora married for love.” Even as Mother would have had Aldora wed the Marquess of St. James or some other lofty lord.
Mother colored. “Fortunate for you all, Lord Knightly was obscenely wealthy and generous with you.”
How neatly she excluded herself from that general ‘you’? Anne glanced away, knowing there was more to Mother’s displeasure. Knowing it stemmed from Harry.
“Do you love him?”
She blinked several times. “Do I—?”
She scoured Anne’s face. “Love him,” she repeated. “Do. You. Love. Him?”
Anne shook her head. “No.” She opened her mouth. Words wouldn’t come. She shook her head again. “Certainly not.” She was considered the fool of the family, but she’d never dare anything so mad as to fall in love with Harry, the 6th Earl of Stanhope who’d attempted to seduce her sister, and loved his Miss Margaret Dunn, and saw Anne as nothing more than a termagant. Or hellion. The moniker varied on a given day.
Mother studied her in silence as though seeking for truth in her answer. “He’ll not wed you,” she said at last, the matter-of-factness of those words more painful than if they’d been jeeringly flung.
Anne curled her nails into the skin of her knuckles. “I am not thinking he will, Mother,” she said between gritted teeth.
“Nor should you hold out hope he would,” she continued almost cruelly. “You’ll always merely be second to the sister he truly desired.”
She curled her fingers into tight balls, her nails leaving crescent marks upon her palms. Now, that was indeed cruel. Particularly in the truth to those handful of words. If she’d not begged and pleaded, Harry wouldn’t have bothered to even help her in the first place. He’d have sent her to the devil with a harsh kick to her derriere and not a single backward glance.
“I always desired more for you than Mr. Ekstrom.”
Anne attempted to follow the abrupt shift in conversation.
Mother slashed the air with her hand. “Katherine, well, as you know. I expected a marriage between her and Bertrand. Benedict, why he’s just a child and anything can happen to a child. Then where would we be?”
“Mother,” Anne said on a gasp.
Red fanned Mother’s cheeks as she appeared properly shamed at the coldness of her words. “I did not mean to sound avaricious. I love all my children,” she said defensively. “But I worry for all of us. All of us,” she repeated as though Anne hadn’t heard her clear enough the first time.
“Neither Jasper nor Michael would allow us to become destitute.”
“And what of the connection to the Wakefield line?”
Well, Anne could imagine a good many greater travesties than the loss of connection to her dastardly father. She held those words back, knowing they’d only cause her mother further pain.
“I would not see you do something reckless with your reputation and lose the duke’s favor. If there is no Crawford, or some other lofty title, there is the assurance of Mr. Ekstrom.”
What was she on about? She didn’t want to think about horrid Mr. Ekstrom the man Mother had tried to have Katherine…Her heart sank slowly into her belly.
“I see you follow my thoughts, Anne.”
Anne jumped up. She glared at her mother’s immaculately arranged curls. “Is that what you’d do? Threaten me with marriage to Mr. Ekstrom?” Somewhere in her mother’s loathsome scheming and vile threat she’d lost sight of the fact that Harry’s presence in her life came from nothing more than her goals to ensnare the Duke of Crawford’s attention. “I’ll not wed him.”
Mother rose, slowly. She smoothed her skirts. “No. I dare say you shan’t. I’d much rather you have the Duke of Crawford.” She crossed over and took Anne’s cheeks in her palms.
Anne yanked her face away, much the same way she’d done as a small girl when her nurse had attempted to rub lemon juice over her freckled skin in attempt to rid her of the marks. Mother took Anne’s face in her hands, once more. “Look at me,” she said softly. This kind, tender tone the one she remembered of the Mother who’d praised her and found pride in her playing and embroidery skills. Likely more the woman she’d been before the extent of Father’s betrayal had ruined her. “I want to see you happy. You call me mercurial. Mayhap you think me cruel.” Tears filled her eyes, the first crack in her indecipherable mask. “Do you know the fear I carried in my heart for not only myself but for each of you?” She blinked back the crystal drops.
“Mother,” Anne said gently.
She blinked the drops back. “Bah, silly tears. A waste they are.” She drew in a shuddery breath. “I loved your father, Anne. But sometimes love isn’t enough. Not when a gentleman’s heart is otherwise engaged.”
A faceless Miss Dunn flashed to Anne’s mind. She tried to call up a clear image of a woman who possessed the beauty men would wage wars for. Surely, no silly gold ringlets there.
“Your Lord Stanhope is not without a scandal.”
“I know that,” she murmured, giving her head a shake. “And he’s not my Lord Stanhope,” she added as an afterthought.
“There was a woman, a…” Mother paused, seeming to search her memory.
Miss Margaret Dunn. Oh, how she detested that name.
“It escapes me, now. Nearly ten years ago, I believe.”
Eight years. Harry had indicated eight years had since passed. Anne would have been just a girl of twelve or thirteen around the time. She imagined Harry, unjaded, just out of university. She didn’t want to ask her mother questions. She was content to bury her curiosity and not know Mother’s twisted version of the story. “I don’t need to hear this,” she said firmly. She would not betray Harry with Society’s gossip.
Her mother rushed over and claimed her hands. “You do, Anne. Do you understand me? You need to hear this, when I myself refused to listen to the whispers surrounding your father’s offer for me all those years ago. You represent nothing more than a diversion to the earl.”
Anne’s lips twisted ruefully. Considering the terms of their arrangement, she represented a good deal less than that to Harry.
“He can’t have honorable intentions toward you.”
The whole lessons in seduction business aside… why not? He was not the heartless rogue she’d once taken him as.
“Because he will always love another,” her mother said, seeming to follow Anne’s unspoken question. “I would see your life be different than the one I’ve lived.”
Anne imagined herself thirty years from now a bitter, empty, angry shell of the woman she’d been. For everything wrong and flawed in her mother’s thinking, she would be correct on this. Harry would break some woman’s heart. And if Anne weren’t careful, she would be that poor, unfortunate soul. Her heart twisted. She tugged her hands free. “Please be assured, Mother. I know that. I do.” She slid her gaze over to the pianoforte.
Mother touched Anne’s chin. “Learn from my mistakes. I loved your father enough, so much that I foolishly believed I could teach him to love me.” Her voice broke and she coughed in an apparent attempt to hide her uncharacteristic show of emotion. “You can’t teach the heart to know that which it already knows.”
Oddly, those words made sense to Anne. She wandered back over to the pale blue upholstered pianoforte bench and sat. “I understand, Mother.” She raised her hands, poised above the keys. “I’ll not do anything foolish where Lord Stanhope is concerned.” If one could exclude enlisting the rogue’s assistance on matters of seduction…
Anne began to play a polite, if clear, dismissal. She’d had enough of her mother’s rain upon her happiness. She buried thoughts of Harry, and mother’s aching reminder of a too-sad past, and the Duke of Crawford’s intentions, in the strands of John Dowland. She lost herself in the haunting melody and sang.
Not to seduce.
But merely because it was a singular pleasure she could allow herself. Her books, she could barely see. Her ribbons were empty fripperies. In the strands of song, she could drift off and be someone other than empty-headed, pleasingly pretty, Lady Anne Arlette Adamson.
And Anne sang.
“Weep no more sad fountains. What need have you flow so fast…?”
~*~
As Harry trailed behind the butler through the Countess of Wakefield’s townhouse, the haunting melody soared from the room at the end of the corridor and danced around the plaster walls. He froze mid-stride. His heart pounded loud and hard in his ears.
A contralto.
The whisper of song that makes a man think of bedrooms and bedsheets and all things forbidden…
The butler paused and looked back at him questioningly. Harry told his mind to tell his legs to tell his feet to move. And so he moved. Onward to the husky contralto. They paused beside the parlor. The butler cleared his throat. “The Earl of Stanhope….”
Anne’s song broke into a sharp shriek and her fingers slid along the keyboard in a discordant tune that echoed around the room. She jumped to her feet, high color on her cheeks. “My lord.”
For a quick moment, Harry wasn’t sure if hers was a greeting or a skyward prayer.
Her gaze met his and then wandered off to the young maid who hurried past him and advanced deep into the room. Out of the way. But certainly not forgotten.
He damned propriety to the devil. Harry beat his hand against his leg. “My lady.”
Anne fiddled with her satin skirts.
“Should I…”
“Would you…”
They fell silent. He motioned for her to continue.
Anne cleared her throat. “Would you care for refreshments?” she asked loudly.
He cupped his hands around his mouth. “A seat should suffice,” he returned.
Her lips twitched and she motioned him forward. The butler hurried off and Harry entered the room. “Please, sit,” Anne murmured. She hovered beside the rose-inlaid pianoforte.
He claimed a seat on the sofa. He narrowed his eyes at Anne’s unexpected show of hesitation. For the tart, biting hellion she’d proven herself to be since they’d met, she’d never been timid around him. And he rather found he disliked it. Disliked it, immensely.
She hurried over and sat in the mahogany ladder back armchair across from him. Not on the sofa directly beside him. Or even the bloody chair directly next to his. Across. She shifted in her seat. “Are you certain you wouldn’t care for tea?”
He looped his ankle across his knee. “Quite certain. But please do not let me discourage you.”
Anne glanced at her maid. “Mary, will you call for refreshments, please.”
The servant hopped up from her seat and rushed to do Anne’s bidding.
Silence reigned between Harry and Anne. He drummed his fingertips on the edge of his boot. What accounted for the suddenly mute version of Anne’s usually vibrant self? She studied the tips of her ivory satin slippers with the attention she might show a fireworks display at Vauxhall Garden. He leaned back in his seat. Alas, it would appear the charm he usually evinced failed him whenever Lady Anne Adamson was near.
Crawford. Surely the duke’s sudden interest accounted for this heightened tension. He curled his fingers into tight fists. In attempt to shake her free of this cool shell she’d affected, he whispered, “It would seem you’re a sultry contralto, Anne.”
Her cheeks blazed the red of a ripened berry and he suddenly had a taste for sweet fruit. “Er…” she plucked at the fabric of her skirts. “Uh…yes.” Her blush deepened. “That is, I possess a contralto. Without the sultriness,” she said on a rush.
He leaned forward in the sofa and lowered his voice. “With the sultriness.” And now he loathed even more the idea of her singing for that bastard Crawford. The other man had the privilege of sitting as a solo audience to her performance, had likely conjured wicked thoughts of Anne, all wicked things Harry himself longed to do to her. “Sing for me,” he commanded hoarsely.
She tilted her head. “My lord?”
And furthermore, what was this, ‘my lord’ nonsense? “Sing for me.” This time, he gentled his voice, used his most seductive tone that had found many ultimately well-pleasured ladies a place in his bed.
Anne wrinkled her nose. “I abhor that tone, Harry.”
Ah, of course she did. Odd how this spirited beauty had sought him out, asking him to school her in the art of seduction, yet she spurned each one of those lessons as they were turned upon her. The tension in her bow-shaped lips, the frown at the corners of her riveting blue eyes bespoke annoyance. He rose and walked around the small marble-top table between them and dropped to a knee beside her.
“What are—?”
Harry took her smaller hands in his. He tugged off her white kidskin gloves and set them aside. “Will you sing for me, Anne?” He raised her naked wrist to his mouth and placed his lips along the inside, where her pulse beat hard and steady. “Please,” he added.
“Oh,” she said on a soft sigh. “A-are you m-making light of me?”
“No.” He’d never again be able to manage such a feat. Not knowing her as he now did.
Anne glanced at his hand upon her wrist and with reluctance, he released her. She ran a suspicious gaze over his face. “And you’ll not tease me for—?”
He marked an X over his heart. “On my word.”
She continued to study him with an intent seriousness in her blue eyes and then stood. “I’ll play, Harry.” From the place she occupied at the far end of the room, Anne’s maid coughed. Anne’s eyes went wide. “Er, that is, I’ll play, my lord.” She waggled her golden eyebrows at him as she settled into her seat. “Though I imagine you’ll merely be bored with Dibdin.”
From his spot kneeling, he grinned at her. “I assure you, I’ll not.”
Her fingers danced upon the keyboard with an expertness the master Dibdin himself would have applauded, the jaunty, uplifting melody of the former resident composer of Covent Garden’s The Lass that Loves a Sailor. Her contralto filled the parlor; the beauty of the husky, emotion-laden tone could rival the most lauded opera singers upon the Continent. Yet, he’d instructed to use her voice as a tool of seduction. Now hearing her, witnessing the depth of her instrument, he recognized the travesty in merely seeing such beauty reserved for the bedroom.
His lips pulled in a grimace. Egad, next he’d be spouting sonnets of the lady’s fair skin. What mad spell had she cast upon him?
She sang, unaware that she’d captivated him with her intelligence, beauty, and now song. “But the standing toast that pleased most…” Anne tipped her head jauntily back and forth to the quick, staccato rhythm, as she continued; all the while she smiled through her singing.
At her infectious enthusiasm, he grinned. A grin that had nothing to do with seduction or passion or lust, but rather a smile that came from the joy of just being with her.
“The ship that goes…” Her playing increased to a frenzied rhythm. “And the lass that loves a sailor.” She ended on a dramatic flourish. Her cheeks a healthy pink, an, unfettered smile upon her lips, he was struck motionless wishing he was, in fact, a poet so then he could commit the memory of Anne Adamson to a page, forever immortalizing the spirited beauty. She dipped her head as their gazes locked.
A charged moment froze the room. The tick-tock of the ormolu clock marked the passage of time. A servant entered with the tray of tea and pastries, and set the world to spinning once more.
Harry stood, and clapped. “Brava, my lady.”
Anne hopped up from her bench on a laugh, breathless. “Oh, do hush,” she said, brushing off his compliment like a drop of rain upon her skin.
He reclaimed his seat upon the sofa and looked at this woman whom he’d thought he knew, whom he’d unfairly judged, and judged quite harshly. And looking at her, he was humbled by the truth of how little he or anyone else in Society, in fact, knew of her. For Society’s opinion of Lady Anne as a vain, attention-seeking young lady, she neither wanted nor welcomed even deserved praise.
She hurried over and this time sat beside him.
He dipped his lips close to her ear. “You’re remarkable, Anne.”
She snorted. “And you’re a flirt, Harry.”
“Yes, indeed I am.” He leaned over and tweaked her nose. “But I’m also a truth-teller.”
She hastened to pour herself a cup of tea. He studied her precise, ladylike movements, surely perfected many years ago through lessons ingrained into her by a stern governess. Lady Anne Adamson evinced everything of a perfectly proper, English lady and was therefore everything he’d avoided since Margaret's betrayal. Now, however, studying her as he did, Harry found her to be far more than one of the insipid, colorless young ladies in the market for a husband. As though she felt his gaze on her, Anne glanced up. Her long, graceful fingers curled about the handle of the pale blue porcelain teapot trembled.
Ah, the minx wasn’t immune to him after all, and masculine satisfaction flared in his chest.
Liquid splashed over her hands and splattered the edge the mahogany table. She set the teapot down with a firm thunk. “Blast and double blast,” she hissed.
From across the room, her maid jumped up from her tucked away seat. “I’ll see to an ointment, my lady.” She fled as fast as if a fire had been set to the parlor.
Harry yanked out a handkerchief. “Here—” He snapped it open.
She drew her fingers back. “It’s fine,” she said softly.
His mouth hardened. Did she see herself as nothing more than an obligation to him? “Don’t be daft.” Did Anne not realize she’d come to mean something to him? “Let me see.” He took her hands in his and turned over the injured digits. He cursed.
“It’s fine,” she murmured. The delicate skin of her three middle fingers bore the red, angry marks from her tea.
He popped the digits into his mouth, drawing the soft flesh deep.
The quick intake of her breath filled the quiet between them. The muscles of her throat moved up and down. He expected her to politely avert her gaze and draw her hand back. In the time he’d come to know Anne, however, he should realize she never did that which was expected. A little sigh escaped her lips. “That feels splendid.” She leaned close to him.
Had anyone told him he’d be sucking upon a lady’s fingers and there was nothing the least bit sexual in the act, he’d have laughed in the gent’s face and proceeded to list twenty acts one could do with one’s mouth and a lady’s fingers. She somehow made him forget the rogue he’d been and turned him into a man he didn’t recognize—one who wasn’t solely fixed on tugging up Anne’s skirts and making sweet love to her, but rather, one who wanted to know the little pieces that made Anne—well, Anne.
Harry pressed his eyes closed a moment. He drew her fingers out of his mouth and studied the reddened flesh. This was very bad, indeed.