Chapter 18
From the corner of the parlor, Anne pulled back the curtain and peered down into the street below. She touched a finger to the sun-warmed windowpane.
She’d been expecting him if for no other reason than to make his apologies for abandoning her last evening, to Rutland’s cruelty, no less. The greater likelihood was that Harry would call and ask to be spared of any further lessons with her. She swallowed painfully. This way he would be able to pursue his Margaret, a widow and free to therefore pick up where life had left them. Harry would be free to become the man he’d once been, before Margaret’s marriage had turned him into a jaded, heartbroken rogue.
And Anne would never be anything more than a distant thought in his head. She pressed her eyes tight, dreading the moment he would arrive and all her happiness ended. With a shuddery sigh, she opened her eyes and stared blankly out into the streets below. The loss of Harry would force her to confront just what a liar she truly was. She’d told him she didn’t expect a profession of love or his undying devotion, but God help her she did. Wanted it more than she craved food or drink or silly ribbons and mindless Gothic novels…even that blasted pianoforte played by the Westmoreland daughters.
She wanted him. All of him. And more, she wanted him to want her.
Anne bit her lip hard and winced. A rider pulled up on a magnificent chestnut steed. Her heart thumped madly and she leaned close. “Harry,” she mouthed silently.
A young lad rushed forward to collect the reins. Harry handed them off, tossed the boy a sack of coins and murmured instructions.
A shuddery sob escaped her lips and she buried it in her fingers.
Her mother’s visage reflected back in the exposed glass panel. “Anne Arlette Adamson, come away from that window,” she snapped from the doorway.
Anne ignored her demands. Instead, she pressed her forehead against the glass and peered down at him as he rapped on the door.
“He’s come for no other reason than to end this madness between you, Anne,” her mother predicted.
“I know that,” she whispered, no longer lying to her mother or herself in the importance his presence meant to her. Somewhere along the way, he’d come to mean more than a lesson in seduction. Perhaps it happened when they’d been seated side by side at Lady Westmoreland’s musicale. Or after one too many tweaks of her golden ringlets or Dibdin’s songs or…
She didn’t know the precise moment but at some point, Harry’s happiness had come to matter more to her than even her own.
The door opened below and Ollie allowed the earl entrance. She pressed her lids tightly shut so that flecks of white light danced behind her closed eyes.
Mother touched a hand to her shoulder. “He is not worth this pain.”
“He is,” she whispered brokenly. He was so much more than the shiftless bounder he presented to Society. He was the sole person to look close enough at her to know she needed spectacles to read, and had taken it upon himself to find the most perfect pair, so that she might read to her heart’s pleasure.
“Even if he comes here now, Anne, and does not break it off, then it is honor driving his actions.”
She fisted her hands at her side. “Perhaps he loves me,” she ventured, hearing the futility in her own hopeless words.
“I imagined your father loved me as well.” The pity underscoring her mother’s tone dug at Anne’s insides. “He’s no different than your father.”
Anne spun around. “He is nothing like Father,” she spat. She slashed the air with her hand. “Father was a wastrel, dishonorable, disloyal to his children, to you—”
“And your Lord Stanhope will be the same if you do not have the courage to set him free, Anne.” Her mother took her hands. “Set him free,” she implored with her eyes. “Do what I could not. Allow him his love. His true love,” she amended, her words a thousand daggers upon Anne’s wounded heart.
As if on perfect cue, a knock sounded at the door. The butler, Ollie, appeared. He cleared his throat. “My lady, the Earl of Stanhope to see Lady Anne.”
Anne jammed the heel of her palms against her eyes, attempting to rid herself of thoughts of Harry.
“Anne, remember yourself,” Mother scolded.
Ah, yes, the unpleasantness of showing the hint of real emotion. Anne forced herself to take a deep, and slow breath. “Please tell the earl I’m not receiving callers,” she said, the words so faint, Ollie, the ancient servant, cupped a hand around his ear.
“What was that?”
“Please tell the earl I’m not receiving callers,” she repeated, this time resolve strengthened her words.
Mother tossed her hands into the air. “Anne, meet with him and—”
“I will, Mother. Just not now.” Please, do not ask this of me. Allow me to do this as I will, at my own time, in my own way.
Her mother gave a terse nod and left.
Anne waited for her mother to take her leave and then sprinted across the room to her spot beside the window. She peered down into the streets in time to observe Harry’s exit. He beat his black hat atop his right leg and glared at the door, as though he could command the black panel to open and permit him entry. A broken laugh, more of a sob escaped her lips. Then, Harry possessed enough roguish appeal to charm a door to open.
He stiffened and for the fraction of a moment she thought he might feel her gaze upon him. But then, the young street lad rushed over with the reins to his steed and Harry took them, mounted his horse, and left.
Anne buried her face into her hands and wept copious amount of tears. Egads, I’m crying? I detest tears. She cried all the harder in remembrance of that recent day in their stolen copse when he’d given her spectacles, and then shown her more pleasure than she’d imagined her body capable of.
Anne folded her arms about herself to still the tremors quaking her form. She sank down onto her piano bench and her back knocked against the keyboard in a discordant, melody of agony and despair. What if her mother had been wrong, even as logic told her she’d not been? But what if she had? What if Harry had merely come to apologize and dole out another of his lessons, as she’d clung to the foolish hope of since early that morn?
“Fool, fool, fool,” she choked out between great, big gasping sobs.
There were certain moments a person remembered in life. For Anne, she’d forever recall stumbling into Lady Preston’s ballroom and witnessing the magnificent tableau presented; Harry in his golden glory and the willowy duchess with her thick black ringlet-less hair. And poor, pathetic Anne, no different than her mother longing for a man who’d never been, nor would ever be hers.
She brushed back the useless tears. Another knock sounded at the door. “What is it, Mother?” she said, impatiently. She spun to face the doorway. “I’ve already told you I’ll speak…” Her words faded into silence.
Ollie stood at the doorway, a contrite expression on his face. He cleared his throat. “His Grace, the Duke of Crawford to see you, my lady.”
Ah, Mother wouldn’t turn away a duke if it meant saving her own life and the lives of all her children.
Her lips twisted in bitter remembrance of Mother’s callous treatment of Katherine’s husband, Jasper. Then, she tended to draw a proverbial line at dukes with a scandal to their name. She wrinkled her brow. Then, in thinking on it…it rather seemed mother abhorred all manner of scandalous gentlemen from wealthy, second sons like Aldora’s Michael, to Katherine’s once heart-broken Jasper, to the Earl of Stanhope, to—
The duke entered the room, a bouquet of hothouse flowers in his right hand. He paused a moment. His eyes lingered upon her face and she dug her toes hard into the soles of her slipper, certain he could detect the surely swollen-red eyes. “Lady Anne,” he murmured.
Anne shook her head, and remembered herself. She sprung to her feet. “Your Grace.” She sank into a curtsy, dropping her gaze to the floral Aubusson carpet, looking anywhere but at him.
Her maid, Mary slipped into the room, eyes downcast. She dipped a curtsy and then sought out her all too familiar seat. After three Seasons of Anne unwed, the poor woman had likely worn quite a place on the upholstered seat.
The duke moved further into the room. He passed his intense gaze around the ivory parlor then trained his penetrating stare on her. “Are you well, Lady Anne?”
Which was the most polite, non-direct way of inquiring after her tear-reddened eyes. “Er, quite,” she lied. His eyes said he knew it. From across the room, Mary coughed. Anne jumped, remembering herself. She rushed over to the duke and motioned to the sofa. “Please, won’t you sit, Your Grace?”
Sit in the very seat Harry had occupied some days ago when he’d asked her to sing to him. There was something so very wrong in the duke sitting in…
The duke sat.
…in Harry’s seat. A vise threatened to crush her heart.
His Grace extended the bouquet in his hands. “These are for—”
“Achoo!” Anne sneezed. For all the beauty of a flower, she’d never been able to breathe around a single bloom. Bitterness pulled at her lips. Yes, she’d never have made an ideal trysting partner for the Earl of Stanhope.
The duke fished into his pocket and withdrew a kerchief. He held it out.
“F-forgive…achoo!” Anne sneezed into the fabric neatly monogrammed with the initials ADC. “Forgive…achoo.” Oh dear, this really was rather inconvenient.
The duke’s lips twitched even as Mary rushed over to take the flowers from him. She hurried from the room.
“My apologies,” he said with a smile in his words. “I wasn’t aware—”
“No apologies, necessary, Your Grace,” she assured him. “It is quite a bother.” A frown replaced the austere duke’s fleeting smile. “Not receiving flowers. Because it is quite lovely. That is, if I could breathe around them, it would…” She allowed the words to go unfinished.
“I find it quite endearing.” Only, the hard, determined edge to his words hinted at a world wary man who didn’t find life endearing, let alone an unwed young lady’s sneezing.
Anne directed her attention to the handkerchief. Had the Duke of Crawford entered the world a squalling, haughty baby with a frozen noble heart? Or had life invariably done what life invariably did, and shatter whatever innocence he’d carried? She felt his stare on her and reluctantly shifted her attention upwards. She made to give the linen back but he waved his hand.
“Consider it yours, Lady Anne.” Specks of silver danced in his blue eyes.
“Thank you.” She studied the gold, monogrammed letters and angled her head, humbled by her own self-centeredness. She’d set her sights upon the duke, determined to have him as her husband…and yet she didn’t know something as simple as his Christian name. Society referred to him as His Grace, the duke, the Duke of Crawford. It occurred to her that she, like the rest of the ton hadn’t bothered to consider him beyond his title. She touched a finger to the single A, wondering over the lone initial.
“Auric,” he said quietly.
Her head snapped up.
“I gathered you wondered about the A.”
“Auric,” she said softly. A bold, unique name for one of the most powerful peers in the realm.
He shifted on his seat. “A rather unconventional name for an English lad.”
She managed her first real smile that day as she imagined him as Auric, a mere boy being schooled on the future role of duke. Then her smile withered as she considered her own grasping attempts at his title. She plucked at the fabric of the monogrammed handkerchief. She didn’t know the Duke of Crawford beyond their handful of meetings, but she’d already determined he deserved far more than to be desired for his title alone.
No gentleman deserved that.
No person deserved that.
He leaned over and placed his hand upon hers, his green eyes filled with such intensity she looked down—and stilled. Anne studied his large hands, cased in buff colored kid leather. She didn’t imagine a duke to have such imposing hands and more, she desperately wanted those hands to elicit all manner of delicious shivers inside. She wanted to burn from where their fingers met…and yet… Her eyes slid closed a moment.
Nothing.
Not a blasted spark.
Or shiver.
Or tingle.
Nothing.
“Marriages have been forged on nothing more than a matter of convenience, Lady Anne.”
She jerked her stare back to his. “Your Grace?”
“I’d have to be a fool to not realize you prefer Lord Stanhope’s suit to my own.” He sounded bemused, and she’d venture it was hardly every day a young lady preferred the attentions of a roguish earl to a powerful duke.
She bit the inside of her lip, unsure how to respond.
“Yet, I find I want you. As my duchess.”
Ah, there it was. The pinnacle of all her dreams realized. Only now did she realize those dreams belonged to her mother. They’d never been Anne’s. And perhaps Anne was, in fact, the foolish, whimsical creature everyone had taken her for, because she craved love above all else.
Fool. Fool. Fool. Hadn’t life taught her that most times, love wasn’t enough?
“Why?” she asked.
He raised her fingertips to his lips and touched his mouth to the inside of her wrist. The intimate gesture felt like a betrayal of sorts to Harry.
“Why, Anne?” When one was a duke he could drop all formality and call a young lady by her given name. Even without permission. “Because you wondered about the A.”
“And you’d have me for your wife.” She’d spent so very many days attempting to capture a duke, and yet so very little time in considering the best, most polite way to decline a duke’s offer. She took a deep breath.
He placed his index finger upon her lips. “Think on it. Stanhope’s past has returned and I suspect it impacts your future. Therefore, I’d like to claim that spot in your future, Anne. I don’t require an answer now.”
She knew so very little about the duke. No one truly knew a thing of this man or his past, and yet, she suspected he would make some young lady a wonderful husband. It didn’t matter if she gave her answer now or two years from now. The answer would still be no. That young lady would never be her.
As he stood, to take his leave, she suspected he knew it as well.
~*~
Harry strode through White’s, daring some foolish bastard to look his way. Since Margaret’s scandalous reentrance into Society, his name, her name, their past, the question of their future had been splashed across every last scandal sheet. He yanked out the chair at his table and sat with his back to the club. A liveried servant rushed over, with a bottle of brandy and an empty glass. Harry reached for them. And then remembered Anne’s damned father and shoved it aside. Instead, he picked up the empty glass and rolled it between his hands.
He’d paid her a visit earlier that afternoon, but he’d been politely, if coolly, turned away by the aged butler. Not receiving callers.
Harry growled. As though he were any other suitor and she was any other woman. Nothing could be further from the truth. Why, she was…hell, he still didn’t know quite what Anne Adamson was or meant to him. It was enough to know fury roiled in his belly at being turned away from her front door.
He imagined she was cross with him for having failed to meet her in Lady Preston’s gardens last evening. Any woman would be annoyed at having been abandoned with a scheduled meeting. Even as he’d ached to find the temptress in orange satin, her damned brother-in-law and then Margaret had cut off all hopes of seeing Anne, alone, removed from the gossipy ton. Anne had never struck him as a vindictive female. Yes, she’d made him want to gnash his teeth on more scores than he could count, but he’d never imagine she would turn him away.
He set the empty glass down with a thunk! He’d not truly allowed himself to consider what Margaret’s appearance meant to him and Anne, because even now, he didn’t even know what the hell he and Anne had, or were, if anything. What Harry did have the sense to realize, however, is that Margaret’s arrival in London would inevitably impact his relationship with Anne. In the span of a single evening, he’d been forced to confront his past and try and sort out just where Anne fit into his future.
With Margaret’s reentry into his life he’d at last found an unexpected sense of peace. The resentment and fury he’d carried had been the passionate response of a headstrong, competitive gentleman vying for her hand. There had been no real love there.
Anne mattered. She mattered in ways that no woman, not even Margaret truly had…or ever would.
Could he wed Anne?
Could he, when after Margaret’s betrayal, he’d sworn to never give his heart to another?
Tension knotted in his stomach. Since his first meeting with Anne, she’d vowed to capture the heart of a duke and Harry had done his damnedest to teach her just how to land not just Crawford, but any gentleman’s notice.
He swiped a hand over his eyes. Could he humble himself before her, in the hope that she would invariably choose him? Choose him, when there was another more titled, more proper choice?
“You look to be in need of company,” a haughty, now hated voice drawled.
He glanced up at the more titled, more proper choice. The illustrious Duke of Crawford didn’t wait for a response. Instead he slid into the vacant seat opposite Harry. And the pressure in Harry’s gut tightened. The last thing he cared for was company. Particularly with the man Anne had set her sights upon.
Crawford gestured to the brandy. “May I?”
Wordlessly, Harry shoved the unused glass across to the other man. Someone should make use of the fine spirits.
A servant rushed forward and the duke waved him off. “Believe it or not, I can manage opening my own bottle and pouring myself a glass of brandy.” His dry humor, as crisp as autumn leaves, gave Harry pause.
He preferred the image of lofty noble who considered himself well-above the lesser lords and ladies. He preferred that image because he’d rather hate the man Anne would have as her husband, in her bed, the man who’d place his hands upon her breasts, and bring her pleasure, and—
“I just visited with Lady Anne.”
Harry’s leg jumped in an involuntary reflex. The duke caught the opened bottle before it toppled over. “Did you?” Harry managed to squeeze past tight lips. She’d turned him away but received the duke. “And how is Lady Anne?” Of course, she sent you away, you blasted fool. You’ve served one purpose, to school the lady in the art of seduction. He’d apparently succeeded beyond even his expectations.
The duke took a sip of his brandy. “Quite well.”
Quite well. And here he’d spent all of last evening awake, well into the early morning hours fearful Anne had been wounded with Margaret returning and calling his attention away from their arranged meeting.
Fool. Fool. Fool.
“I’ll speak bluntly, Stanhope. I intend to wed the young lady.”
Harry stared, unblinking at the duke’s throat. It would create quite the scandal if he dragged the other man across the table by his meticulous cravat and beat him within a breath of oblivion. Harry, however, had weathered far greater scandals. “Do you?” he asked with a deliberate yawn. “And does the young lady know of these intentions?”
“She does,” Crawford said quietly.
Another image slipped into his mind. Anne taking Crawford’s kiss, and laughing about Harry, the poor sod who’d grown to… He forced his mind to a screeching halt, not allowing himself to consider just what he’d grown to do exactly.
The duke took another sip. “I brought the lady flowers and spoke quite plainly of my intentions.”
Flowers. His lips pulled in a derisive smile. The bastard knew her so little he didn’t even know the small details that made Anne, Anne. He didn’t know she sneezed at the mere sight of a bloom.
Crawford passed his glass back and forth between his hands. “Though it appears the lady has an insensitivity to flowers.”
It would also appear her damned duke had gleaned that particular detail. He now knew her husky contralto, and likely her sultry laugh and…Harry tightened his grip upon the edge of the table, digging so hard, his fingers were sure to leave crescent indents upon the immaculate surface.
“Why don’t you say what it is you’ve come to say and then be on your way?” Harry snarled, all out of patience with the other man and his veneer of politeness.
Crawford set his glass down. He laid his elbows upon the table and leaned over, all hint of friendliness gone. “May I speak plainly?”
He gave a brusque nod.
“The lady will make me an excellent duchess.”
Harry’s empty stomach churned with nausea.
“There is nothing you can give her that I cannot. Perhaps with the exception of a broken heart, that is.” The other man ran a condescending stare over Harry. “I’m the better man.” He leaned back in his chair. “I suspect you know that, and will allow me to do the honorable thing where Lady Anne is concerned.”
Harry clenched his jaw so tight, pain radiated up to his temple as a tumult of emotion swept through him. Hate burned violent and strong, threatening to consume. Hate for Anne’s having involved him in this scheme. Hate with himself for caring for her when he’d pledged to never care again. And hate for Crawford—for being right.
“Oh, come, now, Stanhope,” the duke scoffed. “No need to act affronted. You’re a rogue,” he said flatly. “A shiftless cad. Then, I gather you know exactly what you are, which is why you’ll also realize I am, in fact, Lady Anne’s best option.” He shoved back his seat and stood. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
Harry stared after the duke’s swiftly retreating form, damning him to hell for being correct.