Chapter 19
Harry suspected that after Margaret’s unexpected return, the woman who’d broken his heart should occupy his thoughts. And yet, since the Duke of Crawford had taken his leave earlier that afternoon, Harry hadn’t been able to rid himself of thoughts of the other man’s visit.
He stared blankly out at the sea of faces, the waltzing couples, not truly seeing anything. He dimly registered Margaret at the opposite end of the ballroom. He yanked his attention away from her and searched the crowd for the woman he truly wished to see.
His friend, Edgerton, strolled over with two glasses of champagne. He handed one of to Harry. “I see Rutland has wasted little time,” Edgerton murmured.
Harry glanced up in time to see Rutland cut a path through the ballroom floor. He stared dispassionately on as his old rival for Margaret’s affections, a man he’d nearly fought to the death for the right to her made his way to the young duchess. Odd he should feel nothing. Not even the faintest stirrings of regret, jealousy…just a detached disinterest in these two people who owned a piece of his past and shaped him into the bastard he’d become. Rutland paused before Margaret and bowed. The crowd caught and held a collective breath in anticipation of the lady’s reaction. The duchess placed her fingertips in Rutland’s hand and allowed him to kiss her fingers.
“I heard you had a visitor at your club today.”
Bloody, Crawford. He’d love to send the arrogant bastard to the devil.
“Vying for a young lady’s hand.” Edgerton shook his head pityingly. “A bit of history repeating itself, one could say.”
“One could not say,” he snapped, despising the eerie similarities that had cost him first Margaret, and now, his greatest loss—Anne Adamson.
“He’s better off with her, Stanhope,” his friend continued, following Harry’s unspoken thoughts. “She’s an empty-headed, pleasantly pretty miss, who desires nothing more than the most advantageous match.”
Harry curled his hands into tight balls and fought the urge to bury his fist into Edgerton’s face.
“Do you know what I believe?” the other man went on, clearly having no idea how very close Harry was to laying him out.
“No.” Nor did he care about his friend’s opinion just then. With each word Edgerton uttered, the idea of delivering a well-aimed facer became more appealing.
“Take your Margaret. Avail yourself to the pleasures of her body” he urged with a trace of annoyance. “Everyone saw the lust in her eyes, Stanhope. Take her. And once you tire of her, be done with the lady. Just as you would any other widow.” He jerked his chin across the room. “And leave that one to Crawford.”
Harry followed his friend’s movement. The sight of Anne sucked the breath from his lungs. He’d not seen her in but a day and it was too long. Her expertly arranged, gloriously free tresses hung about her shoulders giving her the look of a woman who’d discovered sin and delighted in it. A lone ribbon woven through one errant strand, hung between her breasts. Ah, she was an excellent study. He wished she’d been a horrid student. Wished she’d failed miserably. Instead, she glided down the stairs with the grace to rival all the queens in Europe. Her eyes searched the crowd and he allowed himself to foolishly believe he was, in fact, the one she sought.
Katherine sidled up to her. Strange, he had ever favored Anne’s sister. Now, the duchess seemed a dull shadow to Anne’s effervescent beauty. She whispered something close to Anne’s ear. Even with the space of the ballroom between them, Harry detected the imperceptible stiffening of Anne’s bared shoulders. She gave a curt nod and then followed Katherine off.
He cursed as he lost them in the crowd of bodies.
“You’ve the look of a lovesick swain etched upon your face,” Edgerton whispered. “By God, man, I’m trying to help you.”
Harry straightened the lapels of his jacket. “Go to hell, Edgerton,” he said, tiring of his friend’s sage advice.
“Hullo, Harry. I’ve been waiting for you all evening.”
His body went taut, wishing it had been an altogether different woman waiting for him. “Have you?” He turned and greeted Margaret with frigid coldness. “If you’ll excuse me, there is someone I need to speak with.”
And the desire to find Anne had nothing to do with Margaret or revenge…and everything to do with Anne.
~*~
“What do you see?” Katherine whispered up to her husband. More than a foot taller than Anne and Katherine’s heights of five feet two inches, Jasper skimmed the crowd.
Anne’s heart paused at the unholy glint in her brother-in-law’s eyes. “What is it?” she asked, reaching for his sleeve, and then drew her fingers back.
He brusquely shook his head. “Nothing.” The curt, one word utterance told an entirely different tale.
Anne arched up on tiptoes and craned her neck.
Her sister pinched her arm. “Do behave, Anne. You’ll attract notice.”
She ignored her prudent warning and scanned the ballroom in search of Harry. Her heart tripped a beat as she spied him. He stood, a glorious, golden god beside a lush fertility goddess. Anne sank back on her heels, a hopelessly empty feeling spiraled through her.
“I’ll kill him,” Katherine muttered. Her cat-like eyes narrowed into thin slits. “Oh, the bounder, coming this way.”
Anne’s heart kicked up a beat. She clutched her sister’s forearm. “Is he?” Then, the crowd parted for Harry’s tall, well-muscled frame as he continued his forward course, in her direction. She knew her mother spoke the truth and inevitably there would have to be a goodbye between her and Harry. For now, all she knew was him. A lazy smile played about his lips.
Oh, how she’d missed him. He stopped before the small trio that represented Anne’s family. He inclined his head. “Bainbridge.”
For a moment, Anne suspected her brother-in-law might not return the greeting. She held her breath, but then Jasper sketched a short, if insolent, bow. Katherine glared at Harry.
He seemed wholly immune to her sister’s displeasure. His gaze remained fixed on Anne while the crowd’s laughter soared above the crescendo of the lively country reel.
“Lord Stanhope,” Katherine said in a cold tone Anne had come to know of their mother but never her twin.
“Kat,” he replied absently, in a way that snapped Jasper’s eyebrows into a single, menacing black line.
Anne fisted her skirts at the unwitting reminder of the ignominious beginning to Katherine and Harry’s friendship. If her sister didn’t love Jasper to distraction, then she would have been the Adamson sister who'd earned a place in Harry’s bed. And Anne wouldn’t know Harry in this beautifully intimate way. She’d never know this man who saw in her a clever woman with actual thoughts beyond the fabric of her gowns. How empty her life would have been, if there’d never been Harry.
The dancers erupted into a bevy of applause as the country reel drew to a close.
She looked away. And how much emptier it would be when he ultimately wed another.
Harry glanced down at the dance card about Anne’s wrist. “Will you do me the pleasure of partnering me in the next set?”
Ignoring her sister’s pointed look, Anne placed her fingertips upon his sleeve and allowed him to draw her out onto the floor as the orchestra plucked the opening strands of a waltz.
“I missed you last evening, Anne,” he murmured, as they took their places amongst the other dancers.
If it weren’t for the insolent grin on his cynical lips she might believe him. She looked to a point beyond his shoulder, ultimately finding the lush widow. The woman stood eying them with such pain dripping from the depths of her eyes, Anne forced herself to look away. “Did you?” she said tightly.
He applied slight pressure to her waist. “Never tell me you were displeased with me?”
She fixed her angry stare upon the expert lines of his white cravat. This was all a game to him. Margaret’s reentry into his, and subsequently, Anne’s life. The ton’s morbid fascination with the small scandal. All the while he’d met with his former love, Anne had fended off Lord Rutland’s vile advances.
“What, nothing to say? Were you this silent with Crawford earlier this morn? After you’d sent me away.”
Her eyes flew to his. A hard glint reflected in their hazel depths. “How…?”
“How did I know about Crawford?” he correctly finished her question. “I’ve my ways, sweet.”
She gritted her teeth. “I’d ask you not to call me sweet, Harry.”
“Particularly if you are to become the Duchess of Crawford,” he said, his words taunting.
She would never be Crawford’s anything.
Anne said nothing. She’d not give Harry the satisfaction of baiting her, not when she was the one suffering so.
He pulled her body closer. She wanted to shove him away, remind him of the rules of propriety, but more she longed to feel his body close to hers. Harry dipped his head. “I gather our lessons are at an end,” he said, close to her ear.
He might as well have taken a blunt dagger and thrust it into her breaking heart. Anne dropped her gaze to his cravat shamed by the truth; she’d broken the promise he’d required of her in Lord Essex’s conservatory. “I gather you’re indeed, correct,” she said, her voice a near whisper. She’d fallen hopelessly in love with him.
“Will you meet me, sweet Anne?”
Fool that she was, she’d steal this one final moment with him, for herself. “Where?” So someday, when she was miserable and alone, she’d recall there had been a gentleman who’d made her heart race, even as his heart had belonged to another.
“In the conservatory.” Her eyes slid closed of their own volition. Of course. The conservatory. “Will you?” His husky whisper brushed her skin. Like any other one of his scandalous widows and unhappily wed ladies.
She managed a jerky nod and mourned the ending of the waltz that signified the beginning of the end of her and Harry, the Earl of Stanhope. “Meet me, after the next set.” The harsh, unyielding command belonged to a man accustomed to women falling at his proverbial feet, for the pleasure of his touch. They parted. He with a curt bow. She with a stiffly polite curtsy.
And then for the first time in ten days, moved in opposite directions. Away from one another.
Anne spied Katherine and Jasper; their bodies leaned close, a soft smile on her sister’s blushing cheeks. Anne halted, feeling like the worst sort of interloper upon their intimate exchange. With wooden steps she changed direction and wandered back to her spot beside Lady Cavendish’s potted fern, staring blankly at the green plant. How very unusual, to have a fern in the midst of a ball. She touched a finger to a green leaf, wondering if she didn’t meet Harry just now, would they continue on as they had for the past ten days? She drew her hand back, and gave her head a clearing shake. She’d been fool enough where Harry was concerned, giving her heart to him when he could never love her in return.
With wooden steps she skirted the edge of the ballroom floor. Of course, no one would note her furtive movements, her inevitable disappearance. They had only been interested in the old scandal brought to life for the voracious appetites of hungry peers. The pad of her slippers nearly silent upon the thin, carpeted corridor. She followed the crimson red path. Absently, she thought of the many scandalous trysts Harry had engaged in. How had he known where the conservatory was from the garden from the library?
He must be quite practiced, indeed. Why— A startled shriek escaped her as a horribly familiar, flawlessly beautiful figure stepped into Anne’s path.
The Duchess of Monteith picked Anne apart with her eyes, and Anne knew the moment the woman lifted her vivid brown gaze up, that she’d found her lacking. Suddenly, feeling very silly in her modest ivory skirts when the other woman in her dampened satin sapphire, evinced the beauty men penned sonnets for.
When it became clear the duchess had little intention of breaking the awkward silence, Anne sank into a deep curtsy. “Your Grace,” she murmured. “Forgive me, I was just—”
“You are Harry’s current lover, aren’t you?” Anne flinched feeling as though she’d been kicked in the stomach. A malevolent gleam lit the sparks of green in her eyes and for a moment all hint of beauty was lost in the ugliness of a woman made bitter by life…and jealousy. “I’ve read of you,” She paused and flicked her gaze over Anne’s person. “And the others dear Harry has been with.”
Anne flinched but then took a steadying breath. This mean-spirited shrew would not cow her. Beauty aside, she couldn’t fathom what Harry saw in one such as this. “I’m no one’s lover, Your Grace. I’m a lady.”
Her black eyebrows knitted into a single line. Fury sparked in her cold gaze.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Anne said again.
It was one thing to give Harry up to this foul creature, quite another to needlessly take the woman’s abuse.
“I gather you’re off to repair your hem?”
The mocking words slowed Anne’s step.
Do not look back, Anne Arlette Adamson. Do not give her the satisfaction.
Then, her sister had always deplored the rash decisions made by her. She turned back around.
“You may have your champagne in the conservatory. Ah, surely you didn’t think you were special,” the duchess jeered, clearly seeing the shock in Anne’s expression.
“No. No, I did not think I was special.” She’d known all along just how much she meant to Harry.
Nothing at all.
“Go have your champagne, Lady Anne and when you’re done, he’ll come back to me. Because he loves me.” If those last four words had been biting and cruel they’d have hurt a good deal less. But the matter-of-factness of that pronouncement burned like acid thrown upon an open wound.
“Just as you love him?” Anne shot back. Fury licked at her insides and she embraced it, finding strength in the heated emotion. “You loved him so much you threw away his heart and the opportunity to be his in every sense of the word. And for what? The title of duchess.” She passed a condescending glance up and down the woman’s perfect form, and then shook her head, repulsed by the mere sight of her. “You never deserved him.” And yet, he would forever be hers.
The woman blanched, in apparent shock at Anne’s boldness. “I’ll not answer to you for the mistakes of my past, Lady Anne.” She spoke in a stoic calm. “Know that I’ve never stopped loving him and I intend to win back his heart.”
“I’m sure that will be some consolation after the manner in which you betrayed him.” She dipped a final curtsy. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I should really see to my…hem.” Anne snapped her flawless skirts and started down the hall. All the while the duchess’ stare bore a hole into her back. When she turned right down another corridor she leaned back against the wall, and sought support from the solid plaster. She pressed a hand against her wildly hammering heart.
She’d never before realized how vastly different she was than the Harry, Earl of Stanhope’s of the world. She’d spoken to him of seduction with a child’s naiveté and yet, in truth she did not fit into the malicious, grasping world that belonged to him and all the widows and lovers he’d taken before her.
She peeked around the wall and found the duchess at last gone. She briefly thought about returning to the ballroom and abandoning this clandestine meeting. “You’re a fool, Anne,” she muttered under her breath and started in search of the conservatory.
A short while later she’d turned down another long corridor and at last found the blasted room. Before her courage deserted her, she pressed the handle and stepped inside. “Hullo,” she called into the quiet.
Hullo, Lord Stanhope…
The memory of Lady Kendrick in her dampened gown in an altogether different conservatory weaved its way about her consciousness. She strolled over to the long worktable.
And froze.
Two crystal champagne flutes.
That appeared to be what she would now throw away her respectability and sense of decency for.
Anne picked a glass up and for the first time in her twenty years sipped of the forbidden French liquor. She downed it in a long, slow swallow, delighting in the liquid fortitude that worked its way through her suddenly warm being. The moments ticked by, with the loud hum of quiet blaring in her ears and she stared into the now empty glass. One crystal bead clung to the inside rim of the glass. Anne stilled, and then touched one trembling finger to the lonely drop.
She loved him. She loved him with a strength that terrified her. The same depth of emotion that had surely broken her own mother’s heart. And yet, even with her love for him, she couldn’t forsake either her pride or her virtue. If she did this thing, if she allowed Harry to lay claim to her body as she longed to, knowing all the while he belonged to another—then what would she be?
Large, sure hands settled upon her shoulders. Her lids fluttered closed. “I can’t do this, Harry,” she said with the same regret surely known by Calypso when being forced to free her Odysseus. “I shouldn’t have come.”
“I’m ever so glad you did,” a loathsome voice said against her ear.
She dropped the glass. It shattered upon the mahogany table. Crystal shards sprayed her skirts. Lord Rutland’s lips brushed her ear and she cringed. “Unhand me, you…you bastard,” she hissed. Her heart thumped painfully.
Lord Rutland chuckled.
Gooseflesh dotted her skin at that mirthless, cruel sound. The implications of being here, alone with the merciless Lord Rutland sank into her with a growing dread. She struggled against him. “I’ll be ruined if I’m discovered with you.” She attempted to slip out from under his powerful grip.
He held firm. “Never tell me you didn’t think of our last kiss.”
How could she ever think of another kiss, imagine another embrace after Harry? She jammed her elbow into his stomach. “No. I really haven’t,” she said with a bluntness that elicited another one of those steely smiles.
Anne ground her heel upon his instep. “Unhand me,” she ordered again. Last time she’d managed to elude the marquess, but really the truth is more he’d set her free. What if he held firm? One passerby and she’d be ruined. The pebble in her belly grew to the size of a boulder and churned painfully.
He shifted her in his arms. “Rest assured, I’ve no intention for us to be discovered together, my lady,” he drawled in that condescending tone she’d come to expect.
The conservatory door opened and her heart sank somewhere in the vicinity of her toes. “Anne?”
She pressed her eyes closed.
Harry.