A SHORT WHILE later, they left the house to wander down a gravel walk that led to a Palladian bridge, which looked like a long, skinny Greek temple spanning the frozen pond.
Hart’s mind still reeled from their discussion in the breakfast room. Anne kept her and her mother’s expenses in line? That didn’t seem like the girl he’d known. Then again, she was older now. And her father had been a merchant. Some of it must have rubbed off on her.
But she did seem overly distressed about his gambling, considering that plenty of gentlemen played cards for entertainment. Before he let that worry him, he must figure out why. Did her concern stem from the finances of it? He could understand that. But if morality was what bothered her . . . well, spymasters didn’t always get to choose the places they got to frequent. If she’d grown so high in the instep that she objected to his frequenting gaming hells, that could prove problematic.
He’d deal with that later. Right now, he should keep the conversation light until she felt more comfortable with him. “Why are you so interested in hats?”
She halted. “Hats!” Whirling on her heel, she started to head back the way they’d come. “Oh, Lord, I entirely forgot. I’m supposed to be helping set up for the charity sale. We’re selling a number of my creations, so I—”
He moved to block her path. “I passed by the ballroom before I found you, and there were at least ten people in there working already. The ladies can do without you for another hour, can’t they? When else will we get to speak uninterrupted?”
Biting her lower lip, she gazed at the house worriedly. Then her face cleared. “You’re right. I can spare an hour. It’s not as if anyone would do anything to my hats, after all.”
With a laugh, he took her arm to lead her along the path again. “You speak as if they’re your children.”
“Don’t be silly. One does not sell one’s children. Or one shouldn’t, anyway. But yes, I like hats.”
“Why? Or rather, why so much?”
“It started as a way to cover my dreadful hair as much as possible.”
That provoked a visceral reaction in him. “There isn’t anything remotely dreadful about your hair,” he growled.
She flashed him a sad smile. “That’s very kind of you, but most of our countrymen wouldn’t agree. The phrase ‘redheaded stepchild’ didn’t arise from nowhere.” She sighed. “And ginger is so very hard to match with anything. Brown hair is neutral, blond is neutral, black is neutral. Red is anything but neutral.”
He’d never looked at it that way. “Do you want to be neutral? To look like everyone else?”
“I did when I was young. I didn’t want everyone staring at me and remarking upon my carrot top and my hot temper and other nonsense associated with ginger hair. So I wore big hats to make people focus on them, not the hair.” Her expression turned pensive as they approached the bridge. “Then it just sort of . . . grew on me.”
“The hats?”
“The liking of them. You see, hats are practical. Everyone needs them—to keep their heads warm in winter and protect their skin from sun in summer. Even the poor have basic ones. But while fashionable gowns are costly, anyone with a creative bent and a keen eye can afford a fashionable hat.”
He didn’t follow. “Because they’re smaller than gowns?”
“No, silly. Because anyone can trim a hat with anything. If you can’t afford ribbons, a strip of lace or a strip of embroidery isn’t too onerous to make. If you live by the sea, you can trim your hat with seashells. If you live in the country, feathers abound.”
“True. I know a peacock with a sore bum who can testify to that.”
She swatted him with her fur muff, leaving it dangling from her wrist by its fancy chain. “All I’m saying is it can be inexpensive. It doesn’t even have to be anything permanent. Why, you could use real leaves and flowers and fruit if you didn’t mind retrimming every day.”
As she paused inside the bridge pillars to stare up at him, a brilliant smile crossed her face. “Hats are the most egalitarian creations in fashion. And that, sir, is why I love them.”
In that instant, he glimpsed the old Anne. The one who didn’t care if a person was rich or poor, young or old. The one who believed that everyone could have a beautiful hat, and who would laud them all equally.
He gazed down at her—at her cheeks reddened from the cold and her cheery hat shielding too much of her pretty face for his taste—and he couldn’t resist her temptations anymore. He pressed her against one of the pillars so they were hidden from view of the house in case anyone happened to be looking.
As she blinked up at him, her amber eyes darkened to brown in the shadows. “Hart?”
Then he bent his head beneath her enormous hat and kissed her. He had to. He’d die if he didn’t get a taste of her right now.
She paused only a moment before her mouth opened, allowing him to sink his tongue inside its silken warmth. God, but she was sweet. And so delicious. He could stay here all day kissing her, holding her, the cold weather be damned.
When she made a little mew of pleasure he hardened instantly, and his kisses turned rougher, deeper. He couldn’t get enough of her mouth, but she might not still be the Anne who wanted him. And suddenly he desperately needed to remind her that she had once. That she hadn’t cared about his reputation or rank or aspirations or any of that rot.
He kissed along her jaw and down her throat, and her eyes fell closed as she clutched at his shoulders with a sigh. His hands deftly unwrapped her scarf and opened her cloak so he could get to the lush bounty beneath. But when he paused long enough to tug his gloves off with his teeth, her eyelids parted to slits.
“What are you doing?” she asked in a slumberous voice, as if he’d put her in a trance.
It was only fair. She’d put him into one. “My hands are cold.” He slid them inside her cloak and filled them with her breasts.
Her eyes shot open, and she covered his hands with hers. “So you plan to warm them by putting them somewhere you shouldn’t?”
He thumbed her nipples through her gown and watched as her mouth formed an astonished O. “Shall I stop?” he rasped, using his palms to knead and tease.
She gulped. “We . . . we’re supposed . . . to be talking . . .”
“We can still talk.” He pushed in closer, then bent his head to suck her earlobe. “I’ll just . . . warm my hands while we do.”
“Ohhh, Lord . . . You always were wicked. But not . . . this wicked.”
He choked out a laugh. “I wanted to be.” With a nip of her earlobe, he whispered, “I imagined you in my bed so many times that I thought I’d go insane from desire. Did you think of me that way, too?”
Her breathing grew labored. “I thought of you touching me . . . all over. Kissing me all over.” She slid her hands inside his greatcoat to rest on his waist. “I wondered . . . what you would look like . . . naked.”
As his cock gave a full salute, he jerked back. “Anne!”
She smiled. “Well, I did. Women do think of such things, you know.”
“I suppose. I just . . . I didn’t expect that you . . .”
She looked embarrassed now. “Does that make me awful?”
“No! Not in the least. I’m merely . . . surprised.”
And aroused beyond endurance. If he kept “warming his hands,” he was going to do something foolish like shove her up against that pillar and make love to her until she cried out her pleasure loud enough for the whole world to hear.
Regretfully releasing her, he backed away. “We should probably return to the house before we . . . er . . . go too far.”
With a nod, she began putting her clothing to rights and restoring the hat he’d mangled by pressing her against the pillar.
That reminded him of what they’d been talking about before. And what he really ought to be discussing, if only to keep his mind off what he wanted to be doing to her.
“So,” he said, “you’re egalitarian in your fashion choices.” He must handle this very carefully. “Are you also egalitarian in your choice of men?”
A minxish look crossed her face. “Do you mean, am I willing to marry a second son?”
“Or a man who owns no land?”
“What!” she said in mock protest. “I thought second sons all owned enormous estates!”
“Be serious. You know perfectly well that while some second sons have property left to them by their mothers, I don’t, or else your father would probably have welcomed my suit. Down the road I might afford an estate, but at present—”
“Papa didn’t start out with land, and I believe he found owning an estate far more troublesome than owning a house in Stilford. Since I’ve lived both ways, I can honestly say it doesn’t matter to me.”
He searched her face. “What about having a husband with an odd profession? Or a husband who might not have a profession you could brag about?” Or even talk about—though he didn’t want to get into that yet.
She cut her eyes up at him teasingly. “What sort of profession do you mean? Have you taken up juggling? Surgery? Have you decided to make a living as a tailor? Because although I can’t see you with a measuring tape in hand, you do dress nicely.” Her gaze drifted down decidedly south of where a lady’s ought. “And fill out your clothing very well.”
The arousal he’d begun to get under control reared its head anew. “Seriously, please answer me.”
Her smile faded as she leaned back against the pillar to tuck her hands into her muff. “Come now, Hart. I can’t possibly know how I’d feel about a mythical profession for which you’ve given me no details.”
The sight of her lovely amber eyes regarding him so seriously made him want to throw caution to the wind. Almost. He hadn’t gained Fulkham’s trust by telling people willy-nilly what he did for the man.
But she had a point. He needed to tell her something.
Offering her his arm, he led her back toward the house. “I’ve been working for Fulkham from time to time. Investigating matters when he needs it. Researching troublesome situations. Finding out information. That sort of thing.”
She digested that. “Like a law clerk?”
“No, not like a law clerk,” he said, a bit offended. “It’s more involved than that.” And much more dangerous, which she did not need to know.
Apparently sensing his annoyance, she walked beside him a few more steps before venturing another question. “And it pays well?”
“It pays enough. And is likely to turn into something more lucrative.”
“But is it likely to turn into something more steady?”
“I hope so. That’s what I meant when I said nothing was certain yet. He and I are still working out the details.”
“I see.”
But judging from her expression, she didn’t see at all.
They continued a short distance until he couldn’t take the silence anymore. “Well? What do you think?”
She let out a long breath. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I think Lord Fulkham is leading you on.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It’s clear he only wants to use you when he needs you, but he hasn’t considered that a man like you, at the age to settle down, requires a regular salary and position.”
Closing his eyes, he rubbed his temple. “Oh, God.”
“I mean, he’s obviously taking advantage of you.”
“Fulkham is not taking advantage of me,” he bit out.
“You’d be better off as a clerk, returning to study law when you can—”
“I’m not returning to study law!” he cried.
She flinched.
Damn it, he’d made a total hash of this. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. But I told you—it’s complicated. I don’t think I explained it right.”
“I think you explained it very well,” she said with a sniff. “I think you just aren’t seeing how he’s abusing your good nature.”
Fulkham would find that vastly amusing, considering that Hart had practically begged him for the opportunity to become one of his spies.
Hart was trying to figure out how the hell he was supposed to explain his situation without going too deeply into it when Delia came hurrying up the path.
“Anne! I’ve been looking all over for you!” She eyed Hart suspiciously. “I thought you weren’t interested in any of the young unmarried ladies.”
Before he could answer, Anne replied, “I asked Captain Lord Hartley to show me the way to the farm where he saw some peacocks, so I could obtain more feathers for my hats. But then I remembered that I was supposed to be in the ballroom helping all of you. We were returning there now.”
When Delia looked suspicious, Anne removed the peacock feather she’d stuck into her hat. “He found this while out walking this morning, and I asked about it at breakfast. He was kind enough to give it to me, but I just had to have more.”
“Old George in the valley keeps peacocks,” Hart added helpfully. He’d promised Anne to keep their re-courtship private for now, so he would.
“Oh, right. Warren mentioned that.” Delia turned to Anne. “Well, if you don’t mind, Clarissa and Yvette are in some confusion about whether we use the red or the purple ribbons on the crowns of the simple hats. And there’s some question about the ostrich feathers—”
“Of course.” Anne gave Hart a sketchy bow and a secretive smile. “Thank you for the feather, sir, but I must go.”
“I understand. Thank you for the conversation, madam. I shall look forward to more of it at dinner.”
Anne turned to head off, and Delia said, “You go on. I’ll be along shortly. I just need to speak to my brother-in-law about a pressing matter.”
Damn. And he’d thought he’d escaped detection.
The minute Anne was out of earshot, Delia turned to him. “Walk with me.”
“All right.”
As they followed Anne at a more leisurely pace, he could feel Delia’s eyes on him.
“So,” she asked, “what are you up to with my friend?”
“I have no idea what you mean.” Not for nothing had Fulkham trained him to prevaricate, evade, and outright lie when necessary.
“Hartley Corry, I daresay you have never in your life picked up a peacock feather. Why on earth would you do so now?”
He shrugged. “I thought I might use it as a quill pen. What of it?”
“No one uses peacock feathers for pens.”
“I don’t see why not. They’re big enough.”
“And that’s all there was to it? You fancied using it as a quill? Then offered it to Anne on a whim?”
“Once she admired my feather, I could hardly resist giving it to her.” He grinned. “I am nothing if not gallant to pretty young ladies.”
“Hart,” she said in a warning tone, “take care with Lady Anne. Don’t you dare toy with her affections. She’s respectable, you know. Not the sort of woman you can have a quick tumble with.”
That sparked his temper. “By God, do you really have so low an opinion of me? Still?”
Delia sighed. “No. You tend to be all bark and no bite. Or all tease and no tumble.” She tapped her chin. “All flirt and no fornicate?”
“I get the point,” he said dryly.
“Anyway, she might not understand that you aren’t serious.”
And if I am? “Duly noted.”
At the house now, he followed Delia into the ballroom, curious to see what the ladies were up to. Apparently their first order of business was chatter; he couldn’t even think with the noise of their talking. The dance floor now held a variety of tables, each being decorated and covered with objects of all sorts: embroidered braces for men, beaded reticules for women, needlepoint pillowcases and slippers, and God knew what all.
Behind the tables, footmen were stringing wires the length of the room so that pictures could be hung from them: oil paintings, watercolors, pen-and-ink drawings, and even framed samplers. It was a veritable buffet of women’s work.
“Good God,” he said to Delia. “You organized all of this?”
“Really, Anne did most of it. I was too busy getting married and overseeing the renovation of our nursery.”
“Right. Warren told me I’m to be an uncle in about four months.”
She rubbed her belly, and the unconscious gesture shot envy through him. How he hoped that would be Anne someday, heavy with their own child. But that would only happen if he didn’t muck this up somehow.
“Anyway,” she said, “Anne wrote all the letters and arranged to have merchants donate certain items and for ladies of Shrewsbury society to contribute. A number of townspeople will be coming out here for the sale, so we should be able to raise a great deal of money, if only from the hats alone.”
“Yes, where are the famous hats?”
“Down there. There were too many to put anywhere else.”
Delia gestured to the far end, where the supper table held the largest collection of bonnets and hats he’d ever seen outside of a theater cloakroom. There were simple hats and elaborate hats, straw hats and silk hats, hats for the opera and hats for just walking about.
Anne stood at the edge, directing footmen to carry stacks of small, virtually identical hats out of the room. “Where are they going with those?” he asked Delia.
“Oh, those were mistakenly put in here. They’re not for sale.”
“Why not?”
“They’re for the orphans. The blue ones are for the boys and the pink for the girls. We’re sending along an assortment of trims, too, so that if the children wish to adorn theirs further, they can.”
Hats are the most egalitarian creations in fashion.
He nearly choked on the lump in his throat. “That’s a wonderful idea.”
“I thought so. Anne made all the little hats herself. She created several of the larger ones, too, but quite a few are donated hats that we all retrimmed. The little hats are strictly hers, though. For the children.”
“Right.” He damned well better go before he started bawling like a baby, or doing something equally unmanly. “Well, then, I suppose I’ll leave you lot to it.”
One way or another, by the end of this week, he meant to secure Anne as his wife. Because any woman who went to so much trouble on behalf of a bunch of unknown orphans was worth her weight in gold.