Anna's Refuge

by Kerryn Reid

  Instead she had met him alone, without warning, on his home territory. Because of Lewis’s monstrous stupidity.

  Redfern and his wife had pressed Anna for the particulars of the encounter—no wonder, after the way Lewis dragged her through the kitchen on their return. “We expected a madman to follow you through the door, wielding a hatchet,” Mrs. Redfern said.

  Anna would not discuss the details, with the Redferns or alone with Lewis. “It’s not important,” she insisted. “He did me no harm.”

  But Lewis had seen her face when he found them together. He had seen the bruise on her arm. The man was not harmless.

  However Lewis might chastise himself, cancellation of the originally scheduled Sunday introductions made it possible to spend a blissful morning with Anna and Doris. The vicarage seemed astonishingly quiet with the family at church. Only Putnam remained to play chaperone and nursery maid.

  Anna’s kisses, that day the trunk arrived, had stirred up the craving he had stifled so successfully. It thrilled every part of him, emotional and physical, that she sparkled and blushed with the same awareness. He yearned for her, ached to make her his. Fifteen impossible days to wait, because Mrs. Redfern had said so when, blushing and stammering, Lewis asked her. Six weeks after childbirth. They’d scheduled the wedding accordingly.

  Well, he was not Gideon, nor a bull in the field. He could control his desire.

  Nevertheless, it was just as well he and Anna would be sleeping under different roofs until then. To think he had told her he would demand nothing but the right to protect her child. What a saphead.

  The family returned with all their tumult and Lewis took his leave. She was expecting the modiste for a fitting of the gown she would wear at the wedding. She would tell him nothing about it, not even the color.

  For the rest of the week, he hardly saw her. In addition to his other errands, he began searching for a place to live. He did not want Anna under his father’s roof any longer than necessary.

  That Friday, his parents hosted dinner. It was a small affair with the vicar and his wife, Sir John and Lady Wedbury, and Cassie. Anna and the Redferns were last to arrive. As they entered the drawing room, Cassie darted from Lewis’s side to grasp both her hands. “Gosh, you look pretty, Anna.” Lewis didn’t hear Anna’s reply, though he saw her lips move.

  By Jove, he could think of better adjectives than pretty. Beautiful, enchanting, alluring for a start. She wore a new gown in a dusty shade of pink with tiny white buttons running in rows up and down the bodice, emphasizing the curve of her breasts. He hoped those buttons did not open—altogether too tempting.

  Their eyes met. Her cheeks flushed pinker than her gown, her lips parted. Are my thoughts so transparent? Fortunately, no one else was watching him.

  His mother claimed Anna’s attention and Lewis turned away to regain his composure. He refilled his own glass and poured a tot of sherry for her. He was betting she’d need it. Twice he’d seen her wince upon glimpsing that blasted portrait of Gideon, leaning over them all with that superior sneer. His brother seemed to ogle Anna’s bosom as Lewis tried not to.

  Cassie stuck to Anna’s side like a barnacle, and Lewis kept a close eye on his father. Twenty minutes ago, the butler had come in and whispered something into his master’s ear. Father had brightened immediately, rubbing his hands in satisfaction as he struck up a conversation with the two girls. The man sounded so jovial, so benign. But prick him with a pin and the decay would seep out.

  As Lewis moved to join them, the butler opened the door. He stood tall and round, at his most formal.

  The little flurry of movement began that always accompanied a dinner announcement—an empty glass returned to the drinks tray, a shawl retrieved from a chair, Sir John stepping forward to offer Lewis’s mother his arm to the dining room.

  The butler cleared his throat. It was not a call to dinner.

  From his angle Lewis had an impression of movement outside the door, then a man’s arm.

  Anna’s sherry glass shattered on the floor. The color drained from her face.

  “Mr. Gideon Aubrey.”

  “Well,” said Mr. Aubrey. “There you are.” He looked like a cat with a mouse trapped beneath its claws, and they were all mice. Of all the people in the room, only he did not stare stupidly at Gideon.

  Anna caught the inside of her cheek between her teeth and bit down. She needed the pain, and she needed Lewis. He was there, only steps away, but she could not run to him. It would be weak. It would give Gideon satisfaction…if dropping her glass had not yet done so.

  Lewis met her gaze and grinned. It took her a long moment to remember. She stretched her lips wide. Making them curve in the right direction was more difficult. They hardly felt part of her at all.

  “You’re hurting me,” Cassie whispered.

  Anna released the breath she’d been holding and eased her grip on Cassie’s hand.

  “Why, Gideon!” Mrs. Aubrey hurried forward, lifting her cheek for her son’s kiss. She had seemed almost gay a few minutes before, but Anna saw her expression when she turned away, and it was not gay at all.

  Lewis made his way to Anna’s side and guided her away from the shards of crystal at her feet. “Relax,” he murmured. But he was tense too, she could feel it in his hand on her back, in his arm beneath her clutching fingers.

  Gideon moved toward them, paused to talk to Lady Wedbury.

  “That piece of garbage. Who invited him?” Cassie grumbled.

  Startled by the fury of her friend’s expression, Anna whispered back. “Don’t say anything, Cassie. It’ll be worse if he thinks we’re all in league against him.”

  “We are. He knows it already. I can see it in his face.” Anna saw nothing but his usual smirk.

  “But his parents don’t know the truth,” she begged through her smiling lips. “And they mustn’t. Please, Cassie.” Though she shivered, perspiration ran between her breasts and under her arms.

  Cassie looked as if she wanted to argue, but he was too close. Almost worse than facing Gideon was knowing that everyone else waited to see what he would say, what she would do. She heard their voices, and they all sounded breathless, as she was.

  “Finally,” Gideon said in the silken tones Anna once loved. “The two I most wished to see, and the farthest away.” He bowed low, but the unwilling objects of his gallantry remained stubbornly upright.

  “Not even a handshake, ladies?” He shook his head. “What has happened to manners? You I understand, Miss Spain, you have…ah…” His gaze traveled down to her breasts and then to Lewis’s face, a look of appraisal. “In deference to your bridegroom and his clenched fist, I won’t say it.”

  “A wise decision for once in your life,” Lewis replied, his voice clipped and hard.

  Anna made sure her smile was in place before she spoke, deflecting Gideon’s attention from Lewis. “My manners depend on the company, Mr. Aubrey.”

  “Ah! Well, you’ll be my sister in a few short days. I prefer to avoid fisticuffs with either of you.”

  He inclined his head toward Cassie. “And you, Miss Wedbury. Imagine my surprise when I arrived in Bath to find you’d fled.”

  “I did not flee,” she insisted. “I left.”

  He shrugged. “Semantics, Cassandra. It hurt my feelings.”

  “You have no feelings, Gideon Aubrey. If you—” Anna pinched her to keep her quiet.

  The butler returned. “Dinner is served.”

  Gideon offered an arm to each of them. But the vicar came for Anna, and Cassie took Lewis’s arm instead.

  Mrs. Redfern covered the awkwardness as she chattered away. “Both of us spurned, Mr. Aubrey. It’s a sad state of affairs.” As a further act of chivalry, she seated herself beside Gideon at the table, allowing everyone else to breathe more freely. Yet she had no regrets as far as Anna could tell, talking and laughing as though she would have had it no other way.

  Anna thanked God she had an excuse for leaving immediately after dinner.
Mrs. Aubrey had been warned beforehand. Putnam must be walking the floor by now, Doris squalling in her arms.

  But goodbyes must be said. Gideon got hold of Anna’s hand as she slipped it into her new muff and leaned close to murmur in her ear. “I’ve not had a chance to congratulate you on our babe, my dear. I’m all agog to see her.” As he released her, the backs of his fingers brushed across her breast. “That’s one lucky little squeaker.”

  There was nothing she could say, nothing to be done. A mere arm’s length away his parents bade the Redferns goodbye, with Lewis just beyond them. So she let him go, his wicked chuckle echoing in her ear as she made her adieus.

  As soon as she’d finished, Lewis pulled her aside with a growl. “What did he say to you? Tell me!”

  She shook her head. “He congratulated me on the baby, that’s all.” That was bad enough; she would not make it worse. Lewis would not be fighting his brother over her if she could help it. Not again.

  “That wouldn’t have upset you so. What did he say?”

  She gazed into his eyes. “Nothing, Lewis. I’m not upset.” She took his arm and urged him toward the door. “They’re waiting for me. Doris must be starving.”

  He did not look satisfied, far from it. If he had held her close, he would have felt her heart pounding and known she lied.

  Chapter 44

  The following Sunday brought no repeat of their morning idyll, for today was their public debut. Pasting on his smile, Lewis joined Anna and the entire Redfern household at church. As Mrs. Redfern herded the rest of her flock inside, they shook hands with the Wedburys on the church steps, lingering a few minutes to chat. All part of the script.

  Gideon had never been part of it. They had thought his role complete long ago, Lewis’s father and town gossip the only villains remaining.

  But despite his disgust last evening at the mention of church, here came Gideon, robed in charm and arrogance, his parents trailing happily in his wake. His grin spread over the whole churchyard as he doffed his hat here, exchanged laughing words there. Young or old, the ladies preened, while their husbands pretended not to notice, all handshakes and delight. As long as Lewis could remember it had been that way.

  Gideon didn’t hesitate when he reached the bottom of the steps. They turned and made for the doorway, but he spread his arms wide as if he were their shepherd. It must have appeared that they’d been waiting for his arrival.

  He contrived a seat with the Wedburys by the simple expedient of squeezing himself in between Lady Wedbury and the arm of the pew. Unless she wanted a scene, she must either make room, or let him sit in her lap. At least he could not aggravate Cassie.

  Lewis was glad to sit behind them with Anna, enjoying the feel of her leg pressed against his, one hand tucked into the crook of his elbow while the other stayed warm inside the otter-skin muff he’d given her.

  After the service he led Anna through another round of introductions. Philip Dusseau, whose wife she had already met. Lord Ryndale’s nephew and heir. Elaine Maxwell’s disapproving father, Jeannine Calderwood and her sister-in-law. Miss Loomis, gossip and matchmaker of Wrackwater Bridge, examined her as they spoke and hurried off to proclaim her opinions to everyone else in the church yard. The smiles that followed behind her were surely a good sign. When they closed the front door of the vicarage behind them, Anna’s sigh of relief echoed his own.

  Later, when Anna had fed the baby, Lewis took her for dinner at the Wedburys’, the two of them and half the town. They arrived a little early so Anna could meet the new Jack in relative privacy. He strutted up to them in the hall even before she’d removed her new pelisse, pumping her hand in vigorous welcome. Lewis winced, hoping her bones would survive.

  “Yes, I remember you! Danced with you, I remember that too. Goddammit, you’re pretty, Lewis always said so. Glad he got you in the end. Much better than that—”

  “Yes, Jumping Jack,” came a drawl from behind them. “You may sing my praises another time.”

  Anna had been eyeing Jack, her lips quirked upward in amusement—now Lewis felt her stiffen, heard her sharp inhalation. Damn Gideon. He was supposed to be at home, or swilling gin in some tavern far away, or lying in a ditch with an axe in his head.

  Jack glowered. “What are you doing here? You weren’t invited.”

  Ignoring him, Gideon offered Anna his arm toward the drawing room. While she hesitated, he filled the awkward silence. “You two took your time getting here. You must have stopped to do some plowing.”

  Lewis grabbed hold of his cravat and hissed in his face. “Keep your ugly thoughts to yourself, damn you.”

  “Ugly? Nothing ugly about what I was thinking, dear boy. I had a piece my—”

  Lewis gave the cravat a wrench and twisted it tight. “Don’t say it.”

  “Or what? You’ll knock my teeth out?” Gideon managed to sound terribly normal, even had that sneer in his voice. “You tried that already. Only loosened one, and it’s good as new.” He showed Lewis his front teeth and tapped on the one that shouldn’t have been there.

  Lewis glared at it, longing to shove it down his brother’s filthy throat. But he couldn’t do it in Sir John’s entry hall with guests arriving at any time.

  “Lewis,” Anna pleaded, tugging on his other arm.

  He couldn’t do it in front of her, either.

  “Lewis,” Gideon mocked. “Can’t even have a friendly argument if there’s a lady around. Though I’m not certain this one qualifies—”

  Lewis screwed the cravat tighter. “Shut your mouth,” he said, quiet and clear. “And stay the hell away from my wife.”

  Gideon’s gurgle brought some satisfaction. Lewis released him with a shove.

  “I’ll fight him, Lewis,” said Jack, dancing alongside in his enthusiasm. “Maggot says I’m getting good.”

  “God forbid,” Gideon muttered, untying his cravat as he stalked off toward the rear of the house. “Boxing with a planet-struck idiot.”

  Lewis fumed, but Anna laid both hands on his chest to hold him in place. “No, Lewis. It’s what he wants.”

  She was right, of course. He would have to be content that Gideon stumbled over the edge of a rug, nearly falling, and did not reappear for dinner. Sir John had thrown him out.

  Past nine o’clock that evening, the footman knocked on Lewis’s bedroom door.

  “Two gentlemen to see you. I’ve put them in the morning room.”

  Who in hell…?

  In the morning room, two greatcoats inspected the cold fireplace, backs to the door. Two heads, one dark, one blond. They turned as Lewis came in.

  “Good God,” Lewis said, staring. “What are you doing in the wilds of Yorkshire? Did the man not take your coats?” He hurried forward as he spoke, shaking Lindale’s hand and then Captain Fuller’s.

  “Thought I’d better keep it. It’s cold as a witch’s tit,” Fuller groused. “At least it’s not snowing in here.”

  “I hope you’re not counting on rooms at the house. I’m not in a position to offer them, and anyway, Gideon’s here.”

  Fuller shook his head. “Not right now, he’s not. Gave us a few bad moments at the inn, let me tell you. There we are, standing in the hall plain as day, when in he strolls. I hid my face faster ’n you can say blast-your-eyes. He went into the taproom ’n we snuck out.”

  “But I assume he’s the reason you came. Why not get it over with?”

  “I figured Cass was safe enough here, until he disappeared. When I found out he’d gone home too, I got some leave. But I ain’t ready to tackle him yet, not until I know how matters stand.”

  Lewis turned to Lindale. “And you? I’ve seen you shudder at the very thought of winter.”

  Lindale shrugged. “I thought you might need a groomsman.”

  Lewis grasped his shoulder. “I’m hoping Jack is up to the job, but it’s not a sure bet. All depends on what kind of day he’s having. But I can use some friends, in any event.”

  “When is the wedding, again?
”

  “A week yet. Come upstairs where we can talk. It isn’t much, but there’s a fire in the grate and most of a bottle of rye. No, not the one you gave me, Lindale, that’s long gone.”

  It didn’t take long to outline Gideon’s assorted villainies. “His behavior toward Cassie looks like courtship, but he’s serving it with a side-dish of hostility. And he can’t manage to keep his forked tongue off Anna.”

  Lindale frowned. “Odd that a man who’s apparently charmed his way up the skirts of so many women—begging your pardon, Aubrey—should have such a hard time charming Miss Wedbury into marriage.”

  “Not so odd,” Lewis countered, shaking his head. “Unlike the others, Cassie’s known him all her life. He should have started charming her in the cradle. She also knows he got Anna with child and left her to rot. Plus, she’s head over heels for Fuller.”

  The captain’s eyes bored into him. “Is she? Has she said anything?”

  “In Bath. Said she missed you…awfully was the word, I believe. She was crying.”

  “Do I have a chance, Aubrey? Will you put in a good word for me with Sir John and Lady W?”

  Lewis shrugged. “I have no say in the matter. Were it up to me, I wouldn’t hesitate, especially with Gideon hanging about playing Adonis and Beelzebub by turns. They might give you their blessing just to be rid of him.”

  A gleam of hope shone in the captain’s eyes. “Well then. I mean to try my hand tomorrow, assuming the snow ain’t up to my arse.”

  “You’ll never make it as a Dalesman if you can’t get through snow up to your arse.”

  “Oh, I plan on moving Cassie down south. Think she’ll go?”

  Lewis wrinkled his nose. “Yes. But we’d miss her too much, Anna and I.”

  Fuller laughed as though it were a joke.

  Chapter 45

  Lewis had a blessedly uneventful ride with Jack the next morning and spent the afternoon at the vicarage. Kate finally got her fencing lesson while Anna watched. Though she applauded Kate at every possible opportunity, Lewis often found her watching him with an expression he liked very much indeed. Alone in her room afterward, still in his shirtsleeves, he curled up with her in the chair. He enjoyed himself—and her—immensely. His self-control was not as marvelous as he’d thought.