“Well, I didn’t so much find it, as steal it. Don’t worry, I took it back and left a pound note for the owners.”
“However you acquired it, thank you. I didn’t realise that you were still keeping an eye out for me.”
“The threat hasn’t gone, so I watch this house, whilst the others take the coffee house and your home.”
“Thank you.”
They rode the rest of the way in silence and Anna had time to contemplate recent events. She had never considered that the coffee house would ever be less than her top priority but recent events had changed her mind. Seeing Richard so poorly had made her wonder how she would feel without him in her life, and she didn’t like that idea one bit. She didn’t think that she had ever been as scared as she was the day after the fire, as his condition slowly worsened. She had prayed for him dozens of times and by some miracle, her prayers seemed to have been answered.
She had a second chance now, and she sure as hell wasn’t going to lose him because of her own pride or fear.
She didn’t know what might happen to the coffee house. She knew that she couldn’t put in the same hours she did now once she was married, but would she keep it and install a new cook, or sell it? For years there had been a simmering attraction between Minnie and Frank but as they couldn’t afford their own house, it had never progressed beyond friendship. Annabelle could gift the coffee house to them, which would allow them to finally marry. They might even be able to afford to rent the house above from Richard, if they didn’t have too many servants, or perhaps rented out some rooms to eligible young men. Ethel, Sal and Ruth could be found positions among Richards’s staff and of course, Jones would stay with her mother for as long as her mother lived, her bond to Evelina was that strong.
She didn’t know what Richard would end up choosing as his vocation in life. Would he want to return to his estate and run that, or remain in London for most of the year?
She didn’t even know how she would occupy herself each day, or how she would adapt to not being able to bake every day, but she was determined not to let these doubts deter her from loving Richard.
Wearing another one of Lavinia’s dresses, she looked more elegant than she usually did at work and most of the customers’ heads turned towards her as she entered. Sampson sat down with one of the other detectives and they began to chat, whilst Annabelle spoke briefly with Minnie and Frederick, then made her rounds of the customers.
Most asked about the fire and Richard’s condition and she assured them all that he was on the mend, but it might be a while yet before he was out and about. She carefully dropped mentions of Lavinia into the conversation, so that they would know that there had been no impropriety on her part. No mother would invite a son’s mistress to stay in their home, after all.
When she had chatted to everyone, she headed through to the kitchen.
The weekend that she had gone away to Lavinia’s had necessitated that she go through everything with the staff and Ruth, which thankfully meant that things had run like clockwork this time. Were it not for that, she was certain that there could have been chaos in her absence.
Once assured that there had been no problems, she headed through to her office and began to pay the previous week’s bills, leaving envelopes with the correct amount of money and who they were to go to written on the front. Thankfully Ruth, who had taken over for her in the kitchen, could read a little (she had to learn as kitchen maid in her father’s house in order to follow recipes) so she would know whether each envelope was for the butcher or grocer etc.
With that job finished, she headed out to the kitchen and placed the envelopes just out of sight behind the sugar jar, just in case any delivery boys spotted them and decided to make some easy money.
With her tasks done, she found that she was eager to get back to Richard and so after speaking with a few other customers who had come in while she was in the back, she and Sampson headed back to St James Square.
Sampson was the ‘head’ detective, as it were and all the others who were investigating, watching her house, the coffee house and Frederick, worked for him. Annabelle quizzed him about his investigation on the journey back but whilst he had dug up a few more of Frederick’s secrets, he couldn’t find anyone willing to press charges against him.
Another carriage was outside as they pulled up and the front door was just closing, so she assumed that the most recent visitor had just arrived. She considered going to her room and waiting until everyone had gone home but decided against it. If she was going to become Richards’s wife, she needed to get over her fear of being among her own class. She was a Lady after all, born and bred aristocracy, she just hadn’t had a chance to mingle in polite society as an adult. It was time to rectify that deficiency now.
She didn’t bother knocking as she was staying here, so there was no butler to greet her and show her in. Instead she removed her cape and headed to the parlour but something in the visitor’s voice made her stop outside. Although she couldn't see them through the ajar door, she could hear them perfectly.
“Richard, darling, how I have missed you.” Ada said, bending to kiss him but Richard took a hold of her upper arms, stopping her.
“Ada, now really isn’t a good time.”
“Nonsense, I’ve been away for two weeks and now I need a skilful lover to make me forget my husband’s blunt, fumbling attempts.”
He should have broken it off with her as soon as he’d slept with Annabelle but she was all that he could think about for a few days and by the time he remembered Ada, she and her husband had headed to their country estate. He considered writing but it was so impersonal. Now he was regretting that choice.
“Ada, I’m really not up to anything at the moment. I pant like an old man just walking a dozen paces.”
“Oh but Richard, I need you! I was so worried when I heard that you were injured. I wanted to come back to London immediately but I couldn’t without Edmund asking awkward questions.”
She pressed her lips to his as Richard tried to push her away but he knew that if he exerted himself too much, he would have a coughing fit, which really wasn’t very pleasant.
Annabelle stared at the door in shock. How could he do this to her? And more importantly, how could she have fallen for his lies!
She felt like such a fool.
Her eyes stung with unshed tears but she refused to cry. Instead she ran back outside to find that the driver was still talking with Sampson, and so hadn’t put the horse and carriage away yet.
“I need to go home, will you take me?” she asked the driver.
“Anywhere you want to go,” he assured her.
“Conduit Street, please.”
She got into the carriage and Sampson made to get in behind her.
“Oh, Richard asked if you would wait here, he wants a quick word with you once he’s seen his guest.”
Sampson didn’t looked convinced
“What can happen on a carriage ride?” she asked rhetorically, so finally he nodded and stepped away.
She held her tears at bay until she got home and instructed her staff that no one was to let Richard Armstrong into her house under any circumstances, under pain of being fired. She would never fire any of them in reality and they probably knew that, however she needed them to know how serious she was about this.
Then finally, locked alone in her room, she let her tears flow freely. She cursed the day she had ever met Richard and vehemently wished that she could take her actions of the past few weeks back. Looking back on it now, it felt like some sort of dream, with an air of unreality about it. She wasn’t a woman who jumped into bed with the first man she saw. She didn’t go forgetting the risks of sex. She wasn’t easily manipulated.
She hardy recognised the woman that she had become, that Richard and turned her into, but she knew that she didn’t like that woman.
How could she not have realised that sex wasn’t usually that enjoyable, and that he must be skilled to excite suc
h pleasures in her? Why didn’t she consider where he got his knowledge about preventing pregnancy from?
She didn’t even like crying about him and she vowed that this would be it. Once her tears tried, she would never again shed a single tear for that lying little rake. He didn’t deserve her tears.
Eventually Richard had little choice but to be blunt with Ada and break up with her, although she did her best to convince him to change his mind, begging and sobbing crocodile tears. It was quite a show that she put on but he stood firm. He couldn’t allow what he’d had with Ada to jeopardise his relationship with Annabelle, and that meant that Ada had to go.
He was surprised when Sampson came in just as Ada left, and he hoped that she didn’t run into Annabelle on her way out.
“What can I do for you?” he asked the detective.
“Lady Wyatt said that you wanted to speak with me.”
Richard frowned. “Why on earth would she say that?” he asked rhetorically. “Where is she now?”
“She had the driver take her home.”
“What? Why?”
“She didn’t say but she looked a little upset, I assumed that you had fought with her.”
“What time did you get back from the coffee house?”
“Oh, about three quarters of an hour ago, I suppose.”
Just the time that Ada had arrived.
“And when did she return to her home?”
“A minute or two after we got back. I was still outside, talking to the driver when she came back outside.”
Richard replayed his conversation with Ada in his head and instantly recognised how damning it had been. He should have just told Ada to leave him the hell alone, instead of trying to be polite.
“Ring that bell, would you?” Richard asked.
Sampson did as asked and when Porter came in, he asked for the carriage to be readied again.
Normally he might have walked there rather than waiting for a carriage but he knew that he was in no condition to walk anywhere. When they stopped on Conduit Street, Richard already felt breathless but he wasn’t going to turn around and leave without being allowed the chance to explain himself.
Chapter Fourteen
Annabelle became aware of the most dreadful racket coming from the front of the house and knew instantly that it was Richard. She wasn’t psychic though, simply able to hear his hacking coughs from her bedroom, as he pounded on the door.
Reluctantly she got up off the bed and dried her tears, worried that if he kept exerting himself like that, he would do himself an injury.
Sal was cowering in the hallway, unsure of what to do, so she hadn’t even opened the door yet.
“It’s all right, Sal, I’ll take care of this, you get back to your duties.”
Sal nodded and scurried away and reluctantly, Annabelle turned to the door and opened it.
“Go home, Richard.”
“I will not! I need to-” his words were cut off by another coughing episode.
“You are making yourself ill, now go home at once!”
“I’m not going anywhere until you talk to me!”
As much as she wanted him gone, she knew that she would feel guilty if his condition did worsen, so she opened the front door wide for him to enter, then went into her study, Richard following behind her. He sat in one of the wing back chairs whilst he got his breath back.
“So?” Annabelle asked once he had recovered.
“I know what you heard but it isn’t what you think.”
“So Ada isn’t your mistress then?”
“Not anymore.”
“So you broke it off with her once you were discovered, how good of you!”
“I haven’t slept with her since we first shared a bed.”
“Then why does she still believe that you’re together?”
“It isn’t like that; I just haven’t had a chance to end things because she’s been away.”
“She’s been away for two weeks, Richard. We first slept together three weeks ago.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“All right, if indeed it was over, why didn’t you tell me about her?”
“One doesn’t discuss one’s previous lovers with their current one, for God’s sake!”
He saw her flinch when he called her his ‘current lover’.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she sounded scathing. “I’m new to this whole whoring business, I didn’t know that was part of the etiquette.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Oh, I think I understand perfectly well.”
“Anna, please try to understand, men are different.”
Annabelle looked incredulous. “Do you think that women don’t feel desire? Don’t face temptation? Because we do, Richard. In fact I would say that the only difference between men and women, is that we women have to live with the consequences of such a mistake, whilst no one holds you liable for the damage you do, do they?”
“What damage?”
“Children for one.”
“I don’t have any illegitimate offspring.”
“Are you sure about that? Ada isn’t the first, is she, she is just the latest in a long line. Am I right?” Annabelle demanded. “Well isn’t she?”
“It’s different,” he insisted. “Men have urges-”
“Oh yes, I know all about mens’ urges,” she said coolly. “That’s probably why only one male servant came to my aid the day Frederick attacked me, the butler the footmen, the others; they probably understood that he was just fulfilling his ‘urges’. Then there’s women like Minnie, whom my father forced sex onto, then had her fired for immorality when she conceived his child. I found her in the workhouse, her child already dead. God only knows how many other maids there were before her, when was I too young to notice. Mens’ urges are also why my poor mother is basket case, who barely knows her own name any longer!”
“What the hell does that mean?” he asked, confused by her last statement.
“How many people have you shared a bed with, Richard? Because even if it was just Ada, what about the people her husband has slept with, both before and after marriage? I might as well have just slept with half of London as to have slept with you.” She turned away and spoke so softly that he had to strain to hear her. “I can’t believe that I thought you were different.”
“Anna, I would never hurt you.
“You already have.”
“Before you I have always used something to protect myself from diseases and conception, and I have always been very careful about the women who do share my bed.”
“Am I supposed to feel flattered that I was among the chosen few?”
“Of course not.”
“This would have been our marriage, wouldn’t it?” Annabelle asked. “An endless string of women; a line so long that I stop bothering to be hurt, stop paying attention, because it’s easier that way. Turn a blind eye to the servants who get dismissed for being immoral, when the only truly immoral one shares my bed? Ignore the flirtatious remarks to other women, even those made in public, right in front of me sometimes?”
“That would not have been our marriage, Anna!”
She turned back to him. “I don’t believe you,” she said calmly. “You lied to me about Ada. Not only are you still seeing her, you haven’t even tried to deny that you were sleeping with her whilst you were pursuing me.”
“It wasn’t like that! In the early days, you ignited so much desire within me, that I had to find some release-”
“So it’s my fault that you slept with her!”
“No, of course not. But things have never been the same between me and Ada, not since I met you. You are the one my heart truly craves.”
“Until a bigger challenge presents itself?”
“No! Damn it woman, will you listen to what I’m saying?”
“I am listening, I just don’t like what I hear. Wouldn’t you have been bothered if, in response to my attraction to you, I invited Frank into my b
ed to sate those desires?”
“It’s not the same, Anna, you were always the one putting up road blocks to our relationship.”
“So because I hurt your feelings, that makes what you did acceptable? Because I have to tell you that despite my attraction to you, Frank is looking like the right choice at the moment. He lives in the same house but is the only man in the male servants’ quarters, so I wouldn’t have to worry about getting caught. There wouldn’t be any suggestive cartoons of me for sale all over London. Plus, he has proved himself loyal over the years. Right now I am very much regretting that I didn’t think of it sooner.”
“All right, yes, it would kill me to think that you had been with someone else, but I would still want you, Anna. I love you, and only you. There has never been anyone in my life who is as important to me as you are and what’s more, there never will be. I only want you, Anna, now and forever
”I wish that I could believe you, really I do but I can’t.”
“Anna, please, don’t be like this.”
“I have no choice, Richard. I cannot live my life wondering where you are, or if tonight is going to be the night that you give me some dreadful disease.”
“Why are you so bothered by disease? I’ve already explained that I took precautions.”
“Why am I so bothered?” she asked incredulously. “Can you really not see why I fear disease?”
“No.”
Annabelle took a deep breath and let out a long sigh. “My mother is being treated with mercury salts, which is widely considered to be the best treatment for syphilis.”
“She has syphilis?”
“It’s what’s driving her insane. Sometimes the illness spreads throughout the body, affecting other parts. Her disease went to the brain. Father must have given it to her sometime after I was born because I showed no signs of it, but I will not risk suffering the same fate as she.”
“My God!”
“Apparently God can’t help her, He has never answered any of my prayers.”
He finally understood her reasons for being so defensive, so protective of her heart and so chaste but the problem was, his realisation had come too late for it to help him. He felt tears sting his eyes.
The Reluctant Duchess Page 16