Wilson, Gayle

by Anne's Perfect Husband

  "I have wanted to thank you since that night," she began, determined to say all the things she should have said then and had not had the chance to say since.

  "I truly wish you would not."

  "I owe you my life, Mr. Sinclair. Or at least..."

  She almost said my virtue, but then thought that the expression of that reality might be improper. Although she had had a sheltered upbringing, there had been no doubt in her mind about the kind of danger she had faced.

  "You owe me nothing of the kind," he said into her pause. "Quite the reverse, I believe. If you hadn't taken a hand, the outcome might have been very different. You had an uncomfortable journey and a dangerous encounter with a couple of rogues you should never have been exposed to. On top of that you have spent a lonely holiday in a house full of strangers. I can only promise you that was not my intent and apologize profusely."

  "I am not to express my gratitude for your rescue, and yet you may apologize for a series of things that were not your fault and were undoubtedly beyond your control?"

  "As your guardian, I should never have put you in the position of having to be rescued, either from rogues or a broken axle or a snowstorm."

  "And if you had not, I should probably never in my life have seen the outside of Fenton School," she retorted.

  "I take it, then," he said, smiling at her, genuinely relieved, she realized, "that your experiences have not all been unpleasant."

  The memory of her arms wrapped around his body while they knelt together in the snow brushed through her mind. She supposed that was not the kind of experience Mr. Sinclair meant.

  "Indeed they have not. Your home is very lovely."

  "And the servants have seen to your needs?"

  Except for the need of company, she thought, but she didn't say that, either. If he could be gracious, despite his illness, then surely she could manage not to mention that she had indeed been both bored and lonely in his home.

  "Yes, thank you. I have been very well looked after."

  "And yesterday was Christmas Day," he said, his voice regretful. "I'm afraid I didn't even have an opportunity to shop for a present, but I do have a surprise for you which I hope will help in some way to make up for that lack."

  "A surprise?" she echoed hesitantly. Surprise?

  "As you know, most young women your age have already been introduced into society. Since your father was away with the army, I understand you have not yet been formally brought out."

  "Brought out?" Anne repeated, bewildered by the introduction of this topic. Surely, he didn't mean...

  "In London," Mr. Sinclair clarified.

  Anne swallowed, allowing the images that the very name of the capital evoked to fill her head. Provincial she might be, but even the girls at Fenton School knew about the famed London Season. Several of them had been quite confident of the opportunities that would be afforded them by that experience. And confident that it was in their near future, as soon as their schooling was complete.

  Anne had listened to their talk with idle interest, knowing her father would never go to the trouble or expense of arranging for her own coming out. And as far as she was aware, she had no relatives who might be called upon to shoulder that burden.

  She had put the possibility from her mind years ago, quite content with the direction of her life. And when Mrs. Kemp had talked about the wonderful opportunities that were opening up for her, this was one which had never even occurred to her.

  "The Season starts in a few months," Ian continued. "I'm afraid there is a great deal of preparation required if we are to be ready in time."

  The Season. The words seemed to reverberate inside Anne's head, almost blocking the rest of his words.

  "Mr. Sinclair, I assure you that I have no desire to be brought out. I am quite content—"

  "I believe it would have been your father's wish, Miss Darlington. After all, it is only what is expected for a young woman of your class. I know it is Mrs. Kemp's wish. She was quite clear on that score. And I have promised her that as your guardian, I should see to it that you were given this advantage."

  Anne drew breath, preparing to again refuse, before she remembered her own promise to the headmistress. Headstrong or not, I shall endeavor to do whatever Mr. Sinclair thinks is best. She, too, had given her word.

  And after all, she would spend the rest of her life at Fenton School. Although she was truly not interested in being presented to society, she was also not sure she was ready to return forever to the only world she had really ever known.

  Actually, Anne admitted, she was suddenly reluctant to leave Sinclair Hall, despite the loneliness of the days she had spent here. After all, now that Mr. Sinclair was recovered—

  "My brother, who has excellent taste," her guardian continued, interrupting that foolish notion, "has recommended a modiste. On his advice I have sent for her to come here and make the preliminary measurements for your gowns. Of course, we shall be in London in time for the fittings."

  "In London for the Season," Anne said faintly, feeling more and more as if she had wandered into some bizarre dream. "We are going to London?"

  "Within the month," he said, smiling at her again, "if you are willing to trust me to convey you safely there, considering your first unfortunate journey under my guardianship. I promise to take better care of you in the future."

  She truly doubted anyone could have taken better care of her that terrible night than he had. And he had done so at a cost to himself that he would not even acknowledge. Or allow her to.

  "I would trust you with my life, Mr. Sinclair," she said.

  And watched his eyes change again, the gentle teasing fading from them as they held a long heartbeat on hers. For the first time since she had entered the room, self-absorbed with what she wanted to say, she allowed herself to study his face.

  If one looked past the rather obvious effects of the fight, which included a fading bruise around his right eye, and an almost healed gash along his left cheekbone, the marks of his recent illness were there as well. And according to Mrs. Martin, that was never to be a topic for conversation. In truth, Anne could not but admire him for that.

  "Thank you," he said with the smile she had learned to value for its kindness, even in the brief time she had known him. "I am delighted by your trust, Anne. May I call you Anne?"

  She had never been called anything else, not even by the youngest girls in the school. Given the difference in their ages and his position in her life, it seemed natural somehow that he should call her by her Christian name.

  "Of course," she said. "But...should I continue to call you Mr. Sinclair?" And realized belatedly, again by watching his eyes change, that she had made a mistake. "I suppose anything else would be improper. I didn't mean to be forward," she said, stumbling for an explanation. "Perhaps—" She stopped, cutting the words off because it seemed this, too, might give offense.

  "Perhaps what?"

  "I'm sure that... That is..."

  "My name is Ian," he said.

  "Then...Uncle Ian?" she suggested hesitantly.

  His eyes widened slightly, just as they had when Margaret's trembling finger had identified Anne as his ward.

  "Do you know," he said, his voice suddenly full of an amusement she didn't understand, "I really don't believe I should be able to endure it if you do."

  "I beg your pardon," Anne said, bewildered and embarrassed.

  "Forgive me, Anne. You may call me Ian, or even Mr. Sinclair, if you are more comfortable with that. But when I think of my brother's reaction to your calling me Uncle Ian... Truthfully, I beg you, that I am not willing to endure. Not even for my ward."

  ***

  "Too ornate," the Countess of Dare said, her blue eyes lifting from the drawing in the fashion book she and the dressmaker were perusing, their fair heads very close together. "Something more classic, I think, given her height and coloring."

  Anne was still standing where they had placed her, on a stool in the middle of
her bedroom, dressed only in her chemise and petticoat. She had been humiliated by the rather threadbare appearance of those garments, especially when confronted with the cool, blond elegance of the Countess of Dare.

  Neither she nor the modiste had commented on the patches and darns, however, seeming to be far more concerned with thumbing through the pictures in the books the woman had brought from London. Pictures which Anne had not yet been allowed to see. It seemed she was merely a bystander to this process.

  "This perhaps," the dressmaker suggested, and the eyes of both women surveyed Anne's form again, moving from head to toe.

  "Only if the color is changed. And I don't like the trim," Elizabeth Sinclair said. "Braided ribbon is not exactly au courant."

  "I couldn't agree more," said the dressmaker. "In green?"

  "Of a certain shade. We shall probably have to shop for it in London. There is nothing in the samples you've brought that is quite right for her," the countess said, her eyes falling to the swatches of fabric scattered about the floor and draped over the room's furnishings.

  "I have others. Your brother-in-law's message was not suggestive of the scope of what he wants."

  "What does he want?" Anne asked, hoping to at least be informed as to the occasion on which the dress they were discussing should be worn.

  "A wardrobe," Elizabeth explained, smiling at her.

  "Without any cheeseparing," the modiste said, her pleasure obvious.

  "A wardrobe?" Anne repeated. Which seemed to imply... "I am to have several dresses?"

  "Dozens," the countess agreed. Her eyes met Anne's again before they fell to the pattern book as she turned the page. "Your father was very fortunate in his choice of guardian."

  "I understand they were great friends," Anne said.

  When Elizabeth Sinclair's eyes came up this time, there was something in their blue depths Anne didn't understand. Some emotion there that she couldn't quite read. Almost as quickly as it had formed, however, it was controlled.

  "Indeed?" the countess said. "I didn't know."

  Anne didn't either, of course. She had simply made that assumption, based on the fact that her father had chosen Ian Sinclair to be her guardian. And she couldn't imagine any reason for that other than friendship.

  However, whenever she had attempted during the past week to introduce any topic that might lead to a recounting of the days they had served together, she had sensed a reluctance on her guardian's part. She had finally been forced to conclude that he was as reticent to discuss his military career as his health. And probably for the same reasons.

  "This?" Elizabeth questioned the dressmaker.

  Again both pairs of eyes focused on Anne, whose arms were beginning to grow gooseflesh from being bare so long. She didn't complain, however. She stood where they had placed her, the light from the windows of her bedroom illuminating her every feature, good and bad she supposed, and wondered what she had glimpsed so briefly in the eyes of Ian Sinclair's sister-in-law.

  ***

  "What do you think?" Ian asked, watching from his chair by the fire as Elizabeth pulled on her gloves.

  "I think you are going to need a great deal of help."

  "Besides that," he responded with a smile.

  "She's completely unspoiled. And quite lovely, of course, but... Frankly, Ian, she hasn't much training in the deportment that will be expected of a debutante."

  "If you mean blushing and simpering, then I'm not sure I would view skill in those behaviors as an advantage."

  The tone of his reply was sharper than he had intended, but the implied criticism bothered him. While he had been confined to his room by the maddeningly lingering effects of his illness, he had had almost too much time to examine his feelings for Anne.

  Although it was true that he had, of necessity, been celibate since he'd been wounded, he didn't believe that completely explained the strength of his attraction. Nor did his admiration of her courage or of the way her eyes met his with an honesty and openness that was unheard of in a woman of his class.

  "She does have a tendency to speak her mind," Elizabeth said, softening her reproach this time with a smile.

  "As do you," he reminded her.

  "But I am not a young girl about to make her come-out."

  "You once were."

  "And I had been very carefully drilled in how to behave and especially in what to expect. The first rogue who flirts with Anne is liable to turn her head and steal her heart. You may make a dash for the Border to retrieve her before it's all over."

  "She hasn't the wealth to make her interesting to the fortune hunters."

  "Thank God for that. Do you really want my advice?"

  "Of course. I should never have drawn you away from your honeymoon if I had not."

  "Find her a husband from among your friends and acquaintances. Don't submit her to that brutal round."

  "I thought women enjoyed all that. The parties and the routs and the balls."

  "Some of them, perhaps. I don't think Anne will. I'm afraid..." Again, Elizabeth hesitated, her eyes on her gloves, the perfect fit of which she was now merely toying with.

  "What are you afraid of?" Ian asked. "Not of speaking your mind to me, I hope."

  "I'm afraid she'll be hurt."

  "Hurt by whom?"

  "By all manner of people," Elizabeth said, exasperation in her voice. "Those who have never forgiven Dare for marrying me may be unkind on principle. And Dare told me about her father's actions in Iberia, which may very well come back to haunt her. But beyond that, Ian, she's a little too different to fit in. They'll break her heart and perhaps even her spirit. And I should hate to see that happen."

  Again, Ian felt the stirrings of anger. Not at Elizabeth. She was simply expressing what he recognized as the truth. His ire was directed instead at the society they both knew so well.

  There were within the ton those who lived to feel superior to others. Their greatest delight was to offer a direct cut or to make a witty if cruel remark at another's expense. Anne would be exposed to all of them, and Ian knew there was little he could do to protect her.

  "I gave my word," he said, regretting now that he had. "And I've already told Anne she will be introduced. Besides, the Season is her best chance of finding someone suitable to marry."

  Although Anne's marriage had from the beginning been the acknowledged goal of this exercise, as well as of his promise to Mrs. Kemp, the word seemed to bring home to him for the first time what a difficult task he had set for himself.

  Elizabeth's eyes assessed his face a moment before she nodded. "I hope you're right. I hope she finds someone who will love her for the very qualities I fear the ton will fail to admire."

  "She isn't really so different as all that," Ian said.

  "Perhaps not. Perhaps I am allowing the not-very-pleasant memories of my own Season to color my expectations."

  "You were surely a diamond of the first water."

  "I was a piece of merchandise on sale to the highest bidder," Elizabeth said with a soft, but very distinct bitterness. And neither of them said anything for a long time.

  "I'm sorry if this has brought back painful memories," Ian said finally, regretting now that he had asked for her help, despite how much he needed it.

  Elizabeth laughed, her former seriousness determinedly wiped from her eyes. "Dare has now given me enough happy ones to quite make up for all of those, I promise you."

  "And I promise you that Anne won't be sold. That isn't what this is about. She is perfectly free to marry whomever she pleases, provided he isn't a blackguard."

  "And you are going to play the dragon slayer and protect her from blackguards, of course."

  "Duenna, perhaps, rather than dragon slayer," Ian said. "I can't see myself in the role of champion. Merely that of the faithful chaperon. Anne has suggested she call me Uncle Ian. And if you reveal that to Val, I shall never forgive you."

  Elizabeth's laughter joined his. "Your secret is safe with me, my dear
. But...however did she come up with that?"

  "Perhaps because I am so much older."

  "Most marriages in our set involve a difference in age far larger than that between you and Anne."

  "Val said you have some interesting ideas about marriage. Do I take it this is one of them?"

  "A disgust over the usual gap in ages? Perhaps. Especially when it involves a difference that may be measured in decades. Certainly not something relatively minor like the dozen or so years between you and Anne."

  Ian belatedly remembered that Elizabeth's first marriage had been to a man old enough to be her grandfather. Perhaps Anne saw him in a similar light.

  "I think she believes I'm older than I am. And who could blame her for that assumption?" he said lightly, smiling to insure that simple statement of fact would not be interpreted as self-pitying.

  "And you, of course, haven't bothered to disabuse her of that notion?"

  "Why should I? I'm already afraid people will question the arrangement her father made. As you say, the gap between our ages is not so great as that which will be between Anne and some of her suitors."

  "I take it you don't consider yourself one of those?" Elizabeth asked, her shrewd blue gaze leveled on his face.

  "A suitor? Hardly."

  "Why not?" She sounded as if she really wanted to know.

  "Because it would be highly inappropriate."

  "You can hardly be accused of courting her in hopes of gaining control of her fortune."

  "Perhaps not," Ian said.

  "And so?" Elizabeth questioned, unwilling, apparently, to let the subject drop.

  "I could hardly be considered suitable husband material for her either," he said, meeting her eyes.

  "I don't see why not."

  Ian smiled, hoping that nothing of his discomfort over the subject she had raised would be revealed in his face. "Do you not? But you are family, after all, and not strictly unbiased."

  "Even if I were not family, I should not understand your reasoning in this."

  "Anne is to choose her own husband," Ian said, deliberately avoiding the crux of the issue. "I should think that's what you would wish for her. Considering your own experience."