Multiple trunks meant that Charlotte was going much farther than Upper Seymour Street. Oh, yes—Arabella Winchester’s house party. Perhaps, Anne thought, that was why Hawthorne had been so eager to see her again today; he’d wanted to fit in another tryst with one mistress before he left town to join another. Perhaps that was why he’d looked at her so strangely this morning—because he had intended to break the news that he was going away but then decided not to tell her after all.
Freddy tooled his horses through the gates of the park and slowed them to a walk. Despite the chill, society was out in force, and the roadways were crowded. It took half an hour to make one round, and by then the horses were restive. “I’ll just let them have a bit of a run,” Freddy said.
“Would you mind taking me home first, Freddy? I’m very cold.”
“Wrong side of the park,” Freddy said earnestly. “We’ll go the long way around. It’ll be faster than going back through that crowd.”
Perhaps I could still be at Upper Seymour Street by three.
A treacherous thought, that. And a foolish one, as well. Since Hawthorne wasn’t expecting her to return, he might have made different plans. She might find anything going on inside that neat little house—though more likely his well-trained butler would have been instructed to simply close the door in her face. Whether now or later, that was bound to happen sometime. Then she would be just one in a long line of ex-mistresses.
“I’m writing my name on your skin, Mrs. Wilde…”
He had been making sure that no matter how many lovers she might take in her life, she would never forget him. But had he already been preparing to move on?
As the horses picked up speed, the breeze grew stronger, threatening to snatch her hat and pulling a wisp of hair loose. She brushed it out of her eyes and looked around. “Freddy, I don’t see the park any more. Where are we?”
“Going the long way around,” he said.
But something in his voice didn’t sound truthful, and she sensed that they had come a long way from the park while she’d been lost in her memories. “Freddy, I’m freezing. Please take me home.”
He didn’t take his eyes off the road. “No. But I’ll take you somewhere warm, very soon, if you’ll promise to be good.”
She was not reassured. “Sir, what are your intentions?”
“Sooner or later, you’re going to marry me—but after seeing that crowd of men fawning over you at the opera last night, I figured I’d better make it sooner, just in case. If you behave yourself and promise not to make a scene, I’ll take you to an inn. If you don’t, we’ll just keep on going north—headed for Gretna.”
“You’ll have to stop to change horses.”
“Not until there’s no chance of getting back tonight. When word gets out that we spent the night together, you’ll have no choice but to marry me.”
“I really don’t care about my reputation, Freddy.”
“Braxton does. He’ll make sure of it.”
There was no reasoning with the man. Anne tried to still her throbbing nerves long enough to consider her options. Trying to escape would be suicide; the curricle was moving far too fast for her to jump, and trying to grasp the reins of a fresh and unknown team would probably send the horses into panic and flight. Better to bargain, stay as close to London as possible, and hope to find an opportunity she could seize.
“All right,” she said, doing her best to sound disgruntled. “I’m far too cold to go on.”
Freddy grinned. “Just in time, too,” he said lightly, and turned the horses at speed. The curricle rocked onto its offside wheels, and Anne clutched her hat with one hand and the edge of the seat with the other.
He pulled the team to a halt in an inn yard. “This is a nice little inn, I’m told. The landlord is very friendly and helpful. And discreet.”
Anne pushed her hat back into place and looked up at the sign. Of all places, he had brought her to the Red Dragon…
For an instant, she was relieved. Then reality set in. Merely recognizing the inn would do her little good. She didn’t know her way around, since she’d only been in the entrance hall and the private parlor Hawthorne had engaged. And the innkeeper wouldn’t recognize her; he had only seen her veiled. In any case, a friendly, helpful, and discreet innkeeper was one that kept his mouth shut, no matter what went on in his private rooms.
An ostler ran up to take charge of the horses, and Freddy leaped down and lifted Anne from the curricle. She tried her best not to shudder at his touch.
The innkeeper showed them to a private parlor. Thankfully, Anne thought, it was not the same one Mr. Wilde had engaged.
Freddy tossed his driving coat aside and strode across to the fire. “Glad you showed sense. I’m frozen solid. Knew I should have worn my heavy greatcoat—only it would have been a bit of a giveaway that I had a trip planned. Take your cloak off, and come here to get warm.”
Anne didn’t move. “I won’t marry you, no matter how much you try to compromise me.”
“Oh, I think you will. There’ll be a chance of a child, you know, by the time I’m done. Braxton will have something to say about that.”
Her insides convulsed, but she kept her voice steady. “Don’t pin your hopes on it, Freddy. I was married for four years.”
“That’s the beauty of it. I don’t need an heir—but I’ll enjoy trying to get one.” He turned. “I said, come here.” It was unmistakably an order, and when she didn’t move, his face hardened. He strode across the room to her. “No use pretending you don’t know the game.” He ran a hand down over her breast.
“I won’t be embarrassed into marriage. Once Braxton knows I’ve—” She caught herself, too late.
“Knows you’ve what? That you’ve already got a lover? That’s no surprise. You’re no virgin, so one lover more or less makes no odds. Who is it, anyway?” Freddy’s gaze turned cunning. “Hawthorne, I’ll bet. Now there’s a good joke. Who’d have guessed I’d take Hawthorne’s mistress away from him?” He rubbed his hands together. “Oh, yes, I’m going to enjoy this.”
Her heart sank. How could she have miscalculated so badly? She should have realized that taking a lover wouldn’t keep her safe at all. Instead, she had only made herself an attractive form of ammunition in a quarrel between men.
The door opened, and a maid came in carrying a loaded tray. Tea, Anne saw. Well, perhaps the pot was hot enough to serve as a weapon. And the maid… Though she’d barely noticed the servants on her previous visit, surely this was the same maid who had brought the strawberries and peaches. If Anne could make her understand what was going on…
Freddy swore. “Get that swill out of here,” he ordered. “And bring two bottles of your best claret instead. My lady will drink with me.”
The maid bobbed a curtsey and picked up the tray. As she turned toward the door, she caught Anne’s eye and winked.
“The wine will warm your blood,” Freddy said. “Or not. I don’t much care which, because the result will be the same.”
The momentary sense of relief Anne had felt faded, like a dream at the moment of awakening. The maid meant well, that much was apparent—but what on earth could she do? Anne was on her own.
***
The Braxtons’ butler showed no signs of budging from the threshold. “He will want to see me,” Thorne repeated.
Finally the man stepped aside. “I will inquire if his lordship is at home,” he said grandly, and left Thorne pacing the entrance hall while he made his way up to the drawing room at a glacial pace.
A moment later, Braxton himself came to the landing. “Come on up for tea, Thorne.”
Thorne made his bow to Lady Braxton and accepted a cup of tea with bread and butter. “Is Lady Keighley not at home?”
“One might almost think you have a partiality for her,” Lady Braxton said. “How is it you met, by the way? I do not recall making an introduction.”
Braxton shook his head and smiled. “Now, Maddy. Everybody knows Thorne. Anne�
��s out with Freddy Lassiter today, in his curricle. They must have got into a crush in the park.”
Prickles ran down Thorne’s spine. “In this weather? How long have they been gone?”
Braxton shrugged. “Or perhaps they stopped to visit a friend, and they’re having tea there. He’ll look after her. He’s got a tendre for the girl, after all.”
You have no right to ask questions, Thorne reminded himself. Not yet, at any rate.
“So what can I do for you, Thorne?” Braxton asked expansively.
“I’d hoped for a private word.”
“You, too?” Braxton said with a grin. “Well, whatever you like. You’ll excuse us, Maddy, m’dear? We’ll just step down to the library for a bit.”
Braxton led the way. From the top of the stairs, Thorne saw a scuffle at the door as a thin, wiry man in the garb of a groom pushed past the butler. Once inside, the groom skidded to a halt on the marble floor and looked around wildly, as if he had no idea what to do next.
“Jenkins?” Thorne said. “What is it?”
“A message, my lord. For you.”
“I assume you left the messenger holding my horses?”
Braxton stopped dead in the center of the staircase. “What is the meaning of this? Your servant assaults my butler, pushes his way into my house…”
Thorne brushed Braxton aside and ran lightly down the stairs.
Jenkins ducked his head. “Sorry, my lord. But he wouldn’t let me in.” He glared at the butler. “There’s a groom outside from the Red Dragon. Says he’s been looking for you for hours, sir.”
Thorne was already at the door. When he came back just a minute later, Braxton was standing in the middle of the hall. “You—and your servants,” he began, “are no longer welcome in—”
“Stubble it, Braxton. Freddy Lassiter has eloped with Lady Keighley.”
“What? Don’t be ridiculous, man. They’ll be at a friend’s—”
“Does he have friends who live at a coaching inn on the road to Islington? And since it has taken two hours for the man to find me, we have no time to lose—so stop your blathering and order your horses, man.”
Braxton gestured imperiously at a footman. “Why did they come to find you and not me?”
“Because they know me at the Red Dragon. But it’s an excellent question. Remind me to have a word with you, Braxton, about how you look after your sister. After I have her safe.”
The butler came forward with Braxton’s coat, and his lordship scrambled into it. “Exactly why did the people at the Red Dragon think you would have an interest in what happens to my sister, Hawthorne?”
Thorne’s patience had been eroded to the vanishing point. “Because I had an assignation with her there on Tuesday,” he said crisply, “and it would have been quite clear to anyone with a head that I’d not be in favor of any other man sharing her favors. That’s why.”
If the situation had been less desperate, he’d have enjoyed watching Braxton’s eyes bug out.
***
The maid brought the wine, and a little later she came back to say that Cook wanted to know if they wished a meal.
“No,” Freddy said.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Freddy,” Anne argued, “you don’t want me to faint from hunger. Or you, either, come to that. Yes, we’ll have dinner.”
Besides, it would mean the maid could come in and out a half dozen times, laying the table and bringing the food—and as long as Freddy knew the door might open at any moment, he couldn’t do anything too awful. At least, Anne hoped not. And surely she could drag out the meal until…
It was the until that was worrying her. Freddy had finished the first bottle of wine and made serious inroads in the second one. Maybe she should encourage him to keep drinking… or would that only make him forget inhibitions like a servant walking in?
“Please bring another bottle,” she told the maid, and the girl bobbed another curtsey and went out.
“I’ll share,” Freddy said, and waved the bottle he was holding in her direction.
“I’d prefer to have one all to myself.” And if the opportunity came to crack him over the head with it…
Freddy started to laugh. “So he taught you to nip a little, did he, old Keighley?”
The door opened again, and for an instant Anne couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
Braxton stood in the opening, the capes of his coat still swirling. “What’s going on here, Freddy?” he said sternly. “Why do I find my sister with you in compromising circumstances? How dare you put her good name at risk?”
Anne’s heart, which had soared at the sight of him, sank again. Freddy had been absolutely correct in his assessment. So long as Braxton was thinking only of her reputation, he would take the shortest path to preserving it—and that path led directly to the altar.
Then she saw who had followed Braxton into the room, and misery swept over her in a wave. When Braxton picked up her cloak and swept it around her, she didn’t even protest.
Freddy was standing in the middle of the room, weaving slightly, a bottle in his hand. Lord Hawthorne strolled up to him and, without a word, planted his fist against Freddy’s nose. The impact sounded like a melon smashing. The nose gushed red. Freddy rocked back on his heels and fell as heavily as a rotten tree.
Hawthorne stood over the fallen man, rubbing his knuckles. He hadn’t even looked at her.
“Come,” Braxton said curtly. Anne let him usher her out of the room.
***
Anne stared at herself in the dressing mirror. “I don’t want to go to a ball tonight.”
Madeleine glared at her. “You don’t have a choice, Anne. The story’s bound to get out. We accepted the invitation, so you have to make an appearance at the ball or people will ask questions about why you’re not there.”
“I have a headache.”
“You are a headache, Anne! You have to be seen tonight. You have to look perfectly normal, happy, unconcerned—so people won’t give credence to the story and your reputation won’t end up in tatters.”
“I don’t care about my reputation.” But the words felt hollow on Anne’s tongue. Now that it was too late, she realized she did care. She’d blithely convinced herself she could avoid marriage by having an affair—but she hadn’t given thought to everything else she would lose along with her good name. Friends, family, her position in society… Now that those things were at risk, she realized how much they meant to her. Somehow, she’d convinced herself she could continue just as she had, only in her own household instead of her brother’s…
Or perhaps there was a huge difference between ruining herself with Hawthorne and ruining herself with Freddy Lassiter.
She didn’t want to think about that. Not just now.
Madeleine put her hands on her hips. “Anne, Braxton says…”
“I don’t care what he says or does,” Anne said dully. “I’m not going to marry Freddy.”
Madeleine sighed. “Then you must go to the ball. If you don’t quell the gossip before it starts, you’ll have to marry somebody—and since Freddy’s the one you ran off with…”
“I didn’t run off with him,” Anne pointed out. “He ran off with me. It’s an entirely different thing.”
“I know it is, Anne. But you have to think about how it looks!”
“Fine. If I pull it off and my reputation isn’t in tatters by the end of the evening, then there’s not the least need for me to marry.”
Madeleine hesitated. “Well…”
“If you promise me I won’t have to marry anyone, I’ll do it.”
“It’s not for me to say. I’ll leave that to Braxton.”
“Oh, Maddy…”
“Anne, please. Let Polly finish your hair. Put on your ball gown, and let’s go. It’s the best thing for you—getting out among people, taking your mind off what happened. An hour—just a few dances—and I’ll plead a headache and beg you to come home with me, I promise. Heaven knows I’ll be telling th
e truth.”
Anne sighed. “I’m sorry, Maddy.”
“And so am I. I never thought Freddy would do anything so utterly mad.”
Neither had Anne, when it came right down to it. Freddy Lassiter’s not the worst of them, she had told Thorne… and she’d meant it. She’d thought him harmless. A nuisance. A bit silly. But never threatening.
Odd, she thought, that the man all of society thought was the dangerous one had treated her with nothing but care and gentleness, while the fribble who everyone found amusing had almost destroyed her life.
Only… why hadn’t Thorne even looked at her? Why hadn’t he been the one to bring her home? Why hadn’t he comforted her?
Did he blame her for what had happened? He’d told her once that she’d encouraged Freddy, if only by dancing with him. But surely Thorne didn’t believe that a woman who loved him could ever go off willingly with another man…
Loved?
The mere word cut her as sharply as the edge of a sword, but Anne could not deny it. She had intended merely to take a lover. Instead, she had fallen in love.
***
Perhaps Madeleine had been right, Anne thought. After an interminable hour at the ball, she stopped feeling numb. She stopped merely going through the motions, and she actually managed to smile and almost mean it—except when she spotted Thorne across the ballroom and he didn’t come to ask her for a dance.
She was sitting in the corner of the ballroom with Madeleine—who was indeed looking pale and as if her head hurt—when Lady Stone swept up to them. “Have you heard what happened to Freddy Lassiter today?”
Anne got to her feet out of respect for the older woman, her hand clenched tightly on her silver filigree nosegay holder, while Madeleine sat up a little straighter, almost as if tensing herself against an expected blow.
Lady Stone plumped down into Anne’s chair. “They say he got drunk and fell out of his curricle. Broke his nose.”
“It’s a wonder he didn’t break his neck instead,” Thorne added, coming up behind her. “Lady Keighley, may I have this dance?”
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