“Will earn the heart of a duke.” He fixed his stare on the small, golden bauble in this way he didn’t have to see the cool, mockery in her eyes.
“Yes, yes, exactly!” She giggled. “And I truly would have settled on an earl, Harry. If I had to, of course. Which I do not. Have to settle, that is.”
He flinched, silently begging her to stop, begging her to tell him this was all a cruel jest. But he’d not begged Margaret and he’d not beg Lady Anne Adamson.
“The duke,” she went on, each word a dagger in his belly. “Well, it was one thing when he expressed an interest, quite another when he called with a specific offer.”
She clasped her hands in front of her, the grip so tight, her knuckles were white.
Why were her knuckles white? “I don’t understand,” he said numbly. The world shifted under him and he sought purchase atop the leather winged back chair. “You said you loved me.” His voice rang hollow.
Anne again giggled. “That was before he all but offered for me, silly.” She waved a hand. “Before you would have sufficed but now…oh, can you believe it, Harry?” A dreamy glimmer lit the blue irises of her eyes. “Soon, I’ll be a duchess.” She dipped a curtsy. “I wanted to thank you for the invaluable lessons, my lord. Every time I’m referred to as Your Grace, I promise to think of you.”
Harry’s heart wrenched, the pain so great it threatened to cleave him in two. This betrayal on Anne’s part so very much worse than Margaret’s defection. Anne had restored his hope, given him reason to laugh again, and God help him, made him love her. His mouth went dry. “This is a jest.” He could not believe it. Anne was supposed to be different. Not ruthless. Not calculated. Sweetly serene and spirited and honest…
The bright, easy smile on her lips dipped. She stilled and held his gaze with her own. “This is no jest, my lord. This is very real.” She held her hand out. His gaze fell to the wire-rimmed spectacles. “I mustn’t wear these, of course. A duchess cannot be seen in s-spectacles.” Her voice broke and numbly, he picked his head up. A paroxysm of grief contorted her face. The subtle expression so very brief he must have imagined any regret he saw there. She cleared her throat. “Here.” She pressed them into his hand.
Harry stared blankly down at a gift he’d toiled over. Yet again, he’d made a bloody fool of himself where a young lady was concerned. He balled his fingers into a fist. The spectacles bent under the intensity of his grip. He lightened his hold lest he break the lenses and with his other hand absently he rubbed at the spot in his chest where his heart used to be. He could not believe he’d been so very wrong. Not about her. This woman, he didn’t recognize. “Anne,” he tried again. “I’ll protect you from scandal. You needn’t—”
“Tsk, tsk. My, how arrogant you are. Do you imagine this is borne of my love for you? It is not,” she said firmly. “This comes from the sole reason I sought you out in the first place. You’ve served but one purpose. And now, well, now you’ve fulfilled it.” She worked the ribbon free of the lone golden curl. “There will always be ribbons and spectacles, though,” she said.
Harry stared at her, it was as though the veil had lifted and he saw the same self-centered, grasping minx he’d first taken her for more than a year ago. The hellion, the vixen. The woman who’d claimed his heart. And now, the woman who’d broken his heart. He flexed his jaw and yanked the ribbon from her fingers. “I am glad I was able to assist you in your endeavors, my lady,” he said stiffly. He crushed the ribbon in his fist. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said with a short bow.
He didn’t even remember crossing over to the door until she called out to him. “Oh, Lord Stanhope?”
He paused, staring dumbly at the wood panel, begging for her to point her eyes to the ceiling as she was wont to do, and say she merely teased. “That is my favorite ribbon. Treat it with care.”
And all hope withered and died in his chest. He wanted to hurl it at her title-grasping, deceitful face. He yanked the door open and left without a backward glance, her burnt orange ribbon a forever reminder lest he forget the perils in loving.
Chapter 23
Anne suspected the pain of letting Harry go would always be with her. But now, nearly one week later after sending him away from Jasper’s office, she suspected her heart would always be a useless, deadened organ that could never be mended.
“You have to get out of bed, sweet.”
Anne pulled her knees to her chest and stared blankly out the window at the night-darkened sky. “Don’t call me, sweet.” The pillow she clutched to her mouth muffled her words. Once upon a lifetime ago, Harry had called her sweet. Then, she’d craved the endearment, love from his roguish lips. Now, she’d settle for sweet, hellion, termagant. Anything to hear his voice again. She pulled her arms closer to her chest. Oh, God. She could not bear this.
“Very well. You have to get out of bed, Anne.” Katherine picked up the wrinkled copies of The Times that littered the bed and dropped them into a heap upon the floor. “I’m worried about you. Mother is worried about you.”
“Mother is not worried. She’s angry.” Livid, if one were being truly accurate. Anne had agreed to wed Mr. Ekstrom; she’d not agreed to smile her way through his offer, and the inevitable union. She curled deeper into herself.
“Yes. I’m sure there is merit to that.” Katherine stroked a soothing circle over Anne’s back. “But you can’t simply lay abed reading copies of The Times.”
She wasn’t reading The Times. She was squinting hopelessly through them, scouring the blurred words for hint of Harry’s name, for some indication of how he spent his days…and worse…his nights. She needed her spectacles.
More… She needed him. Tears filled her eyes.
“Oh, Anne,” Katherine whispered and lay down behind her. She folded her arm across her older sister the way she had when they’d been small girls. “I’m so sorry you’ve been hurt. I’d take it away.”
“I know,” Anne said and borrowed support from her twin. She knew, because she would barter her very soul for Katherine’s own happiness. “Do you see him?” The words emerged halting past her dry lips. Her sister hesitated. Anne felt it in the way her body stiffened and the prolonged pause, and knew. She closed her eyes tight because did she truly wish to know?
“You’ve always known he was a hopeless rogue, Anne.” Katherine spoke with such gentleness, her meaning clear as if she’d bluntly stated the truth—Harry had begun carrying on with his ladyloves.
Knowing did not make it any better. When he’d whispered against her ear and perched her spectacles upon her nose, she’d managed to convince herself she meant more to him.
She’d believed he would go to his Margaret and that thought had shattered her, but this, knowing he’d become the same Harry meeting his scandalous ladies in conservatories with two flutes of crystal champagne glasses wrenched at her insides.
She’d lashed at herself in the six days, twelve hours, and handful of minutes since she’d fed him every worst perception he’d ever carried of her. She’d forced her eyes to make sense of the words in the gossip sheets…and had seen enough to recognize his name linked to any other number of widows and scandalously wed ladies.
In the end, Harry had proven himself to be…well, Harry. And there was little consolation in knowing her lies had wrought the transformation upon him once more, because ultimately all he’d revealed was how little she’d meant to him.
Which really wasn’t all that fair, considering she’d set him free. Tears filled her eyes. She blinked them back.
Katherine sat up. “You need to make an appearance at some event, Anne. Society has noted your absence.”
Inevitably she would. At her betrothal ball. Anne rolled onto her back. She flung a hand over her eyes. “I don’t care.” In the past, polite Society’s singular interest on Lady Anne Arlette Adamson would have mattered.
“I’m not leaving,” Katherine said, firming her jaw.
Guilt needled at Anne. Each morning, Katherine had come an
d stayed with her, nearly throughout the day. Her sister had fashioned herself as something of Anne’s protector through the years. Everyone had believed Anne in need of saving. She’d never have imagined the only one who could save her was in fact the single gentleman she’d taken to be a rogue and scoundrel.
“You are going to the Vauxhall Gardens masquerade tonight.”
“I’m not.” With its secret paths and illuminated groves, it posed the perfect place for trysting couples. Harry would undoubtedly lead one lady or another down to one of those trysting places.
Katherine hopped to her feet in a flurry of greenish-blue diaphanous Grecian skirts. She made a splendid Amphitrite, the goddess of the Mediterranean Sea. Her lips pulled. Unlike her, with her foolish shepherdess costume. Of course Harry would have always preferred one such as sophisticated Katherine to Anne and her silly golden ringlets. “But you always love a masquerade, Anne,” her sister said, pulling her back from her self-pitying musings. Katherine hurried over and picked up the costume set out by her maid earlier that evening. “Tell me you don’t long to don this splendid garment.”
The world, twin sister included, still saw Anne as a young lady fixed on nothing more than the fabric of her gown or her attire for a silly masquerade. “I don’t long to don that splendid garment,” she mumbled. Harry hadn’t. He’d seen her as a clever woman with real thoughts inside her head.
And I let him go.
Agony knifed at her heart, once again.
“You’re going.” She crossed over and threw the wispy, silken confection at Anne. Her mouth tightened. “I’m fetching your maid and you’re putting the damned garment on. I’ll sooner eat this costume than see you pine for the Earl of Stanhope. Do you understand me?” The impassioned response burned her sister’s cheeks red.
Quite clearly. Anne’s guilt intensified at her sister’s clear displeasure with Harry. Katherine and Harry had been friends long before Anne. Back when she had identified him as a scoundrel and cad, Katherine had confided in him and embraced his friendship. Until Anne had gone and ruined that, too…
“Don’t be foolish. You are my sister,” Katherine snapped, clearly interpreting her twin’s private musings.
The door opened so swiftly Anne would wager her every worldly possession the maid had been waiting outside in the hall. Her sister handed the costume off to the young woman. “My sister requires assistance.” She sailed to the front of the room “This is not finished, Anne. And do not tarry, we’ve a masquerade to attend.”
~*~
A short while later, Anne wound her way through the long corridors and down the winding staircase to the foyer. Her mother and Katherine stood in costume, quietly conversing. An uncostumed Jasper, with arms folded behind his back glanced up. He murmured something to his wife.
Katherine glanced upward. Pleasure lit her eyes. “Splendid, Anne. You look just splendid. Doesn’t she?” She jabbed her husband in the side.
Jasper grunted. “Yes, indeed.”
Her mother studied her with a critical eye and frowned. “You look pale,” she said bluntly.
“I have a mask on,” she murmured when her slippered feet touched the floors.
“Only partially.” Mother’s lips tightened. “Oh, this will never do. The ton will take one glimpse of your swollen eyes and wan complexion and know you’re pining.”
Anne spun on her heel. “You’re indeed, correct.” And Mother was largely incorrect on most scores. “I shouldn’t attend.”
She placed her foot on the bottom step when Katherine settled her hand on her shoulder. “You’re going.” She firmly steered her back around.
Ollie, the family butler threw the door open, anticipating her sister’s efforts. Katherine took her by the elbow and guided her outside and onward to the waiting carriage. “Trust me, you’ll feel a good deal better when you are there.”
She very much doubted that.
~*~
Lord Edgerton’s amused chuckle cut into Harry’s silent ponderings. “You’ve consumed nearly an entire bottle of champagne, Stanhope.”
Harry downed the contents of his sixth glass, polishing off as his friend predicted, an entire bottle of fine, French brew. He managed a lazy grin and held the empty glass up in salute. “Indeed.” He scanned the crowd at Vauxhall Gardens purposefully.
After he’d taken his leave of the grasping, self-centered brat, Lady Anne Adamson a week ago, he’d expected word of her betrothal to the Duke of Crawford to break as the latest source of gossip. In the first days, he’d taken care to avoid any polite Society event where he might see the shameless creature who’d broken his fool heart. He’d resumed his all-too comfortable life, returned to the Forbidden Pleasures. Except, all his attempts to bury himself in some nameless, faceless creature who didn’t have blonde hair and blue eyes, a creature who still haunted his thoughts, had proven futile. In the end, he’d not touched a single woman.
And so, he’d reentered polite Society, fully prepared to see the little flirt—the flirt, he’d schooled. Fortunately, they seemed to be now moving in very different social circles. The little viper.
His lips pulled in a sneer, teeming with cynicism and contempt. Even as he’d thought himself prepared for the duplicitousness of a female’s lack of faithfulness following Margaret, he’d still allowed Anne to wheedle her way into his thoughts, and worse his dammed heart. And what had he gotten for his efforts? A reminder as to why the only thing the female form was good for was as a receptacle for a man’s lust. He plucked another glass of champagne from a costumed servant. He took a long swallow and looked around.
Edgerton shot him a sideways look. “Are you searching for anyone in particular?”
“No.” The lie came easy.
His friend snorted. Even if his laconic response didn’t ring with any truth. “I told you the lady was to be avoided,” Edgerton said unhelpfully.
“Would you like me to congratulate you on being correct?”
His friend took a sip of his champagne. “Certainly not. Just reminding you so that when you inevitably see the heartless wench, you take care to not make a cake of yourself.”
Again. The sole word missing from his friend’s warning.
His searching gaze collided with a fair Aphrodite. The trim, Greek goddess touched a finger to the corner of her lip, invitingly. The curls, more brown than blonde didn’t have the same sun-kissed effect of a particular young lady’s golden silk tresses.
He paused, narrowing his eyes…and then looked away.
Another woman, with familiar raven black locks sidled up to him. “Hullo, my lord.” She touched her expertly manicured fingers to the latch of his thick, black cloak. “A highwayman,” she murmured. Taller than most men of his acquaintance, the lady leaned up. Her breath fanned his ear. “You may steal whatever jewels I possess, my lord,” she whispered invitingly.
Harry glanced at the scantily clad Cleopatra through the slits in his black, half-mask. With her ample hips, sweetly rounded buttocks and generous breasts, she was a veritable lustful feast. His for the taking.
She sauntered away, crooking one perfectly manicured finger in his direction, inviting him forward.
Take her, then. Lead her off to some tucked away corner, lift her golden skirts, and plunge all your frustration into her warm, willing body.
He took a step forward.
I’d like you to teach me how to seduce a man… Anne’s words whispered around his tortured mind.
And he retreated. The woman’s plump, red lips formed a moue of displeasure, and she moved on to some other less dead inside lord.
“You’re a fool,” Edgerton said with an exasperated sigh.
Harry closed his eyes a moment. Anne had ruined him for anyone else.
Edgerton whistled. “I do say this is a deal worse than the broken heart you nursed over Lady Margaret.”
“Go to hell,” Harry muttered and took another sip.
“Will you at least speak of it, then?” Edgerton asked quietly.
/>
“What would you have me tell you? That the lady merely needed me to entice the Duke of Crawford. She sought nothing more than a tutor who’d help her garner Crawford’s affection.” He’d known all along what Anne’s purpose in seeking him had been, only in the days he’d come to know her, he’d allowed himself to forget the more than a year of needling and annoyance. Instead, he’d come to appreciate her humor, quick-wit, the inner beauty Society failed to see…
Lies. All of it.
Edgerton stiffened. “Ahh, it would appear the shepherdess has arrived to fleece other poor, unsuspecting gents of their hearts.” His mouth formed a hard, flat line.
Harry’s body went taut as he followed his friend’s distracted wave to the demure shepherdess in frilly skirts. Until he was an old, doddering lord who didn’t recall where he’d placed his monocle, he’d forever recall the sight of those golden ringlets piled high atop her head. She tapped her staff upon the gravel path and scanned the costumed crowd. For an infinitesimal moment, he allowed himself to believe he was the someone she searched for. And not Crawford.
More Than a Duke (Heart of a Duke Book 2) Page 26