“My mother is sure of it,” she answered, finally. “And on the worst days, that’s usually good enough for me.” They endured, and if they felt the loss of Richard’s easy smile, they did not speak of it. Anna dropped her chin, hiding from Alistair’s scrutiny, but saw from the corner of her eye how he lifted his hand, letting it hover beside her cheek. At the last moment, he changed his mind, dropping his hand to his lap.
“Stop fending back tears with your eyelashes,” he said. “I’m sorry. I should know better. My profession makes me churlish sometimes.”
“I can understand why,” she said, blinking to clear her eyes. “I often feel churlish too.”
“Well, you aren’t acting that way in return. You’re very kind. Too good for me—don’t laugh!” he said, cutting off her hmmph of disgust. “I’ll take the prayers, but I’d hoped for your letters, too. To keep up the fiction, you know.”
“I can do that,” she said.
“Good.” He settled deeper into the cushions. “You’re a good woman, Anna.”
He took her hand, lacing her fingers in his own, sparing her the need to reply. The way his thumb slid along her own told her he’d prefer a response that wasn’t words. It felt so good, that little sweep on her hand, warm and soft and tempting. It made her insides quiver, especially when she met his eyes. She wished she wasn’t wearing gloves.
It was delicious to look and touch, but this was how trouble started—a shifting leg, a sideways glance. Even innocuous words sounded risqué when exchanged in breathy whispers. Before you knew it, you were giddy, in a delirium of pressing fingers and greedy mouths, thinking only: I am wanted.
She hadn’t thought about trying to get a child until after the first big slip, when, after letting Mr. Gormley slide his hand too low in a dance, he offered to drive her home. Mr. Gormley was widowed, and forty if he was a day, but handsome enough she’d happily followed him into the hallway, slipping away from the shabby village assembly where Morrises didn’t go. Exultant over his heated kisses, tingling with desire and the heat of revenge, she’d made no protest when they’d fallen together in his carriage, thrashing around each other’s clothing for a brief moment that left them sweaty and panting for breath. Frightened by her intensity, Mr. Gormley hadn’t argued when she asked him to let her out at the bottom of the drive.
Anna returned to herself, skin scalding, as Alistair began walking the fingers of his other hand up the bare skin of her wrist. He was nothing like Mr. Gormley. He was much more dangerous.
Kisses. He just wants kisses. They were all right, surely.
Except he hadn’t kissed her yet. She was sure he intended at least that, but he was taking his time about getting there. Not that she was complaining. His fingertips tripped past the crease of her elbow as delicately as a dancer on tiptoe, moving under her cloak, climbing upwards, over the bit of lace edging the bottom of her sleeve. When he reached bare skin again at her shoulder she was already leaning toward him. She paused, enjoying the warmth of his breath on her cheek—it smelled like cardamon—before letting him close that last half inch to her mouth. Their lips melted together and she held back a sigh, succumbing to her favorite weakness.
She loved kissing. Even the slobbery ones and the demanding mouths that tried to uproot her tongue, though Alistair was neither. He was warm persuasion and gentle insistence, but he kept his word even when she wished he wouldn’t. No wandering hands, no climbing on top of her. Anna slid her hand over his cheek to trace the curve of his ear, resolving to get rid of her gloves.
No you don’t. You know better.
She couldn’t ignore her conscience this time, or, after lurching round a sharp corner, the reminder that this carriage was much the same as Mr. Gormley’s, and therefore too dangerous a place for the removal of gloves. With infinite regret, she made her hands relax and drift back into her own space. Her greedy lips didn’t want to stop playing, but Alistair got the signal and slowed, disengaging with a smile.
“I remember. Only kisses,” he said.
Thank goodness she had dignity enough not to sigh. You are not that person, her conscience scolded. And she knew she wasn’t. Not anymore.
If thine eye offend thee . . . . Really, if she cut out and cast off her sinful parts as the bible said, she’d be a pitiful, maimed thing. Eyes, skin, fingers, lips . . . .
This carriage was far too warm, but it didn’t feel like hell at all. If she didn’t stop kissing him though, it would take her there, sure as Wednesday followed Tuesday. She looked at Alistair, who was sober now that the smile had fallen off her face.
“God won’t wink at this,” she mumbled.
His arm slid round her shoulders, comforting, brotherly. The rumble of the wheels rolling over the cobbles filled the silence, punctuated only by an occasional creak from the springs. “Should I apologize? I will if you want, but I’d be lying. I’d do that again in a heartbeat.”
It was silly of her, but his admission made her glad, widening her mouth into a lopsided smile. “Better not. We’ve lies enough already. Best if we don’t take unnecessary chances.”
“No more kisses?”
Was it wrong of her to rejoice that he seemed as forlorn at the prospect as she?
“I didn’t say that. You’ll still be here tomorrow.” It was practically a promise, but for the rest of the drive, she kept her hands clasped primly in her lap.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
One more day and he’d be gone. Still, it was impossible not to float up the stairs after Alistair’s kisses. They were good—more than the usual mind-wiping distraction. She was too fuddled to know if it was his skill (superlative), his looks (arresting), or the newness of this kind of chaste longing, but she drifted into her room, aware of one difference she’d never experienced before: a feeling of serenity, that all would be well. Clearly, she’d been without kisses too long. She was drunk on them, deluded. Anna fished a nightdress out of her clothes press and ascended the last flight of stairs, finding her way by the light of her flickering candle—stubby now, after waiting so long for her return. Her father had left it in the hall for her, along with a note.
He’s a good lad. So is Henry. Sorry for doubting you.
Somewhere her mother had found a rug for the nursery. The room had been swept, the corners cleared of cobwebs and dust. No curtains in the windows, though. Since she didn’t want to put out her candle and undress in the dark, Anna moved to the corner and crouched down out of sight, which made it even harder to struggle out of her clothes. She nearly lost her balance and had to fling out an arm to grasp the wall, but Henry didn’t stir. He lay face down in his pillow, his mouth open, his face flushed. The toy hussar was beside his bed on the floor, where it had fallen from his limp hand.
Papa’s right. He is a good man, she thought, creeping across the floor to right the tiny figure and slip her son’s hand back under the sheet. Returning to her corner, she laid her dress over the back of the rocking chair, winced as she yanked her stays from back to front so she could unpick the laces, and unrolled her stockings. Bare and shivering now, she dove into her heavy nightdress and jumped into the second bed, pulling the covers up to her chin. The sheets were cold but crisp, smelling of soap and lavender. Anna drew up her feet, hugging her knees because her toes were cold.
“Night, Henry,” she whispered, blowing him a kiss. A simple gesture, but it gave her a surge of warmth, knowing he was there, waiting for her kiss to waft across the room and land on his cheek.
She dozed, waking with a start when her arm fell off the side of the bed, which was smaller than she was used to. Edging closer to the wall, she shifted to her back, then her side. The mattress was thinner than she remembered.
After a few minutes she rolled onto her back again. It was too dark to see the ceiling. The lingering taste of cardamon in her mouth had to be her imagination. It made her think of Alistair, and kisses, where he might be now, and what his face would look like if he was sleeping. Did he pull himself into a small space, with the
sheet drawn up under his chin, or did he sprawl across his bed with his arms flung out and his palms wide open? Did he sleep in a nightshirt or in his skin? And how pale was he where he wasn’t tanned? Her lips quirked. Hard to say. Once he left England, he’d probably end up sleeping in his uniform—perhaps even his boots. By all accounts, campaigning was harsh.
Of course, it wouldn’t be all bad for him. A week at sea, a short stop in Lisbon or Oporto—she should find out where he’d disembark—and then a trek through Portugal and into Spain, where he’d rejoin his battalion. If Wellington continued his advance, the army might be in Madrid by the time Alistair caught up with them. She hoped so. He’d get a decent billet there. Anna didn’t trust her own luck, but Alistair’s seemed better. Perhaps he’d arrive just in time to chase the French back where they belonged.
There would be ladies, if the army was in Madrid.
Idiot! She punched her pillow and settled back down again. It’s an army. There’ll be women about, in Madrid or no. Alistair was a fine man. Women would want him.
She frowned into the dark, aware that she shouldn’t be pettish about it. She wasn’t marrying him, after all. He was just loaning himself temporarily. Pity. But then, she’d already had one handsome husband. She couldn’t expect to snare another. Anthony always knew how to cut a dash.
That’s what he’d done too. Sewed up her fortune in the marriage agreements, wed her in a quick ceremony at her parents’ church and bedded her, just as promptly. Not at the inn where they’d stopped on their journey to Warwickshire, though she’d lain awake half the night, hoping, wondering why he didn’t come to her. Anthony waited until they arrived at the family pile, then he took care of it. He couldn’t allow an annulment, after all, and he was the kind of man who attended to details, however unpleasant. She, poor fool, still had stars in her eyes when she’d tripped out of her bedroom to find him that morning, dressed and ready to return to London.
“You aren’t dressed!” he’d hissed at her, frightening her with severe eyes. He returned his attention to his coffee, but not before she saw his disgust. “My mother’s coming. She’ll teach you what’s what.”
“Can’t you?” She’d never met the other Mrs. Morris.
“I’m returning to London. No,” he said, stopping her with an upraised hand. “Please. No scenes at breakfast.” She waited silently, too shocked to sit down, while he finished his coffee. He left while she was still without words, frozen by the sideboard in bare feet and a night gown.
It took three whole months before she gave up hoping for letters. By then the other Mrs. Morris, a she-dragon fond of jewels and the town of Bath, had informed her of her purpose in the family—providing money. At first Anna cried, then she wrote her papa and discovered she was trapped. Trapped with a critical and keen-eyed rheumatic woman, caught up in the come-out of her own daughter. Abandoned in an isolated country house, with servants who laughed at her, neighbors who knew nothing about her, or were too aristocratic to care. When Anthony came home in the fall to shoot his birds, she screamed at him, but all he did was shoulder his gun and go outside.
He was content to wait until she was broken—after all, time was on his side. He thought.
Even before the sister got married, Anna was escaping to the village. It wasn’t long to walk. Wary at first, she did little else than poke her head into the shops, purchasing unnecessary ribbons and bottles of miracle cream. Then she let one of the shop boys walk her home and ended up kissing him in a haystack—a much more beguiling way to spend her afternoon than wandering from room to room in the Morris house. The she-dragon was busy redecorating.
Later, when Anna returned to her room—she preferred taking her meals there, on a tray—she stared into the mirror for a long time, practicing a bland face, convinced the kisses would show. The next day, when she chanced across her mother-in-law in the hall, she trembled, expecting her sin would be seen and that she would be promptly devoured.
The other Mrs. Morris saw nothing, telling her only to stay out of the upholsterers’ way, but it was still a week before Anna braved the village again.
No one noticed. Not the apothecary, the vicar, or the village gossips. Anna spoke with them all, and no one named her a scarlet woman or harried her out of town. The shop boy, David, winked at her, but that was all.
A week later Anthony returned, having some business with his steward. She grimly allowed him his rights, hoping it would get her a child at least. The attempt was unsuccessful, the only satisfying thing being that he enjoyed it as little as she did. Two weeks later, Anna went to the village assembly—the dragon had returned to Bath—and ended up in a carriage with Mr. Gormley. She’d met him a month earlier at church, after deciding to attend the local Methodist congregation, instead of the one frequented by the Morrises.
She learned two things from David and Mr. Gormley—one, that it was much more enjoyable receiving embraces from men other than her hateful husband, and two, that men liked embracing her. Anna might not have gotten a baby from that fateful carriage ride, but she did conceive an idea, a way to get her revenge. It was easier than she thought, getting men to tumble her: a medical student, studying with the local physician, who liked sharing his knowledge of anatomy; a tall gentleman she saw only the once, riding through the lanes, who stopped to help her carry yet another package of ribbons. He introduced himself as Clarence Fitzjohn, but the letter on his signet ring was an R. And James, the footman, who knew her mischief and the reasons for it, but was good enough to give her what she wanted and keep her secret. Anthony came and went, oblivious to it all.
But he wasn’t blind. When she was in her fifth month, he realized he’d made a mistake. He screamed then, forgetting he’d declared it vulgar. Anna fled and James showed her where to hide, behind the cold frames in the back of the gardener’s shed.
“Maybe you should go home,” he whispered, coming out later with a plate of supper. It was simple fare, so it had to be his own.
“I’m staying,” Anna said. “He’ll divorce me, and I’ll get back my money.”
“Don’t be so sure,” James said. “You should be careful.” He was right.
Anthony left the next morning, despite consuming three bottles of brandy through the night. By all accounts, three bottles was nothing for him in the months that followed. He drank, whored, fought three of his friends, and injured two horses, while the dragon watched Anna and frowned.
Henry was born, and Anna forgot her unhappiness for a little while. She wrote her mother, inviting her to see him christened. Her parents came, but prudently stayed in the local inn, missing Anthony’s arrival that evening, the drunken shouting, the shattered vase of flowers. The spilled water lay all night, ruining the new pianoforte.
The next morning, Anthony received her parents when they came to bid Anna and Henry farewell before journeying back to London. He waved them off politely from the door, then turned to his wife and told her never to send for them again. He was so still, so calm, and so cold that Anna began to tremble. She tiptoed around the house for two days, never leaving Henry’s side, sleeping in a cot in the nursery, but Anthony didn’t seek her out or speak to her again before dashing off to London.
She breathed easy again.
A month later, Anthony returned. “I’m taking the boy to London.”
“I won’t let you. Henry’s mine,” Anna said, clutching him closer, fighting off her sudden dizziness. In that instant, the room had lost its air.
“I don’t know whose son he is, or which ditch you laid in when you conceived him, but as he is to be my heir, I’ll see he’s raised properly.”
“You can’t—”
Anthony cut her off with a laugh. “Didn’t think of that, did you? You might have played me, but I’ve always held the trump card, Anna. Hand him over.”
Movement caught her eye; a plainly dressed woman standing in the hallway. And a footman—not James—with a wooden face and wide shoulders.
“Don’t make me take him. He�
�ll only get hurt,” Anthony warned.
She looked at his gloved hands, lean and sure, and felt her insides churn. There was no softness in his face, in his voice, in the grimly competent servant waiting to take charge of her son. She stuttered protests, incoherent pleas, but he lifted Henry away and deposited him in the arms of the wet nurse, who headed for the door. Anna’s legs broke like straws and she crumpled to the floor, throwing up a hand to catch Anthony’s coat.
“Please—”
One look was all she got. One look that made her shiver, that chilled her in her bed even now. Uprooting her sheets, Anna wrapped the bedcovers round her shoulders and hopped across the cold floor to Henry’s bed, exhaling a jagged breath at the sight of his tousled head. Afraid of waking him, she lowered herself carefully to the floor, her heartbeat slowing as she measured the pace of her son’s breath, a stir of air that curled around her face, warm as the steam from her morning tea.
I thought I’d never have you back.
That, of course, wasn’t strictly true. She had followed Anthony to town, quaking with rage and fright, haggard from lack of sleep. Was Henry feeding? Did they leave him to cry in his crib? Did they swaddle him with one hand free, so he could suck his fingers?
Anthony’s servants didn’t let her past the door. Anna’s father, white and wrathful, didn’t get in either. Nor did his lawyers, his influential friends. Every day, Anna walked by the house on Mount Street, peering at the upstairs windows, wondering where her son was, watching Anthony come and go, but mostly go. When he saw her in the street he nodded at her like an acquaintance or a passing stranger. Only now, years later, did she realize that in those last months he’d grown lines around his eyes, that his careful dress had turned slipshod—a cravat askew, his gloves crushed in his clasped hand, scuffs on his boots. Before Henry was a year old, Anthony died of a broken neck when his curricle overturned on a race to Brighton.
Ever mindful of appearances, the dragon invited Anna back to Warwickshire for the funeral. Anna went, forsaking pride since it meant seeing Henry. He wasn’t there. Frederick had left him in London. “No point bringing the child,” the other Mrs. Morris said. “Unhealthy.”
Incognita (Fairchild Book 2) Page 14