by Julia London
Anna frowned more deeply, folded her arms tightly across her middle, and stared up at him, studying him closely, as if trying to read something in his expression or his eyes.
He dropped his hand, stared right back, letting her see whatever she thought to see.
“No,” she said at last, shaking her head resolutely. “It is no concern of mine—you are quite right. My only desire is to learn how to gain Mr. Lockhart’s complete affection—nothing more,” she said pertly, and turned away from him, walking to the middle of the room where she’d left her things.
What? She would just up and leave, pretty as you please? “I beg yer pardon, but where do ye think to go?” he demanded.
She looked up in surprise. “Home, of course! We’ve completed our lesson, have we not?”
Grif couldn’t help himself. He grinned lopsidedly at the woman’s unabashed cheek. “And what lesson have ye learned, may I ask?”
She snorted at that. “To make witty and engaging conversation, and to… oh! To not believe anything a man says. I believe that was the sum of it.” She flounced to the other end of the room, intending to leave. “I really must be on my way,” she said primly as she pretended to casually study a few of the porcelain figurines on the mantel. “Given that Mr. Lockhart and I enjoyed quite a lovely exchange yesterday—”
“Did ye?” Grif asked, suddenly feeling perturbed.
“Yes!” she said brightly, and smiled happily at him. “He was quite felicitous in my company and expressed a desire to call on me this afternoon.”
“Oh?” How odd that his perturbation was, inexplicably, growing at the mere thought of that scoundrel actually calling on Anna.
“Yes! There, you see? The lessons are working just as I hoped! You’ve done me an invaluable service, sir!”
Bloody well, he had, and with hands on hips, he gave her a stern look. “If that is so, then where is me bloody beastie, may I ask?”
“Oh, the gargoyle,” she said indifferently, flicking her hand dismissively at him.
“No’ a gargoyle, a beastie! Where is it, Anna?”
“In my room, in a secret place for safekeeping,” she said as she examined her fingernails.
“And when shall I be presented with it, then?”
“Why, when the lessons are complete!”
“But they are complete. Ye just said so yerself, did ye no’?”
“No, I did not,” she said, as if that was the most preposterous thing she’d ever heard. “I said you’ve done me an invaluable service. But I have not yet received an offer from Mr. Lockhart, have I?”
“Ye said naugh’ of an offer!” he blustered heatedly. “Ye said, seduce—it was yer very word, it was!”
With a sweet smile, she glided to the door, put her hand on the porcelain knob. “I may very well have said seduce, but I certainly meant offer, for I will not lose possession of the beastie before the fate of my virtue has been clearly sealed! Good day, Griffin Finnius Lockhart! I shall send a tincture round for poor Mr. Dudley on the morrow!” And with that, she blithely sailed out the door.
Twenty
T he morning of the highly anticipated Garthorpe soirée, Grif woke in a loathsome humor. He’d grown very weary of London, and even wearier of the ton.
It did not help matters that he lunched with Hugh, who was restlessly pacing about Dalkeith House (or, as he had recently dubbed it, London Tower) like a caged animal, ruthlessly teasing Grif about the lessons as he went from window to window, staring out at the street.
He was growing weary of Hugh, too.
So Grif sought to escape his valet’s attentions with a walkabout, but on his return to Dalkeith House, he had the misfortune of encountering Lady Worthall, who informed him that she was still anxiously awaiting a reply to her letter to Lady Dalkeith, in which she had explained his lordship’s early arrival and indefinite plans.
Short of responding with a “bloody grand for ye,” Grif tipped his hat, wished her a good day, and walked on.
When he entered the foyer of Dalkeith House, he was met by Miss Brody, who was holding a cup of something that smelled foul and was a rather putrid shade of green.
“What in God’s name are ye carrying about?” he asked, waving a hand in front of his nose at the smell.
“A tincture, sent by the lass who comes round to see ye,” she stoically informed Grif. “For Mr. Dudley and his gout, it is. He’s abed again.”
“Then by all means, do take it to him,” Grif said gruffly. It was increasingly obvious that an ailing Dudley needed to be home with Fiona, who knew how to care for his old body.
Miss Brody shrugged, shut the door behind him. “The lass left ye this as well,” she added, and pulled a small vellum from her pocket and thrust it at Grif as she walked on.
Grif glanced at the vellum she had given him, and was rather surprised by Anna’s flourished handwriting. He would have thought it uneven and carelessly blotted with ink. He took the note to the small library, sat at the writing desk, and opened the missive.
There was another piece of vellum within; the first was an invitation to a weekend affair at the home of Lord and Lady Featherstone in Yorkshire. The invitation touted a Friday evening supper party, lawn games on Saturday, and culminating with a ball that night. Behind that invitation was a smaller piece of folded vellum. He unfolded it and read:
To the esteemed Lord Ardencaple, Greetings and Salutations:
My sister, Miss Lucy Addison, will be in attendance at the Garthorpe soirée tonight. I should very much appreciate your efforts to converse with her about Scotland, for she is quite keen on learning more about the north of Britain. I know that you enjoy conversation and I think you will find her company very pleasurable indeed, as she is a most attentive companion.
Sincerely,
Miss Addison
He could feel the heat rising in his face; he crumpled the damn thing and hurled it halfway across the room. Her impertinence was astonishing—now she thought to instruct him? Aye, it was part of the bloody agreement he’d struck, and if he wanted the blasted beastie, he’d do as she asked. But her insolence was unbearable.
The thing that angered him most about Anna’s reminder and made matters worse… far worse—so much worse that he was of half a mind to hie himself over to London Bridge and plunge his arse into the Thames—was that he could not stop thinking about her.
Aye, her, the diabhal. The vexing, perpetually annoying and highly offensive and terribly alluring her.
There could not have been a person more surprised or astounded by this change of heart than he. Not a fortnight ago, he would have sworn on the Stone of Destiny that he’d never esteem that woman in any way. And while he wasn’t entirely certain he was esteeming her, precisely, she had certainly somehow managed to get under his skin.
The last thing he wanted or needed at this point was to have some ridiculous enchantment of Anna. Just as the wench had said yesterday afternoon when she had rolled to her knees, dragged her hand across her mouth, her hair wildly mussed, her skin pink: It was insupportable.
He’d been so bloody confident in his ability to fetch the beastie and have a bit of sport while he was in London. Nothing could have prepared him for this unfathomable turn of events.
Aye, he’d do well to push her into Drake Lockhart’s arms and have his beastie and be done with this.
Which is precisely what he intended to do this very evening at the Garthorpe soirée. If he could, by some miracle, bring himself to do it.
At the Garthorpe soirée, Grif found Lucy early on and made himself a fixture at her side, regaling her and the other debutantes with tales of Scotland: “The heather is so thick, one feels as if one is floating on a cloud when walking,” and “The sky is as blue as a robin’s egg, and clouds as white and thick as lamb’s wool.”
When one of the debutantes remarked that she had always had the opinion Scotland was dreary, Grif bristled. “Dreary? Why, Christ and his saints slept in Scotland, lass!”
That
had earned several tweets of laughter from the young ladies. Lucy merely smiled.
Later, when Grif escorted her to the sideboard for a cup of punch, they stood to one side, hardly making conversation. Not that Grif didn’t try—when he brought up the latest news from Parliament, Lucy looked at him blankly. When he expressed his opinion of a popular travel novel that was making the rounds of various parlors, she seemed confused, and asked if he read very often, then declared she did not, for she found it quite tedious.
Grif thought Lucy had no inkling of true tedium. As politics and popular fiction did not interest her, Grif began speaking of the guests, and inadvertently his gaze fell on Anna, who was, he was chagrined to see, deep in conversation with Lockhart, her face alive with her effervescent smile. Lockhart’s smile was likewise bright, but more akin to a burning flame. And he had not, as far as Grif could see, taken his eyes off Anna’s very delectable and very exposed bosom. He would speak to her about that straightaway—he’d meant enticing, not exposed.
“Vulgar,” Lucy muttered next to him.
He glanced at her, saw that she was looking at Anna, too. “Beg yer pardon?”
She sighed, handed him her empty cup. “My sister. She’s vulgar.” She said it so easily, and with such a sneer, that it made Grif’s skin crawl with revulsion. That she would remark on her very own sister in such a way to a gentleman…
He casually stepped away from her. “I’ll just put yer cup away,” he said coldly, and strode away.
He found Fynster, who invited Grif to a glass of wine, and the two of them broke away, making their way to another sideboard, where there were decanters of wine and whiskey.
As they stood chatting, Grif noticed that two young dandies had quickly swooped down on Lucy in his wake, and he thought that splendid, wished them well in their endeavors to speak with the lass.
“Quite lovely, isn’t she?” Fynster remarked, and Grif nodded out of politeness, but he was beginning to think he’d never seen a less attractive woman.
“A remarkable change, really. I’ve always admired her, mind you, but she’s not been readily accepted.”
Grif looked at Fynster and realized he was not looking at Lucy, as he had assumed, but at Anna. He was watching Anna laugh gleefully at something Mr. Bradenton had said to her, tossing her head back, exposing her lovely neck to the bloody bastard.
“She seems rather…uplifted, does she not? Happier somehow,” Fynster said thoughtfully. “Rather a lightness of being I had not remarked before now.”
Aye, a lightness of being he’d taught her. And was it his imagination, or were the men swarming around Anna tonight? “Aye, lovely,” he muttered into his wine.
“I always considered her an Original,” Fynster went on, “but no one else seemed to notice.”
“It would seem the entire population of London has noticed,” Grif said, and sounded, apparently, so grudging that Fynster gave him a look.
“You should wish her good evening,” Fynster prodded him.
“And what of ye, Fynster?” Grif asked, forcing a smile. “Ye esteem the lass, do ye no’? Or do ye prefer Miss Crabtree? Ye’ve spent quite a lot of time in her company these last few weeks, aye?”
He might as well have declared for her then, for instead of answering, Fynster turned quite red and looked at Anna again. “Shall we pay our respects to Miss Addison?” he asked, and put aside his wine.
Anna could not believe what was happening to her. Grif had been so right—a smile, a laugh, a bit of conversation that went beyond the weather, and suddenly she was surrounded by gentlemen. She’d speak to one, turn round, and there would stand another waiting to be introduced. She spoke with Mr. Bradenton about her dogs, those kenneled at Whittington Park, her family’s seat, which she had trained to hunt fowl. He seemed rather taken by it, professed to being quite a hunt enthusiast, and was profoundly interested when she mentioned she took second place at the Sussex dog trials the past year.
She laughed at Sir Farley’s tale of a particularly long night spent in New York before returning to England, and was able to share with him some anecdotes about New York she had gathered through years of faithful correspondence with her mother’s cousin. She longed to go there one day, she told him. Sir Farley said that henceforth he would long to take her there.
And then she regaled Lord Prudhomme with a tale of three sisters, who had, one dark, sultry night when their parents lay sleeping, determined to swim in the lake. Except that they could not find the lake in the dead of night, and could scarcely find the mansion from whence they had begun their journey, and returned exhausted and dirty and wishing earnestly for bed, but went straightaway to classes lest their parents learn what they had done.
At that point she heard a gentleman clear his throat behind her, and she turned round to see Drake smiling down at her once more. He had already spent a considerable amount of time in her presence, laughing at her stories, whispering little things in her ear that made her blush, and then stepped away, saying there was someone he wanted to introduce to her.
“Mr. Lockhart!” she exclaimed happily, and glanced at the man who was standing beside him— but that man startled her out of her gaiety. It was his brother, Nigel Lockhart, obviously returned from Bath, and looking renewed and invigorated.
“Mr. Lockhart!” she cried happily, offering her hand. “I had not heard you had returned!”
“Just this morning,” he said, bowing gracefully over her hand.
He was decidedly thinner. And his cheeks looked slightly pink, not the dark, ruddy color she had associated with him all these years. Most remarkably, his eyes were clear. “You are looking quite well, sir! I dare say Bath agrees with you.”
“It is I who agrees with Bath,” he said. “But I’ve been quite a long time from London, and I am rather relieved to be home again. How marvelous to find that the beautiful ladies I left behind are even more beautiful than before.”
Dear God, was this really Nigel Lockhart? The man who could scarcely tie two coherent sentences together was making such a compliment? What an astonishing change! So remarkable, in fact, that she did not even notice that two more gentlemen had come into her circle until she heard Mr. Fynster-Allen speak to Drake.
She turned slightly to see Grif, who was looking at her with an expression that was at once amused and wistful, such an odd mix of emotion that it made her laugh, and she extended her hand. “Lord Ardencaple, how do you do?” she asked, curtseying deeply.
“Quite well,” he said, instantly lifting her up and pressing his lips to the back of her hand. “Quite well,” he said again, his gaze meeting hers.
Beside him, Mr. Fynster-Allen cleared his throat. She laughingly withdrew her hand from Grif’s and turned to greet him.
“What a delight you should join us now!” she said to Grif and Mr. Fynster-Allen, as those two men nodded curtly to Drake. “Lord Ardencaple, may I present to you Mr. Lockhart’s brother, Mr. Nigel Lockhart?” she asked, and saw something flick across Grif’s green eyes.
Nigel instantly offered his hand, but looked perplexed. “A pleasure, my lord…” he said, peering closely, “Lord Ardencaple.”
“And of course you know Mr. Fynster-Allen,” Anna added.
“Yes, yes, of course,” Nigel said, greeting Mr. Fynster-Allen, but instantly turning his attention to Grif again. “I beg your pardon, my lord, but have we previously met?”
“I am certain we have no’, sir, for I am just come to London.”
“Just come? You’ve been in London weeks now by my count,” Drake drawled.
Grif turned a cold gaze to Drake. “I didna realize ye were counting, sir.”
The atmosphere had gone from bright and warm to very chilly, and Anna was suddenly desperate to put the men apart. “There, now, we’ve all met!” she said, trying to garner the attention to herself, and tried to think of what Lucy would do in this situation. “I’m quite parched—”
But Nigel was still staring at Grif and said again, rather insist
ently, “I beg your pardon, I do not mean to stare… but I am certain we’ve met before.”
Now Drake was scowling at Grif. “Mr. Lockhart, you have surely confused his lordship with someone else!” Anna said brightly, tapping her fan against his arm. “How could you have possibly been introduced to him? Unless, of course, you might have had occasion to meet in Scotland?”
“Oh no,” Nigel said, instantly shaking his head, and then paused, laid a finger against the side of his nose. “But still… there is something rather familiar…”
If she’d had a cane, she would have bounced it off the top of Nigel’s very thick skull, and she blurted, unthinkingly, “You are undoubtedly reminded of another Scotsman who attended the Lockhart ball—”
“Ah! Of course!” Nigel cried happily, the memory lighting his face, and he clasped his hands together and levitated to the tips of his toes. “Cousin Lockhart, of course!” he cried happily as he floated down to his feet again. “I do beg your pardon, sir, for I am thinking of someone else.”
Grif nodded tautly. “Aye. Someone else entirely.”
Oh God. Oh dear God. Anna realized what she’d so stupidly just done, and tried frantically to step into the breach she had created, to think of something, anything, to move the conversation forward, but Nigel laughed happily and looked at Drake before she could speak. “The resemblance is uncanny, really! One would think all Scots look alike!” he exclaimed, and laughed roundly.
Drake, however, did not laugh, but was suddenly looking very intently at Grif. Grif did not shy away from Drake’s stare, but steadily returned it, even though Mr. Fynster-Allen was also peering at him as if seeing him for the first time.
“Are you acquainted with him? Captain Lockhart?” Nigel asked Grif.
“Never heard his name before in me life.”
In a desperate attempt to salvage the situation, Anna stepped into the middle of the four men, flipped open her fan. “Mr. Lockhart,” she said to Nigel, “you simply must tell me all about Bath. Are the waters truly as medicinal as they say?” she asked, shoving her elbow at him. “Perhaps you might help me to a cup of punch and tell me all!”