Practically Wicked

by Alissa Johnson

  Anna turned carefully, moving away from the deep-water edge, and caught sight of Max charging into the water. Before she was halfway back to the shore, he was upon them, disheveled and winded, his handsome face set in hard lines.

  “Anna—”

  “Her boat sank,” she told him and wondered if that sounded as ridiculous to him as it did to her.

  He swung the crying, shivering child up in his arms as his eyes raked over Anna. “Are you all right? Are you harmed?”

  Anna wasn’t certain which one of them he was addressing, but she shook her head, figuring that worked either way. The girl didn’t have an injury she could see, and her loud sobbing indicated that her lungs were free of water.

  Max continued to stare at her. “You’re certain?”

  “Yes.” She’d stood in water. What sort of injury was he expecting? To be fair, she was feeling increasingly odd, as if she was becoming slightly detached from what was happening around her, but that scarcely qualified as an injury.

  “Right,” Max said, nodding. “Right, then. Let’s get you back to the house.”

  With one arm holding the child perched on his hip, Max wrapped the other arm tightly around Anna’s shoulders and ushered her toward the shore. Anna was grateful for the assistance. She didn’t feel tired, exactly, but her legs did feel weak, as if she’d just finished a footrace. Of course, having never actually participated in a footrace, that might not—

  “Anna?”

  She glanced over and found Max looking at her expectantly and with great concern. He’d asked her something, but she’d not heard him over the splashing of water, the continued rush of blood in her ears, and the little girl’s wailing.

  “I’m all right,” she said, figuring that would at least address his concern.

  “What?”

  Had she not been so out of sorts, she might have laughed a little at their complete inability to communicate. Instead, she reached up and squeezed his hand in reassurance, and waited until they’d reached dry ground to tell him, “I’m fine.”

  She wasn’t sure he’d heard her (her voice sounded muted to her own ears) until his arm slipped from her shoulder, and he adjusted the little girl in his hold.

  “What’s your name, sweetheart?” He patted her back gently. “Come on, now. Take a deep breath. You’re all right…There you go…Now tell me your name.”

  The child coughed, hiccupped, and after several tries, managed, “Cassandra.”

  “Cassandra?” Max pulled back to take a better look at the girl’s face. “Cassandra Hughs? Mrs. Webster’s grandniece? Jim Hughs’s girl?”

  She sniffled, hiccupped again, and nodded.

  Max gave her a bolstering smile. “I’ve not seen you in ages. Grown a mite, haven’t you?”

  She took a ragged breath. “Aye, sir?”

  “Ah, you don’t remember me, then. I saw you last…” He thought a moment. “Two years ago, I’d say. You were but an infant then. Miss Rees, a proper introduction, if you please.”

  “What?” Anna blinked at him as her sluggish mind caught up with the words. “Oh…Yes, of course. Er…Lord Dane, may I present Cassandra Hughs. Miss Hughs, this is Lord Dane.”

  Cassandra’s drying eyes widened considerably, presumably at the realization she was being hauled across the countryside in the arms of nobility.

  Max pretended not to see. “Cassandra’s father is the finest cabinetmaker in England. Isn’t he, love?”

  “Aye, milord,” she readily agreed, awe of nobility forgotten in the face of pride. “Best there is.”

  “So I have told all my friends in London.”

  “London? Truly?”

  “Truly,” he assured her gravely.

  Max kept up a friendly banter with the girl for the remainder of the walk home. Anna listened with half an ear, which was all she seemed capable of at present. Her mind was a jumble of racing thoughts, her body was simultaneously bursting with energy and completely exhausted.

  Once or twice, she caught Max staring at her over Cassandra’s head, a line of worry across his brow. But she didn’t begin to understand the full extent of that worry until they reached the house.

  A footman, who must have spotted them in advance, greeted them just inside the door. “My lord? Miss? Is everything all right?”

  “No,” Max snapped, surprising Anna. Apparently, he surprised himself as well. He winced and cleared his throat. “Beg your pardon, Perkins. If you would please, fetch Engsly and send for the physician.”

  “Aye, milord.”

  Anna looked at Cassandra. She didn’t appear to be in need of a doctor, but she supposed it wouldn’t hurt to have the girl looked over.

  A great commotion sounded and Anna turned to see Mrs. Webster come bustling down the hall with three maids. The housekeeper’s eyes grew wide at the sight of the two bedraggled adults and the little girl in Max’s arms.

  “Good heavens, is that…?” She gasped, rushed forward, and all but snatched her grandniece away from Max. “Cassie! Gracious, child, what’s happened to you?”

  To Anna’s bewilderment, the sight of a familiar face seemed to dissolve the composure Cassandra had managed to achieve in the walk back to the house. The girl wrapped herself around Mrs. Webster, buried her face in the woman’s neck, and sobbed. Loudly.

  “She had something of an adventure in the pond,” Max explained over the noise.

  “The pond? But she can’t swim.”

  Anna reached out and rubbed the girl’s shoulder. “She had a raft, I think, but it sank—”

  “Raft?” Mrs. Webster scowled at the top of Cassandra’s head. “That ridiculous bit of nonsense your cousin cobbled together with sticks and twine? Good heavens, what were you thinking? You might have been killed, you foolish girl.”

  Cassandra sobbed louder at the rebuke. Mrs. Webster gently patted her back. “You’ll be lucky, you will, if your father doesn’t take a belt to your backside for this.”

  “You’ll see to it she reaches her parents?”

  Mrs. Webster nodded and strode down the hall, scolding and soothing the young Cassandra all the way.

  Anna bit her lip, concerned. “Her father won’t really—?”

  “No,” Max assured her before turning to address the nearest maid. “Find Mrs. Culpepper.”

  “No, stop. I beg of you, do not tell Mrs. Culpepper of this. Not yet.” There was no keeping it from her for good, of course, but a bit of stalling could be done. “She’ll fuss. Terribly.”

  He didn’t appear particularly pleased with her request, but nodded, then sent the staff in search of towels, blankets, brandy, dry clothes, and warmed milk whilst he ushered Anna into the nearest parlor.

  “Light a fire,” he instructed a maid as he settled Anna into a seat. “And make certain the physician knows he is to go to Hughs’s home first and come here directly after.”

  “You mean to pay him for his care of Cassandra?” Anna asked. She shifted in her chair, uncomfortable in her damp skirts. “That is very thoughtful of you.”

  “And you,” he replied. He accepted a blanket from a winded footman and wrapped it around Anna’s shoulders.

  How was it thoughtful of her? “I didn’t think of it.”

  “I mean to pay him for his care of you.”

  “What? I don’t need a physician.”

  “Then I’ll have wasted his time and my money, but you’ll have no reason for complaint. Here…” He handed her a small brandy. “Drink this.”

  She wrinkled her nose at the glass but expertly swallowed down the contents. “Oh,” she gasped. “Oh, that is dreadful. I simply do not understand the appeal.”

  Max took the empty glass from her, set it aside. “You’re not a stranger to spirits.”

  “No.” Drink, like carnal relations between men and women, had been part of the Anover House education, as provided by Mrs. Wrayburn. When Anna had reached her (estimated) teen years, she’d been given a sampling of spirits, instructions on how each should be served and
imbibed, and then told that she could help herself in the future. Without curiosity or the lure of rebellion to tempt her—and having witnessed firsthand what too much drink could do to a person—Anna had kept her distance.

  “I’d rather I was.” She made a face and reached for the tea someone had produced with remarkable speed. “Vile stuff, that.”

  But it served its purpose, warming her from the inside and settling the worst of her nerves.

  She glanced at Max, took in his slightly paled coloring and the hard set of his mouth, and wondered if he might benefit from a glass as well.

  Chapter 15

  Max wanted to drink the bottle, or at least from it, in great, long gulps.

  But as that would render him even more useless in the current situation, he resisted the lure of oblivion and put his effort into caring for Anna. And into berating himself.

  He had made it approximately twenty-one hours before seeking Anna out. At the time he’d thought himself weak and selfish for giving in to his desire to see her. Now he was trying to clear his mind of images of what might have happened had he not given in and sought her out.

  Not that he’d been a particular help once he’d found her. Anna had been pulling the child toward her (albeit by the unlikely means of a stick) by the time he’d arrived. But he could have been helpful. If the child had been too heavy or too panicked and pulled them both under, he could have reached them in time to help. It was small comfort, but it was all he had.

  Max grabbed another blanket and wrapped it around Anna’s shoulders.

  He ought to have been there to start. What had he been thinking, letting her walk about the countryside alone? Hadn’t he been obligated to rescue her from Clover, then carry her back to the manor house the last time she’d gone exploring by herself?

  She wasn’t one of the village lasses, accustomed to the unique perils of the countryside. The woman had never before been out of London. Hell, the woman had scarce been out of her house. She damn well shouldn’t have been out of this house without—

  “Perhaps we should send for Mrs. Culpepper.”

  Max blinked at the sound of Anna’s voice. Glancing down, he saw he had yet another blanket in his hands. “Am I…?” God, he hated to ask. “Fussing?”

  “Oh, yes.” She nodded emphatically. “To be honest, I’ve never experienced the like, not even with Mrs. Culpepper. You do realize it’s warm outside?”

  He looked at the blanket in his hand, the two she had on, the fire in the grate, and the steaming cup of tea in her hands.

  “You were shivering,” he said defensively.

  “Was I?”

  Only a little, but he’d felt it when his arm had been around her, and he’d hated it. He absolutely loathed the idea of Anna being hurt or sick, in no small part because it terrified him.

  “Shock can give a body chills,” he told her.

  “I don’t feel chilled. I feel…Well, I do feel out of sorts as yet, but not”—she held up a hand as he stepped closer—“chilled.”

  He studied her face closely. There was a warm, healthy color in her cheeks. But that didn’t stop him from wanting to wrap another blanket around her. “Elaborate on ‘out of sorts.’”

  “It’s…I don’t know. I feel…disoriented, as if everything is moving faster than I am.” She grimaced and colored. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It does,” he assured her. “Go on.”

  “And at the same time, I feel invigorated…wonderful, really, as if I could climb a mountain and not be winded at the top. It’s quite strange, and not entirely unpleasant.”

  “Perfectly natural.” As a soldier, he’d experienced something similar after every battle. The mind wasn’t always able to convince the body that danger had passed. He set the last blanket aside. “You’ll be yourself again after a good rest.”

  “Rest?” She looked stupefied by the very idea. “I couldn’t possibly.”

  “You can try. We’ll get you upstairs, you can change, lie down, and…” He trailed off and fisted his hands, frustrated. Good God, what was wrong with him? When had he turned into a dithering, incompetent nursemaid? “Right. Of course you can’t rest.” Just as he couldn’t stop himself from reaching out to brush a damp lock of hair off her shoulder and straighten her blankets. “Have pity and distract me. Tell me why you were using a stick.”

  “Beg your pardon?” She took a sip of her tea and he waited, almost patiently, for the words to sink into her racing mind. “Oh, the branch. I used it to reach Cassandra.”

  “Five feet away?”

  “The water grew very deep, very quickly.”

  “And…you…?” His heart plummeted to his feet, and what hope he’d had of fully regaining his composure was lost. “Holy hell, you can’t swim, can you?”

  “No, of course not.” She blinked and looked to him with a curious expression. “Unless the skill might be innate, like a dog?”

  He shook his head, stunned and horrified.

  “Well, then.” She grinned at him. “No, I can’t swim.”

  A string of vulgar invectives spilled involuntarily from his mouth.

  “Yes,” Anna chimed. “I said much the same. But only in my head, as there was a child involved.”

  “You could have drowned. You might have died.”

  “Oh, yes, I know.” She blew out a long breath and grinned again, like a woman deranged. “I was most terrified.”

  No wonder she’d been shivering. No wonder she remained “out of sorts.”

  “And that…pleases you?” Bloody hell, he wanted a drink from that brandy bottle. No, on second thought, what he wanted was to scoop Anna into his arms and onto his lap, wrap a dozen more blankets around her, and then drink the bottle of brandy while the reassuring heat of her seeped through to ease the painful knot in his chest.

  “Not at the time, no. But now, yes.” She lifted her shoulders in a sheepish manner and said, “It isn’t courage if you’re not afraid,” as if that might provide some clarity.

  He squeezed his eyes shut briefly, opened them again, and found himself no less confused. “…Sorry?”

  “Courage is doing what is needed despite one’s fear. Without the fear, it’s merely…fearlessness.”

  He wondered at his state of mind that he was beginning to follow her logic. “And it’s important to you, to be courageous?”

  “I should think it would be important to everyone. But yes, I am relieved to know I am not a coward.”

  He reached out to tuck a length of hair behind her ear and found the warmth of her skin as it brushed against his fingers immensely comforting. Not so comforting as the warmth of her in his lap would certainly be, but helpful nonetheless. “Why the devil would you think otherwise?”

  “I didn’t. Not really. I simply…I didn’t know. One wonders how one might act in dire circumstances. I wondered quite a bit. But…I so rarely left Anover House…” She trailed off, shaking her head.

  Max nodded, rubbed her shoulder soothingly. He couldn’t tell for certain if she was embarrassed or still battling shock, but he understood what she was trying to say. Much of how a person defined himself was through his interactions with the world. When that world was very small, it probably felt as if the opportunities for definition were very limited.

  “You might have asked me,” he said, and with a quick glance over his shoulder to be certain they were alone for the moment, he leaned down to press his lips to her brow. It was even better than touching her cheek. “I could have told you how brave you are,” he whispered.

  “Thank you.” She sighed and offered a smile that was both grateful and apologetic. “But it’s not the same.”

  “No,” he agreed. “I know it’s not.”

  There were some things about him he knew to be absolute truths. He enjoyed travel. He’d been a good officer. He’d been a poor brother. He was demonstrably bad at games of chance. If he’d not been allowed to leave McMullin Hall, he might never have known these, and a thousand other,
things about himself.

  Having never left Anover House, there were a thousand things Anna had yet to learn about herself.

  Max withdrew his hand from her shoulder and turned to busy himself pouring a cup of tea he didn’t want. For the first time, he wondered if he should be considering pursuing Anna at any pace, or if that was tantamount to thinking of snatching a young miss straight out of the nursery, or catching a butterfly as it emerged from its cocoon.

  His next thought was that he’d been reading too much mawkish poetry of late.

  Butterflies, indeed.

  Anna Rees was not a fragile curiosity, nor a child in need of coddling. In fact, in many ways she was better suited to navigate the world than some of the young ladies of the ton. She was clever, sensible, and perhaps most important, well educated. Life at Anover House had not left her a blank canvas. Her experiences there had been unusual, not less.

  No, it wasn’t definition she lacked. The sort of woman she was, was clear and sharp as glass. What she needed was confidence. That would come—and sometimes go—with time, as it did for everyone. A person was constantly learning new things about himself, the good, the disappointing, and everything in between. Anna wasn’t alone in that.

  She had learned something new about herself today and it had bolstered her confidence.

  He had learned something new about himself today and it made him uneasy.

  Apparently, he was capable of fussing. Evidently, he was incapable of going four-and-twenty hours without seeing Anna Rees. Clearly, he was less motivated by loyalty than he was by irrational fear, because when he was kicked out of the room two minutes later so that Anna might change into dry clothes, the first thing he did was go in search of Mrs. Culpepper. And then Lucien.

  A little fussing, he reasoned, never hurt anyone. If Mrs. Culpepper and Lucien could fuss until Anna agreed to spend the remainder of the day with her feet up, all the better.

  Chapter 16

  The following afternoon, Anna made her way down a back stairwell, taking stock of her various aches and pains. Her legs were pleasantly sore from her morning walk. Her fingers stung lightly in the places where Hermia’s sharp little teeth had taken hold in play. Her sides and cheeks ached from smiling and laughing.