‘Oh, Anne.’ Margaret’s sympathy was almost worse than her suspicion. ‘You shouldn’t have forced yourself to come. Of course Mr. Weldon and I will understand—how could we not? But you must have a maid to sit with you in the carriage, if you won’t let me come myself.’
‘You certainly mustn’t spoil your afternoon on my account, and neither should a maid. The coachman has been with Charles ever since he was a boy—he knows me better than any brother could. He’ll have me home in a heartbeat. Will you say something inconsequential to Charles, so he doesn’t worry?’
‘I doubt I can stop him worrying, dear. You are his most precious friend, after all.’
If Margaret had seen the look on Charles’s face when he had seen his ‘most precious friend’, the conversation would be proceeding very differently indeed. Anne had no doubt of that. ‘Say I forgot my reticule. I’m scatterbrained enough.’
‘Understood, dear.’ Margaret placed her empty cup on the counter of a nearby stall, taking Anne’s hands and affectionately squeezing them. ‘Go and rest your weary head.’
She would have to make up this lie to Margaret. She would make her a gown for next Season without charging a penny. Anne fixed this resolution in her mind, only to tussle once again with the most atrocious guilt as she began to walk away. No gown, no gift of any price, could make up for a falsehood told to a friend.
She walked back in the direction of the carriages, growing close enough to spot Charles’s bay mare snort and dip her head. Before the coachman could catch sight of her, she ducked around to the other side of the carriage line and waited.
Margaret would be informing Charles now. All she had to do was stand still in the freezing cold, pretending to examine the coat of a large black horse that looked at her with utter disdain, and wait until she deemed it safe.
Only when the beds of her nails were blue, her teeth chattering, did she emerge from behind the line of carriages. Moving quickly now, determined not to be seen, she made her way to the nearest cluster of stalls.
Given that the fair was yet to open fully, there were several stalls left unmanned. Anne approached one, looking furtively about her to see if Margaret or Charles were watching, before pushing gently against the ramshackle door at the side.
It opened. Briefly uttering a silent prayer of thanks, she slipped inside before anyone could notice her. Looking around the cramped space in a quiet frenzy, she pushed a box of what looked to be persimmons against the door to keep it shut.
She fumbled to find her over-stuffed reticule, bringing it out from beneath her skirts. Holding her breath, worrying that someone would pull aside the coarse oilcloth that covered the front of the stall and see her, she laid out her items as quickly as possible.
Hmm. She looked down at the clothes with a frown. Breeches, a loose linen shirt and a long length of lilac cotton for binding away the contours of her shape, making her less noticeable. A large brown cap to hide her hair, a pair of boots that looked comfortable, but terribly scruffy–oh, how difficult they’d been to have jostling against one’s thighs under one’s skirts, next to an already over-stuffed reticule!
It had seemed like the only possible solution to avoid detection, back in her workshop. Any other gown, any nod to femininity, and someone could have recognised her before John did. She could leave these clothes bundled under the persimmon box. At least dressed like this they could walk together, speak together without fear of censure.
And maybe, just maybe, they could go to the small, half-abandoned fisherman’s cottage a little way along the bank. The one she had seen so many times walking with Margaret, never imagining how she could put it to use.
‘Well.’ She spoke quietly to the open air, half-expecting to be interrupted any minute. ‘I should change quickly, if I’m going to change at all.’
The Fair wore on, the rest of the stalls opening with gay shouts of welcome and recognition. Up on a small ridge lined with trees grown stunted and bare from the wind, three of the five Duke brothers stood staring down at the merriment.
‘Look at that.’ Edward took a deep breath of freezing air, his laughter sending white clouds over Henry and John as they stared out over the Thames. ‘The frost fair. If anything will get you out of this damned slump, John, it’s going to be this.’
John looked silently down at the chaotic, teeming mass of people crowding the bank of the river. The year was particularly cold, which made for a Frost Fair elaborate enough to excite even the most jaded London ladies and gentlemen. A long line of stalls selling a bewildering variety of hot, sweet and smoke-scented foods, oysters and pork, whisky and cakes, with groups of wrapped-up people passing between each one on a seemingly endless quest to fill their bellies and satisfy their need for variety.
He’d always liked the Frost Fairs. There were always interesting people to draw. This year, no matter how spectacular the whole scene looked, he found himself staring at it all as if from a great distance away.
‘We could go and skate. There aren’t too many people out on the ice–it’ll be safe.’ Edward mused, taking in the eddies and whirls of people as they moved from one attraction to the next. ‘Or we could go and find the meat pie stall with that pretty red-headed girl, the one that was there last year. Or there’s the elephant–poor old thing. I hope it eats its keeper if he tries to make it go out into the middle of the river again.’ He looked at John and Henry, frowning. ‘Or we could all stand here for the next hour, with me trying to summon up a little energy in you like a bloody governess.’
‘Do you know how icicles work?’ Henry was looking with great interest at an icicle forming on a nearby tree. ‘I’ve read three papers about it, but they all had small errors. Perhaps I’ll conduct an experiment.’
Edward sighed. ‘Christ Almighty.’
‘Sorry, Edward.’ John smiled wearily. His brother had done a fine job of putting up with him in recent weeks, but every man had his limits. Henry’s sudden fascination with icicles certainly wasn’t helping. ‘I know I’m no fun.’
‘I’m not expecting fun. I know you’re a thousand miles away from fun at the moment.’ Edward smiled, shaking his head. ‘I am, however, expecting movement. It’s difficult to attract a lady’s attention in a positive way if you’ve got a corpse following you about.’
‘I’m hardly a corpse.’
‘You haven’t been looking at yourself in the mirror properly. You’re as grey as a linen sheet left out in the rain.’ A flash of uncharacteristic concern came to Edward’s dark eyes. ‘But you’ll be alright eventually. I promise.’
John sighed. Being with Henry and Edward was infinitely better than being with Thomas and Robert, at least at the moment. Thomas and Robert were sympathetic people, as they had always been, but their visible happiness at their respective marriages was utterly galling to someone less lucky when it came to love. If John had to sit through another afternoon tea filled with such perfect joy, such an abundance of compliments and adoring looks and discussion of new gardens, homes and children, he would end up sticking a fork in his leg just to have a reason to leave.
Yes, Edward was an inveterate rake. Yes, Henry lived in another world for the vast majority of the time, a deeper world where human emotion was just another curiosity. But compared to Thomas and Robert, with their satisfaction at having found love-matches amidst the social ferment of the ton, their company was infinitely more restful. What was more, they had listened to his fevered, dramatic confessions of his love for Anne Fletcher and responded with a good dose of normality.
He would never be able to tell Thomas and Robert. Their delight at their own circumstances only fed his sadness. At least with his younger brothers, one disinterested in love and the other with an overriding interest in lust, a story of unrequited love wasn’t anything to think about too much.
‘Do you remember Isabella Moncourt?’ It was as if Edward had caught the tail-end of his thought. ‘I mooned over her for months. I practically wasted away.’
John could
n’t help but smile. ‘I don’t remember you missing a single meal.’
‘I would have, if it hadn’t been grouse season. I’d have to be dying to refuse grouse. And dramatic gestures aside, I really was quite sorry when she married.’
‘I know. And now you’re as heartless as you ever were.’
‘Exactly! It’ll be alright in the end. Won’t it, Henry?’
‘Well, no.’ Henry looked from Edward to John with deep patience, as if they were two children who didn’t know how to tie their shoes. ‘In the end we all die. Every step we take is towards the grave.’
‘Bloody hell.’ Edward gently patted Henry’s shoulder. ‘Don’t say that at a ball. Please.’
‘I wouldn’t have to say it at all if people didn’t say silly things like it’ll be alright in the end.’
‘I know, Henry.’ John smiled at his brother. It was no use arguing with him; he had been this way since childhood, and the world was more refreshing as a result. ‘Come on. Edward wants to find that red-headed girl with the pies.’
It felt good to tramp down over fresh snow to the bank of the river with a goal in mind, even if the goal was to help his brother attempt to ruin someone’s reputation. Not that it was the only goal he had in mind. As they approached the fair, the swirling crowd of people acquiring clarity as they came closer, he let Anne come to the forefront of his mind.
He’d suggested the Frost Fair with such impetuous force—as if it were the only possible way they could meet. How stupid he was. There were so many people here that it would be a miracle if they found one another, let alone managed to speak to one another with any semblance of privacy. Edward and Henry could be relied upon to melt away if he saw her—but what if she had been unable to come alone? What if she were with friends, or God forbid, Charles Weldon?
‘You’re drifting away again.’
‘If I didn’t drift, Edward, I’d never be able to paint anything worth painting.’
‘And are the paintings selling?’
‘Yes. It’s no windfall, but it’s steady.’
‘But you’re not thinking about painting.’ Edward sighed. ‘I don’t mean to be a monster, but she may not come at all.’
‘I know that.’
‘And it may not be because she doesn’t wish to. She could have been called away on an errand.’
‘I know that too.’
‘But you’re still going to be miserable when she doesn’t come, I imagine. You’re going to mope, and spoil any chance I have with the meat pie lady… John? Are you listening?’
John wasn’t listening. He was staring intently at the edge of the crowd, one hand held to his brow to block the sun. Out on the white expanse of snow, at the very end of the stalls but before the mass of skaters, was a figure.
At first he didn’t understand the flash of recognition. The silhouette reminded him of no-one he knew; it was a young man, his frame lithe and spare under clothes that looked slightly too baggy. Not a gentleman, either–an ordinary man. A man staring at him from under a large cloth cap as if he were the most important thing in the world.
A beam of sunlight broke through the wintry clouds, illuminating a flash of red-gold hair that had escaped the cap. John started forward, suddenly breathless. ‘It’s her.’
‘Who?’
‘Who do you think?’
‘Well I know you can’t mean Miss Fletcher.’ Edward leaned forward, his eyes narrowing as he took in the sight. ‘Not unless I’ve misunderstood something fundamental about her.’
‘It’s her!’
‘That’s not Anne Fletcher.’ Edward looked at him with a raised eyebrow. ‘That’s a gentleman. John, if your confession about Miss Fletcher was meant to cover a confession of something else, now would probably be the time to tell us.’
‘Yes.’ Henry tore himself away from the icicles, looking gravely at John. ‘Marrying a gentleman is going to present more logistical problems.’
‘I’m sure it would.’ Henry’s pronouncements always hovered between humour and immense seriousness. ‘But look closer–it’s her. It’s Anne–Miss Fletcher.’
‘I think you can call her Anne here. I wouldn’t anywhere else.’ Edward craned his neck at the distant figure. ‘Well, I–my goodness! It is her.’
‘You see?’
‘I recognise the hair.’
‘Yes. She hasn’t tucked all of it into her cap.’ John leaned forward, gazing wistfully down at her. ‘She wanted me to see it.’
‘Less of the swooning poet, please—I don’t want an upset stomach. I have plenty of meat pies waiting for me.’ Edward rolled his eyes. ‘Hurry up. Go to her.’
‘I—I don’t think I can. Can I?’ John turned worriedly to Edward. ‘Perhaps she doesn’t want to see me alone. I would hate to impress my presence upon her without her most explicit—’
‘John, she’s slipped away from whatever friends she’s brought with her and dressed up as a bloody man.’ Edward’s expression was magnificently contemptuous. ‘Do you honestly think all she wants to do is stare at you from afar? Henry—agree with me, please.’
‘I agree with you.’ Henry nodded. ‘Although it should be noted that I wasn’t listening.’
John couldn’t help but laugh. All he wanted to do was laugh; the ecstasy of finding her so unexpectedly had untied some fragile knot within him, leaving him open to joy again.
‘I’ll tell Thomas and Robert you’re at the studio.’ Edward grinned. ‘Don’t bother being back in time for dinner.’
‘I won’t.’ John seized his brother’s hand, shaking it in panicked gratitude as he began to walk down the ridge. ‘Thank you.’
The fair had seemed distant before he caught sight of her, but now it felt like nothing at all. Twenty feet, thirty feet, a hundred feet—who cared when Anne was waiting for him, still and silent as a statue as straggling members of the crowd ebbed and flowed about her? He’d never fought through as many mulled-wine sellers and fraudulent tricksters and children determined to make mischief before, but they all felt as insubstantial as ghosts…
… and now here they were, the sounds and smells of the fair a mere backdrop to their meeting.
It was truly her. He hadn’t gone mad. For a moment he’d thought his talent for faces had deserted him; that small oval face beneath the brown cap couldn’t possibly be the woman that he’d dreamed of for so long. But as Anne turned, looking at him with eyes that communicated as much pleasure as fear, he knew that it never could have been anyone else.
He could pick her out in the largest of crowds. He could find her anywhere. Now, finally, he had her–and she had him. She could do whatever she wanted with him.
‘Good day.’ He started to bow, but stopped. If anyone was watching him, they’d be asking why he chose to bow with such ceremony to what looked to be a rough lad from the fair. ‘I—you—’
‘I’m sorry. There was no other way.’ Anne was blushing. John watched the colour in her cheeks bloom and change, wishing he could feel the heat of her skin against his lips. ‘I would be recognised in any other garb.’
‘I recognised you like this.’ John stepped forward, briefly giddy. They were speaking to one another in the open, for all the world as if they were allowed to do so. ‘I think I’m the only one.’
‘I hope so.’ A brief, bright smile transformed Anne’s face. It was like seeing the sun after months of cloudy days. ‘Or I’m going to be in terrible trouble.’
Had she come alone, or were people looking for her? Would they soon be set upon by Margaret Barton or Charles Weldon, with an ugly public scene inevitably following? Christ, this had been an impetuous idea—they were both shy people, he and Anne, and should never have agreed to meet somewhere so cursedly public…
‘There’s a house.’
‘A what?’
‘A house.’ Anne spoke quickly, as if the words were leaving her lips unbidden. ‘It’s used by the fishermen in summer. It stands about twenty minutes hence, half-hidden by trees.’
&nb
sp; ‘But the fishermen—’
‘Aren’t here, because the river’s frozen over. Keep up.’ There was a slight quiver in Anne’s voice, a mixture of hysteria and caution. ‘Margaret and I’s weekly walk goes past it. The door would be quite easily pushed open.’
‘Miss Fletcher. Anne. I—’
‘Please come with me. Please come to a place where we can’t be seen, or interrupted.’ Anne’s chin moved higher, her voice more laboured as she struggled to speak with confidence. ‘I—I am more than aware of what I’m asking. What I’m implying. It may change your opinion of me, but I have decided the risk is worth taking.’
‘The risk of what?’
‘Of you thinking I’m… well…’
‘Lead the way.’
Anne’s eyes widened. ‘Truly?’
‘Of course.’ John moved closer still. He’d never realised how much taller he was than her; how right it would feel to hold her close here and now, despite her clothes and the passers-by. ‘Did you really ever think I’d refuse?’
‘I don’t know what to think.’ Anne gestured to her clothes, her hands roughened with work and as expressive as those of any dancer. John followed the movement of her fingers hungrily. ‘I don’t even know what opinion to have of myself.’
‘It’s cold out here. Take me to the house.’
‘But what if it’s closed, or someone’s in it, or—or—’
‘Take me there.’ John gritted his teeth as he removed his coat, the icy wind hitting the back of his neck. ‘And put this on, before you freeze to death.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Look at us. Look at what we’ve already done. What can’t we do?’
Wearing his coat felt even more intimate than the kiss that had burned on her wrist. It was as if his arms were around her–as if his whole body was warming her against the chill in the air. Anne breathed in the scent of him as she buttoned the garment, the scent of pencil-wood and polished floors settling into her bones and calming her nerves.
Lovestruck in Lilac: The Brothers Duke: Book Three Page 3