He set her from his lap with such alacrity she stumbled backward. “Then I imagine, you shouldn’t be stealing away with unrepentant rogues in the middle of your hostess’ ball.” He took her by the shoulders and gently propelled her to the door.
Anne frowned over her shoulder and dug in her heels, until he was forced to stop or continue dragging her along. “But you promised—”
“A lesson. And I’ve given it. Show him your clever, witty self. Do not bury your intelligence for his favor because such a man would never be worth having.” He placed a hard kiss on her lips. “Now, go.” Emotion blazed to life in Anne’s soft, blue eyes. She arched her neck back as if hungering for his kiss, and before he did something like make love to her mouth, then lift her skirts and make love to every last silken inch of her, Harry affected a half-grin. He patted her on the cheek. “Go, sweet.”
Anne gave her head a shake and then wordlessly ran down the length of the conservatory, unlatched the door, and fled.
Harry stood there long after she’d left. It appeared he wasn’t the total dishonorable scoundrel he’d taken himself for these past years. He scrubbed his hands over his face.
Damn it.
Chapter 12
Anne depressed a single key of her pianoforte. She studied her fingertip upon the ivory key and remembered back to a different instrument. Remembered the moment it had been packaged up and carried off by servants and sent wherever it was lost belongings went to cover a man’s debts.
There had been a time when she’d lay abed well into the early morning hours, staring at the canopy overhead, worrying. Worrying about her poor mother’s breaking heart. Worrying about her twin sister losing the one joy she had in life—her volumes of poetry. Worrying about the loss of Benedict’s games and toys and more—his innocence. Worrying about Aldora having to forsake a dream of love all to make a match to save.
Security had been a beacon. A talisman of hope she clung to. She had longed for the day she’d make her Come Out. Only, she’d entertained the most foolish of girlish musings that included security, a handsome gentleman, and love.
But first and foremost had always come security.
Now, the Duke of Crawford, with his increasing interest, represented the pinnacle of that great beacon. As the Duchess of Crawford, she’d never worry about material comforts, or more importantly, the comforts of her future children. There had always been the expectation, both real and self-imposed, amongst her family that Anne would make an advantageous match.
In her third Season, no longer a girl, Anne foolishly held onto hope for that last elusive dream—love.
She touched her fingers to the keys.
“The Duke of Crawford will make you a splendid match, Anne.”
Her fingers slipped and the dissonant chords echoed through the spacious parlor. “Mother,” she murmured.
Her mother sailed into the room. The firm set to her mouth, the fire in her blue eyes spoke of a determined point to her visit. She stopped at the edge of the ivory upholstered sofa and planted her arms akimbo. “Well?” She motioned to the seat beside her.
For one, infinitesimal moment, Anne thought of sticking her tongue out and banging an obscene ditty on the keyboard. “Well, what?”
“Don’t be insolent, Anne,” she snapped.
Reluctantly, Anne shoved to her feet. The delicate bench scraped the hardwood floor. She wandered over to the King Louis chair and sat, hands folded demurely upon her lap. Ever the dutiful daughter. The daughter Mother hung all her hopes upon, who in spite of that faith remained unwed.
After two Seasons and a bit of a third.
Mother carefully arranged her skirts. “You know, of your sisters and brother, only you really know the truth of your father.” She directed that statement down at her pleated satin skirts.
Yes, her siblings had somehow remained insulated from that truth of their vile father. “Mother?” she asked, cautiously. But for the handful of unkind matrons when Anne had made her Come Out, little was said of the philandering late earl. She’d smiled brightly through all the impolite whispers.
Her mother snapped her head up so quickly Anne imagined she hurt the muscles of her neck. “It is, of course, no secret your father didn’t love me.” Bitterness made for an ugly smile on the countess’ face.
Anne’s heart ached for the pain her mother had known—still knew. She reached for her hand.
“Bah, do not give me your pity, Anne,” she said with a wave.
Anne pulled her fingers back.
“If you don’t have a care, you’ll become me.”
She wrinkled her brow.
“I see the way you stare at Stanhope,” she hissed. “Stare at him when you can have Crawford.”
Anne stiffened. “How very mercurial you make it all seem.” She wondered if this was how Harry and her sisters saw her—cold and calculated, counting ribbons and dreaming of the title duchess.
Her mother bristled at Anne’s terse words. “Were you mercurial when you cried about your ribbons?”
She winced at her private shame being tossed in her face by her mother.
“Was it mercurial when they took your sisters books?” her mother continued relentless. “Or when Aldora chose to marry for—”
“Aldora married for love.” Even as Mother would have had Aldora wed the Marquess of St. James or some other lofty lord.
Mother colored. “Fortunate for you all, Lord Knightly was obscenely wealthy and generous with you.”
How neatly she excluded herself from that general ‘you’? Anne glanced away, knowing there was more to Mother’s displeasure. Knowing it stemmed from Harry.
“Do you love him?”
She blinked several times. “Do I—?”
She scoured Anne’s face. “Love him,” she repeated. “Do. You. Love. Him?”
Anne shook her head. “No.” She opened her mouth. Words wouldn’t come. She shook her head again. “Certainly not.” She was considered the fool of the family, but she’d never dare anything so mad as to fall in love with Harry, the 6th Earl of Stanhope who’d attempted to seduce her sister, and loved his Miss Margaret Dunn, and saw Anne as nothing more than a termagant. Or hellion. The moniker varied on a given day.
Mother studied her in silence as though seeking for truth in her answer. “He’ll not wed you,” she said at last, the matter-of-factness of those words more painful than if they’d been jeeringly flung.
Anne curled her nails into the skin of her knuckles. “I am not thinking he will, Mother,” she said between gritted teeth.
“Nor should you hold out hope he would,” she continued almost cruelly. “You’ll always merely be second to the sister he truly desired.”
She curled her fingers into tight balls, her nails leaving crescent marks upon her palms. Now, that was indeed cruel. Particularly in the truth to those handful of words. If she’d not begged and pleaded, Harry wouldn’t have bothered to even help her in the first place. He’d have sent her to the devil with a harsh kick to her derriere and not a single backward glance.
“I always desired more for you than Mr. Ekstrom.”
Anne attempted to follow the abrupt shift in conversation.
Mother slashed the air with her hand. “Katherine, well, as you know. I expected a marriage between her and Bertrand. Benedict, why he’s just a child and anything can happen to a child. Then where would we be?”
“Mother,” Anne said on a gasp.
Red fanned Mother’s cheeks as she appeared properly shamed at the coldness of her words. “I did not mean to sound avaricious. I love all my children,” she said defensively. “But I worry for all of us. All of us,” she repeated as though Anne hadn’t heard her clear enough the first time.
“Neither Jasper nor Michael would allow us to become destitute.”
“And what of the connection to the Wakefield line?”
Well, Anne could imagine a good many greater travesties than the loss of connection to her dastardly father. She held those wor
ds back, knowing they’d only cause her mother further pain.
“I would not see you do something reckless with your reputation and lose the duke’s favor. If there is no Crawford, or some other lofty title, there is the assurance of Mr. Ekstrom.”
What was she on about? She didn’t want to think about horrid Mr. Ekstrom the man Mother had tried to have Katherine…Her heart sank slowly into her belly.
“I see you follow my thoughts, Anne.”
Anne jumped up. She glared at her mother’s immaculately arranged curls. “Is that what you’d do? Threaten me with marriage to Mr. Ekstrom?” Somewhere in her mother’s loathsome scheming and vile threat she’d lost sight of the fact that Harry’s presence in her life came from nothing more than her goals to ensnare the Duke of Crawford’s attention. “I’ll not wed him.”
Mother rose, slowly. She smoothed her skirts. “No. I dare say you shan’t. I’d much rather you have the Duke of Crawford.” She crossed over and took Anne’s cheeks in her palms.
Anne yanked her face away, much the same way she’d done as a small girl when her nurse had attempted to rub lemon juice over her freckled skin in attempt to rid her of the marks. Mother took Anne’s face in her hands, once more. “Look at me,” she said softly. This kind, tender tone the one she remembered of the Mother who’d praised her and found pride in her playing and embroidery skills. Likely more the woman she’d been before the extent of Father’s betrayal had ruined her. “I want to see you happy. You call me mercurial. Mayhap you think me cruel.” Tears filled her eyes, the first crack in her indecipherable mask. “Do you know the fear I carried in my heart for not only myself but for each of you?” She blinked back the crystal drops.
“Mother,” Anne said gently.
She blinked the drops back. “Bah, silly tears. A waste they are.” She drew in a shuddery breath. “I loved your father, Anne. But sometimes love isn’t enough. Not when a gentleman’s heart is otherwise engaged.”
A faceless Miss Dunn flashed to Anne’s mind. She tried to call up a clear image of a woman who possessed the beauty men would wage wars for. Surely, no silly gold ringlets there.
“Your Lord Stanhope is not without a scandal.”
“I know that,” she murmured, giving her head a shake. “And he’s not my Lord Stanhope,” she added as an afterthought.
“There was a woman, a…” Mother paused, seeming to search her memory.
Miss Margaret Dunn. Oh, how she detested that name.
“It escapes me, now. Nearly ten years ago, I believe.”
Eight years. Harry had indicated eight years had since passed. Anne would have been just a girl of twelve or thirteen around the time. She imagined Harry, unjaded, just out of university. She didn’t want to ask her mother questions. She was content to bury her curiosity and not know Mother’s twisted version of the story. “I don’t need to hear this,” she said firmly. She would not betray Harry with Society’s gossip.
Her mother rushed over and claimed her hands. “You do, Anne. Do you understand me? You need to hear this, when I myself refused to listen to the whispers surrounding your father’s offer for me all those years ago. You represent nothing more than a diversion to the earl.”
Anne’s lips twisted ruefully. Considering the terms of their arrangement, she represented a good deal less than that to Harry.
“He can’t have honorable intentions toward you.”
The whole lessons in seduction business aside… why not? He was not the heartless rogue she’d once taken him as.
“Because he will always love another,” her mother said, seeming to follow Anne’s unspoken question. “I would see your life be different than the one I’ve lived.”
Anne imagined herself thirty years from now a bitter, empty, angry shell of the woman she’d been. For everything wrong and flawed in her mother’s thinking, she would be correct on this. Harry would break some woman’s heart. And if Anne weren’t careful, she would be that poor, unfortunate soul. Her heart twisted. She tugged her hands free. “Please be assured, Mother. I know that. I do.” She slid her gaze over to the pianoforte.
Mother touched Anne’s chin. “Learn from my mistakes. I loved your father enough, so much that I foolishly believed I could teach him to love me.” Her voice broke and she coughed in an apparent attempt to hide her uncharacteristic show of emotion. “You can’t teach the heart to know that which it already knows.”
Oddly, those words made sense to Anne. She wandered back over to the pale blue upholstered pianoforte bench and sat. “I understand, Mother.” She raised her hands, poised above the keys. “I’ll not do anything foolish where Lord Stanhope is concerned.” If one could exclude enlisting the rogue’s assistance on matters of seduction…
Anne began to play a polite, if clear, dismissal. She’d had enough of her mother’s rain upon her happiness. She buried thoughts of Harry, and mother’s aching reminder of a too-sad past, and the Duke of Crawford’s intentions, in the strands of John Dowland. She lost herself in the haunting melody and sang.
Not to seduce.
But merely because it was a singular pleasure she could allow herself. Her books, she could barely see. Her ribbons were empty fripperies. In the strands of song, she could drift off and be someone other than empty-headed, pleasingly pretty, Lady Anne Arlette Adamson.
And Anne sang.
“Weep no more sad fountains. What need have you flow so fast…?”
As Harry trailed behind the butler through the Countess of Wakefield’s townhouse, the haunting melody soared from the room at the end of the corridor and danced around the plaster walls. He froze mid-stride. His heart pounded loud and hard in his ears.
A contralto.
The whisper of song that makes a man think of bedrooms and bedsheets and all things forbidden…
The butler paused and looked back at him questioningly. Harry told his mind to tell his legs to tell his feet to move. And so he moved. Onward to the husky contralto. They paused beside the parlor. The butler cleared his throat. “The Earl of Stanhope….”
Anne’s song broke into a sharp shriek and her fingers slid along the keyboard in a discordant tune that echoed around the room. She jumped to her feet, high color on her cheeks. “My lord.”
For a quick moment, Harry wasn’t sure if hers was a greeting or a skyward prayer.
Her gaze met his and then wandered off to the young maid who hurried past him and advanced deep into the room. Out of the way. But certainly not forgotten.
He damned propriety to the devil. Harry beat his hand against his leg. “My lady.”
Anne fiddled with her satin skirts.
“Should I…”
“Would you…”
They fell silent. He motioned for her to continue.
Anne cleared her throat. “Would you care for refreshments?” she asked loudly.
He cupped his hands around his mouth. “A seat should suffice,” he returned.
Her lips twitched and she motioned him forward. The butler hurried off and Harry entered the room. “Please, sit,” Anne murmured. She hovered beside the rose-inlaid pianoforte.
He claimed a seat on the sofa. He narrowed his eyes at Anne’s unexpected show of hesitation. For the tart, biting hellion she’d proven herself to be since they’d met, she’d never been timid around him. And he rather found he disliked it. Disliked it, immensely.
She hurried over and sat in the mahogany ladder back armchair across from him. Not on the sofa directly beside him. Or even the bloody chair directly next to his. Across. She shifted in her seat. “Are you certain you wouldn’t care for tea?”
He looped his ankle across his knee. “Quite certain. But please do not let me discourage you.”
Anne glanced at her maid. “Mary, will you call for refreshments, please.”
The servant hopped up from her seat and rushed to do Anne’s bidding.
Silence reigned between Harry and Anne. He drummed his fingertips on the edge of his boot. What accounted for the suddenly
mute version of Anne’s usually vibrant self? She studied the tips of her ivory satin slippers with the attention she might show a fireworks display at Vauxhall Garden. He leaned back in his seat. Alas, it would appear the charm he usually evinced failed him whenever Lady Anne Adamson was near.
Crawford. Surely the duke’s sudden interest accounted for this heightened tension. He curled his fingers into tight fists. In attempt to shake her free of this cool shell she’d affected, he whispered, “It would seem you’re a sultry contralto, Anne.”
Her cheeks blazed the red of a ripened berry and he suddenly had a taste for sweet fruit. “Er…” she plucked at the fabric of her skirts. “Uh…yes.” Her blush deepened. “That is, I possess a contralto. Without the sultriness,” she said on a rush.
He leaned forward in the sofa and lowered his voice. “With the sultriness.” And now he loathed even more the idea of her singing for that bastard Crawford. The other man had the privilege of sitting as a solo audience to her performance, had likely conjured wicked thoughts of Anne, all wicked things Harry himself longed to do to her. “Sing for me,” he commanded hoarsely.
She tilted her head. “My lord?”
And furthermore, what was this, ‘my lord’ nonsense? “Sing for me.” This time, he gentled his voice, used his most seductive tone that had found many ultimately well-pleasured ladies a place in his bed.
Anne wrinkled her nose. “I abhor that tone, Harry.”
Ah, of course she did. Odd how this spirited beauty had sought him out, asking him to school her in the art of seduction, yet she spurned each one of those lessons as they were turned upon her. The tension in her bow-shaped lips, the frown at the corners of her riveting blue eyes bespoke annoyance. He rose and walked around the small marble-top table between them and dropped to a knee beside her.
“What are—?”
Harry took her smaller hands in his. He tugged off her white kidskin gloves and set them aside. “Will you sing for me, Anne?” He raised her naked wrist to his mouth and placed his lips along the inside, where her pulse beat hard and steady. “Please,” he added.
A Heart of a Duke Collection: Volume 1-A Regency Bundle Page 51