Anne tossed the book onto the ground and threw herself back upon the blanket. She flung her arms out beside her and stared up at the robin’s egg blue-sky overhead and the smattering of orange and pink sun-kissed clouds from the early dawn.
For the briefest smidgeon of time, as Harry had held her fingers in his and tended her burned digits, she’d imagined he intended to kiss her again. She’d been so certain of it; she’d have wagered every last ribbon of her possession, which said a good deal, considering she’d sooner send all gamblers to the devil than join their ranks. The absence of that kiss only served to reiterate the importance of not wagering—funds, markers, or hearts. None of it.
Anne plucked at the thick blades of grass in the tucked away copse. She raised a strand to her lips and blew the long, green wisp. It fluttered and danced, and ultimately landed upon the earth. She grabbed the forgotten volume and held it over head, determined to set Harry from her thoughts, determined to call forth the images of an entirely suitable, pleasantly handsome duke who smiled at the right moments and never, ever did anything as scandalous as try to kiss her.
Kisses intended mostly to silence her that did not reek of cardamom and brandy as Lord Ackland, but rather the hint of cinnamon and mint like a holiday treat. She groaned and knocked the book against her forehead. “Do. Not. Be. A. Fool, Anne Arlette Adamson.” Not for one such as Harry, whose heart belonged to an unworthy lady who bore some lofty title and little else…
She shoved herself up onto her knees. Her heart dropped to her stomach. Just as you, yourself will, a niggling voice taunted. She remembered the harsher charges Harry had leveled at her and guilt hammered her breast.
Only, on the heels of that was her mother’s recent warning about Harry. The rub of it was, Anne had spent years determined to not be the bitter, heartbroken woman her mother had evolved into over the years. She’d resolved to wed a perfectly respectable, staid, pleasantly handsome, unfailingly polite nobleman.
She flung herself back upon the lush blanket of grass and fanned the pages of her book. The gentle breeze wafted across her face. Harry, or anyone, could certainly construe her desire for a powerful, and powerfully wealthy, duke’s hand as mercurial. Only after the string of mistresses held by Father, his betrayal of Mother and their family’s security, Anne’s girlish notions of love had been forever shattered—replaced instead with a calm practicality and a hope for love…nothing more than that—hope.
Then Aldora found Lord Michael Knightly who loved her eldest sister to distraction. Then Katherine had fallen madly in love with Jasper. And Anne had begun to believe perhaps, just perhaps, she too could know love, as well as the heart of a duke prophesied by a gypsy woman to the young ladies who wore the gold charm.
Anne touched the talisman about her neck. It really needn’t be a duke. Why, he might be a marquess, a viscount, or even…an earl. Wistfulness swept through her. She’d barter her every last ribbon and all hope of the title duchess for the man who wanted nothing more than to hold her heart, which flew in the face of her resolve to never be reduced to her mother’s sorry state. Sometime between Lord Essex’s conservatory and this very moment, her firm resolve to find security and stability as a formidable, wealthy duchess had slipped.
Harry’s face danced behind her eyes and she forced his visage back. She pressed the spine of the book against her eyes. There were too many follies to count in wishing for anything more from him, to whom every woman bore the moniker sweet. She frowned. The least the ever-charming earl could do was to adapt something cleverer such as…goddess of my heart, keeper of my love…anything but sweet.
No, to hope for anything more from one such as him would be tantamount to disaster. Determined to forget thoughts of Harry, she lowered the book closer to her face and squinted. She angled the page in attempt to bring the words into focus, damning her blasted vision. Hating the vanity of her mother and the haute ton that discouraged necessary pleasures…such as sight. A gentleman never weds a woman in spectacles, Anne, Mother had scolded on more scores than she could remember. Of course, Aldora had secured a happy, if less illustrious match, with a wealthy gentleman who loved her to distraction—spectacles and all. Mother pointedly ignored that reminder whenever Anne put it to her.
She stuck the leather volume out, arm’s length in front of her and deepened her squint in attempt to make sense of the words. A shadow fell across the early morning sun. She blinked as she registered Harry’s towering figure. He stood above her, a grin on his firm lips…and all her earlier resolve weakened at the ease of his smile. “Harry,” she greeted. “Whatever are you doing here?” She returned his smile from around the opened book.
He leaned over and plucked the tome from her fingers. “I came to see you.”
Her heart fluttered wildly, even as she knew the dangers of that fool sensation. “You did?”
He nodded.
“How did you know where to find me?”
He winked. “I’ve my ways, love.” He paused. “My footman bribed one of your maids.”
A startled laugh burst from her lips. “You’re incorrigible.” However, warmth spiraled through her belly and fanned out, heating her through. He’d cared enough, wanted to see her enough that he’d sent a footman to find her maid to discover her whereabouts.
Then she froze. The air suspended in her lungs as his words registered. All of his words. In the span of a moment she’d become more than just ‘sweet’… She’d become his ‘love’. And though a man such as Harry would never mean anything more by that endearment, warmth exploded into a fiery conflagration inside her heart, and spread out with a growing force through every corner of her being.
His next words snuffed out all hint of romantic musings faster than a strong night wind on a candle’s wick. “It is as I suspected before,” he murmured. “You cannot see.”
Anne made no attempt at ceremony. “I can see.” She made an unsuccessful grab at her book. “I just cannot see so very well when I’m reading,” she muttered.
“Tsk, tsk.” He held the book out of her reach. “Never tell me you are too proud for something as common as spectacles.” He crouched beside her.
Her heart twisted. In the time she’d come to know him and appreciate the many erroneous assumptions she’d drawn about Harry, he continued to see her just as all Society did—an empty-headed, vain, pleasantly pretty young lady as the scandal sheets had labeled her upon her Come Out three years ago. “Give me that.” Anne wrestled the book from his hands. He released it swiftly and she nearly toppled backward.
He tugged one of her strands of hair the way he might a bothersome sister and not the young lady he’d pledged to introduce to the art of the seduction. “Come, what’s this? You’ve gone all serious, Anne.”
“I’m not,” she blurted.
Harry cocked his head. “Yes, I do say you seem rather serious. Your lips are pulled down tight in the corners, here.” He brushed the backs of his knuckles along the corner of her mouth, and she leaned into his soft caress. “And you’ve got those same four lines at the center of your brow whenever you’re pondering something.”
Emotion clogged her throat. Harry knew her so well he could detect the subtle nuances of her body’s movements. “No. You misunderstood me.” No one ever looked close enough to truly see her. “I meant, I’m not too proud.” She glanced at the copy of The Mysteries of Udolpho in her hands. Then, how many times had she forsaken spectacles at Mother’s insistence, fearful she’d not make an advantageous match for the minute detail? “Or perhaps I am.” Shame filled her as she confronted her own vanity; did she truly wish to have a husband who’d not permit her the simple pleasures of reading? Did she want to wed a man who’d be so shallow as to begrudge her the necessity of spectacles?
Before she’d not thought it mattered so much. Stability seemed more important than all else. Now, other less tangible dreams held a dangerous appeal that threatened the goals she’d carried these many years now. She braced for a rush of panic—that did not
come. Harry studied her with intensity in his hazel eyes, saying nothing, his face set in an expressionless mask and just then she wanted to share the truth with him, when no one else knew it. Her gaze slid to a point beyond his shoulder. “Aldora wears spectacles.”
Harry claimed the seat beside her on the grass. He stretched his long legs out in front of him as though reclining on a fine, upholstered sofa and not upon the dew-dampened morning grass. “And?”
She lifted her shoulder in a shrug. “I’m just Anne.”
“And you wouldn’t be with spectacles?” Had his question contained a recrimination, she wouldn’t have continued, but it didn’t.
Heat flooded her cheeks and she spoke on a rush, needing him to understand. “I’m not seen as the intelligent one as Aldora or the sensible one like Katherine.
He quirked a golden eyebrow.
Her heart wrenched at the unwitting reminder of his attempted seduction of her twin. “But all my life, I’ve been the pleasantly pretty one, Harry.” She lifted her palms. “If I’m not pleasantly pretty, then what am I?” Her mother and the world had been quite clear—she was nothing without being a pleasantly pretty, English miss. Until Harry, she’d buried the truth even from herself—she wanted to be seen as more, appreciated for more.
She curled her toes with the truth she’d at last shared; sure he’d chuckle at her in that charming, affable, roguish way of his and not knowing if she could stand the pain of that. He passed his eyes over her a long while. He came up on his knees over her and claimed her chin between his thumb and forefinger. Anne braced for an onslaught of his amusement.
“Look at me,” he demanded in that commanding, harsh tone that had probably been the demise of too many young ladies’ good reputations. She looked up. “You will never be just anything.”
Anne swallowed hard, as there amidst the copse with just the noisy kestrel overhead as her witness—Anne fell in love. She expected she should feel the race of panic in her breast. The impending sense of doom that would surely come in giving her heart to a man who no more wanted possession of the foolish organ than he wanted to attend Sunday sermon after a sinful night of debauchery. Later, she’d restore her mind and heart to rights. When the birds didn’t soar about the pink-and-orange tinted morning sky and Harry didn’t study her with his hot, heated stare, she’d recall her mother’s warnings and all the perils in loving such a man.
For now, she knew she loved him. Logic could come later.
“Close your eyes,” he instructed.
Her lids fluttered closed and she tipped her head back to receive his kiss. The book tumbled from her fingers as she prepared to open herself up to the fierce invasion of his mouth. Wanting his kiss. Needing his kiss. And needing him. She needed him. Something cool and metallic touched her burning skin. Her eyes flew open.
He thrust her opened book into her hands. “Here.”
She stared at the concise, clear words. Words that didn’t blur together and require squinting in order to bring them into focus. She touched the wire-rimmed spectacles perched on her nose. “You gave me spectacles,” she whispered.
He cupped her cheek. “And you’re still as beautiful as you’ve always been, Anne,” he said softly. Tears filled her eyes. He released her as if her skin had burned his palms. He nearly fell over himself in his attempt to put distance between them. “Egads, you’re crying.” He jumped up.
She tipped up the spectacles and dashed away the hint of moisture. “I am not,” she said defensively.
He snorted. “You are.”
Anne set the book down hard beside her. “I merely had something in my eye.”
A muscle jumped at the corner of his eye, as though detecting the clear lie to her words. “I detest a woman’s tears,” he muttered.
She glared up at him, detesting his placing her into a category with all women. “Well, that is fine, my lord, because I don’t make it a habit of crying.” The last tear she’d shed had been when she’d made her Come Out and discovered the truth of her whore-mongering, wastrel father. After that, she’d decided no gentleman was deserving of a single salty memento. “And furthermore, if I had been crying, which I certainly was not,” she added pointedly when he opened his mouth to speak, “tears of happiness are entirely acceptable.”
He eyed her a long while. “No forms of tears are acceptable. Ever,” he spoke with a resolute firmness. “They’re merely a ploy used by women to wheedle their way into a gentleman’s heart.”
She folded her arms across her chest. Oh, the lout. Of course, she’d have the bad sense to go and fall in love with a gentleman who possessed an ill-opinion of women and happened to be missing a heart. “I don’t use tears.”
He dropped to his haunches beside her. “A lady is better advised to use her mouth to entice a man than those crystal drops.”
His words had the same affect as a powerful slap. They reminded her of Harry’s fleeting presence in her life. She might love him, but she remained nothing more than a bothersome miss whom he’d generously offered to help, and merely because of her connection to Katherine, not out of any regard or concern for Anne, herself. The knife twisted in her heart. The muscles in her throat moved up and down with the force of her swallow. “Is this just another lesson, then, Harry?” For the first time since she’d enlisted his support, she realized Harry, the Earl of Stanhope was, in fact. the one in desperate need of a lesson.
Tension snapped Harry’s body erect unnerved by the sudden realization—he’d not thought of the damned lessons on seduction once. Not when he’d had his footman find out from Anne’s maid when he could find the young lady alone. Nor when he’d visited Bond Street in search of a delicate pair of spectacles that would perfectly suit her heart-shaped face. And not when he’d come upon her in this tucked away copse, like Eve in her garden of sin.
Except now, she’d mentioned the damned lessons and an ugly vision wrapped its tentacle-like grip about his vile musings—Crawford taking Anne’s lush lips under his. Anne moaning as her blasted duke slipped his tongue inside and made love to her mouth the way Harry ached to worship her body.
Anne came up on her knees. “Should I touch a finger to the corner of my lips?” The tip of her index finger tantalizingly, invitingly stroked the edge of her mouth. She inched closer to him. “Or should I trail my tongue over my lips, invitingly.” The pink tip darted out and circled her lips, lingering on the plump flesh of her slightly fuller lower lip.
His heart thudded. “Where have you learned such a trick?” He’d kill the blighter who’d shown her such things. The role belonged to him alone.
She tipped her head. “Because it is wrong, Harry?”
Because it was right. Too right. And yet, wrong all at the same time. Desire flared inside him.
Her hand fluttered about her breast. She captured a loose, golden strand between her fingers and rubbed it along the modest décolletage of her gown. His breath left him. He’d had the pleasure of bedding some of the most inventive creatures on the Continent. Women of skill. Women who’d found pleasure in giving him pleasure. In this moment, he couldn’t recall a single one of their faces, their actions, or even their names. He saw only Anne. He caught her to him. “Are you seducing me, Anne?” he whispered harshly against her temple.
“Is it working?” she asked on a sultry whisper.
“It is, love.” He didn’t recognize the garbled quality of his voice.
She tilted her head back, eyes closed, searching for his kiss. Harry lowered his head. Their mouths a breath apart, heat rolling off her body in waves. He claimed her lips in a gentle meeting. Anne leaned into him and Harry deepened the kiss, knocking her glasses askew. She moaned. The heady erotic sound shattered the quiet and penetrated the spell she’d cast upon him. He drew back, chest heaving with the force of his desire. He wanted to freeze this moment with her. Make Anne his in every way; in a world away from the reality of broken promises and the pain of betrayal. Away from the fear of losing—again.
Her ey
es flew open. “Why did you…?” Red blossomed on her cheeks.
He’d not lay claim to her body in this tucked away haven, just a stone’s throw from a possible passerby. He might be a bastard but there was still honor in him.
He adjusted her spectacles and then pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I’ll not disrespect you more than I have here, Anne.”
“You didn’t disrespect me,” she blurted.
Except he had. Each time he met her without a chaperone, he risked ruining her with his attention. He fought back a groan. If the ton could see the change she’d wrought upon him, they’d be laughing all the way to the betting books at White’s to guess the date of his and Anne’s impeding nuptials. Harry blinked several times. Marriage? He stumbled back.
Anne scratched at her brow. “Harry?”
Harry attempted to still the panicked beat of his heart, fearing this momentary lapse in sanity. Fearing it was, in fact, more. Only, it couldn’t be. He’d not be so imprudent as to fall in love. He affected a lazy grin. “Come, Anne, even I’ll not steal your virtue in Hyde Park.” She’d chosen her duke long ago. And he’d chosen the safety of an uninjured heart.
She pursed her lips. “But—”
Harry tweaked her nose, killing the words that would follow. “I’ll not chance someone stumbling by.” This could never be anything more. Not with her. Nor any woman. “Then you’d be stuck with this old rogue for a husband instead of your duke.” Yet, why then did a sharp pain twist inside him with the knowing that some other man would lay claim to her?
Anne passed a searching gaze over his face. “Is that what you’d have, Harry? Would you have me become his duchess?” Her question emerged haltingly.
He fisted his hands tight at his side as the image of her in the marital ducal bed rolled through his mind. He imagined a world in which Anne belonged to Crawford while Harry waited on the sidelines for a place in the wedded lady’s bed. Only… Knowing Anne as he now did, he knew she’d never give herself to another. Not after she bound herself to a man. She’d honor Crawford, or whoever the nameless, faceless gentleman who took her to wife in name, body, and spirit.
A Heart of a Duke Collection: Volume 1-A Regency Bundle Page 53