Standing at the side of the ballroom floor, Harry observed the ton part, and followed Margaret’s deliberate walk. Her soft satin skirts danced about her ankles. She came to a stop before him. Her gaze lingered a moment on Edgerton. “Lord Edgerton,” she murmured, her voice lower, more sultry than he remembered.
His friend’s jaw tightened. “Your Grace,” he drawled. It didn’t escape Harry’s notice that the other man failed to bow.
Her rouged-red lips twitched. She turned her attention to Harry. Her sultry brown-eyed gaze ran a path over his face. “Hullo, Harry,” she whispered.
He bowed. “Your Grace,” he said stiffly polite. This woman, who’d broken his heart, who’d reduced him to an empty, hollow version of his youthful self now stood before him.
He’d not allowed himself to think of her but with resentment through the years. In the earliest days of her marriage he’d relished the moment they’d once again meet. He would have mocked her union with the wizened, ancient duke and then given her the cut direct. On his worst days, he’d tortured himself with the reminder of her lush, generously curved frame. Now, staring back at her, it struck him just how her dark beauty paled to Anne’s innocent light.
He made another stiff bow. “If you’ll excuse me.” He stepped around her. She touched his sleeve, staying his movement. The crowd gasped. He cast a pointed look at her gloved fingers. “Remember yourself, madam,” he said with deliberate coldness.
Margaret pulled her hand back. “Forgive me,” she said quietly. “Will you…? I…” She glanced pointedly at Edgerton. “May we talk, Harry?”
“This seems like a rather ill-choice of a meeting place,” Edgerton said tauntingly. Then, after an insolent bow, took his leave.
Margaret shifted her attention to Harry. “Please. I’d speak to you.” She looked momentarily to the couples assembling for a waltz.
“Whatever you care to say, you may do so here, madam,” he said stiffly. He’d not partner her for a dance and he most certainly didn’t care to meet with her alone.
“Very well.” She sighed. “You’d have me humble myself here. I will. For you. I love you,” she said her words soft yet resolute. “I’ve always loved you. My marriage to the duke, my parents required it of me, Harry.” She held her palms up beseechingly. “Surely you know you’re all I’ve ever wanted.”
All she’d ever wanted but not enough to fight for his love. He braced for the familiar rush of old resentment. That didn’t come.
“I came out of mourning early for you.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Am I supposed to be flattered, Your Grace? Grateful?” Did Margaret imagine she’d reenter his life and they might resume the courtship begun before life had jaded them?
She winced. “If my misery brings you happiness, know that I’ve spent the past eight years in hell, dreaming of,” her voice grew husky. “Longing for you.”
A twinge of pity tugged at him. She had her title of duchess, but he couldn’t imagine there’d been anything pleasant in being wed to the ancient, doddering duke. And in that moment he realized, for all the pain she’d caused him, he didn’t resent her. Sometime over the years, his love for her had died.
“In spite of what you believe, I don’t wish for you to be unhappy, Margaret,” he said, surprised by the truth of that admission. If he were still in love with her, perhaps she’d inspire grand sentiments of agony and old, youthful jealousies. And mayhap if she’d stepped into a different ballroom, a different soiree a mere ten days ago, before Anne had upended his life, this conversation would continue a different course. Anne, however, had driven back all the bitter hurts and replaced them with a genuine, unfettered happiness.
“I read there is a woman.” Pain hoarsened her voice. “Is there?” Tears filled her eyes and she blinked them away. “Tell me there is not,” she pleaded.
Ah, she’d learned of Anne. A muscle jumped in the corner of his eye. He didn’t want Margaret speaking of her; he preferred the smiling, teasing Anne, untouched by the scandal of his past.
She took his silence for confirmation. “Do you care for her?” Margaret asked, with marked hesitancy.
Harry gave a curt bow. “Please excuse me, Your Grace.” He certainly cared for Anne. What she meant to him exactly, he didn’t allow himself to consider and most definitely not before the ton, and worse, before Margaret. “This is neither the time, nor the place.” With that, he turned on his heel and went in search of Anne.
Chapter 18
From the corner of the parlor, Anne pulled back the curtain and peered down into the street below. She touched a finger to the sun-warmed windowpane.
She’d been expecting him if for no other reason than to make his apologies for abandoning her last evening, to Rutland’s cruelty, no less. The greater likelihood was that Harry would call and ask to be spared of any further lessons with her. She swallowed painfully. This way he would be able to pursue his Margaret, a widow and free to therefore pick up where life had left them. Harry would be free to become the man he’d once been, before Margaret’s marriage had turned him into a jaded, heartbroken rogue.
And Anne would never be anything more than a distant thought in his head. She pressed her eyes tight, dreading the moment he would arrive and all her happiness ended. With a shuddery sigh, she opened her eyes and stared blankly out into the streets below. The loss of Harry would force her to confront just what a liar she truly was. She’d told him she didn’t expect a profession of love or his undying devotion, but God help her she did. Wanted it more than she craved food or drink or silly ribbons and mindless Gothic novels…even that blasted pianoforte played by the Westmoreland daughters.
She wanted him. All of him. And more, she wanted him to want her.
Anne bit her lip hard and winced. A rider pulled up on a magnificent chestnut steed. Her heart thumped madly and she leaned close. “Harry,” she mouthed silently.
A young lad rushed forward to collect the reins. Harry handed them off, tossed the boy a sack of coins and murmured instructions.
A shuddery sob escaped her lips and she buried it in her fingers.
Her mother’s visage reflected back in the exposed glass panel. “Anne Arlette Adamson, come away from that window,” she snapped from the doorway.
Anne ignored her demands. Instead, she pressed her forehead against the glass and peered down at him as he rapped on the door.
“He’s come for no other reason than to end this madness between you, Anne,” her mother predicted.
“I know that,” she whispered, no longer lying to her mother or herself in the importance his presence meant to her. Somewhere along the way, he’d come to mean more than a lesson in seduction. Perhaps it happened when they’d been seated side by side at Lady Westmoreland’s musicale. Or after one too many tweaks of her golden ringlets or Dibdin’s songs or…
She didn’t know the precise moment but at some point, Harry’s happiness had come to matter more to her than even her own.
The door opened below and Ollie allowed the earl entrance. She pressed her lids tightly shut so that flecks of white light danced behind her closed eyes.
Mother touched a hand to her shoulder. “He is not worth this pain.”
“He is,” she whispered brokenly. He was so much more than the shiftless bounder he presented to Society. He was the sole person to look close enough at her to know she needed spectacles to read, and had taken it upon himself to find the most perfect pair, so that she might read to her heart’s pleasure.
“Even if he comes here now, Anne, and does not break it off, then it is honor driving his actions.”
She fisted her hands at her side. “Perhaps he loves me,” she ventured, hearing the futility in her own hopeless words.
“I imagined your father loved me as well.” The pity underscoring her mother’s tone dug at Anne’s insides. “He’s no different than your father.”
Anne spun around. “He is nothing like Father,” she spat. She slashed the air with her hand. “Father was
a wastrel, dishonorable, disloyal to his children, to you—”
“And your Lord Stanhope will be the same if you do not have the courage to set him free, Anne.” Her mother took her hands. “Set him free,” she implored with her eyes. “Do what I could not. Allow him his love. His true love,” she amended, her words a thousand daggers upon Anne’s wounded heart.
As if on perfect cue, a knock sounded at the door. The butler, Ollie, appeared. He cleared his throat. “My lady, the Earl of Stanhope to see Lady Anne.”
Anne jammed the heel of her palms against her eyes, attempting to rid herself of thoughts of Harry.
“Anne, remember yourself,” Mother scolded.
Ah, yes, the unpleasantness of showing the hint of real emotion. Anne forced herself to take a deep, and slow breath. “Please tell the earl I’m not receiving callers,” she said, the words so faint, Ollie, the ancient servant, cupped a hand around his ear.
“What was that?”
“Please tell the earl I’m not receiving callers,” she repeated, this time resolve strengthened her words.
Mother tossed her hands into the air. “Anne, meet with him and—”
“I will, Mother. Just not now.” Please, do not ask this of me. Allow me to do this as I will, at my own time, in my own way.
Her mother gave a terse nod and left.
Anne waited for her mother to take her leave and then sprinted across the room to her spot beside the window. She peered down into the streets in time to observe Harry’s exit. He beat his black hat atop his right leg and glared at the door, as though he could command the black panel to open and permit him entry. A broken laugh, more of a sob escaped her lips. Then, Harry possessed enough roguish appeal to charm a door to open.
He stiffened and for the fraction of a moment she thought he might feel her gaze upon him. But then, the young street lad rushed over with the reins to his steed and Harry took them, mounted his horse, and left.
Anne buried her face into her hands and wept copious amount of tears. Egads, I’m crying? I detest tears. She cried all the harder in remembrance of that recent day in their stolen copse when he’d given her spectacles, and then shown her more pleasure than she’d imagined her body capable of.
Anne folded her arms about herself to still the tremors quaking her form. She sank down onto her piano bench and her back knocked against the keyboard in a discordant, melody of agony and despair. What if her mother had been wrong, even as logic told her she’d not been? But what if she had? What if Harry had merely come to apologize and dole out another of his lessons, as she’d clung to the foolish hope of since early that morn?
“Fool, fool, fool,” she choked out between great, big gasping sobs.
There were certain moments a person remembered in life. For Anne, she’d forever recall stumbling into Lady Preston’s ballroom and witnessing the magnificent tableau presented; Harry in his golden glory and the willowy duchess with her thick black ringlet-less hair. And poor, pathetic Anne, no different than her mother longing for a man who’d never been, nor would ever be hers.
She brushed back the useless tears. Another knock sounded at the door. “What is it, Mother?” she said, impatiently. She spun to face the doorway. “I’ve already told you I’ll speak…” Her words faded into silence.
Ollie stood at the doorway, a contrite expression on his face. He cleared his throat. “His Grace, the Duke of Crawford to see you, my lady.”
Ah, Mother wouldn’t turn away a duke if it meant saving her own life and the lives of all her children.
Her lips twisted in bitter remembrance of Mother’s callous treatment of Katherine’s husband, Jasper. Then, she tended to draw a proverbial line at dukes with a scandal to their name. She wrinkled her brow. Then, in thinking on it…it rather seemed mother abhorred all manner of scandalous gentlemen from wealthy, second sons like Aldora’s Michael, to Katherine’s once heart-broken Jasper, to the Earl of Stanhope, to—
The duke entered the room, a bouquet of hothouse flowers in his right hand. He paused a moment. His eyes lingered upon her face and she dug her toes hard into the soles of her slipper, certain he could detect the surely swollen-red eyes. “Lady Anne,” he murmured.
Anne shook her head, and remembered herself. She sprung to her feet. “Your Grace.” She sank into a curtsy, dropping her gaze to the floral Aubusson carpet, looking anywhere but at him.
Her maid, Mary slipped into the room, eyes downcast. She dipped a curtsy and then sought out her all too familiar seat. After three Seasons of Anne unwed, the poor woman had likely worn quite a place on the upholstered seat.
The duke moved further into the room. He passed his intense gaze around the ivory parlor then trained his penetrating stare on her. “Are you well, Lady Anne?”
Which was the most polite, non-direct way of inquiring after her tear-reddened eyes. “Er, quite,” she lied. His eyes said he knew it. From across the room, Mary coughed. Anne jumped, remembering herself. She rushed over to the duke and motioned to the sofa. “Please, won’t you sit, Your Grace?”
Sit in the very seat Harry had occupied some days ago when he’d asked her to sing to him. There was something so very wrong in the duke sitting in…
The duke sat.
…in Harry’s seat. A vise threatened to crush her heart.
His Grace extended the bouquet in his hands. “These are for—”
“Achoo!” Anne sneezed. For all the beauty of a flower, she’d never been able to breathe around a single bloom. Bitterness pulled at her lips. Yes, she’d never have made an ideal trysting partner for the Earl of Stanhope.
The duke fished into his pocket and withdrew a kerchief. He held it out.
“F-forgive…achoo!” Anne sneezed into the fabric neatly monogrammed with the initials ADC. “Forgive…achoo.” Oh dear, this really was rather inconvenient.
The duke’s lips twitched even as Mary rushed over to take the flowers from him. She hurried from the room.
“My apologies,” he said with a smile in his words. “I wasn’t aware—”
“No apologies, necessary, Your Grace,” she assured him. “It is quite a bother.” A frown replaced the austere duke’s fleeting smile. “Not receiving flowers. Because it is quite lovely. That is, if I could breathe around them, it would…” She allowed the words to go unfinished.
“I find it quite endearing.” Only, the hard, determined edge to his words hinted at a world wary man who didn’t find life endearing, let alone an unwed young lady’s sneezing.
Anne directed her attention to the handkerchief. Had the Duke of Crawford entered the world a squalling, haughty baby with a frozen noble heart? Or had life invariably done what life invariably did, and shatter whatever innocence he’d carried? She felt his stare on her and reluctantly shifted her attention upwards. She made to give the linen back but he waved his hand.
“Consider it yours, Lady Anne.” Specks of silver danced in his blue eyes.
“Thank you.” She studied the gold, monogrammed letters and angled her head, humbled by her own self-centeredness. She’d set her sights upon the duke, determined to have him as her husband…and yet she didn’t know something as simple as his Christian name. Society referred to him as His Grace, the duke, the Duke of Crawford. It occurred to her that she, like the rest of the ton hadn’t bothered to consider him beyond his title. She touched a finger to the single A, wondering over the lone initial.
“Auric,” he said quietly.
Her head snapped up.
“I gathered you wondered about the A.”
“Auric,” she said softly. A bold, unique name for one of the most powerful peers in the realm.
He shifted on his seat. “A rather unconventional name for an English lad.”
She managed her first real smile that day as she imagined him as Auric, a mere boy being schooled on the future role of duke. Then her smile withered as she considered her own grasping attempts at his title. She plucked at the fabric of the monogrammed handkerchief. She didn’t
know the Duke of Crawford beyond their handful of meetings, but she’d already determined he deserved far more than to be desired for his title alone.
No gentleman deserved that.
No person deserved that.
He leaned over and placed his hand upon hers, his green eyes filled with such intensity she looked down—and stilled. Anne studied his large hands, cased in buff colored kid leather. She didn’t imagine a duke to have such imposing hands and more, she desperately wanted those hands to elicit all manner of delicious shivers inside. She wanted to burn from where their fingers met…and yet… Her eyes slid closed a moment.
Nothing.
Not a blasted spark.
Or shiver.
Or tingle.
Nothing.
“Marriages have been forged on nothing more than a matter of convenience, Lady Anne.”
She jerked her stare back to his. “Your Grace?”
“I’d have to be a fool to not realize you prefer Lord Stanhope’s suit to my own.” He sounded bemused, and she’d venture it was hardly every day a young lady preferred the attentions of a roguish earl to a powerful duke.
She bit the inside of her lip, unsure how to respond.
“Yet, I find I want you. As my duchess.”
Ah, there it was. The pinnacle of all her dreams realized. Only now did she realize those dreams belonged to her mother. They’d never been Anne’s. And perhaps Anne was, in fact, the foolish, whimsical creature everyone had taken her for, because she craved love above all else.
Fool. Fool. Fool. Hadn’t life taught her that most times, love wasn’t enough?
“Why?” she asked.
He raised her fingertips to his lips and touched his mouth to the inside of her wrist. The intimate gesture felt like a betrayal of sorts to Harry.
“Why, Anne?” When one was a duke he could drop all formality and call a young lady by her given name. Even without permission. “Because you wondered about the A.”
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