She managed a jerky nod and mourned the ending of the waltz that signified the beginning of the end of her and Harry, the Earl of Stanhope. “Meet me, after the next set.” The harsh, unyielding command belonged to a man accustomed to women falling at his proverbial feet, for the pleasure of his touch. They parted. He with a curt bow. She with a stiffly polite curtsy.
And then for the first time in ten days, moved in opposite directions. Away from one another.
Anne spied Katherine and Jasper; their bodies leaned close, a soft smile on her sister’s blushing cheeks. Anne halted, feeling like the worst sort of interloper upon their intimate exchange. With wooden steps she changed direction and wandered back to her spot beside Lady Cavendish’s potted fern, staring blankly at the green plant. How very unusual, to have a fern in the midst of a ball. She touched a finger to a green leaf, wondering if she didn’t meet Harry just now, would they continue on as they had for the past ten days? She drew her hand back, and gave her head a clearing shake. She’d been fool enough where Harry was concerned, giving her heart to him when he could never love her in return.
With wooden steps she skirted the edge of the ballroom floor. Of course, no one would note her furtive movements, her inevitable disappearance. They had only been interested in the old scandal brought to life for the voracious appetites of hungry peers. The pad of her slippers nearly silent upon the thin, carpeted corridor. She followed the crimson red path. Absently, she thought of the many scandalous trysts Harry had engaged in. How had he known where the conservatory was from the garden from the library?
He must be quite practiced, indeed. Why—A startled shriek escaped her as a horribly familiar, flawlessly beautiful figure stepped into Anne’s path.
The Duchess of Monteith picked Anne apart with her eyes, and Anne knew the moment the woman lifted her vivid brown gaze up, that she’d found her lacking. Suddenly, feeling very silly in her modest ivory skirts when the other woman in her dampened satin sapphire, evinced the beauty men penned sonnets for.
When it became clear the duchess had little intention of breaking the awkward silence, Anne sank into a deep curtsy. “Your Grace,” she murmured. “Forgive me, I was just—”
“You are Harry’s current lover, aren’t you?” Anne flinched feeling as though she’d been kicked in the stomach. A malevolent gleam lit the sparks of green in her eyes and for a moment all hint of beauty was lost in the ugliness of a woman made bitter by life…and jealousy. “I’ve read of you,” She paused and flicked her gaze over Anne’s person. “And the others dear Harry has been with.”
Anne flinched but then took a steadying breath. This mean-spirited shrew would not cow her. Beauty aside, she couldn’t fathom what Harry saw in one such as this. “I’m no one’s lover, Your Grace. I’m a lady.”
Her black eyebrows knitted into a single line. Fury sparked in her cold gaze.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Anne said again.
It was one thing to give Harry up to this foul creature, quite another to needlessly take the woman’s abuse.
“I gather you’re off to repair your hem?”
The mocking words slowed Anne’s step.
Do not look back, Anne Arlette Adamson. Do not give her the satisfaction.
Then, her sister had always deplored the rash decisions made by her. She turned back around.
“You may have your champagne in the conservatory. Ah, surely you didn’t think you were special,” the duchess jeered, clearly seeing the shock in Anne’s expression.
“No. No, I did not think I was special.” She’d known all along just how much she meant to Harry.
Nothing at all.
“Go have your champagne, Lady Anne and when you’re done, he’ll come back to me. Because he loves me.” If those last four words had been biting and cruel they’d have hurt a good deal less. But the matter-of-factness of that pronouncement burned like acid thrown upon an open wound.
“Just as you love him?” Anne shot back. Fury licked at her insides and she embraced it, finding strength in the heated emotion. “You loved him so much you threw away his heart and the opportunity to be his in every sense of the word. And for what? The title of duchess.” She passed a condescending glance up and down the woman’s perfect form, and then shook her head, repulsed by the mere sight of her. “You never deserved him.” And yet, he would forever be hers.
The woman blanched, in apparent shock at Anne’s boldness. “I’ll not answer to you for the mistakes of my past, Lady Anne.” She spoke in a stoic calm. “Know that I’ve never stopped loving him and I intend to win back his heart.”
“I’m sure that will be some consolation after the manner in which you betrayed him.” She dipped a final curtsy. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I should really see to my…hem.” Anne snapped her flawless skirts and started down the hall. All the while the duchess’ stare bore a hole into her back. When she turned right down another corridor she leaned back against the wall, and sought support from the solid plaster. She pressed a hand against her wildly hammering heart.
She’d never before realized how vastly different she was than the Harry, Earl of Stanhope’s of the world. She’d spoken to him of seduction with a child’s naiveté and yet, in truth she did not fit into the malicious, grasping world that belonged to him and all the widows and lovers he’d taken before her.
She peeked around the wall and found the duchess at last gone. She briefly thought about returning to the ballroom and abandoning this clandestine meeting. “You’re a fool, Anne,” she muttered under her breath and started in search of the conservatory.
A short while later she’d turned down another long corridor and at last found the blasted room. Before her courage deserted her, she pressed the handle and stepped inside. “Hullo,” she called into the quiet.
Hullo, Lord Stanhope…
The memory of Lady Kendrick in her dampened gown in an altogether different conservatory weaved its way about her consciousness. She strolled over to the long worktable.
And froze.
Two crystal champagne flutes.
That appeared to be what she would now throw away her respectability and sense of decency for.
Anne picked a glass up and for the first time in her twenty years sipped of the forbidden French liquor. She downed it in a long, slow swallow, delighting in the liquid fortitude that worked its way through her suddenly warm being. The moments ticked by, with the loud hum of quiet blaring in her ears and she stared into the now empty glass. One crystal bead clung to the inside rim of the glass. Anne stilled, and then touched one trembling finger to the lonely drop.
She loved him. She loved him with a strength that terrified her. The same depth of emotion that had surely broken her own mother’s heart. And yet, even with her love for him, she couldn’t forsake either her pride or her virtue. If she did this thing, if she allowed Harry to lay claim to her body as she longed to, knowing all the while he belonged to another—then what would she be?
Large, sure hands settled upon her shoulders. Her lids fluttered closed. “I can’t do this, Harry,” she said with the same regret surely known by Calypso when being forced to free her Odysseus. “I shouldn’t have come.”
“I’m ever so glad you did,” a loathsome voice said against her ear.
She dropped the glass. It shattered upon the mahogany table. Crystal shards sprayed her skirts. Lord Rutland’s lips brushed her ear and she cringed. “Unhand me, you…you bastard,” she hissed. Her heart thumped painfully.
Lord Rutland chuckled.
Gooseflesh dotted her skin at that mirthless, cruel sound. The implications of being here, alone with the merciless Lord Rutland sank into her with a growing dread. She struggled against him. “I’ll be ruined if I’m discovered with you.” She attempted to slip out from under his powerful grip.
He held firm. “Never tell me you didn’t think of our last kiss.”
How could she ever think of another kiss, imagine another embrace after Harry? She jammed her
elbow into his stomach. “No. I really haven’t,” she said with a bluntness that elicited another one of those steely smiles.
Anne ground her heel upon his instep. “Unhand me,” she ordered again. Last time she’d managed to elude the marquess, but really the truth is more he’d set her free. What if he held firm? One passerby and she’d be ruined. The pebble in her belly grew to the size of a boulder and churned painfully.
He shifted her in his arms. “Rest assured, I’ve no intention for us to be discovered together, my lady,” he drawled in that condescending tone she’d come to expect.
The conservatory door opened and her heart sank somewhere in the vicinity of her toes. “Anne?”
She pressed her eyes closed.
Harry.
Chapter 20
It took a moment for Harry’s eyes to adjust to the dimly lit conservatory. A cloud drifted over the half-moon in the inky black night sky bathing the room in temporary darkness. Then the cloud passed and a black haze of fury descended over Harry’s vision.
Until he drew his last breath, he’d forever remember the vile sight of Rutland with his arm wrapped loosely about Anne, his lips against her skin. He’d detested the idea of Lord Ackland forcing his kiss upon her at a masquerade, but witnessing this horror robbed him of rational thought until he knew the manner of madness that saw men shut behind the walls of Bedlam.
“You bloody bastard. Release her or I vow I’ll cut your hands off and stuff them down your throat,” he snarled feeling like a caged beast unleashed in the wild.
Rutland grinned, a cool, vindictive smile that never reached his eyes. “Do you know, I think I won’t. Not yet, anyway, Stanhope.”
Harry strode forward. “What is this about?” Before he’d dueled him to first blood. This time would be different. This would be to the death and he’d relish putting a bullet through the blackguard’s heart.
Rutland flashed another taunting grin. He kissed Anne’s cheek. Even with the space between them, Harry detected the faint shudder of her fragile body. He growled and leapt forward, but Rutland placed Anne between them, a form of shield.
Harry fell back. He’d sooner sever his own leg than see Anne come to hurt. He’d wait for whatever game Rutland now played to run its course. When it did, he would pounce on him like the loathsome pig’s flesh he was.
“Do you know, I’d never have taken Lady Anne as a true beauty,” Rutland remarked as casually as if he spoke of the evening’s weather. “But you did. Didn’t you? Oh, not immediately. Why at first, you saw the same vain, silly girl all the ton did.” His smile deepened as one who knew the hell he wrought and relished in it. “But you managed to look past her empty head and silly ringlets. Didn’t you?”
A spasm of pain contorted Anne’s face.
Harry’s gut clenched. Do not listen to him, Anne. Even if the words were once truth, I was wrong. So very wrong.
Rutland licked his lips like a wolf about to devour its prey, and in this case the game he toyed with was Anne, a woman whose happiness had come to mean more to Harry than even his own. “You see, you should take care when arranging your trysts. As a rogue, you should know to verify your privacy, Stanhope.”
An icy chill stole down his spine. “What are you on about?” he barked. Even as a horrible sense of realization sank into his brain, and with a numbing dread he knew the other man’s words before they even left his cold lips.
“Imagine my surprise when Lady Anne arrived to meet you.” He chuckled. The force of his coarse laugh shook Anne’s slender frame. Her waxen grey skin indicated she also knew very well the direction of Rutland’s next words. “How did you describe her?”
“Passably pretty,” Anne supplied on a broken whisper.
“Ah, yes. That is correct. Or to be precise…”
…though you are passably pretty, I couldn’t even begin to drum up interest enough to help you…
“I couldn’t even begin to feign interest to help you,” Rutland finished.
Wrong, Rutland. You’re wrong. I remember every last, blasted word I leveled at her. Harry looked to Anne. He held her pain-filled gaze. Surely she knew everything had changed. That the moment she shook his hand and sprinted out of the gardens, she’d ceased to be the termagant who tormented him and had since then become the spirited beauty who’d captivated him.
“Pleasantly pretty, empty-headed Lady Anne Adamson desiring a lesson on seduction to…” He quirked a chestnut eyebrow. “To what, did you say, my lady?” He whispered against her ear. “To bring a duke up to scratch. Crawford?” Rutland trailed a finger down the line of her jaw, marking her with his evil hands.
Anne pressed her eyes closed.
Oh, God, he wanted to wake from this bloody nightmare. His and Anne’s exchange, their real first meeting, forever tarnished by Rutland who’d watched as a voyeur to their private discussion.
And he’d heard all.
Dread sat like a rock in his stomach. Rutland could ruin her if he so wished. And by the vindictive flecks in his brown eyes, he wished it.
The force of Anne’s trembling loosened one of her golden locks. Rutland caught it between his fingers and made a show of studying it. “Imagine my honor in being named a prospective tutor to instruct you, Lady Anne.”
A black glare flashed in her eyes. “I’d never deign to so much as converse with a snake such as you,” she hissed.
Pride flared in Harry’s chest. His brave, courageous Anne was stronger than most men. Then Rutland raised her strand of hair to his nose and inhaled. Fury nearly blackened Harry’s vision. She belonged to him. Even the lemon and honeysuckle scent of her. He’d come to know even the faintest hint of sweetness that clung to her…and now Rutland knew, too. “What the hell do you want?” he bit out, taking another step closer.
Rutland tipped his head, as though he’d forgotten Harry’s presence. He grinned. “I want what always belonged to me. What should have been mine,” he said in a flat, emotionless tone that chilled Harry through. He shoved Anne.
Harry caught her against him and folded her in his arms. She buried her face in the crook of his shoulder and trembled like the delicate rose bushes in the cool night wind.
The marquess jerked his chin at Anne. “You’re going to ruin her.”
Harry snapped his eyebrows together. “What are you on about?”
Rutland dropped a bow. “Oh, and Lady Anne? Please send my best to your sister, the Duchess of Bainbridge.” Another dark smile that failed to reach his eyes turned his lips up slowly. “We had a most interesting conversation just prior to this delightful exchange.” With those cryptic words, he took his leave.
Perhaps if Anne were not shaking against him, silent, when she was never short of words, he’d have been able to piece together whatever rhyme the other man spoke in. He willed his rational mind to sort through it all, but could not separate from the stinging rage of Rutland’s treatment of her. Harry tightened his hold on her and she turned her cheek against his chest, as though seeking warmth.
Harry tipped Anne’s chin up. “Did he harm you?” Loathsome images of Rutland caressing her lean frame wrapped about his mind and refused to relinquish their tentacle like hold.
“No,” she said quickly.
“Did he touch you?” If Rutland had dared put his vile hands upon that which belonged to him, he’d kill him quite gladly.
She shook her head once. He’d come to know her so very well that he detected the hesitancy in that movement. “It doesn’t matter, Harry.” The resignation in her tone dug at him.
He took her by the shoulders. “It does matter,” he said angrily and then gentled his tone. “It does matter, Anne.”
She jerked away from him. “He knows. He knows all.” She began to pace, the frenetic movements indicated the very thin thread she had on her control. “My mother, my sisters through the years have insisted that one of my madcap schemes would ultimately result in my ruination.” Her words broke on a shuddery sob. “But this…” She stumbled to a halt and
stared sightlessly at the doors through which Rutland had just departed. “This I’ll never recover from.”
Harry steeled his jaw. He’d see Rutland in hell before he allowed him to destroy Anne’s reputation. “I’ll wed you.” He blinked, not knowing where the words came from.
Anne swung back to look at him. Her eyes round like moons. “Why?” Her voice was so whisper soft he strained to hear.
His palms dampened and he rubbed them along the side of his breeches. Why, indeed. He settled for the least complicated response that didn’t require much further thought on his part. “I’ll not see you hurt. I will give you the protection of my name.”
A spasm contorted her face. “What of your heart?” Her gaze slid to a point past his shoulder.
His mouth went dry, a loud humming filled his ears. He closed his eyes desperately wanting to be the man she deserved. “Anne…” He began. “Are you asking me if I love you?” His mind stalled at the implications of that question and more, his own feelings for Anne. He’d protected himself against hurt for eight years now. Margaret’s reentry into Society only served to remind him of the dangers of entrusting oneself to a woman’s fickle hands.
With sad eyes, Anne searched his. She touched her fingertips to his lips, cutting off the inadequate words. “If you must ask it as a question, then I don’t need any answer but that.” The muscles in her throat bobbed up and down. “You don’t need to say anything.” Apparently, in his silence he’d said enough. A woeful smile played about her mouth. “I’ll not have a husband who’d wed me out of a sense of obligation.”
His body jerked reflexively. She’d reject his offer. With the realization of that, a panicky terror gripped him. Say something, you fool. Give her the words she desires. Give her the words she deserves. “It wouldn’t be borne of obligation, Anne. I enjoy being with you. You make me laugh. You’d make a sufficient partner.” Isn’t it more than that, though?
A desperate giggle bubbled past her lips and she shook her head slowly. “Oh, Harry. You’d do just as well with a loyal pup than a wife, if those are your requirements.”
A Heart of a Duke Collection: Volume 1-A Regency Bundle Page 59