Anne hovered, feeling undone and exposed. She cast furtive glances about. Yet, for the way in which her heart now splintered apart, broken and useless, the members of polite Society moved about with gaiety, merry with drink and the pleasure of the inane amusements. Anne remained invisible.
A prickle of awareness stole down her spine. She stiffened, and turned seeking out the source of that unease.
Harry studied her, alongside his splendorous duchess. That icy, blackness in his flinty expression chilled her. Then, he smiled. A dark, emotionless smile that sucked the breath from her. He returned his attention the flawlessly perfect duchess. And Anne was forgotten, once more.
Oh, God, this is too much.
A restive panic filled her and sucking in a gasping breath, she hurried away. Away from Harry and Margaret. She quickened her steps, sidestepping lustful lords. Away from all she’d lost. Anne moved in a near sprint. Away from his steely contempt. She slipped inside a skillfully tended maze of towering hedges and ran deeper into the hidden trails. Yet no matter how fast or far her legs carried her, she could not rid herself of the agonized memory of Lady Margaret layering her tall, regal frame against Harry’s. Or the two of them as they’d slipped away. Most likely stealing off to some other hidden trysting corner where he could worship the other woman’s mouth the way he’d once kissed her.
Kissed her like she was the only lady in the entire kingdom. Fool. Fool. Fool. Her gasping breaths gave way to a sob while her slippers were soundless upon the dampened grass. As though she could ever match his Lady Margaret. In beauty. She wrenched her mask off. In elegance. Her heart pounded hard with the exertions of her efforts and the pain of her musings.
Her toes collided with a large rock and a gasp of pain escaped her. In grace. She pitched forward, hard on her knees. “Oomph,” the air left her on a whoosh. She attempted to stand and bit back a curse as pain radiated up her leg.
Anne sank back down and lifted her skirts to inspect the swollen flesh. She gently probed the nasty area and winced. Blast and double blast. She should have never come. Then she wouldn’t have seen Harry and his perfect Lady Margaret. And she wouldn’t have fled like a silly ninny in attempt to be free of the sight of them. Anne sighed. And she certainly wouldn’t be sprawled gracelessly on her derriere like a real shepherdess. She let her skirts flutter back into place and lay on her back. She tossed her arms wide and stared at the glittering stars in the black, London night.
The irony of life not lost on her. Over the years, her sisters, Society, everyone had taken her as nothing more than a self-serving, selfish young lady who placed her own personal desires before all else. And here she lay, humbled by the loss of her own making, born of the greatest sacrifice she could have or would ever make.
“It appears you’ve lost your sheep, my lady.”
Anne sat up quickly. Her heart hammered at the unexpected interruption. She peered up at the long, towering muscle-hewn frame of Harry, Earl of Stanhope. Her heart slowed and then picked up its fast rhythm. “Hello, my lord.” Was he intending to meet his Lady Margaret? A hysterical half-sob, half-cry bubbled past her lips at the idea of having stumbled upon their clandestine tryst.
A cold smile tugged at those once tender lips. “I gather I’ve intruded on your assignation with the duke. Forgive me, I do know the inconvenience of having my trysts interrupted by bothersome people I’d really rather do without,” he said, confirming her earlier suspicions.
Anne recoiled. She curled her fingers into the soft patch of earth as his deliberate taunting words ravaged her heart. He might see her as a cruel, title-grasping miss who’d toyed with his affections, but she’d done this for him. She angled her chin up. “What do you want, Harry?” she asked quietly, finding little solace in her sacrifice.
He wandered closer. A faint breeze caught the fabric of his black cloak. It snapped wildly against his legs as he paused above her. His grin, that cold, patently false one, widened. “I must admit, you look quite fetching after an evening’s tryst.”
An evening’s tryst? She wrinkled her brow. What was he on about? She widened her eyes as the truth settled slowly into her mind. By God, he thought…he believed… she met a lover?
Anne narrowed her eyes. She knew she’d sent him away quite deliberately believing all the worst about her. But really, was his opinion so very low? Or was it because that is the exact exchange she herself had interrupted? The tender reunion between two lovers, stealing a moment for themselves until Anne and Katherine had the misfortune of stumbling upon their exchange.
“Will you not say anything, Anne?”
She folded her arms across her chest. “Thank you,” she said pertly.
“Crawford?” He quirked an eyebrow. As though he had a right to know the imagined gentleman she’d been…doing…doing that with.
She gave a flounce of her curls. “Oh, it…was just splendid,” she said on a breathless laugh. That is, if one considered a bruised ankle and injured derriere splendid. “Quite splendid,” she added for good measure, because this was at least preferable to watching him kiss Lady Margaret Monteith.
A dark look passed over his harshly beautiful face.
Anne shoved herself up onto her elbows. Harry shot a hand out. She eyed his long, tan fingers a moment and then placed her hand tentatively in his. Not because she craved his touch. No, not that at all. Rather, because she needed assistance. The whole business with her ankle, and all.
He retained his hold. “You always did have beautiful fingers.”
She remembered back to a day not long ago when he’d drawn her fingers soothingly into his mouth. “Er…” She cleared her throat. “Thank you.” That seemed like a rather odd compliment. She held her hand up and tried to note what it is he might admire in the five digits but failed to see anything unique in them.
He tweaked a golden ringlet. “Tsk, tsk, ringlets, again.” The jeering edge of his tone grated along her skin.
“Yes,” she said, dropping her gaze to the green grass. She’d never wear her hair loose and down about her shoulders. Not again. It would forever remind her of how he favored it.
“Indeed, perfect for a shepherdess gathering the hearts of dukes throughout the kingdom.”
She gritted her teeth at the icy condescension in his heartless charge. She found solace in knowing that for his ill opinion of her, she didn’t give a fig about the heart of a duke; that the only heart she longed to gather close and forever hold was his. “Have you sought me out to taunt me, Harry? Does this make you feel better about yourself?” It made her hate this man she didn’t recognize.
A small squeak escaped her as Harry drew her close. He hooked an arm around her waist and ran his palms over the curve of her hips. “Ah, Anne,” He lowered his lips close to hers. Her lids fluttered and she leaned up, wanting—“sweet, beautiful, and treacherous Anne.”
But for those last two words, she could almost believe he still cared for her. Anne wanted to push him away, tell him to go to the devil. But she wanted him, more.
She would wed Mr. Ekstrom at her mother’s insistence, but before she did, she would know what it was to be well and truly loved. She longed to know the true madness that compelled women into the conservatory for Harry’s attention. And she would give herself to him so that for her first time, she knew magic and splendor and not responsibility or necessity. No other decision would truly be hers, but in this, she’d be mistress of her own fate.
Anne leaned up and kissed him. He froze, as though shocked by either her body’s nearness, or perhaps it was the boldness of her actions. Then, he groaned. His mouth closed over hers again and again. Harry gentled his hold about her waist. He parted her lips with his tongue. Their mouths met in a furious dance of longing and regret.
And she kissed him. Kissed him as she knew she never could again. Kissed him when she knew it was wrong as he belonged to another, however, she would never be able to give him completely up, at least not where her heart was concerned.
In his
life, Harry had made love to some of the most inventive, sinfully beautiful creatures in England. He’d had French mistresses and eager widows. Not a single one of them had caused this fiery burn as Anne did. She roused a grand passion and desire. He wanted to set her away, burn her with the ferocity of her desire, a desire he roused and then leave so he might avail himself to a woman who desired nothing more than a quick tumble in the gardens. So then, mayhap he might forget what Anne made him feel, think, experience…
Harry trailed feverish kisses along the side of her cheek, down her throat, laving her neck. He nipped and sucked at the flesh marking her and uncaring that she’d return bearing his love bite.
Anne’s head fell back. “Harry,” she pleaded.
“You still want me. Don’t you, sweet?” he rasped. He worked the bodice of her gown lower, exposing her cream white breasts to the cool night air. The pink-tipped breasts puckered from the chill. He lowered his head and drew a nipple deep into his mouth. He stole a glance up at her.
Her mouth hung open and desperate gasping pants escaped her.
Harry lowered her to the ground. “Crawford can never give you this.” Desperate fury punctuated his words. He’d leave his impression with her, make her writhe with knowing all she’d given up when she’d chosen her damned duke. “He will make you his duchess, but he’ll never make your body sing like I can.” He reached for the hem of her ruffled skirts. Sweat beaded the top of his brow and he looked at her. Skin flushed, curls disheveled, breathless moans escaping her lips. God help him. “I cannot do this.” He didn’t recognize the garbled, agonized voice as his own.
She blinked up at him, dazed. “Harry?” A question hung in that one word, his name.
He rolled off her. Anne deserved more than being tumbled like a strumpet in Vauxhall Gardens. He stared at the twinkling stars overhead. They mocked him with their shimmering brightness. With a groan, Harry laid his forearm over his eyes. Who’d have imagined that he, Harry, 6th Earl of Stanhope was…honorable?
Goddamn it.
The soft whoosh of delicate skirts and the crinkle of muslin ruffles split the quiet. Lemon and berry, a sweet, enticing scent flooded his senses. Anne touched a hand to his chest. “Why did you…? Don’t you…?” Her unfinished question teemed with disappointment.
Perhaps if the words she’d uttered had been demanding and worldly he’d have shoved her back down and made hard and fast love to her as he ached to do. Only, the trace of innocence reminded him that even as he wanted her, he could not take her and certainly not in this manner like she was a common whore. If he did this thing, he’d hate himself forever. “I might be a bastard, Anne, but I’ll not take your virginity.” That honor and privilege would belong to Crawford. Bile climbed in his throat and he feared he’d cast up the accounts of his stomach.
She slipped her hand into his and squeezed. He lowered his arm and looked at her. “Even if I want you, too?” A desperate glimmer set the silver specks of her eyes aglow. She lowered her lips close to his. It took every last vestige of his control, but Harry turned away. Her kiss grazed his cheek.
He set his jaw at a stony angle. “I’ll not merely be the man who soothes the ache betwixt your legs.” He wanted more of her than that. Not without marriage. And she’d been abundantly clear of her marital aspirations.
She flinched as if struck.
Harry shoved back guilt. She’d been the one to cut him from her life. He’d not be made to feel guilty for rejecting her. Not when he made the greatest sacrifice in preserving her virtue for another. Ah God, this would kill him.
He stood, carefully tucking his shirt back into his breeches and rearranging his cloak. Wordlessly, he held a hand out to her.
She eyed it for a moment, and then her glance slid off to a point beyond his shoulder. “I’ll stay here.”
Rutland’s actions nearly a week ago blared as a loud reminder of the perils of leaving her. “I won’t leave you without a chaperone.”
A hard, ugly smile wreathed her face, a smile so patently not Anne, it chilled him. “I’m not your responsibility.”
No. She was not. She’d been quite clear in who…or rather, what she desired. Crawford’s bloody title. He lowered his hand. “Goodbye, Anne.”
“G-goodbye.” The moon’s glow shone down upon her heart-shaped face; the crystal tears filling her eyes, nearly undid him. “Harry?”
He froze when she called out to him. Please tell me you want me. Tell me I matter more than Crawford and his damned dukedom.
“I’m not marrying the… that is…” She cleared her throat. “I am to be wed.” His heart turned to stone inside his chest and with every stammered word, she chiseled away at each piece until it crumbled into a pile of rubble in her pliant hands. “I’m marrying…” The crucial end to those words faded into silence. “I just thought…” She looked away. “Goodbye, Harry.” He strained to hear that final pronouncement.
He exited the gardens and stopped, setting himself as a sentry until she took her leave. A display of fireworks lit the sky in burnt orange and crimson red hues. He wrenched off his mask and tossed it aside where it fluttered about in a night breeze and then landed in a heap.
Harry raked his hands through his hair. Oh God. She was to be married. To the duke. His stomach roiled. She would wed another. Bed another. Give another children.
I want you, Harry.
He pressed his eyes closed. She wanted him, even as she’d take another man as her husband. She wanted the pleasure of his embrace and nothing more.
The sight of her, broken and shattered penetrated the horror of her revelation. He began to pace, grinding the gravel under his booted feet.
We’ll always have ribbons and spectacles.
The crowd’s merriment in the distance came as if down a long empty corridor. He fished around the front of his cloak and withdrew a familiar orange scrap of fabric.
He turned the cherished item over in his hands, passing it back and forth between his fingers.
With the exception of one burnt orange scrap…
“Ah, there you are, friend.”
The memento given him by Anne fell from his fingers. Harry bent to retrieve the scrap of Anne’s past. “What the hell do you want, Edgerton?” His voice came out as a nasty growl, but he was in a foul mood and wanted to be free of this damned place…and his confounded thoughts about Anne.
“I was concerned about your sudden disappearance.”
“Have you fashioned yourself as my nursemaid now?”
Apparently undeterred by Harry’s snappishness that evening, Edgerton spread his hands in front of him. “I’d merely imagined with the word that has begun to circulate, you might benefit from some drink and company.”
“With the word—?” Harry’s heart thudded to a slow, staggering halt. Anne and Crawford. He dragged a hand across his face. “What the hell are you on about?” Invariably, he knew, as surely as he knew the letters of his name that Edgerton in some way referred to Anne.
He quirked an eyebrow. “According to the whispers of gossip, it would seem your Lady Anne is to be wed.”
Harry crushed the orange ribbon in his hand. Ah, hell. He’d known it was coming and yet Edgerton may as well have taken a claymore and cleaved him in two.
“That is hardly the interesting bit,” his friend continued, not comprehending Harry’s very thin grasp on control.
“…a mere Mrs.…”
He loved her.
“Hardly in line with the grasping…”
He could not live without her.
“…a beauty, but no grand beauty…”
Harry wanted to throw his head back and rail like a savage beast. He examined the ribbon in his hand.
…They claimed every last blasted scrap of satin. It will forever remind me of the perils of love…
He eyed the fabric so long, seconds passed into minutes, which may have passed to hours. Edgerton’s words ran together as one. And his heart pounded hard, even as his tumultuous thoughts sought
to make reason to that which he’d not allowed himself to consider before now.
Why would she give him this ribbon? Why, if he meant nothing to her? Why…?
“Certainly capable of making a better match than…”
He went stock-still as the truth crashed into him with the force of a fist being plowed into his midsection. The breath left him on a slow exhale. He looked at the satin frippery as Edgerton’s voice droned on and on; a ribbon, the sole precious strip Anne had clung to when her entire world had fallen apart. She’d given it to him. As a parting remembrance. And he’d been too enraged, believing the absolute worst of her that he’d not allowed himself to see the truth…until now.
“…even Lady Anne deserves more than being wedded to a depraved bastard like Ekstrom…”
I love her.
He—Harry blinked. “What?” he asked, the raspy one word utterance seemed to belong to another. Surely he’d heard his friend wrong. It had sounded as though he’d said she was to wed—
“Bertrand Ekstrom.” Edgerton waved a white-gloved hand. “A cousin, it would seem. Next in line behind the… Christ, Stanhope, where are you off to? I imagined you’d want to know…”
His words trailed after Harry as he charged back into the Vauxhall maze, onward. His breath came in great, gasping spurts from the force of his emotion, and he staggered to a halt. Anne stared wide-eyed up at him, in the exact spot he’d last left her. “Anne…”
“Harry…” her broken whisper ravaged him. She shoved herself up on her elbows. “What are you…?” She cocked her head. “Why are you staring at me like that?”
“Why are you still on the ground?” he shot back.
For a moment, the past week melted away and she was the sweet, smiling Anne he remembered. She sighed and gestured to her ankle. “I fell.”
“When?” He dropped to a knee beside her and pulled back her skirts.
“Earlier. I…what are you doing?” She shoved her gauzy shepherdess costume down.
A Heart of a Duke Collection: Volume 1-A Regency Bundle Page 64