The Trouble with Anna

Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

B REAKFAST HAD ALWAYS BEEN THE favorite meal of the day for Lady Alice, the Dowager Countess Ramsay. She only liked it more as she grew older, although she had little appetite to speak of these days. Strange how time took some things away bit by bit—her sense of taste grew fainter by the day—but brought other pleasures into focus. Like the joy of sitting down at a polished table in the quiet of the morning, with the smell of her grandson’s coffee warming the room.

“What a business!” the Dowager said.

“Are you referring to the disgraceful terms of Lord Barton’s will, or has Charlotte fallen into a new scrape I should be aware of?” asked Julian.

“I’m referring to Lord Barton, of course. I’ve never heard of a scheme more likely to end in misery.”

“Ramsay is a rich prize. Others have been desperate to win it.”

The Dowager’s eyes clouded but she resisted the urge to reach for Julian’s hand. She could feel the slight tension from those wide shoulders of his, how he instantly regretted even the slightest reference to that old business. How little he’d ever wanted to talk about it, even back when he was a boy.

Men. So often they confused silence with strength.

The Dowager took a long sip of tea and got back to digging. “How do you find your new ward?”

Julian frowned. “Surprising! She won’t say a word unless she’s upset, and then she chitters like an angry mouse. Half the time she can’t look at me, and the other half she’s utterly fearless. Worst of all, I act like an ass around her. To be honest, I can’t wait to wash my hands of the girl.” He shrugged and picked up his newspaper.

The Dowager’s eyebrows rose. “Utterly fearless sounds like an excellent quality. I suppose it’s quite out of the question for you to offer for her? No, don’t pull that face with me. You know how I yearn to see you settled.”

He stared at her incredulously. “Have you met her?”

“Not since she was very little, although I very much look forward to renewing our acquaintance. Charlotte adores her, and she’s the granddaughter of a viscount and the daughter of an earl. All in all, extremely eligible.”

“The estate comes with ten thousand pounds and Lord Barton’s racing stud, and it’s still not enough to tempt me.”

“I gather from your reaction that the girl isn’t a beauty, and I must say it makes me cross. I’ve watched many a man turn fool over a pretty face, but I never thought to count you in their number.”

“You did hear me say she can hardly string two words together?”

“Oh, so it’s charm you’re looking for. Much more important than beauty, to be sure.”

“Gran, enough. I choose my own wife.”

More’s the pity, when I have so many useful thoughts on the subject , thought the Dowager. “It sounds as if you’re making a remarkable effort for the girl.”

Julian shot his grandmother a pointed look over the top of his paper. “Yes, because she’s my ward. I really ought to settle a dowry on her and turn her over to you for a London Season.”

If the years had taught the Dowager anything, it was when to fight and when to leave the field. She smiled serenely and retreated into her own copy of the Times , opening the London paper crisply to her favorite section: Engagements.

All the color drained from her face.

“Julian?” The Dowager’s voice sounded far away and tinny, or perhaps the problem was her heart, beating much too loud.

“Hmm?”

“You’re not teasing me about you and Lady Anna? There’s no news you’d like to share?”

He snorted. “Nothing at all, Gran.”

The Dowager’s hand quivered as she thrust her copy of the paper at him. “Then why is your engagement announcement printed in the Times ?”

Anna sat in her grandfather’s study at Chatham, staring at a footman from Mayne and stewing. She’d stewed quite a bit since yesterday, a particularly noxious brew that tasted like stale well water and mortification.

Oh, she was beginning to loathe Lord Ramsay! She hated his mouth and the sharp indent above it that seemed such a tempting fit for the pad of her pinkie finger. She hated how his eyes, such a warm whiskey color, made her stomach swoop. Most of all, she hated the horrible things he said. Damn it, Lady Anna, I am meant to do the rescuing.

Anna had to admit he’d looked astounded afterward, as if surely his perfect lips hadn’t formed such stupid words. His eyes had crinkled up at the corners and warmed with amusement.

Blast him! There was nothing more devastating than a man who could laugh at himself, so Anna shut her eyes and hated him harder.

She had more pressing things to do than lose her head over earls! She needed to come up with a plan for Chatham, for protecting the servants and tenants from her cousin, and, of course, for her own uncertain future. It wasn’t useful to have Lord Ramsay’s low voice thrumming deep in her belly over and again, saying Lady Anna, take off your skirt.

Anna clenched her teeth. “How good of Lord Ramsay to inform me he is planning to call,” she said to the footman from Mayne. “Unfortunately, I am unavailable today.”

“Unavailable?” The footman’s eyes bulged, the braid on his livery trembled. “To Lord Ramsay ?”

Anna clenched her teeth harder. If someone were bold enough to stuff a nut in her mouth, she would surely crack it. “ Especially to Lord Ramsay.”

The footman, with a last aggrieved sniff, took his leave and Anna returned to Chatham’s ledgers. For the next few hours she flogged them, but they only yowled back at her, revealing all sorts of problems and not a single solution. When another knock came at the door, she looked up, eager for distraction. “Yes?”

Hutchins pushed the door open and his eyes softened. “Still at the books, my lady?”

“Yes, and I’ll stay at them until I find a solution for us. Did you need anything?”

“Lord Ramsay is here to see you.”

Anna rubbed her nose. “I specifically told him I wasn’t available. Send him away, please.”

“I tried, my lady. He said he’s your guardian, staying longer than he planned in Suffolk on your account, and told me to inform you he is not to be ignored.” Hutchins paused and his eyebrows quivered high with hope. “May I send him in?”

“Hutchins, you coward!” Anna laughed. “No, you may not.”

The butler’s eyebrows sank back into place. “Very well, my lady. But I don’t like your chances.”

“My chances at what?”

“Chances that a man of his rank and temperament leaves instead of deciding to come look for you.”

Anna jumped to her feet. “Excellent point. Hutchins, I believe it’s time for tea. Please have it delivered to me in the library, on the balcony, in the wing chair that faces the window. Let him try to track me down there.”

There was a harsh laugh in the hallway. “And if I’ve tracked you down already?”

Anna froze mid-scuttle, looking past Hutchins and his I told you so expression taken straight from the School of Wronged Butlers, to where Ramsay lounged against the corridor wall, his arms crossed over his broad chest and a newspaper gripped in one hand.

She straightened. “As you can see, my lord, I’m quite busy. Perhaps you might call tomorrow?”

Ramsay pushed himself off the wall with a shining boot and strode into the study. “I’m afraid tomorrow won’t work. We have urgent matters to discuss. Besides, I know your secret spot in the library now. Where will you go to hide next? The attic? The roof? I begin to fear for your safety.”

It was a quip, but Anna didn’t feel like laughing. Not when Lord Ramsay’s eyes were molten. His face was impassive, his shoulders showed no sign of strain, but his eyes couldn’t hide the furious heat of his anger.

“Hutchins, please bring us tea in the library,” said Anna, with as much dignity as she could muster. “Lord Ramsay, you may follow me.”

As she led Lord Ramsay down the gloomy hall, Anna was suddenly conscious of Chatham’s mediocre paintings, the heavy, ugly tapestries. Pride stiffened her spine as they reached the library, her favorite room. She opened the door and afternoon light from three large windows cascaded down over the towering shelves to bounce off the gleaming tables and mingle with the comforting smell of old parchment and leather. Ramsay took it all in—the rows of thick atlases, the pretty gold-tipped books of French philosophy, the medieval folios kept in careful shadow, and, against the longest wall, volume after volume of Greek and Roman history. Even through his anger, his eyes sought out titles on the shelves, as if looking for his favorites. Was he a reader?

Oh, help! She didn’t need reasons to like the man.

His voice cut through her thoughts. “Tacitus? Cicero? Pliny?”

“My grandfather was interested in the Roman Empire, particularly military history.”

“I never took him for a scholar.”

Anna shrugged. “Books were one of his great loves. I don’t suppose many people knew. He wasn’t one to seek out like-minded companions.”

“No, I don’t suppose he was.”

Sharp little tears pricked behind Anna’s eyes. All those thousand afternoons poring over books with her grandfather—surely she had been his companion. Surely she hadn’t imagined his creaky, gruff affection.

She gave a brisk shake of her head and lowered herself into one of the chairs by the window. “Please, have a seat.” It was the strangest sensation to sit so close to Ramsay, their knees almost touching. “My lord, you keep hunting me down. What could possibly be so urgent?”

His face hardened to stone as he handed her the newspaper. “This.”

Anna glanced down and shot to her feet. “Good god, what’s this? What have you done?”

“What have I done?” Ramsay stood. “It’s what your grandfather did, I assume. Unless you—”

“ I certainly didn’t!”

“It doesn’t matter.” Ramsay began to pace wildly. “We’re left to deal with the consequences, regardless.”

“All right. I suppose we can simply issue a retraction—”

Ramsay whirled toward her. “Are you mad?”

“No. I’m thinking up solutions instead of roaring around like a wounded bear.”

“There’s only one solution, you must see that.” He paused and braced himself, and when he spoke it as if he were carving words on his own tombstone. “Lady Anna, I’m prepared to do the honorable thing. Would you do me the pleasure of becoming my wife?”

Anna blinked up at him. Were her ears ringing? Did the library have a strange new echo? Because the words my wife, my wife kept crashing around and diving at her head.

“Excuse me?” she said at last.

Ramsay’s jaw spasmed. “Lady Anna, I’m asking you to marry me.”

Heat seared through Anna until her whole body burned with humiliation. She’d never thought to inspire poetry, but she’d also never expected an offer from a man who looked like he’d rather face the guillotine.

“God, no!” she shouted. “Anything but that!”

Julian’s head was throbbing and his shoulders were stiff with tension, and now deep grooves of confusion creased his forehead. “What?”

“No,” Lady Anna repeated slowly, as if he were thick. “I will not do you the dubious pleasure of becoming your wife.”

Frustration coiled around him and started to squeeze, like a constrictor snake. He wrestled it down and fought for reason. “You do realize that if we don’t marry after that announcement, there’s no chance you’ll ever marry. You’ll have no children, no family, no security at all if I don’t do the honorable thing and—”

“What about my honor? If I marry you, I’m no better than a thief! You must see how ludicrous this is!”

The old anger flared, hot and blinding. “There is nothing ludicrous about a guardian protecting his ward.”

“A week ago you barely knew my name!”

His patience snapped. “Christ! This is difficult enough as it is. At the very least you could be grate—”

Julian caught himself, ramming his hand through his hair so it stood up in disarray. What an appalling thing to say. Had she noticed?

Of course she had. Her face darkened like a bruise.

Julian flushed. “Lady Anna, I apolo—”

“I never hoped to be grateful to my husband for undertaking the distasteful task of marrying me. I assume you never wanted a wife you found it difficult enough to offer for.”

She braced herself for the blast of his temper, which drained the heat from Julian more effectively than a bucket of water. It hollowed him out to see her flinch from him, as if he were the villain in the story. “Lady Anna, I’m afraid your life has changed, whether you want it to or not.”

“I know that!”

“Yes, I suspect you do. I saw you with your ledgers. You don’t hide from much, do you?” He gave a strangled laugh. “Except me.”

The massive grandfather clock in the room chimed three times, loud and low, and Lady Anna went slack with relief. “Oh, thank heavens, it’s three o’clock! I must go—I have an appointment with my tenants.” She sprinted across the room and was halfway down the corridor before Julian could blink.

“Blast!” he swore, staring once again at her swiftly retreating back.

She’d roundly rejected his offer of marriage, which left him with just one thing to do.

Damn it! He was going to have to woo the girl.