The Trouble with Anna

Chapter 26

CHAPTER 26

N OTHING ABOUT THE RIDE THROUGH crowded London on a Saturday night improved Julian’s mood. It darkened by the minute, descending right down to brimstone when the snarled streets forced him to abandon his carriage and shoulder his way through the drunken crowds.

The great houses of Mayfair were lit up and shining, but Julian didn’t spare them a glance. All he could think of was Anna, standing like a wallflower with her face a frozen misery. His long legs tore up the pavement and he ignored the cheery “Julian, hullo!” from a man across the street he would have identified as a favorite cousin, if he’d bothered to look up. Rounding the corner to Grosvenor Square at a scalding pace, Julian was up the stairs and through the glossy black door before the Dowager’s butler had it fully open.

“My lord!” Levy cried. “We weren’t expecting—”

Julian walked right past him, drawn by shouts in the dining room. He strode into the room just as a great feminine cheer went up.

“That’s another five guineas from you, Mr. Pickerton!” Charlotte snatched up a voucher from the man’s hand and flung it in the growing pile of papers in front of a sleek young woman with dark hair. “You don’t learn, but you mustn’t let good sense stop you. Try your luck again!”

The women whooped and the men howled. Julian, scanning the room, noted that even Gran was up out of her chair and crowing at old Mr. Frith across the table.

But where the devil was Anna?

It took a second for Julian to understand. His eyes slid past her, then jerked back with shock, outrage, and a queer sense of loss. Anna was the sleek young woman with the fat pile of vouchers. Her hair was a glossy black river, her skin the cream the cat wanted to lick. Her dress—he couldn’t see much of the damn thing because she was seated—showed an absurd amount of shoulder and the surprisingly graceful arc of her neck.

Where was the scraped-back hair and the crackle of suspicion? Where was the mistrustful young witch who’d make him fight for each small softening?

Goddamn it, where had his Anna gone?

This new Anna leaned up to whisper in Lord Hartley’s ear, which caused Hartley to give a shout of laughter and grin down at her. Something ugly, dark, and covetous oiled its way into Julian’s stomach, something that rolled and twisted like an eel.

Anna glanced up, her face lit by laughter.

The laughter fell away, replaced by pure loathing. It hit him like an adder strike.

Julian crossed his arms across his chest and lounged against the wide doorframe, waves of hurt and fury pouring off him. One by one, the guests spotted him and went still, some startled, some bemused, some visibly entertained. Charlotte leapt up in her chair just as Gran saw him and plopped down, as if they were a malfunctioning mechanical toy. Julian ignored everyone and waited for Anna to acknowledge him.

“Good evening.” Julian held the gaze of the woman he’d chased across London. He spoke loud enough for everyone to hear, but his clipped words were for Anna alone. His Anna, surely. “How charming to see that London has met my fiancée.”

Lady Cardiff, the Dowager’s oldest friend, was the first to respond, letting out an optimistic little cheer that faded out against the palpable tension in the room, like a duck hit by shot and falling from the sky. Anna would have laughed if she weren’t so keyed up.

“Why, Julian! How lovely of you to join us,” said the Dowager mildly. “But you’ll undo all Anna’s good work. She explained earlier that the match isn’t settled yet.”

“Oh?” He kept his eyes trained on Anna. “How is that? I seem to recall that I offered and she accepted.”

Charlotte darted a look at Anna, shooting frantic leave it to me! signals. “I feel like champagne! Shall we all have a glass?”

But Anna wasn’t paying attention. She pushed back her chair, armed for battle, and—

Lord Hartley put a hand on her forearm and said in a low voice, “Not the time, I shouldn’t think.”

Anna forced her shoulders to relax. “I’ll have champagne.”

The junior footman, who seemed to expect bloodshed, heaved a sigh of relief.

“What are we toasting, exactly?” Mr. Pickerton’s sharp nose was twitching.

“To Lady Anna, of course. To our engagement,” said Julian.

All eyes turned to Anna, and she dredged up her blandest smile. “Lord Ramsay was left my guardianship, you see. I’m afraid he takes his duties much too seriously. But what a crime it would be to force such an eligible lord into marriage, and to a young woman he hardly knows. Don’t you agree?”

The matrons with daughters—and all of the daughters, and one particularly handsome son—nodded vigorously.

“So that’s it!” Lady Cardiff laughed. “I must say I wondered where the match came from, so quickly.”

Lord Hartley raised his glass. “Let’s toast to Lady Anna, who has too much of my money in that pile before her. I knew her to be England’s finest horsewoman, but I must also acknowledge she also has the finest grasp of racing history. I’ll not bet against her again.”

“To Lady Anna!” the Dowager said stoutly.

One by one, the Dowager’s slightly confused but deeply loyal friends raised their glasses. Anna sneaked a glance at Julian, pink with triumph. Smolder as much as you like. I believe I won that round .

Julian smiled tightly as a footman offered him a coupe of champagne. He raised it high and his voice thundered out, louder than all the others.

“To Lady Anna, my bride-to-be. The toast of London already!”

The most discreet guests left quickly, but the gossips had to be shoved toward the door. Mr. Pickerton stayed the longest, and Charlotte only managed to clear him out by musing that he must not mind the other guests spreading tales of the evening before he did.

Anna, conscious of what she owed the Dowager, gritted her teeth through the barrage of confused congratulations as the guests departed. She even managed not to snarl when Mr. Pickerton pressed her hands and whispered, “Clever girl. Keep him guessing—you may just get him to the altar yet!”

All the while, Julian’s eyes followed Anna with furious heat, lashing up her rage.

“Good lord, Julian! What were you thinking?” cried Charlotte when she returned from hustling Mr. Pickerton out the door. “I can’t imagine what the gossips will say.”

“No?” His voice was a whip. “Can you not ask them? Are they not your dearest friends?”

The Dowager rose to her feet. “I suggest we all retire. There will be hordes of callers tomorrow after that fiasco, and I, for one, need my strength.”

Anna remained seated. “I find I have a few words to say to his lordship.”

Julian jerked his head toward her. “Conversation? How novel. Are you sure you don’t prefer to run away? That’s what you do with me, although not with your new London acquaintances.”

Anna gave a tight smile. “Why would I run from you, when you only chase me?”

Charlotte opened her mouth, but the Dowager grasped her firmly by the elbow before she could say anything. “Bedtime, darling.”

“ I’m staying right here!” said Charlotte.

“ You’re coming upstairs if I have to drag you by the ear,” the Dowager retorted.

The door had barely closed behind them when Anna leapt to her feet. “I’ve known you arrogant, I’ve known you rude, and I’ve known you to lie, but in our short and awful acquaintance, I’ve never known you deaf. I told you already, your lordship, and I’ll say it one last time. Make your offer to some other poor soul. I will not have you!”

“Julian,” he corrected, straightening away from the fireplace. The glitter in his eyes raised prickles on Anna’s skin.

“What?”

He stalked toward her. “That’s what you called me when you breathed my name against my mouth. After I offered. After you accepted and we kissed until you clung to me. Did you forget? I’d be happy to remind you.”

Anna gasped. “Are you really arrogant enough to think you own me, just because you kissed me? What kind of man are you?”

“Your fiancé,” he retorted. “The man who meant it when he promised to protect you. The man who would stand at your side as your husband.”

Anna’s eyebrows flew up. “A man to protect me? Why would I possibly need one? To auction away my future, as my grandfather did? To abuse my trust, as you have? Nothing good comes from men , as you so recently proved.”

The muscles of Julian’s jaw worked. “Are you truly so irrational, so blithering, so incapable of putting aside your feelings to look seriously at your future? You cannot live alone, damn it!”

“How dearly women love to hear that we’re irrational. How we adore it when men lecture us about reason while they have none. Had my grandfather ever once consulted his head or his heart, he would have known how utterly ridiculous his scheme was. You must be as cold and stupid as he was, if you think I’d put my future in your hands. I have no desire to chain my life to a liar !” She flung the last word at him and his eyes flared when it struck.

“Christ, Anna!” Julian’s body jangled with frustration, the anger seemed to fall away from him, replaced by a strange, aching expression she could almost call loss. “I’m sorry! I came tonight to apologize, and instead I saw you with Lord Hartley and went out of my mind.”

“What on earth does Lord Hartley have to do with anything?” she cried.

There was an odd, self-mocking gleam in his eye. “Nothing, if I have anything to say about it.” He gathered her hands and pulled them to his chest. “I didn’t mean it, not what I said tonight and not what you heard the day I left. I’m angry about your grandfather’s will. Furious! But—”

“No.” Anna pulled her hands away and tried to stoke her anger. She couldn’t let him make her weak, when what she needed now was strength. “I’m glad you said it. At least it was the truth. I wish you’d said it from the beginning, so we could have talked sensibly and saved all this confusion.”

All this useless hope. All this awful emptiness.

Julian gave a curt shake of his head. “There’s no confusion. I want to marry you. I didn’t at first. How could I, when you were a stranger? But everything changed—”

“I don’t believe you!”

“But, damn it, I—”

“You offered for me and I said no. Then you set out to court me—you told me so!—and I fell for it. Isn’t that true?”

“Yes,” he said rather desperately. “But I fell too. I—”

“Stop!” Anna’s face went tight. Oh god, was she going to cry? “You made your feelings perfectly clear the moment my back was turned!”

Something seemed to shake loose inside Julian. He pulled her close, blazing down at her with a fierceness that made her catch her breath. “Goddamn it, Anna, I need you!”

“Don’t say such things! Do you have any idea how stupid I feel knowing it was all just a game to you? I let you kiss me! I kissed you back and you must have been laughing .”

“Laughing?” His hands tightened on her arms as if by instinct, pulling her up toward him as he lowered his mouth—

“No!”

It was just a word, but it stopped him instantly. He dropped his hold, but his eyes never left hers. “I wasn’t laughing, Anna. I was burning, and I haven’t stopped yet. I can’t sleep thinking about how your mouth tastes, how my body aches for yours. There’s nothing to laugh about, not for me. It’s driving me mad.”

It was too much. Anna could take his anger, but his strange, almost anguished words scrambled her up too badly.

“I won’t marry you,” she said quietly.

“If you would but listen—”

She shook her head. “It’s you who won’t listen. I won’t marry you! I hate you, Julian!”

He closed his eyes, just for a second, and it was all Anna could do not to launch herself at him, to spill out her terrible mess of hope and hurt, to beg him to start all over.

But when he opened his eyes again, they were blank. No pain, no regret, none of the teasing light that just a few weeks ago had been enough to upend her world. Instead, he offered a stiff bow.

“Then I’ll trouble you no further. I withdraw my suit and offer my compliments instead.”

He had accused her of running away before, and it was the only thing she could think to do now. Anna sprinted out the door, leaving Julian alone in an empty drawing room.