The Trouble with Anna

Chapter 32

CHAPTER 32

W HAT A TREMENDOUSLY SUCCESSFUL NIGHT .” Charlotte sprawled across her bed, still in her ball gown, her hair rioting over the cherry silk counterpane.

“Indeed!”

Anna winced at how high her voice went, then winced again over the series of shocking images that flooded her mind and reminded her why she was squeaking like a kettle.

Had she squeaked with Julian? Oh god. She had definitely squeaked, and made all sorts of other mortifying noises when his thumb flicked her—

She leapt to her feet. “I’ll count our vouchers! Where’s your reticule?”

Charlotte waved a hand vaguely toward the floor.

Anna rummaged through it and looked up brightly. “We collected almost twenty pounds tonight!”

“That’s not bad.” Charlotte yawned. “I could buy a dress for that. Oh, don’t look at me like that! A simple dress, perhaps not one from Josephine. I’m only saying twenty pounds is nothing to scoff at.”

“It’s not five thousand pounds each, though, is it?” Anna tried to think. It was more urgent than ever to figure out Chatham and the stables, now that she and Julian…

Because she and Julian…

Anna squeaked again.

All she knew was that if she and Julian were starting fresh, she had no intention of coming to him as some hopeless case. She’d come to him as an equal, or not at all.

Charlotte propped herself up on an elbow. “Did Hartley agree on a sale price? I hope you gouged him badly.”

“No. He was surprisingly formidable. I’m not sure we’ll come to terms.” Though of course, Hartley wasn’t the least bit formidable. If he’d been a dog, he would have rolled over and shown her his belly. But the idea of selling off the horse Julian had given her wasn’t half as appealing now that…

No! This is too important. You must focus!

Her eyebrows firmed into a black line of resolve. “I’ll speak to Lord Hartley again tomorrow. We’ll have the funds as soon as I can manage it.”

Two days later, the deal was done. Anna, her stomach churning with misgiving, sent Charon off late in the evening with a bag of apples and one last wistful pat on his glossy gray rump. But strangely, save for a searching look from the Dowager over breakfast, no one mentioned the horse or his absence from the stables. And soon Anna was much too busy to worry over the matter.

The string of parties, routs, dinners, dances, trips to the opera, trips to the theater, musical nights, salons, carriage rides, morning rides, and afternoon promenades flew by in a bewildering whistle. Each night, Anna whirled around a glittering city, and each morning, after she waited for the household to drag itself out of bed, she huddled with Charlotte to count their growing pile of loot.

Charlotte studied her list. “We should approach Maharaja Singh. He’s very private, so Marby will have to take his bets and enter them anonymously. The Maharani’s too. She won’t want her husband to know when she beats him. On to Lord Dreyfus! You’re sure his horse will lose? He’s been blowing on and on about what a fearsome creature it is.”

Anna made a face. “Quite sure. That horse is all chest and no hindquarters.”

“Just like his mistress, then. I’ll put quite a large bet to him directly, in front of his gouty old friends. He’ll risk twice as much if he’s challenged by a woman, and I’ll have twice as much fun collecting when we win.”

So Anna and Charlotte swanned around the drawing rooms and great salons of London, trading vast sums right under the Dowager’s and Julian’s noses. It was exhilarating and scary all at once, a bit like being on the back of a runaway horse. At any second, Anna knew she either would take a bad fall or the sheer thrill would cause her heart to explode.

Although perhaps that last part was Julian.

When she stumbled in society—as she often did—he was by her side to pick her up, dust her off, and send her back into the fray. He kept his face scrupulously straight through scrape after scrape, such as when Anna was caught poking around in the potted plants at Almack’s for her slippers, or when she pointedly turned her back on Viscountess Notterbridge and gave a deep curtsey to Viscountess Notterbridge’s governess instead.

“Lady Anna is still in mourning,” Julian explained firmly to the many astonished people Anna left in her wake, dragging her off before she could get into more trouble.

“Perhaps someone ought to die so I can use that excuse,” said Charlotte, when they took a rare break for afternoon tea. She darted a wicked look at her grandmother. “Not you, Gran.”

The Dowager choked on her tea. “How generous!”

“In my defense,” Anna said hotly, “my feet were hurting dreadfully and Charlotte regularly takes off her slippers and hides them in a potted plant. Only I forgot which one. As for the governess, Miss Whaley was much kinder than her employer and more interesting too. Should nothing derive from merit?”

Julian leaned back in his chair and draped one arm lazily across the top. “Your education is most extraordinary. Surely you’re aware the aristocracy itself is based on merit? Or perhaps you didn’t know that families are elevated because of their service to the crown?”

“Of all the vain, pompous…” Anna sputtered. “History, I’ll have you know, has very little good to say about aristocrats. Earls in particular. What did your family do to earn the coronet? Was it pillage? Rape? Perhaps a massacre in the name of the King?”

“No.” Julian picked up his newspaper and hid his laughter behind it. “My family earned our earldom the time-honored way. We bought it.”

Charlotte opened her mouth to wade in, but the Dowager squeezed her knee.

“Leave them be!” she whispered. “Can’t you see what a marvelous time they’re having?”

Julian ignored his grandmother and flicked the corner of his newspaper down. “Anna, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. Why do you never take your horse out?”

“You must be quite blind. Sally and I are out nearly every morning.”

“I meant Charon. Remember, the horse I gave you?” Julian paused while Anna choked. “My poor darling, have you swallowed something?”

“No! I’m fine!”

“Wonderful.” Julian turned back to his paper. “Then let’s take Charon out tomorrow.”

“I’m afraid tomorrow doesn’t suit,” Anna said weakly.

“The day after, perhaps?”

Help me, Anna mouthed across the room, but Charlotte ducked her head like a coward and hid behind a long sip of tea.

“I—I—I…” Anna sat up straight as inspiration struck. “I can’t! I’ve sent Charon to Chatham. He’s not used to being cooped up in a city—he didn’t like it.”

Julian’s lips quirked. “How odd. I seem to recall that Lipizzaners are bred and trained in Vienna. Quite a large metropolis, I believe.”

“What’s that enormous red patch on your neck, Anna?” called Charlotte, rallying. “Is that from when Julian dragged you off down the corridor to ‘discuss something urgent’? Julian, if you’re going to have regular urgent discussions, you must try for a closer shave. In the meantime, I have a choker that’s just the thing for such situations.”

Julian snapped his paper down. “Which you wear with alarming frequency!”

“You’re in no position to lecture right now. In fact, you’re so wonderfully wrong-footed it seems the perfect time to confess any number of my crimes.” Charlotte considered. “I’ll spare us both and simply forgive myself.”

The Dowager smacked Charlotte with a pillow from the settee and Charlotte yelped.

“Gran! Was that necessary? Lady Cardiff told me you kissed any number of men before my grandfather.”

“That was for interrupting!” Something on the pillow caught the Dowager’s attention and she held it up to examine it more closely. “For heaven’s sake, Charlotte! Why must you keep embroidering ants everywhere?”

The Dowager was quite right—Anna was having a marvelous time with Julian. Her day didn’t start until she heard him bounding up the front steps, and the thrill of a big bet coming good was nothing to the thrill of his hand low on her back as he escorted her into yet another party. Or better, escorted her into a dark corner, where his hands could roam rather more freely.

On the rare occasions she found a second to breathe, she tried to be rational.

You mustn’t run headlong!

But her heart wasn’t listening, or couldn’t hear her over its own pounding.

Best of all, Julian seemed to be in the same state as Anna. He had even begun to work in the Dowager’s study. Lady Alice looked on bemused as stacks and stacks of papers were delivered to her house and messengers arrived at all hours of the day.

“Pay me no mind! I only live here,” she said, when Julian apologized for the constant knocks on the door and the strangers clogging her foyer.

Anna was fascinated by all of it—the new laws introduced in the House of Lords, the railroads and foundries, the mines, the port cities expanding every day. When Julian realized the breadth of her interests, he opened the door to her, inviting her to attend any meeting or ask any question she wished. She dove into his books each day after she finished with Chatham’s, and her interest seemed to please him. Until it began to disturb him in equal measure.

“Will you answer a question for me?” he asked Anna one morning. They were in the study together with the door open, as the Dowager insisted. Though Julian was endlessly inventive when it came to finding places to be alone, ferreting out all the nooks and quiet hallways where he could kiss Anna until she was badly in need of Charlotte’s choker and he was ready to bang his head against a wall. “How is Charlotte, do you think?”

Anna looked at him blankly. “Charlotte is hot-tempered. Lavish. Ever so slightly criminal. She’s my closest friend. What sort of question is ‘How is Charlotte’?”

“A straightforward one, I presumed. I’ve tried to give her everything a young lady needs, but lately I’ve wondered. Has she found purpose? I suppose I’m wondering if she’s happy?”

Anna allowed her mouth to drop open. “The great Earl Ramsay, reconsidering his position? On the needs of young women, of all things.”

“Answer me, please.”

“Certainly not! It’s a question for Charlotte, not me. Save your scowl for her, too. I won’t be bullied into giving up your sister’s secrets.”

“I see.” His face went stern. “And if I try to kiss them out of you?”

“Are you threatening me, my lord?”

“How you wound me, little fiend. I thought it was a bribe.”

“Charlotte doesn’t need you to give her anything, Julian. She has position, clout, and soon we’ll both have plenty of—” She went abruptly silent.

Julian cocked an eyebrow. “Plenty of what?”

“Plenty of unwanted advice from men! If you want to do something for Charlotte, perhaps notice what’s there already.”

Julian barked a laugh. “I watch my sister like a hawk, little good it does.”

“Yes, but—how can I explain?” Anna folded the letter she’d been reading and set it down. “For instance, it always bothers me that Charlotte has an allowance. She has funds of her own, why not let her manage them?”

He sat back. “I never considered it.”

“Perhaps you should! Something else—do you spend much time in your grandmother’s orangerie?”

“Not lately. Why?”

“Everyone says how beautiful it is, but I’ve had the most fascinating conversations with her about horse breeding, related to what she’s done with hybrids and ferns.”

“I am aware of her work, Anna. Whose ships do you think carry her letters and specimens?”

“Then why do I hear everyone say what a wonderful gardener she is, but never what a talented naturalist? By rights, she should be a member of the Horticultural Society.”

He frowned. “She’s never said she wanted to be.”

“Of course not. It’s tiring to insist on your place the whole time. It wears you down to be called grasping when you ask for what is simply your due. You begin to wonder if you’re selfish, or you tell yourself the pleasure of work should be enough—”

Anna broke off. Any hint of agitation would only be used against her, as if emotion were something to run away from, instead of a guide. But no one ever listened to her about these things, except Charlotte.

“I see.” Julian shook his head. “Or rather, I’m beginning to realize I don’t see. You’d best explain it to me.”

Much to Anna’s astonishment, he stood up, closed the door, and scooped her onto his lap.

“Oh!” she said, startled by the acres of intriguing male chest suddenly beneath her fingertips.

He gave a rough laugh and gathered up her wandering hands. “No. I want to understand. You run Chatham and the stables—surely that’s enough?”

Anna sat back. “The stables are enough. Until I win a race and someone tells me it’s a fluke, or explains my own strategy back to me. Until someone looks over my head to Soussi with a question about a horse I trained, or until I remember that I must conduct all my correspondence with the Jockey Club under the name Mr. John Strongman because they won’t reply to a Lady Anna Reston.”

Julian’s voice went deceptively soft. “I can make the Jockey Club reply to you.”

“Yes, you can.” Anna’s hand cupped his face. “But I can’t. That’s exactly my point.”

“What if I—”

“No.”

“But I could easily—”

“No! I don’t want your help!”

“Am I to do nothing, damn it?”

His chest was moving in and out, all seething male muscle, and she let her hands wander. “I suppose you could stand aside and look handsome?”

Julian growled, the sound such an intriguing rumble that Anna leaned over and nipped his jaw.

“Bite me again and I bite you back,” he warned.

“Ooh! Is that a threat or is it a bribe?”

“Both, you scoundrel.” He swooped in to kiss her. A few moments later he was sweating and his jaw was clenched.

“You will be the death of me,” he said sternly, pushing her off his lap and yanking the door open.

Anna’s lips were swollen and humming, but the lightness inside her was caused by something else entirely.

Trust him , urged a voice inside, and Anna had to admit that she did trust him, more every day.

Love him , the voice said.

To that, she had no answer.