The Trouble with Anna

Chapter 45

CHAPTER 45

A NNA TRUDGED THROUGH A FIELD under a low, sulking sky that pressed heavy on the earth. The trees were bare, their trunks iron gray, and the patchy grass beneath her feet was dying in the winter cold. Even colder was her heart. Each time it beat, it pushed needles through her.

A gust of wind whooshed by and the clouds split open, rain pouring down like a river. It beat the ground into a thick, icy soup and flooded in through the collar of Anna’s coat.

Oh, blast! Was she going to have to turn back? When she was so close? Anna couldn’t bear it.

She huddled under a yew tree, clutching a sodden package to her chest and weighing her options, when hoofbeats sounded from across the field. A horse and rider thundered toward her.

Julian.

Even in the distance, even through the driving rain, she knew his form.

“Here! Over here!” she cried, waving her arms madly. The mud slurped at her feet as she ran toward him.

Julian was almost on top of her before he reined in. The horse reared up, his dark coat steaming and his eyes wild in the rain.

“ ANNA? ” Julian shouted incredulously. He vaulted out of the saddle and yanked off his greatcoat, wrapping it around her as rain smacked down on his jacket and plastered the lawn of his shirt to his chest. “Why are you… Good god, you’re soaked through!”

She tried to look up at him, but the rain fell so hard it stung her face. “I—”

“Shelter!” Julian shouted above the storm. “Now!”

Before Anna could blink, he scooped her up into his arms and marched into the woods, leading the horse as well. She shoved a hank of dripping hair out of her eyes and fought the urge to burrow into his warmth, even as her lungs filled with despair. It was so tempting to stretch up and kiss his jaw, or lay her cheek against the width of his chest and marvel at the even pace of his heartbeat.

But she hadn’t come to torture herself.

A small structure appeared through the sheeting rain and Julian kicked the door open and marched inside, pulling on the reins when the horse balked at the entrance. Muttering curses, Julian tugged on the throatlatch and his horse burst into the hut, his hooves clomping hollowly on the old wooden floor.

“Christ, Anna. You’re freezing.” He set her down on her feet, although he kept her tight against him, warming her with his own body heat. Half the windows were gone in the hut and the roof leaked badly. Still, it was mostly dry.

Anna wiggled away from Julian, standing opposite him in the dim light as the rain tried to drown the world outside. “Julian, I—”

His hand clamped down on her arm. “Is it Gran? Tell me quickly. Is that why you’ve come?”

Anna shook her head. “No, of course not! It’s nothing like that.”

“Oh god. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine! I promise!”

“Then why, my lightning”—his voice was so damned gentle that Anna’s mouth began to quiver—“are you crying?”

“Oh!” She touched her face. “It’s j-just r-r-rain.”

But there was no use lying. Not when her shoulders were shaking, her face was pruned with misery, and her face had sprung two gushing leaks where her eyes were meant to be.

“Of all the—” Julian yanked her into his arms, holding her against him and tucking his chin over her head for good measure. “Please don’t cry. We’ll fix whatever’s wrong, I promise.”

But kindness is terrible at drying up tears. Kindness encourages a good, sensible sob, and Anna cracked open. Julian could only hold her as she tried her best to pull herself together, until at last she took an unsteady breath, wiped her cheeks, and pushed back from him.

“What’s all this about?” he asked, impossibly gentle.

Oh, hell, how to answer? She’d practiced, but the rain and tears had combined to wash her wits away. “Charlotte’s mother came to see me,” Anna began. “She said it was to give me a present, but it didn’t feel like—”

“Charlotte’s mother? What the devil did she say to upset you?”

“That’s just it, Julian!” Anna began to pace back and forth. “In her strange way, I think she was trying to help. She told me about your guardian—”

“She told you what?”

Anna wheeled on him and the poor horse stamped nervously. “She told me all the things you never did! She said he stole from you and betrayed you. She said that was why you offered for me, because you know what it’s like to—”

“Christ, Anna, and you trust that viper over me? She was part of it—she orchestrated the whole plan, and I could do nothing because she’s Charlotte’s mother. Did she tell you that?”

Oh. Anna felt her mouth fall open.

All at once everything seemed so clear—his fury at the Countess, his mistrustfulness and great need to control. A surge of anger rose up in Anna, but it only made her errand more urgent. So many people had taken from Julian. How could she steal another piece of him away?

“I’m so sorry,” Anna said and her voice was shaking. “I hate that she came to me, but I hate even more that you never did. I couldn’t understand it—why you insisted that we marry from the first. You wouldn’t talk about it, or listen. You simply offered for me, over and over, and the worst part is you got better at it.” She gave a shaky laugh. “You should have seen how appalled you looked the first time.”

Julian’s face went deathly white. “Oh god. Oh, my lightning, what a fool I was. But everything’s changed. Surely you see that?”

“I do see it. I wanted to howl when the Countess told me her story. I wanted to stand by your side and throw rocks at the world! But I also recognized the man she described, and”—the taste of salt crawled up Anna’s throat and threatened to leak out of her eyes—“most of all I want you to be free. Julian, if these past months have proven anything, it’s that I can stand on my own two feet. I’ll be fine without you, I promise.”

“You’ll be fine, will you?” Julian looked strange, almost flattened.

“Yes! I’ll be marvelous. Look!” She reached into her coat and thrust a sodden mass of legal documents at his chest.

“Anna, I don’t care—”

“Just read it. Please!”

He gave her one last, searching glance and turned his attention to the papers. His eyebrows wrinkled together. “What did your grandfather—”

“He left me Chatham! Outright! So you see, there’s no need at all for us to marry, none at all! Unless… unless…”

God, was she really going to say it? It felt raw and unnatural, like peeling off her skin. Anna began to shake, but she fisted her hands and raised her face to his. He deserved the truth, every last bit of it.

“The thing is, Julian, I love you. Quite desperately. I love every bit of you, even the parts I’d like to pummel. You have to see—you must see!—how wretchedly cruel it would be to marry me unless…” She shook her head. “I won’t have you trapped. You deserve to make a choice. You deserve to know everything and put your happiness first for once.”

Julian grabbed her and crushed her against his chest. ““Oh, my cloth-head, you are my happiness! What the hell do you think I’ve been doing these past few months, if not losing my mind over you?”

Anna drew back. She had to see his face. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I love you, damn it!” he yelled. “I’m saying you’re everything to me.”

His remarkable eyes glittered with conviction.

“Could you say that again?” she said in a small voice. “This time without the yelling?”

He took her by both arms. “I love you, my Anna. I always will.”

She didn’t notice when she lifted up on tiptoe or he lowered his head. All she knew was that they were kissing, and the rain dripping through the cracks in the roof didn’t matter, and her wet clothes didn’t matter, nor did the crushing hurt and worry during the frantic carriage ride up from—

The horse, sick of all the mooning, nudged its face between them.

Anna laughed and buried her face into Julian’s coat, shivering with relief, or just because it felt strange and wonderful to stand before him so completely exposed, her armor gone for good.

“Anna, will you look at me, please?” Julian said, and pressed a kiss into her hair. “There are things I must say, and I can’t keep having all our most important conversations with the top of your head.” When she raised her face, his expression was solemn. “I’m sorry I let you doubt. I tried to show you, but I should have said.”

She gave a watery laugh. “We’re terrible at this, aren’t we?”

“Yes! Why did you start by telling me how much you don’t need me?”

“Because it’s important! Because everyone takes from you and for once someone ought to give. I want to stand by your side, Julian, and fight your enemies, and—”

He laughed softly, even as his eyes blazed with pride. “Such a bloodthirsty Countess. I approve.”

Anna hesitated and her face went serious. “I mean it, Julian. I know it’s difficult, but I hate to think of you—” She hesitated again before reaching into her pocket and pulling something out. “I hope I didn’t overstep, but I brought something for you.”

She opened her hand to reveal a blue velvet pouch, hastily stitched and even more hastily embroidered with his initials in a lighter blue thread with hints of gold shot through it. It was stuffed to bulging with little pink-and-gold paper twists.

“You brought me candy?”

“I brought you chocolate. It’s the chocolate desserts that seem to torture you the most, so I thought, perhaps… I trust you, Julian. At least, I’m learning to. I’m hoping—when you’re ready, of course—that you might start trusting yourself.”

Julian cleared his throat. “Anna, I…”

“You don’t have to eat them. I’ll hide them away if you want. I just wanted you to know—”

He snatched the pouch up and tucked it into his pocket, then rested his forehead against hers. “Let’s go back to Clare and get warm, and then we’ll find a cozy armchair and you can sit on my lap and I will try your chocolates. You may pepper me with any questions you like and I will do my best to answer them. How does that sound?”

“Splendid,” said Anna, throwing her arms around his neck. “That sounds splendid.”

When the rain began to let up, they started back for the main house, ambling despite the cold, content to be next to each other and talk, Julian’s horse trailing close behind.

“But at first—” Anna began.

Julian shook his head. “At first, I was unforgivably stupid. I thought I was doing the right thing. No, Anna, stop! You mustn’t hit me! I am much too big for you to fight.”

“I told you there was no need to marry me! Repeatedly.”

“I was not yet acquainted with your great good sense. Then we started to ride out together each morning and suddenly I was miserably out of sorts and thinking of nothing but you. The night before I left for Bristol, you had me out of my mind. Gran saw it. Charlotte saw it—didn’t you?”

Anna frowned. “I’d lost my own mind, you see. But why did you never say?”

“It’s not easy! And you’re damned unpredictable. I tried once in the stable, but you went all strange.” He frowned down at her. “Why did you never say? Why should the man be the one to speak first? Loving you is hellish, I’ll have you know. I could have used some help.”

“Bad, is it?”

“Yes, and it reflects poorly on your character that my suffering makes you grin.”

Anna gave a sigh of utter contentment and nestled into Julian’s shoulder.

“Speaking of suffering,” he continued, “your embroidery is, ah… Did you do it on horseback?”

Anna laughed. “Worse! I did it in on the carriage ride here, with Charlotte poking her head over my shoulder and making gagging noises.”

“Ah! Then you’ve suffered too.” Julian wrapped his greatcoat around her more securely and swooped her up into a bundle in his arms. “But no longer, my lightning. Not if I can help it.”

Charlotte paced back and forth by the terrace windows, peering out at the gloom.

“They’re coming!” she cried at last. “Anna’s done it! Julian’s carrying her! Everything is wonderful again!”

The Dowager charged over and stared out intently. “They’re both wet and covered with mud. Perhaps he’s carrying her because she’s injured.”

In the distance, Anna threw her head back in a laugh and Julian pressed a kiss onto her neck.

Charlotte gave a watery sniff. “There. You see! I knew it would be all right. It’s the strangest thing—a love story is never quite over until both parties destroy their pride completely. Why is it, do you think?”

The Dowager, satisfied at last, turned a blinding smile on her granddaughter. “When your time comes, my darling, be sure to tell me.”