Chapter Four
Not twenty paces marching east and he was beside her, his long legs eating up the pavement, one stride for her every two, his presence larger than his title.
She could use Elise’s stern presence about now, but her companion hadn’t reappeared.
And wouldn’t. Not while Jackson was around.
There was no question Elise had made it out.
The woman had a way of melting into her surroundings.
Even now, she was probably back at the Brixby residence awaiting Anna’s return.
“How’s your hand?” Jackson asked.
Bruised.
“There’s a bit of an itch.” She hid her flexing fingers in her skirt and smiled. “Perhaps if I strike you again, it will dispense?”
He chuckled, a deep roll of laughter that turned her belly to fluttery wings.
“So stubborn.” It sounded like a compliment.
He’d always done that, made the less-than-desirable parts of her personality seem like nuggets of gold. Precious. Desired.
“I’ve a salve at home that will ease any swelling,” he offered, simultaneously gesturing with his right hand: Right at the corner. Two blocks to go. “I personally guarantee its efficacy.”
She snorted, ignoring how easy it was to slip into unspoken speech. “Been in a lot of fisticuffs, Duke?”
He paused. “More than I’d like.”
She snorted again. Who did he think she was? “Liar.” The boy she’d known had always enjoyed physical pursuit, no matter how dangerous.
His blue eyes widened. Then, those teasing lips of his curled upward.
Heat pooled low in her belly. Curse my body’s response.
She gritted her teeth and focused on the dark walk underfoot, crossing the street and making the turn the same time he did.
A minute of silence, the clip of their boots on the cobblestones the only sound.
His quiet words were loud in her ears. “You always did know me best.”
She’d thought so too. Once.
Anna stared straight ahead, refusing to look—to see—the man she’d thought had known her better than anyone. “We should discuss what will happen going forward.”
“Back to business already.” He sighed. “I thought we would pour a few whiskeys and find warm seats by the fire before the inevitable argument ensued.”
She scowled. “This isn’t a friendly reunion.”
“Would it be so bad if we were friendlier?”
He’d done that since they’d been children too: pout.
Anna pursed her lips together to keep the traitorous things from curling upward at the corners. “Would me smiling and staring up at you with adoring eyes make the unpleasantness to come more bearable, Duke?”
He winced. “Smiling and adoration? I’d never sleep for fear of what evil you’d unleash when I’d least expect.”
There was no stopping her smile now. “For a clumsy lord, you grew into some sense.”
“You wound me.” He pressed a hand to his chest. “As if I would forget the time you fed me worms on toast.”
She bit her lip. “Only after you called my cooking ‘an ogre’s attempt at Parisian cuisine.’”
“Those cookies you baked had so much salt in them, I couldn’t taste anything for a week!”
She laughed, remembering. “It wasn’t my fault the salt and sugar jar looked so much alike.”
“Thank God you’ll never need to step foot in the kitchen ever again.”
Anna tilted her head, another smile dancing along her lips . . . until his words sank in.
No need to enter the kitchen when a duke had half a dozen kitchen staff under his employ. A full dozen for all she knew.
The reality of her situation washed her lingering humor away.
Not any old lowly lord’s wife. She was to become a duchess.
The pomp, the rules, the insufferable dos and don’ts—she’d be expected to cut all ties to her past, like a razor slicing her in two.
Forced into a life where she was to be more but always found less.
“I am a locksmith’s daughter,” she said, chin raised. “A title won’t change that.”
“I’ve never been ashamed of where you come from,” he said, his words a balm she wished she didn’t warm to hearing.
When they’d been children, meeting in secret late at night where no one would see had been at her insistence.
“Your view is the minority. Others will not be so revolutionary in their opinions. Taking me for a wife will bring ridicule, speculation, and gossip.”
His grin said he wasn’t worried. “You’ll bear it like a queen.”
More heat, sinking low in her belly. This was the man she knew: kind and encouraging, with that devil-may-care smile.
It would be so much easier if he would remain the cold man from Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s office.
She’d best remember it was the latter who’d left her in the Grandfellow’s grove six years ago, without a glance back before he’d walked away.
Left her. Not a sliver of his confidence in her showing then.
“You don’t belong here.”
Those four icy words he’d spoken were as true now as they had been then.
She may have been the sister to a viscount.
She may have dressed in the silks and the linen of her betters.
She may have spoken with rounded vowels and rouge-dusted cheeks, but no amount of paints or perfumes would change the person she was underneath.
He’d left her once already.
What would stop him from leaving her again? Only, it wouldn’t be her life that hung in the balance this time; it would be Will’s.
Anna’s heart steeled. She wouldn’t be caught unaware this time, wouldn’t allow a pinprick of betrayal to touch her when Jackson’s loyalty changed with the next breeze. “I was referring to the scorn you will receive for marrying below your station, Duke.”
“Hardly scorn. You are a viscount’s sister now, remember?”
The only reason a duke would consider marriage to someone like me. “Prepare for the gossip mills to turn, Your Grace.”
“Gossip will be a welcome improvement from the obsequious sycophants,” he said with ducal arrogance. He frowned. “Must you refer to me by such an informal title?”
“It will mean we will never mistake the line between us. You will refer to me as ‘Duchess’ when the deed is done.”
“Like a military designation,” he grumbled. He sighed again and waved a hand for her to proceed. “You have terms, I take it, General?”
“You need not make fun.”
“No, we wouldn’t want that. It’s only the rest of our lives we’re discussing. Much better to be congenially hostile.”
More humor tugged at her mouth. His wit, his vitality, those thighs. It would be so easy to care for him, to fall fast and hard all over again.
But she hadn’t agreed to wed to assuage the fantasies of her past self.
“I wish to see my brother.” She’d have his promise now. Because marriage wouldn’t change her mission to find William. “No matter where he goes or how much time passes, I will not be kept from him.”
“I would never keep you from your brother,” Jackson said, his tone insulted. Then, “What else?”
“Nothing.”
“Ha!” He waved a hand before his face. “You must take me for a fool.”
“There is nothing else,” she repeated.
Too bad the stubborn man wouldn’t relent. “You are not a woman to compromise in anything. I half-expected a row over who would take the duke’s suite and the right to use the coach and four.”
“Keep your gilded walls and fringed ponies. I have no need for such frippery.”
He sputtered and ran a hand over his face. “Only you would dub luxury as ‘meaningless frippery.’”
“Does the gold inlay keep the cold out better?” she asked. “Do the fine manes of your horses make the beasts more biddable?”
“You make the aristocracy’s pleasure out to be as shallow as a thimble.”
“Then you misunderstood me. I had no intention of being so generous.”
He laughed, the honeyed sound curling her toes inside her boots.
She kept walking, determined to outrun the warm feeling spreading through her veins. “I’ve resigned myself to continue my etiquette lessons. There will, of course, be stricter and more laborsome expectations placed on someone of a duchess’s station, which I will do my best to meet.”
“‘Resigned,’ you say.” A sour note thrummed in his usual rich baritone.
“Dinner parties, soirees”—worse—“a ball or two during the season. It may take me a few months to acclimate, but I’m sure I can manage the occasional big affair.” Though it would be absolute hell.
“Martyrdom doesn’t suit you.” He sounded positively miserable now.
Anna ignored him. It took all her concentration to swallow. “Then there is the matter of producing an heir.”
His head swiveled around. “‘An heir’?”
“I know my duty,” she said, unable to meet his gaze.
“I will not lock my door should you wish to extend your marital rights.” There, she’d said it.
And it was a miracle her cheeks weren’t flaming.
Of all the unpleasantness she’d be expected to perform, going to bed with Jackson was not the one to twist her stomach into knots.
Physical attraction had never been a question between them.
But what was intimacy without trust?
She stepped into the street to take the next left but stopped when Jackson jabbed his thumb in the opposite direction.
“Picadilly is this way,” he said, his expression closed.
Her brows lowered. She’d have sworn Green Park was to their left. Though the walk from Cleveland Row to Picadilly was the matter of a handful of streets. They had been walking for some time now. “Are you sure?”
He pointed to a sign on the brick building overhead. Too small a print and too dark a night to read.
“They should put the signs on the lampposts,” she grumbled. Where normal people could hope to see.
“It says ‘Belgrave Street,’” Jackson said, sounding amused. “Is that the real reason you get lost so easily, the signs?”
“No.” Not the whole reason. She scowled at the man beside her. “You took the long way around.”
He shrugged, unrepentant. “You let me.”
As if a duke requires permission.