Chapter Seven
The vendors were fully open and advertising their wares by the time Anna had left her brother’s townhouse with instructions to the entire staff. All staff except one would-be chaperone.
Elise had gone out early, the housekeeper had said. Meaning Elise had returned home last night after Anna had been soundly caught and maneuvered into what would be a battlefield of a marriage.
Anna cut across the thoroughfare, the roads growing more congested with early morning wagons and workmen on their way to the mills.
And without a chaperone! Oh, how her tutors would bluster.
Anna snorted. As if having some person trailing behind her didn’t mean there were two pockets to pick instead of one.
Jostled by a group of children dashing around the sidewalk, she nearly fell to the cobblestones. The next break in foot traffic, Anna positioned herself under the sign of a yeasty-smelling building—the basement floor most likely housing one of the local bakehouses—to catch her breath.
The metal sign above the door was in the shape of a plaited loaf. A sign that looked vaguely familiar. Anna craned her neck to see the street sign on the corner building. Too far to make out the words.
Anna huffed, once again struck by the idiocy of signage placement.
At this rate, she’d find her way to the modiste about the time the archbishop asked for her vows.
A prickly sensation shot across the back of her neck.
Anna turned her head. One direction. Then another. Then laughed at herself.
Of course there were eyes on her. Hundreds of people were on their way to one place or another in the city and she was standing around glaring at nothing.
But the uneasiness didn’t abate.
She looked up and down the sidewalk again. No one met her eye.
Something in her gut had her raising her head, had her gaze shooting across the street . . . to a figure.
A man in a dark coat leaned against the side of a building.
His eyes were concealed under the brim of a, likewise, dark hat, but Anna felt that gaze. Could imagine the flare of familiar blue eyes.
The blood in her veins iced over.
“Alexander,” she whispered.
A large, covered wagon rolled down the street, blocking her view of the other side of the thoroughfare.
She darted around a couple making their way along the walk, needing another look at the man. Needing reassurance her eyes were playing tricks on her mind.
The crush of vehicles broke at last, and Anna’s view cleared.
Her gaze shot up and down the street, along the shops.
No sign of any man.
Anna’s heart raced, a shuddering gallop in her chest, and she willed it to slow.
It couldn’t have been Alexander. Her cousin rarely left the country. There was no reason he’d be here in London.
Of course, that would change once word of William’s disappearance got out.
Her cousin and uncle could smell opportunity towns away. If Sir Daniel showed up now, when William was missing . . . could he legally take over Brixby House?
Not that it mattered in her case.
She was betrothed. She’d never have to stay under the same roof as that monster ever again.
Relief eased the yawning hole in her gut.
Perhaps Mrs. Dove-Lyon had done her a favor in securing her a husband. The baronet would have no influence over her choices. The same could not be said for her brother’s estate.
Cold slithered along her spine. What happened to titles and property when a lord went missing? Did all rights temporarily pass to the heir apparent upon attendance?
Uneasiness flared anew as her neck hair spiked. Eyes on her again.
Anna swallowed hard and continued walking, her stride awkward as panic turned her legs to wood beneath her.
What if her family contested the marriage?
Her uncle couldn’t use disownment to force her into breaking with Jackson.
There were far simpler ways; her uncle had no problem resorting to violence to impose his will.
She was running now, her booted feet aching from the hard impact of the cobblestones underfoot.
Startled couples parted and stared as she raced past.
Anna didn’t stop. Not when the past nipped at her heels.
The path divided up ahead. The right followed the street toward a row of Grecian styled townhouses. The left led to a small, wooded park.
Anna’s feet took her left without thought and straight into a copse of thickly leafed maples, where she took shelter from prying eyes.
One gulp of air. Two.
Her lungs worked hard to regain control of her breathing.
“Anna,” a voice said behind her.
Anna whirled around. A shriek built in her chest—and died in her throat at the heart-shaped face under a frill-less bonnet.
“You need not have run on my account,” Elise said, stepping under the tree’s canopy wearing a dark-blue pelisse—the perfect color to bring out the mocking light in her eyes. “We both know how exertion constricts your lungs.”
“Elise.” Anna sagged against the tree, pain, indeed, coming tight and sharp in her chest. Relief was slow to wash away her nerves . . . and temper. “How kind . . . of you . . . to finally show up.”
Elise raised a dark brow. “There was no point in both of us getting caught.”
Rationality had no place when Anna’s insides were a cluster of knots. Imagining her cousin so close had rattled her to her bones. “When I returned home this morning, you were nowhere to be found.”
“I wasn’t about to get caught outside the Den.
A woman. Alone. I knew you’d either get away or hire a hack to drive you home.
I waited up all night for you to return,” Elise said, her mouth pressed into an unhappy line.
“I retraced my steps back to the Lyon’s Den this morning, but there was no sign of you.
I’ve been searching the streets ever since, certain you’d lost your way back to Mayfair. ”
Anna’s anger vanished like a puff of smoke.
“I know my way back to the house,” she grumbled.
Mostly. Truly, why must every road look like the next?
And why must the road signs be located so high on the buildings?
Would it not be prudent to install signs on the lampposts?
Since Winsor’s demonstration some years ago, gas lamps were finding their way onto the more traveled streets of London.
It would take nothing to slap a few metal signs up.
“I’m on the way to the modiste’s now,” Anna said.
“No wonder you were running in the opposite direction.” Elise laughed, knowing Anna’s disdain for the woman and her sharp pins. “I’m not sure Madame Bomfrey will service you after you called her ministrations ‘the epitome of torture.’”
Anna scowled. “The woman stuck me half a dozen times at that fitting. There was blood! By the end, I suspected she was doing it on purpose for her own sick pleasure.”
Elise chuckled. “And you’re returning to the scene of suffering because . . .?”
“‘A bride is in need of a trousseau,’” Anna parroted.
Silence.
Elise blinked. “I’ve never found your brand of humor particularly funny.”
Would that it was all a joke.
Meeting Jackson again. Reliving the past, she’d do well to remember who’d laughed last the last time around.
“Mrs. Dove-Lyon shares my gift for dark wit,” Anna said. “Seeing as I am hours away from being ensconced to the country so I may be married by the end of the week.”
“You’re serious?” Elise’s eyes widened. “To whom?”
“The Duke of Grandfellow.”
“The duke!” It was Elise’s turn to sag against the tree.
She would know better than anyone of Anna’s history with the family.
It had been Elise who’d been a steadfast friend long before she’d taken up the mantle of chaperone.
The friend who’d found Anna the day she’d returned from Grandfellow Hall, broken and heart battered six years ago.
“How did this happen?” Elise asked. “Was he there at the Lyon’s Den?”
“Yes.”
Elise went quiet again.
“This is where you cry huzzah and dance in the streets,” Anna said. “No need to lecture me regarding my unflagging independence once I am successfully shackled.” Anna paused, her humor dimming. “You will always have a place with me.” There would never be a question of Elise staying at her side.
Elise chuckled. “At last, I can expand my repertoire to your comportment, your manners—”
“My dancing,” Anna added.
“Your constant idle threats to nobility.” Elise sobered, not a trace of merriment on her face. “Say the duke hasn’t fallen to his knees and begged your forgiveness repeatedly, and I will have the man’s guts for garters.”
Anna smiled. Elise may have been a poor excuse for a chaperone—Anna was no good as the sister to a lord—but she was a fierce friend.
“He did apologize.” She grinned. Not all her threats were idle. “After I tapped his claret.”
Elise’s hand flew to her mouth. “And the man still wishes to marry you?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Un-complicate it. Are you being forced?”
Yes. And—“No.” Whatever the terms of her deal with Mrs. Dove-Lyon, Anna would never have gone through with a wedding to a man she could not abide. Or force to surrender.
There was a beat of silence from Elise. Then, “Does he know of your brother’s disappearance?”
Anna nodded. “The duke has agreed to assist in the investigation.”
Elise’s eyes narrowed. “Magnanimous of him.”
An unwarranted thread of loyalty pulled tight. “He will keep his word.”
“You hope.” A knowing look entered Elise’s eyes. “You wish me to stay in the city and keep my ear to the ground.”
Life was so much easier when one’s co-conspirator was as sharp as a saber edge.
Anna nodded again. “My trip to the Lyon’s Den wasn’t wasted. Mrs. Dove-Lyon informed me that William had debts. Large ones.”
Elise frowned, perhaps less resistant to the idea than Anna had been. “And if he had vowels with Mrs. Dove-Lyon, he may have owed others. People with less savory means of extracting the money.”
Anna ignored the stabbing panic that pierced her heart at the thought of William hurt. “Yes.”
No more quips from her lifelong friend. Elise knew the magnitude of Anna relinquishing control.
“As soon as you’ve left for Grandfellow, I’ll make inquiries with your brother’s solicitor.” Inquiries: code for flirting shamelessly.
Anna was eternally grateful it wasn’t her. Mr. Bernard was about as accommodating a man as a sheep to shear.
“I’ll send word if any other names come up,” Elise finished.
“Thank you, Elise.”
“Don’t thank me.” Elise scrunched her nose. “Truly, do not. It makes me itch with all the ways you’ll make me regret helping.”
Anna smiled and turned her attention to the now-thinning crowd along the street.
Lingering unease twisted her insides, but there was no sign of the man she’d seen. She wouldn’t mention anything to Elise, wouldn’t put her friend through the pain of hearing Alexander’s name.
The visage of her cousin must have been all in her head. It had to be.
“Let’s be off,” Anna said, coming away from the tree. She needed to leave this feeling behind. Needed to move. “Or I may be forced to do something scandalous.”
“You, tie one’s garter in public. I am beside myself with surprise,” Elise said. “I should appreciate forewarning for whatever scene you plan to make at Madame Bomfrey’s beforehand. Simply so we may get our stories straight when the authorities arrive.”
Anna sighed. “Not much trouble to be had at the modiste.” A shame, really. Those overworked seamstresses could use a bit of fun.
Elise looked pointedly at Anna’s boots. “I suppose it is just your fashion sense that is criminal. Boots instead of slippers. Worsted wool instead of silk. The duke should be warned you once thought to have a bonnet adorned in animal bones.” A sigh. “His Grace is sure to earn my sympathy.”
Anna scoffed. “The hound’s skull was from Lady Crew’s favorite dog. Who died of natural causes, I might add.” A lady was celebrated for wearing any manner of animal skins—hunted and killed for just that vain purpose—but request a simple token from a beloved pet and people looked horrified.
Much as she was at Jackson’s inept lying.
He was hiding something from her. The small crinkle around his eyes when he lied was still there.
His connection to the man he’d said would investigate William’s death had nothing to do with his title of duke.
Of that much, she was sure. But why would Jackson have connections with what?
A rogue runner? Some ex-officer with a nose for tracking?
Whoever was sent to look for her brother would be subject to her approval.
Jackson might have thought he’d outmaneuvered her into relinquishing her investigation.
That he could bring her to the country, where she couldn’t get into any more trouble.
That he could distract her with his charm and smile .
. . and kisses. A sliver of delicious memory came unbidden, of his tongue sliding across her lips—No!
She wouldn’t be put off. William needed her.
And Jackson had spurned her before.
If the duke thought she would accept his lies, he was mistaken. Thanks to her recent—and far too frequent—excursions into society, she’d learned there were many ways to wage a war. Including the art of womanly charm—or derision, as it were.
She’d see the duke clamoring to have her out of sight.
“Come, Elise.” She hooked her arm through her chaperone’s. “I do believe I’m inspired to commission a whole new style of dress.”
Concern flitted across Elise’s face. “Lace eyelets?” she asked, surely without hope.
Anna smiled. “Insectum,” she said, proud of her Latin.
Elise, wisely, looked terrified.