Chapter Eighteen
She had seen enough. She turned back toward Qavox, face hidden in her hands. The empty, echoing streets. The red river winding around the castle. The face of a man, horribly familiar to Amsonia and clad in her father’s crown, painted on a giant banner over the entrance.
“Look upon it and know the truth! Your uncle succumbed to dark forces. It is he who vanished your father into the Red Mist, he who now rules over the lands of Vyranthrall. You must be brave, Amsonia. If you hope to vanquish this evil, you must first open your eyes.”
—The Dragon and the Blue Star by Analise Crewe
“Tessie, why is your mistress still abed?”
“I’ll rouse her immediately, Your Grace.”
Ana nestled her head deeper into the pillow, her mind blurred from sleep. Surely the duke wasn’t there in her bedchamber? What a bizarre dream.
“Get up, Ana.” His deep voice, coming from somewhere alarmingly close by.
She cautiously opened one eye. He was there.
In the formidable flesh. Standing over her in a dark claw hammer jacket, the high cropped front displaying the full power of his muscular thighs encased in buff-colored leather riding breeches.
Feet clad in high black boots tapping impatiently on the floor as Tessie began to bustle about the room, drawing the curtains and readying her mistress’s toilet.
An unwelcome ray of sunshine fell across her eyelids. “Go away!” She rolled over and buried her face back in the pillow. “I’m hiding.”
“You can’t hide in here all week until the wedding.”
“I absolutely intend to.” She wanted to keep as many doors as possible between herself and reality.
She felt a potent mix of dread, anxiety, and a kind of chagrin—she had, after all, brought this unthinkable situation on herself.
It was she who had pressed forward with her research, she who had instigated the incendiary physical contact that had changed everything in one moment.
She had nobody else to blame, not even the duke.
Now she was officially part of a bona fide full-size scandal, and the reality of it was much more stomach-churning than her imagination could have possibly warned her.
Hiding was the only answer.
“I’m taking you riding.”
“Riding?” She sputtered and sat up. That didn’t make any sense.
I’m taking you riding. The words immediately conjured Princess Amsonia, clinging to the dragon’s scaly back, sailing underneath night stars with the wind whistling in her ears.
Riding was motion, freedom—exposure, contact with the outside world. She shook her head vehemently.
“On Rotten Row, just as you asked.”
Well, there was an interesting thought. The infamous Rotten Row, sure to provide a fascinating look into the ton, everyone parading up and down the bridle path on their best horses.
She was sure to observe a million details that would help her flesh out the bonier parts of her book.
But she would be observed in turn, used as fodder for idle gossips to chew up and spit back at each other.
Researching real life was a dangerous game. She wanted none of it.
“I don’t want to go out in public.”
“But Rotten Row is on your list of things to do.”
“I’m not writing the novel anymore.”
A sigh of exasperation. “Yes. You are writing the damn book. You talk about it incessantly. Let’s help it along.”
“Won’t people be whispering about us?”
“Most likely. That’s the routine on the Row. But the best way to quell rumors is to face them head on.”
“Or stay in bed until they die down on their own,” she whispered, sensing that she was losing the battle.
“Ana, you are coming riding with me. As my future duchess, with a soon-to-be burgeoning literary career of her own, this is a logical and necessary step. We must be seen in public together.”
She cocked an ear. Half of that statement filled her with dread, the other with excitement.
“A literary career?” Since that extraordinary kiss had turned her world topsy-turvy, she had scarcely dared imagine what life post-marriage might be like.
It was a daunting gray area. But this sounded . . . intriguing. Something to consider.
“Yes, of course. As my wife, you’ll have nothing but time in which to write all the countless books your fertile imagination can conjure. Now, Tessie, stuff her into a habit and have her downstairs within the hour.”
Tessie dropped a curtsy. “Yes, Your Grace.”
When he’d gone, Tessie folded the covers away from her body. “You heard His Grace. Up you get.”
Ana groaned. “I can’t believe this is happening. I never meant for any of it to happen.”
“Perhaps not, but you were caught kissing and that’s the way of the world now, isn’t it?”
As Tessie helped her into her finely tailored navy riding habit, arranging the shirred epaulets just so over her shoulders and fluffing the jaunty peplum, Ana’s gaze found the window with its partial view of the square.
She hadn’t seen Cygnette at Lady Chetwynd-Ellerton’s ball.
Perhaps she’d been wrong about her making her debut.
Maybe Cygnette was an independent young lady who had decided never to marry and to pursue her farfetched dream of becoming a physician, or an archaeologist, or even an author.
Was marriage really a cage that kept one from fulfilling one’s dreams?
What if her marriage to the duke actually enabled hers?
He seemed to be fine with the idea of having an author for a wife, someone with her own career independent of their union.
She shook her head, denying the possibility.
He would want all her attention on the heirs she would be forced to produce, like a broodmare cooped up in a stable.
Surely a loveless marriage would crush her creativity, stifle her spirit.
“Hold still!” Tessie shoved several hat pins into her backswept coiffure, attempting to afix the pert bonnet. “What’s got you sighing so? It’s a lovely day for a ride!”
“Tessie, life is already too much of a ride for me at this particular point. It’s moving far too quickly into uncharted territories, and I’m having a hard time hanging on.”
Tessie smiled behind her mistress’s dramatic head. “You’re to be a duchess, Ana. A duchess. You’ll never have to worry about anything again for as long as you live!”
Ana didn’t bother to contradict her as she gathered up her gloves and crop.
She knew that from her friend’s perspective she had indeed stumbled into a spot of luck.
But the prospect of a lifetime of luxury didn’t hold the same allure for her.
She had never felt quite so beset by uncertainties, not even when she’d been destitute and desperate in her tiny room at Miss Flanagan’s.
At least then she’d known her missions: find her father, publish her book.
Life had become complicated and mysterious since then.
The duke had made it so. And now he was making her face her fears, forcing her out into the stark light of the public stage.
She’d thought that observing society was what she wanted.
But today, it would be society observing and judging her. Let them.
She set her chin and marched down the stairs.
Later, dismounting from the horse with her fingers tucked into the duke’s strong hand, she had to admit she’d been wrong, utterly and completely.
He’d engineered an almost perfect afternoon, something from a dream belonging to someone else.
Someone in an affectionate relationship with a well-dressed lover who nodded reassuringly at her from his horse at intervals and pointed out interesting sights along the sandy gravel road.
The inquisitive looks from passersby, so daunting at first, had faded into a harmless blur as the magic of the sunny, stimulating scene took hold.
The duke had provided what amounted to, for him, a steady stream of comforting commentary.
For someone else it might have been more of a brook, she allowed, a trickle really, but for him it had been volubility itself.
He’d provided the names of the more outrageously dressed riders, noting their titles and marital statuses, even tossing in a line or two about their unique peccadillos or peculiarities.
“That’s Sir Alexander Howell, in the frothy cravat,” he said, nodding his chin at a gentleman wearing two clashing waistcoats from which a fountain of lace erupted. “He spends the bulk of his leisure time in the company of elderly women of means.”
“Countess Bettina Davencourt, on the braided mare. Never seen out with her husband, the earl, who is always seen in with her lady’s maid.”
Short, to the point, but ever so provocative—she peered at the people in question and marveled at how ordinary they appeared under their finery. Was absolutely everyone hiding a secret or two? It would seem so. It was satisfying fare.
They’d run into a number of his friends along the road, who struck Ana as a surprisingly pleasant and lively group.
They were sculptors and barristers and viscounts and merchants, from a motley assortment of professions and stations, united by high intelligence and an obvious zest for life.
Not a single one of them looked askance at her; rather, they’d all smiled directly into her eyes and exclaimed warmly at the pleasure of meeting her.
She was struck, too, by the genuine regard they seemed to have for the duke. Hearty congratulations were offered, gentle jokes made about the duke’s good fortune at finding her. It was obvious that these good-seeming people thought very highly of him.
Toward the end they’d crossed paths with Thea and Lulu, riding in a gaily painted phaeton, Thea holding the reins and Lulu cradling a sketchbook in her lap.
The women had cried gladly at the sight of Ana, and Warburton had directed his and Ana’s horses to the side of their carriage so they could move forward together.