Chapter 1
“Happy one-year anniversary,” Anna announced, lifting her glass, “to the day my husband left me!”
She was at a club meeting, hosted that week by her friend Maria Archdall.
Her manor house was most beautiful, a far cry from her own, and it was the perfect setting for their discussions because her doting husband took their two children away for the afternoon, which meant they had it to themselves.
Her friends, who were surrounding her, eyed her carefully. Anna did not know why they were always so insistent on being concerned for her; she was more than capable of living alone, and in the year since Spencer had walked out the door never to return, she had become quite accustomed to it.
“You know,” Evelina said gently, “you might feel better if you told us how you were truly feeling. You are not to blame for what happened, and you need not hide behind humor.”
Anna looked around at her fellow Corset Chronicles Club members and stifled a laugh. They were all drinking wine, and they were all discussing the many pitfalls of men, as was the purpose of their club, and reading the sort of stories that would have them exiled if they were caught.
With the exception of Maria, of course. She was living in marital bliss with her wonderful husband, Damien, and she enjoyed her life as the Duchess of Winterleigh. Anna, the Duchess of Wutherton, had not been so fortunate, and her friends knew that perfectly well.
Theodora Dowell looked at her differently than her sister Evelina Burville did, of course.
Theodora was the younger sister, and she was always interested in hearing the many failings of the male half of the ton.
It inspired her, Anna supposed, to continue with her plans.
Evelina was the Dowager Countess of Thornton; however, this gave her a different view entirely.
“I always do say how I am feeling,” Anna protested. “My husband is as good as dead, and I am pleased that is the case. Is it better for me to say as much explicitly?”
“Well, it is not as though you are a widow. Not like me.”
Anna coughed slightly. She had indeed misspoken, for her friend was truly a widow. Her husband had died not long after their wedding, but that had not been troublesome for Evelina. It had been for the best, just as it had been for the best that Spencer had left Anna behind.
“It is the same, in essence. We live our own lives, on our husbands’ estates.”
“Well, yes, but your husband could return at any time, where mine most certainly will not.”
Anna raised an eyebrow, as did Theodora.
They all knew that Spencer had little interest in seeing her, for he had never once returned, nor had he even written to her to tell her his whereabouts.
She’d had to learn his location from the butler, and she had never attempted to seek him out.
If he did not want her, she did not want him.
After all, she was used to being unwanted, was she not?
The reminder that he had abandoned her stung, and she wondered if it would after every anniversary. It had to improve with time, she considered, but she did not know just how long it might take.
“My husband is as good as gone,” Anna insisted, taking a sip of her drink. “He has not performed his marital duties for a year now, nor did her truly ever, and any husband that cannot do that is no husband at all.”
“No man at all,” Theodora agreed.
“Perhaps we might be able to forgive him?” Maria suggested. “He could have a perfectly reasonable explanation for his whereabouts, and here we are sitting in judgment of him.”
“Yes, well, your Phantom Duke might have turned out to be an impeccable gentleman after all, but that is not something that will happen again. People say that my Wuthering Duke prefers the bed of his mistress, and even if he wanted that to change, I no longer believe that I do.”
“You cannot mean that. You do not want him to be with another woman.”
“Who is to say? If he is happy where he is, and I am much the same, what harm does it do?”
It was true, for the most part, but Anna would have been lying if she said that there were not moments, late at night, when she wished that she could experience just once the happiness and pleasure that her friend did.
Maria’s husband had been keeping a terrible secret, and once he told her the truth, they went from strength to strength.
Anna had wanted that for herself—had wanted any scrap of affection—for a long time, but she was not a fool.
She knew that it would never come, and it was better if she stopped dreaming of it.
“It may not harm you,” Maria replied, “but you do not know what you are missing.”
“Believe me, I do. You have told us often, and in sordid detail.”
Her friend flushed scarlet, her long brunette hair brushing over her cheeks to cover them. What she and her husband did with one another was scandalous, and Anna refused to admit just how much she might have liked such escapades for herself.
Why tempt herself with something she would never have?
A short while later, Theodora asked Maria to show her the new flowers in their garden, and they left the room. Evelina turned to Anna in an instant, green eyes searching.
“You need not tell your sister to have us be left alone together,” Anna chuckled. “You are more than welcome to tell me if you have something to say.”
“I know. Believe me, I had nothing to do with that. My darling little sister seems to have found an interest in botany of all things, and with the Archdalls having such beautiful gardens, it makes sense that she would like to see them.”
“Is that to say that you have nothing to say to me at all?”
“You know as well as I do that it is not. Of course I do. I simply think that it might be best that you do not refer to your husband as wuthering. The ton already sees you as eccentric, and if they were to know that you referred to him as that–”
“Is that not what he is?” Anna countered. “He blew away as if with the wind a year ago, and he never returned. What would you call that?”
“It is wuthering, of course it is, but polite society–”
“Is this polite society? I thought that we were having a club meeting, at the very same club where Maria told us all of the spirited activities that have taken place on that very settee over there.”
She pointed at the settee in the corner as she said it, and Evelina shook her head, laughing softly. They were all the furthest thing from high society when they were together, which was precisely what made it so enjoyable.
“I know that you do not think it is wise,” Anna nodded, “but what else do I have to do? I cannot be one of those ladies who sit by the window waiting to see a carriage that will never arrive. I must do something with myself, and if that is gaining a reputation for my wicked and eccentric ways, then so be it.”
“Anna, you are so much more than that.”
“Am I worse? What a splendid idea. If I become too terrible, my absent husband may at last return in order to reprimand me. Could you imagine that?”
Her friend laughed sadly, and the matter was left alone. There was no changing her mind; Spencer was gone, and it was for the best that she treated him as though he were dead. It was less painful that way.
When Theodora and Maria returned, Theodora sat beside Anna once again, smiling brightly.
She was but twenty years of age, but Anna admired her greatly.
She truly did not want a husband and had done everything in her power to remain unmarried.
She had done well, too much to the disdain of her parents.
“Now that is all settled,” Maria announced, “shall we begin by discussing this week’s book?”
“If I am honest,” Anna said boldly, “the last thing that I wish to do is discuss a romance novel when I am four-and-twenty and have never once felt that same romance that any of the characters do. I don’t wish to replace an absent husband with mere words.”
“Did you read the book, Anna?” Maria asked. “I know that it is perhaps not the sort of thing you might prefer, but I thought you might enjoy it nonetheless.”
Anna sighed. “No, I have not. I did try, but it was so… it was so perfect. Nothing bad happened at all, and the husband and wife loved one another very much, and everything was all lovely and wonderful. That is not how life is.”
“Then why not find some joy of your own?” Theodora suggested. “You say that your husband is off with his mistress, so why not find a gentleman of your own to keep you company?”
The thought had crossed her mind more than once in the year since her wedding day, but she could not.
“This is where my pretending that he has died is paramount,” she explained. “If I saw him as a scoundrel, I would have no shame in doing as I pleased, but alas, I am a widow. I must honor my darling husband, instead, which means no gentlemen callers.”
“I still do not think that you should act like he is dead,” Evelina pressed, and Anna turned to her.
“Then what would you have me do? Society might not like it, but they should pass judgment over him, not me. I have not done anything wrong.”
“And I know that, but you and I both know that the ton does not look kindly upon such behavior. I do not want you to do anything too precarious, not when you do not have a gentleman behind you to assist if the worst happens.”
“Evelina, you are a good friend to me, and I know that you mean well, but I have survived a year alone. I am perfectly capable of handling myself, and I will do so regardless of whether or not I face a lowered reputation. It is not as though anyone shall think too highly of someone in a position such as mine, regardless.”
With that, her friends were silenced. It was how her life was, and it had been since they all met. There was no surprise in her circumstances, and she wished that she had never mentioned it, having been a year in the first place. She did not want to talk about all of it.
She could, after all, hardly bear to think about it.
When she returned home, she was confronted by the same cold and empty household as the one she had left.
Over the year, however, she had made the best of it.
She had redecorated it all, and after six months had passed, she decided to change it all completely.
If she were truly alone, then it would be her home alone, which meant that she could have it as she wanted.
She did not stop for dinner. Instead, she went to her bedchambers, perched by the window and looking out onto the front of her estate. She was tired of being ignored, of being treated as though she were not there, and it was going to change.