Chapter 6
“It is too much for a dinner at home,” Anna said as she looked in the mirror. “Rachel.”
The dress was a deep amber hue, with a low neckline that was still well within the bounds of propriety but complemented her complexion. The skirt moved with her hips. Rachel had produced it from her own trunk, with the air of someone who had been waiting for an occasion.
“It is dinner with your dearest friend and her family, and I say what is and is not too much.” Rachel stood behind her in the mirror and smiled. “There. You see? Look.”
Anna really looked then. The amber did something particular to her soft blonde hair and her hazel eyes that she was not entirely used to seeing done.
Her cousin had not considered the question of flattering colors worth the investment.
She admitted to herself that the dress did suit her quite well, and yet she felt uncomfortable in such clothing.
Her mother had been so distant after her father’s passing when she was a little girl, that she wasn’t sure if she had ever been so fawned over.
“I’ll feel ridiculous,” she said quickly, though in her heart she knew Rachel was not wrong. “Dressed for an occasion when there is no occasion.”
“There is an occasion.” Rachel was already reaching for the pins. “You are here. I am here. We are having dinner together. That is an occasion. Now stand still.”
“Yes, sergeant,” she said with a mock salute.
Rachel’s eyes brightened. “It is good to see you smile again.’
They came downstairs together a half hour later, Rachel in blue, Anna in the amber, and the Duke was already in the drawing room. He was dressed in a tailored black suit with a silk cravat, standing by the window with a glass of something, reading what was probably a letter about the estate.
He turned when they came in and tucked the letter in his jacket pocket. His gaze moved to Anna, and it stayed there for a beat longer than it needed to. Her heart began to beat faster as she approached him. She inhaled deeply and caught his scent. Masculine, woodsy, clean, all soap and pine.
“Good evening,” he said, and crossed to greet them.
His scent grew stronger as Anna could not help but shiver at the proximity. What was happening to her? This was her best friend’s brother.
“Doesn’t she look well?” Rachel said, which Anna felt was a statement deployed like a small test.
“You both look well,” he said, which answered the test and nothing else.
The dining room at the Hall was not the formal one.
That, Anna gathered, was reserved for occasions of genuine ceremony, which she doubted this family shared often.
This was the informal dining room, a table that could seat twelve set for three at one end, with candles and good china and a fire that had been burning long enough to make the room warm.
It smelled of woodsmoke, and whatever was coming.
The duke sat at the head. Rachel and Anna sat across from one another.
The first course arrived: turtle soup. Anna looked at the duke and was struck by how brightly his amber eyes shone in the candlelight, offset by his thick sandy hair and trim beard.
He may as well have been a painting as fine as he looked. Anna took a bite of her soup.
“How did the estate business go?” Rachel asked.
“The south field drainage will need attention before spring,” he said as he took a sip from his goblet of wine. “I’ve written to a contractor to secure a fair price. The far boundary fence also wants replacing. Three sections at least.”
“So… fine?” Rachel said.
“Manageable,” he corrected.
Rachel looked at Anna. Anna looked back at her with an expression that acknowledged the comedy.
“Miss Cartwell. Are you settling in well?” he asked, and she looked up from her soup, which was delicious.
“Yes,” she said, as she thought about how deep and rich his voice was. “Very much so, Your Grace. Mrs. Hale is formidable in the best possible sense. I asked about laundry this morning, and she had already made arrangements. I hadn’t even finished the sentence.”
“She has worked here for twenty-three years,” Frederick said. “She had finished the sentence before you started it.”
“And your cook,” Anna added. “Breakfast was extraordinary, but this is another word altogether.”
“Tell her so,” Rachel said. “She adores being told.”
“I certainly will.”
“And the room? You slept well?” He asked.
“Remarkably so… considering it all.” Anna set down her spoon. “You have both been…I am…” She stopped and set down her spoon. “Thank you. I mean it. For all of it.”
“We have established your gratitude already. I am going to make a rule now. No more thanking us. We are your friends. You would do the same for me in an instant and we both know it, so we may dispense with the accounting,” Rachel said.
Anna smiled and picked up her spoon, taking a bite of soup. “If you insist.”
“Oh, I do.” Rachel lifted her glass. “Now, enjoy your wine.”
The second course arrived. A loin of lamb with roasted root vegetables, which was also delicious.
“I was thinking that, if we are here through November, we might ride out toward the eastern valley. The light is extraordinary that way in autumn. You just need to make sure you dress warmly. Anna, do you like to ride?” Rachel asked.
“I do when I am not running for my life,” Anna said, the wine softening her tongue. “Well enough, I think.”
“You will not be able to ride, unfortunately,” the Duke said, reaching for his wine, “though I imagine she rides competently enough.”
“For whatever reason?” Rachel asked, her voice sharp.
“We cannot risk Miss Cartwell being discovered.”
“Oh, yes. That,” Rachel said.
The table was quiet. Anna met his gaze without flinching, though her heart beat a little faster for it. Rachel put down her fork, and then the duke spoke first.
“It was not a bad idea,” he said after a moment, and returned to his glass. “You must be careful for the moment. One misstep could ruin everything we have risked to secure your safety, which is of utmost importance to me while you are in my household.”
“I understand that, Your Grace,” Anna said. And because she did not want the evening to carry the weight of the prior morning, she added, more quietly, “And you are not wrong that it is a reckless notion. I am grateful for your hospitality.”
A beat.
“It is settled then.”
Rachel picked up her fork. “The lamb is very good,” she offered to the room.
“It is,” Anna agreed.
“Cook does the rosemary remarkably well. She is an artist with a deft hand.”
“Do you enjoy art yourself?”
“I mainly stick to needlepoint, but enjoy painting from time to time when the mood strikes. I always use too much paint though.”
“You always use too much of everything,” the Duke said.
“I have bold instincts,” Rachel teased, and the evening righted itself and moved on.
The tavern was three villages over, which was precisely the right distance. He was far enough to be anonymous, close enough to be worth the ride.
Frederick came here when the Rathbourne Hall’s silence grew, not oppressive exactly, but present, the way it did some evenings.
The fireplace was large, the ale was reasonable, and no one looked at him with anything beyond the mild acknowledgment owed to a man who tipped well and didn’t cause trouble.
Thomas was already there. This was either coincidence or his best friend, the Marquess of Larthby, had heard about the move to the Hall and had come out of curiosity. His own estate was nearby. Knowing Thomas, as he had since Eton, it was the former dressed as the latter.
“You look extremely unsurprised to see me,” Frederick said, sitting beside him and motioning to the barkeep for a tankard of ale.
“I heard you’d run from London.” Thomas had the face of a man who found almost everything at least mildly entertaining, and he was wearing it now.
“I only run when exercising—”
“Rather suddenly, and with Rachel in tow, which is unusual. I thought I’d investigate for myself, since I was already in the area…”
“You thought you’d make it my problem.”
“Same thing, from where I sit.” Thomas signaled for another glass for himself. “So. What’s happened? Estate emergency? You look… Well…” He tilted his head. “Not worried… Something else.”
Frederick drank because he knew Thomas would get it out of him one way or another, and the direct route was faster.
With the lubrication of ale, he laid out the facts: the morning visit, Anna in the wedding dress, Birchall and Edgeware at the door, the move to the Hall last night.
He kept it brief, and left out the bruises on Anna’s wrist.
Thomas listened without interrupting, which he could do when it was called for.
When Frederick had finished, Thomas exhaled slowly, as he did when he was assessing facts.
“Lord. Birchall.” He turned his glass, swirling the amber liquid, which made Frederick think of the dress Anna had worn that evening. “I’ve heard things about him.”
“So has everyone.”
“Yes, but I’ve heard… specifics.” He didn’t elaborate, and Frederick didn’t ask, which meant they had heard the same specifics.
“Well. Interestingly, no word has come out in London of a runaway bride. Not a peep. I was at the Harringtons’ this evening for dinner, and if a bride ran from her wedding this week, they would know it. ”
“Seems clear enough to me,” Frederick said. “Birchall needs to find her quietly. A runaway wife is not the story a man like that wants circulating.”
“So, he’s covering it up. No one can do that for long…”
“I’m sure he’s doing everything he can to find her—which will be fruitless, of course.”
“So, how is she now?” Thomas asked, his gaze locked on Frederick.
“She is…” Frederick took a sip of his ale. “She is adjusting. Sensibly, in the circumstances.”
“Sensibly.” Thomas repeated the word with mild enjoyment. “That’s how you’d describe her? Is she sensible? Because something in your countenance appears to be frazzled at the mention of her name—”
“That’s how I’d describe her situation. Her name does not matter.”
“I asked how she is.” Thomas looked at him for a moment. “I’ve seen her, you know. Once. At a musicale, last spring. And the Pendleton ball before that, come to think of it.” He paused, pointedly. “She’s quite attractive.”
“She’s under my protection, and more importantly, married.”
“For the moment,” Thomas said pleasantly. “If your attorney is as good as you say he is, and he must be because you pay him handsomely, she won’t be for much longer. And then what?”
“She’s a woman in my care,” Frederick said as he motioned for a new drink.
“In a difficult position. Who came to my house because she had no other option.” He looked at Thomas directly, trying to close the door on further questioning.
“Whatever she is or is not, she is not that. She is not anything, in that regard. I don’t touch women in the ton.
I never have. I am not about to make Miss Anna Cartwell the exception. A rake I may be, but a careful one.”
Thomas held up a hand. “All right, all right. A rake with a moral compass? Making us all look bad.”
“I mean it.”
“I know you mean it,” Thomas said, which was not quite the same thing, but he said it without the smile, and Frederick accepted it as the concession it was.
They drank for a while without talking, which always put Frederick at ease after a trying day. The fire had built itself up nicely and the evening crowd had thickened. There were farmers, tradesmen, and a table of young men who were louder than the occasion warranted.
Normal life, proceeding as it does…
“She’ll be all right,” Thomas said, eventually.
I intend to see that she is.
Frederick rode back to Rathbourne Hall in the dark of night, the horse knowing the road well enough that he could leave it to her and let his thoughts roam.
The night was clear and chilly, a three-quarter moon making the fields visible on either side and lighting the way.
The stubbled dark of harvested ground, the tree lines, the occasional light of a farmhouse were comforting sights.
Then, his thoughts shifted from the country around him to his dining room. The amber dress, the way it highlighted her curves, what it had done to the color of her hazel eyes.
She is remarkable, she is—
He stopped that thought.
She is a woman in my care, under circumstances that require clarity above all things.
She was bruised and frightened. She needed a safe space, and someone to facilitate the process that would eventually get her out of the dire situation she was in. She did not need him to look at her the way he had looked at her this evening, before he had gotten hold of himself.
I am thirty years old, and with a considerable amount of practice getting hold of myself. There is no need to stop that now.
The lights of the Hall appeared through the trees. He told himself he was not going to think about it further.
He was going to do what needed doing. The attorney, the process, the outcome. Then, she would go to Scotland or to a governess position or wherever she chose to go, and his life would return to what it was. It was no business of his then.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw a bruised wrist—and hazel eyes and a spirit that refused to be suppressed. He rode on, but he did not entirely stop thinking about it. But he decided, with the finality he brought to most decisions, that he would keep trying.