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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

A nne couldn’t say precisely what brought her back to St. Sefin’s the next day.

What drove her away from Greenfield was a combination of many things.

The prospect of sitting with Lady Vaughn, who was again at home to callers, of whom she seemed to entertain a great number.

Everyone of her acquaintance wanted to hear about the marriage of the viscount to the Welsh woman who had gone on trial, it was said, for running a brothel from an ancient priory, and then had got herself and two viscountesses kidnapped by an Irish criminal.

At some point in the discussion, the scandal of what Anne had done must out.

She did not wish to be peered at and hear the whispers that she was a hussy.

Hew left early in the morning on business. Over breakfast he said he was going to inspect the Fourteen Locks and see for himself how they functioned.

“Why would they need you?” his mother inquired. “You’re an artilleryman, not an engineer.”

“A gunner, not a sapper, you mean?”

The harsh note in his voice made Anne look up from her salted fish. She could read him now, and tension lined his mouth and eyes. He clenched his hand around the butter knife in a way she had come to recognize.

“They are quite separate occupations, I thought.” His mother seemed genuinely perplexed. “You wouldn’t have been trained in building batteries or whatever.”

“You would be surprised what accommodations must be made in the heat of battle, madame,” Hew replied.

Lady Vaughn fretted with her soft-boiled egg. “But that is why you are in trouble with the Army now, I was told. Isn’t the Duke of York himself reviewing your case, as commander in chief?”

“And how would you know that?” Hew asked.

Anne was glad Calvin was not here to see this. He would leap upon his brother’s weakness with glee, a carrion eater at feast. The whereabouts of Calvin Vaughn were yet unknown, as he had not appeared for breakfast nor sent word to the house, but Anne for one was glad of the reprieve.

Daron was not at breakfast, either, though he had been at dinner the night before with tales of visiting some place called Goldcliff.

Anne, admittedly, had been watching Hew more than her brother, and she saw Hew’s eyes narrow at this divulgence.

It seemed Daron had spent the previous day in the company of this man called Darch, and planned to do so again.

Anne was glad her brother had found a friend to divert him. Perhaps he would forget to be outraged with her over shaming the family name, etc. etc.

“I—em. Jane Morgan, or rather Jane Homfrey now, she may have mentioned something. Did you know she is expecting again?” Lady Vaughn said, her tone bright as gold paint.

“This is her fourth already, I believe. Only think, Hewitt, you could have married her when she was widowed by that naval captain, and then you would be one of the Morgans, too.”

“Jane is twelve years older than I am, Mother, and she was in love with Captain Ball since she was a child.” Hew calmly buttered a slice of toasted bread. “She never saw me as more than an amusing nuisance, and neither did her sister Elizabeth.”

“Elizabeth is ten years older than that man she married,” Lady Vaughn said testily.

“It could have been you marrying a Morgan at St. George in Hanover Square at the height of the season, but no. Elizabeth fixes on a bastard, the son of a general and a prostitute. The fits Lady Morgan must have had with such a pedigree in the family.”

“Are you relieved that my scandal is so much the less, then? I am hardly the first man to have robbed his brother of a wife. The Bible is full of examples. It’s practically part of Scripture.”

“Please do spare me such irreverence,” Lady Vaughn sniffed.

“It has been strain enough on my nerves to have you return under a cloud. I thought you such a hero, and so I told all my friends. I don’t know how I shall support myself if you end up in prison, much less support a supposed wife. And your brother?—”

“Had his chance with Anne, and did not marry her though the betrothal was proposed years ago.” Hew rose and held out his hand to Anne. “Shall we have Mr. Stanley post the banns this Sunday, my darling? Three weeks is already too long to wait.”

Anne hadn’t finished her chocolate, but she stood also, setting her fork to the side. At least she had enjoyed her coddled eggs, which swam in her stomach as Lady Vaughn glared.

“I—so soon?” Just yesterday he had proposed they lengthen their engagement. Give her time to look about her and come up with a plan.

He swept a thumb across her ungloved hand. A bolt of sensation rushed up her arm, swift as wildfire, setting the fine hairs on end.

What was he doing?

“I regret that business calls me away today,” he murmured, looking down at her. Though low, his voice carried across the fine papered parlor, and his mother no doubt heard everything. “I would rather be wooing you.”

“I … I have things I must attend to as well.” Good heavens, her wits had scattered.

He smelled of open woods and the sea breeze, and she fell under his spell with a word.

His eyes were incantations, his heat on her hand an alchemy that turned her thoughts into mist. Where he touched her, she became something else. Base lead turning to gold.

She didn’t have a single notion what she meant to do with her day, other than compose a letter informing her parents she meant to marry Hew and not Calvin.

Why couldn’t she think with this man near her?

He drew close and she stood riveted like a post that had been sunk into the river, a support for the new bridge.

Not a reed in the breeze, as she always had been, but a sturdy support. Meant to bear a great weight.

“I shall see you at dinner?”

His voice took her back to his shadowed bed, to her body trembling from the peak of pleasure, her hand touching herself at his gruff command.

By the saints, she couldn’t turn to a puddle here in the dining parlor in front of his mother.

She couldn’t press herself against him and beg him to touch her again.

If they were not to be married—because she planned to jilt him, because he did not want to be friends —why then this playacting? She clung to his hand and stared up at him, mute, miserable with confusion and longing.

“I want my mother to see that I chose you,” he murmured in her ear as he guided her from the room.

His hand curled around her elbow was a warm shackle.

The ring one put in the nose of a bull to draw him.

“I want her to tell all her friends that I lost my head and seduced you. I stole you from Calvin because I wanted you for myself.”

She leaned toward him, wanting these words, wanting to believe them. That he had longed for her. Chose her. Longed for her still. A pool of heat gathered between her legs in that awakened place. She was turning to gold there, too.

“Take a groom with you if you go anywhere.” Hew lifted his other hand and brushed a finger over her cheek, freeing a curl she hadn’t realized had plastered itself to her skin.

To his mother, it would appear they stood together in the hall, murmuring sweet nothings to one another.

Him gazing at her with adoration, her staring back up at him, caught in his snare.

Unwilling to free herself, even if she could. “I shall.”

“I will think of you all day.”

He must be saying this for his mother. Keeping up the pretense that they were besotted. That they had both gone mad and broken the chains of convention and courtesy, the contract between their families, because a passion like that the poets spoke of drew them together.

Then, at least, she would not be the whore alone, tempting him past restraint and begging him to ravish her, throwing away her honor for calculated intent. If they loved, they could be understood. Perhaps, in time, forgiven.

This show of tenderness was to protect her. She melted before it.

And felt something bold and wild light within her. She wanted him not to be acting.

His mother was watching. The tiny maid who lit the fires and brought her hot water that morning was coming down the hall from the wing with Anne’s room, likely having just tidied her chamber.

A footman in livery stood near the sideboard in the dining parlor, able to see them from the door.

And here was the housekeeper, coming through the baize door from the kitchens. They were on full display.

Anne planted her hands on either side of his face. Her palms were cold and his skin warm, his jaw shaven and smooth. His eyes flared.

“Think of this ,” she said, and pushed up on her toes to kiss him.

He might have stood still before her assault, but he didn’t.

He lowered his head to meet her, slanting his lips across hers, and his arms snaked around her, palms cradling her back.

She felt the heat through the muslin of her gown, the linen of her shift, the cotton twill of her stays.

He kissed her as if he had been waiting— craving —for her to step into his arms. He kissed her as if she were chocolate spiced with vanilla and cinnamon and he meant to drink her down.

Hunger roared between them, like a great cat that would snap her up whole.

The world spun before her closed eyes. His arms were iron bands around her, as if she’d been caught up in a vise.

But his mouth—his mouth was a feast for all her senses, taste and touch and scent.

He was every delicious thing she’d tasted in her life, and when he made a sound, a low, raw grumble deep in his throat, she wanted to melt against him like treacle in utter surrender.

Just in time, Anne caught the last thread of her wits, the vanishing reminder of her intent. She broke free from his devouring mouth and stepped backwards. Her balance was not steady, but he held her, kept her from tipping over.