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CHAPTER FIVE

A nne paced the knot garden at Greenfield, waiting for Daron for return. He’d slipped away somewhere, without a word to her, when surely he knew they must talk.

Everything was changed now that Hewitt Vaughn was home. Calvin couldn’t take over the property. He couldn’t help the Suttons. He didn’t need to marry Anne.

Her heart swelled, pressing against her short stays. She didn’t need to marry at all.

She’d done everything wrong anyway. She’d been good and quiet, obedient and demure. She’d done everything her parents wanted. And for that she was promised to a man who lied, cheated, seduced housemaids, and was likely an opium eater, considering that his breath ever smelled of saffron.

She was tired of being good, if it gained her nothing.

She could wish to live at Greenfield, though, Anne thought, dawdling along a garden path as the sun shone gently upon her.

Would her parents truly lose Vine Court?

It was a lovely home, a trim Georgian block nestled in its green vale like a jewel box on a lady’s dressing table.

It had been built by Anne’s grandfather when his coal mines made him rich, then enlarged by Anne’s father when new methods of extraction made him richer.

Greenfield, a century older, felt wilder, still recalling its medieval roots as a castle built by the Kemeys family, who had come to Britain in the train of William the Conqueror and become one of the strong marcher lords shielding civilized England from the fierce Welsh.

Anne had never before thought it strange that the Suttons, like the Vaughns, had lived inside Wales for most of their lives and still thought of themselves as English.

Calvin was sure to discard her now, since she could bring him nothing.

But perhaps Lady Vaughn would want Anne as a companion, and she would not be a burden on her parents.

Anne could fetch shawls and carry parasols.

She’d already proven she could administer a vinaigrette.

She was an amusing conversationalist, and she possessed all the other required accomplishments: she could recite poetry, she played the spinet, the harp, and the pianoforte, and she was often praised for her voice.

This would become her favorite walk, the Elizabethan garden with its tall hedge of holly and yew, the sky a dome as blue as sheep’s bit.

Gwen had been the one keen on the names of plants and the remedies they could be used in, making her a favorite with Anne’s nurse Pym.

But it was Anne who had learned how to supervise a kitchen, double-check the housekeeper’s accounts, and barter for goods when a merchant or peddler had priced them too dear.

Gwen might sprawl on the ground among the flowers; Anne learned how to arrange them in the most attractive manner, matched to the occasion and the season.

But Hewitt Vaughn was returned now, the master of the household. Lady Vaughn must have all her decisions approved by him.

Say no, he’d counseled, as if Anne had the liberty of her own desires. Refuse to marry, if you don’t wish to .

Her steps faltered on the raked gravel path. Did he mean he did not approve? Calvin did not need his brother’s permission to marry, but he would require a home. Hewitt could turn them both out if he wished. Anne sensed Hewitt Vaughn would make a formidable adversary.

A heavy step sounded on the gravel walk outside the garden, a man’s tread, and Anne tensed as a flash of dark blue coat shone through a gap in the hedge. Daron had returned. He would listen to Anne’s pleas. He would know what to do next, to save her.

It was Hewitt Vaughn. She had summoned him by thought, like a demon.

He strode through the hedge onto the gravel pathway of the knot garden and stopped, staring at Anne across the stone sundial.

His brows drew together toward that small scar, and her shoulders tingled as hair lifted at her nape.

He had learned what Anne had done, how she had risked the lives of innocent women to save her brother, and he meant to turn her out at once.

There would be no position as his mother’s companion, no safe shelter here.

She would be turned out with nothing, like Gwen had been turned out of Vine Court all those years ago.

He hadn’t changed his dress. The same coat hugged shoulders that couldn’t possibly be that broad without padding, the neckcloth still looked as if he hadn’t given it a single thought beyond the knotting, and the gold silk waistcoat and the pantaloons outlined an ideal masculine form, as though he were a classical statue brought to life.

But his manner held an ease she hadn’t seen at St. Sefin’s.

His hair was tousled, his mouth no longer a straight slash, and he’d unclenched his jaw at least once into a smile, judging by the grooves on either side of his mouth.

Anne supposed he couldn’t help if the bones of his face made him look as if he could be ruthless. That mouth said not everything about him was rigid.

But his demeanor changed as he regarded her. He’d come loping into the garden like a satyr enjoying his domain, until he saw her. Now his body tightened like a bow drawn to the arrow.

“I can leave, if you like,” she blurted. She didn’t refer only to the garden.

“Nonsense. You were here first.” He dipped his head in a gentleman’s acknowledgement of a lady’s presence. He had better manners than her brother or his, that was certain.

A flutter set up around the edges of her chest. He’d startled her, that was the reason. “Walking,” she blurted, hearing how nonsensical the words were the moment they emerged. “Only walking.”

“Enjoying the space, I hope. My mother used to love this garden in particular.”

He strolled one of the brushed paths beside a small flower bed outlined with a short hedge of yew. A blend of red and pink flowers flung their scent into the hair, heavy, alluring.

She’d removed her hat and gloves, like a hoyden, and left them on the wooden bench in the arbor, because she thought she was alone and there was no one to scold that she’d freckle. Let her freckle. If it were just for Calvin Vaughn, let her chase away all her beauty with a stick.

Except it was Hew who stood here, and suddenly Anne wanted her gloves, because her fingers tingled in the strangest manner, and she wanted her hat as well, because an odd warmth rising along her neck told her she must have taken too much sun.

Thank goodness for the lace tucked at her bodice.

Anne’s mother counseled her to show more of her breasts, but Anne felt altogether naked already, with nothing but the muslin of her gown and the scented air between them, laced with the chatter and whistle of birds.

He glanced about. “You have no companion?”

At Vine Court, Anne would have a maid to accompany her out of doors, but maids were thin on the ground at Greenfield.

There was a hallboy and staff enough in the kitchen, a cook and kitchen maid and someone for the scullery, but of chambermaids, Anne hadn’t seen so much as the edge of a skirt disappearing down a hall.

Perhaps they were trained to be invisible, as the best maids should be, but even so, they couldn’t spare a girl to help Anne dress for the wedding.

The housekeeper, Mrs. Harries, had come with a grim set to her lips to help fix Anne’s hair and gown, and it had been all too clear she felt called away from other, more important duties.

The gooseflesh spread down her arms, not accounted for by the soft breeze that carried the smell of the river.

Was Hew cast in the same mold as his brother?

Anne tensed as his amble brought him to the path intersecting with hers.

She was alone with him. He was a large, powerful man. And he blocked the exit.

She had the strong intuition that Hewitt Vaughn would never, in his life, use his size to impose his will on a woman.

Her senses stood at high alert as she watched him look about the garden with its neat knots of flowers grouped by colors and height, the decorative elements placed here and there.

But it was not fear that he roused in her.

“Greenfield is very beautiful,” she said.

He nodded, glancing at the red brick of the building behind them, the tall windows in their casements catching the light. Someone could look out and see them. He wouldn’t attack her in plain sight. The tangle of sensations in Anne’s chest rolled tight like yarn around a spindle.

No, this strange reaction to him wasn’t fear. She drew in her breath as he walked closer, but not because she was preparing for flight. She wanted him to draw closer.

Was she addled from the sun?

“I suppose my mother has told you all about the history. How the castle was sacked by the armies of Owain Glend?r, then rebuilt into a manor house under the Tudors, using the same brick they made for Tredegar. The house escaped destruction during the Civil War, when Cromwell’s armies razed Newport Castle.

My father bought it from a man who made improvements using his profits from the slave trade, and my father built his wealth the same way.

” He broke off, a bitter edge entering his tone.

Anne reached for her shawl and realized she didn’t have one, thus the sudden shiver.

She’d never given a single thought to the slave trade or anything about it until she came face to face with Dovey, Gwen’s dark-skinned friend, and learned the woman’s history.

Africans weren’t what she had been taught to believe.