Page 7 of The Play’s the Thing (The Cricket Club #2)

D espite crying off, Anna did not go back to her room that afternoon for a nap. Instead, the instant the phaeton returned the party to Newton Place, she made a beeline for the kitchens.

Reaching the entrance, she peered around the busy workspace with wild eyes. “I need dough,” she announced.

Beatrice lifted her head from her place in the far corner of the madness, interrupting her absorption on a tray of freshly baked buns. A grand smile sprouted on her face as she took in Anna’s obvious distress. “That’s the girl I love.”

Iris stood at Beatrice’s side, her apron covered in flour. She eyed Anna appreciatively.

“I won’t be in the way?” Anna asked, creeping near the table. “I don’t know the first thing about baking, but I have an indescribable need to hit something, and to hit it hard.”

She assumed that Iris would be mortified by her statement, but the woman nodded in apparent understanding. “You’ve come to the right place, my dear,” she said. She wore an old, tattered blouse that looked like it was older than Anna and had rolled her sleeves up to her elbow. She placed her toned bare arm around Anna’s shoulders. “Welcome home.”

*

After an hour of sifting and measuring, rolling and kneading, Anna concluded that she showed very little signs of becoming a confident baker. She wasn’t even a big lover of sweets. However, that wasn’t to say she didn’t enjoy pummeling the life out of the gloopy mixture Iris placed in front of her. Beatrice had been right: handling the dough was awfully cathartic—even more so than playing cricket. She loved the sport dearly, but it was nearly impossible to play by oneself. It was a game that relied on relationships. With baking, Anna could take out all her anger, her frustration, her energy on that sad, elastic, and remarkably resilient ball of dough. It was a revelation.

At first, the servants showed small signs of being concerned at yet another body taking up space in the kitchen, but soon they turned a blind eye, concluding that she was just another eccentric peer, no different than Iris or Beatrice. The cook, Mrs. McGuan, reminded Anna of her cricket captain, Myfanwy, by the way she yelled out commands to her underlings. The squat, round woman was positively frightening, though Anna learned she was more bark than bite. The leader also offered many kind words to the servants who needed a boost of confidence.

As Anna worked, something broke inside her, a dam of emotion that gained speed and alacrity along with the surety of her hands. The environment surely helped. The air in the active room was just as filled with conversation and gossip as it was with spices and herbs. Laughter and whispers permeated the space, making Anna feel undeniably safe enough to eventually divulge what was bothering her.

“I just don’t understand men,” she said, eyeing the way Iris manipulated her dough from the corner of her eye. Jacob’s aunt pulled off chunks of the mixture and rolled them into little, smooth balls against the table with the palm of her hand before placing them back on the tray. They looked impeccable, like little shiny billiard balls lined up into straight rows.

Anna blew out a long sigh of frustration. “The world is changing. Every day women are doing exciting and new things; how can he truly believe that we’re weak?”

“I don’t think he’s saying that, sister,” Beatrice replied gently, balancing a large bowl in her arm while madly whirling a whisk inside. She had been promoted to icing duty. “I think you’re only hearing what you want to hear.”

“What does that mean?” Anna snapped.

Beatrice whisked harder, avoiding her sister’s glare. “It means I think you want to condemn him. And I don’t know why.”

Anna scoffed. “That’s ridiculous.” Her nose itched and she didn’t have one clean finger to scratch it. Oh well, if she left this room with flour all over her face, so be it. “He’s a tyrant. He thinks he knows best about everything; he won’t even trust his own mother to make up her mind. He’s the kind of man who believes that women are too emotionally fragile to handle difficult choices. It’s asinine.”

“I suppose,” Beatrice replied.

“I’m right. You know I am,” Anna said, gaining speed. “Just look at Iris and Violet.”

Violet sat across from them, acting as supreme taste tester . “I would prefer not to get involved in this spat,” she remarked between chews.

“You’re not involved.” Anna laughed. “He’s your nephew and I know you love him. I’m sorry for speaking poorly of him, but you have to admit, he’s acting like a child.”

“He’s acting like a man,” Iris returned dryly. “Sometimes there’s very little difference.”

“Exactly!” Anna said. “And that child doesn’t approve of your coming down to work in the kitchen from time to time. He makes you dance around his feelings so as not to upset him. How is that fair? You are a grown woman; you should be allowed to do whatever you want without worrying about his emotionally fragile state.”

Iris chuckled, now rolling one ball in each hand against the tabletop. Show-off. “You might be condemning him a little too harshly,” she said diplomatically. “Jacob is one of the good ones, I promise you. His life wasn’t easy, you know. His father… Well, his father could be difficult. There was a reason Violet and I didn’t move in with Rose while she was married.”

Beatrice stopped whisking. “What do you mean, difficult?”

Iris frowned at her work and shared a look with Violet. When she placed a ball on the tray, Anna noticed the round shape was slightly off-kilter. “Rose didn’t know Jacob’s father, Wallace Wright, for very long before she married him. We told her to wait and not rush into things, but she was so upset when Sir John said he couldn’t marry her. She cried straight into the arms of Wallace. She thought he could fix her broken heart, and he did for a time before…”

“Before?” Beatrice asked.

Iris sighed, wiping her hands on her apron. Her face appeared impossibly long, like butter melting in a pan. “Before his temper got the best of him. There was nothing any of us could do about it. Poor Rose would try to hide the bruises as best she could.”

“And Jacob?” Anna said. Her chest seized as she asked a question she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer to. “Did he have to hide bruises?”

Iris’s smile was sad but kind. “Not many, thanks to his mother.”

Even with the hustle of the servants rushing around the trio, the room felt impossibly quiet, like they were all watching a scene that Iris had painted for them, filling in the details with their imaginations. It was difficult for Anna. She couldn’t fathom being afraid of her father. Even in her darkest hour, Sir John had restrained his condemnations and only been sympathetic. She doubted many others in his position would have done the same.

Iris broke up the contemplation when she backed away from the table, slapping her hands together to rub the flour off. “I didn’t tell you that to make you feel sorry for Jacob—or Rose. What’s done is done and over with. But it might help explain why the boy is so possessive of us. He was helpless to help her—us—for so many years. And now he’s a viscount, and a rich one at that. By scolding me not to break my back over this table, he’s telling me how much he loves me. I know that, which is why I let him do it. There’s no harm in it, truly. I don’t dance around his feelings, but I do try to respect them.” Iris moved over to Beatrice’s side to inspect her work. The sweet buns glistened on the tray, each topped with a generous amount of Beatrice’s snow-white frosting. “I think we’ve had enough talking for one day. What do you say we do some taste testing?”

“I’m way ahead of you.” Violet chuckled, spraying a puff of powdered sugar from her mouth.

“Oh, thank the Lord!” Beatrice announced, tearing off her apron. “I was beginning to worry Violet would have all the fun!”

“Story of my life,” Iris teased.

As the ladies enjoyed their buns and tea, the topics involved lighter affairs. The atmosphere couldn’t have been more relaxed as the women sat in the servants’ dining area, sharing their desserts with whoever had a break in their day. There was no more talk about Jacob or Rose or the man who had left scars on both.

But even as Anna tried to laugh and engage with the others, Jacob was never far from her mind. Perhaps she had been too harsh on him. Perhaps he was only trying to help, albeit in a ham-fisted way. One could hardly expect anything different from a man who’d grown up in those circumstances. After all, Jacob had told her that his favorite game as a child was playing knight. In his mind, every woman needed rescuing, even if they were perfectly capable of rescuing themselves.

What Jacob needed was a friend, not a foe, someone who could show him the error of his thinking with a soft, delicate touch. And Anna was just the person to do it. Maybe then he would stop seeing her father as a villain.

Yes. That’s it.

Anna relaxed back in her chair, her anxiety and anger draining from her body. Finally, she reached for the sticky bun on her plate and took a generous bite. The sugar immediately coursed through her veins, causing her spine to straighten back up again with lightning speed.

Iris was reading a newspaper but caught the act. “Good, aren’t they?”

Anna nodded because she was too busy chewing. It was like eating a soft and spongy cloud. She wiped her mouth. “Almost too good. It would be hard to stop at one.”

The newspaper shook along with Iris’s scoff. “Who said you have to stop at one?”

The vibrations of the paper snagged Anna’s eye, and she caught the headline at the top. Unceremoniously, she leaned across the table to read the small black print. She had to restrain herself from snatching the whole thing out of Iris’s hands.

“What’s the matter?” Beatrice asked, her sweet bun lifted just outside her mouth. “Is everything all right? Please don’t tell me it’s another article about cricket. I don’t think I can take it.”

“No… not at all,” Anna replied, reclaiming her seat. With a smile on her face, she took another delicious bite. “It’s something better.”

Because Anna finally had a plan.

*

When the house was quiet and everyone was busy getting changed for dinner, Anna ventured down a corridor she hadn’t been down before. She’d never had a reason to go into this wing of the house until now.

She gathered her courage one final time and knocked on the very last door at the end.

“Not now,” a deep voice bellowed from inside the room. Anna rolled her eyes. For a man who wasn’t born a viscount, he sure had mastered the tone in no time.

“Just open up,” she called back.

Immediately, the door flew open. Jacob stood before her, his black hair dripping at his nape and his white linen shirt unbuttoned. A patch of dark, curly hair peeked out from underneath. Anna didn’t dare lower her eyes any further because she was almost positive his trousers were equally unclasped as they hung loosely from his hips.

“Yes?” he asked. He sounded irritated and entertained at the same time. Anna couldn’t understand how one person could place so much emotion on one short word.

“Um… right…” she stammered, shutting her eyes. It was the only way she could gain control over her faculties. What was wrong with her? She wasn’t some innocent. She’d seen a naked man before. But that man wasn’t Jacob Wright.

“Are you going to make me stand here all night?” he asked. He leaned against the doorframe, folding his arms across his chest, sadly blocking her view of his skin.

“No, of course not,” she hurried out.

Jacob bent over the threshold, craning his neck to look past her down the hallway. “This isn’t some trick, is it?” he asked. “Someone isn’t going to jump out and see you undressing me with your eyes outside my bedroom and force us to marry, correct?”

Anna cocked her head, unleashing a sardonic smile. “Don’t you think so highly of yourself, my lord? Have no fear, your virtue is safe with me. I have no nefarious plans. I’m not the marrying type.”

Jacob’s wariness vanished. “Why?”

She flicked a hand in the air, dismissing the topic. “Never mind that. I… um… I came here to apologize for how I behaved earlier.”

“Think nothing of it.”

“No, don’t do that. Don’t brush it off. I want to make it up to you.”

Jacob’s brows lifted. He glanced back into his room. “Make it up to me,” he replied slowly. “How?”

His meaning hit her like an arrow to the chest. “Not like that!” she said, feeling her knees weaken at the invitation.

The cad had the audacity to appear disappointed.

“I was hoping … I was …”

Anna’s thoughts died a quick death. Jacob uncrossed his arms and reached for her hair. She could only watch as he gently ran his fingers through the curls at her crown, too flabbergasted to even jerk out of his range.

“What are you …?”

Jacob lifted his hand in front of them, rubbing his fingers and thumb together. He squinted at the tiny granules that fell to the floor. “Have you been in the kitchens?”

Flour . Anna was mortified. Jacob hadn’t massaged her locks, overcome by desire. He was picking dried dough out of her hair.

“Never mind that,” she repeated irritably. “I want to know if you will accompany me tonight. After dinner.”

“Where?”

“Some place educational.”

“No. That sounds terrible.”

She groaned. “Not educational. Informative, then.”

Jacob tugged his pants to his hips. “Equally terrible.”

“The circus! All right? I want to take you to the circus!” Anna clamped her hands over her mouth. She’d screamed so loudly she was sure the entire house now knew of her clandestine plans.

Jacob’s eyes narrowed. He scratched his jaw as he contemplated her. “Your father will never allow it,” he said.

“My father doesn’t have to know.”

“You’d lie to your father?”

“I’m lying for my father.”

Jacob’s chest rumbled in laughter, showcasing the thick patch of hair again. Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look . Anna looked anyway. “I think it would be difficult explaining that to him,” he said. “Ladies do not go out with gentlemen after dark, especially to pleasure gardens. Even I know that.”

“But you’re not a gentleman, are you?” Anna asked.

When Jacob didn’t reply, she knew she’d received her answer. She hid her smile as spun away, retreating down the hall.

He would come. The writer in him was too intrigued not to.

As was the man in him.