Practically Wicked (19 page)

She rather doubted he’d risen at dawn and come outside on the off chance he’d meet her, but she appreciated the sentiment. “Are you for the village?”

“No, I’m for escorting you about the countryside. I assumed any woman so determined to have a morning stroll that she was willing to walk on wounded feet was determined enough to give that morning stroll a second try. And I thought perhaps you might like a guide. I promise to steer us away from raging rivers and man-eating beasts.”

Good heavens, he really had risen early to seek her out. How lovely. “I should like that very much.”

“Excellent, but before we begin—how are your feet?”

Anna looked down to the cloth boots peeking out from her skirts. “Much improved, thank you, but I shall have to stick to soft paths and dry earth for a day or two.”

“Easily done,” he assured her and, with a sweep of his hand, invited her to lead the way off the terrace.

They kept to a leisurely pace over the next half hour and kept conversation at a minimum. Max pointed out a low mound where a few large, crumbling stones protruded from the grass, all that remained of a small medieval fortress predating the Engsly estate. Anna asked after several intact outbuildings and a pair of songbirds, which Max professed to know absolutely nothing about.

Anna didn’t feel the need to fill all the lulls in the conversation. There was so much going on around them, it seemed foolish to constantly speak on top of it all. Why go on a walk in the country if one wasn’t going to take a moment here and there to appreciate the sight of a hawk soaring overhead or the sound of the wind in the trees?

She snuck a glance at Max. It seemed odd that they could go from mistrust and anger to comfortable silence in so short a time. Stranger still that it didn’t seem
more
odd. It felt right, to be walking side by side with Max whilst the early morning sun warmed her back. It felt better than right, in fact. It felt perfect. Better than any daydream she’d ever had.

That sense of rightness gave her the confidence to break the silence and ask a question that had been niggling at her. “Were you poking fun at me at dinner last night? When you asked me about my favorite spots in London.”

He gave her a quizzical look, though whether he was surprised by her question or merely the sudden appearance of that particular topic, she couldn’t say. “Not at all. Only teasing a little. If I wounded your feelings, I apologize—”

“No. I wasn’t sure, that’s all. I’ve very little experience in making friends,” she admitted, “and given our recent history…”

“You assumed I was looking to wound,” he finished for her.

“I didn’t know,” she corrected. “In my defense, it’s clear you’d been nurturing a fair amount of anger toward me for some time.”

“I called on you no less than a dozen times. Pricked my pride some, as I explained—” He broke off unexpectedly and there was a short, weighted pause before he spoke again. “That’s a lie. It did fair more than prick, and it was more than my pride. I was…notably disappointed. I was certain you would see me. I knew of the countless others you’d turned away, but we had met and you—”

“I’m sorry, others? What others?”

“The other gentle—” He stopped in his tracks, blinked at her blank expression, and swore. “Oh, hell. You didn’t know about them either, did you?”

“Them?” There was a
them
? “Tell me.”

He hesitated, clearly reluctant to speak. “I was not the first gentleman to pay you a call at Anover House,” he said at last. “There were—”

“Others,” she finished for him as a sick weight settled in her stomach. “Countless others.”

“Well, not
literally
countless.”

A brief pause followed that statement. “What a relief.”

“Anna—”

She shook her head, cutting him off. She wasn’t in the mood for platitudes. “These others who called on me, I suppose they were friends of my mother’s, like you?”

“I’m no friend of your mother’s,” he said grimly, “but yes, I believe many first saw you at Anover House.”

“Not likely to have seen me anywhere else.”

“I saw you at the theater once,” he offered kindly. “A year or so before we met.”

It took her two seconds to figure out which one.
“The Magic Flute.”

“I…Yes, how did you know?”

“I’ve been to the theater twice in my life,” she explained, dully. “
The Magic Flute
is what I saw a year or so before we met.”

“I’m not helping at all.”

“You are, in fact. So many truths were hidden from me for too long.” She thought about that. “Or I was hidden away from them for too long. Either way, you have helped to enlighten me, and for that I am grateful.”

He looked away, clearly uncomfortable.

As she hadn’t the first clue how to remedy that, she simply pushed forward. “Do you know the names of any of my callers?”

“I recall a few,” he replied after a moment’s thought. He gave her a peculiar look. “Are you wondering after someone specific?”

Was he wondering if she was wondering after a particular gentleman? She rather liked the idea of that. Pity she hadn’t the experience to tell.

“I was interested in whether or not any of them were ladies. Not true ladies, of course”—a real lady would never visit Anover House, not even to retrieve a wayward husband or son—“but a woman—”

“Yes, I understand. And no, I don’t know. I imagine a female caller would be loath to announce she’d not been received.”

“It’s different for the gentlemen?”

“For some. It…” He looked away again, cleared his throat. “It depends on the circumstances.”

She waited for him to elaborate on that, then rather wished she hadn’t when he met her gaze again and said,
“Anna,”
in
that
tone—that gentle, reluctant, awful tone that inevitably preceded the delivery of very bad news. “Why don’t we find a place to sit?”

A place to sit? Good Lord, that was worse than the tone.

“I don’t want to sit.” She highly doubted whatever he had to tell her would be improved by an additional three to five minutes of dread, or however long it took them to find a proper seat.

Max reached out and took her hand in both of his. “Not every man is an arse. You do know that.”

“I’ve some hope for it being true,” she allowed and wished her gloves weren’t quite so thick, and that he was holding her hand for reasons other than comfort.

“There was…” He squeezed her fingers gently. “There was a wager amongst a few of the gentlemen in London. A pool, if you will. A challenge.”

“And the nature of this challenge?”

“A man could, if he wished, place five pounds in the pool before paying a call on Anover House. The first man to gain audience with you was to win the pool.”

“I see.” She saw red, specifically. But she pushed the fury down, where it wouldn’t show. “And this pool is no longer in existence?”

“The wager was abandoned some years back. The participants were allowed—”

“How large was the pool before it was abandoned?” she cut in.

“I don’t know.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. If he knew of the wager, then he had some idea of how far it had gone. “How large?”

“I’d not followed it closely. I would estimate five, maybe six hundred pounds.”

“Six hundred pounds,” she repeated softly as fury melded with astonishment. She’d assumed “countless” was really only a dozen or so determined gentlemen who’d been denied her company at one of her mother’s parties and thought to try their luck the following day. “I’ve turned away more than a hundred gentlemen?”

“No. Not at all,” he assured her. “A gentleman was allowed to enter the contest more than once. Most made multiple attempts.”

That was small comfort. More than a hundred times in the past, someone had called on her, entirely unbeknownst to her, and she’d turned them away. “Well, I’ve certainly earned my nickname, haven’t I?”

“It would have been better applied to your mother,” he muttered.

Anna couldn’t argue with that. She wondered if Madame knew of the game and took perverse pride in how high the stakes had risen. “How long ago did this contest begin?”

“Years ago, when you were…nineteen, perhaps?” His brow furrowed in thought as his gaze passed over her face, assessing. “How old are you now?”

“Eight-and-twenty, I think.” And really, a hundred visits didn’t seem quite so terrible when spaced out over the course of a decade. “Most believe me to be younger, but—”

“I beg your pardon,” he cut in. “Did you just say you
think
you’re eight-and-twenty?”

She withdrew her hand from his as the heat of embarrassment warmed her cheeks. She wished now that she’d thought to bite her tongue. For most people—certainly for men like Max—age was an integral part of one’s identity, often inseparable from the milestones of life. Every well-bred man would remember that he left for school at ten, finished his studies at one-and-twenty, and reached majority at five-and-twenty. A girl might put her hair up at sixteen, make her debut at eighteen, and land a husband before twenty.

Anna had neither any of those experiences, nor the ability to know how long ago, exactly, she ought to have had them. It was embarrassing to admit she was missing that part of herself.

It was also too late to retrieve the words, and so she forged ahead, feigning indifference.

“My age was amended several times in my youth.”

“And you’re not aware of your original date of birth,” he guessed and waited for her nod. “Your mother’s idea, I presume?”

“Yes.”

“She won’t tell you your true age?”

“I think she would,” Anna replied, finding it difficult to meet his eyes, “if she could remember it.”

Max nodded philosophically. “I suppose that’s not too surprising, given everything else we’ve learned of your mother’s character.”

It wasn’t, that was true, but Max’s casual acceptance of the facts certainly was. “You’re not surprised?”

“England is full of people who don’t know their birthdays,” he explained. “You’re not the first I’ve met.”

She’d wager she was the only one who wasn’t an orphan, but if Max wasn’t bothered by her odd circumstances, she wasn’t going to force the issue.

“Does it bother you, not knowing?” he asked.

“Some, yes. I should like to have a consistent birthday, at the very least.”

“A day to celebrate, you mean?”

She nodded, only a little ashamed to be admitting to the childish desire for a proper birthday party. “Mrs. Culpepper offered to pick a day for me, but it didn’t feel right. One false birthday a year is enough.”

Max looked from Anna’s guarded features to the stone façade of Caldwell Manor.

He’d wager that somewhere inside the house there was a letter from Mrs. Wrayburn to the late marquess announcing the birth of his daughter, and he’d wager that letter included a date. It was tempting to offer that bit of hope to Anna, perhaps propose a search of the attic or some of the storage rooms. But upon further thought, he decided to keep the notion to himself.
Most
women would have sent a letter to their newborn’s father. There was no guessing what Mrs. Wrayburn had done.

Moreover, he wanted to turn the conversation away from missed birthdays and malicious contests.

Only he couldn’t quite figure through how best to go about it. So much of Anna’s life was foreign to him. He wasn’t sure where to turn for safe ground.

He had experience with pampered ladies and sheltered misses, earthy barmaids and worldly courtesans. Anna was none of those things. Or maybe a little bit of all of them. He’d never met a woman like her in his life, and while he generally sought out and enjoyed new experiences, in this instance, he wished for the wisdom of experience.

He wanted to know how to make her laugh again.

But Anna spoke before he could even make an attempt.

“About the pool…” she began hesitantly, and he suppressed a wince. No matter how much he may want it, it was foolish, and possibly even a little selfish, to think she could go from learning of the mean-spirited game to laughing in the course of a single conversation.

“What is it?” he pressed.

“Did you ever place a wager—?”

“No.”
Thank God.
“Never.”

She lifted a shoulder as if she didn’t much care, but her eyes settled on something over his shoulder. “I’d not have held it against you, if you had.”

“Liar.” He certainly hoped she was lying. She had every right to think poorly of any man who’d placed a bet. She had a right to think less of any man who’d not protested the mere existence of the pool. He thought a little less of himself for not having put a stop to it until after they’d met.

“Well…I’d have held it against you less if you’d placed the bet before we met.”

“And regretted it afterward?”

“That would help. But you never did?” She looked at him, finally. “Why not?”

And at last, he saw a way to lighten the conversation.

“I’d never place a woman at the center of a gamble,” he told her and waited for her expression to turn to one of pleasant agreement, before adding with a mischievous grin, “their irrational natures make them far too unpredictable.”

He was happy to see that pile of nonsense provoke a smile and a gentile snort from her. “That which cannot be comprehended by man must therefore be wrong.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“Something Mrs. Culpepper said to me when I was younger. She is of the opinion that men are highly predictable creatures.”

“Because we’re rational?”

“Because you’re simple,” she corrected. “Women, she says, are complex. Too complex for the comfort of your average gentleman—”

“Being such simpletons.”

“Exactly,” she chimed with a point of her finger at him. “And how does the simpleton, particularly the arrogant, self-important sort, react to something he can’t understand? Something that perhaps frightens him?”

“Generally, we’d prefer to shoot it.”

“He ignores it,” she continued on, ignoring
him
. “He renames it, belittles it. He makes it less than it is so that he may appear more than he is.” She smiled, just a little. “Or he shoots it.”