Rogue Countess (25 page)

Laughing again at the flashing wariness in her eyes, Jude took her elbow.

“When Rutherford arrives, tell him I will meet him at the ball,” he instructed the footman as they passed through the front door. He led her confidently from the house and down the front steps to the waiting carriage. They settled into the closed conveyance, facing each other across the small space.

“You needn’t have canceled your plans to play escort to me.”

“Rutherford will understand,” Jude answered before they both lapsed into silence. He openly studied the fine angles of her face. He admired the crests of her strong and feminine cheekbones, her straight nose, her full bottom lip and slightly thinner upper lip that tended to curl when she was angry or amused. That saucy little beauty mark.

Her dark eyes stared back at him with unabashed boldness, and a strange excitement burgeoned in his gut. It was a feeling he often got when he was about to embark on a particularly dangerous or exhilarating task, and he wasn’t quite sure why the sensation came upon him now. But he welcomed it all the same.

Their arrival at the ball was noted with a flurry of interest. From the moment Jude helped Anna down from the carriage in front of the large imposing mansion, people started staring with open surprise and curiosity. The twitter of gossip preceded them into the house, so by the time they were announced, nearly the entire ballroom was crowding for a glance at the enigmatic couple.

The widespread and obvious shock that rippled through the crowd at the appearance of the Blackbournes arriving together was truly comical. Speculation immediately rose up as people started discussing this new development. Up until that moment, it was understood that regardless of what had brought the two together in matrimony, they were most definitely estranged with no evidence of a reunion. By their sudden appearance tonight, such assumptions were tossed to the wind.

Jude glanced aside at Anna. She stood next to him with stoic self-assurance, fully prepared to face down the speculation and gossip of the entire ton without even the barest flinch of weakness in her features.

Leaning toward her, he caught a whiff of her scent. There was a light hint of floral mingling with the deeper and earthier essence that was so much an element of the mystery that surrounded her. It was intoxicating and nearly had him forgetting what he had wanted to say.

Then she glanced aside at him in question and he whispered suggestively, “Now the fun begins.”

Chapter Twenty

Seeing the rascally grin on his face, Anna couldn’t help but smile in return. From the moment she had seen him standing at the bottom of the stairs as she came down from her room, as if he had been waiting for her, she had sensed that tonight was going to be different. Exceptional somehow.

Whatever had been building between them in the last weeks had brought them inexorably to this specific moment.

And she was ready for it.

She peeked up at him covertly from the corner of her eye. He had turned his sharp gaze back to the crowd of lords and ladies spread out before them. There was a light of challenge in his eyes and the corner of his mouth quirked upward as if he found the situation humorous.

And then suddenly, she did too.

For a man who had cultivated his own personal social detachment with such intentional precision, he was surprisingly comfortable with having the entire room focused on his next move.

“You really shouldn’t enjoy this so much, you know.”

He turned at her amused comment. His jeweled eyes were deeply blue and his smile then was intimate and so very masculine.

Whispers buzzed throughout the ballroom.

Anna’s stomach fluttered with acute anticipation that she forcefully reined in. She could not afford to start making more of the night than it was.

“Why not?” Jude asked. “They’re going to talk anyway. Maybe it’s time we had a little fun with it instead of trying to ignore the incessant speculation.”

Anna sighed and spared a swift glance out over the ballroom. “I have a feeling we’ve managed to bewilder them.”

“We’ve only just started, darling,” Jude answered with calm certainty. “Shall we take a stroll around the room? You know, make sure everyone gets a good look at us?”

Anna shrugged with feigned indifference and allowed Jude to lead her out amongst the gawkers. It was a singular experience to be on her husband’s arm in such a public display. It was something she had long ago accepted as an impossibility.

In truth, the fact that they were here now together left her feeling anything but indifferent.

“If we must,” she answered as they maneuvered around the first group of guests. She kept her voice low so only he could hear her. “Though I am sure I have no idea why you are suddenly such a glutton for attention.”

Rather than responding to her open-ended comment, Jude grinned with quiet confidence and nodded politely to a passing acquaintance.

The ballroom was already filled to the limit and even a walk around the perimeter required careful maneuvering through the crush of guests. After nearly twenty minutes spent weaving in and out of the well-dressed crowd, Jude spotted an empty corner and led them in that direction, pausing to sweep a couple of glasses of champagne from the tray of a passing footman.

“Time for a reprieve,” he said as he tucked Anna in against the wall of the small alcove and handed her a glass of the sparkling wine. He positioned himself at her side, leaning his shoulder against the wall at her back. The glance he cast over the ballroom was filled with a mixture of amusement and incredulity.

“How anyone is supposed to enjoy themselves in such a mess of bodies is beyond me,” he commented.

“I am not exactly convinced that you are supposed to enjoy yourself,” Anna answered with earnest consideration. “These types of events are more of a trial to be overcome.”

Jude looked at her with lifted brows. “You don’t like going to parties?”

“Not in particular,” she answered as she lifted her glass to take a sip of the champagne.

“I thought all young women loved the opportunity to take a turn about the dance floor on the arm of a handsome beau.”

Anna looked at him oddly before replying. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” When he cocked a brow in question, she continued. “When I was the age of the young women you see out there—” she nodded in the direction of the dance floor, “—I had already been married for two years. There was not much reason for me to parade about in fancy finery, and by then I already knew that I much preferred the quiet of the country.”

“You did not socialize?” he asked.

Anna looked at him. Could she trust the honest interest she heard in his voice?

They stood alone in their private corner of the world and his nearness discomfited her. His broad shoulders curved toward her and his golden head tilted slightly as he waited for her response. Her eyes dropped to his strong hand that held the delicate stem of his champagne glass with effortless grace even though she knew those fingers had been roughened and callused before his return to England. He was such a contradiction.

Her enemy. Her only love.

She took another sip of her champagne and hoped he wouldn’t notice how her hand shook just a little. Time for courage, she told herself.

“No,” she finally answered after lowering her glass. “I did not socialize.”

“Why?” Jude pressed, as she knew he would.

His penetrating blue eyes were fastened on her face, watching every twitch of her expression, studying every nuance of emotion as it brushed across her features. She felt exposed and vulnerable, but she couldn’t evade his questions forever and she no longer wanted to. Finally breaking free from the long reach of old hurts that had held her so strongly in their grip had also given her the courage she needed to be open with Jude when it came to at least some of the shadows she had harbored within.

If she was going to bare her soul to him, it may as well be right here in the middle of a crowded ballroom.

She cleared her throat. “After you left, I was content to live quietly at Silverly. I still had some growing up to do and the earl and countess never pressured me to participate in the many events held at the estate in those days. By the time I finally decided to enter society after I turned eighteen, I found myself unprepared to handle the talk that inevitably circulated around the dinner table.” She smiled to try to balance out the dark tone she couldn’t quite keep from her voice. She glanced up at Jude. “You were a favorite topic of conversation for quite some time, you know. It was always the same. Someone would start with the latest bit of news about the dashing young Lord Sinclair and then others would try to top the
on-dit
with something else they had heard. It was almost a game to see who had the most scandalous story of your adventures to regale for the masses.”

Jude frowned. “You do realize that most of their tales were likely fabricated or exaggerated for effect.”

“But not all of them,” she replied stiffly, and a moment of silence followed in which they eyed each other intently. Anna’s nerves hummed with the delicate expense of effort she maintained to keep from bowing her head under his perceptive regard.

“Eventually, someone would remember that I was present and the talk would cease. Some people had the awareness and the manners to at least try to appear embarrassed. But there were others who seemed to enjoy my discomfort. Their ugly sneers were what finally convinced me that I had no desire to be a part of a society that took pleasure in another’s distress.”

“So you hid away,” Jude offered.

“If you want to put it that way,” Anna answered with a stiff jut of her chin. “I tried to make Silverly feel like a home to me. Your father showed me more kindness than anyone ever had in my life. He listened to me as if my opinions and thoughts and dreams mattered. He talked to me about his horses and taught me about the intricacies of developing an enviable collection of horseflesh and praised me for my aptitude for retaining information on the subject. And after a time, he reminded me that I had a life to live as much as anyone else. I will forever be grateful to him for that.”

Anna finished speaking and met Jude’s gaze with anxious defiance, expecting him to attack her words as somehow being false.

“And what about your own father?” he asked.

Anna stiffened. “I didn’t see my father again after the ceremony that bound me to your family. He died four years ago.”

Jude scowled. “He never came to visit you at Silverly?”

“Once, about six months after the wedding, but I wouldn’t see him. He didn’t come again.” She had no wish to say any more on the subject.

Jude looked at her in silence and she could see he was trying to understand. He was trying to connect the pieces of what he knew with what she had just told him.

“It’s not going to fit, you know,” she said.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Jude muttered in a low voice as if he knew exactly what she was referring to. “And why is that?” he asked.

She wanted to answer honestly and bravely. But then, as if the fates conspired to remind her of what she had to lose, an exclamation of surprise and a flurry of pink silk and lace suddenly interrupted their intimate conversation.

Anna stepped aside as Olivia threw her arms around Jude in an effusive and improper embrace.

“My goodness,” Olivia breathed with throaty appreciation and her eyes flashed as she stepped back to peruse Jude’s tall muscled form. “Don’t you look more the handsome devil than ever. I cannot say how excited I was to hear of your return. I kept expecting you to call on me, but you never came by.” A pretty little pout and a flirtatious glance from beneath her lashes accompanied her accusation.

Anna’s stomach clenched and twisted with old feelings of jealousy and despair. She couldn’t bring herself to even glance at Jude’s face, afraid to see the familiar besotted smile and the glowing adoration in his eyes. She took a long drink from her champagne and looked to the side, scanning the ballroom with unseeing eyes, wishing she were far away and completely unaware of the reunion between the two people at her side.

“Good evening, Your Grace,” Jude replied. Anna couldn’t tell by the formality suddenly present in his voice what he might be thinking. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”

“Oh, come on, you don’t have to be so formal with me,” Olivia teased as she patted Jude’s chest with her slim hand. She slid a sideways glance toward Anna and greeted her with a tight smile and a silky voice. “Hello, dear. I wouldn’t have thought this type of thing would be quite your venue.” She gestured toward the full ballroom.

Anna considered just walking away. She could cut a straight path through the dance floor and be out the door in a matter of minutes.

“Good evening, Olivia,” she replied.

“What a lovely gown,” Olivia commented, and Anna tensed for what would undoubtedly come next. “It always surprises how well you manage to clean up after spending the day in the stables. Too bad you can’t quite wash all of the horse stench off your skin,” she finished with a delicate wrinkle of her nose.

There it was.

Anna released her breath slowly. Not as bad as it could have been, she supposed. She took a sip of her champagne and glanced away with a contradictory combination of relief and dread as Olivia turned her attention back toward Jude.