Romance: REGENCY ROMANCE: The Duke of Hearts (Historical Regency Victorian Duke Romance) (Historical Regency Fantasy Romance) (22 page)

“I do.”

“Well, it’s a bit different than your proposal may end up,” the older woman said. “I knew your father for quite some time. His mother worked for mine. Your father’s father was not a successful man, not as successful as your father. He didn’t work as hard, you see. So while I didn’t grow up the way you and your brother’s have, I wasn’t wanting either. Your father would not have been a good suitor for me, and indeed he was not. I knew him, and I thought he was dashing, but I could not be his wife, so I fell in love with another.”

“You loved another man?” Anna asked, her mouth opening in shock.

“Oh yes,” Anna’s mother said, nodding her head softly. “His name was Hector. He was a kind man, three years older than I. His family sold horses, and they had grown it into quite a business, and the horses they bred were known far and wide. He loved me as well, though we met when I was too young to marry.”

“What happened to him? He is not my father.”

Anna’s mother nodded, and a small smile curled upon her lips, but it was one that was bittersweet and sad looking. “He died.”

Anna couldn’t help but think of her deceased colonel. “How?” she asked, hoping it wasn’t too painful for her to speak of.

“He became ill,” her mother said simply, and for a moment, Anna thought that was all she was going to say. But then she opened her mouth and more came out, and once she was talking it didn’t seem as though she would stop. “He was a strong young man, so tall, so handsome. Not as handsome as your father, I will say, but handsome. His hair was the color of a strawberry not quite ripe. A hint of red. I’ve never seen a shade like it. I loved it. He kept it long, so I could run my fingers through it as we walked together, or lay together,” she added, with a slight glance to her daughter. “When he was twenty-one he became ill. A cough at first, nothing more, but then it simply kept growing worse. A cough became sweating, and it was a hoarse hacking sound in his chest. He grew so thin in those few months. By the end, he didn’t look like the man I had once known and loved. He wasted away, and he died, and I was inconsolable.”

Anna watched her mother as she spoke, and she wondered if this was the first time she had ever spoken of such things since they had happened. Surely she had never said any of this to her husband, and it was doubtful she had told her sons.

“A couple of years passed, and I had other suitors, but I would not let myself forget that man, the man I had watched die. I couldn’t. I saw him in my dreams. Even awake, when I closed my eyes, I saw him. And then your father came for me. In the years since I had seen him last, he had moved away and built his business. It wasn’t even a half of what it is now, of course, but it was enough. He was in better standing socially, my father thought it would be a good match, and we were married. I was excited. He was the man who helped me forget about what I had lost.”

Anna felt a warmth growing through her. Hearing her mother speak of lost loves and her husband, it made Anna excited for her own future.

Shortly Mrs. Clack returned with a platter of tea, and after serving everyone she sat.

“Mother was telling me about daddy, and the man she loved before him. Have you any such stories?” Anna asked the woman who was like her second mother.

Mrs. Clack laughed, and then glanced over her shoulder as if to check that her husband wasn’t loitering nearby. “I have three,” she said, and the other two women laughed.

“Three, Rebecca?” Annabelle’s mother asked, using Mrs. Clack’s first name.

“Yes,” she replied, nodding. “Well, one was a childhood yearning I must admit.”

“Who was he?” Anna asked.

“David Rothschild,” Mrs. Clack said. “I met him when I was just a girl, ten or so. He moved next door to my mother. She raised me alone you know, my father died when I was quite young. She never had more children, it was just her and I. She never had many suitors that I can remember, and we grew quite close, with no one to come between us. But David arrived, and I was drawn to him. Davey I called him.”

“What happened to him?”

“Nothing, as far as I know. He was a handsome boy and grew to be a handsome man, and though I loved him, he never loved me. He married the baker’s daughter and moved away with her.”

Anna glanced at Mrs. Clack, trying to find a hint of sadness in her eyes, but it didn’t look as though there was any. Sometimes, though something may hurt when it happens, it works out in the end for the better. If Mrs. Clack would have married David Rothschild, she wouldn’t have been able to marry Mr. Clack, and Anna knew she loved her husband very much.

“Second and third were two brothers,” Mrs. Clack said, speaking quickly and quietly, and she couldn’t help but grin when both Anna and her mother gasped.

“Scandalous,” Anna’s mother said, and the three women tittered.

“It was at different times. The first was Martin O’Riley. Their father was Irish, though he had married a woman from here. Martin was nineteen when I was seventeen. His brother was Seamus. He was three years older than Martin. I met Martin first, and we had a bit of a fling. Martin was trouble, though, and he liked to fight and he liked to gamble. One day he gambled and lost. He tried to fight instead of paying and was killed in a duel. I was devastated, and it brought me closer to Seamus. I thought we might be married, but one day he told me every time he looked at me, it made him think of how much his brother had loved me, and he left.”

Now Mrs. Clack did tear up. She sighed deeply and shook her head. “But then I met my husband, and it’s been better than it ever would have been with one of the other men.”

Anna smiled at Mrs. Clack.

“I think perhaps it’s time for you to go,” Anna’s mother said suddenly, looking out the window. Indeed, without Anna noticing, the sky had turned dark and night had come on.

“I’ll go ready a carriage and driver,” Mrs. Clack said. She stood and placed her hand on Anna’s shoulder before walking out.

Anna stood along with her mother, and the two women embraced.

“I’m excited for you,” Annabelle’s mother said.

“I am too,” Annabelle said with a grin.

Mrs. Clack returned and it was time to go.

*****

The ball was held in Lady Patterson’s manor. Lady Patterson had been married twice. Both her husbands were dead, and both had left her an allowance to be paid to her each month by their respective bankers so that she needn’t worry about marriage again.

She lived in her second late husband’s manor, and it was a massive house on a slight rise just outside the city. A bricked drive snaked up the green hill to the front door, and Anna’s carriage worked its way through the turns as she nervously kept smoothing the skirt of her gown out with sweaty palms.

The carriage stopped in front of the great oak doors of the manor. They were open wide, with two men in smart tuxedos on either side. The driver climbed down and opened the door, offering Annabelle a hand to alight.

“Thank you, Samson,” she said to the man who drove her.

“I’ll be near for when you depart,” Samson said, and then he helped Mrs. Clack out as well, who had agreed to chaperone Anna one last time.

“Remember,” the old woman whispered as they climbed up the steps. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. I’m too old to chase you around this home.”

Annabelle smiled and laughed, and one of the servants by the door turned to show them the way to the ball room.

The ballroom was as big as you would expect by looking at the house. The dance had already begun. A band played along one side, and a large number of guests surrounded the dance floor. Lady Patterson was dancing with an older gentleman. His hair glistened the color of snow and he had a bushy moustache, which reminded Anna of her father’s.

He was Duke Rathers, a well-known bachelor who had never married. There had been some hushed whispers in the last couple of years about Lady Patterson and the Duke’s relationship. It was a scandal waiting to explode.

When the song was over, Lady Patterson held a chubby hand up to the band so they wouldn’t start anew and then addressed the crowd.

“Thank you for coming,” she said loudly, Duke Rathers by her side. “I am not one for long speeches, so let me just say I hope you enjoy yourself, and I hope some of you may find a happiness here you have not yet felt.”

It was common for young people to court one another at dances like this, and there were always more than a few proposals. As the band began to play again, it did not take long for a man to appear by Anna’s side. His name was Bertram Sutherland, a Duke. But his reputation was less than stellar in terms of an addiction to drink, women, and horse racing. Still, he was as handsome a man as Anna had ever seen, and she found him wickedly funny. He had proposed to her more than once and had tried to get inside her small clothes even more than that.

“Beautiful Annabelle,” he said, reaching out for her hand. She allowed him to take it, and he pressed his lips to it after drawing it to his mouth.

“My Lord,” she said softly. His lips were plump and wet, and though he had kissed her hand before, it always made her wish he was kissing her somewhere else. Her lips, her neck, between her thighs.

Annabelle was not a virgin. There had been a rather forgetful night where she and a young man who worked in the stables had drank her father’s wine and made love outside under the stars. But that had been it, and Anna had wanted to experience it all again with a clear head and a bit more of romance.

“How many times must I ask you to forgo the titles? Call me Bertram, my dear,” the Duke said.

Annabelle nodded. “Betram it is, then.”

“Will you dance with me?”

“I will.”

Bertram led her to the dance floor, and Annabelle stole a glance over her shoulder at Mrs. Clack, who beamed at the young woman as she went.

Bertram proved to be rather adept at dancing, and they twirled about the room together at a fast pace, matching the band’s quick tempo. Anna looked up at the man, taking in his features. His jaw was perfect as if it had been chiseled out of a stone by a talented artist working in marble. His eyes were a soft gray color, almost like the fur of a rabbit. His hair was dark and fell to his collar, shaggy without looking unkempt. He was a tall man, her head only came to his chest, and he felt strong, one hand on her waist, his fingers gripping tightly.

They didn’t speak as they danced, and they didn’t need to. The dance was one of passion, of desire, and they both felt the heat between them. As they moved about the floor, Annabelle fantasized about what the man would look like naked, and how he would feel, guiding himself into her between her legs. She desired to learn, and once she stepped too close to him. She felt his manhood through his breeches, engorged and pushing against her belly since she was so much shorter. It was nice to know Bertram was thinking similar thoughts.

The song ended, and Annabelle desired nothing more than to dance again. But the Duke led her from the dance floor, to a secluded offshoot from the main hall, quickly, before Anna’s chaperon could catch them.

“Forgive me for being so forward,” he said, and then he bent at the knee, and his lips were pressing against hers. He tasted of a liqueur, and his tongue pushed passed her lips to dance in her mouth. Annabelle groaned against his mouth, running a hand up his back to his hair, where her fingers brushed through his locks. Both of his hands were on her waist, and he pushed against her, and once more she felt his penis, hard and yearning for her young, lithe body.

“We should be married,” he said as he broke the kiss and pulled away.

“This is not the first time you have asked me,” Annabelle said.

“And what say you this time?”

“My father agrees finally, I am of an age to be married,” Annabelle said.

“So, is it a yes?”

“Let me think on it, just for the night,” Annabelle said.

“Very well,” Bertram said. “May I have another dance?”

“Perhaps.” Anna left the Duke and returned to the ballroom alone, making sure no one would notice she had been unchaperoned with a gentleman.

Immediately another gentleman approached. “Excuse me.”

The man was a few years older than Duke Sutherland, and shorter. He was broader at the shoulder, and almost just as handsome. He had long sideburns, which reached almost to the point of his chin, his blonde hair otherwise cut short, a stark contrast to Duke Sutherland’s.

The newcomer was also a Duke, one that Anna knew well. He was an acquaintance of her father’s. His name was Christian Blackburn, and he was a rather sought after bachelor. He had seemingly resisted other women’s advances, and he had seemed interested in Anna for the last couple of years.

“May I have this dance?” Blackburn asked the young woman.

She smiled and nodded, noticing Duke Sutherland watching from afar.

Annabelle took Duke Blackburn’s arm, and he led her back to the dance floor. They danced to a considerably slower tune, and where Bertram had seemed keen to press against her body, Blackburn was quite the opposite. He seemed respectful almost to a fault. Still Anna enjoyed herself, and she found herself having some of the same thoughts she had had about the other man. They were both attractive, they both excited her.