Scandal (21 page)

Chapter Twenty-six

Anna waited for Rein to change his mind, waited for him to see the wisdom of her decision not to marry him, and to accept her decision to become his mistress.

He didn’t.

And when two days had passed with still no word from him, she’d begun to fear that it was over. Well and truly over.

And while they’d had words before, this time she knew it to be different. This time there would be no going back. He had told her goodbye. Apparently, he had meant it. The realization filled her with a sadness so severe, she found herself on the brink of tears at least twenty times a day.

Over.

Why? Why, when they could have so easily worked it out?

Such were her thoughts when she heard a stir at the market. She turned, dashing away tears as she so often had in past days with Molly looking sadly on. A lady made her way through the market, a lady who turned so many heads, Anna stared at her in awe. Beautiful. Poised. Well dressed, her red hair covered by an off-white silk confection that almost perfectly matched the pale perfection of her skin, and her dress. The sight of her made Anna’s misery increase tenfold. She was everything Anna knew she could never be, everything she suddenly wished she could be with every fiber of her heart.

“Coo, would you look at her. Nobility for sure,” Molly commented.

The woman walked toward them, her eyes scanning left and right.

And Anna knew.

She knew by the way the woman’s shoulders tipped back, even as her hands were stuffed into a white muff that Anna couldn’t help but envy. Knew by the way she scanned her surroundings and, when the lady saw her barrow, in the way her green eyes narrowed.

Anna knew she had come looking for her.

“Anna Brooks?” the lady asked, coming to a stop at the end of her barrow, the off-white skirts of her dress rocking back and forth like a bull with its head down.

Anna’s own eyes narrowed. “I am she,” she answered.

The lady’s eyes darted over her worn hat, over the gray dress, the dirt-stained apron. “Lord above, I expected you to be a bugaroach, but you’re more of a prime article than even I expected. Curse my bloody husband. I owe him ten pounds.”

Ten pounds?

And she spoke cant.

“Who the devil are you?”

With a lift of her chin the lady said, “I am Mary Drummond the marchioness of Warrick. Cousin by marriage to the duke of Wroxly.”

Hell’s bells.

The lady moved around the edge of the cart, linking her arm through Anna’s, a fur muff dangling on a string by her side. Anna didn’t move. Truth be told, she couldn’t have if she wanted to. The lady’s smell took hold of her nose in such a way that Anna wanted to close her eyes and inhale. She smelled perfectly—for a moment Anna marveled at how she smelled like the nosegays the flower girls sold, the ones made of roses and orange blossoms. And then she caught a glimpse of the lady’s elegant hands.

They were scarred.

Anna could see the way the skin puckered near the palm. She met the marchioness’s eyes.

“I rode horses at the Royal Circus afore being leg-shackled to his lordship.”

“You
what
?”

“So you
can
speak. Excellent. Thought you might be crackbrained.”

“You rode horses?”

“Indeed,” she said, straightening. “Best performer they had. Course, I had to give it up when I wed my husband four years past.”

Anna could only stare.

“You’ll have to give things up, too, should you stop being so cow-hearted.”

Cow-hearted?
Why, of all the rude…

You
are
being cow-hearted, Anna.

The redhead nodded as if realizing her words had hit their mark. “Now. We haven’t much time. There’s a ball Saturday evening and I want you to be in attendance.”

“Me?”

The marchioness began to pull her away from her barrow. “Aye.”

Anna resisted.

“Unless there’s some truth to the fear that’s been plaguing Rein.” And here her ladyship’s eyes narrowed. “That you find him inferior to yourself.”

“Inferior?”

“Not a match intellectually,” said Lady Warrick, her eyes darting over Anna’s face as if looking for answers. “Too much of a slow-top. Dull. A dunce,” she added.

“Gads, whatever gave him that idea?”

“Too many years of being told that very thing by those around him. But I can see you don’t believe that for a moment.”

“Of course not—”

“Excellent,” she said, tugging Anna forward again. “You need to be fitted for a gown. And then you’ll need some lessons. Rein tells me your mother was gently reared, thank the lord above. You’ll have a far easier time of it than me.”

Anna stopped once again. “Wait,” she said. “You’re taking me away?”

“I am,” the lady answered. Anna suddenly realized every orange, strawberry and cherry monger had stopped what they were doing to watch, including Molly, who looked from Anna to the marchioness with amusement in her eyes.

“Unless,” Lady Warrick said. “You’re too afraid to come with me?”

Anna drew back, her ladyship’s forthright question rocking her on her heels.

“It won’t be easy, I shan’t lie,” Lady Warrick continued, slipping back into her cultured tones. And for a second, just a brief moment, a cloud passed over her green eyes. But then she blinked, a soft smile coming to her face. “But should you choose to come with me, I promise you shall not regret it. You take the good with the bad, my dear. Granted, ’tis not an easy thing to do—learning to conform to someone else’s rules—but there are ways around those rules, starting with a house in the country, somewhere far away from society’s probing eyes.”

And for the first time, Anna felt hope.

“But it’ll involve hard work. We have five days to get you tidied up in time for the ball, a ball I plan to introduce you at as my husband’s cousin—something he’s fond of doing with outsiders,” she said with a secret smile.

Lord above, Anna thought, she couldn’t do it.

The marchioness’s eyes narrowed. “You’re looking afeared again, my dear, and it won’t fadge. I have stood where you stand and I can tell you quite honestly that learning to waltz is the easy part. Getting your feet used to slippers is the bloody hard part.”

Part Five

“I have only to look into your eyes to know I am your destiny,” the prince said to the maiden.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Rein stared at his reflection, his hands shaking as he waited for the last of his guests to arrive at the ducal town home tucked into a corner of Mayfair.

Would she come?

Lord, he’d wanted to kiss his cousin-in-law on the lips when she’d hatched her plan, a plan to bring Anna back to his side in five days’ time. Those had been the longest five days of his life, for he’d missed her. And now the question was, would Anna come? He slapped the gloves he held into the palm of his other hand, anxious, tense and out of sorts. If she didn’t come tonight he would kidnap the wench and get her with child. Then, perhaps, she would finally wed him.

“Rein?”

Mary’s voice called him from his musings, and Rein turned toward her with hope bouncing through his heart.

“Is she here?”

But he could tell by the look in Mary’s eyes, by the way she looked away for a moment. It wasn’t like her not to hold a man’s eyes.

“She balked at the last moment.”

“Damn her,” he cursed, striding toward the door.

Mary caught his arm as he passed by.

“Give her time, Rein. Perhaps with more of that she’ll lose her fear of becoming a duchess.”

Rein pulled his arm away, but only to turn back to his room. Both Mary and Anna’s friend Molly thought Anna lacked the courage to become his duchess. At first he’d scoffed at such a notion—she was the bravest woman of his acquaintance—but after speaking with her friend Molly, he’d told himself to have faith. But that faith had begun to slowly desert him.

“Perhaps I should give it up,” he said, the hopelessness he felt making him want to punch or throw something.

“I… don’t know,” Mary answered honestly. “I thought she would go along with our scheme, thought I had her right up until the moment she began to dress for the ball tonight.” Mary frowned, shaking her head, Rein realizing that his cousin-in-law felt as disappointed as he felt.

“Thank you, Mary. Thank you for trying.”

“Rein,” she said, her hand going to his arm again. “Please. Do not give up hope.”

He turned away. Hope was all he had, until that moment. Hope was what had kept him going. Hope was what had made him say no to Anna becoming his mistress, unable and unwilling to see her reduce herself to such a life. Hope was all he’d had until tonight.

But as he turned and faced the window, he wondered if his hope was gone.

Eventually, he went belowstairs, but as he did so all he could think of was Anna.

He’d had his main hall filled with roses. Damask roses, in honor of their first meeting. He’d done that for her.

He’d had his staff keep the lighting low in the event she had to remove her gloves for some unforeseen reason, to better shield that which she most despised from probing eyes: her hands. He’d done that for her.

And in the pocket of his black evening coat was a ring, one he’d forgotten to remove, but one he’d intended to give her as a promise ring until the time came to give her an engagement ring.

He would have done that for her, too.

Instead he stood at the head of his receiving line with Mary by his side, acting as hostess. Mary wouldn’t look him in the eyes, and in some ways that was worse than if she’d given him a brave smile.

“Go in and dance,” she said as the music started, greeting the last few stragglers with a smile. She’d pulled her hair up in to a design made of braids that looped around her coronet. “You have a room full of young ladies who would give their dowries—literally—to become your affianced wife.”

Rein didn’t smile, didn’t laugh at her sally, didn’t feel capable of doing anything more than going to his study and drinking himself into oblivion.

She didn’t want him.

“Go,” Mary said.

Rein went, though he and Mary both knew his heart wasn’t in it, and likely never would be.

So he made an effort to smile at the ladies he was introduced to, asked a few of them to dance, none of them for a second dance. Through it all he thought of her, thought of what it would be like to hold her, to be with her right then, close his eyes and simply inhale her scent. That was what he missed the most. Holding her. And talking to her. He missed their rooftop conversations.

The dance he’d been engaged in ended, and Rein decided he couldn’t take another moment. He looked around the room for Mary or Alex to tell them he was leaving.

The crowd fell silent.

It was one of those odd pauses that sometimes falls over a crowd, that momentary suspension of noise that seems even more noticeable in the wake of such a cacophony. Perhaps it was Rein’s imagination, for as he looked toward the entrance to the ballroom, mirrors giving him a glimpse of all four sides, he thought he must be dreaming.

Anna had come.

His breath left him, his heart swelling with so much emotion that he couldn’t breathe. Relief. Gratitude. Love. His guests stared at her, too, and Rein heard someone nearby say, “Who the devil is that?”

Anna. It was Anna Brooks, the woman he loved.

Anna had never felt so much fear in her life. Not even when she’d been in that bloody ship she’d invented as a child, water covering her head. Not even when she’d been driven away from Porthollow, her parents gone, on her way to live a new life. Not even during the past five days as she’d been drilled and primped and educated in the ways of the nobility. Never. Not ever.

“Anna,” a feminine voice said.

Anna turned. Mary Drummond stood there. She’d become simply Mary, rather than Lady Warrick, to Anna sometime between teaching Anna how to curtsy to a viscount, an earl, a marquis or a duke, and helping her to garb her legs in petticoats.

“You came,” Mary said.

“I came,” Anna said back, careful to keep her voice low, the syllables flat.

“Thank God,” Mary said, sudden tears in her eyes.

Anna swallowed, her gloved hands clenching the silk of her gold gown until she remembered she shouldn’t do that.

Where was he?

Did he see her? Had her latest bout with fear made him too angry to forgive her? She wouldn’t blame him. As she’d fled the marchioness’s fancy home where she’d spent the last five days learning how to become a lady, she’d left nothing more than a note:

Mary,

I can’t do it.

A

And she’d meant the words, too, meant them until the moment she’d hailed a hack, her eyes filled with tears as she rode home. The only time she stopped staring ahead of her was during a magical moment when she’d tipped back her head and looked up at the sky.

The words came back to her again.

What are those, Mama?

Those are stars, my love.

What are stars?

The souls of angels staring down upon us.

Angels?
she had asked.

The souls of loved ones who’ve died, my dear. They look down upon you, watch you from afar, give you hope when things seem to have failed you, give you courage when you need it most.

She’d forgotten the words until that moment, had banished them from her mind like she had so many happy memories of her life before… before St. Giles.

Give you courage when you need it most.

She needed courage. And so, sitting in that hack, she’d closed her eyes, tipping her head back as she asked, “Give me courage, Mama. Please.”

And then a voice answered back,
I always have.

And so now she stood in a ballroom, her knees shaking so badly she thought she might fall, hoping, praying, she hadn’t muddled things too badly.

“Mary?” a masculine voice asked. “Will you do me the honor… the very
great
honor of an introduction?”

Anna’s eyes almost closed. Rein. His voice came from her right. But she couldn’t turn to look at him, was afraid if she did the whole room would see the tears that she was helpless to conceal.

“Certainly, Your Grace. Miss Anna Brooks, His Grace, the duke of Wroxly. Wroxly, this is the friend of the family I spoke of last eve.”

And still Anna couldn’t look at him.

“Anna Brooks,” came Rein’s beloved baritone. “It is my very great pleasure—” His words halted abruptly as if he couldn’t go on. “My very great
honor
to make your acquaintance.”

At last she looked at him.

He smiled down at her, looking so handsome and regal Anna couldn’t breathe.

Rein,
her heart cried out.

Anna,
his eyes softly answered back.

He held out his hand.

She took it.

The marchioness made a gesture which Anna saw out of the corner of her eyes. As if waiting for just such a cue—and likely they had been—the orchestra tucked into a corner of the ballroom struck up a waltz.

A waltz. It would have to be a waltz, the one dance she’d been taught, its steps something she’d learned with ease.

He led her forward. She placed her hand on top of his arm just as she’d been taught, afraid to look at him again, afraid to admit that this wonderful, handsome man would be her husband, if she so desired.

“Miss Brooks,” he said, though it wasn’t just her name, it was a sigh, a caress, a whispered murmuring that conveyed perfectly the love in his heart.

Other couples took to the floor, too, but Anna hardly noticed as he pulled her nearer. She looked into Rein’s eyes, and she very greatly feared… no, she was quite certain every person in that room could see the love in her eyes as she tipped her head back, held on to his hand, squeezed it for courage.

“You came,” he said, looking down at her.

“I came,” she answered back, her eyes darting over his face. There was the scar she’d noticed on their first meeting. There were the faint vestiges of the smile wrinkles she loved. There were his green, green eyes.

“Mary told me you’d run away.” She darted a glance at the marchioness, who stood talking to a tall, handsome man Anna knew to be her husband. She’d met the cull—no,
his lordship
—when she’d arrived one morning for her lessons.

“I did,” she said as he turned her in a circle so that her view was blocked.

“But you came.”

“I came,” she echoed back, meeting Rein’s gaze again, her heart once again leaping as she took in his black coat, white cravat and fancy gray breeches. He looked so handsome, so debonair.
So out of her reach.

Steady on course, Anna.

He didn’t look away as he twirled her around, just stared and stared and stared as if he never wanted to look away, and perhaps he didn’t.

“Rein, I—”

“Don’t,” he interrupted. “Don’t say you are sorry.”

Did he know her so well? Had he been able to tell so easily what was in her heart?

“You are here. That is all that matters. And that you marry me as soon as can be arranged.”

She almost stumbled, and though she’d told herself she would not let her tears spill over, she felt her eyes do exactly that.

Deep breaths. Deep breaths.

“Will you?” he asked as he swept her around, and God help her, she could see tears in his own eyes. And there was no need to ask what it was she would do, for she could read the question in his eyes.

Will you be my duchess?

“Aye, I will,” she said, slipping back into her St. Giles accent, but little caring that she did, for suddenly it all fell into place. She didn’t care what anyone thought of her then, didn’t care if she never set foot in a ballroom again. She loved this man more than life itself—and that,
that
was what was important, not what others might think. What a fool she’d been to think otherwise.

And so later that night, Anna slipped out of the ballroom with Rein. No one noticed, Mary having done a bang-up job (as the marchioness would later tell her) of convincing society that Anna had been raised as a lady. And as they held each other’s hands and then embraced, no one was the wiser. Only the stars saw what happened next, watched as the duke of Wroxly placed a promise ring upon her finger, and as that ring fell into place, one of the stars flicked and then flared as the couple kissed.

And if Rein and Anna had been looking, they might have seen that star begin to move, might have seen it sail across the sky and then flare into brightness. But they didn’t notice, for they were too busy creating their own brightness in the world.