A servant appeared at the doorway and ankle still sore from last evening, Anne struggled to her feet. Her heart hammered wildly at the sudden interruption and then promptly sank.
The footman rushed over with a silver tray bearing a missive. He carried it over to the countess. “Leave it on the table, would you?” Mother murmured, not taking her eyes off the crimson rose upon her frame.
Anne sat back into her seat, her gaze wandered over to the clock. He’d said whatever was between them was not over and she’d imagined he intended to call.
“Ma-Ma-Ma-Ma.” Maxwell’s soft babbling commanded her attention.
“You want your mother, do you? What about your poor aunt?” She feigned noisy tears and noisy giggles erupted from the boy’s lips.
Another knock sounded at the door. And Anne knew with the same intuitiveness that had driven her to seek out Harry in the first place for her madcap scheme to catch a duke, he’d arrived.
Ollie cleared his throat. “The Earl of Stanhope.”
The embroidery frame slipped from Mother’s hands and landed noiselessly on the Aubusson carpet at her feet. “What is this about?” She jumped to her feet in a flurry of bombazine skirts.
Harry stood, impossibly tall, devastatingly elegant in a sapphire blue coat and fawn breeches.
Anne awkwardly shoved herself to her feet even as her sister rushed over to take Maxwell, a suspicious glower trained on Harry. Jasper stood and placed himself beside his precious family, touching a hand to Katherine’s shoulder.
His face, an impenetrable mask, serious as she’d never remembered him, Harry bowed. “My lady,” he greeted her mother with all the charm that had earned him the reputation as rogue.
Alas, Mother had long ago learned the perils of a charming gentleman. “You dare come here?” She looked to Jasper, the glint in her eyes indicating she expected him to toss the earl out.
Anne sank into a deferential curtsy. “My lord.” She furled and unfurled her hands into fists, an attempt to calm her racing heart.
Harry held her stare, heedless of her family’s presence. His thick, hooded gaze indicated he knew the exact path her thoughts had wandered and he reveled in it. He wandered deeper into the room.
“You, my lord, do not have leave to enter this parlor. Of all the insolence. My daughter is to be married and you, are a…a…rogue!”
Harry’s smile faded. He walked boldly by the outraged countess and the fiercely glowering duke, and dropped to a knee beside Anne. “I’m afraid, your mother is indeed, correct, Anne.”
Her heart paused and the hope she’d carried since that gravel path in Vauxhall Gardens died. A viselike pressure squeezed about the organ that would forever beat for him. “Then why are you here?” she whispered. Still, for the agony of this moment, so very glad he was.
He took her hand. “You didn’t allow me to finish.” He stroked his thumb over the sensitive flesh of her palm. “I was a rogue. A scoundrel.” Harry held her gaze. “Not anymore, Anne.” Hope flared to life with the implications of his words, his bold touch. “I was a shiftless bounder until you slipped into Lord Essex's conservatory, seeking me out—”
“You slipped into Lord Essex's conservatory to meet him?” Katherine and Mother’s voices united in shock.
Anne buried a half-sob, half-laugh in her fingertips. That first meeting with Harry had been the least scandalous of all the things she’d done with him.
“I love you, Anne.” She sucked in a breath, and her family’s presence fell away under the depth of emotion in his eyes. “I love everything about you. I love your husky contralto, but would love you if you possessed a light, lyrical soprano signing voice.” He captured one of her loose curls between his fingers. “I love your golden ringlets.”
“Remember yourself, my lord!” Mother’s outrage went unheeded.
Anne touched her left hand to the side of her face, brushing back a loose curl. It fell stubbornly over her brow. “You claimed they were silly,” she whispered, ignoring her mother as she should have for years now.
Harry reached up and captured the strand. He gently tucked it behind her ear. “I’ve been an unmitigated ass, too blind to see true beauty until you donned those small spectacles opening both our eyes.” Emotion thickened his voice.
Tears clogged her voice, strangling her words. “They’re for reading.”
He stroked her cheek. “Ah, Anne. Don’t marry Ekstrom. Marry me.” His next words drowned out her mother’s shocked gasp. “I would wed you with your family’s approval, but even if they will not give it, I’d ask you to wed me anyway.”