More Than a Duke(48)
“I always desired more for you than Mr. Ekstrom.”
Anne attempted to follow the abrupt shift in conversation.
Mother slashed the air with her hand. “Katherine, well, as you know. I expected a marriage between her and Bertrand. Benedict, why he’s just a child and anything can happen to a child. Then where would we be?”
“Mother,” Anne said on a gasp.
Red fanned Mother’s cheeks as she appeared properly shamed at the coldness of her words. “I did not mean to sound avaricious. I love all my children,” she said defensively. “But I worry for all of us. All of us,” she repeated as though Anne hadn’t heard her clear enough the first time.
“Neither Jasper nor Michael would allow us to become destitute.”
“And what of the connection to the Wakefield line?”
Well, Anne could imagine a good many greater travesties than the loss of connection to her dastardly father. She held those words back, knowing they’d only cause her mother further pain.
“I would not see you do something reckless with your reputation and lose the duke’s favor. If there is no Crawford, or some other lofty title, there is the assurance of Mr. Ekstrom.”
What was she on about? She didn’t want to think about horrid Mr. Ekstrom the man Mother had tried to have Katherine…Her heart sank slowly into her belly.
“I see you follow my thoughts, Anne.”
Anne jumped up. She glared at her mother’s immaculately arranged curls. “Is that what you’d do? Threaten me with marriage to Mr. Ekstrom?” Somewhere in her mother’s loathsome scheming and vile threat she’d lost sight of the fact that Harry’s presence in her life came from nothing more than her goals to ensnare the Duke of Crawford’s attention. “I’ll not wed him.”
Mother rose, slowly. She smoothed her skirts. “No. I dare say you shan’t. I’d much rather you have the Duke of Crawford.” She crossed over and took Anne’s cheeks in her palms.
Anne yanked her face away, much the same way she’d done as a small girl when her nurse had attempted to rub lemon juice over her freckled skin in attempt to rid her of the marks. Mother took Anne’s face in her hands, once more. “Look at me,” she said softly. This kind, tender tone the one she remembered of the Mother who’d praised her and found pride in her playing and embroidery skills. Likely more the woman she’d been before the extent of Father’s betrayal had ruined her. “I want to see you happy. You call me mercurial. Mayhap you think me cruel.” Tears filled her eyes, the first crack in her indecipherable mask. “Do you know the fear I carried in my heart for not only myself but for each of you?” She blinked back the crystal drops.
“Mother,” Anne said gently.
She blinked the drops back. “Bah, silly tears. A waste they are.” She drew in a shuddery breath. “I loved your father, Anne. But sometimes love isn’t enough. Not when a gentleman’s heart is otherwise engaged.”
A faceless Miss Dunn flashed to Anne’s mind. She tried to call up a clear image of a woman who possessed the beauty men would wage wars for. Surely, no silly gold ringlets there.
“Your Lord Stanhope is not without a scandal.”
“I know that,” she murmured, giving her head a shake. “And he’s not my Lord Stanhope,” she added as an afterthought.
“There was a woman, a…” Mother paused, seeming to search her memory.
Miss Margaret Dunn. Oh, how she detested that name.
“It escapes me, now. Nearly ten years ago, I believe.”
Eight years. Harry had indicated eight years had since passed. Anne would have been just a girl of twelve or thirteen around the time. She imagined Harry, unjaded, just out of university. She didn’t want to ask her mother questions. She was content to bury her curiosity and not know Mother’s twisted version of the story. “I don’t need to hear this,” she said firmly. She would not betray Harry with Society’s gossip.
Her mother rushed over and claimed her hands. “You do, Anne. Do you understand me? You need to hear this, when I myself refused to listen to the whispers surrounding your father’s offer for me all those years ago. You represent nothing more than a diversion to the earl.”
Anne’s lips twisted ruefully. Considering the terms of their arrangement, she represented a good deal less than that to Harry.
“He can’t have honorable intentions toward you.”
The whole lessons in seduction business aside… why not? He was not the heartless rogue she’d once taken him as.