More Than a Duke(62)
“Suffice?” That low, drawn out whisper would have been enough to raise terror in most men. She stuck another finger in his chest. “Did you say a marriage to me would…suffice?”
He flinched, recognizing the certain dangers when a lady tended to repeat herself in that outraged tone. He eyed the path of escape over her shoulder. Yes, he really should have a care. “What would you have me say?” He cared about her enough to not lie to her. “I thought you desired the truth, Anne, and I’ve given you that. What would you have of me? I’ve told you before, there is nothing left of my heart.”
Her body jerked and he would have traded every single one of his holdings to call the words back, if for no other reason than to spare her this hurt. “No. You are indeed, correct,” she said huskily. “I’d not have falsity from you.” Her eyes blazed with the force of her emotion. “I’ll not have a man marry me because I’m suitable. My mother had my father because he sufficed.”
He growled, not caring about being tucked into a neat little category with men such as her father, as effortlessly as she arranged her satin ribbons.
She gave a terse nod and stepped out of his arms. “Very well, Harry.” She held a hand out.
Harry eyed the five graceful fingers warily, knowing Anne enough to know there was certainly more to that ‘very, well, Harry.' He took her fingers in his.
Anne gave his hand a solid shake. She looked to the doorway. He followed her gaze to the wide-eyed maid who stood in the entrance, a leather book in her hands.
“Mary,” she said. “Lord Stanhope was just leaving.” She gave a toss of her loose, golden waves. With head held as high as the queen marching past her lowly subjects, she sailed past her maid and out of the room.
As Harry stood, staring after her, he couldn’t rid himself of a sudden sense of foreboding that Lady Anne Adamson had launched an all out battle.
Chapter 16
Standing in front of the bevel glass mirror at the corner of her room, Anne came to a very unexpected revelation. She might perhaps be just a bit more than a pleasingly-pretty-proper-English-miss, as the paper’s had labeled her during her first Season. Those same gossip columns had lamented that a placid English miss should find herself still unwed after a second Season. Now, she thought perhaps there was a bit more merit to Harry’s claims on the art of seduction and beauty than she’d originally credited. Oh, that isn’t to say she’d not trusted his judgment over hers in matters of…of…er, ensuring a person’s notice.
She’d just not quite imagined how a single gown, a different coiffure, and a strategically placed strand of hair could transform someone.
Anne tilted her head and studied herself objectively as she tried to see the woman Harry might see that evening. If the lout left his clubs to attend a single one of the same soirees Mother had accepted invitations to. The diaphanous burnt orange satin clung to her skin. A single thread of gold lined the daring décolletage. She touched the loose curl woven with a pale orange ribbon that dangled between the swell of her breasts.
Would he be indifferent toward the woman who employed the carefully taught strategies he’d given her this past week? Would he see her as a hellish termagant, as he’d called her on countless occasions? Or would he see in her a sufficient match when he…nay, if he ever decided to set aside his roguish ways?
“You are beautiful, my lady,” her maid, Mary, breathed over her shoulder.
She caught her maid’s shocked visage in the mirror. “Do you believe my mother will concur?”
Mary snorted.
Anne’s lips pulled up in a humorless smile. “When do you venture she’ll permit me to leave the townhouse after this display?”
“Perhaps next winter,” Mary replied automatically. She held up the silver muslin cloak in her hands.
Anne presented her back and allowed the young woman to assist her into the garment. She fastened the hooks at her throat. Approaching her twenty-first year and mid-way through her third Season, certain liberties were afforded the young women who claimed the same unwed status. She squared her shoulders, feeling she imagined much the way Wellington had at Waterloo, and marched to the door. Mary pulled it open.
Anne concentrated on the soft pad of silver slippers upon the thin, carpeted floor. She counted each step, in doing so she’d not have to consider Mother’s inevitable outrage, but worse—the possibility that all her efforts tonight would be for naught. The scandalous measures she’d gone to, seeking out the most sophisticated, lauded French modiste and turning over every last coin of her pin money to have a stunning creation readied in such a short span of time.