More Than a Duke(72)
He stiffened and for the fraction of a moment she thought he might feel her gaze upon him. But then, the young street lad rushed over with the reins to his steed and Harry took them, mounted his horse, and left.
Anne buried her face into her hands and wept copious amount of tears. Egads, I’m crying? I detest tears. She cried all the harder in remembrance of that recent day in their stolen copse when he’d given her spectacles, and then shown her more pleasure than she’d imagined her body capable of.
Anne folded her arms about herself to still the tremors quaking her form. She sank down onto her piano bench and her back knocked against the keyboard in a discordant, melody of agony and despair. What if her mother had been wrong, even as logic told her she’d not been? But what if she had? What if Harry had merely come to apologize and dole out another of his lessons, as she’d clung to the foolish hope of since early that morn?
“Fool, fool, fool,” she choked out between great, big gasping sobs.
There were certain moments a person remembered in life. For Anne, she’d forever recall stumbling into Lady Preston’s ballroom and witnessing the magnificent tableau presented; Harry in his golden glory and the willowy duchess with her thick black ringlet-less hair. And poor, pathetic Anne, no different than her mother longing for a man who’d never been, nor would ever be hers.
She brushed back the useless tears. Another knock sounded at the door. “What is it, Mother?” she said, impatiently. She spun to face the doorway. “I’ve already told you I’ll speak…” Her words faded into silence.
Ollie stood at the doorway, a contrite expression on his face. He cleared his throat. “His Grace, the Duke of Crawford to see you, my lady.”
Ah, Mother wouldn’t turn away a duke if it meant saving her own life and the lives of all her children.
Her lips twisted in bitter remembrance of Mother’s callous treatment of Katherine’s husband, Jasper. Then, she tended to draw a proverbial line at dukes with a scandal to their name. She wrinkled her brow. Then, in thinking on it…it rather seemed mother abhorred all manner of scandalous gentlemen from wealthy, second sons like Aldora’s Michael, to Katherine’s once heart-broken Jasper, to the Earl of Stanhope, to—
The duke entered the room, a bouquet of hothouse flowers in his right hand. He paused a moment. His eyes lingered upon her face and she dug her toes hard into the soles of her slipper, certain he could detect the surely swollen-red eyes. “Lady Anne,” he murmured.
Anne shook her head, and remembered herself. She sprung to her feet. “Your Grace.” She sank into a curtsy, dropping her gaze to the floral Aubusson carpet, looking anywhere but at him.
Her maid, Mary slipped into the room, eyes downcast. She dipped a curtsy and then sought out her all too familiar seat. After three Seasons of Anne unwed, the poor woman had likely worn quite a place on the upholstered seat.
The duke moved further into the room. He passed his intense gaze around the ivory parlor then trained his penetrating stare on her. “Are you well, Lady Anne?”
Which was the most polite, non-direct way of inquiring after her tear-reddened eyes. “Er, quite,” she lied. His eyes said he knew it. From across the room, Mary coughed. Anne jumped, remembering herself. She rushed over to the duke and motioned to the sofa. “Please, won’t you sit, Your Grace?”
Sit in the very seat Harry had occupied some days ago when he’d asked her to sing to him. There was something so very wrong in the duke sitting in…
The duke sat.
…in Harry’s seat. A vise threatened to crush her heart.
His Grace extended the bouquet in his hands. “These are for—”
“Achoo!” Anne sneezed. For all the beauty of a flower, she’d never been able to breathe around a single bloom. Bitterness pulled at her lips. Yes, she’d never have made an ideal trysting partner for the Earl of Stanhope.
The duke fished into his pocket and withdrew a kerchief. He held it out.
“F-forgive…achoo!” Anne sneezed into the fabric neatly monogrammed with the initials ADC. “Forgive…achoo.” Oh dear, this really was rather inconvenient.
The duke’s lips twitched even as Mary rushed over to take the flowers from him. She hurried from the room.
“My apologies,” he said with a smile in his words. “I wasn’t aware—”
“No apologies, necessary, Your Grace,” she assured him. “It is quite a bother.” A frown replaced the austere duke’s fleeting smile. “Not receiving flowers. Because it is quite lovely. That is, if I could breathe around them, it would…” She allowed the words to go unfinished.