More Than a Duke(84)
Anne retreated within herself. She sat, more a voyeur than an actual participant in the discussion between her mother and sister proceeded to have about her life. She dimly registered the remote pity in her brother-in-law’s usually hard stare.
Marriage…
Harry…
No choice…
She wanted Harry with everything and anything she was. Anything and everything she would ever be. Anne drew in a shuddery breath. She could not have him this way. “I won’t wed him.” Her whisper soft admission cut into the frenzied discussion.
“I don’t see that you have a choice.” The gentleness in Katherine’s tone was nearly Anne’s undoing.
“The duke will certainly not have her now,” Mother spat, bitterness dripping from her words.
Anne glanced out the window. She’d not allow Harry to be forced and bound to marry her out of some misbegotten sense of honor. Not when she’d been the one to force him into the role of tutor. If he’d spoken of love, or in the least, a desire to wed her, she’d have embraced marriage to him. But he hadn’t. She’d asked why he’d wed her, and he’d answered truthfully.
Tears filled her eyes and she blinked them away. Foolish, foolish drops.
The carriage rocked to a slow halt before her townhouse. Jasper didn’t wait for the servant, but instead leaned over, and flung the door open. He leapt to the ground and handed first Katherine down, and then Anne.
She hurried inside, wanting the solace of her own chambers.
Her mother’s sharp voice called after her. “Anne, you are to await for me in the parlor.”
Alas, solace would have to come later. Much later.
She all but sprinted past Ollie, who stood with the door opened. Her slippers silent on the Italian marble and she gathered this was much how Joan of Arc had felt when being marched up the gallows. Her lips twisted. Then, Joan of Arc wouldn’t have been fool to make the collection of mistakes Anne herself had. She entered the Ivory Parlor and clasped her hands, wringing them together, her mind curiously blank.
Footsteps sounded at the door. She drew a steadying breath. “Mother, I know what you intend to say.”
Katherine entered the room. Her husband hovered just outside, allowing the sisters a brief moment of privacy. “I certainly hope you’ve something vastly more original and slightly more reassuring than that to begin your discussion with Mother.” Her sister’s droll words, a clear attempt at easing the tension did little to cut through Anne’s inner turmoil.
She rocked back on her heels. “Katherine,” she said tiredly. “You should go.” Had word begun to circulate even now, throughout ballrooms and parlors all over London? After all, when one knew…all knew. Her heart quickened as the implications of her actions, and all Rutland knew of her and Harry, truly sank into her mind.
“Oh, Anne, what have you done?”
If Katherine’s tone had been the bothered, I’ve-come-to-expect-this-of-you one she’d adopted through the years, it would have been so much easier than the agonized disappointment in here younger sister’s words. She firmed her jaw. “I don’t expect you to understand.”
“Harry, well I expect such outrageous behavior of him.” Katherine shook her head, sadly. “But you?”
“It wasn’t, Harry,” she said firmly.
Katherine’s brow wrinkled. “What do you mean? I saw him, Anne. I saw his hands on your person. I—”
“I propositioned the earl, Kat. I made him a scandalous proposal and asked him to help me win the Duke of Crawford’s heart,” she uttered that last part on a shamed whisper.
The air left Katherine on a slow, elongated breath. “My God.”
Her lips twisted wryly. No, not even the Lord himself could help with this.
She pressed ahead, determined for Katherine to know the truth. “I threatened to seek out Lord Rutland’s help if he didn’t agree, and so he did.” Because he was good and honorable, far more honorable than Society gave him credit for.
Her sister rocked back on her heels, silent.
And now, for his efforts, he’d be forced into marriage, and she had little doubt he’d do right by her. Just as her father’s heart had belonged to another, so too would Harry’s. Tears filled her eyes, but she blinked them back. Oh, God. For all her fears of becoming Mother and all her efforts to avoid that same, sorry, broken fate, with her actions she’d gone and carved out a future that would turn her into just that person she’d striven her whole adult life not to be. She could not. Would not…