Anna's Refuge

by Kerryn Reid

  She said, “Thank you, my dear,” as Anna drew back, and laid her icy fingers on Anna’s bruised cheek for a fleeting moment.

  “My God, ma’am. If I said thank you once a minute for the rest of my life, it wouldn’t begin to express my gratitude to you. And you would be tired of me in a day.”

  They’d left the door open and Mr. Aubrey wandered in, glass in hand. “How are you, Hetty?”

  His wife glared at him as though he were a large beetle to be squashed. “How should I be?” she replied, her voice biting like acid. “I had to k-kill my son today, because you infected him with your hostility, your belligerence, your lust for tyranny over anything weak or good. I’m ashamed that I submitted to you all these years.”

  “Why did you?” Lewis asked her.

  “I was his wife,” she said, shrill and discordant. “Isn’t that what a wife does? That’s what I thought at the age of eighteen. He was dashing and smart. His grandfather was a baronet!”

  “Don’t forget the money, dear wife.”

  Anna winced at the loathing she saw in Mr. Aubrey’s expression, the bitterness in his tone.

  His wife ignored him. “More than anything, I longed for status. Those first couple of years in Manchester, within his circle of friends, I was happy with my choice. When he inherited this place… Oh, you can hardly imagine my excitement!”

  Mr. Aubrey’s lip curled in a sneer, so like Gideon’s. “You see? I gave her everything she wanted, and all she can do is whine.”

  For the first time, she looked her husband in the eye. “Then Gideon was born, a strong, healthy, beautiful boy. Yes, you’d given me everything I wanted.” Her gaze shifted, roaming about the room and settling finally upon Lewis standing by the fire. “But gradually I learned that wealth is no guarantee of status. One must fit in, and your father had no interest in fitting in. He thought only of subjugating everyone to his will, turning Wrackwater Bridge into his own little kingdom.

  “Then you arrived, Lewis. A wisp of a child compared to your brother. From the first, Gideon hated you, poked you and pinched you to make you cry. I would come running, scolding him for his cruelties. But your father laughed at your tears, and belittled me, and soon Gideon no longer listened to me at all. When I chided, he would watch me, so cold and cunning, as he reached out to yank on your hair or twist your ear. The best way to protect you was to keep quiet.”

  She looked down at her hands, white and still in her lap. “I should have taken you and left Wrackwater Bridge, but I couldn’t. To admit defeat and go home to Ilkley… I was too weak. Instead I lived with defeat for another twenty years.

  “But no more.” She stood, straight and proud, and crossed to the door that led to her bedchamber. “I lost Gideon many years ago. I will not lose Lewis, or Anna, or little Doris. All your petty schemes have come to nothing.” She spat out the words as she twisted the latch and pushed open the door. “Nothing but dust.”

  Anna caught her in the doorway for another embrace. “I am so proud to be your daughter.” At her murmured words the unyielding body in her arms quivered, but then pulled away as a footman appeared at the hall door.

  “Mr. Lindale and Captain Fuller are here.”

  “Oh, pray make my excuses.” Mrs. Aubrey choked out the words, one hand pressed to her mouth.

  “Shall I stay, Mama?” Anna asked. “Can I help?”

  But the maid was there to steady her mistress, leading her into the other room and closing the door.

  They met with Captain Fuller and Mr. Lindale in the morning room. Anna put on her company smile, but it didn’t fool them.

  “What a nasty business,” said Mr. Lindale with a touch on her arm. She nodded, fighting tears.

  “Thought we’d stop on our way to the inn,” the captain said. “We leave early tomorrow. But if it’s a bad time…”

  “No, it’s all over,” Lewis said, pouring drinks for them all, even a tiny amount for Anna. “Mother just dragged the old man over the coals. I’m glad to see her become independent, but it was grim. As if the rest of the day weren’t grim enough. I don’t know how I lived here all my life and failed to grasp the situation. If I ever boast about my powers of observation, you may poke my eyes out.”

  Anna shook her head at him. “You’re not responsible for all the ills of the world.” His lips curved in acknowledgment of her attempt at comfort, but she could see he didn’t believe her. She braced herself upright against the weight of his arm around her shoulders. He must be exhausted.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “I’m keeping you all standing. Shall we—”

  “No,” said the captain, “we’re leaving. But I have a toast before we go. I hope it don’t offend anyone here.” He raised his glass. “To Gideon Aubrey, may he burn in hell.”

  It was a toast Anna was happy to make, though she was ashamed of it for Mrs. Aubrey’s sake. She took her first sip of whatever drink Lewis had given her and gasped. Someone removed the glass from her grip as she coughed, tears wetting her cheeks. The men laughed at her, and that was all right. Better to end the evening with a bit of levity after all the gloom.

  Mr. Lindale’s goodbyes were restrained, but Captain Fuller gave Lewis a clap on the shoulder, bussed Anna’s cheek, and squeezed her tight. “You two take care of Cass while I’m gone. You hear me?”

  Lewis floundered his way up from someplace deep and dark, a place he’d already forgotten. Anna had not been there. She was there now, though, curled against him in his narrow bed. “Anna.”

  “Good morning, your majesty. My frog prince.” Her voice was sweet and soft, unlike his morning croak. He could listen to her the rest of his life.

  “Have you been awake long?”

  “Mmm hmm.” She moved slightly, starting a chain of sensations beginning in his groin and ending with a tingle in his fingertips where they lay on her hip. He gripped the bone and pressed against her, then slid his hand underneath her nightdress into the valley at her waist, squeezing gently. She moaned. He kissed the spot he loved beneath her ear, sucked on the velvet lobe.

  “I’m sorry about last night. I wanted to find all sorts of ways to make you feel good.”

  Her breath caught as he caressed her abdomen and moved lower. “You did. Even when you’re asleep, you make me feel good… Oh yes, just there.”

  “But I didn’t want to sleep. I most certainly didn’t want to cry on your shoulder.”

  She turned onto her back and cupped his face in her hands. He opened his eyes. The gray light of dawn slipping between the curtains came as a surprise.

  “I’m glad I was here to hold you,” she murmured. Her thumb rubbed the bruise on his chin. “To repay you for just one of the times you’ve comforted me. It’s nice to know you need me.”

  A harsh breath forced its way out through his throat. “You have no idea how much.” He kissed her where her dimple lay hidden. “Why am I wearing all these clothes? This won’t do at all.”

  “I didn’t want to wake you.”

  He sat up, grasped the hem of his shirt, and lifted it to head height—and pulled it down again with a groan. “Doris is coming.”

  Anna made a choking sound. Her eyes crinkled with merriment as she pressed her lips tight to keep it inside.

  “You’re laughing at me,” Lewis said, doing his best to scowl.

  Her laughter erupted, a joyous sound that tickled his heart. He pulled his legs from under the blankets and straddled her, his hands on the pillow to either side of her head.

  “You just wait, wife. I’ll get you back for that.”

  “Oh, I hope so,” she said between giggles.

  He went to the door and took Doris, but sent Holly about her other chores.

  “Shall I have the tea sent up, sir?”

  “Please do. Breakfast too.” The baby’s head bobbed against his shoulder as he carried her to the bed and laid her in the curve of Anna’s body. “I love the way you smell, little Dorrie.” They played with her and talked to her until she became cross with th
e delay.

  Anna nursed her in the chair, a blanket over her legs but one shoulder and breast gloriously bare. The sun rose as they watched, sipping their tea. Idyllic, but for the thoughts of yesterday and all that came before.

  Anna must have felt the same. “What must it take, Lewis? To kill your own child? I can’t begin to imagine it.”

  He had already tried, and failed. “I hope she’s strong enough to survive it.”

  “She’ll have us to help her. And Doris will give her something to live for. I’ll take the baby to see her when I’ve dressed.”

  His eyes misted, watching his lovely, loving wife suckle their child. She had come through her trials with a whole and generous heart. It was hard to believe.

  It had been weeks since he put pencil to paper. But this was the picture he’d longed to draw after their wedding, at the vicarage. He fetched his supplies and went to work.

  Though her countenance was so familiar from that stack of sketches he’d done, it felt different drawing her from life. Her cheeks thinner than he’d remembered, the way her tousled hair curled around her ears, how her dimple caught the light and shadow. The fleeting expressions… Impossible to capture them all. Well, he would have years to try. And Doris! A new subject entirely, all innocence and thistledown. He must practice.

  Lewis set the sketch face down on the bed and then lifted the sleeping baby from her mother’s arms. He kissed her at the corner of her mouth, her lips still suckling in her dreams, and laid her on her blanket on the floor, in front of the fire.

  “Is it finished?” Anna asked, with a nod toward the drawing.

  “For now. I might play with it later.” He picked it up and put it in her hands, then stood behind her chair to see it as she did. So imperfect. The pearls he’d only sketched in, unwilling to tackle the shading that would give them life until he could see them in place.

  Her shoulders shook under his hands. She was crying. He should have expected it.

  “How do you do that? How can you evoke so much feeling in fifteen minutes, with nothing but a pencil?”

  “It’s all in the subject, Anna.”

  “No, it’s not.” She ran her fingers over her skin, where the pearls would lie.

  “I’ve had this in mind since our wedding day, the first time I saw you nurse. You were wearing the necklace, remember? I wanted you so badly.”

  He slid his hands down past the imaginary pearls and around the globes of her breasts, lifting them in his palms. Growled softly into her ear, “I still do.” She whimpered and slipped her fingers between his.

  “This is why you put her on the floor.” Her breathing was ragged.

  “Mmm hmm. Though I expect we could manage without the bed.”

  She ducked her head. “Lewis? The other night, when we…on our wedding night? Were you disgusted by my… I fear I was not quite…ladylike.”

  He burst out laughing; she lifted her chin and glared at him.

  “Don’t laugh at me!”

  “Sweetheart, I assumed it was a joke. Did I seem disgusted?”

  She huffed out a breath and crossed her arms over her breasts. Was it too soon? She’d seemed keen enough a minute ago.

  He lifted her plait aside and kissed the nape of her neck. “Whenever you’re ready, love, I will happily demonstrate how disgusted I am.”

  She gave that gurgle of laughter that always made him grin, the dimple popping out in her cheek. He kissed her there, with the inevitable repercussions in parts of his body far removed from his lips.

  “As long as you’re sure. You’ll tell me if you…if I…”

  “If you enjoy it too much? Just what is a lady supposed to do in bed? Lie still and tolerate it?” He shuddered. “Please, don’t be a lady in bed.”

  It was a long time before they left the room.

  About the Author

  Raised in New England, Kerryn inherited her mother’s passion for the British Isles. At 17, she roamed the Rock of Cashel after-hours with her first love, a local Irish lad. So illicit, so romantic! A piece of Kerryn’s heart still lives in the old country, and when the itch to write needed scratching, that’s where her imagination took her.

  Kerryn now lives in Florida with her dogs and the love of her life. Alas, he’ll never have an Irish accent, but he’s amazing!

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