by Mary Balogh
“Just when there is so much to be done here,” she lamented, “and just as though our servants and the vicar cannot keep a stern enough eye upon Boris until after the wedding.”
“I will be back in time for the wedding, Millie,” Molenor said, patting her hand.
“That is not the point, Tom,” she complained. “There are all the things that will need doing between now and then.”
The dowager countess also scolded Anna for being from home this morning when Madame Lavalle arrived. The young footman had told her. Anastasia really must make herself available to all those whose task it was to get her ready for her wedding. A month might seem to be a long time, but it would fly by.
“It will definitely be the wedding of the Season,” she said. “And the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that you are right, Louise, and only St. Paul’s Cathedral will do.”
Cousin Matilda wanted to know where Elizabeth was and hoped Anastasia had not been entertaining Cousin Avery alone.
“She went to a bookstore that has taken her fancy, Aunt,” Anna explained.
Riverdale was arriving with his mother, Avery could see. Within another minute or two everyone would be present and accounted for.
“I believe,” Lady Matilda was saying, “I ought to move in here for the next month to add proper respectability to the approach of the wedding. If you can spare me, that is, Mama.”
While Cousin Althea greeted everyone and hugged Anna and asked cheerfully how she was feeling on this first full day of her betrothal, Riverdale looked hard at Avery as though he were wondering if the events of the early morning had really happened. Avery inclined his head and fingered the snuffbox in his pocket. He was given no opportunity to withdraw it, however. Cousin Althea was hugging him and asking the same question she had just asked Anna.
“Never mind the betrothal, Althea,” his stepmother said. “It is the marriage preparations we must concern ourselves with, and Avery is dragging his feet. When I asked this morning, his secretary informed me that Avery had not yet approved the betrothal notice I had helped Mr. Goddard draw up last evening. And Avery was nowhere to be found. Then the secretary disappeared from his office. The notice ought to have been submitted today to appear in tomorrow’s papers. And we must decide where the banns are to be read so that arrangements can be made before Sunday. Then we must—”
“But you see,” Avery said, his eyes upon Anna, “I was busy this morning with matters related to my wedding. So was Edwin Goddard. So was Anna. We must all be forgiven for being unavailable to those who expected us all to be at home. We were together, the three of us, and Cousin Elizabeth before she remembered the bookshop and hurried off there with Edwin. By then, though, neither was needed any longer. By then they had duly witnessed my marriage to Anna and were tactful enough to make themselves scarce.”
There were a few moments of total silence while Anna gazed back at him, seemingly composed—just as she had been in the rose salon at Archer House a few weeks or an aeon ago—but with her right hand tensed as it clasped the left, hiding her wedding ring.
Jessica was the first to find her tongue.
“You are married?” she cried, leaping to her feet. “Well, I am glad. That grand wedding everyone was planning would have been so stupid.”
Cousin Matilda had already produced a vinaigrette and a fan from her reticule and had turned toward her mother, seated beside her. It was only a pity she had no more than two hands.
“What?” His stepmother was on her feet too, her hand on Jessica’s arm. “What?”
“You are married?” That was Cousin Mildred.
“Now you can come home with me, Millie,” Molenor said, “and help me deal with our scamp.”
“Oh, you could not wait,” Cousin Althea said, her hands clasped to her bosom, her eyes shining as she looked from Anna to Avery. “How utterly romantic.”
“Romantic?” the dowager said. “Put those smelling salts away, Matilda, or use them yourself. Anastasia, you can have no idea what this will do to your reputation. Have you learned nothing in the past weeks except how to waltz? But Avery ought to know, and it is just like him to flaunt the unwritten rules of society and snap his fingers at its good opinion. You will be very fortunate if you do not find yourselves ostracized by the ton.”
“Anastasia,” Riverdale said, “may I offer my sincere congratulations and good wishes? And to you too, Netherby.”
“Oh goodness,” Avery’s stepmother said. “I am no longer the Duchess of Netherby, am I? Anastasia is. I am the dowager duchess.”
“It is just a name, Mama,” Jessica said crossly.
And then Anna spoke, in that same low, commanding voice she had used in the rose salon all that time ago. “Yesterday,” she said, “I was overwhelmed by the realization that I had become a commodity, the most highly prized item on the marriage mart. I wanted to escape, even if only for a short while to catch my breath and order my thoughts. I said, in the hearing of you all, that I wanted to go to Wensbury to see my grandparents, my mother’s parents, to find out if I could learn why they turned me out after my mother died, to somehow put that part of my history in its proper place. Avery offered to marry me and take me there. He knew that I wanted—that I needed to go soon. He knew that waiting for the grand wedding you have all been kind enough to envisage for us would be more than time wasted to me. It would be an ordeal that would overwhelm me even more. So he brought a special license here with him this morning and took me to a church whose name I do not know on a street I cannot name to be married by a clergyman whose identity I still do not know. Elizabeth and Mr. Goddard witnessed our nuptials. I know some of you are disappointed, both in me and in the loss of the splendid wedding you were beginning to plan. But this is my wedding day, and it was the loveliest wedding I could possibly imagine, and I must beg your pardon while not regretting for a moment what I have done. We will be setting out on our journey tomorrow.”
She did not take her eyes off Avery while she spoke.
He must surely, he thought, have fallen in love with her that very first day. Which was a puzzling possibility, especially when he recalled those shoes and that dress and cloak and bonnet. But even then he had spotted the quiet, poised dignity of the woman within. Actually the whole thing was puzzling. That the way she had conducted herself on that occasion and since had aroused his respect, even his admiration, was surprising enough. But romantic love? He did not believe in it. He never had and never would.
Except that it really must be romantic love he was feeling for her. His eyes traveled over her and found themselves well pleased, though he could not understand why. He looked back into her eyes and smiled. Good God, she was his wife.
“Well,” his stepmother said, resuming her seat and drawing Jessica down beside her, “I will not declare that I cannot believe it. I can believe it all too well. It is just what I might have expected of Avery. We will just have to make the best of the situation. We must plan a grand wedding reception and explain away the hurried, almost clandestine nature of the wedding with a slight embellishment of the truth. Anna’s maternal grandparents are elderly and infirm. They wished to meet their long-lost granddaughter before they die, and Avery insisted that he marry Anastasia without delay and take her there. We were all in reluctant but total agreement. Everyone will be charmed. The new Duchess of Netherby will be the sensation of the hour again. We need to get busy.”
“Which, I feel constrained to inform you, you will not do here and now,” Avery said. “This is my wedding day, and I feel the urge to be alone with my bride. I see that Elizabeth has just alit from a hackney cab outside the door. I do not doubt she has come to collect her things so that she can return home with Riverdale and Cousin Althea. Edwin Goddard is already in possession of a written notice of our marriage and will see to it that it appears in tomorrow’s papers. I believe I speak for my duchess when I thank you all for your i
ntended efforts on our behalf and release you from the urge to do more.”
“That includes a wedding reception, Avery?” Aunt Mildred asked. “If I go with Tom tomorrow, I really will not wish to face the journey back here in a few weeks’ time. Besides, Peter and Ivan will be coming home from school too in the not too distant future.”
“That includes a wedding reception,” Avery said, and he noticed Anna closing her eyes briefly in relief.
They were all on their feet then, and all talking at once, it seemed. Everyone wanted to hug the bride and shake the groom by the hand. And then everyone wanted to hug everyone else, and something uproariously funny must have happened when Avery was not looking, for there was a great deal of boisterous laughter mingled with congratulations and good wishes and scolds and warnings. Cousin Elizabeth, poking her head about the door in the midst of it all, remarked with twinkling eyes that she could see the cat had been let out of the bag, for which loose use of language she was frowned upon by Cousin Matilda, though it was doubtful she noticed, and disappeared upstairs with her mother to fetch some of her things and leave instructions for the rest to follow her later.
And then everyone was gone, even the butler and Footman John, from the hall in which Avery and Anna stood side by side.
“Well, my duchess,” he said.
“Well, my duke.” She smiled at him—and blushed.
“Does your bedchamber door have a lock on it?” he asked her. “With a key?”
“Yes,” she said.
“And your dressing room door?”
She thought a moment. “Yes.”
“Show me the way,” he said, offering his arm. “Let us go and lock ourselves in.”
“It is only the middle of the afternoon,” she protested.
“And so it is,” he agreed. “There is plenty of time before dinner, then.”
* * *
It was full daylight. Moreover, it was a bright, sunny day, and her bedchamber faced south. Even after he had drawn the curtains across the window the sunlight was not much muted. There were the daytime sounds of birdsong and a dog barking in the distance and the clopping hooves of a single horse coming through the open window. A voice from far down the street called a cheerful greeting, and another voice answered.
Her bridegroom, her husband, stood before her. He was just looking, making no move to touch her or to kiss her. She wondered if she should step into the dressing room to change into a nightgown. But he had locked the door.
“I believe, my duchess,” he said, “you are perfection. But let me unwrap my gift package and see if I am right.”
As well as startling her, his words puzzled her. Perfection? She was not particularly pretty. She had no figure to speak of. She had refused to dress fashionably. She was neither vivacious nor the possessor of any other obvious charms. Her fortune was of no interest to him. Was it just that she was different from every other woman he had known? Was it just novelty? Would today’s toy be discarded for tomorrow’s when the novelty was gone?
He stepped closer, though not right against her, and reached his arms about her to unpin her dress down the back. His fingers were accustomed to the task, she realized. He did not even have to see what he was doing. When it was unpinned to her hips, he drew it off her shoulders, the backs of his fingers skimming her flesh—coolness against warmth. Her instinct was to raise her hands to hold the bodice in place, but she kept her arms at her sides, and he worked the sleeves downward, pulling eventually at the hems to draw them free of her wrists. He was in no hurry. But once her arms no longer held the dress in place, the whole garment slithered down over her shift and stockings to pool about her feet.
It was difficult to continue breathing evenly through her nose. And it took effort not to lower her eyes, even close them, so that she would not see him standing there, looking at her—not into her face but at her body and her remaining garments, his eyelids half drooped as they usually were, his eyes almost dreamy.
He went down on one knee to remove her slippers and then began to roll down her stockings one at a time and work them off her feet. He stood again and removed her stays and her shift until she was left with nothing behind which to hide her modesty. Not even any jewelry except her wedding ring. The sunlight made a mockery of the curtains and cast a pinkish glow over everything.
He gazed at her, every inch of her. His fingers had scarcely touched her while he undressed her, yet she was convinced that every brush of the backs of his fingers, every graze from a thumb, every rub of a knuckle had been deliberate. She felt touched all over. He was still dressed in the immaculate more-formal-than-usual clothes he had worn for their wedding, even down to the Hessian boots.
“I was quite right.” His eyes were keen now and looking into hers. “You are perfection, my Anna.”
Even his words were deliberate. My duchess. My Anna. Let me unwrap my gift package. Claiming her as his own. You are perfection. Only the very best would do, his words implied. She was not in the habit of deprecating herself, but . . . perfection? And it was of her body he spoke. She did not believe he was much interested in her character at the moment.
“I have the figure of a boy,” she said.
Characteristically, he considered her words before answering. “You cannot have seen many boys,” he said. “You are woman, Anna, from the topmost hair on your head to your toenails.”
Her stomach lurched. Woman, he had said—not a woman. Somehow there was a difference.
He touched her then, with his fingertips, with the flats of his fingers, the backs of his fingers, the heels of his palms, his knuckles, his whole hand. Light, feathering touches. Over her shoulders and down her arms, over the backs of her hands. Downward from her shoulders, through the cleft between her breasts, around beneath them, over, through again, down her sides to her waist, over her hips to the tops of her legs. Up behind her, along her spine, around her shoulder blades. Caressing her, learning her, claiming her. Downward with just one hand this time over one breast, past her ribs, over the flat of her stomach and down until the back of his hand rested lightly on the mound of hair at the apex of her thighs.
She wondered if he knew what even such light touches were doing to her and thought that yes, of course he did. Of course he did. She suspected he knew everything there was to know about . . . What was the word? Dalliance? Making love? She could almost hear her heartbeat. She could certainly feel it. There was a strange ache and a heavy throbbing within, just behind where his hand was. It was harder to breathe evenly without panting. She wondered if she should be doing something. But no. He was orchestrating this, and somehow he had issued the unspoken command that she stand still and relax.
He was dangerous, dangerous, dangerous, she thought, this small, slight, golden man.
Her husband.
His eyes had moved above the level of her own and he took his hands off her. “Tell me, Anna,” he said, “was it Bertha’s idea to put such great stress upon the roots of your hair this afternoon, or was it yours? And do not slander your maid. I have fond memories of my one encounter with her.” His eyes were on hers again.
“I . . . almost panicked when I retired to my dressing room after luncheon,” she admitted. “I thought—what have I done? I wanted to hide. I wanted myself back. I—”
“Have you lost yourself, then?” he asked, his voice very soft. “Have you given yourself away, Anna? To some savage, heartless brute? You wound me.”
“I wanted to be Anna Snow again,” she said.
“Did you?” he said. “Do you, my duchess?”
“Avery,” she said, “I am very frightened.” Ah. She had not known she was going to say that. And it was not quite true. Frightened was entirely the wrong word.
“But you are in good hands,” he said, raising them to begin withdrawing her hairpins.
“Oh,” she said crossly, “that is precisely the point.�
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He drew the pins out slowly, bent to place them inside one of her slippers, and straightened up again to run his fingers through her hair and arrange it over her shoulders, some in front, some behind. It reached now only to the tops of her breasts. It waved slightly at the ends.
“But they are good hands,” he said, holding them up in the space between them, palms toward her. Slim hands, slender fingers, gold rings on four of them. Three of those fingertips had felled a man and left him gasping for survival. “They will protect you all the rest of my life and never hurt you. They will hold you and bring you comfort when you need it. They will hold our children. They will caress you and bring you pleasure. Come. Lie down on the bed.”
Our children . . .
He drew the covers back to the foot of the bed and she lay down and looked up at him. His hair glowed golden in the pinkish light of the room. His eyes roamed over her as he loosened his neckcloth and discarded it. He took his time undressing. It took him a while in particular to remove his formfitting coat and his boots, but he was in no hurry. Anna watched. She had seen his near-naked beauty this morning but from some distance. She saw now when he pulled his shirt off over his head that the muscles of his arms and chest and abdomen were taut and well honed even though they did not bulge. But he was not a man who relied upon brute strength, was he?
“Oh,” she said as he dropped the shirt, “your bruise.”
She had not realized that any of Viscount Uxbury’s punches had found its mark. It was below his right shoulder, where it met the arm, a bruise that looked red and raw and had not yet turned black or purple or all the colors of the rainbow. He looked down at it.
“A mere nothing,” he said. “I ran into a door.”
“Oh, that is such a cliché,” she said. “I expected better of you.”
There was a gleam of something like amusement in his eyes. “The worst thing anyone can say of me, Anna,” he said, “is that I lack originality. You cut me to the quick. However, you are quite right. Let me be more specific. A door ran into me.”
