Practically Wicked (Haverston Family Trilogy #3)

by Alissa Johnson

  “I am certain I shall be.” She wasn’t at all certain. But in that very moment, standing amongst the books while Lucien smiled at her, she believed in the possibility of happiness at Caldwell Manor, and that was enough.

  As Lucien bowed again and took his leave, Mrs. Culpepper came to stand beside Anna. “The marquess is leaving already? He’s quite skilled at that.”

  “At leaving?” Anna looked to her friend, confused. “Does that require a particular skill set?”

  “I should think our long overdue escape from Anover House should answer that for you, but what I meant was that he has a particular knack for knowing when it is best to be about, and when to give a body a bit of space. I think I may approve of him as well.”

  “He all but insisted we stay here.” If that wasn’t indicative of pressing company on someone, Anna didn’t know what was.

  “No one’s perfect, dear, and he’s not been hovering about you, has he?”

  “No,” Anna admitted.

  Mrs. Culpepper nodded and continued to stare at the door through which Engsly had exited. “He shows good sense,” she murmured.

  Anna could all but hear the wheels turning in her friend’s head. “What are you about?”

  “Hmm? Oh, nothing of consequence, I was merely contemplating the happy prospect of an early bed. This evening has quite exhausted me.”

  Anna didn’t believe it for a moment but arguing the matter would get her nowhere. When Mrs. Culpepper wished to remain silent on a subject, there was no convincing her otherwise.

  “Would you like me to accompany you?”

  “No, no. Stay here and enjoy yourself.” Mrs. Culpepper gave her a peck on the cheek. “But don’t wait too long to find your own bed, dear. This will still be here tomorrow. No reason to see it again through shadowed eyes. It’s most unattractive.”

  Anna looked about her and sighed. “I can promise nothing.”

  Chapter 10

  Max watched Anna wander from shelf to shelf in the library, her fingers occasionally reaching out to brush the spine of a book, her expression one of complete engrossment—which explained why she’d still not noticed his presence, a solid five minutes after his arrival.

  He’d walked in expecting to find Lucien, Anna, and Mrs. Culpepper. What he’d found was Anna, completely alone.

  A gentleman would have quietly slipped back out again.

  He’d made himself comfortable instead, leaning a shoulder against a bookshelf and folding his arms over his chest. And as he waited for her to notice him, he watched her.

  It was a rare thing to see another person in a completely unguarded moment. He’d wager it was rarer yet to see Anna Rees in such a moment. The woman was closed as a fortress. And yet here she was, exploring the Caldwell library in unabashed wonder and delight. She drew closer, not quite near enough to reach, but he caught a faint hint of her scent, or thought he did. And when she tilted her head to read the spine of a particular tome, he could see the candlelight bring out strands of dark copper in her hair.

  She laughed softly to herself. The sound, low and smooth, sent shivers along his skin, just as it had four years ago at Anover House, and just as it had that morning in the open fields.

  God, there was just something about the way the woman laughed. Made a man want to do all manner of things, most of them ill-advised, just to hear the sound again.

  “Oh, to have a library such as this,” she murmured, and he grinned. He liked knowing she was the sort of woman who laughed and murmured to herself.

  “Is that really what you want?” he asked softly.

  Anna started and spun around. And then, just like that, the Ice Maiden returned. Her expression became closed, her eyes shuttered. The transformation was so swift and so complete, it left Max wondering if she was fully aware of the change, or if it had become automatic to her. The latter possibility sat poorly with him for a multitude of reasons.

  “Lord Dane.” She smiled politely. “I’d not realized you were in here.”

  “Only just arrived,” he lied.

  “Oh.” Her gaze danced around him, not quite meeting his own. “I thought you’d retired for the evening.”

  He shook his head. “Needed to look in on a horse, is all. Didn’t you tell me once that your dream is to have a small cottage of your own?”

  “It is,” she said, a small furrow of confusion forming across her brow.

  “You couldn’t house even a fraction of a collection like this in a small cottage,” he pointed out.

  “I don’t plan on taking any part of this collection.”

  “I meant you can’t have a library.” And clearly at least part of her dream also included books. The joy he’d witnessed just now had not been an act.

  “Certainly, I can. Nothing like this, of course,” she conceded with a graceful wave of her hand at their surroundings, “but you’d be surprised how many books can be fit into a small room. Shelves can be built in to the most awkward of spaces. There’s not a blank space of wall in my chambers at Anover House.”

  He wasn’t ashamed to admit that he’d pictured Anna Rees in her chambers a time or two—or several dozen—directly after they’d met. The fantasies had been perfectly natural, highly diverting, and utterly devoid of book-covered walls. Mostly they’d involved Anna in her prim little night rail and wrap, and a bed of unlikely proportions. They’d been great fun, those fantasies.

  “Anover House has a respectable library,” he commented as she stepped closer to a bookshelf to inspect its contents. “Why create a separate one?”

  She glanced over her shoulder, appearing mildly amused by the question. “Have you been in the library at Anover House?”

  “Yes, many times.”

  “Allow me to rephrase,” she said dryly. “Have you been in the library at Anover House for the purpose of perusing the contents of its shelves?”

  He thought back. There had been a clandestine meeting with Mrs. Pratt on his second or third visit to Anover House. Then there’d been the evening when the card room had grown overcrowded and the overflow had taken up residence in the library. There had been a pleasant, if disappointingly innocent, interlude with Mrs. Stoddington, several instances of poking his head inside the room in search of someone or other, and finally that fateful side trip for the amber mystery drink the night he’d met Anna.

  “No,” he was able to say at last. “I don’t believe I have.”

  “Anover has a library of respectable size, but its selection is less than ideal.” She chose a book from the shelf before her. “Besides, what’s there belongs to my mother.”

  He watched the subtle movement of her eyes as she opened the cover and looked over the first page. “And the books in your chambers are yours?”

  “Yes, they were.”

  “Were?”

  “Hmm?” She looked up and blinked. “Oh, are. They are.” She gave him a sheepish smile. “I beg your pardon. I was distracted.”

  He stepped closer, took a quick peek at the book she was holding, and smirked. She wasn’t distracted, she was playing coy by pretending a divided attention. “It’s in Russian, Miss Rees.”

  To his surprise, she returned his smirk and patronizing tone in equal measure. “Ancient Greek, Lord Dane.”

  “I—”A second look told him the letters were, indeed, Greek and not Cyrillic. Clearly, he needed to spend more time in his own library. “So it is,” he conceded, amused by his misplaced smugness and her cheek. “I beg your pardon. You can read ancient Greek?”

  “Perfectly,” she replied. “Now there’s something else you know about me.”

  “There certainly is. How did you learn it?” Why had she learned it? It couldn’t have been done voluntarily. No one in their right mind studied ancient Greek voluntarily. It was an obligatory hell reserved solely for schoolboys and historians.

  “Books, of course. I learned all my languages from books.”

  All? “How many comprises all?”

  Her eyes narrowed and
looked to the ceiling, and he realized with astonishment that she was counting.

  “Eight,” she said after a moment. “Including English.”

  “Eight?” Good God, and he’d thought himself well educated knowing three.

  “Mrs. Culpepper says I have a talent for learning language.” Her lips curved in a self-depreciating smile. “Mostly, I’ve had time.”

  “Which languages?”

  “French, German, Italian, Russian, Latin, and Greek.”

  “That’s seven with English.”

  “Oh, ancient Greek and modern Greek.”

  “Impressive.” And, for some reason, decidedly alluring. He had the strangest urge to ask her to say something to him in French. To stifle it, he spoke in Italian.

  “Non tutti quelli che hanno lettere sono savi.”

  Anna’s forehead wrinkled in concentration. “Not all . . . letters . . . something.” She shook her head. “What does that mean?”

  “I thought you spoke Italian.”

  “I can read it without trouble, but I must speak it slowly.”

  Because she’d learned it from books, he realized. Eight languages, learned entirely through books. It was an astounding achievement. “It’s an old proverb. It means not everyone who is educated is wise, though that’s not a strict translation.” He smiled at her disgruntled expression. “Have you heard Italian spoken by someone else before?”

  “A passing phrase here and there. Along with what Mrs. Culpepper managed in my studies. She’s no more fluent than I.” She closed her book and looked at him hopefully. “Will you say something else?”

  “Vorrei poterti baciare,” he said without thinking.

  Anna bit her lip thoughtfully. “I . . . would like . . . something?”

  I wish I could kiss you.

  “Not quite,” he told her and counted himself damned lucky that she’d not recognized the words. He hadn’t meant to say them. “Can you speak any of the languages?” he asked, hoping to distract her.

  “Yes, French and, to a lesser degree, German. I was fortunate to have Mrs. Culpepper for a governess.” She stepped closer to him, eager. “Tell me what it meant.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “I don’t think I will as yet.”

  “Why not?”

  Because not everything a man is thinking ought to trip off his tongue. “I am mad with power.”

  “Suit yourself,” she replied and hugged her book to her chest. “I’ll not beg.”

  “Certain of that?”

  “Yes, quite.”

  He shook his head in playful disappointment. “Killjoy.”

  “So my mother has often accused.”

  That wasn’t what he wanted to hear. “If this new friendship is going to work, you’ll need to refrain from drawing comparisons between me and your mother.”

  Her lips twitched as she nodded. “Fair enough.”

  “Why didn’t she raise you elsewhere?” he asked, hoping to draw her completely away from the matter of Italian and kissing. “Forgive my bluntness, but if the two of you were not close, why did you remain in the house?”

  “Madame liked having a daughter about,” she explained with a small shrug. “Someone to put in diamond dresses and show off to her friends.”

  Like a living doll, he thought, disgusted. “And yet she had no reservations about sending you here for your inheritance?”

  There was a marked pause before she answered. “It is possible she did.”

  “She tried to stop you?”

  “No. I wasn’t being coy in saying it was possible, I meant it was possible but I’ve no way of knowing for certain. I didn’t speak with her before leaving.”

  “She doesn’t know you’re here? Did you sneak out of Anover House?”

  “Of course not. I’d never be so heartless . . . I left a note.”

  “A note?”

  “You may wish to temper your criticism of me. She was taking laudanum for her injury before I left. Holding a rational discussion on the matter was out of the question.”

  “And if it hadn’t been?”

  “I . . .” She pressed her lips together a beat before answering. “I would have snuck out and left the note. She is often unreasonable, even irrational.”

  He added this bit information with everything else he had learned of Mrs. Wrayburn in the past four-and-twenty hours. “Well, I am relieved I decided against paying her a visit today.”

  “You thought to go to London?”

  “No, I went to London,” he admitted, surprising himself. He’d no intention of telling her that, but he found he had no taste for continuing the lie about having gone into the village.

  “I see.” She tilted her head, her expression shrewd. “And did the contract meet with your approval or your expectations?”

  “Both, as pertains to you. The first as pertains to your mother. I assumed she gave you the contract,” he explained. “I suspected she might be lying to us all.”

  “Ah.” She nodded thoughtfully. “Well, your trip makes sense, then. I daresay, I’d do the same in your place. But, no. Mrs. Culpepper and I . . . er . . . discovered it.”

  “Discovered,” he repeated, amused. “I know what that means. You’re not angry that I went to London?”

  “When you said you were going to the village? No, not especially. Your reasons were sound. And you’ve told me now, haven’t you?”

  “I have.” And he hoped she was telling the truth about not being upset. There were too many misunderstandings between them already. “I should have told you my intentions this morning.”

  “Perhaps,” she allowed. “But our peace is new. We’re bound to have a misstep or two, and I like that you’ve erred first. You’re now obligated to forgive me when I make a mistake.”

  “Does Miss Anna Rees make mistakes?”

  “They say there is a first time for everything.”

  Her willingness to make jests erased any concerns he had that she might secretly be harboring a little resentment. “You’re truly not upset,” he said, a bit awed.

  “You were being protective of your friends,” she replied. “There is nothing wrong in that.”

  “I am sometimes overly protective of Lucien and Gideon,” he admitted.

  “And why might that be?”

  “Another time,” he evaded. He wasn’t opposed to telling her his history with the family, but he wasn’t interested in telling it tonight. He wanted to learn more about her. “So, you found paperwork you were not meant to find and you left home without permission or even advance notice. Am I right in guessing that this is an escape from your mother?”

  “Her world,” Anna clarified. “Anover House, the demimonde. It is an escape from all of it.”

  “A world is greater than one person and one place. The demimonde has more to offer than what goes on at Anover House.”

  She looked decidedly unconvinced. “I assure you, if the demimonde offers it, it goes on at Anover House.”

  He wondered if she was jesting, or if she was naïve enough to believe it. Anover House, while very much a den of considerable infamy, was by no means the destination of choice for either the most depraved individuals of the demimonde, or the most interesting. Present company excluded, naturally. “Would you say all of those of the ton are the same?”

  “I’d say near enough that I don’t want anything to do with them either.”

  “You’re stubborn in your views.”

  “Determined in my path,” she countered.

  It bothered him to hear it. The demimonde was his world of choice, the ton his world of birth. To know she was looking to be rid of both made him nervous, and a little defensive.

  On the other hand, it gave him greater insight into her determination to gain a thousand pounds from Lucien. She didn’t merely want the money or feel entitled to it. Having left the protection and support of her mother, she needed it to survive.

  “What role does your Mrs. Culpepper play in all this?” Did she encourage Anna�
��s bleak views on society? he wondered.

  “Oh . . . friend, travel companion—”

  “Coconspirator?”

  “That as well,” she admitted with a soft chuckle. “She was the architect of our plan, to be honest. I’d still be at Anover House, were it not for her.”

  “Then I owe her a debt of gratitude.”

  She didn’t blush as many women of his acquaintance might, but her eyes darted away a second before returning to his. It was a start, he told himself.

  But he wanted so much more. He wanted to kiss her.

  The Italian phrase hadn’t materialized out of nowhere. The desire was there. The urge to touch her had gnawed at him since he’d walked into the house and seen her walking down the stairs.

  It seemed right to do it now, while she was surrounded by flickering candlelight and the books she so clearly loved. They were alone and hidden, and he badly wanted to pull her close and feel the warmth of her through their clothes, her mouth move beneath his.

  But it wasn’t the right time. Trust wasn’t rebuilt in a day, and he’d be a fool to push things too far, too fast. Particularly as he wasn’t at all sure where he wanted things to go.

  Better for him to step away.

  Better . . . but not easier. His brain produced a half-dozen excuses for his prompt departure, but not the discipline to put a single one of them to immediate use.

  He stayed exactly where he was as a weighted silence stretched out between them.

  His eyes dropped to her mouth.

  Her gaze skittered away as her fingers played with the spine of her book. He imagined them sliding up the back of his neck to play with his hair.

  Clearly, she was aware of tension building between them. But she wasn’t running away. That was promising. Very, very promising.

  But it changed nothing. He was going to put an end to the tension. Immediately. He was going to walk away so she wouldn’t have to run. He was going to—

  In the end, he didn’t have to do anything. It was an upstairs maid, Abigail, who saved them both. After a polite knock on the open door and an equally polite apology for the interruption, the young woman crossed the room and handed Anna a small ring of keys.