It was ridiculous how she couldn’t walk from one end of a ballroom to another without being offered carte blanche from some gentleman or other, usually well in his cups, yet visiting a gentleman in a respectable part of town would cause uproar and, no doubt, lead to her receiving the cut direct.
But propriety at that moment wasn’t high on Anna’s list of concerns.
The carriage didn’t have far to go, a stone’s throw in fact, and it soon trundled to a stop.
The door had barely been opened before Anna bounded from the coach, her adrenaline spiking and causing her to march forward and stomp up the steps of Lucas’ home before her courage deserted her or common sense prevailed.
Anna knocked on the door and then, seconds later, hammered on it. Might as well go all the way, she thought rather hysterically.
After being left to cool her heels for longer than she would have liked, the heavy oak door was opened at last.
The footman looked her over contemptuously, then once again appreciatively, and Anna had to grit her teeth and clench her fists to stop herself giving him a good clip round the ears.
Clearly, he thought that a lone woman visiting a gentleman’s home at this hour was of the light skirt variety.
She was incensed enough. She didn’t need any help from this odious little creature.
“I want to see Captain Townsend immediately,” she demanded in her best Society voice.
It seemed to do the trick as the footman’s eyes widened then perused her once more, swallowing nervously as he took in the quality of her dress, the sparkle of her jewels.
Wisely, without another word, he stood back and opened the door.
Anna swept past him with her chin in the air, only to be faced with yet another obstacle, this time in the form of who she assumed was the butler.
“May I be of assistance, madam?” the butler asked.
Anna was momentarily distracted from her cause by the man standing in front of her. He was unlike any butler she’d ever seen before.
His accent, though perfectly nice, was not the cultured one she’d come to expect of butlers.
More unusual still, however, was the eye patch and pronounced limp.
He rather looked like a pirate.
“I, uh, I am here to see the captain,” Anna said, slightly wrong-footed by the man’s odd appearance.
“I’m afraid that the captain is working in his study, madam, and is not to be disturbed.”
“Well, that’s just too bad, isn’t it?” Anna countered, and before the man could do or say another thing, she swept past him and darted for the stairs.
“Madam, please,” the butler cried, hobbling after her.
“Do not trouble yourself,” Anna called over her shoulder. “I shall find the study well enough.”
Her behaviour, she knew, was outrageous. Ladies of quality simply didn’t force entry to people’s houses and then dash about them.
But the confrontation with Lucas tonight had lit a fire within Anna, and after years of despondency and meek acceptance of her fate, she was going to have it out with the man once and for all.
Anna reached the first floor landing and came to a screeching halt.
His house was huge.
But so was hers, so its size didn’t impress, nor did the beautiful décor and classical furniture.
Another time, on another day, she’d have enjoyed taking a leisurely stroll through the property and admiring the paintings and sculptures on display.
Tonight, though, she hadn’t time for such nonsense.
As Anna stood, her gaze darting this way and that, trying to figure out where Lucas was skulking, a door opened on her right, and the man himself appeared.
“What is the damned racket about? Ridley, I—”
Lucas came to an abrupt halt, and she watched as his eyes widened and his jaw set.
He was obviously not happy to see her.
CHAPTER SIX
GOOD LORD, HE’S handsome, Anna’s brain shouted. The hussy. Why should she care how handsome he was?
She planted her hands on her hips, all the better to continue the appearance of fury, even as she became ridiculously distracted with his state of dishabille. He probably came out like that on purpose. The swine.
An irritatingly logical part of her brain knew that he couldn’t have possibly known she would come storming in here, and therefore, he had hardly dressed or undressed himself in order to distract her. But she had no time for such reasonable thoughts right now.
“Mrs. Grant.” Lucas nodded as though they were meeting at a ball or soirée.
“Do not ‘Mrs. Grant’ me, Lucas Townsend,” Anna bit, marching forward so she stood mere inches from him.
He smelt divine… smoky and spicy and him. The cad. He’d obviously doused himself in something irresistible, too, to throw her off.
“Anna, why are you here? Is something wrong? Is it Gabby?”
Lucas grasped her by shoulders as he spoke, his deep blue eyes boring into her own.
She tried desperately not to be distracted by the heat of his skin, which she could feel even through her clothing.
She couldn’t allow herself to be even remotely attracted to him. Especially not now when his concern for Gabrielle was so palpable. It was etched on his face, in the frown of concern stamped on his features.
Anna’s stomach lurched as a lance of jealousy shot through her.
She had known, of course, that Lucas and Gabby had been close. In fact, Lucas had saved Gabby’s life in Paris.
But to hear the concern in his voice, to see it in his expression, all for another woman — another beautiful, witty, incredibly brave, and interesting woman. Well, it stung.
“My sister-in-law is just fine, Lucas, and preparing to leave for Ireland with her husband.”
Anna assumed, by Lucas’ raised brow that her emphasis on the word husband had found its mark.
“Then I can’t imagine what brought you here, alone, in the middle of the night.”
Anna’s anger had dissipated somewhat in the face of her sudden jealousy, but at his lecturing tone, it flared again, hotter than before.
“Do not presume to lecture me, Lucas Townsend. You know why I came. And if you don’t, you are even stupider than I imagined.”
She watched in a sort of frazzled fascination as his eyes widened at her words then immediately narrowed in what she presumed was anger.
“You have made no secret of the fact that you find my intelligence lacking. However, for you to hunt me down in the middle of the night to hammer the point home seems rather unnecessary.”
“What is your damned problem!?” Anna exploded.
Lucas arched a brow, his expression one of utter disdain, and Anna had to clench her fist to keep from smacking him. The odious creature.
“I hardly think screeching like a fishwife in my hallway is becoming of you, Anna. Should we go into my study, away from listening ears and chattering mouths?”
“I’m not afraid of your servants hearing me, Lucas. I am in the right,” she shot back.
Lucas rolled his eyes heavenward and muttered something incoherent under his breath; she couldn’t quite make it out, but she was quite sure she heard the words ‘insane’ and ‘female,’ which did nothing for her mood.
Without issuing another invitation, Lucas reached out, grasped her arm in a firm but gentle grip, and bodily marched her through the door he’d exited when she’d first arrived.
Anna found herself dumped rather unceremoniously in the middle of a large study while Lucas turned and shut the door with a decisive click.
That click caused her heart to hammer faster than it should have.
Finding herself alone with Lucas after all these years made her feel things that she most definitely should not be feeling.
The man despised her, for heaven’s sake. And she despised him. Her brain knew that. Her heart needed to catch up.
“What exactly is your problem?” Lucas threw her earlier questio
n back when he finally turned to face her.
Anna felt her eyes widen in astonishment. How could he even ask that?
What did he think her bloody problem was? He was treating her as though she were something he’d trodden on in the street. And it was going to stop. Tonight.
She was heartily sick of it. Sick of him. Sick of her whole damned life.
“Lucas, for reasons known only by you, you have decided to treat me, really, quite terribly. I should think that after what happened between us all those years ago, you would be — well, frankly, a lot nicer to me.”
His mouth actually dropped open at her words, before he slammed it shut into a grim line.
Without answering her, he stomped over to a huge oak desk that held an untidy pile of papers and a decanter of what she assumed was brandy.
Anna stood tapping her foot impatiently while he poured himself a glassful of the amber liquid and tossed it back — without offering her anything either, she noted.
She couldn’t stand the stuff, but that wasn’t the point. And really, she could have done with some at that moment in time.
“No, thank you, Lucas. I don’t need anything to drink,” she said to his large, distractingly muscular back, her voice dripping with false sweetness.
At her words, he muffled an oath that should have offended her but, well, she had lived with Jonathan. And that man could swear in eight languages.
Turning back to face her, Lucas’ face was a picture of repressed fury.
He had never frightened her. He didn’t frighten her now. But she felt a sudden pity for any man who crossed him. He’d never hurt a woman, she knew. At least not physically. Emotionally was an entirely different affair. But she’d heard tales of more than one brawl he’d been involved in during his career on the sea and in the ports he visited, and knew he was considered a force to be reckoned with.
She’d heard other tales, too, about the ports and the ladies who frequented them, but she’d chosen a long time ago to furiously ignore such stories.
“Your audacity has rendered me quite speechless, Mrs. Grant,” Lucas said now, his voice a study in cold anger. “You would mention our past and then tell me you expect me to be nicer?”
The man was crack-headed. It was the only explanation. How could be so unfailingly kind to everyone yet have treated her so abominably and, worse still, continue to do so now?
Hating her vulnerability but unable to hold back, Anna stepped closer, her anger turning to hurt.
“I thought you had cared about me then. Does none of that remain? Not even enough for you to be civil?”
Anna watched a riot of emotions play across Lucas’ face before, mere seconds later, he managed to look implacably unmoved.
“The past is the past, Anna. I cared for you then. And I was wrong to. We came from different worlds. We never would have been happy together.”
Anna couldn’t supress a gasp as pain lanced through her at his words.
Even now, after all this time, it hurt like the devil.
“But there was a right way to go about separating. Cowardly actions did neither of us any good.”
The biting tone of his voice indicated his continued anger, yet his words were probably as close to an apology as she would ever receive from him, given the proud, disagreeable person he’d become.
And that anger was clearly directed toward himself for his own cowardly actions that had led him to leave her standing heartbroken besides that blasted tree all those years ago.
“But your own behaviour hasn’t exactly made you a paragon of civility,” he continued now, riling her up all over again. “So I hardly think you are in a position to judge me for it.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You started it,” she spat through gritted teeth, perfectly aware of how childish she sounded.
Lucas’ answering sigh and look of exasperation showed that he thought the same thing.
But she didn’t care what he thought.
She didn’t!
“I’m leaving in a few days, Mrs. Grant. Does it really matter what I have said or done this evening? I’m off to pastures new, pastures far less dreary and judgemental than the streets of London. And you will likely never have to see me again.”
His words should have caused her to feel relief. But all she felt was an almost overwhelming despondency.
She didn’t want him to leave forever. Even when he was unpardonably rude, he was still there. And though it was rather pathetic, her heart would love the insufferable man no matter what he did.
“People will still be judgemental gossips, Lucas,” she said tartly to cover her sudden bleakness. “As long as there is something to talk about, people will talk. ‘Tis the nature of humans. And I am sure that it will be the same in the West Indies as it is here. So if you’re going to use this as some sort of escape from everyone, you’ll be sorely disappointed.”
“There’s only one person I need to escape from, Anna,” he said quietly, stopping her heart dead in her chest. “I’ve been trying to escape for years. The problem with the British Navy is that it always brings you back to Britain. At least now when I leave, I can stay away forever, should I so choose.”
“Even so,” she countered stubbornly, refusing to react to his hurtful words, “you will not escape censure and judgement. Where there is Society of any kind, there are on dits and vultures waiting to tear you apart with them.”
She sounded bitter. She could hear it in her own voice. But it was because of the stupid ton and all its rules that her relationship with Lucas had always been shrouded in secrecy.
Perhaps if they’d been able to be open about it, he wouldn’t have stopped loving her.
Lucas was laughing at her words, though the sound was less than humorous.
“On the contrary, you have no idea what freedoms I will enjoy, Anna,” he smirked, and she was so pleased that he’d slipped into calling her by her name again she allowed her anger and hurt to dissipate a little.
“I’m sure I don’t want to.” She sniffed piously, earning that heart-stopping grin of his.
“Get your mind from the gutter, woman,” he retorted. “I meant that the reach of the ton, though formidable, hasn’t quite reached the West Indies. Marrying outside your class, even having the gall to have money without a lofty name to go with it, aren’t the hangable offences there that they are here.”
“And women enjoy freedom there, too, do they? To choose whom they should marry? To choose to remain alone yet still have the respect of her peers?”
Anna very much doubted it.
“More so than here, in any case.”
Anna snorted in a most unladylike manner. “That’s hardly impressive, Lucas. Nowhere is as bad as here.”
Her maudlin tone brought an abrupt end to the tentative truce between them, or at least an end to the easy, teasing chatter that they used to fall into so easily.
She missed it.
She missed him.
“There are far worse things than being a wealthy, respected widow in London, Anna,” he said gently. His tone was no longer sardonic but almost pitying, and that was worse.
“I’m sure there are. But being the widow of a heartless bastard who took his own life, whom everyone despised, childless and smothered by her family? Well, I do not mean to sound ungrateful for my lot in life, but that is rather difficult to feel good about.”
Neither of them had moved from their spot facing each other for quite some time.
But Lucas moved now.
He turned suddenly and went to refill his glass.
Without a word, he picked up another tumbler and poured a generous amount of brandy into it before silently holding it out to her.
She really did hate the stuff.
But in that moment, she grabbed the glass and tossed the contents down her throat.
The fiery liquid burned a trail down her throat, and she coughed and spluttered.
“What is that?” she gasped.
“Whiskey,” he answe
red before drinking the contents of his own glass. “What did you think it was?”
“Brandy,” she gasped.
It didn’t taste any worse than brandy. Just different. And equally horrid.
“I fought in the war, Anna. I don’t drink French brandy.”
The smile playing around his mouth told her he was teasing.
An answering smile tugged at her own lips.
And suddenly, the atmosphere changed.
That special something that had always existed between them reared its head, tentatively, as though afraid of its welcome. But it was there, and her body welcomed it, even if her brain railed against her folly.
“Lucas, I—” she whispered, not even knowing what she wanted to say to him.
Her words, rather than compel him to come to her, drag her into his arms and kiss her like he used to, had the opposite effect and seemed to break the spell between them.
“It’s late, Anna. You should go.”
As dismissals went, it was polite but to the point.
He didn’t want her.
And she’d come here furious with him. She had to remember that. She didn’t want him either.
Without another word, she turned on her heel and made to leave the room.
“Wait.”
His soft word stopped her, and she swung back around, hope burning in her chest.
“I apologise, for my ungentlemanly conduct,” Lucas said stiffly.
How little it meant to her.
“Thank you,” she replied, equally stiffly. “Enjoy your life in the West Indies. I envy you your freedom.”
She turned and left the room with a decisive click as she pulled the door shut. On the study. On their past. On him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“ENJOY YOUR FREEDOM,” she’d said.
Lucas would have laughed if he wasn’t so damned miserable.
He’d never be free of her.
God, she infuriated him.
Coming here, railing against him then breaking his heart with talk of her desolate life.
She chose that life. She wanted that life. It was her fault.
He forced himself to harden his heart. Forced himself to focus on her sneer of derision, rather than her smile of amusement. Her cold disdain, rather than her wicked sense of humour.
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