Fortunately, however unexpected and unwelcome this meeting was, it didn’t come as quite the shock as their first. Perhaps it wouldn’t go as poorly either.
Chin up, shoulders back, eyes straight ahead.
She managed a credible curtsy and when she spoke, her voice remained calm and steady. “Lord Dane, a pleasure to see you again. I—”
“Is it? A pleasure?”
The question, odd in and of itself, had a mocking quality to it, lending it the feel of an opening salvo.
Good heavens, he truly was angry.
Baffled, and a little irritated that he should feel he had the right to anger, she said the first thing that came to mind. “Well, no. Not entirely.”
He smiled, an almost disdainful curve of the lips that held little humor. “Still honest, I see.”
This was why it was so important for a person to think before speaking. And why it was sometimes better for a person to not speak at all. Particularly when that person had inadequate practice.
“I only meant that the circumstances are somewhat awkward,” she tried.
“Awkward,” he repeated slowly, as if tasting the word. “That is one way of putting it.”
This wasn’t going well at all. Between his cold manner and her missteps, the experience was growing painful. Better to end it before it became worse. They could try again tomorrow, if need be. Or never, if the good lord had any mercy to spare for her and sent Max packing back to London or his own estate sometime during the night.
She hesitated, uncertain if she should retreat back to her room or push onward to the library.
Onward, she decided, and stepped forward. He might make her uncomfortable, but he’d not embarrass her into retreat.
I’ve done nothing wrong.
“If you will excuse me, Lord Dane, I was just on my way to—”
He stepped into her path and gestured at the open door of a nearby room. “I’d like a word, please, Miss Rees.”
She glanced inside. “In a billiards room?”
“Unless you’d prefer to have this conversation in front of any passing staff?”
She didn’t want to have a conversation at all—unless it was likely to end in his confession of unbearable remorse at having tossed her aside four years ago—but he was right, there were things that might be said that were best said in private.
“Very well,” she agreed and stepped past him into the room.
He didn’t offer her a seat once inside, and she wasn’t inclined to take one. Instead, she watched him cross his arms over his chest and lean a hip against one of the two tables occupying the room.
“I’d never thought to see you outside of London,” he said at length.
You never thought to see me at all.
“It has been quite an experience thus far,” she replied, keeping her tone light. One of them needed to put an effort into making things easy between them.
“You came without your mother.”
“She was unable to make the journey.” Primarily because her mother not been informed of said journey, but now was not the time to mention it.
“I heard of her injury. Was it wise to leave her side at such a time?”
“The injury was not terribly serious,” she assured him and silently congratulated herself for not allowing any hint of annoyance or defensiveness to enter her voice. “And she is recovering with all due speed.”
“Nevertheless, your abandonment of her now might appear to some to be…a trifle cold.”
She thought his comment, and the tone in which it was delivered, to be a trifle cold, but he continued on before she could respond.
“Strange business, this sudden connection of yours to the Haverstons.”
“Not so very strange,” she countered, growing increasingly impatient. “Illegitimate children are born every day. Presumably there has been but one immaculate conception.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt your secular origins, Miss Rees,” he drawled. “I’ve met your mother, you’ll recall.”
Not a hint of emotion was allowed to touch her face. Why not just call the woman a whore and be done with it, she thought. He wasn’t wrong, exactly, but that wasn’t the point. “Is this why you wished to leave the hall, so you might impugn my mother’s character in private?”
“Not at all. You’ll also recall that I quite liked your mother.” He offered a negligent lift of the shoulder. “I’m merely making conversation.”
They weren’t having a conversation. She wasn’t certain what they were having—a thinly veiled battle, perhaps—but it wasn’t a conversation.
If he wished to pretend otherwise, however, she could play along. But she’d be damned if she continued to go on as the defendant. “And what of you, my lord? What could possibly have drawn you from the bosom of your gambling hells and iniquitous dens?”
“London’s dens of iniquity have done without my visitations for some time now. Which you might have heard if you’d left your sanctuary more often.”
“You’ve given up the life of debauchery?” She didn’t believe it for an instant.
“You misunderstand. Debauchery, when I care for it—and I generally do—now comes to me.”
“You’ve become a depraved recluse. How delightful.”
He acknowledged the barb with the lift of an eyebrow. “Still just as tart, as well, I see.”
“There is something to be said for living up to expectations,” she replied and, because she couldn’t curl her fingers into her palms without him noticing, curled her toes inside her shoes instead.
“I wouldn’t know.” His gaze turned shrewd. “And what of your expectations? What is it you really want from Lucien?”
Had he not been told of the thousand pounds? Anna wondered. For two people reputed to be the closest of friends, there seemed to be a great many secrets between Engsly and Max. But maybe that was the way of it between gentlemen. She would have to ask Mrs. Culpepper.
“It is none of your concern.” If Engsly wished to keep secrets from Max, it was none of her concern. “It is between Lord Engsly—”
Max leaned forward just a hair. “On the contrary, Miss Rees, the Haverstons, and anything that threatens them, are very much my concern. The thousand pounds you’re demanding from them concerns me a great deal.”
She shook her head, baffled and not a little frustrated. “If you knew of the thousand pounds, why did you just ask—?”
“That can’t possibly be all you want.”
She wasn’t sure what all she wanted; she’d not hoped for or made plans around anything but the thousand pounds.
“But it is what’s bothering you now,” she countered and decided she was tired of dancing around the subject of his peculiar behavior. “Why is that?” she asked softly. “Why are you so angered by my presence here?”
He shook his head dismissively. “I’m not angry so much as I am, as I believe I mentioned, highly, highly suspicious.”
“Well.” She took a moment to consider the circumstances, imagined herself in his place, and came to the conclusion that his suspicion was both understandable and unlikely to be assuaged by anything she could say or do at present. “I suppose I would be as well.”
Feeling at a loss, and inexplicably disappointed, she turned to leave. She would find her book in the library and return to her room, where she would stay until Lord Gideon arrived, or Max left, whichever came last.
“That’s it?” Max called to her back, his voice an incongruent mix of annoyance and amusement.
She turned around, taking a deep breath for both patience and to steady frayed nerves. For pity’s sake, what did he expect from her? “My apologies, I thought we were through.”
“We’ve not resolved anything.”
Resolution wasn’t possible. How could he not see that? “Is there something I could say that would immediately put your suspicions to rest?”
“Immediately? No, but—”
“Then I see no point in pursuing this conversation any fu
rther. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I am weary and wish to retire to my chambers.”
“It’s half past five.”
That was all? It felt half past next week. “I am unaccustomed to travel.”
“You’re unaccustomed to having to explain your behavior.”
“If you like.”
“If I like. How very accommodating. What if I should like for you to leave Caldwell Manor and never return?” He stepped closer, giving her the distinct impression he was making an attempt at intimidation.
Anger and insult spurred her into stepping forward in return and giving him her iciest stare. “Then you are bound for disappointment. I have every right to be here.”
“That remains to be seen.”
“It doesn’t, in fact. I was invited by the marquess. That gives me the right. And you’ve no rational reason for suspecting my motives for accepting that invitation, nor my goals now that I’ve arrived.” She understood the instinctual desire to protect, but this went beyond the natural desire to defend a friend.
“I’ve no reason to trust you either,” he returned coldly. “I don’t even have reason to like you.”
Those words stung, even if the sentiment did not come as a surprise. “You liked my company well enough at Anover House,” she reminded him.
He lifted a shoulder. “I am what is referred to as an amiable drunk. After a few too many glasses, I like everyone.”
His accentuation of “everyone” was not lost on her. Nor was his meaning.
For titled men like Lord Dane, there were gentlemen and ladies of good breeding, and then there was everyone else. And that, Anna realized with a sinking heart, was likely at the heart of his belligerence toward her. It wasn’t just that she might be lying, but that she didn’t have the right to keep company with the Haverstons, regardless of whether she was telling the truth or not.
A woman like her was good enough to toy about with at Anover House, but she had no business pretending to be a lady at Caldwell Manor.
It was a similar argument to the one she’d presented to Lord Engsly not two hours earlier. But pointing out that there were those who held her in contempt, and it was therefore unwise for her to stay at Caldwell, was a far cry from being informed that she was, indeed, contemptible and therefore had no right to be at Caldwell.
Evidently, Max’s proclamation four years ago of having no care for honor had not been mere hyperbole.
“Well, then…” Angry, disgusted, and frustrated because both emotions were tainted with a hint of shame, she walked to a nearby sideboard and grabbed the largest, fullest decanter she saw. Resisting the urge to hurl it at his head, she carried it back and set it before him on the table. “If you must be sotted to withstand my presence here, then I suggest you have at it. I am not leaving.”
He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes ever so slightly, as if she were some vaguely interesting species of bug. “Is that a spark of temper I see, Ice Maiden?”
She waited a pointed beat before responding.
“If you like,” she replied, and with a regal lift on her chin, she spun on her heel and glided out of the room.
Devil take the library. She would keep herself occupied contemplating all the ways she could make Max Dane pay for his boorish behavior.
Between gleaning what little information he could about Miss Rees from the staff, and distracting Lucien from the worry of having a new sister, Max was too occupied for the remainder of the evening to spare much thought for his behavior in the billiards room. He remained quite confident in his handling of the situation…Until the rest of the house found its way to bed.
There was, Max mused as he sat in his chambers, something about the dark isolation of night that forced a man’s thoughts unhappily inward.
No doubt the phenomenon did much to contribute to the popularity of imbibing spirits as an evening pastime. He considered indulging in that pastime, but ultimately decided that the only thing worse than facing one’s possible failings while sitting alone in the dark was facing them while drinking alone in the dark.
And so he was regrettably sober when he began to reconsider his treatment of Anna. After much time spent scowling at the dark walnut of his door and copious amounts of pacing, Max arrived at the conclusion that he was not handling things as well as he might.
As well as he ought.
Because, really, he ought not be acting so much like a mad man.
It bothered him not one whit that he wasn’t comporting himself as a gentleman. It bothered him quite a bit, however, that he had failed to comport himself as a rational adult.
He thought he’d passed the age when emotion could unduly influence behavior. In fact, he could remember the last time he’d lost control to anger. At nine, he’d hurled a vase at Reginald’s head for an offense now long forgotten. It may have had something to do with a broken toy, or possibly over sweetmeats. At any rate, an offense had been committed and a vase had been hurled. Max’s punishment had been two lashes for the broken vase and ten lashings for endangering the heir apparent, whose head, incidentally—and much to Max’s immediate regret—had escaped breakage.
It wasn’t the first or last lashing he’d receive, but it had been the worst. One would think he’d not have forgotten the lesson.
Yet here he was, allowing resentment and suspicion to undermine control and common sense. All because of a rejection he’d received four years ago.
It was absurd, baffling, and not a little embarrassing.
Anna Rees was not the first woman to have declined his attentions. True, she was the only one to have seemingly encouraged those attentions for the sole purpose of spurning them, but even that didn’t explain his severe reaction to her.
He wasn’t sure he could explain it, except to say that everything was, and had been, different with Anna.
It had felt different when they’d been in the nursery, and not merely because he’d been drunk (which, in fact, had not been so very different), and it had felt different when he’d woken the next morning.
It had seemed bigger somehow, better, more significant.
The week following his brother’s death had been a morass of misery. Reginald had been a self-important brat of a boy and a pompous, selfish coward of a man. Max could say without guilt or shame that he’d neither liked nor respected his brother past the age of ten. But he had loved him. Just as Anna had intuitively known, he had loved him. The loss of Reginald, and the monstrous stupidity surrounding his death, had throbbed like an open wound.
Filling his mind with the lovely Miss Anna Rees had been a welcomed balm, a necessary distraction. He’d thought of her face, her soft voice and low laughter, that long dark braid, and the way her lips had moved against his. He’d lost himself in the memory of her.
He’d even made plans—long-term plans, which was most definitely different. He would buy Anna that hound, and the cottage if she still wanted it after seeing McMullin Hall. She’d need to choose between special license or elopement. There was no purpose in waiting for the banns to be read, and forgoing marriage altogether was not an option. Any children they might have would be legitimate. Any questions of fidelity would be…Well, there would be no questions, that was the point.
By the time his last, unavoidable responsibility had been filled, he was near to climbing the walls, wanting to see Anna again. His Anna, as he had come to think of her. And bugger the rules of mourning. He’d looked forward to visiting a woman before, but he’d never felt like such an excited schoolboy, not even when he’d been an excitable schoolboy.
He’d all but bloody run to Anover House.
And when she’d refused him, refused even to speak with him, it had wounded more than his pride. It had destroyed a dream. A ridiculous dream constructed out of grief and erected on the foundation of a drunken memory, but a dream nonetheless.
In the dark of his chambers, Max ran a hand down his face.
It had become obvious very quickly that he had built the encounter into more tha
n it was. He should have considered that he’d not just misinterpreted the situation but her intentions as well. Perhaps she’d not meant for things to progress as far as they had in the nursery and had simply regretted her impetuous behavior afterward.
She ought to have expressed her change of heart or disinterest in him in person rather than having him turned away at the door, but…it had been four years ago. They had been young and foolish…Younger and more foolish, at any rate. One might imagine they had altered for the better in the time since. He liked to think, the last twelve hours notwithstanding, he had. Perhaps she had as well.
It was possible that the wounded pride of four years ago, and a long-held sense of obligation to the Haverstons, who’d been more like brothers to him than friends, had made him a touch…imperious.
Or maybe Anna was a manipulative adventuress. Either way, he wasn’t helping himself, or Lucien, by conducting open warfare with the woman.
Which meant they would need to cry pax.
Which meant, Max realized with a long, long look at the brandy bottle, he would need to apologize.
Chapter 7
Anna rose as the first hints of sunlight peeked around the edges of her light blue drapes. Grabbing her wrap from the foot of the bed, she stayed seated on the mattress for several moments, blinking in the semidarkness.
It was a strange sensation indeed, waking up in an unfamiliar room. There was something a little bit eerie about it, and a great deal exciting. She’d not spent a night of her adult life outside of Anover House. Now here she was, miles from London in the guest chambers of a marquess.
She wanted to explore, both the feeling and her surroundings, and after only the briefest hesitation, she denounced her plan to remain isolated in her chambers as both impractical and unacceptable.
She had more pride than that. She wasn’t above removing herself from an unpleasant situation, mind you, but there was a difference between remaining above a fray and hiding from it. Max Dane would not intimidate her into hiding.
Anna slipped from the bed and set about dressing herself while her mind wrestled with how to deal with Max moving forward. As planned, she’d spent no small amount of time and energy the night before envisioning all manner of punishments for him. It hadn’t been as rewarding as she’d hoped, but it had been preferable to dwelling on the other, less easily managed emotions that boiled just below the anger.
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