Practically Wicked

by Alissa Johnson

  “I thought it might come to this. Very well, if it is proof you require…” Madame trailed off dramatically and limped over to the bed to retrieve a stack of letters from a small leather satchel. She handed them to Anna with a smirk. “…Here it is then. All the proof you, or the Haverstons, could ask for. Letters between the marquess and myself in which we discuss, and agree upon, the terms of the settlement.”

  Anna snatched the letters out of her mother’s hands and opened one at random. To her shock, she discovered that it had been sent from Madame to the late marquess. “How on earth did you acquire these?”

  “The previous Lady Engsly was happy to sell them back to me for a nominal fee,” Madame explained with an indifferent lift of her shoulder. “My affair with the marquess was over long before their marriage, and she was in considerable debt. An opium eater, that one. Now…” She took the letters back, stuffed them back in the satchel, and handed the bag to Anna. “You have the night to explain things to the marquess. I want to leave for London by morning. Wear something decent. I can’t be seen traipsing about the countryside with my daughter in rags.”

  Anna shook her head, baffled, horrified, and disgusted. “You gave me this gown.”

  “Not for you to wear in public. Some things aren’t meant for the public. You don’t see me traipsing about in my nightclothes, do you?”

  Nightclothes? There was no response to that, only the growing worry that, perhaps, in her success at keeping her distance from Madame at Anover House, Anna had missed the indications that her mother was growing a little mad.

  She stepped backward, toward the door. Her mother had always been odd, and more than a little mean. But this, all of this, was beyond the pale. “I’m leaving, now.”

  “Yes, of course. I said you could.”

  Anna stopped when she felt the wood of the door against her back. With the satchel gripped in her hand, she spun around and let herself out as fast as she could. The last thing she heard before closing the door behind her was her mother’s voice.

  “I expect to have those letters back, Anna. I expect you to bring everything back.”

  Chapter 21

  Max knew something was wrong the moment Anna walked into the library. She wasn’t hiding and fidgeting as she’d been on the day the Haverstons had arrived, nor sad about the eyes as she’d been when Mrs. Culpepper left. She was stiff as a pole, and paler than he’d ever seen her.

  A sick fear lanced straight through his belly. He reached her in three long strides and took her by the hands. “Something’s happened. What is it?” His eyes raked over her form. “Are you ill? Hurt—?”

  She shook her head stiffly. “No. It’s my mother. She’s in Codridgeton.”

  “Your mother,” he repeated and gave the fear a moment to abate. This wasn’t welcome news, but it was a far cry better than a few of the alternatives that had flashed through his mind. “You’ve had word from her?”

  “I’ve spoken with her.”

  “You went to see her? In Codridgeton? Alone?” He swore ripely when she nodded. “Tell me you had more sense than to walk there.”

  “I borrowed one of the carriages. It wasn’t the best, and I’d have asked first, but…I didn’t want to tell anyone where I was going. Besides, Lucien is out with Lilly doing”—she withdrew one of her hands to waggle it in the general direction of the outdoors—“whatever it is a marquess and marchioness do. Settling a dispute, or collecting rent, or I don’t know.”

  “They’re at a neighbor’s. Sweetheart, there was nothing wrong in taking the carriage. You needn’t have asked, except that you shouldn’t have gone alone.”

  “I shouldn’t have left her that blasted note, that’s what I should not have done,” she muttered. “And I shouldn’t have taken Madame’s carriage. We should have taken a mail coach. She’d not have been able to come after me so quickly.”

  “Why has she come? Not to wish you well in person, I presume?”

  “No.” Anna worried her bottom lip, clearly wanting, and not wanting, to tell him more.

  He rubbed the pad of his thumb gently along her knuckles. “What is it, Anna?”

  She looked at him, her fae gray eyes searching his face. “Can I trust you with a secret?”

  You can trust me with anything. The words nearly tripped off his tongue. It was a neat and easy promise, and one he badly wanted to make, in part because he was so desperate to make her happy, and in part because he wanted it to be true.

  But then he thought of Beatrice, standing battered on his front door step, and he was reminded that he was capable of failing those most important to him.

  And so, in the end, what he said was, “Yes.”

  Because he could. If nothing else, he knew he could be trusted with a secret.

  Fortunately, it was all Anna seemed to require.

  “Madame…Madame says the Engsly estate owes me nothing.” She shook her head. “Nothing. She gave me these.” Her free hand shook as she reached into the leather satchel she had over her shoulder and withdrew a handful of letters. “They’re letters from mother to the late marquess. The marquess’s second wife sold them back to my mother. She says the proof is in here.”

  “All right,” he said carefully and gently took the letters from her. There was a new catch in her voice that made him distinctly uneasy. “We can look through them together if you like.”

  “She’d not have given them to me if she’d lied about the contents.” She stared at the letters with eyes that were beginning to shine. “My father settled with my mother. I came here under false pretenses and now—”

  “No. You came here with information you believed to be accurate in every way. There is a considerable difference.”

  “Not considerable enough. Once Lucien hears of the truth, he’ll…” She opened her mouth, closed it.

  “He’ll what?” Max pressed.

  “I don’t know. I don’t know how he’ll react.”

  “Clearly you believe he’ll act poorly, else you’d not be so worried. You should learn to have a little faith in your brother.”

  Her brow lowered in annoyance. “That’s ridiculous. How does one learn faith? That’s a contradiction of—”

  “Have some faith in Lucien,” he amended. Good Lord, the woman did grow argumentative when she was upset.

  “I do,” she returned, but the strength of her conviction was diminished by a sheepish wince. “Truly, I do. Just…not as pertains to this. He’ll have every right to be angry. I should have taken better care.”

  Max considered his response carefully. Anna was as tenacious in her misconceptions and worrying as she was in everything else. If she thought the discovery of a journal, a pile of letters, and a signed contract constituted having not taken enough care, it was unlikely she was in the mood to be convinced otherwise.

  Clearly, a new approach was needed.

  “Then don’t tell him.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “If it troubles you so, keep the information to yourself.”

  She looked horrified by the mere suggestion. “I couldn’t possibly.”

  “Why not? It’s your word against your mother’s, isn’t it? It was shortsighted of her to have handed you the only proof—”

  “I am certain she didn’t. She would have kept at least one letter mentioning the settlement, which is neither here nor there.” She withdrew her hand from his. “I can’t lie to Lucien.”

  “Certainly, you can. I do it all the time.” He’d left out pertinent details recently regarding his past with Anna, which was hardly the same as lying all the time, but for the sake of argument, he was willing to lie a little bit right now.

  “All the…? He is your dearest friend. Does honesty mean nothing—?”

  “I value the truth,” he cut in. There was a limit to how far he was willing to take the role of devil’s advocate.

  “But you would toss it away so easily.”

  “No, I would be judicial in its application.” And that
was the truth.

  “Semantics.”

  “Common sense. Everyone lies now and again. Everyone—” he stressed when she opened her mouth to argue. “You’d not insult a friend by pronouncing her new gown unappealing, would you?”

  “Mrs. Culpepper doesn’t have ugly gowns. She has exquisite taste.”

  Her literal interpretation threw him less than the reminder that Mrs. Culpepper had been her only friend.

  “You understand my meaning,” he said quietly.

  “I do,” she admitted with obvious reluctance. “But this is not the same. I’d not be lying to Lucien to spare his feelings, but my own. And I’d be cheating him out of a thousand pounds.”

  “He didn’t invite you here for the thousand pounds, Anna.”

  “That would only make my stealing it that much worse,” she muttered miserably. “Damn the woman.”

  He couldn’t agree more, but he had the impression Anna needed more than easy agreement at present. “For telling you the truth?”

  “For telling the truth now, of all times. She’s always lied, why…Heavens, she could be lying now, couldn’t she? I don’t know why I didn’t think of it earlier.” She turned to him. “Those letters could be forged, couldn’t they?”

  “They could,” he agreed. “Anything can be forged, but I can’t imagine why she’d bother.”

  “For the same reason she bothered to come all the way here to deliver them. To make certain she gets back what’s hers.”

  “I don’t follow—”

  “She wants me to return to Anover House,” she explained. “My mother collects things for herself and only for herself. I think…I think she’s come to retrieve a part of her collection.”

  “She doesn’t own you.”

  “I know that. But as far as Madame is concerned, I belong to her as surely as the horses in her stables. And mother doesn’t share.”

  He tried to wrap his head around the idea of that. The notion of ownership within a family was not uncommon, particularly when it came to men and their wives. Though they weren’t married, he could admit to feeling quite proprietary toward Anna and could admit, privately, he wouldn’t mind if she returned the sentiment. But this was clearly different, clearly uglier, and he couldn’t quite find the sense of it.

  “She shared you with Mrs. Culpepper.”

  Anna shook her head. “Madame paid Mrs. Culpepper to care for me. In her eyes, a governess could no more own the child she rears than a maid could own the silver she polishes. But a father, brothers, sister-in-laws…These are real threats.”

  “That sort of rationale baffles me.”

  “Yes, because it isn’t rational.” Anna’s gaze fell on the leather satchel and she sighed. “In truth, I don’t think she’s lying. I want her to be but…she was too smug. Usually, when she’s lying about something substantial, she becomes dramatic. Excessively dramatic,” she amended after Max gave her a dubious look. The Mrs. Wrayburn he remembered had always been dramatic. “She makes great sweeping gestures with her hands, and lifts her voice, and embellishes her stories with the most improbable details. The tsar sends her love letters, you know.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Mmm. On parchment with corners dipped in gold. There’s an estate and a hundred serfs waiting for her outside of Saint Petersburg, should she want them.”

  “Charming.”

  “Sometimes it’s two hundred. Sometimes it’s not stories she tells, but promises. My mother makes the most wild promises when her mood is high and she’s had too much wine at dinner. When I was younger, perhaps ten, she promised me a dowry.”

  “The thousand pounds.”

  “No. Five hundred.” She blinked at that, then laughed suddenly. “Good Lord, even in the lie she cheated me.”

  “Anna—”

  “She told me once that she didn’t look for ways to hurt me, and I believed it. I thought her meanness originated from selfishness, not an actual desire to harm.” She shook her head, her lips pressed tight. “I’m no longer sure that’s true.”

  “I’m sorry,” Max murmured, feeling angry and helpless. “I wish I’d not been so easily thwarted four years ago. I wish I’d persisted and found a way to see you, take you away from Anover House. I should have—”

  “Don’t be silly. You can’t blame anyone but my mother.” She blew out a short breath. “And I am likely overestimating and overstating her willingness to do harm.”

  “I’m not convinced of that.”

  “She’s not a good mother, not even a particularly good person, but neither is she a monster.”

  He figured the best response to that was a noncommittal “hmmm.”

  “I never went hungry, or cold. I never feared the back of her hand, or the possibility of being forced to entertain one of her gentleman friends.”

  “The fact that she might have been worse doesn’t make her better by default.”

  “Nor the fact that she may have been better, worse.”

  Max squashed the urge to continue the argument. The last thing Anna needed right now was a debate on just how awful her mother truly was.

  “You know her best,” he murmured.

  “I’m not sure anyone knows—” She broke off and turned at the sound of light voices and footsteps hurrying down the hall past the library door.

  “Lucien’s returned,” Max said and swore he heard Anna swallow. “He’ll work in his study a bit before dinner. It’s a good time to speak with him.”

  She nodded but stayed where she was.

  “Do you want me to come with you?” he tried.

  “Yes. No. That is, I do. I would very much like your company. But it wouldn’t be right.”

  She looked at him, her lovely gray eyes worried, but her lips curled into the faintest smiles. “You knew I’d never agree to keeping this secret from him.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you don’t really lie to him all the time, do you?”

  “You’ve decided to give away your secrets. I’ve not agreed to give away mine.”

  The smile grew, just a little. “Thank you,” she whispered. “For everything.”

  Unsure of what else to do for her, he stepped close, slipped an arm around her waist, and pulled her in for a soft kiss.

  There were other things he intended to do for her later, of course. Not all of her troubles would be solved after speaking with Lucien. And the anger roiling under his skin would not be appeased with inaction.

  But right now, a moment more of comfort and distraction was all he could offer. Determined to make the most of it, he ran his hands slowly up her back, molding her to him, while he brushed his lips tenderly over hers, took small, careful tastes of her mouth, and otherwise walked that very fine line between stirring a gentle passion and courting a wild need.

  All too soon, he felt the latter threaten to overtake them, and with a sigh of regret, he pulled away and pressed his lips to her forehead, then the warm skin of her cheeks.

  “I’ll be here,” he whispered, “if you need me.”

  Chapter 22

  Anna walked to Lucien’s study with her heart in her throat.

  She recalled the first time she’d learned the Marquess of Engsly was her brother, in the sitting room at Anover House, and she recalled the first time she’d seen Lucien standing on the portico, waiting for her. Both times, she had experienced a curious detachment from him, an inability to feel that he was her brother.

  If he’d scorned her upon her arrival at Caldwell, it would have concerned her only in so far as what it meant for her chances of receiving a thousand pounds.

  How drastically things had changed.

  The idea of facing Lucien’s scorn, his censure, made her feel physically ill. His good opinion meant something to her now. He meant something to her.

  Her pulse picked up as she reached the open door to his study and saw that she had caught him just as he was taking a seat behind his desk.

  “Lucien? May I speak with you a moment?�
�

  He glanced up, smiled, and gestured her inside with one hand while the other pulled impatiently at his cravat. “Yes, yes, of course. What might I do for you?”

  Anna stepped inside and took up position behind a chair rather than in it. She found that curling her fingers into the upholstered back helped to steady her. Probably, she thought, there were ways one might ease into a sensitive topic, but damned if she could come up with anything at present.

  “My mother has come to Codridgeton,” she heard herself say. “She is staying at the Bear’s Rest.”

  Lucien slowly lowered his hand. His eyes turned sharp. “Is she? She made the trip to visit you, I presume?”

  “No, not to visit, exactly. She…She came to…” She swallowed hard, tipped her chin up, and forced herself to finish. “She has informed me that I was mistaken in coming here. That I did so with false information.”

  “False information,” Lucien repeated slowly. “You are not my sister?”

  “What? Oh, no. That is, yes. Yes, I am your sister. I’m sorry, I should have made that clear immediately.” Her fingers curled deeper into the chair. “And I should not have come. Your father and my mother entered into a separate contract regarding my care, the terms of which your father satisfied.”

  “My father did provide for your care?”

  “Apparently, yes. I—”

  “Huh,” Engsly cut in with some surprise. “I’d not have thought him capable of it…” He frowned at a spot on the desk for a second, then shrugged. “Well, there’s an end to that, then. I thank you for telling me of it. It is nice to hear something good about one’s father from time to time. Will you still be going to Menning with Lilly and Winnefred tomorrow, or would you prefer to postpone that for now and spend the day with your mother?”

  The extended apology she had prepared died on her lips. “I…Beg your pardon?”

  “The trip to Menning? Lilly and Freddie wished to show you the ruins of the old abbey?”

  “I…” She opened her mouth. Closed it again and shook her head mutely.

  “I could have sworn they spoke of it to you.”