Practically Wicked

by Alissa Johnson

  “I don’t want easier. This isn’t bloody inevitable, it’s your bloody-minded choice and it damn well shouldn’t be easy.”

  “Please stop shouting.”

  Max bit off an oath. He hadn’t realized he’d raised his voice, and now that he did, he found it difficult to lower it again. To regain control meant to let go of some of the anger, and that meant leaving the door open once more for panic, and worse, old fears and insecurities.

  Anna was leaving. He wasn’t needed. He wasn’t even wanted. Because he wasn’t enough. She had her cottage in the country, her Mrs. Culpepper, and her disdain for all things London. Why would she need him?

  “If you are determined to run away, I cannot stop you, and I’ll be damned before I beg you to show a little courage.”

  “I am not being a coward,” she snapped. “I am being reasonable and sensible and honest. And I am trying to be mindful of what my choices would mean for all of us, but if all you can see in that is a coward, then…” She angled her face away, pressed her lips together in a hard line. “Then clearly we do not understand each other as well as we imagined.”

  He said nothing. There didn’t seem to be any words left.

  “I think…” Anna said quietly. “I think it would be best if we said good-bye now, instead of drawing this out and—”

  “Good-bye, Anna.” His voice was stiff and sounded hollow to his own ears. “Godspeed.”

  He bowed without looking at her, turned, and left the room. If she said good-bye in return, he didn’t hear it. He bloody well didn’t want to.

  Chapter 29

  Max stood at the window of his chambers and watched as a carriage was brought round to the front of the house. The dawn had come gray and cheerless, with thick clouds sagging low over the hills and the smell of rain clinging to the air.

  He wouldn’t stay for this. He’d decided the night before, as he’d sat alone in his room, nursing a brandy and his anger. He wasn’t going to be around to see Anna run off to her cottage, her new life, without him.

  She could bloody well watch him ride off to London…Well, to McMullin Hall, really, but she didn’t know that. Let her think it was to town where there were plenty of ladies who might welcome his affections. Lovely, sophisticated, wickedly willing ladies…who didn’t interest him in the least, but she didn’t need to know that either.

  It was ridiculous and infantile…but there it was. He was willing to be ridiculous and infantile. He was willing to try anything that might fill the aching hole in his chest.

  And so he too borrowed a carriage and, having no need to pack, left Caldwell Manor just as the footmen were finishing loading Anna’s carriage, and just as the first small droplets of rain began to fall from the darkening sky.

  The trip to McMullin Hall would be quicker on horseback, but to ride through the rain and mud seemed impossibly forlorn. And he wasn’t forlorn. He was bloody miserable.

  He’d lost Anna. Or, more accurately, she’d let go of him. She’d rejected him outright. And holy hell, that hurt. It sat on his chest like a boulder, tore at him as he’d never imagined a refusal could.

  Worse, there was no sweeping that sort of rejection away. He couldn’t just say, To hell with her. To hell with all of it.

  Because he was already in hell, so it was rather like inviting her along, and she’d already declined the offer of his company.

  It was maddening. How could she choose a life of isolation over a life with him? How could a woman speak of courage and adventure and then toss aside both to hide away in a cottage? A damned cottage, for God’s sake.

  What the devil was she going to do there? Embroider all day? Was she going to spend the rest of her life reading, or taking walks, or having picnics, or playing with dogs, or…

  Max shifted in his seat, uncomfortable with the realization that he was listing the things she’d been doing at Caldwell. Activities he’d either joined her in or enjoyed watching her perform.

  He tried to push the thought aside and focus on his anger, but the hours and days spent with Anna filled his head. She’d looked content embroidering with Lilly in the parlor, and at home with a book in her hands in the library, and perfectly happy walking in the fields and woods with him.

  With some reluctance, he turned his mind to thoughts of Anna in London. It wasn’t the first time he’d done so. He’d imagined her in his town house dozens of times—in his bed; at the table for breakfast with the early morning light shining through the drapes; holding court at a dinner party or salon filled with poets and artists and scholars, carefully selected men and women who would appreciate Anna’s wit and intelligence. In short, he had imagined Anna in his London, in the world he wanted to give her.

  He had not, he was forced to admit, given as much consideration to the London Anna feared, to the consequences she was certain were inescapable. She had argued, more than once, that she couldn’t possibly reside in London without inviting stares and whispers, and yet not once had he pictured her in situations where she might have to endure those stares and whispers.

  He made himself picture them now—every trip to Bond Street, every ride through Hyde Park, every visit to the theater, any and every foray outside the house held the potential of turning her into a target for ridicule and scorn. He saw her in his mind’s eye, visiting all those places, doing all the things that he took for granted as part and parcel of living in London. And she wasn’t smiling. She was cold and aloof, once again playing the Ice Maiden to save her pride.

  Max swore ripely as much of his anger turned inward. Anna would be miserable living in London. She would be every inch as trapped as he might feel playing the country gentleman.

  Damn it, he should have listened to her more carefully. He should have spent more time considering what she needed, instead of trying to convince her that he knew what she really wanted.

  Amazingly, he could see now that what she needed was exactly what he needed. Freedom. They’d simply taken different steps to obtain it.

  He’d embraced the demimonde and welcomed the ton’s censure and disdain. She’d turned her back on society altogether.

  There were benefits and disadvantages to both approaches, and it had been the height of arrogance to assume his approach was the better, the smartest, the exclusive road to happiness. Their happiness. Because, clearly, no one was happy at present.

  And it had been a pretty piece of outright stupidity to have expected her to set aside, in the course of a few short weeks, the fears and needs created by a lifetime of living in Anover House, simply because he told her she should.

  I could talk the devil out of his tail.

  Anna was right. Men were outrageously arrogant creatures.

  Strangely, the more he went over things in his mind, and the more he realized how shortsighted he’d been, the less convinced he became that all hope was lost.

  There had to be hope. He had to be able to fix this. What was the bloody point of realizing you’d been wrong-headed if you couldn’t make things right again?

  What was the point of anything, if he couldn’t make things right with Anna?

  “Stop!” He banged on the ceiling. “Stop the carriage! Turn it around!”

  Anna stared out her carriage window at the wet and dreary countryside that rolled by. Soggy as her pillow, she thought ruefully.

  She brushed impatiently at a tear that slipped down her cheek. One would think after having spent the better part of a night weeping into that pillow, she’d have run dry. Yet somehow the view out the carriage window was blurred, not by the day’s gloomy light and halfhearted rain that pattered on the roof, but from the seemingly endless reservoir of misery that welled up inside and filled her eyes.

  She wanted to turn the carriage round again. Only there was no point. Max had already left for London. He’d left while she’d said her own good-byes to the Haverstons.

  Leaving them had been painful as well, and exhausting, as Lucien and Gideon had tried their best to convince her to stay on, th
en dragged a thousand promises from her to visit regularly and write often and accept a shockingly generous allowance before they agreed to let her go. The pain of saying good-bye to them, however, was dulled by the more acute wound of her parting with Max, rather like procuring a nasty cut and not really feeling it for one’s head being on fire.

  Anna swiped away another round of tears as the carriage lurched in a rut.

  This was not how things should have ended with Max. She’d known they couldn’t be together from the start, how could she have been so ill-prepared for the end? How could she have bungled it so terribly?

  Surely there was something she might have done differently, something that would have allowed them to part as friends. Now there would be no word from him, no letters or visits. It certainly would not be Max who brought her Hermia.

  Anna shook her head, resolute. It was for the best that their separation was quick and thorough. What would visits do but torment them both? What ridiculousness to think they could go from lovers to friends the way a lady might change from a ball gown to an old night rail.

  One could not take one’s feelings on and off for the sake of convenience and easy good-byes.

  If one could, she wouldn’t be so damnably in love with Max.

  She brushed away the next tear, took a ragged breath. She was in love with Max. It was surprising how natural it felt to admit it, rather like admitting one had lungs or a heart. Perhaps because a part of her had always known she loved Max. Just as all of her had known that, in the end, it changed nothing.

  Love wasn’t a vital organ, for pity’s sake. She could live without it. Surely. Maybe.

  God, she honestly didn’t know if she could. It bloody well felt as if something vital had been removed—ripped clean out of her chest.

  And while the sensible, pragmatic side of her insisted that sometimes love was simply not enough, the rest of her—and the painful hole in her chest in particular—demanded to know why the devil it shouldn’t be.

  Why couldn’t love be enough for her?

  It was enough for other people, wasn’t it? To hear her mother tell it, the road to Gretna Green was thick with fools who chose love over all else. Many of them, Anna thought with a new kind of discomfort, likely facing obstacles greater than her own.

  She heard Max’s words from the night before.

  If the gentleman feels the hand of my niece is not worth the courage it would take to find his own way, then good riddance to him.

  She wasn’t that gentleman, of course. The circumstances were entirely different. She had found her own way. Just as Max had found his. Their ways took them in opposite directions, that was all.

  Because she hadn’t the courage to find another way.

  Anna shook her head at the unbidden thought but found she couldn’t break free of it.

  Other people found a way. When it mattered, when something was worth it, they found a way.

  Why hadn’t she? Was she that afraid of a few more stares and whispers? She’d managed before. She’d stood in the face of them for years because it had been necessary. Couldn’t she do it now because it was necessary in order to be with Max?

  She was aware of her stomach tightening at the thought of returning to London, but rather like saying good-bye to the Haverstons, the discomfort seemed…more manageable now compared to the pain of losing Max forever.

  So, why on earth had she chosen the most painful path for the future?

  “I’m a fool,” she whispered. “I’ve been a coward.”

  But maybe she could fix it, she thought with dawning determination. Maybe they could find another way together. She had to at least try.

  She stretched up to pound on the ceiling. “Stop! Stop the carriage!” Ignoring the misting rain, she stuck her head out the window to shout at the driver. “Turn us around! Quickly! We need to catch up to Lord Dane!”

  Anna withdrew herself from the window and blew out a long, hard breath. She was doing it. She was really going to chase after Max, all the way to London if need be.

  As it happened, it didn’t need to be. The driver had turned the horses around and taken them no more than five minutes down the road before the carriage rolled to a stop.

  “What on earth?” Anna stuck her head out the window once more. They couldn’t possibly have caught up to Max so quickly.

  But there, stopped and facing her in the middle of the muddy road, was Max’s carriage. For the space of a few heartbeats, she simply stared at it, caught between elation, fear, and simple astonishment.

  He must have been coming for her. It was the only thing that made sense.

  Then his carriage door flew open and Max bounded out, breaking the spell. He came striding toward her with a determined air, and without another thought, she threw open the carriage door and jumped down into the mud and sprinkling rain.

  She hurried to meet him halfway, and then…stopped short, as he did, suddenly unsure how to bridge the last six feet that separated them.

  She didn’t know what to say to him. She’d not thought that far ahead. It should be something eloquent, something unforgettable and apologetic and very, very convincing, and—

  “I love you,” she heard herself say. “I am completely, utterly in love with you.”

  Max went very still, except for his hands. She watched them clench and unclench at his side. Please, please, please, she thought, let that be a good sign.

  She kept her own hands gripped in the material of her skirts while the air backed up in her lungs. “I thought…I thought you ought to know, because—”

  “We should travel,” he cut in suddenly.

  “I’m sorry?”

  He took a cautious step forward. “We can go to Europe, if you like, or the Americas. That’s excitement enough for me and you can be free of the gossipmongers—”

  She moved closer as well as hope began to fill that hollow spot in her chest. “I don’t need that. I want it, I do, but I’ll give it up. I’ll stay in London if that’s what you need, or—”

  “We can try everything. Every continent, every country, every damn city and town, if we want. Why not?” He stepped closer, near enough that she was certain he could feel the longing that came off of her in waves. “There’s a place for us, Anna. I know it. We can try the country and see if it suits us, then London if we decide it doesn’t. Maybe Scotland. Freddie swears by the Scottish countryside. Paris or Rome or Boston after that. We can emigrate or travel indefinitely. We’ll look—”

  “And if there is no place for us?” The question slipped out before she could bite it back. “If there is nowhere we can both belong?”

  “I don’t care. I don’t care if I spend the rest of my life searching for the perfect place. I don’t care if I die having never found it…as long as I’m searching with you. As long as the last thing I see on this earth is you. This…” At last he stepped close enough to touch. He took her face in his hands. “This is what I need to be happy. This is where I belong. I love you, Anna Rees. You are all I need.”

  She opened her mouth to speak, but yelped instead when the sky, so doggedly determined to leak all morning, decided to open up at last and let loose a great flood of water.

  Max laughed as they were both instantly drenched from head to foot. He pulled her into his arms, lifted his voice above the roar of the sudden downpour. “Will you travel the world with me, Anna Rees?!”

  She heard her own laughter over the sound of the rain. “Yes! Absolutely, yes!” Her fingers dug into the sodden fabric of his coat. “Will you take me to Gretna Green, Max Dane?!”

  She felt, rather than heard the groan that originated from deep in his chest. “Yes. By God, yes!”

  He bent his head and kissed her then, and the gray world around her spun away, taking with it the last vestiges of doubt. He loved her. She loved him. Whatever came next, whatever adventure awaited them, they would meet it together.

  Epilogue

  The marriage of Viscount Dane to the Miss Anna Rees was t
he talk of London for months.

  Theories as to how the grasping little minx had landed the dashing rapscallion (and whether or not it was in some way connected to Mrs. Wrayburn’s sudden emigration to Norway) were bountiful. Speculation as to where the viscount had run off to with his new bride after the nuptials was rampant.

  Society had seen neither hide nor hair of the happy pair. They were believed to be making a tour of Scotland, but only the Haverstons and Dane’s cousin, Mr. William Dane, knew for certain, and they remained annoyingly tight-lipped on the subject.

  Terribly bold of the girl to have reached so far above her station, it was said. Foolish of the viscount to have so carelessly tossed aside his responsibility to the title, they whispered. Probably, they’d run off to the continent in shame, it was agreed.

  The whispers ballooned initially, but tapered after a time, and then somebody heard that Lord Truch’s daughter had been caught sneaking out her window to meet with a merchant’s son in her own garden, and talk turned to that. And then, three weeks later, turned again when Eliza Tomlison was caught attempting to set fire to a rival’s home in a pique of professional jealousy.

  By the time Lord and Lady Dane returned to London, a full year after their nuptials, they were no longer the talk of the town.

  There were still whispers, as was to be expected. But before there was even a chance of the talk becoming widespread, the pair moved on to Caldwell Manor to welcome the birth of Lord Engsly’s first child, a daughter, and then to McMullin Hall for his cousin’s marriage, and then…And then all but their closest friends stopped paying attention to what the couple was doing. They were seen about here and there—at the theater, an exclusive dinner party, Lord Dane at his club and Tattersall’s, and their names popped into conversation from time to time.

  Have you heard Lord Dane’s sister has been made a widow at last? I do wonder if she plans to return home.

  But for the most part, the pair was no longer so interesting as to require particular attention from society. It was last noted that the couple had purchased a moderate country home outside the village of Menning, but that they were planning a trip to Venice, or possibly Rome.