What a blunder-headed idiot he was. If only he had followed the plan, Anna’s introduction to his father would have taken place the following day at the vicarage. Neutral ground. What better guard dog than a vicar?
Instead she had met him alone, without warning, on his home territory. Because of Lewis’s monstrous stupidity.
Redfern and his wife had pressed Anna for the particulars of the encounter—no wonder, after the way Lewis dragged her through the kitchen on their return. “We expected a madman to follow you through the door, wielding a hatchet,” Mrs. Redfern said.
Anna would not discuss the details, with the Redferns or alone with Lewis. “It’s not important,” she insisted. “He did me no harm.”
But Lewis had seen her face when he found them together. He had seen the bruise on her arm. The man was not harmless.
However Lewis might chastise himself, cancellation of the originally scheduled Sunday introductions made it possible to spend a blissful morning with Anna and Doris. The vicarage seemed astonishingly quiet with the family at church. Only Putnam remained to play chaperone and nursery maid.
Anna’s kisses, that day the trunk arrived, had stirred up the craving he had stifled so successfully. It thrilled every part of him, emotional and physical, that she sparkled and blushed with the same awareness. He yearned for her, ached to make her his. Fifteen impossible days to wait, because Mrs. Redfern had said so when, blushing and stammering, Lewis asked her. Six weeks after childbirth. They’d scheduled the wedding accordingly.
Well, he was not Gideon, nor a bull in the field. He could control his desire.
Nevertheless, it was just as well he and Anna would be sleeping under different roofs until then. To think he had told her he would demand nothing but the right to protect her child. What a saphead.
The family returned with all their tumult and Lewis took his leave. She was expecting the modiste for a fitting of the gown she would wear at the wedding. She would tell him nothing about it, not even the color.
For the rest of the week, he hardly saw her. In addition to his other errands, he began searching for a place to live. He did not want Anna under his father’s roof any longer than necessary.
That Friday, his parents hosted dinner. It was a small affair with the vicar and his wife, Sir John and Lady Wedbury, and Cassie. Anna and the Redferns were last to arrive. As they entered the drawing room, Cassie darted from Lewis’s side to grasp both her hands. “Gosh, you look pretty, Anna.” Lewis didn’t hear Anna’s reply, though he saw her lips move.
By Jove, he could think of better adjectives than pretty. Beautiful, enchanting, alluring for a start. She wore a new gown in a dusty shade of pink with tiny white buttons running in rows up and down the bodice, emphasizing the curve of her breasts. He hoped those buttons did not open—altogether too tempting.
Their eyes met. Her cheeks flushed pinker than her gown, her lips parted. Are my thoughts so transparent? Fortunately, no one else was watching him.
His mother claimed Anna’s attention and Lewis turned away to regain his composure. He refilled his own glass and poured a tot of sherry for her. He was betting she’d need it. Twice he’d seen her wince upon glimpsing that blasted portrait of Gideon, leaning over them all with that superior sneer. His brother seemed to ogle Anna’s bosom as Lewis tried not to.
Cassie stuck to Anna’s side like a barnacle, and Lewis kept a close eye on his father. Twenty minutes ago, the butler had come in and whispered something into his master’s ear. Father had brightened immediately, rubbing his hands in satisfaction as he struck up a conversation with the two girls. The man sounded so jovial, so benign. But prick him with a pin and the decay would seep out.
As Lewis moved to join them, the butler opened the door. He stood tall and round, at his most formal.
The little flurry of movement began that always accompanied a dinner announcement—an empty glass returned to the drinks tray, a shawl retrieved from a chair, Sir John stepping forward to offer Lewis’s mother his arm to the dining room.
The butler cleared his throat. It was not a call to dinner.
From his angle Lewis had an impression of movement outside the door, then a man’s arm.
Anna’s sherry glass shattered on the floor. The color drained from her face.
“Mr. Gideon Aubrey.”
“Well,” said Mr. Aubrey. “There you are.” He looked like a cat with a mouse trapped beneath its claws, and they were all mice. Of all the people in the room, only he did not stare stupidly at Gideon.
Anna caught the inside of her cheek between her teeth and bit down. She needed the pain, and she needed Lewis. He was there, only steps away, but she could not run to him. It would be weak. It would give Gideon satisfaction…if dropping her glass had not yet done so.
Lewis met her gaze and grinned. It took her a long moment to remember. She stretched her lips wide. Making them curve in the right direction was more difficult. They hardly felt part of her at all.
“You’re hurting me,” Cassie whispered.
Anna released the breath she’d been holding and eased her grip on Cassie’s hand.
“Why, Gideon!” Mrs. Aubrey hurried forward, lifting her cheek for her son’s kiss. She had seemed almost gay a few minutes before, but Anna saw her expression when she turned away, and it was not gay at all.
Lewis made his way to Anna’s side and guided her away from the shards of crystal at her feet. “Relax,” he murmured. But he was tense too, she could feel it in his hand on her back, in his arm beneath her clutching fingers.
Gideon moved toward them, paused to talk to Lady Wedbury.
“That piece of garbage. Who invited him?” Cassie grumbled.
Startled by the fury of her friend’s expression, Anna whispered back. “Don’t say anything, Cassie. It’ll be worse if he thinks we’re all in league against him.”
“We are. He knows it already. I can see it in his face.” Anna saw nothing but his usual smirk.
“But his parents don’t know the truth,” she begged through her smiling lips. “And they mustn’t. Please, Cassie.” Though she shivered, perspiration ran between her breasts and under her arms.
Cassie looked as if she wanted to argue, but he was too close. Almost worse than facing Gideon was knowing that everyone else waited to see what he would say, what she would do. She heard their voices, and they all sounded breathless, as she was.
“Finally,” Gideon said in the silken tones Anna once loved. “The two I most wished to see, and the farthest away.” He bowed low, but the unwilling objects of his gallantry remained stubbornly upright.
“Not even a handshake, ladies?” He shook his head. “What has happened to manners? You I understand, Miss Spain, you have…ah…” His gaze traveled down to her breasts and then to Lewis’s face, a look of appraisal. “In deference to your bridegroom and his clenched fist, I won’t say it.”
“A wise decision for once in your life,” Lewis replied, his voice clipped and hard.
Anna made sure her smile was in place before she spoke, deflecting Gideon’s attention from Lewis. “My manners depend on the company, Mr. Aubrey.”
“Ah! Well, you’ll be my sister in a few short days. I prefer to avoid fisticuffs with either of you.”
He inclined his head toward Cassie. “And you, Miss Wedbury. Imagine my surprise when I arrived in Bath to find you’d fled.”
“I did not flee,” she insisted. “I left.”
He shrugged. “Semantics, Cassandra. It hurt my feelings.”
“You have no feelings, Gideon Aubrey. If you—” Anna pinched her to keep her quiet.
The butler returned. “Dinner is served.”
Gideon offered an arm to each of them. But the vicar came for Anna, and Cassie took Lewis’s arm instead.
Mrs. Redfern covered the awkwardness as she chattered away. “Both of us spurned, Mr. Aubrey. It’s a sad state of affairs.” As a further act of chivalry, she seated herself beside Gideon at the table, allowing everyone else to breathe more freely. Yet she had no regrets as far as Anna could tell, talking and laughing as though she would have had it no other way.
Anna thanked God she had an excuse for leaving immediately after dinner. Mrs. Aubrey had been warned beforehand. Putnam must be walking the floor by now, Doris squalling in her arms.
But goodbyes must be said. Gideon got hold of Anna’s hand as she slipped it into her new muff and leaned close to murmur in her ear. “I’ve not had a chance to congratulate you on our babe, my dear. I’m all agog to see her.” As he released her, the backs of his fingers brushed across her breast. “That’s one lucky little squeaker.”
There was nothing she could say, nothing to be done. A mere arm’s length away his parents bade the Redferns goodbye, with Lewis just beyond them. So she let him go, his wicked chuckle echoing in her ear as she made her adieus.
As soon as she’d finished, Lewis pulled her aside with a growl. “What did he say to you? Tell me!”
She shook her head. “He congratulated me on the baby, that’s all.” That was bad enough; she would not make it worse. Lewis would not be fighting his brother over her if she could help it. Not again.
“That wouldn’t have upset you so. What did he say?”
She gazed into his eyes. “Nothing, Lewis. I’m not upset.” She took his arm and urged him toward the door. “They’re waiting for me. Doris must be starving.”
He did not look satisfied, far from it. If he had held her close, he would have felt her heart pounding and known she lied.