Thirteen

Anne, keeping her face well hidden by her hood, attempted to slip by Coyne without a word when he admitted her into the house. But the butler was not easily avoided. “I’ll take your cloak, Miss Anne,” he said firmly, following her to the stairs.

“Never m-mind, Coyne,” she said, in a valiant attempt to steady her voice. “I’ll take care of it m-myself. Just go to b-bed.”

The butler stared at her suspiciously. “Is anything wrong, Miss Anne? Where are the others? You haven’t come home alone, have you?”

She shook her head and tried to wave him away, but the gesture made her hood fall back and gave him a glimpse of her reddened eyes. “Miss Anne! What’s happened? What’s amiss here?” he asked in alarm.

One glance at his troubled face was all that was needed to undo the weak hold she had managed to clamp on her emotions, and she burst into fresh tears. In great agitation, the butler took her arm and led her, unresisting, into the drawing room where he helped her into an easy chair near the fire and went quickly to the table to pour her a glass of brandy. “Is there something I can do for you, Miss Anne?” he asked worriedly as he hovered over her and handed her the drink.

The warmth of the fire was comforting, and she wiped the tears from her cheeks. “No, no, C-Coyne, thank you,” she said, determined to regain control of herself. “It is nothing. T-truly, I’m just being missish. I don’t want any brandy.”

Coyne bit his lip, feeling helplessly inadequate. “Isn’t there anything I can—?”

He was interrupted by the sound of the front door which opened and shut with a crash, followed by the clatter of hurried footsteps in the hall, and Jason, his face tense with worry, strode into the room. At the sight of Anne, he stopped in his tracks. “Oh, here you are!” he exclaimed angrily. “See here, girl, don’t you know better than to run off without escort? What a fright you’ve given me! Whatever possessed—?” Suddenly, taking note of Coyne’s agitated expression, the glass of brandy in the butler’s hand and Anne’s swift movement to turn her face away from him, he paled. “Good God! Something has happened!”

He crossed the room in two strides and knelt before her chair, his face agonized. Taking both her hands in his, he asked in a choked voice, “Were you accosted on the street? If anyone’s harmed you, I’ll—! Anne, please, tell me!”

Anne turned and stared at him in considerable surprise. “Nothing of the sort has occurred, my lord, I assure you. There is no reason at all for you to be so … agitated.”

He peered closely at her face. “Are you sure, my dear? You seem so … upset …”

She turned her face away and tried to free her hands from his grasp. “I’m quite sure. You and Coyne … you’re both making a to-do about absolutely nothing.”

He stared at her, disbelieving, for a long moment. Then he released her hands and stood up. “Very well, we’ll take your word for it. Thank you, Coyne, for your assistance. I’ll take that brandy, if you don’t mind, and then you may go to bed.”

Coyne handed Jason the brandy. “Yes, my lord, thank you. But Lady Harriet has not yet returned—”

“Don’t worry about Lady Harriet. I’ll go to fetch her shortly. I’m sure she won’t require anything else tonight.”

“Very well, my lord,” Coyne said and bowed himself out.

Jason, his eyes on Anne’s averted head, drained the brandy glass in a gulp. Then, with a deep breath, he said, “When I saw Claybridge taking supper without you, and I couldn’t find you anywhere, I was nearly beside myself with anxiety. If the footman hadn’t told me—”

“I don’t see why my absence should have been any concern of yours,” Anne said coldly.

“You attended the ball under my escort. That makes me responsible for your safety.”

“But as you can see, I am quite safe. You need trouble yourself no longer.”

Jason turned to the fire and, leaning his arm on the mantelpiece, he stared into the flames. “I can see you’ve been crying, my dear,” he said softly. “If the cause is something that occurred on your way home, I wish you would tell me. However, if the cause is personal—having to do with young Claybridge, for instance—then, of course, I have no right to interfere …”

Anne’s head came up abruptly. “This has nothing whatever to do with Arthur!” she said furiously. “In all the time I’ve known him, he’s never caused me to shed a single tear! This is all because of you!”

He turned. “Me?”

“Yes, my lord. I’ve been crying because I realized tonight that I’ve been completely taken in. I now know that you are a lying, deceitful imposter.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, his brow wrinkled in bafflement. “Do you mean that you think I’m not the real Mainwaring?”

“As to that, I have no idea,” she answered nastily, “but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that your identity, too, is a lie.”

“I’m not aware of any occasion when I lied to you, ma’am. As to my identity, they say it’s a wise child who knows his own father, but as far as I know, Henry Hughes was my father and the late Lord Mainwaring my uncle.”

“Since I assume that Mr. Brindle investigated you thoroughly, I shall not question your word on that score,” she grudgingly acknowledged.

“Then I don’t see—”

“Oh, don’t you? Are you going to pretend now that you have always been open and aboveboard with me? Don’t look at me with that sham innocence! Will you deny that you led me to believe that you’d never taken tea in a refined drawing room? Or that you’d never asked a lady to dance? All that backwoods ignorance! Why, you almost had me believing we were lucky you could read!”

“Oh, that!” Jason said, his brow clearing with relief. “Is that all that’s botherin’ you?”

“Is that all?” she echoed. Jumping up from her chair, she faced him with trembling rage. “Do you mean to imply that this is unimportant? A paltry little misunderstanding?”

“Yes, ma’am, that’s exactly what I mean to imply. It was no more than a little joke.”

“A joke? A joke? For more than a month you tricked me, lied to me, evaded and deceived me at every turn! You let me instruct you, coach you, attempt to teach you to bow, to speak, to dress, to dance … when all the time you knew you were more than adequately capable of performing your role without any help from me!”

“Oh, come now, Anne,” he said placatingly, putting a hand on her arm in an attempt to restrain her fury. “Where’s your sense of humor? I only meant to tease you a bit—”

“Tease?” she cried, thrusting his hand away. “Is that what you call it? You have used me shamefully, abused my trust and made a fool of me, and you call it teasing!” She turned her back on him and put her head in her trembling hands. “And what makes it all so ugly is that you’ve done the same to Mama and Peter, too!”

This last thrust was more than Jason’s good nature could stand. “Now look here!” he exploded, pulling her around to face him. “I’ve heard enough of this nonsense. You listen to me for a moment! In the first place, Lady Harriet, whatever she may have thought of me before tonight, certainly never considered me as primitive as you did, and therefore she is perfectly delighted—not upset, as you are—by learning that I am adequately civilized. And as for Peter, he never doubted it from the first, so your remarks about him are completely unfounded. But the most important point, my girl,” he said, emphasizing his words by grasping her shoulders as if he were about to give her a good shaking, “is that, if I’ve really used you shamefully, you have only yourself to blame! Yes, my dear, you brought all this on yourself, by your mindless assumption that Americans are all untutored clods without taste or familiarity with the civilized world. What do you think America is—an aboriginal jungle? Did it never occur to you, ma’am, that we have books and schools and drawing rooms and teacups in the United States?”

She stared up at him, trembling and confused. For a moment their eyes locked, his glaring and hers uncertain. Then she wavered and lowered her head. ‘Let me go, sir,” she muttered. “If this is the way you were taught to treat a lady in the United States, it is not as civilized a place as you seem to think. You are hurting me.”

He dropped his hands with a reluctant laugh. “Touché, ma’am. But I was not taught, in America, to handle ladies roughly. You seem to bring out the savage in me.”

“I suppose,” she remarked petulantly as she returned to her chair, “that since you blame me for misjudging you, you expect me to apologize to you for this imbroglio.”

“Not at all. I merely hope to reestablish a sensible perspective of our relationship.”

“We have no relationship, my lord. We never have had one. What little bond we may have built up in the last few weeks was based on dishonesty and false assumptions, and it no longer exists.”

“Then let’s build a new one. And you can begin by calling me Jason instead of the ‘my lord’ you insist on using.”

“It was at your insistence, my lord, that I so address you.”

“You knew perfectly well that I was joking.”

“I have no liking for your jokes. And I have no wish to establish a relationship with a man who finds it amusing to deceive—”

Before the last word left her tongue, she found herself being abruptly hauled to her feet. With only one hand, he caught both her hands behind her and pinioned her against him with his arm. “I did not deceive you!” he muttered angrily. “You deceived yourself.” With his free hand he cupped her chin and forced her to face him. “Look at me!” he commanded. “Take a good look! It’s time you began to know me. I’m neither the American primitive you thought I was nor the English dandy you tried to make me. I’m merely a man—an individual with a character uniquely my own. I won’t be forced into a mold of your devising—not the cloddish one, or the lordly one, or the deceitful one. So look at me, ma’am. It may be worth your while to open your stubborn mind and learn to recognize the man I really am.”

She tried to respond, but couldn’t find the words. Her heart was pounding with something akin to terror, but she didn’t feel afraid. He, too, was in the grip of some strong emotion, for she could feel his heart pounding as loudly as hers. But the lightly colored eyes looking down at her revealed nothing to help her identify this bewildering sensation.

For several seconds neither of them moved. Then Anne became embarrassingly aware of the intimacy of their position. No sooner had the feeling struck her than she recognized a responsive flicker in his eyes—a spark of amusement flared into life in their blue depths. He had read her mind! She reacted with a blush. She made a movement to break free of his grasp, but his arm tightened around her and the gleam in his eyes brightened.

She remembered another time that he’d held her like this. He’d been about to kiss her, then, but she’d been furious with him and had pushed him away. Now, more angry than ever, she felt the same unexpected and sharp desire for his kiss, and the same irritation with herself. Again, she tried to push him away, but this time she was completely helpless. A smile dawned slowly on his face. “Jason,” she warned breathlessly, “don’t you dare!”

There was no question in her mind that he’d been about to kiss her. But the question of whether or not he would have heeded her warning was never answered, for the door opened and they quickly jumped apart. It was Peter who stood in the doorway, his eager smile quickly fading into a look of astonished and acute embarrassment. “Oh … sorry,” he mumbled awkwardly. “I didn’t know … that is, I didn’t mean to—”

“Come in, Peter,” Jason said with casual aplomb.

“No, it’s all right. I don’t want to interrupt … that is, I mean I only wanted to find out how things went. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“No need to wait till tomorrow. Your sister and I have finished our talk, have we not, ma’am?”

“Quite finished,” she answered icily.

“You see?” he said cheerfully to Peter. “Besides, I was about to go out. I must pick up Aunt Harriet—she’s still at the Dabneys’.”

With that, he went quickly from the room, closing the door behind him. “That blackguard!” Anne hissed, throwing herself into the chair. “That odious, insufferable toad!”

Peter regarded her in some perplexity. “Who, Jason? I had the distinct impression, when I burst in here so inopportunely, that you rather liked him.”

“If that was your impression,” she told her brother roundly, “you have completely misunderstood the situation. The fellow is a dastardly imposter, and I have never disliked anyone more.”

“Jason? An imposter? I don’t believe it. What’s he done?”

“What hasn’t he done! The wretch tricked me!”

“If you mean that he made an improper advance to you, my dear, I don’t in the least blame you for being angry. I would not have thought it of him, although he’s often told me that he finds you a deucedly pretty girl.”

“Don’t be a gudgeon. He made no improper advances. The episode you burst in on was a mere nothing. What I learned about him this evening was much, much worse.”

“Good lord, what was it?”

“I found out that everything he’s done since he arrived has been an enormous pretense. Everything! The backwoods manner, the drawling speech, the outlandish clothing, the blunt manners, the clumsy dancing … everything!”

“Oh, is that all? You can’t mean that you’ve got yourself in this state of agitation over Jason’s raillery.”

“Raillery? How can you call it raillery? It was nothing but lying and deceit!”

“Really, Anne, you seem to be making much out of nothing much. Anyone having the least knowledge of Jason can tell that his greenheaded-foreigner performance is play-acting.”

Anne stared at her brother in some dismay. “Do you mean to say that you knew all along that he was perfectly capable of meeting the ton and talking to the Prince and dancing with ladies?”

“I may not have realized that he could dance, but I knew he was no fool. From the first I could see that he was well-educated and knew his way about. Very clever fellow, Jason. Holds an advanced degree from a Virginia college, I believe. William and Mary, I think he said. I take it he did himself proud dancing with the ladies tonight?”

“He was the most spectacular success. He danced superbly! You should have seen him. He moved around the ballroom as if he’d been to the manner born! You wouldn’t have believed it—everyone adored him! Even the Prince was enchanted with him.”

“Well, good for old Jason!” Peter looked at his sister in mild concern. “One would think you’d be overjoyed, instead of sitting there looking like a thundercloud.”

“Why should I be overjoyed? He lied and deceived and tricked me at every turn. I spent weeks trying to instruct a man I believed to be an artless innocent to face the lions of society, and all the while the fellow was a lion Himself!”

“Yes, my dear, I understand that. What I don’t understand is why you’re so angry about it. As far as I can see, he didn’t actually lie to you—he merely permitted you to believe what you wished to believe. I don’t see that as such a terrible crime. Can it be that there’s something else which angers you? Is it because he wasted so much of your time?”

“No … no, it’s not that. It’s because … because …” She hesitated, trying to sort out the confusion of her feelings. “It’s because … he made such a fool of m-me,” she said tremulously.

Peter shook his head. “No, I don’t think that’s true,” he said thoughtfully. “Neither Mama nor I found him to be an artless innocent. I don’t feel I’ve been made a fool of, and neither, I’d wager, does Mama. Perhaps you should have been a more careful observer.”

“Are you trying to tell me,” she demanded in chagrin, “that I’m at fault in all this?”

“I don’t think anyone’s at fault. I admit that I don’t have any great understanding of these man-woman affairs, but—”

“Man-woman affairs! Really, Peter, I assure you that there is no such thing between Jason and me,” she said with some asperity.

He shrugged. “Are you sure? Well, as I said, I don’t know much about such things, except what I read in books. I only wanted to suggest that you’re far too upset over nothing. The evening went well, and Jason is a success. It seems to me that you should try to forget the rest of it. Come on, let’s go up to bed.”

“I don’t see how I can forget being made a fool of,” Anne muttered glumly.

Peter went to the door. “Whenever someone says, ‘He made a fool of me,’ I tend not to believe it.”

“Oh? Why not?”

“Because no one can easily make another a fool.” He opened the door and added gently, “When one feels foolish, it’s usually because one has made a fool of one’s self. I’m not saying that is necessarily the case with you, though. You must decide that for yourself. Good night, my dear.”