Chapter 4
Only a few minutes passed before there was a knock at her door. Anna turned to see her mother frowning slightly. “You did not come to see our guests off.”
“Forgive my rudeness,” Anna said stiffly. “I hope you made excuses for me.”
Her mother harrumphed. “I should not have needed to do so.”
Anna lowered her head. “I’m sorry, Mother.”
“Anna.” Her mother took her hands. “Are you all right? You seem a little shaken.”
“I am fine.” She struggled to smile. “With your permission, I would like to go see Emily. We are meeting at the park.”
Her mother pursed her lips. “Very well, but we will speak more about this later.”
Emily’s mother, a good friend of Anna’s mother, came along to chaperone them, a fact Anna had deliberately kept concealed because her mother would have pressed to come as well, and Anna did not want to talk about the marchioness or her son. Especially the son!
Emily looped her arm through Anna’s. Their chaperone watched from behind them, far enough that they might be able to converse without being overheard.
“Are you certain you won’t come?” Emily asked.
“The house party does sound like a wonderful occasion,” Anna admitted, “and it is for two weeks, and perhaps I am only making excuses…”
“At least the duke will talk to you.” Emily sighed. “Lord Tipton does not even know I breathe. He clearly forgot we met at a ball last month, but he does not talk to many ladies either, so perhaps I do have reason for hope. Charity is so much simpler than matters of the heart. You commit an act of good will, and all is done. But a smile, a dance, a fan… it might mean nothing, and yet it might mean everything, too.”
“Scowls mean something else altogether,” Anna said, scowling herself.
“Scowls?” Emily glanced at her, obviously puzzled, as they strolled along the gardens in the park. The weather was not overtly chilly, but Anna felt like ice inside.
“Why, just earlier today, Mother invited over a friend and neglected to mention that the friend has a son. A most disagreeable son. Jasper Warwick, the Earl of Pershore. Do you know him?”
Emily shook her head and had to adjust her brown hat. “I haven’t the pleasure.”
“Oh, it is no pleasure at all. He is rude and—”
“In front of your mothers?”
“No.” Anna could feel her cheeks redden. “I had gone outside to write a story…” Her cheeks grew even hotter as she recalled whom she had been writing about, even if she had made him the villain in the tale. “And I crossed his path. He had been so surly and… and…”
“Nothing at all like your duke?”
“He wasn’t merely rude to me either. He cast off our stablehand and then rode one of our horses. Without asking if he could, mind you. Just acted as if he had leave. And, well, this isn’t very charitable of me, but when the horse threw him—”
“The horse threw him?”
“Yes. I first ran over to help him, but he didn’t want me to, and then I, for a moment, felt glad he had been thrown! It’s terrible of me, I know, but I couldn’t help myself.”
Emily halted. “That’s really not like you, Anna.”
“I know. There is just something about him…” She stopped as well and exhaled through her nose. “Hopefully I will not be seeing him again, and that will be that.”
“It does sound as if he was behaving oddly. I wonder if there might be a reason behind it.”
“Are you excusing his actions?”
“It seems to me that…” Emily resumed walking. “…you tend to make excuses for the duke for everything. ‘He’s talking to her because he is good friends with her brother.’ ‘He is too busy to call for tea.’ But with this man, you do not seem willing to allow him an excuse nor think there might be a reason for his behavior.”
“Why should I?” Anna asked stiffly. “He has shown me no manners. Why should I not think the worst of him?”
Emily appraised her but said no more on the subject, for which Anna was rather grateful.
When she returned home after a lovely visit—as they spoke no more about men—Anna avoided her mother until dinnertime made that impossible. It was times like this, when Anna wished to not be questioned by her mother that she missed her father the most. He had died when Anna was only three, and she didn’t remember much about him, only a sense of security and love that she had never felt with anyone else.
As soon as she finished eating the last of her meal, Anna patted her mouth and laid her cloth napkin on the table. “May I—”
“Anna, I allowed us to eat in peace, but we must talk now.”
She refrained from wincing. “Very well.”
Like a good daughter, she placed her hands on her lap and readied herself to listen, but all the while, she wished she were anywhere else but here. Her mother did not understand what she was already asking of her by avoiding all contact with the dashing Benjamin. She had agreed to do that. What else could her mother want?
“I was wondering what you thought of Jasper,” her mother said plainly.
Anna forced herself not to blink or react in any fashion. Her mother had a terrible tendency to accurately deduce the cause behind every movement, and so Anna had learned to keep her features straight when talking about something she wished to keep private.
“I did not speak with him enough to form an opinion,” she said, hoping she did not sound stiff.
“Well, I think you should consider befriending him.”
Befriending? Her mother had no idea what kind of man Lord Pershore was!
She shook her head emphatically, no longer concealing her stunned horror. “He is—”
“A much better match for you than that the Duke of Barnet.”
“How can you say that?”
Her mother rubbed her cheek. “Obviously something happened between you two, and whatever it was, it seems like you did not care for it. I will not make excuses for him, especially when I do not have all the details…” She paused.
If she were waiting for Anna to fill in the details, she would be waiting a long while.
Her mother sighed. “What I do know is that Lord Pershore is going through a troubling time.”
Despite herself, Anna did feel a trifle curious about what he might be going through that could turn him into such an arrogant man. Even so, she refused to speak another word about him.
I would rather be a spinster than marry the likes of him!