Lady Anne's Lover (The London List) (21 page)

“I am shaking in my boots. We shall see who will best whom just around that stand of trees.”

“I shall puncture your pride at the first opportunity.”

“You may puncture me anywhere you wish, Lady Anne. As I’ve told you time and again, you have bewitched me.” He gave his eyebrows a devilish wiggle and she couldn’t help but laugh.

Gareth brought Job to a halt after they passed a clump of twisted fir trees. “Our journey has ended. There it is.”

Before her was a wide flat slab of stone upon three pillars that looked like a giant’s kitchen table. The fourth leg had fallen to the side, yet the top stone had not tilted. There were smaller rocks wedged in underneath and all around. The wind was so stiff on the rise that the snow had blown off the rocks, leaving the lichen exposed. Anne’s kerchief fluttered up over the back of her neck and she shivered.

It seemed a holy place, quiet save for the gusts. To be buried here was a waste though, when one could no longer appreciate the view—mountains and river, valley and woods. A few scattered stone farmhouses and their enclosures below proved that life still went on.

“All of what you see down there used to belong to my grandfather. No longer, I’m afraid. My father sold off all he could, but in the end it made no difference.” There was no bitterness in Gareth’s voice, just resignation.

“Maybe we can buy it back.”

He shook his head. “It belongs to Parry Lewys now. I doubt he’ll be interested in doing me any favors once he learns I’m suspected of killing his future bride.”

Bronwen again. When would she leave them in peace?

“We should have brought a picnic lunch,” Anne said, trying to change the subject. “That stone looks like a perfect spot.” “You’d sit on a grave and dine? You
are
a little witch.”

“You told me no one is in the chamber.”

“If they are, they’re long past bothering us. Some say this tomb is thousands of years old.”

“Well, then.” She slid off Penny, landing carefully in the slush. She wouldn’t want to slide and tumble down into the valley, not when her life was turning its corner. “Boost me up.”

“Thunderbolts will strike us both.”

“Nonsense. You said you and Ian played here.”

Gareth stood behind her as she grabbed onto the mudstone slab. Just as he did when he helped her up the cellar stairs, he used a knee to lift her high enough to pull herself up. Her well-padded bottom was still not enough to protect her from the cold rock, but she grinned down at him. “Come join me and I’ll give you a kiss.”

“I’ll take the easy way.” He went around the cairn, scrambling up fallen stones until he was by her side. “Pay up, witch.”

“With pleasure. I almost hate to close my eyes, though. The view is indescribable.”

“I can’t believe
you’re
at a loss for words.”

“I have much better things to do than talk,” Anne said, and proceeded to show him exactly what they were.

There was something to be said for making love under the boundless sky, even in chilly temperatures. Gareth broke their embrace briefly to grab the saddle blankets from their horses, spreading one out on the rock and covering them with the other. They didn’t remove their clothes, of course—they might be madly in lust but still possessed some shred of sense. It was January, after all. Anne clung to Gareth in their cocoon, his weight warming her the way no fire could. He kissed her with a serious intent that was quite at odds with his usual playfulness. Perhaps the spirit of the place had sobered him, though Anne felt no sadness here, just an awareness of nature without and within her. The world was vast, yet at the same time absolutely safe. For the moment, at any rate. She would not worry about what might come.

Fabric was parted, fastenings removed. Gareth’s cock was hard as the rock beneath them. It leaped in her hand as she moved under him, helpless against his hand stroking her. When he centered himself and drove into her, her grateful cry was lost in the wind.

I
t was Saturday morning, and Gareth had woken up whistling, actually looking forward to tomorrow. One less day and one more week for all the banns to be called so Annie could become his wife as well as his lover. He had been sleeping in his own bed, being unable to telescope himself all night on Annie’s narrow mattress. She would not set foot in his room until he finally cleaned it, so there was purpose to his day apart from getting her back under the covers at some point later.

He stood over a pile of clothes that had refused to hang themselves up and was tempted to kick the whole lot of them under his bed. Annie would not approve. Methodically, he separated them into dirty and dirtier. He’d have to check Mrs. Smith’s book for advice on how to get out the stain on his second-best shirt. Gareth had promised Annie that he would pull his weight on the household front, and it was past time he complied.

He had been far too busy to be domestic this week. While the snow fell, he and Annie had spent their days exploring each other like cartographers mapping an undiscovered continent, charting each hill and valley with meticulous care. He knew her body now as well as his own, but she still held something back.

Unless she was in the throes of orgasm, when he knew without a doubt that she belonged to him.

She skirted around some of his gently probing questions about her family. Gareth knew that she’d grown up in Dorset and loved to ride, that her mother was dead. Of her dreaded father she had no comment. He had butted heads often enough with his own father so he didn’t press, imagining hers had tried to force his will upon his high-spirited daughter. Daughters in the upper class were chattel, chess pieces to move on the marriage board to gain land and influence. It was really no easier for the sons, united for life with “proper” girls they barely knew. No wonder infidelity was so rampant, that places such as exclusive Jane Street, home to the crème de la crème of courtesans, were so popular. Gareth had read all about it on the pages of
The London List.

Why had Annie answered his ad? Even if she wouldn’t confide in him before the wedding, he was willing to wait.

He was saved from further rumination about commitment and laundry by vigorous rapping at the front door, loud enough for him to hear it upstairs at the other end of the house. Annie and Martin had gone down to the village, and there was definitely no butler to answer the summons. He sprinted downstairs and found his cousin Ian already standing in the hallway, unwrapping his muffler and dripping melted snow on the slate squares.

“I see you’ve let yourself in.”

“I knew you were about somewhere. I ran into Martin in Llanwyr. And remember, I practically lived here when I was a boy.”

“Yes, but those days are long over, Ian. What do you want?”

Gareth didn’t invite his cousin into the chilly parlor. Whatever he had to say could be dealt with right here, handy to the front door.

“Now, now. Cease the hostilities, coz. I have information that might be to your advantage. But you’ll probably discount it, desperate as you are for money. I suppose you both deserve each other.”

Gareth didn’t care for Ian’s smirk. “What do you mean?”

“I have news about your
Annie,
as you call her,” he said, contemptuous. “Are you sure you don’t want to sit down somewhere?”

Gareth shook his head. Best to get whatever this was over with.

“Very well then. I shall state my piece and you can make of it what you will. I wrote to my good friend Reverend Powers in London as soon as your intended bride told me who she really was. She had asked me to practically perjure myself before God, you know, and I could not take that lightly. It was my Christian duty to ascertain the truth. Mind you, I have no absolute proof that what she told me was true, although her maid seemed very nervous when Powers interviewed her—he spoke to the woman discreetly, of course. In the strictest confidence. You can tell your future wife she has nothing to worry about. Powers was careful not to disclose her location. And he is convinced there may be something to her allegations. I have his reply right here.” Ian patted the pocket of his black parson’s jacket.

“What the
hell
are you talking about?”

Ian raised his brows. “She hasn’t told you yet? She promised me that she would.”

Gareth swallowed back the rising bile, wishing that Annie was here. “I know there is something unsavory in her background. I was waiting for her to be ready to tell me.”

“Unsavory!” Ian chortled. “An understatement. I suppose I can tell you—that’s my duty, too, since she has been so remiss. The girl claims her father tried to molest her, and according to Powers, it’s very probable. The maid Helen was scared to death to talk about it, but she let some hints drop. At any rate, the earl beat his daughter regularly, though he had good reason. She is Imaculata Egremont, after all.”

Gareth’s mind raced, stumbling over the boulders Ian tossed at him with such unchristian relish. He had heard of Imaculata Egremont, even in his drunken fog. She was front-page fodder for
The London List,
a wild redheaded girl who danced naked in fountains and kissed girls in public theaters. Who eloped to France with a fortune hunter and was brought back in shackles. Her father the earl—the earl!—was an important man in government. Had the King’s ear, for all that Egremont was a pillar of morality and the new king was anything but.

Imaculata Egremont
. She had made herself a subject of the most salacious gossip in the short two years she’d been out, garnering a reputation that was as black as her hair was red.

Yet she had been a virgin until she impaled herself on him last Sunday. He’d wiped the blood from her thighs and off his cock himself. But there were ways to trick a man. Whore’s tricks.

Gareth winced at his crudity. What did it matter if he was the first man to have her or not? She was certainly not his first woman.

His confusion and dismay must have been clear.

“You know of her then.” Ian’s smirk widened.

“I’ve read about her,” Gareth said evenly. He would not give Ian any more satisfaction. Would not show the shock that was pumping blood straight to his head. “I gather Annie gave you her true name when we came to call on you.”

“Aye. For the banns. It meant nothing to me then. I didn’t know who she was. But Powers explained it all. Even a man of the cloth has heard of her in London. Her escapades are notorious. You’ll have your hands full, coz, trying to tame her. If she can be tamed. A girl like that is going to find Llanwyr very dull.”

Annie was in its dull center now, talking with Mrs. Chapman about the wedding. The snow had kept them at home all week and she had been anxious to leave early this morning to finalize the plans for the food and the music. Martin had accompanied her to get supplies as Gareth tried to make headway in his bedroom.

He shrugged. “We’ll keep busy somehow, don’t worry.” Thus far, their business had been bed-related, which couldn’t last forever no matter how much Gareth had wanted it to. Passion tended to diminish under practical concerns and domestic drudgery.

“Well, I don’t want to keep you from whatever it is you’re doing,” Ian said. “I came to make sure that you still wish me to call the banns tomorrow. There’s time to change your mind.”

“No,” Gareth said curtly. He wouldn’t change his mind. Not yet. He’d have to talk with Annie—
Imaculata.
What a perfectly ridiculous name.

“I thought Mrs. Mont was getting the bad bargain, but now it looks like you are.”

Gareth wanted to punch Ian’s smug grin from his face. Instead, he moved him toward the door. The man lingered, waiting for Gareth’s response, appearing disappointed that his bombshell news had not had more of an effect. Gareth said nothing, not even good-bye. He had not asked to see Ian’s letter, asked no questions. After an awkward period of silence and a wide-open door, he watched his cousin march down the lane, a black scarecrow in a field of white.

Annie had been skittish, so determined to keep him at arm’s length at first. So frightened of the physical. She was either a very good actress, or had reason to be wary.

Her father had tried to molest her
. If it was true, no wonder she chose to masquerade as a housekeeper hundreds of miles from London.

And no wonder she couldn’t tell him. Who would believe such a thing of the Earl of Egremont? All of society pitied him for having such a wicked, wayward daughter.

Gareth moved through the hallway, noticing the bowl of fragrant pine cones on the dusted and waxed credenza, just another way Annie had spruced up his home. He headed to his study, which was in an even worse state than his bedroom. The shelves were piled with crooked books and yellowed newspapers. His father had saved what looked to be years’ worth of
The London List
, and Gareth had added to the haphazard stack each week when the paper made its way late to Wales. He pulled a few issues from near the top, sat down at his desk and began to read.

Gareth had kissed that daisy, wondering how it had arrived on Annie’s slender ankle. Just another of Annie’s mysteries. He shook out the next paper and frowned at the headline, furrows deepening as he read.

This one was illustrated with a drawing that was unmistakably Annie. The cartoon Annie had taken the proffered coat and was standing under a shower of droplets. The artist had captured her freckles, the curl in her red hair, and the tattoo on her ankle beneath the sweep of Baron G’s frock coat. Gareth felt a stabbing sensation behind his left eyeball, reminiscent of many mornings when he’d overindulged the previous night. Almost any encounter with Ian resulted in some sort of pain, and now it was compounded by the black and white proof of Annie’s sordid past. Reading article after article in the stack did nothing to improve the situation.

When had she planned on telling him? This was no small omission. He had confessed everything within days of meeting her—his poverty, the suspicion against him. He’d jumped through her hoops and wooed her as gently as he knew how, hoping for her trust. Her honesty. Gareth had known she still concealed something, but never in his wildest dreams would he have imagined such a background.

The Earl of Egremont was a powerful man. He may not have had an official position in government, but everyone knew of his influence over the king. George IV needed all the help he could get, and Egremont was constantly at his side giving it. How ironic that the earl could not influence his own daughter to curb her excesses.

Unless she acted out deliberately to thwart him. To punish him for what he had tried to do to her.

A father was supposed to protect his daughter, not importune her. The thought was so revolting Gareth could barely grasp it. If he had a daughter of his own, he could not imagine making advances.

His headache took on stubborn strength. Gareth folded the newspapers and shoved them under his desk blotter. There would be time enough later to read more and confront his fiancée about the secrets revealed therein. He was eager to hear an explanation.

If there was one. And if there was, most likely he would hear things he didn’t really want to know.

Duw
. He was in a fine mess now, engaged to be married to the most scandal-prone girl in the British Isles and probably beyond. Annie didn’t resemble the wild child described on the pages of
The London List,
not even in bed when he made her forget her reservations. He could have sworn she was an innocent. A proper lady judging from her accent and deportment now that she wasn’t pretending to be a Cockney housekeeper. He’d teasingly called her Lady Anne, and he’d not been far off. She was an earl’s daughter, entitled to “lady” before her name.
My Lady Imaculata.

He had hoped she was the offspring of some rich cit so the disparity in their backgrounds would not be quite so wide, but he’d known in his heart she was Quality. The ton was unforgiving—all the articles in
The London List
would be engraved on its memory for decades. Coupled with the murder accusation against him, they were a doomed pair.

He would have laughed but for the pounding in his head. Gareth should have known her rescue of him was too easy. Instead she’d be a millstone around his neck.

But not if he reneged and sent her on her way. She couldn’t go home, however, if what Ian said was true.