Ducal Encounters 02 - With the Duke's Approval (18 page)

Anna was aghast. “I think that is the saddest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

He looked up at her again, effortlessly capturing her gaze and holding it, such was the power he wielded over her. “I am older than you, Annalise, but not so much older that it would make things awkward for us. I am wealthy in my own right, I can offer you a comfortable home, and I will do my very best to make you happy.”

Tears trickled from the corners of her eyes. “Thank you, but the answer is still
no.”

“Don’t be difficult. We really don’t have any choice.”

“You may not, but I—”

“Love will come, I am perfectly sure of it.”

“And I am not prepared to take the risk of…”

“Of what?” he asked when her words trailed off.

“It doesn’t matter. Please take me home. I shall tell Zach what happened and make sure he understands it was not your fault. Once he stops scolding me, I dare say he will think of a way to fix things. Zach always knows how to fix things. It is what dukes do.”

“Very well.” Lord Romsey tapped on the roof and gave Pierce new orders. “It just so happens that I need to speak with Winchester as well.”

By the time they reached Berkeley Square, Anna still had not recovered from the shock of Lord Romsey’s cold, practical proposal. Faraday took her outdoor garments and informed her the duchess wished to see her in the small sitting room the moment she returned home. Mama probably wished to ring a peel over her for going out with Lord Romsey alone. She could have no idea how richly that dressing down was deserved, but Anna had rather hoped it could wait. She desperately wanted to speak with Zach before Lord Romsey got to him, but could not defer a direct request from her mother.

“Is the duke in his study?” Lord Romsey asked Faraday.

“I believe so, my lord. And he wishes to see you, immediately.”

“Not as much as I wish to see him.”

Lord Romsey sent her the ghost of a wink, a gesture that was as surprising as it was uncharacteristic. It proved to Anna there might yet be hope for him, but that did not alter her firm determination not to accept him under the current circumstances.

“You are enjoying this,” she hissed at him.

“I am not enjoying oversetting you, Annalise,” he said softly. “But I
will
do the honourable thing by you, and there is no more to be said on the matter.”

“On the contrary, there is a very great deal to be said.”

He touched her face, just fleetingly, and then headed in the direction of Zach’s study. She felt his fingertips searing into her skin long after he removed them. These brief glimpses of the sensitive man lurking beneath all those years of training and dedication to duty made her want to call after him. Beg him to pour out his heart. Find a way to convince him he had nothing to fear from loving her. And…that it was perfectly acceptable to fall in love, even for someone with his rigid standards. But she didn’t think he would ever do so. Damnation, why could he not love her? What had happened to him as a child to make it impossible for him to feel emotion, or openly display it even if he did? Her poor, damaged Clarence was an enigma, but she was determined to find out what demons drove him.

The man she had fallen in love with had proposed to her. It ought to be the happiest day of her life, even if that proposal had been made grudgingly. It ought not to matter if her love was not returned. She was sure Lord Romsey
liked
her, and enjoyed her society. She made him laugh. Not the polite, social laugh she had heard him deploy on many occasions—the one that did not reach his eyes. But a real, genuine laugh that lit up his handsome features with a wicked humour that made her insides melt with desire. Many marriages had been built upon considerably less. Unfortunately, it did matter to her. It mattered very much indeed.

That was the problem.

Sighing, she turned in the direction of the small sitting room and found her mother there alone, reading a book. She looked up when Anna entered the room, put her book aside, and smiled at her.

“Bring us some tea, please, Faraday.” Mama patted the seat beside her on the settee. “Now, come and sit here and tell me what you have been up to this afternoon, my dear. But first, tell me you feel better.”

“Oh, Mama, I have made such a mull of everything!”

To her horror, and her mother’s obvious consternation, tears flooded Anna’s eyes and tricked down her bruised face.

“My love, whatever is wrong?” The duchess clutched Anna’s hand, much as Lord Romsey had in his carriage. “I knew you should not have returned to the east end so soon. It would be enough to discompose anyone.”

Anna accepted the handkerchief her mother handed her, mopped her eyes, and did her level best to compose herself. Then she told the duchess everything that had happened that afternoon, starting with the trip to the east end and her recognition of her prison, then finishing with the events in the park. Her mother, instead of appearing horrified, merely smiled.

“Oh dear,” she said. “Mrs. Anderson will cause all sorts of mischief for us now.”

“Yes,” Anna replied glumly. “And it’s all my fault. I just wanted Lord Romsey to have some innocent fun. I never imagined for a minute things would come to such a sorry pass. Do you know I cannot discover that he has ever done anything for his own pleasure? Or anything reckless.” She wrinkled her nose. “Not before he met me anyway, and I am sure he regrets that day now.”

Mama laughed. “And I am equally sure he does not.”

“I doubt whether he had ever read a book for enjoyment rather than self-improvement.” Anna waved her mother’s discarded novel in the air to lend emphasis to her words. “It is so very sad.”

“How does he plan to fix the problem he created?”

“He did not create it. I did.” Anna ground her teeth. “I have been a terrible trial to him these past few days. And, by my actions today, I have damaged not only my reputation but Portia’s also.”

The duchess waved Anna’s statement aside. “It will blow over.”

“That’s precisely what I said, but Lord Romsey did not agree.”

“Then tell me what he proposes to do about it.”

Anna shook her head and said nothing.

“Anna, what are you not telling me?”

“He asked me to marry him,” Anna replied reluctantly, addressing her words to the rug beneath her feet.

“Well, my love, that is what you want, is it not?”

Anna looked at her mother askance. “What do you mean?”

Mama chuckled. “You have had eyes for no one else since you first met him. A mother always notices these things. I knew immediately that Crista was right for Amos the moment I saw them together. I suspect I knew it before Amos himself did.”

“Just as you think Frankie is right for Zach.” Anna wrinkled her brow, momentarily diverted from her own problems. “And yet Frankie is living here and you do nothing to promote the match.”

“Your brother is the most stubborn one of you all. If I try to push him in a particular direction and point out what he is not yet ready to admit to himself, he will most likely run the opposite way just to spite me.”

Anna managed a weak smile. “You are very wise, Mama.”

“I have six children, my love. Of course I am wise because I care so very much about the happiness of you all.” Mama smiled. “Now tell me again why it’s such a bad thing that the man you adore proposed to you?”

“I want him to marry me because he loves me and can’t bear to live without me, not because he feels compelled.”

Mama’s soft smile was full of understanding. “And what makes you imagine he does not love you?”

“He did not say he did. If fact, he appeared to go out of his way to make no mention of his feelings. Actually, I don’t believe he has any,” she added with a mutinous toss of her head. “I imagine they were beaten out of him by his brute of a father. What little he has said about him makes him sound like a cold, heartless ogre.”

“Many fathers are like that. Not everyone is as lucky as you were.”

“Yes, so I am finding out. Lord Romsey spoke about duty, about his house, and giving me a comfortable home, but nothing about his personal feelings. How can I possibly marry a man who does not feel?” Anna rested her head on her mother’s lap, as she had been accustomed to do when she was a little girl and felt unwell. Her mother’s comforting hand gently stroked her hair. “I want what you and Papa had, Mama. It is all I have ever wanted. I saw daily just how much you loved one another, and I can’t settle for anything less. Zach is not the only one of us who can be stubborn.”

“Your papa and I were not always as close as you remember.”

Anna’s head popped up from her mother’s lap. “You were not?”

Mama smiled at Anna, a faraway look in her eye. “When I was your age I was plain Miss Ascot, daughter of a wealthy but untitled family. I had no brothers or sisters and was my father’s only heir, which made me that much more attractive to the fortune hunters.”

Anna laughed. “Mama, you were a beauty. It cannot only have been money that made gentlemen admire you.”

“Perhaps not. You are in a similar yet better position that I was. Just as you are, I was pursued all the way through my first season, mainly for my fortune. Your papa needed a wealthy wife. His father had run the Winchester duchy almost into the ground with his gaming habit. I knew that was why your papa took an interest in me, but I liked him, and I liked the idea of being a duchess. I won’t deny that. Besides, my family put a lot of pressure on me to accept him.”

“Oh Mama, I have caused all this trouble. Put Portia’s reputation as well as my own in jeopardy, and you have yet to issue a single word of censure, or put any pressure on me to accept Lord Romsey.” Anna sat up and threw her arms around her mother’s neck. “I don’t deserve you.”

“In my case, not much pressure was necessary. I decided I would marry your father, and that I would make him fall in love with me.”

“You certainly succeeded in that ambition.”

“And that is what you must do with Lord Romsey.”

“But how?” Anna shook her head. “I haven’t the faintest notion how to go about it. How did you achieve it with Papa?”

“Ah, there is only so much help I can give you. The rest you must work out for yourself.”

A footman came in with their tea. Anna sat upright and neither she nor her mother spoke again until he withdrew.

“You have no choice but to accept Lord Romsey, my love,” Mama said, handing Anna her tea. “He is quite right about that.”

“But I—”

“Mrs. Anderson is bound to be at the Pettigrew’s party this evening. Vince doesn’t know it yet, but he will escort Portia and me to it. I shall tell Mrs. Anderson in the strictest confidence that you have accepted Lord Romsey. She will be delighted, of course, because that will leave the field clear for her daughter and Lord Roker. I shall tell her that you and his lordship will make your announcement at Lady Ancel’s ball in two nights’ time. Your bruises ought to be healed well enough by then for you to be seen in public. If they are not, I am sure Fanny will be able to conceal them with your hair and a little face powder.” Mama flashed a mischievous smile that caused the years to fall away from her. “Naturally, Mrs. Anderson will spread the word, and everyone in the room will know within the hour.”

Anna laughed in spite of herself. “But I am still not sure I wish to marry Lord Romsey under such circumstances.”

“You don’t have to. You merely have to enter into the engagement. If after a few weeks you still feel the same way, we shall find a way to break it off.”

“Mama!”

The duchess executed a delicate shrug. “It might cause a little scandal, but what is that compared to your happiness?”

“What indeed” Anna thought she was the most contrary creature on God’s earth. She really did not want to marry Lord Romsey unless he loved her. But having been talked into the engagement by her wise mother, she was now reluctant to consider breaking it off again.

“The important thing is that no reputations will be ruined. Engagements are broken for all sorts of reasons. I am sure we will think of something to satisfy the tattle-mongers.”

“And if Mrs. Anderson does mention seeing his lordship and me in an…er, compromising position, it will not matter since we are engaged.”

“Precisely.”

“Mama, you are a miracle worker.”

“That she is,” Zach said from the doorway, Lord Romsey lurking at his shoulder.

“Listening at doors, my dear?” Mama asked indolently.

“I hear you have had quite an afternoon, and lived up to our name for you, Trouble,” Zach said in a mildly reproving tone. “Romsey has seen fit to offer you a way out of it, and I have given him my approval. The rest is up to you, Anna.”

“Mama and I have been talking about that.” Anna stood up and faced Lord Romsey. “I have had a change of heart, Lord Romsey, and will be happy to become engaged to you.”

Clarence took her hand and kissed the back of it. “I am delighted to hear you say so.”

“As to marriage, however.” She sent him a teasing smile, ideas about how to follow in her mother’s footsteps already percolating through her mind. “I have yet to decide about that.”

Within ten minutes of entering the Foreign Office the following morning, Clarence had been congratulated upon his forthcoming nuptials by three different people. Others smiled and shook his hand cordially. Aware the duchess would have stuck to her plan and told only Mrs. Anderson of the engagement, Clarence was pleased to have it confirmed that the
ton’s
gossip machine was working as efficiently as ever.

Having committed himself to enter a state he had always planned to avoid, a largely sleepless night had left him none the wiser as to the true nature of his feelings. The prospect of matrimony, of having his carefully organised life disrupted by a person who would have every right to make demands upon his time and seek his attention, ought to have petrified him. And, to a degree, it did. Put simply, he was terrified of the unknown. He was not qualified to be a good husband, because he didn’t know how to be. Had no example to emulate. His parent’s idea of domestic felicity had left much to be desired. Dear God, supposing he turned out to be no better at it than his father was? The thought filled Clarence with abject horror. He could never be that cold, callously single-minded, and unfeeling. Could he?