Practically Wicked (6 page)

Anna’s eyes widened at the sight of an old-fashioned gentleman’s nightcap perched atop a fraying parasol sticking out of a boot.

Shaking her head in wonder, she said the only words that came to mind. “My mother is
most
odd.”

“Indeed,” Mrs. Culpepper agreed with feeling. “Well, no use in dillydallying. Older paperwork is over here.”

Anna dragged her eyes away from the bizarre assemblage and watched Mrs. Culpepper pick her way expertly across the room. “You’ve been in here?”

“I have. Madame likes to have things dusted out and reorganized every now and then. With careful oversight, mind you.” She lifted her skirts to step over a stack of books. “But it was not so filled as this the last time I was allowed access.”

Anna glanced nervously over her shoulder at the door. “We ought not be doing this.”

Mrs. Culpepper calmly opened a small wooden chest and began to extract stacks of letters and papers. “Breaking into your mother’s sitting room? Too late, I’m afraid. But if needs must, I shall blame this escapade on you. Dragged me straight inside, you did.”

“I have been told I can be heartless.”

Mrs. Culpepper flicked her a stern look. “You shouldn’t repeat such nastiness, even in jest. It gives the words a weight they do not deserve. Now come along and help, dear.”

Poking fun at her mother’s sentiments seemed the very thing to lighten their sting, but experience told Anna that this was not an argument she was likely to win.

With a shrug, she forged her way through the room to Mrs. Culpepper and picked a mound of papers to dig through. She found receipts, correspondence to her long-deceased great-aunt, a number of invitations to balls and dinner parties, and what looked to be pages that had been removed from at least two ledgers. All of it more than a decade old. She found much the same in the next pile, and the next, and the one after that.

“This could take days,” Anna muttered after what felt like hours of searching.

“I may have something,” Mrs. Culpepper announced, and Anna looked up to see her opening an oversized, unmarked book. “It’s a journal. It’s…Oh my.” Mrs. Culpepper’s eyebrows winged up as she turned one page, then another. “It is a most explicit journal. She names her paramours, the generalities of their contracts, her opinions of their particular…er, charms and…and…” Mrs. Culpepper tilted her head and grimaced. “Good heavens, did you know your mother can sketch?”

“No.” Anna leaned forward for a look, but Mrs. Culpepper drew the book away. “I suppose the value in such a book would be in blackmail.”

Mrs. Culpepper shook her head and gingerly turned another page. “Any gentleman in search of a discrete affair would keep well away from your mother. Although, some of them might be willing to pay to have these sketches destroyed. Particularly Mr. Hayes.” She squinted a little at the page and tsked in sympathy. “…That poor man.”

Anna had been introduced to Mr. Hayes two years ago. She recalled a rail-thin man with dull amber eyes who had introduced himself to her bust. “May I see?”

Mrs. Culpepper yanked the journal away again and pressed the open pages against her chest. “Certainly not.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Anna groaned, dropping her hand. “I am the grown, illegitimate daughter of
the
Mrs. Wrayburn. Who the deuce will know or care if I see another naughty drawing?”

“I do, and so would your mother.”

“Have you gone daft?” At the estimated age of ten, Anna had been given a detailed accounting of what went on between men and women behind closed doors. The lesson had been delivered at her mother’s orders and had included a variety of visual aids. According to Mrs. Wrayburn, carnal innocence was but a silly euphemism for ignorance, and ignorance was but an open door for curiosity and its many unpleasant consequences. It was rare for Anna to be in agreement with her mother on anything, but in this matter, they were in complete accord.

Anna reached for the journal again. “I’ve seen dozens—”

“There are several self-portraits.”

“Oh.” She winced and drew her hand away. “Oh,
ick
.”

Mrs. Culpepper sniffed. “Indeed.”

Wrinkling her nose, Anna waved her hand in the general direction of the offending book. “Look at the older entries.”

Mrs. Culpepper flipped through page after page of the journal. “The earliest is well after you would have been born. I think…” At last, her eyes landed on a page and stayed. “Wait…Wait a…Here it is. Good heavens, here it is. Listen to this…‘Anna’s birthday approaches. I sent word to her father but naught will come of it. There will be no response or visit from Engsly.’”

Mrs. Culpepper caught Anna’s gaze over the book in the ensuing silence. “Well,” she said at length. “It would seem you really are the daughter of the late Lord Engsly.”

“It would seem I am,” Anna agreed. Pushing aside an old cloak and a pair of half boots, she took a seat on one of the trunks and waited for a feeling of excitement or recognition, or even anger, but nothing came. She felt strangely detached from the news, as if she were hearing of someone else’s lineage. “Is there anything else?”

Mrs. Culpepper scanned the page. “Let us see…‘no word or visit from Engsly,’” she repeated, “‘though perhaps it is best, as the child grows uncommonly…’” Mrs. Culpepper trailed off, lifted her eyes from the page, and cleared her throat. “There’s no need to read this. We have the information we need.”

Annoyed, Anna jumped up and snatched the book away before Mrs. Culpepper could close it.

…the child grows uncommonly fat and I daresay stupider with each passing day. Were the marquess to visit now, he would most certainly leave again with all due haste.

“You were an exceedingly clever child, Anna,” Mrs. Culpepper said loyally.

“And fat, apparently. I don’t remember that.”

Mrs. Culpepper waved the comment away with pursed lips. “You might have been going through something of an awkward stage when I first came to Anover House, but you were beautiful.”

“I was fortunate,” Anna said, tossing the journal aside. “To have had you.” Taking a deep breath, she looked about the room and suddenly felt at a loss of what to do next. “Do you suppose the marquess believed Madame’s claim that I was his?”

“It would have made little difference one way or the other, to my understanding. The late lord Engsly was not the sort to take notice of his parental duties. I remember your mother speaking of him a time or two.”

“Poorly, I assume.” Her mother spoke poorly of everyone, provided the individual in question was out of earshot.

“She referred to him once as a fickle, untrustworthy cad, or something along those lines. I took that to mean he failed to honor their contract.”

Anna nodded, remembering her mother’s earlier words.
Much good it did me.
That was the trouble with being dependent upon the wealth and power of nobility. They had the wealth and power to do as they pleased.

Mrs. Culpepper turned and began to shuffle through the papers she’d removed from the chest once more. “I wonder how much was left owing?”

“Why? The man’s passed, hasn’t he? One can’t expect a dead man to honor his debts.”

“By all accounts, one couldn’t have expected it from him alive. His sons, however…”

“Sons,” Anna repeated slowly. “I may have brothers. How strange.”

“You’ve brothers with considerable fortunes and reputations for honoring familial debts. The late marquess left the estate in something of a mess, made worse by the perfidy of his second marchioness. It was all the talk last year.” As was her wont when there was great gossip to be shared, Mrs. Culpepper leaned forward a hair and lowered her voice. “It is said that the late Lady Engsly, the marquess’s second wife, conspired with her husband’s man of business to bilk the Engsly estate out of a fortune. I’ve no idea if it is true, but it
is
known that Lady Engsly amassed a veritable mountain of debt and enemies, and she was forced to flee to the continent when her stepson gained the title and discovered her betrayal. She died not long after and your brothers have been about for the last year making amends and settling her debts. If the new marquess would do that for his stepmother, you can be certain he’d do the same for his father.

You might…Oh!” Mrs. Culpepper exclaimed suddenly. She spun about and began searching the papers once more. “Do you know, I might have seen…Yes, here they are. Letters from the marquess himself. I’d not thought anything of them at first, but…”

Anna watched her friend quickly open the first missive and begin to read. “Did you see him, ever? The late marquess?”

“Not that I recall,” Mrs. Culpepper replied without looking up. “Certainly not here.”

“What of the current marquess?”

“He is not the sort to move in Madame’s circle.”

“Well then, I am inclined to like him already.”

“He is also a dear friend to Lord Dane.”

The name, so unexpected, caused the air to catch in Anna’s lungs.

Max Dane. Good heavens, there was a man she’d not given thought to in some time. She’d made a point of it. Well, she’d made a point of
trying
not to dwell on him, at any rate.

She’d had no other choice. Max had not come back to call on her as promised after their encounter in the nursery. In fact, he’d ceased visiting Anover House altogether. She’d never heard from him again, and after a brief bout of heartache and self-pity, Anna had come to the conclusion that she had been a silly, shortsighted girl to have expected differently. She’d seen her mother deep in her cups often enough to know that plans made in the thick of drink were rarely seen to fruition, generally to the benefit of everyone involved.

A viscount and the illegitimate daughter of a courtesan with nothing more in common than a shared kiss. What future could there have been for them, really? None at all, and it had been the height of naïveté to believe otherwise.

Anna took pains to keep her voice and expression neutral. “Is he? Well, there is no accounting for taste, I am told.”

“There is no accounting for your stubbornness,” Mrs. Culpepper countered. “Pretend it means nothing to you, if you like, but I know he captured your fancy that night.”

“I should never have told you of it,” Anna mumbled. She’d held out for two days, all but bursting at the seams with the secret and the hope it had sparked. In the end, however she’d succumbed to excitement and given Mrs. Culpepper a lengthy, albeit slightly modified, retelling of the night. Anna had wisely chosen to edit out any mention of kissing.

Mrs. Culpepper gave her a gentle pat on the shoulder. “Not everything is meant to be kept secret, poppet.”

“Not everything need come to light.” She contemplated that statement as it pertained to current circumstances and ran a thumb over the binding of the journal on the floor. “What am I to do with this information?”

“Make use of it,” Mrs. Culpepper said, picking up the next page in her stack of letters from the marquess.

“Approach Engsly?” She wrinkled her nose at the idea. “I don’t know that I wish to do that. I don’t care for the idea of visiting the father’s sins upon the sons.”

“Better they be visited upon his daughter?”

That seemed a mite melodramatic. “They’ve not—”

“He ought to have provided for you,” Mrs. Culpepper cut in with a quick, sharp look over her letter.

Anna shrugged. “He may very well have. Or perhaps he knew full well I was someone else’s bastard. Who’s to say Madame doesn’t lie to herself, same as everyone else?”

There was a brief pause before Mrs. Culpepper answered. “The marquess himself.”

“Beg your pardon?”

Mrs. Culpepper offered the pages of the letter. “See for yourself.”

Anna snatched the papers and scanned the contents. It didn’t take long before she found the passage that held her name. The marquess expressed all due pleasure at the news of his infant daughter’s continued good health. The tone of the letter struck Anna as one of mild irritation rather than pleasure, but that hardly registered in the grand scheme of things.

“He acknowledged me?”

Stunned, she shared a look of wonder with her friend before returning her attention to the letter.

“Why on earth would Madame keep that a secret?” she mumbled, going on to the next page, hoping to find a date, at the very least. “What could she possibly stand to gain? Why would he admit paternity and then…” She trailed off as the mention of a contract and a number on the last page caught her eye. “Good heavens.”

“What is it?”

Anna held the page up for Mrs. Culpepper to see. “He says he does not owe fifty pounds per annum for my care; the contract clearly states he must only provide forty.”

“The contract he did not fulfill,” Mrs. Culpepper added and began to rub her hands together and chortle. “The Engsly estate owes
you
three-and…er…eight-and…Well, let us say six-and-twenty years of allowance. Well over a thousand pounds.”

Over a thousand pounds. It was a fortune. Nowhere near enough to cover the cost of a place like Anover House, but more than ample to procure a cottage in the countryside. More than enough to procure her freedom.

“The Engsly estate is financially well off?”

“Flush these days, by all accounts.”

Then Lord Engsly would scarce note the loss of a thousand pounds. A hard resolve settled over her. “And the current marquess is a man of honor, you say?”

“My dear, he is renowned for it.” A smug smile spread over Mrs. Culpepper’s face. “Oh, sneaking into this room was quite the smartest thing we have ever done. Now, let us see if we might find the contract itself.”

 
 
Chapter 4