Page 28 of The Trouble with Anna

“No!” Anna yelled crossly. “You shallnotdismiss him.”

Julian wasn’t listening. “Understand this, Hoyle. One wrong word, one unpleasant look at Lady Anna, and you answer tome. Is that clear?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“Then get out of my sight.”

Only when the groom darted away, the other men clearing a path as if he were a contagion, did Julian turn to face the woman standing behind him.

Seething, in a rage that surpassed his own.

CHAPTER12

IS THE PERFORMANCE OVER, MYlord?” Anna snapped.

She didn’t wait for a reply or bother to glance over her shoulder to see if he followed as she crunched off down the wide gravel road to the great house. Julian caught up to her in a moment, though she was walking at such a pace, hands swinging furiously by her sides, that he would have been left to trail after her like a schoolboy if his stride wasn’t twice the length of hers.

“What’s this astonishing display?” he said to the top of her head. She didn’t look up, but he could see that her features were set and the line of her jaw was sharp as a knife. Anger propelled her along so quickly that the trees lining the path flashed past them in a tangle of gray.

“What display did you look for, my lord? You’ll have to inform me, as I’m much too busy plotting your death. You humiliated me beyond belief!”

Julian felt his cheeks go dark. “Humiliated you? I rather think a thank-you is in order.”

Her skirts flared as she whirled on him, the spread wings of a hawk swooping down on its prey. “I’m tothankyou for what you did?”

“If you had any manners, you might,” he retorted.

“What do you know of manners?Youtook it upon yourself to lecture one of my men. Youthought nothing of undermining my authority in my own stables!”

“I saw no authority in evidence. And where the devil was your stablemaster? I’m astonished he left you to handle the grooms.”

She stared up at him, vibrating with fury. “Soussi left me to handle the grooms because I told him to! My grandfather has been dead less than a fortnight and every man in there knows the contents of his will. If I’m to have any hope of holding the stables together—or the estate, for that matter!—everyone must know thatIam in charge.”

“I see. And your plan was to encourage insolence from every groom in the damn place? How original. I congratulate you.”

Anna’s eyes flashed. “I establish my authority by letting them take their best crack at me and then handling them, one by one. I wasn’t born an earl like you, my lordliness. I must fight for every ounce of respect I’m given, especially in the stables. Again, and again, and again.”

Julian regarded her coldly. “And what would you have said to the groom? I saw your face. You froze.”

“I was surprised! But I would have rallied! Perhaps I would have ignored him and shown the other grooms that I don’t hold my pride higher than a man’s position. Perhaps I would have confronted him, or dismissed him as you wanted to. I might have made a mistake and had the chance to learn from it. But it should have beenmeto act. Not you, so that once again my authority is only proxy for some man’s.”

Julian yanked off his hat and shoved his fingers through his hair. “I was protecting you, damn it!”

“Protecting me? I neither asked for it nor needed it! You protected your pride, at my expense.”

A cold gust of wind kicked up her skirts again and blewtendrils of her hair across her face, but she stood her ground, a dark slash against the midmorning sky.

And she was right, damn it.

Even through his anger, even as every instinct tried to yell him down, Julian had to acknowledge the truth of it. He had only served his own damned need to take charge of everything.

“You’re quite right,” he said quietly. “I shouldn’t have interfered.”

Julian could see the white puff of Anna’s breath as her lips parted and she exhaled her surprise. Their voices had been raised, amplified by the sharp autumn air. Now the sudden hush locked them together.

“I beg your pardon?” She squinted up at him so suspiciously that in better circumstances he might have laughed.

“You’re right.” His anger ebbed away. “I had no right to interfere. I apologize.”

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