Page 47 of The Trouble with Anna

“Yes, my lord. What shall I tell your coachman?”

Julian swore long and hard, and the stableboy’s eyes grew bigger.

He’d forgotten about his carriage. He’d forgotten about the weight of responsibilities calling him to Bristol.

Julian wanted something heavy to throw at the brick wall behind him. Anna was prickly, yelling—everything he said—and yet it was all he could do not to sweep her into his arms. He felt her honor and bravery like a pain in his chest, as if something creaky there were expanding beyond its limits.

How could he make her understand?

Damn it, I didn’t ask for any of this!

Neither did she, spat his conscience.

“Get word to my coachman. I leave for Bristol in ten minutes.”

Julian turned on his heel and strode back to the house and into the Dowager’s study. There was no time to make things right, not when they were both so raw and he was needed elsewhere.

There were, however, three letters he could write.

The first was to his man of business in London. Anna had thrown his proposal back in his teeth, but she was bound to him as firmly as if they’d said their vows in church already. He’d post asecondnotice of their engagement in theTimes, to set the record straight for her and everybody else.

The next letter was addressed to Lord Petersham, who had recently returned to London from Austria with a singular cargo in his possession. It had occurred to Julian one morning back at Chatham with the horses, his eyes following Anna as she and Archer skimmed over the track, that Anna wouldn’t want the traditional set of jewels on her wedding day. He’d buy her Lord Petersham’s prize instead, though it would cost him more than any rope of diamonds.

Julian scratched down the last lines of his revised instructions, ignoring the hollow in his stomach that the present he’d plannedso carefully would come instead to Anna as a bribe. He’d pictured her face when she saw it, the startled intake of breath and furtive glance at him. He would have scooped her into his arms, no matter who was watching. He wouldn’t have been able to help himself.

She despises you now, for good reason. No present will change that.

His face shuttered and he picked up a piece of paper for his final letter, the hardest to write. He addressed it first to Anna, but balled it up as soon as his quill scratched out her name. She’d tear up a letter from him rather than read it, especially one filled with commands. The same with Charlotte. He’d get no help from his sister now.

In the end, as the minutes ticked by, he wrote to his grandmother instead.

When the letters were dusted and sealed, Julian climbed into the traveling carriage and rapped twice on the ceiling.

Regret sat heavy in his stomach, like a cannonball.

With a slight sway, the carriage started to move, taking him away from Mayfair, away from London.

Away from his fiancée, who hated him.

CHAPTER20

ANNA’S BLOOD CHURNED, BEATING ALMOSTas fast as Sally’s hooves on the turf as they tore through the park. She could hear the groom calling, “Lady Anna, wait!” but she ignored him, tensing her muscles and flinging her hands forward to drive Sally over a boxwood. The horse took flight and Anna’s heart soared, only to land again with a thump as Sally touched down on the green.

Faster!Anna urged.Faster!

Sally tore across the grass and the wind whipped Anna, slashing at her eyes, grabbing for her mouth, reaching down into her hair and trying to yank it out at the roots. Each stride crashed through her like thunder, yet she stretched forward, asking for more. If she stopped, the feelings would catch her. They’d climb up her throat, leak out her eyes, and stream out of her ears in noxious clouds. A fearsome pressure was building inside and she ran from it as fast as she could.

Only when both horse and rider were completely exhausted did Anna turn toward the Dowager’s townhouse.

Charlotte sat on the stairs to the back terrace, stitching a design of crossed sabers and severed heads, and waiting for her. “There you are!’ She tossed her embroidery hoop down. “We canrun away to Scotland if you like. It won’t take five minutes to ready the carriage.”

Anna’s jaw hardened. “Run from your brother? Whyever would I?”

“So you’re still going to marry him?” Charlotte clapped her hands. “Oh, thank goodness. If you ask me, he only said those horrid things because—”

But Anna wasn’t listening. She was stuck in the tar of her thoughts, where Julian’s awful words held her fast.

A woman more comfortable with horses than people, who prickles up at the smallest thing and spends half her time yelling at me.

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