Page 60 of The Trouble with Anna

“Christ, Anna!” Julian’s body jangled with frustration, the anger seemed to fall away from him, replaced by a strange, aching expression she could almost call loss. “I’m sorry! I came tonight to apologize, and instead I saw you with Lord Hartley and went out of my mind.”

“What on earth does Lord Hartley have to do with anything?” she cried.

There was an odd, self-mocking gleam in his eye. “Nothing, if I have anything to say about it.” He gathered her hands and pulled them to his chest. “I didn’t mean it, not what I said tonight and not what you heard the day I left. I’m angry about your grandfather’s will. Furious! But—”

“No.” Anna pulled her hands away and tried to stoke her anger. She couldn’t let him make her weak, when what she needed now was strength. “I’m glad you said it. At least it was the truth. I wish you’d said it from the beginning, so we could have talked sensibly and saved all this confusion.”

All this useless hope. All this awful emptiness.

Julian gave a curt shake of his head. “There’s no confusion. Iwantto marry you. I didn’t at first. How could I, when you were a stranger? But everything changed—”

“I don’t believe you!”

“But, damn it, I—”

“You offered for me and I said no. Then you set out to court me—youtoldme so!—and I fell for it. Isn’t that true?”

“Yes,” he said rather desperately. “But I fell too. I—”

“Stop!” Anna’s face went tight. Oh god, was she going to cry? “You made your feelings perfectly clear the moment my back was turned!”

Something seemed to shake loose inside Julian. He pulled her close, blazing down at her with a fierceness that made her catch her breath. “Goddamn it, Anna, I need you!”

“Don’t say such things! Do you have any idea how stupid I feel knowing it was all just a game to you? I let you kiss me! I kissed you back and you must have beenlaughing.”

“Laughing?” His hands tightened on her arms as if by instinct, pulling her up toward him as he lowered his mouth—

“No!”

It was just a word, but it stopped him instantly. He dropped his hold, but his eyes never left hers. “I wasn’t laughing, Anna. I was burning, and I haven’t stopped yet. I can’t sleep thinking about how your mouth tastes, how my body aches for yours. There’s nothing to laugh about, not for me. It’s driving me mad.”

It was too much. Anna could take his anger, but his strange, almost anguished words scrambled her up too badly.

“I won’t marry you,” she said quietly.

“If you would but listen—”

She shook her head. “It’s you who won’t listen. I won’t marry you! Ihateyou, Julian!”

He closed his eyes, just for a second, and it was all Anna could do not to launch herself at him, to spill out her terrible mess of hope and hurt, to beg him to start all over.

But when he opened his eyes again, they were blank. No pain, no regret, none of the teasing light that just a few weeks ago had been enough to upend her world. Instead, he offered a stiff bow.

“Then I’ll trouble you no further. I withdraw my suit and offer my compliments instead.”

He had accused her of running away before, and it was the only thing she could think to do now. Anna sprinted out the door, leaving Julian alone in an empty drawing room.

CHAPTER27

THE DOWAGER WOKE THE NEXTmorning to her usual aches—the stiff shoulder, the pain in her knee, and the tight finger joints that curled in a bit more each day. Still, she could only think howwellshe felt. It was tremendously invigorating to watch a proud man make an ass of himself.

The Dowager’s gaze fell on the thick book she kept on the little table next to her bed, and she picked it up and tossed it to the floor. She didn’t need her own special copy ofDebrett’s Peerageanymore, marked up with her many scribbled observations on London’s debutantes. It was quite clear she could cross out all her lists and give up the business of finding Julian a countess altogether. Lord Barton had played matchmaker already, bless the old bastard. Of course, the Dowager preferred sedate courtships—and said so loudly when Charlotte was in earshot—but Anna wasperfect.

The Dowager shook her head, amused once again by the tricks life played. To think how she’d worried when Julian first announced his intentions, how she had wanted to wail and wave her hands around, all while she’d smiled and tried to scheme up ways to talk him out of it.

As if that were possible.

Julian had many wonderful qualities, but flexibility was notone of them. He handed down commandments as if he were the Archbishop and the rest of them a flock of particularly stupid sheep.

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