Page 75 of The Trouble with Anna

“Because my father was drunk. Often. Violently. I’m afraid I’m not rational when it comes to drink.”

Anna didn’t move, didn’t respond.

“I didn’t touch alcohol for years. Not wine, not claret, not a drop of anything. Poor Charlotte—it gave me fits when she drank champagne, until I understood that she isn’t the same as our father.” He shook Anna gently. “You’re not drunk, are you? Please tell me. It drives me beyond reason not to know.”

“I only said it because I wanted an excuse,” she said in a small voice. “I want to forget this ever happened.”

“Thank god,” said Julian, and buried his face in her hair.

“Stop!” Anna pulled away from him. “First you kiss me, then you shove me away and say horrid things, now you’re… what are you doing? I can’t keep up! I don’t want to!”

He gave an unsteady laugh. “You’re not the only one. I’ve never felt so—”

Never felt so what? So helpless, so out of control? So completely wrapped up in one person that he lost all sense of himself? Anna shimmied out of his arms, and Julian let her go, jamming his hands into his hair.

A strangled laugh escaped him. “I trotted around the ballroom after you tonight like a puppy. I almost got into a duel with Hartley and another with that damned Prince, only because you laugh with them and not with me. Three minutes after entering this room, I had you flat against the desk, and I only stopped because the door was unlocked and someone could have come in at any minute. Do you know, I used to be quite famous for my sangfroid?”

“I don’t understand what you’re trying to say!”

Trust her to pry and probe, to keep him squirming on the hook. Trust her to want what he still struggled to admit. “I’m saying—damn it!—that I’m as mixed up about all this as I suspect you are.”

“Oh.” The fight puffed out of Anna. Her shoulders dropped, just a little, and her eyes darted up to meet his. “Are you saying… You promise all that wasn’t some…” She stumbled to a halt and her hands crept up to her hot cheeks. “You promise you didn’t kiss me to…”

He grinned, much encouraged. “Go on.”

“You promise you weren’t making a fool of me, for some strange purpose of your own? Or that you weren’t simply being… friendly?”

His grin widened. “Exceedingly friendly.”

She didn’t look convinced.

“Painfully friendly? You don’t trust me, and I’ve given youlittle reason to. But I can’t stay away.” Julian hesitated. “Is it the same for you?”

Anna didn’t say anything. Julian thought he’d asked for too much, until she gave a shrug and muttered, “Yes. It’s awful!”

He pressed a swift, adoring kiss on the base of her neck. “Then we’d better try to stumble through it together.”

Anna paused, and the bleakness on her face made his heart turn over. “Those things you said to Charlotte—they hurt me badly.”

“I know,” he said solemnly. “It went so fast and I got overwhelmed. Perhaps we can try again, more slowly this time?”

He let her search his face and she gave a helpless laugh, as she always did when she knew it was time to stop fighting. “All right. We’ll try again.”

Julian pulled her back to him and kissed her one last time. “You, my lightning, taste better than lemon cake.”

“How would you know, when you never eat any?” she retorted, to hide her blush, though soon enough she was frowning up at him. “If we’re speaking frankly, why is that?”

“Why is what?” He tugged her toward the door, hoping she would forget the whole subject, but she dug her heels in and waited for his answer. Like a hound over a foxhole, she waited.

“I don’t like anything that makes me feel undisciplined,” he muttered at last. “I don’t like anything that makes me feel like my father.”

Her face softened. “Oh, Julian! I’m so—”

“Eager to kiss me? I’m all in favor, jezebel, but I’m afraid we must get you back to the ball.”

CHAPTER32

WHAT A TREMENDOUSLY SUCCESSFUL NIGHT.” Charlotte sprawled across her bed, still in her ball gown, her hair rioting over the cherry silk counterpane.

---