Page 8 of The Trouble with Anna

“Aha!” cried Charlotte. “It’s your amazing self-regard! You can’t imagine a single female whowouldn’twant to marry you.”

“Damn it, Charlotte! You said yourself that she’s a firebrand!”

“Yes, a firebrand! Not a thief!”

Doubt crept in on Julian, cold and insidious. He couldn’t erase the memory of Lady Anna’s cheeks when she’d raised her face, the red slap of shock against her pale skin. If he was wrong, he’d behaved abominably. To a young woman, all alone in the world, who had some claim to his protection.

Christ.

Charlotte saw her opening and pounced. “Lady Anna is myclosest friend. Do you think me such a lackwit as to so misread her character?”

Julian’s jaw worked. A rare uneasy feeling that felt uncomfortably like guilt rumbled through his stomach. His sister was many things, most of them trouble, but she was nobody’s fool. “Let me be clear—are you telling me you believe Lord Barton acted without Lady Anna’s knowledge? You vouch for her?”

Charlotte looked him straight in the eye. “I’d trust Anna with my life.”

Damn it.

Charlotte had once asked Julian waspishly if he had to be right all the time. The answer was yes, because he had 1,524 dependents counting on him, 1,524 livelihoods held carefully in his hands. But it seemed his judgment was badly off when it came to one small, silent, and deeply vexing young woman.

Julian gave his sister a cool nod. “In that case, I won’t detain you any longer.”

Charlotte gave a tilt of her head, magnanimous in victory. She rose to her feet, pressed a kiss on her grandmother’s cheek, and swept out of the room like a young queen.

CHAPTER4

WHEN TIMES WERE DIFFICULT, WHENcircumstances threatened to overwhelm, only one thing worked for Anna. She called for a horse and went riding.

She couldn’t take Sally, whose friendly eyes would undo her. Nor Archer, who was wickedly fast but far too playful for the brutal weight of her emotion. No, she needed speed but also thundering, furious muscle. Which was why she chose old Decimus and urged him into a gallop. As if her problems could be outrun.

There were so many awful things about this business, and yet one thought was so much worse than all the others, so unbearably painful that she quaked when she got near it, like a surgeon hovering helplessly over a fatal wound.

She’d loved her grandfather. Often with exasperation, often in spite of herself, but she’d loved him.

It was now clear he hadn’t loved her back.

Once, in the faraway London days when Anna was a child, her mother had dashed in for one of the quick, laughing visits she made all too infrequently. Anna had cast around for something to say that would catch her attention, but all she had come up with was a simple question. “Mama, what was your father like?”

To Anna’s amazement, it had worked. Caroline’s laughing eyeswent serious for once and she’d perched herself on top of Anna’s plush quilts. “He wasn’t always nice. He didn’t bother himself much with me or my mother, and he loathed my aunt Prudence, so much that he forbade her visits. He says women are either frivolous, weak, or meddling, and I’m afraid I never did much to prove him wrong.” Caroline shot her daughter a considering look. “He might like you, though, Anna.”

Anna snapped her eyebrows together. “Well, I don’t like anyone who is mean to you. I’ll make him sorry if he says the slightest thing!”

“Aren’t you my fierce little dragon! But your grandfather is head of the family and you must show him proper respect.” A conspiratorial smile crossed Caroline’s face, and she leaned in. “He’s also very hard to make sorry, and I certainly tried.”

“Wasn’t Papa the head of our family?”

Caroline frowned. “I suppose he must have been when he was alive, although he never seemed all that bothered. He was so tall, with such impressive shoulders, but in the end he was just as unreliable as the rest of them. Even worse, because at first I thought…”

Her voice trailed off, and for the briefest second her face tightened.

Caroline glanced down at her daughter. “You look like him, did you know? I don’t suppose you remember him much. Somehow the Reston features make more sense on a man. It’s lucky, really, that you’re such a plain little thing. They won’t come after you as they have me.”

Anna must have gone stiff because Caroline’s eyes filled with dismay.

“Oh, poppet! I’m hopeless, aren’t I?” She brushed the hair off Anna’s forehead. “I only meant… but you mustn’t listen to me—no one else does. And you mustn’tbelike me either. You’reperfect the way you are, darling. I saw it the second they placed you in my arms, on the very best day of my life. Now, into bed with you.”

Anna pulled at her mother’s hand. “Stay awhile longer? Just until I fall asleep?”

“Not tonight. I mustn’t be late to the Condesa’s.”

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