Page 23 of The Trouble with Anna

“Don’t you dare say a word,” she warned from the mud, her shoulders shaking with laughter. “Not one word!”

“Certainly not, when your skirt speaks volumes for me.”

Anna ignored his offered hand once again, so he leaned down, wrapped his big hands around her waist, and lifted her to her feet.

“Oh!” She wobbled and clutched his jacket.

Julian steadied her, fighting the growing urge to tuck her up close to see how she fit. Certainly, he liked the way her hands felt against him, one on his chest and the other fisted against his flank. Anna’s eyes were deep and wondering, so dark they were almost black except where the dappled light hit them.

What would she taste like, when he kissed her? He was shocked at how much the question had tortured him all the previous night.

But just as he was about to lower his head and find out, she pushed away and trudged for the top of the hill.

“Here we are!” She was just a little breathless, and Julian smirked. “Do you like it?”

The ground sloped steeply into a small, rocky hollow beneath them, full of murky water. Trees grew in a bleak ring around the water, some still blazing with late autumn leaves, some just bare branches now. Anna had led him through some of Suffolk’s finest countryside and this was her destination.

A muddy puddle.

When he made no response, she peered up at him anxiously. “You’re not interested in this sort of thing? It’s just that in the library you seemed to admire the Romans. I thought perhaps—”

“I’m riveted, I assure you.”

It was a neutral enough comment, but he should have known her ears were too sharp to miss the faint mockery. She gave a puff of disgust, and Julian’s chest contracted when he realized it was aimed at herself.

He looked at the hollow again more carefully. The rocks were perfectly square, arranged almost symmetrically in the one area where they weren’t half-covered by earth, almost as if—

“It’s a ruin.” The age of it shivered over his skin. He leapt up to the lip and made his way over to where the rocks were exposed. They were weathered and a few were completely coveredover with earth and roots, but he could see they were cut and laid into a square for what must have been a cistern. “Imagine hauling blocks of this size.”

“Locals have known about it forever, but it’s never been properly excavated. I hear it’s deeper than you might expect in the middle. I thought about swimming here once, but—”

She shrugged, and Julian imagined her stripping down, those long legs bare in the forest. He caught her eye, made sure he held it. “Thank you for bringing me here.”

She shrugged again. “I know it’s not much—”

“Thank you. Truly.”

Her little sparrow face relaxed, and Julian became aware of a strange warmth in his chest. “You are aware that as the Countess Ramsay, you would have significant funds at your disposal? You could excavate this cistern. You could ride up and down England excavating thousands.”

She pulled a face. “The Countess Ramsay sounds most eccentric.”

His mouth twitched. “You could start a fashion for mud, if you so choose.”

“I revise my opinion. The Countess Ramsay sounds downright strange!”

“Countesses are not strange, they are free. What would you do with that much freedom?”

She glanced over at him, her eyes so penetrating that Julian had the uncomfortable feeling she could see down into the hollows of his bones. “I never thought of an earl as being particularly free,” she said softly. “You don’t even plan to choose your own wife.”

Julian’s neck prickled uncomfortably, but he ignored the comment. “If you were my Countess, you’d be able to turn the racing world on its head.”

“Ha! No one wants a radical countess.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I’m not particularly fond of the current Countess, but my hopes for the future are rising.”

She tilted her head. “You’re not fond of Charlotte’s mother?”

Damn.

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