Page 32 of The Trouble with Anna

And yet there was a strange new light in his eyes.

Oh, be sensible!

Still, despite all her whirling thoughts, Anna couldn’t help a jolt of excitement as the traveling coach rolled into the outskirts of London.

“Lower the shade!” Charlotte clambered across Anna for the pull.

Anna tried to push her off. “But I want to look out the window!”

“Children, stop your squabbling!” said the Dowager. “No wonder Julian rode on ahead! It will be a great relief to get out of this coach. It’s like traveling with a pair of young jackals.”

Charlotte got hold of the pull, yanked the shade down, and plopped back into her seat triumphantly. “You’ll miss us both dreadfully before it’s time for dinner, Gran. I’d bet my pin money on it.”

Anna snaked her hand slowly toward the pull. Just as she managed to wrap her fingers around it, a sharp jab in the ribs stopped her.

“Ow!” howled Anna.

“Leave it!” said Charlotte. “And stop glaring! I’ll raise the shade at just the right moment so you see London at her grandest.”

“Charlotte, I used to live in London.”

“But not since you were a child. Let me make a fuss for you.”

Anna narrowed her eyes, prickles of suspicion crawling up her spine. Charlotte was looking positively angelic, which always meant trouble. “Why do I smell a rat?”

“I’m sure you smell hundreds. That’s London for you.”

With a dark harrumph, Anna settled back into the velvet squabs and let the coach rattle on toward the center of the city. Outside she could hear the clatter of carriage wheels against cobblestone streets, the clip-clop of passing horses, the calls of pedestrians, and the shouts of the hawkers, all combining in a low city hum thatgrew louder and more insistent by the minute, until even Anna’s bones began to buzz. “I would so love to see out!”

“Not long now.” Charlotte exchanged a conspiratorial look with the Dowager. “We’re almost there—the most heavenly place in all of England.”

“Oh!” Anna sat up. “Are we driving past Parliament?”

Charlotte peeked out the shade on her side. “You’ll see. Just a few minutes more.”

The carriage slowed and rattled to a stop.

A thought occurred to Anna, and she gasped. “Could it be? Oh, Charlotte! Are you taking me toAstley’s?”

The Dowager sputtered out a laugh. “We’re certainly not taking you straight to drool over horses.”

Charlotte took the pull, paused dramatically, and yanked up the shade. “Here we are—Bond Street!”

Anna’s nose wrinkled up. “Bond Street? But that’s just a bunch of shops.”

She peered out over Charlotte’s shoulder and caught her breath. Not at the shops—there was nothing to grab her attention in the glossy storefronts—but at the frothing river of people. A group of maids, some with glowing brown faces topped by tight black curls, some Irish redheads with complexions like milk, dodged through the crowd in a chattering mass, hurrying to make good time home. A blond butcher’s boy darted across the street carrying an armful of parcels, just as a group of gentlemen sauntered around the corner with their elegant walking sticks, one sporting a small, red, squared-off hat like the one Soussi dusted off and slapped on whenever he got homesick. There were even sailors rambling by in their Royal Navy slops. A million different people working their way through a million different days, all in the few square miles that was London.

Anna shrank back from the window. “Those young ladies were staring at me!”

“Well, of course,” said Charlotte. “We’re in the Ramsay coach and everyone hopes to sneak a look at an earl. Especially a young, handsome one.”

“How rude!”

Charlotte shrugged. “I’ve been known to crane my neck for a good-looking duke.”

The Dowager patted Charlotte’s hand. “Yes, but you have no manners at all, darling. Now, where are you headed first?”

“Headed?” asked Anna blankly. “Aren’t we going straight to the house?”

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