Page 65 of The Trouble with Anna

No such luck. Only a few steps into the room and they were mobbed.

“How do you stand this?” Anna yelled to Charlotte. Already her eyes were crossing, her brain couldn’t keep hold of a single name, and all the Dowager’s painstaking instructions had danced right out of her head. Anna forgot to curtsey entirely, only bobbing down when Charlotte gave her a particularly emphatic pinch.

“It’s not usually so bad!” Charlotte shouted, nabbing two glasses of champagne from a passing footman. “Everyone wants a look at you!”

“I feel like a creature in a menagerie!” Anna gulped gratefully at her drink.

“A lion, I hope!”

“More like a hyena!”

Charlotte pulled a face. “What a thing to say, when I’ve dressed you so beautifully.”

To be fair, that much was true. Charlotte was in lush rose, her gown gathered in a million little pintucks. It was ever so slightly—and very deliberately—too big for her. The smooth expanse of her shoulders rising out of the froth of fabric and lace felt slightly scandalous, as if she were one deep breath away from being entirely naked.

Anna, on the other hand, was ruthlessly tailored, the lines and cut of her gown clean and close-fitted. The beauty of the gown came from the fabric, a pale, glimmering gold that caught the light each time Anna moved, throwing shadows across her body. A band of darker gold embroidery dipped down low over her breasts.

“I think no jewelry,” Charlotte had said during her inspection. “There’s nothing like a naked neck to make a man want to nibble it.”

Anna turned scarlet. “Your brother doesn’t want to nibble me!”

Charlotte had smiled sweetly. “Who said anything about Julian?”

When the music changed, a young man appeared in front of Anna and bowed. “My dance, I believe?”

Anna frowned and looked down at her card. “If you say so. Which one are you?”

“James Marby, my lady.” He shot a puzzled look at Charlotte.

“Oh yes! The one who helped us place our bets.” Anna passed Charlotte her empty champagne coupe, put her hand in the young man’s, and gave a shrug. “God help your feet!”

“What was that, my lady?”

Charlotte choked back a laugh. “She said, ‘What a treat!’?”

“I believe she said, ‘I prefer to dance with my fiancé,’?” came a deep voice from behind them.

Awareness swept up Anna’s back, her skin suddenly awake and glowing. She stood stiff, refusing to turn toward Julian, but she could trace every inch of space he occupied behind her, as if her body had turned to stardust, shimmering toward his gravity.

“See here!” said Marby “I am not such a muttonhead as to mix up my dances. I would swear—”

“That Lady Charlotte would make a wonderful alternate partner? I quite agree,” Julian interjected.

Marby’s ears turned red. “The last time I danced with your sister, she tried to trip me, deliberately crashed us into a pillar, and said, ‘How dare you!’ as loud as she could when we circled by my mother. The lecture I got is still blistering my ears, when Mother should know I’m not that sort of man. Steal my dance with Lady Anna if you must, but spare me Charlotte!”

Charlotte collapsed with laughter. “Poor Marby! Was it as bad as all that? I was dreadfully bored that night, you see.” She linked her arm with his and explained, “Marby’s family lives close to Clare, our main estate. Don’t be fooled by his cherub face—he’s a fiend at heart.”

Marby brightened. “I say, Ramsay, do you really want my dance? I’ve been itching to try that new phaeton of yours. Shall we trade—my dance for an afternoon driving your phaeton?”

“Done,” said Julian, and before Anna could blink he lifted her away into the swirl of dancers.

“Oh!” Anna stumbled, caught off guard, and her eyes flew up to the hard lines of his face as he spun her through the first turns of the waltz. For a flicker of a second, Anna allowed herself to imagine that this was all real, that Julian held her close because he wanted to.

But he was stiff as a board and he wouldn’t look at her.

Anna wrenched her gaze away. “What a lot of people there are here tonight.”

“Really, Anna? Polite conversation? I don’t think I can stomach it.”

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