“M’man’s per-mission! M’man’s per-mission!” Cynthia chanted.
“Yes!” Felicity said. “Yes, you have my permission.”
“Huzzah! Huzzah!” Cynthia ran from the room, her red hair streaming behind her.
The sight made her frown. Cynthia’s red hair was the bane of Felicity’s life.
“Thank you, M’man.” Christine closed the door primly.
Felicity groaned and rang for more toilet water. If only she hadn’t written that incriminating note in a fit of sentimentality. And what had Peter been thinking to save that locket? Men truly were idiots.
She pressed her fingertips over the cloth on her forehead. Perhaps Lord Swartingham really hadn’t known what she was talking about. He’d seemed confused when she had said they both knew the identity of the lady he’d met at Aphrodite’s Grotto. And if, in fact, he did not know her . . .
Felicity sat up, the cloth falling unheeded to the floor. If he did not know the woman’s identity, then she’d been trying to blackmail the wrong person.
ANNA KNELT IN her little garden in back of the cottage the next morning. She hadn’t the heart to tell Mother Wren she’d lost her employment. It had been late when she’d arrived home the night before, and this morning she hadn’t wanted to talk about it. Not yet, anyway, when the subject would only bring up questions she couldn’t answer. Eventually, she’d have to work up the courage to apologize to Edward. But that could wait, too, while she licked her wounds. Which was why she worked in the garden today. The mundane tasks of caring for vegetables and the smell of the freshly dug earth provided a kind of solace to her soul.
She was digging up horseradish roots to replant when she heard a shout from the front of the cottage. She frowned and lay down the shovel. Surely nothing was wrong with Rebecca’s baby? She lifted her skirts to trot around the cottage. The sound of a carriage and horses receded. A clearly feminine voice shouted again as she rounded the corner.
Pearl stood on the front step, holding another woman against her. At her approach, they both turned and Anna gasped. The other woman had two black eyes, and her nose looked as if it might be broken. It took Anna a couple of seconds to recognize her.
It was Coral.
“Oh, Lord!” Anna gasped.
The front door opened.
Anna rushed to take Coral’s other arm. “Fanny, hold the door for us, please.”
Fanny, wide-eyed, obeyed as they awkwardly maneuvered Coral in.
“Told Pearl,” Coral whispered, “not to come here.” Her lips were so swollen, the words were indistinct.
“Thank goodness she didn’t listen to you,” Anna said.
She judged the narrow stairs to the upper floor. They’d never make it up the steps with Coral leaning so heavily on them. “Let’s bring her into the sitting room.”
Pearl nodded.
They gently lowered Coral to the settee. Anna sent Fanny up the stairs for a blanket. Coral’s eyes had closed, and Anna wondered if she’d fainted. The other woman was breathing sonorously through her mouth, her nose too misshapen and swollen to let in air.
Anna pulled Pearl to the side. “What happened to her?”
The other woman darted an anxious glance at Coral. “It was that marquis. He came home last night falling-down drunk; only, he wasn’t so drunk he couldn’t do that to her.”
“But why?”
“He didn’t have a reason as I could see.” Pearl’s lips trembled. At Anna’s shocked stare, she grimaced. “Oh, he mumbled something ’bout her seeing other men, but that was a crock. Coral thinks of bed sport as business. She wouldn’t be doing it with someone else while she had a protector. He just enjoyed putting his fists into her face.”
Pearl wiped away an angry tear. “If I hadn’t gotten her out when he went to piss, he probably would’ve killed her.”
Anna put an arm around her shoulder. “We must thank the Lord that you were able to save her.”
“I didn’t know where else to bring her, ma’am,” Pearl said. “I’m sorry to bother you after how kind you were before. If we can stay a night or two, just until Coral can get back on her feet.”
“You’re welcome to stay however long it takes for Coral to become well again. But I fear it’ll be more than a night or two.” Anna looked worriedly over at her battered guest. “I must send Fanny for Dr. Billings right away.”
“Oh, no.” Pearl’s voice rose in panic. “Don’t do that!”
“But she needs to be seen to.”
“It’d be better if no one knows we’re here ’sides Fanny and the other Mrs. Wren,” Pearl said. “He might try looking for her.”
Anna slowly nodded. Coral was obviously still in danger. “But what about her wounds?”
“I can take care of them. There aren’t any broken bones. I already checked, and I can straighten her nose again.”
“You can fix a broken nose?” Anna looked at Pearl strangely.
The other woman tightened her lips. “I’ve done it before. It comes in handy in my trade.”
Anna closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to doubt you. What do you need?”
Under Pearl’s direction, Anna quickly gathered water, rags, and bandages, as well as the jar of her mother’s salve. Pearl worked over her sister’s face with her help. The little woman was matter-of-fact, even when Coral moaned and tried to knock away her hands. Anna held down the injured woman’s arms so that Pearl could finish bandaging. She sighed with relief when Pearl indicated they were done. They made sure that Coral was as comfortable as possible before retiring to the kitchen for a much-needed cup of tea.
Pearl sighed as she lifted the hot tea to her lips. “Thank you. Thank you so much, ma’am. You’re so good.”
Anna half laughed, a funny little croak. “It’s I who should thank you, if only you knew. I need to do something good right now.”
EDWARD THREW DOWN his quill and paced to the library windows. He hadn’t written a coherent sentence all day. The room was too quiet, too big for his peace of mind anymore. All he could think of was Anna and what she’d done to him. Why? Why choose him? Was it his title? His wealth?
God! His scars?
What possible reason could a respectable woman have to don a disguise and act the part of a whore? If she’d wanted a lover, couldn’t she have found one in Little Battleford? Or was it that she liked playing the whore?
Edward rubbed his forehead against the cold glass of the window. He remembered everything he had done to Anna in those two nights. Every exquisite place his hand had touched, every inch of skin his mouth had tongued. He remembered doing things he would never have dreamed of performing with a lady, let alone one he knew and liked. She’d seen a side of himself that he’d made pains to hide away from the world, a private, secret side. She’d seen him at his most bestial. What had she felt when he had pressed her head toward his cock? Excitement? Fear?
Revulsion?
And there were more thoughts he could not stop. Had she met other men at Aphrodite’s Grotto? Had she shared her beautiful, lush body with men she didn’t even know? Had she let them kiss her wanton mouth, let them paw her breasts, let them rut on her willing, spread body? Edward pounded the window frame with his fist until the skin cracked and blood splattered. Impossible to wipe the obscene images from his mind of Anna—his Anna—with another man. His vision blurred. Christ. He was crying like a lad.
Jock nudged his leg and whimpered.
She’d brought him to this. He was completely undone. And yet it made no difference because he was a gentleman and she, despite her actions, was a lady. He would have to marry her, and in doing so give up all his dreams, all his hopes, of having a family. She couldn’t have children. His line would die with his last breath. There would be no girls that looked like his mother, no boys that reminded him of Sammy. No one to open his heart to. No one to watch grow. Edward straightened. If that was what life held for him, so be it, but he would make damn sure Anna knew her price.
H
e wiped his face and jerked the bellpull savagely.
Chapter Seventeen
The man in her bed stared at Aurea and then spoke softly. Sorrowfully. “So, my wife, you could not let well enough alone. I will quench your curiosity, then. I am Prince Niger, the lord of these lands and this palace. I have been cursed to assume the form of that foul raven by day and all my minions to become birds as well. My tormentor made one caveat to the spell: If I could find a lady to agree of her own will to marry me in my raven form, then I could live as a man from midnight to dawn’s first glow. You were that lady. But now our time together is at an end. I will spend the remainder of my days in that hated feathered form, and all that follow me are also so doomed. . . .”
—from The Raven Prince
The next morning, Felix Hopple shifted from one foot to the other, sighed, and knocked at the cottage door again. He twitched his freshly powdered wig straight and ran a hand over his neckcloth. He’d never been on an errand quite like this one before. In fact, he wasn’t sure his job really entailed it. Of course, it was impossible to say that to Lord Swartingham. Especially when he stared at him with smoldering, black, devilish eyes.
He sighed again. His employer’s temper had been even worse than usual this past week. Very few knickknacks remained intact in the library, and even the dog had taken to hiding when the earl stalked through the Abbey.
A pretty woman opened the door.
Felix blinked and stepped back a pace. Was he at the right house?
“Yes?” The woman smoothed her skirt and smiled tentatively at him.
“Er, I-I was looking for Mrs. Wren,” Felix stuttered. “The younger Mrs. Wren. Have I the right address?”
“Oh, yes, this is the right address,” she said. “I mean, this is the Wren cottage. I’m just staying here.”
“Ah, I see, Miss . . . ?”
“Smythe. Pearl Smythe.” The woman blushed for some reason. “Won’t you come in?”
“Thank you, Miss Smythe.” Felix stepped into the tiny entryway and stood awkwardly.
Miss Smythe was staring, seemingly entranced by his middle. “Coo!” she blurted. “That’s the loveliest waistcoat ever.”
“Why, er, why thank you, Miss Smythe.” He fingered the buttons on his leaf-green waistcoat.
“Are those bumblebees?” Miss Smythe bent down to peer closer at the purple embroidery, giving him a quite inappropriate view down the front of her dress.
No true gentleman would take advantage of a lady’s accidental exposure. Felix looked at the ceiling, at the top of her head, and finally down her dress. He blinked rapidly.
“Isn’t that clever?” she said, straightening again. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so pretty on a gentleman before.”
“What?” he wheezed. “Er, yes. Quite. Thank you again, Miss Smythe. One rarely encounters a person of such fine sentiment about fashion.”
Miss Smythe appeared a little confused, but she smiled at him.
He couldn’t help but notice how lovely she was. All over.
“You said you came for Mrs. Wren. Why don’t you wait in there”—she waved toward a small sitting room—“and I’ll go fetch Mrs. Wren from the garden.”
Felix stepped into the small room. He heard the pretty woman’s retreating footsteps and the close of the back door. He paced to the mantel and looked at a little china clock. He frowned and took out his pocket watch. The mantel clock was fast.
The back door opened again, and Mrs. Wren came in. “Mr. Hopple, how can I help you?”
She was intent on rubbing the garden loam from her hands and didn’t meet his eyes.
“I’ve come on an, er, errand from the earl.”
“Indeed?” Mrs. Wren still did not look up.
“Yes.” He was at a loss as to how to continue. “Won’t you have a seat?”
Mrs. Wren glanced at him in puzzlement and took her seat.
Felix cleared his throat. “There comes a time in every man’s life when the winds of adventure blow out, and he feels a need for rest and comfort. A need to toss aside the careless ways of youth—or at least early adulthood in this case—and settle down to domestic tranquility.” He paused to see if his words had registered.
“Yes, Mr. Hopple?” She appeared more confused than before.
He mentally girded his loins and labored on. “Yes, Mrs. Wren. Every man, even an earl”—here he paused significantly to emphasize the title—“even an earl needs a place of repose and calm. A sanctuary tended by the gentle hand of the feminine sex. A hand guided and led by the stronger masculine hand of a, er, guardian so that both may weather the storms and travails that life brings us.”
Mrs. Wren stared at him in a dazed way.
Felix began to feel desperate. “Every man, every earl, needs a place of hymeneal comfort.”
Her brow puckered. “Hymeneal?”
“Yes.” He mopped his brow. “Hymeneal. Of or pertaining to marriage.”
She blinked. “Mr. Hopple, why did the earl send you?”
Felix blew out his breath in a gust. “Oh, hang it all, Mrs. Wren! He wants to marry you.”
She went completely white. “What?”
Felix groaned. He knew he would make a hash of this. Really, Lord Swartingham was asking too much of him. He was only a land steward, for pity’s sake, not cupid with his golden bow and arrows! There was no other choice now but to muddle on.
“Edward de Raaf, the Earl of Swartingham, asks for your hand in marriage. He would like a short engagement and is considering—”
“No.”
“The first of June. Wh-what did you say?”
“I said no.” Mrs. Wren spoke in a staccato. “Tell him that I am sorry. Very sorry. But there is no possible way that I can marry him.”
“But-but-but . . .” Felix took a deep breath to quell his stutter. “But he is an earl. I know his temper is quite foul, really, and he does spend a good deal of time in mud. Which”—he shuddered—“he actually seems to like. But his title and his considerable—one might even say obscene—wealth make up for that, don’t you think?”
Felix ran out of breath and had to stop.
“No, I don’t.” She moved toward the door. “Just tell him no.”
“But, Mrs. Wren! How will I face him?”
She closed the door gently behind her, and his despairing cry echoed in the empty room. Felix slumped into a chair and wished for an entire bottle of Madeira. Lord Swartingham was not going to like this.
ANNA PLUNGED A trowel into the soft earth and viciously dug up a dandelion. What could Edward have been thinking when he sent Mr. Hopple to propose to her this morning? Obviously he hadn’t been overcome by love. She snorted and attacked another dandelion.
The back door to the cottage scraped open. She turned and frowned. Coral was dragging a kitchen stool into the garden.
“What are you doing outside?” Anna demanded. “Pearl and I had to half carry you up the stairs to my room this morning.”
Coral sat on the stool. “Country air is supposed to heal, is it not?”
The swelling on her face had gone down somewhat, but the bruising was still evident. Pearl had packed her nostrils with lint in an attempt to heal the break. Now they flared grotesquely. Coral’s left eyelid drooped lower than the right, and Anna wondered if it would rise again with time or if the disfigurement was permanent. A small, crescent-shaped scar was scabbed over under the drooping eye.
“I expect I should thank you.” Coral tilted her head back against the cottage wall and closed her eyes, as if enjoying the sunlight on her damaged face.
“It is the usual thing to do,” Anna said.
“Not for me. I do not like being in other people’s debt.”
“Then don’t think of it as a debt,” Anna grunted as she uprooted a weed. “Consider it a gift.”
“A gift,” Coral mused. “In my experience, gifts usually have to be paid for in one way or another. But perhaps with you that truly is not so. Thank you.”
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She sighed and shifted position. Although she had sustained no broken bones, there’d been bruises all over her body. She must still be in a great deal of pain.
“I value the regard of women more than men,” Coral continued. “It is so much rarer, especially in my profession. It was a woman who did this to me.”
“What?” Anna was horrified. “I thought the marquis . . . ?”
The other woman made a dismissive sound. “He was but her instrument. Mrs. Lavender told him I was entertaining other men.”
“But why?”
“She wanted my position as the marquis’ mistress. And we have some history between us.” Coral waved a hand. “But that does not matter. I will deal with her when I am well. Why are you not working at the Abbey today? That is where you usually spend your days, is it not?”
Anna frowned. “I’ve decided not to go there anymore.”
“You have had a falling out with your man?” Coral asked.
“How—?”
“That is who you saw in London, is it not? Edward de Raaf, the Earl of Swartingham?”
“Yes, that’s who I met,” she sighed. “But he’s not my man.”
“It has been my observation that women of your ilk—principled women—do not bed a man unless their heart is involved.” Coral’s mouth quirked sardonically. “They place a great deal of sentimentality on the act.”
Anna took an unnecessarily long time to find the next root with the tip of her trowel. “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps I did place a great deal of sentimentality on the-the act. But that is neither here nor there now.” She bore down on the trowel handle, and the dandelion popped out of the soil. “We argued.”
Coral regarded her with narrowed eyes for a moment and then shrugged and closed her eyelids again. “He found out it was you—”
Anna looked up, startled. “How did you—?”
“And now I suppose you will meekly accept his disapproval,” Coral continued without pause. “You will hide your shame behind a façade of respectable widowhood. Perhaps you could knit stockings for the poor of the village. Your good works will surely comfort you when he marries in a few years and beds another woman.”