The English community thereabouts with tight-knit, and word of Anna’s accident soon spread far and wide. There was a constant stream of callers to inquire about the state of her health. Her lungs soon felt recovered, although Dr. Tandy disputed this, but the scratches on her face remained as visible reminders of her ordeal. It was nearly a week before she felt presentable enough to receive a few select visitors in her bedchamber. Charles was the first and he hastened to her bedside as if she were on the brink of death.
“I’m fine, Charles, truly,” Anna insisted for what seemed the dozenth time. “Or at least, I will be fine. The doctor insists I stay in bed to give my lungs a rest, but only for another few days. And the scratches look much worse than they are, truly.”
She was propped up in bed on a mound of pillows, a frilly bedjacket concealing her nightdress. Her hair was freshly brushed and styled so that it was drawn back from her forehead with a ribbon to cascade over her shoulders in a mass of silvery waves. Except for the scratches, which were fading from red to soft pink, she looked fetching. At least Charles evidently thought so. He sat by the bed in a straight-backed chair he had drawn up and refused to dispossess himself of her hand.
“When I heard you’d been in an accident, it frightened me to death,” he said, his eyes warm on her face. “I wish you’d give me the right to take care of you. You need a man, Anna, and it’s time you started letting the past go and looking to the future. I …”
Something caused her to glance toward the open door to her bedroom. The sight that met her eyes made her completely miss Charles’s next words. Julian, clad in his usual work uniform of black breeches, boots, and collarless white shirt, stood glaring at them. Silhouetted, his broad-shouldered, lean-hipped frame seeming more powerful than ever in comparison with the slender Charles, he looked thoroughly menacing. From the scowl on his face Julian was clearly displeased with her visitor. But scowl or no, he was handsome enough to stop Anna’s breath.
When he saw her gaze on him he nodded, the gesture curt, and stepped into the room.
“Hello, Dumesne,” he said, unsmiling, as Charles turned to greet him. Anna managed to unobtrusively tug her hand free, but the displeasure on Julian’s face scarcely eased. Still, he politely if unenthusiastically shook Charles’s hand as the latter rose and extended it to him, and exchanged the pleasantries with him that were required by common civility.
“What are you doing here in the middle of the day?” Anna asked Julian. Since her accident, she’d seen him mostly in the evenings or early mornings, when he would stop by her bedroom to check her progress and give her an account of the improvements he’d made to Srinagar that day.
“I brought you something,” he answered briefly, and for the first time she became aware of the large, string-tied box tucked beneath his arm.
“Why, thank you.” Her surprise showed in her voice. Julian threw her a quick, glinting look before laying the box across the foot of her bed.
Then he turned his hard eyes on Charles.
“I’m sure Anna is very pleased to see you, but the doctor tells us she needs to rest.”
“I’m just going,” Charles assured him, although Anna protested that he didn’t have to leave just then.
Julian overrode her words with no more than a lift of his eyebrows, then said to Charles, “If you’re leaving in the next few minutes, I’ll wait for you. We’ve just gotten in a shipment of tea plants that you might like to see.”
“I’d like that. Thank you.”
“I’ll see you downstairs, then. Anna.”
With another of those unsmiling looks for her, he took himself off. Charles, left alone with her for what could only be a precious few minutes, smiled ruefully.
“Protective sort of chap, isn’t he? It’s clear he doesn’t like me sniffing around.” Charles frowned suddenly. “He doesn’t have any interest in you other than as his widowed sister-in-law, does he? I mean, you’re not blood relatives, and—”
“Charles! What a thing to suggest!” Anna interrupted, managing to sound scandalized even as she blushed bright red. If anyone were to suspect exactly what kind of interest Julian did have in her, or how tenuous their relationship really was, there would be a dreadful scandal. Being branded a scarlet woman before her friends and neighbors was a horror she did not like even to think about.
“I didn’t mean it quite that way,” Charles said, shamefaced. “Of course, as your brother-in-law, he’s interested in guarding your good name. It’s only natural. And you have Mrs. Fisher in the house—not that you need her, of course. It’s just for the look of the thing. Still, it’s not as if he’s your blood brother. But I can see I’m upsetting you, so I’ll say no more. Only, Anna—if you should need, uh, protecting, and Chase, for whatever reason, is not, uh, available, please be assured that you can turn to me.”
“Thank you, Charles, but I hardly think—”
“No, of course not,” he said hastily. “Well, I’ll take my leave of you. Although I’ll call again next week, if I may.”
“Of course,” Anna answered. He kissed her hand and left the room. Anna stared after him in some dismay. Julian might not want her himself, but he didn’t want anyone else to have her either. His attitude might be more dog-in-the-manger than anything else, but Charles had noticed it. And if Charles noticed, someone else might, too. A little gossip spread here and there could give rise to a nasty scandal, and Anna quailed at the prospect.
She should ask Julian to leave now, before it happened. But she had already asked him to leave-several times, in fact—and he had refused to go.
And if she were honest with herself, she didn’t want him to.
Her eyes fell on the box at the foot of the bed, and she reached to pull it toward her. Had Julian really brought her a present? True, he’d been unprecedentedly kind to her in the week since her accident—but a present! Julian didn’t seem the kind of man to bring tokens of his regard to any female, much less herself.
Anna’s fingers trembled slightly with anticipation as she undid the string and lifted the lid on the box. There, beneath layers of tissue paper, was the gleam of soft green silk.
A dress! And not just any dress, Anna saw as she pulled it out, but a lovely confection of shimmering Indian silk, lavished with lace and cut in the latest style. It was a dream of a dress, a dress such as she had never possessed, and she didn’t waste any time. Swinging her feet out of bed, clutching the garment to her bosom, she made haste to try it on.
XXXVII
T
he dress became her as nothing ever had in her life. Anna stood before the cheval glass marveling at her own reflection. The unusual silvery green shade of the silk showed off her alabaster skin and darkened her eyes to emerald. It intensified the silvery tones in her hair, which she quickly twisted behind her head to get the full effect of how she would look with her hair properly dressed. Turning this way and that, she admired her reflection. The low-cut, lace-lavished bodice with its tiny puff sleeves left her shoulders and arms and a considerable expanse of milky bosom on view; the nipped-in waist was wrapped in a wide sash that made her own waist look impossibly slender; the belled skirt with its lace flounces was trimmed cunningly with silvery green bows that echoed the bow that tied the sash in the rear. The dress was both breathtakingly gorgeous and impossibly elegant. In it she looked beautiful. Anna thought of Julian choosing such a thing for her, gifting her with it, and felt a flutter deep in her stomach.
Why had he done it? The possibilities made her heart speed up.
Cautioning herself not to read too much into a gesture that might have been prompted simply because he disliked the color black, Anna nevertheless felt a tiny smile curl her lips. Julian was impossible, a rogue in many ways, unfeeling and high-handed and maddening to the point of making her want to murder him at least half the time, but still … She refused to finish the thought. He had bruised her heart, not once but twice. She would be a fool to leave it unguarded again.
Yet she could not help the glow that pinkened her cheeks and sparkled in her eyes when she examined her reflection in the glass. If the very idea was not ridiculous, she would think that she looked like a woman in love. With Julian? The thought frightened her.
To allow herself to fall in love with him would be to open herself up to heartbreak.
With that sobering thought, her hands moved to the hooks at the back of the dress. It was time to put the lovely gown aside and return to the reality of her mourning clothes. She could not let what was no more than an intense physical attraction to a handsome man blind her to what was real and what was not real in life.
The silvery waves of hair that fell in a rippling cascade to the small of her back obscured her vision as she struggled with the hooks. She had managed to work first one, then another, and a third free when she became aware that someone was watching her. Hands falling to her sides, she whirled with a gasp.
“You look beautiful. Like a mermaid,” Julian said.
“Don’t you ever knock?” Anna demanded, nettled, shaking her hair from her face as she stared pointedly at the door to her bedroom, which she had carefully shut before removing her nightdress.
“When the occasion warrants it.” His odd, lopsided smile lent his dark face devastating charm. Just looking at him made Anna’s heart beat faster. He was so tall, so handsome, so very much a man.…
But he was not for her, she reminded herself sternly. Her frown deepened into a scowl.
“I thought you were going to show Charles some tea plants.”
A shark’s smile curled Julian’s lips. “I lied,” he said, coming toward her with that lithe tread that was already branded on her memory for all time. Anna, suddenly shy of him, turned back to her reflection in the mirror. He came to a stop behind her, his height and wide shoulders making her seem tiny as their reflections merged, his eyes meeting hers in the glass. “When he got downstairs, I suddenly remembered a pressing appointment. Which, now that I think about it, wasn’t a lie after all. I wanted to see how the dress looked on you.”
Anna regarded herself in the glass, then raised her eyes to his reflection. “It’s beautiful. Thank you. I love it, although I’ve no place to wear it.”
“Wear it anywhere you like. To a dinner party. Out to visit your friends.” His hands rose to rest lightly on her bare shoulders. Anna tried not to react to his touch.
“You’ve forgotten that I’m in mourning.”
His mouth twisted. An ugly gleam sprang to life in his eyes. “I’ve forgotten nothing. But it’s been a year, and more. Don’t you think you’re carrying this a bit too far?”
“I loved Paul.”
“Past tense. Or are you telling me that you love him still?”
“I’ll always love him.”
That quiet avowal had the effect of making his mouth turn down. His hands tightened on her shoulders, and then he was turning her around, his fingers biting into her soft skin until she cried out.
“You little fool,” he muttered harshly, and lowered his mouth to hers.
Anna didn’t try to evade his kiss. One part of her craved the touch of his mouth even as another part of her screamed danger. But she was weak where he was concerned, too weak to resist. She loved him.…
Dear God, did she? The thought was appalling. She couldn’t, surely she couldn’t, love a blackmailing, thieving rogue who had a way with the ladies! It was folly, and worse than folly. But the feel of his mouth on hers was exquisite, warm and rough and oh, so right. Her hands slid up his shirtsleeves to rest against the solid muscles that bunched in his upper arms. She rose on tiptoe to fit her mouth to his.
He made a deep, harsh sound under his breath. His arms went around her, and he pulled her hard against the unyielding length of him. Anna melted in his embrace. Her arms stole up to wrap around his neck. Her fingers burrowed into the thick black hair at the nape of his neck. She kissed him back as if she had been starving for the taste of his mouth, kissed him with all the passionate abandon that her body could no longer deny. Did she love him? She shied from the thought. But did she want him?
More than anything in life.
It was a shock when he suddenly thrust her away from him, holding her at arm’s length as he scowled at her so ferociously that she was taken aback.
“Julian …” she began, then faltered at the black expression on his face.
“Julian,” he mimicked in a ruthless falsetto. “At least this time you’ve got the name right.”
With that he thrust her away from him and turned to stalk to her wardrobe. While Anna watched, dumbstruck, he jerked open the doors and, after a quick survey of the contents, began to yank the dresses one by one from their hangers, tossing them carelessly over his arm.
“What on earth do you think you’re doing?” Anna gasped when she had regained the use of her voice.
“This farce has gone on too long. You’ve mourned him for a year, and that’s enough.”
He was emptying her wardrobe of every single black dress she possessed! Anna hurried to stop him, catching his arm only to find herself ruthlessly shaken off.
“You can’t just take my clothes!”
“Can’t I? Just watch me, you little hypocrite.” He slanted her a glittering look over his shoulder.
“Hypocrite!”
Her indignant echo earned her another fierce look.
“What else would you call it? You lie with me, let me love you, love me back hotter than any lightskirt I’ve ever had, yet you go around claiming that you love your dead husband and wearing the mourning to prove it!”
“I do love—” Anna began, protesting, only to break off as he turned on her, rage twisting his race.
“If you say his name one more time, I swear I’ll throttle you.” The threat was forced out between his teeth.
His mouth was twisted into a snarl, and he looked so savage that Anna, alarmed, took a step backwards.
His lip curled with jeering satisfaction. “Afraid of me? I don’t blame you. You’ve got cause.”
“Julian—”
His eyes flamed at her like twin coals fished up from some pit in hell. Anna, eyes widening, broke off.