Elspeth gave her husband a puzzled look as Anne slipped her arm into hers and started for the cloakroom.
“Why didn’t you tell me Windham was betrothed to Lady Julia Lovett last spring?” Anne demanded, her tone at odds with the smile on her face.
Elspeth stopped and turned to her friend.
“No, lass, keep on walking. We would not want to attract any attention!”
“It was almost a year ago, Anne. I had hoped Windham was over his attachment. He has hardly spoken to Lady Julia since.”
“But his avoiding her could have been because he still felt too much!”
“I did consider that,” Elspeth confessed. “But I didn’t really think you would choose him anyway, Anne. I had hoped…”
“I know what you hoped. You hoped I would fall in love with a confirmed rake!”
“You are being unfair to Val and me, Anne. Jack is no rake, and we would never invite him into our home if he was.”
“All right, I apologize,” Anne said reluctantly.
“And until you met his daughter, the baron seemed as likely a choice for you. But how did you find out about Lady Julia?”
“I overheard her talking to a friend. Evidently she was very upset by our tête-à-tête in the garden.”
“I am so sorry you had to find out in that way,” said Elspeth.
Anne sighed. “Yes, and I am sorry for jumping on you, Elspeth. Of course, I can never marry Windham now.”
“But you weren’t looking for a love match, Anne.”
“No, but neither do I want a marriage where love would have no chance of growing.”
“What are you going to do?”
Anne gave her a painful smile. “I could go home and hope that someone else is ruined next year. I could marry my cousin…”
“You would never do that!” protested Elspeth.
“Or I can tell Joshua Blaine to contact Aldborough’s solicitor and have the contracts drawn up. That should make you happy.”
“I don’t want you to marry Jack to make me happy, Anne, and you know it. I truly believe he has the potential to make
you
happy.”
“I know, and I am being a witch with you, Elspeth,” Anne admitted. “I am not sure what I am going to do, only what I am not going to do: marry either the baron or Lord Windham.”
* * * *
When Windham was announced the next morning, Anne had Peters show him into the morning room. He was standing by the window when she came in, and he turned and greeted her with a welcoming smile.
It was a genuine smile, which gave Anne an unexpected pang of regret. If she hadn’t overheard Lady Julia, she would have been very hopeful about a marriage with the young man in front of her. He was kind and affectionate, and she knew he enjoyed her company. Many a marriage started out with far less. But a simple moment of clumsiness had altered her life irrevocably.
“Please sit down, Lord Richard,” she said as she settled herself on the sofa.
“You left the ball early last night, Miss Heriot. I hope it was not because of illness?” The concern in his eyes was as real as his initial pleasure at seeing her.
“It was only an accident with a glass of punch, my lord.”
Windham cleared his throat. “Miss Heriot, I think you know what I am here for. I hold you in the highest esteem and am hoping you will agree to become my wife. I know this marriage would benefit both of us in some, er, practical ways, but I also believe a potential for lasting affection is present.”
“I believe you’re right, my lord. Our liking for one another might have developed into affection. But not, I think, into love.”
Windham’s face looked surprised. “I had not thought that was something you expected from marriage, Miss Heriot.”
“Isn’t it something that you would be looking for, my lord?”
“No, I would not be,” he told her reassuringly.
“Yet I believe you had found it in your previous betrothal.”
Windham’s face colored.
“You see, before I left the ball last night, I chanced to overhear a conversation that revealed the fact you had planned to marry a woman with whom you shared passion as well as affection.”
“That is true,” he admitted stiffly. “But it was before my father’s…demise and the subsequent bankruptcy. As an honorable man, I had to release her from the betrothal.”
“Were you ever going to tell me about Lady Julia, my lord?”
“I suppose so,” he said slowly. “But it was over almost a year ago, and she is about to be engaged to another.”
“I think she is not,” Anne said softly.
For one fleeting moment she could see the joy and relief in his eyes before it faded, and any lingering doubts she may have had about refusing him faded just as quickly.
“It does not matter,” he told her, “for it is you I wish to marry, Miss Heriot.”
“Or is it me that you
must
marry, my lord?” Anne sighed. “Until last night, I did not mind the practical foundation of our union. In fact, like you, I was sure a strong affection had every chance of developing between us. But that was when I thought you were heart-whole. Now that I know your heart is given to another, I am afraid I must refuse you.”
“I assure you, I have hardly spoken to Lady Julia since breaking off our betrothal.”
“I know that, my lord,” Anne said kindly. “You are a good man who has done the best he could under difficult circumstances.”
“I will not demean either of us by begging, Miss Heriot,” Windham told her quietly. “But I assure you, I truly believe we could make a good marriage.”
“I know you do, my lord. But I believe your love for Lady Julia would always be a barrier to happiness.” Anne stood up, and when Windham rose, she offered her hand. “I regret this, my lord, and I wish you well.”
“And I you, Miss Heriot,” he responded, his voice strained. He bowed over her hand and was gone.
* * * *
Lady Julia Lovett was not the only one who had noticed Anne’s sojourn in the garden with Lord Richard. Over the course of the Season, Jack had become very aware of Anne and whom she talked with and danced with. After his conversation with Helen, he was not really surprised to see that Leighton had sought Anne out only once during the past few nights. He suspected that Lady Eliza was beginning to work on her papa, and if she was as spoiled as Helen thought, she would probably win. At any rate, if he had likened their competition to a horse race, he would have said that Windham had suddenly moved up on the inside rail and was a full length ahead of the baron. He, of course, was still in last place, he told himself with a rueful smile.
But it was one thing to dismiss oneself with humorous images and quite another to imagine Windham and Anne in the garden. He awoke the next morning in one of the darkest moods he had endured for a long time. Windham had kissed Anne in the garden, Jack had no doubts about it. If he hadn’t proposed last night, then he was probably doing it right now. And he, Jack Belden, despite all his skill at reconnaissance and fighting, was absolutely helpless before this “enemy.”
He usually dressed for breakfast, but this morning he only tied his dressing gown around him before going down. He sat at the table, looking bleakly at his unopened newspaper and fingering the pile of unopened invitations on the tray next to him. At least one good thing would come out of this, he told himself. He hated the social round, and now that his main reason for attending was gone, he would throw all future invitations into the fire. His solicitor would just have to get busy finding him some Cit’s daughter to marry—and sooner rather than later.
But, oh, God, how he dreaded his future, and how he hated his helplessness. He
had
to marry, and the one woman he wanted to marry preferred a blond Adonis to his blue-deviled, long-faced self. And who could blame her? He was useless back in England. The war had given his life meaning. It was a terrible thing to admit, but there it was.
He got up from the table and began to pace. He would visit Stebbins today and tell him to find a woman—any woman—and engage him to her. And then he would ride out of London tomorrow and not stop until he had outrun his dark mood or ridden off the north coast of Scotland—whichever came first.
* * * *
He was about to go upstairs when Val Aston was announced.
“Good morning, Val. What brings you here today?”
“I wanted to know if you wished to ride. You left the ball shortly after Miss Heriot, looking as if you were on your way to a funeral. I came to cheer you up.”
Jack sighed and gave his friend an ironic grin. “I felt like I was going to my own funeral, Val. Although it is only marriage, somehow it feels like the same thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“I am going to tell Stebbins to find me the richest man he can and engage me to his daughter! I have to make sure Helen and Lydia are taken care of.”
Val sat himself down at the table and poured himself a cup of coffee, took a muffin and began to butter it.
“You look like the proverbial Charlotte, eating bread and butter, Val,” Jack told him with plaintive humor. “Don’t I rate any sympathy as a disappointed lover?”
“The thing is, Jack, I am not so sure you are going to be disappointed,” Val said casually, seemingly intent on evenly spreading cold butter without crumbling his muffin.
“Oh, I saw Anne Heriot and Windham going off into the garden. If he didn’t propose last night, he will be doing it soon and she’ll accept him. My heart is broken and all you care about is your damned muffin!” Jack spoke humorously enough, but Val heard the underlying pain in his friend’s voice.
“I think Windham intends to propose, but I don’t think Anne will accept him.”
“She’s not going to take on that spoiled chit of Leighton’s?”
“I rather think she plans to take on
you
, Jack!”
“I don’t mind your teasing, Val, but this is going a bit too far.” Jack’s face grew warm. “I love her, you know,” he said, his voice tight with emotion.
“I know you do,” Val said seriously. “I shouldn’t have joked about it. But it is true. Anne was planning to accept Windham’s proposal last night or whenever it came. But then she discovered that his heart had been given elsewhere.”
“Do you mean to tell me she didn’t know about Lady Julia?”
“No. She was angry with Elspeth for not telling her, but all in all, I think Elspeth was right in not speaking. Their betrothal ended almost a year ago.”
“Would you forget Elspeth in a year?”
“Not in ten thousand,” Val answered instantly.
“Nor would I Anne Heriot. It wasn’t my place to mention Lady Julia, but I thought she’d known about it from the beginning.”
“Well, she didn’t.”
“But she wasn’t looking for passion, our Miss Practicality from Yorkshire,” Jack added with a grin.
“No, but she won’t marry where there is no potential at all for love.” Val hesitated. “Evidently she is planning to visit her man of business today and have him…er…make you an offer.”
Jack’s face reddened as though he had been slapped.
“Yes, I know,” Val said softly. “A cool way to do it. That’s why I came over to poke my nose in. Elspeth and I thought you deserved a more personal announcement first. You will accept her?”
“Of course,” Jack said stiffly.
“Elspeth and I still think that you and Anne have a chance for a happy marriage, Jack.”
“You and your wife are damned romantics! And so am I, God help me, or this wouldn’t hurt so much,” he said, looking at his friend with such pain in his eyes that Val winced. “Anne would wander out into the garden with Windham and no doubt be happy to have one of his kisses, but then she handles a betrothal to me the way she would a bloody mill merger! Windham is probably well out of it, if he has any heart left to him.”
“Anne is not a cold woman, Jack.”
“Perhaps not, but she did her calculations early on and decided that because I’ve been rumored to have collected so many hearts, I have none of my own.”
“Did you ever try to prove her wrong?”
“Oh, she likes me better than she did, I’ll grant you that. But what chance have I had for more than mistletoe kisses when she’s been spending most of her time with Windham and Leighton?”
“Well, now you have your chance, Jack. And whether you win her heart before or after the wedding, I believe you finally will if you don’t let your wounded pride get in the way.”
* * * *
So the other horses are out of the race, and the dark horse has won, Jack told himself as he dressed to go riding. But if he had won, then why did the victory seem so meaningless?
Jack had planned to visit Stebbins first thing that morning, but after Val’s news he decided to wait till later in the afternoon. If the Heriot solicitor
was
going to approach his, then he would give him time.
He and Val rode in the park and after a few brisk canters, his black mood lifted. By the time he set out for Stebbins’s office later that afternoon, he was more resigned to what had happened.
“Lord Aldborough, this is a fine coincidence!” said Stebbins as he ushered him into the office. “I was about to send a note over asking for you to meet with me tomorrow, I have very good news for you. Miss Heriot’s solicitor approached me this morning and wishes to write up a marriage contract.”
Jack let out an imperceptible sigh of relief. Ever since Val had spoken to him, he had wondered whether Anne might change her mind. But it seemed Val and Elspeth were right. She would rather marry a man whom she believed had a wayward heart than one whose heart had already been given.
“You don’t seem surprised, my lord. But I suppose you were aware that your wooing had proved successful,” Stebbins said with a knowing smile.
“Indeed,” Jack murmured.
“You will find the proposed settlements most fair…actually generous, my lord,” Stebbins told him, handing over the papers.
Jack scanned them quickly and breathed a deeper sigh of relief. The Heriot money would save Aldborough and offered an allowance to Lady Aldborough and her daughters. He smiled when he came to a clause about the management of the mills. “I see Miss Heriot wishes to keep control over her father’s business.”
Stebbins frowned. “Yes, that is the only sticking point I can see, my lord. It doesn’t seem appropriate to me, but evidently she is adamant on that point.”