Practically Wicked (27 page)

“Oh.” Anna crossed the room and took her friend’s hand. “Oh, Mrs. Culpepper, I am sorry. Is she ill? Why did you not—?”

“She is not ill. But we are of an age, dear.”

“Of an…?” Annoyed, Anna dropped Mrs. Culpepper’s hand. “You are of the ideal age to be looking forward to a long and happy life.”

“And so I shall,” Mrs. Culpepper calmly agreed. “With my sister. I have kept her waiting long enough.”

Three years, Anna thought. It was a long time for her to have put off the trip. “Why did you not say something before?”

“I would never have left you at Anover House and I’d not have cared for an argument on the subject.”

“I’d not have—”

“Nor would I care to have an argument on the subject now,” Mrs. Culpepper said sternly. “I have been waiting for the Haverstons to arrive so that I might take measure of the family as a whole. This afternoon has convinced me you are safe here at Caldwell.”

Anna bit the inside of her cheek to keep from arguing and to keep calm. Why Mrs. Culpepper had kept her silence until now was not the problem. The fact that Mrs. Culpepper was determined to leave, that was a problem. It was on the tip of Anna’s tongue to promise Mrs. Culpepper that she’d not have to leave alone. Surely Lucien could now be convinced to pay the thousand pounds.

But Anna couldn’t make herself offer the promise. She couldn’t leave Caldwell. Not yet.

Instead, she surprised herself by blurting out the rather childish and embarrassing confession, “I still need you.”

Mrs. Culpepper’s features softened. “This time was to come eventually, dear. You are too old for a governess and no longer in need of a paid companion. You’ve family now.”

Anna wanted to say that Mrs. Culpepper had been more than a governess and companion. She’d been more than a friend.
She
was family. But the words caught in her throat. Mrs. Culpepper was many things—compassionate, clever, witty…and wholly uncomfortable with open displays of sentiment.

It would be inexcusably selfish of her to try to convince Mrs. Culpepper to stay. More, a fuss would accomplish nothing but to leave them both feeling doubly miserable.

Anna cleared her throat, finding it difficult to swallow past the lump forming there. “When are you to go?”

Perhaps something would happen before then to change Mrs. Culpepper’s mind. Her sister might decide to remarry, or move closer to London, or—

“At dawn.”

“At…tomorrow?” There was no possible chance of an engagement by tomorrow. “But…so soon.” It was too soon. She wasn’t ready.

“I did not want a long good-bye.”

Anna opened her mouth, shut it. She didn’t know what to say to that, what to do with it.

I don’t want to say good-bye at all. I don’t want you to go.

“I need…I should like a walk,” she announced, and headed for the door. She had to get out of the room. “We’ll discuss this later.”

If Mrs. Culpepper had a response to that, Anna neither heard nor saw it. She was out the door and down the hall in the blink of an eye. A few minutes, that was all she needed. A few minutes alone to clear her head and calm herself. Or better yet, a few minutes alone with Max. If she couldn’t argue the matter with Mrs. Culpepper, then she could talk it through with Max. It was bound to help.

Only Max wasn’t available.

Lord Dane, a maid informed her, had left for Menning and was expected to return early tomorrow. Anna knew Menning as a town ten miles away, a halfway stop between Caldwell Manor and McMullin Hall. Sadly, the maid had not been informed why His Lordship had found it necessary to hie off to another town.

Menning wasn’t any larger than Codridgeton. It hadn’t any attractions one couldn’t just as easily find in Codridgeton.

Unless, of course, the attraction one sought had a specific name.

Anna didn’t want to think about that, about Max’s love of the demimonde, and the demimonde’s love of excess…every sort of excess.

But now that she was thinking on it, she was forced to admit that it was naïve to have assumed Max didn’t have a mistress. He might very well have several. For all she knew, he had a legion of them, scattered about the countryside and the various neighborhoods of London. Where was the fun in being moderate in one’s excesses, after all?

He might have children as well, she realized. He might have dozens. He might…

Anna stopped in the hall outside the library and took a deep, calming breath.

She was working herself into a snit over nothing. Or quite possibly nothing. Either way, it was rash and unfair of her to presume there was
something
. Max might have been summoned by an ailing friend, for all she knew. Why assume the worst?

Why presume she had any right to care at all? They’d made no promises.

Anna shoved that thought aside. “One trouble at a time.”

And right now, that trouble remained Mrs. Culpepper’s immediate departure from Caldwell.

And right now, Anna was left with no other choice but to spend the next half hour in the library, feeling very much alone. And then, when she was confident she could do so with her composure intact, she returned to Mrs. Culpepper’s chambers to help her friend pack.

 
 
Chapter 18

The next day dawned all too soon, and with weather that was fittingly miserable. A steady drizzle had begun the night before and persisted into morning when it grew into a proper downpour.

Anna had listened to it pelt the windows in the front parlor as Mrs. Culpepper said her good-byes to the Haverstons, and now she stood under the sheltering portico and watched it soak the footmen loading Mrs. Culpepper’s carriage.

Next to her, Mrs. Culpepper supervised the proceedings. “Your mother’s staff might take a lesson or two from these fine people. Tremendously efficient.”

Anna made a noncommittal noise that may or may not have been heard over the rain.

Mrs. Culpepper gave her a bolstering pat on the shoulder. “Here now, not so glum, dear. We are at the start of new adventures, you and I. When next we meet, we shall have such stories to tell.”

Anna nodded, but said nothing. She wanted to be perfectly self-possessed for Mrs. Culpepper, the very picture of composure. It would make things easier on both of them and, better yet, make Mrs. Culpepper proud. But it was all she could do to breathe past the damned, awful lump in her throat. She’d hoped it would lessen with sleep, but it seemed to have only grown during the night.

“Now then,” Mrs. Culpepper pressed on. “Should you need assistance for any reason—”

“I know.” Anna cleared her throat, kept her gaze focused on the drive ahead of her. “And should you need me—”

“Yes, of course.” Mrs. Culpepper brushed at the sleeves of her traveling gown. “And you must promise to write faithfully or I shall know the reason why.”

“I’ll promise if you agree to take this journey slowly. Stop at the first sign of illness and rest.”

“Agreed. And you must come to visit as soon as you are able.”

The reminder that this need not be a permanent separation lifted Anna’s spirits, if only marginally. “I should like that very much.”

“Whether or not you should like it is immaterial,” Mrs. Culpepper intoned. “You will come.”

“I promise.”

“Good. Well.” Another pat on the arm. “Good-bye, dear.”

Anna felt herself mouth the word, “Good-bye.”

And then she was watching Mrs. Culpepper walk down the steps and out into the rain.

It felt wrong, terribly wrong. This was not what Anna had envisioned happening when she’d fled Anover House. This was not something she had envisioned happening at any time…Because it
was
wrong, she realized as Mrs. Culpepper climbed into the carriage and a footman shut the door behind her.

Mrs. Culpepper deserved better than this.

“Stop! Wait.” Anna threw her hand up, dashed to the carriage, and threw open the door.

Mrs. Culpepper gasped as the damp wind blew inside. “Good heavens, child, what—?”

“I want you to know something.” Anna’s fingers curled into the wood of the door. “You were…You are…” She took a short, deep breath and met Mrs. Culpepper’s eyes. “You are twice the mother Madame could have ever hoped to be. I love you very much.”

Mrs. Culpepper blinked, twice, then did the unthinkable. She shifted in her seat.

“I love you too, dear. You are very much the daughter of my heart.” She reached out and patted Anna gently on the arm, then sniffed and withdrew her hand, signaling the end of their sentimental moment. “Now off with you before you catch your death and hand me mine. Running out into the rain like a street urchin. Honestly. One would think I’d have raised a woman with more sense…”

Anna grinned at Mrs. Culpepper’s good-natured lecture as she stepped back from the carriage, closed the door, and signaled the driver to be off. If Mrs. Culpepper had been a different woman, Anna might have returned to the portico with all due haste as a parting gesture of respect.

But Mrs. Culpepper had not been a typical governess in an average household.

Mrs. Culpepper had taught Anna how to stand in front of the condemning gazes and sharp, whispering tongues of her mother’s guests without giving them the satisfaction of seeing so much as a batted eyelash. She’d taught Anna how to acquire an education without proper resources, or even permission. She’d shown her how to ferret out the secrets of her lineage despite her mother’s lies and locked doors, and how to escape from a world that was little more than a well-dressed prison.

In essence, Mrs. Culpepper had taught her defiance.

And so Anna stayed where she was on the drive as the rain poured down, soaking her to the bone. With her heart in her throat, she tipped her chin up, squared her shoulders, and kept her eyes straight ahead, and to her everlasting delight, the last thing she heard before distance and the rain drowned out all sounds from the carriage, was Mrs. Culpepper’s quick bark of laughter.

That
, she thought, was a proper send-off.

Pity the fun of it didn’t lift her mood for more than the time it took her to go back inside and change. By the time she reached the library, where she’d gone in search of distraction, the lump had returned to her throat.

And it had grown some by the time Max came striding into the library, a quarter hour later, wearing a wet overcoat and carrying a hat in his hand.

“There you are,” he said. “I’ve been searching for you.”

He couldn’t have been searching for her for long. He looked as if he’d only just walked into the house. Anna turned from the shelf of books she’d been staring at without much interest.

“Mrs. Culpepper has gone,” she told him, because she didn’t much feel like making friendly chatter.

“Yes, I just heard.” He tossed his hat on a side table, began to divest himself of his coat. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here. I had business in Menning.”

“Was she worth the trip in the rain?” she asked and immediately snapped her mouth shut, horrified. The ugly accusation had come out before she’d known it was there. “I’m sorry. I don’t know where that came from. I had no right. I’m so—”

“It’s all right. Forgiven.” He set his coat next to his hat, peeled off his gloves. “I bought a horse for my niece, one of Reginald’s daughters. A lovely little mare named Iris. I’d been after her for some time now. I stayed late because Mr. Hudson is an agreeable old widower who does not see enough company.”

“I see.” Well, it wasn’t a visit to an ailing friend, but she still felt a fool. “I apologize, I do. I should not have rushed to judgment, nor presumed—”

He was quiet a moment, studying her. “I don’t have a mistress.”

“Oh. Well.” What did she say to that? Good? Damned right, you don’t?

“You don’t believe me,” he said softly, and she heard the first hints of frustration in his voice.

“What? Yes, I do.” She took an awkward step forward. “Of course I do. I just…I wasn’t certain what to say, that’s all.”

His eyes narrowed for a split second, and then all traces of irritation were gone from his features. He blew out a small breath. “You’re a difficult woman to read, Anna Rees.”

“I don’t mean to be, not with you.” But the lessons she had learned from Mrs. Culpepper were not easily put aside. Anna’s chest tightened, and she blurted out, “She said we were embarking on new adventures.”

To his credit, Max merely blinked at the sudden switch in topics, then walked around a chaise and set of chairs to stand nearer to her. “Mrs. Culpepper? I’d not have guessed her to be the adventurous sort.”

“She’s not, particularly. It’s just something she used to say when I was younger and frustrated at being unable to leave Anover House.” She found herself staring at a lower shelf of books and mumbling a little. “Every day can be exciting and fulfilling. Even if you fill it with dreams of adventures to come.”

“Adventures like having a cottage of your own?”

Fearful he was poking fun, she shot her eyes to his face, but she saw only interest there, not an inkling of humor.