Practically Wicked (39 page)

“Oh, my Lord! Mrs. Culpepper!”

Max tore the cloth off his eyes. “What?”

“What if she sent someone after Mrs. Culpepper? She knows we left together. She knows—”

He pushed himself into a sitting position. “Does she know where Mrs. Culpepper has gone?”

“I don’t know.” Anna wasn’t sure her mother was even aware that Mrs. Culpepper had a sister. “She could find out, surely.”

“Maggie,” he called out to one of the maids. “Fetch His Lordship, if you please.” His voice was calm and steady, but there was an underlying thread of steal. “I highly doubt your mother sent out more than one band of ruffians, but we’ll send someone out to check on your Mrs. Culpepper, just to be safe.”

 
 
Chapter 28

It took a full two days to receive word back from Mrs. Culpepper.

Anna read the letter from her friend with relief at first, then with interest and then, as she reached the end of the pages, a heavy but determined heart.

Mrs. Culpepper was happy to report that both she and her sister were whole and hale and had neither seen nor heard from Mrs. Wrayburn. As for Anna’s other inquiry…yes, there was a cottage available for purchase in the area that would be suitable for her needs.

Mrs. Culpepper then went on to strongly encourage Anna to think long and hard about what her needs might be before committing to anything.

Anna, however, had already thought long and hard, and had made up her mind. All that was left now was to tell Max she was leaving Caldwell Manor.

The physician had promised a full recovery, as nothing vital had been damaged, and already there were signs Max’s wounds were beginning to heal. The swelling about his face had decreased dramatically, and he was able to move about the house without grimacing, or having to hide his grimacing, as Anna expected to be the case.

Still, it pained her to see his myriad cuts and bruises, knowing she was at least in part responsible for them, and as she shared a game of chess with him in the library that evening, she found it easier to stare at the board than to look at him.

“You are very quiet again tonight,” Max commented. He’d made similar observations over the course of the last two days. Anna had put him off with vague excuses of being tired and assurances that she felt fine.

But now…She glanced at his battered face and away again. Now it was time for the truth. “I’ve been thinking…The time has come for me to leave, I think.”

“Surrendering so quickly? You’ve a chance yet.” He gestured over the small table. “Use your queen. You always hold on to her too long—”

“Not the game, Max.”

Max looked up from the board, took in Anna’s expression, and set down the pawn he’d been holding.

“Caldwell Manor,” he said, mostly in the hope that she’d correct him.

“I received a letter from Mrs. Culpepper this morning. There is a cottage available not far from her own new home.”

Devil take the woman. “She has asked you to come?”

“No. She was simply reminding me that I have options.”

“Those options include remaining at Caldwell.”

“Indefinitely?” She shook her head. “I’ve been a guest in my own home my whole life. I don’t want that—”

“You’re not a guest here. You’re family. The Haverstons must have made that clear by now. Lucien—”

“I was family at Anover House as well,” she pressed on. “It’s different, I know, but the fact remains that this isn’t my home. I have very little control over anything here. That’s not to say I don’t like it here. I do. I like it here very much, but…Now, with the London season over, the ton will be headed to their country estates or visiting friends. I understand Lady Engsly very much enjoys being a hostess.”

“Is that what this is about?” he asked gently. Caldwell Manor would no longer be a refuge from everyone else in the world. “Would it be so awful, attending a ball or dinner party every now and then?”

“Yes…I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t want to know. I don’t want to take the chance at being the evening’s entertainment.”

“There are advantages and benefits to taking that risk. Dancing, laughter, music. We could waltz together, you and I.” He reached for her hand, only to have her pull it away.

“Max, don’t.”

Panic began to bite at him, little nibbles he did his best to ignore, or at least shove aside with reasoning. This was merely a conversation, he told himself. She was just expressing her options aloud, that was all. Nothing had really been decided upon yet.

“All right, you won’t stay at Caldwell indefinitely. But you needn’t choose a solitary life in a cottage either. You have options, as your Mrs. Culpepper pointed out.”

“It won’t be solitary. I’ll have Mrs. Culpepper to visit, and—”

“Anna.”

“We cannot always have what we want,” she said stiffly.

Max studied her face, the shadows under her eyes, the way she refused to meet his gaze. “You mean this? You
truly
mean to leave?”

“Yes.” Her hand came up to pick at the wood at the edge of the table. “I think, perhaps, tomorrow—”

“Tomorrow?” Panic was immediately eclipsed by anger. He pushed away from the table and rose. “Tomorrow? Just like that? You didn’t think to give me any time, any chance to—”

“To fight with me over my choice?” She shook her head without looking at him. “There’s no point in our arguing. We knew where this was heading from the very—”

“No,
you
knew. You assumed. I asked for your hand.
That
is where I thought this was heading.” He swore, stalked the short distance to the window while Anna spoke at his back.

“You know we can’t marry,” she said quietly. “I can’t live amongst the demimonde; you can’t live a quiet life in the country. Our families would face censure. You—”

He spun around and cut her off. “Our families are insulated by titles, wealth, and power. They will emerge unscathed, I assure you.”

“Your nieces—”

“Would be forced to marry men who would show respect to my wife. I am fully comfortable imposing that limitation.”

“It is not that simple. Young men have limitations set on them by their own families. A perfectly wonderful gentleman may be forbidden by his father to court one of your nieces, because of me.”

Max brushed that away with an impatient wave. “If the gentleman feels the hand of my niece is not worth the courage it would take to find his own way, then good riddance to him.”

Anna closed her eyes briefly. “You are oversimplifying things.”

“No, you are making things worse than they are, than they have any need to be. You spend so much time worrying over what society might make of you, you don’t stop to consider the opinions and desires of those who matter.”

“That is not true,” she snapped. She lifted her gaze to meet his, finally, and rose from her seat. “I
am
considering them. For pity’s sake,
look
at you. Look at what my own mother did to you.”

Max took a few hesitant steps forward as anger and heartache battled for supremacy. Never before had he wanted to shout at, shake, and soothe someone, all at the same time. “You are not to blame for your mother’s actions, Anna. You must know that—”

“I do know it. Just as I know that it would be irresponsible of me to ignore the reminder that there are all sorts of consequences for my own actions. Some of them are only possibilities, yes. And perhaps, where our families are concerned, they seem greater to me than they truly are.” She held up a hand before he could seize on that small capitulation and run with it. “But some of them are real, some of them would be inescapable, and some of them I know well enough to be certain I have not exaggerated them in my mind. I
am
a source of gossip and scandal. I
would
be
a target for derision in London. I always have been.”

“If the talk bothers you so terribly, we’ll stay clear of it. I am not asking you to return to Anover House as the Ice Maiden. I am asking you to share a home with me as a viscountess.” How could she not see the difference in what her mother had forced on her and what he was offering? “Invite your own guests, make your own friends, attend the balls
you
want to attend. Start your own bloody rumors, if you like—”

“There will
still
be whispering and—”

“Devil take the whispers,” he broke in. He dragged a hand through his hair, frustrated and hurt beyond measure. “God, you give up so easily—”

“I don’t. I am trying to make the inevitable easier for us, but that—”

“I don’t want easier. This isn’t bloody inevitable, it’s your bloody-minded choice and it damn well shouldn’t be
easy
.”

“Please stop shouting.”

Max bit off an oath. He hadn’t realized he’d raised his voice, and now that he did, he found it difficult to lower it again. To regain control meant to let go of some of the anger, and that meant leaving the door open once more for panic, and worse, old fears and insecurities.

Anna was leaving. He wasn’t needed. He wasn’t even wanted. Because he wasn’t enough. She had her cottage in the country, her Mrs. Culpepper, and her disdain for all things London. Why would she need him?

“If you are determined to run away, I cannot stop you, and I’ll be damned before I beg you to show a little courage.”

“I am
not
being a coward,” she snapped. “I am being reasonable and sensible and
honest
. And I am trying to be mindful of what my choices would mean for all of us, but if all you can see in that is a coward, then…” She angled her face away, pressed her lips together in a hard line. “Then clearly we do not understand each other as well as we imagined.”

He said nothing. There didn’t seem to be any words left.

“I think…” Anna said quietly. “I think it would be best if we said good-bye now, instead of drawing this out and—”

“Good-bye, Anna.” His voice was stiff and sounded hollow to his own ears. “Godspeed.”

He bowed without looking at her, turned, and left the room. If she said good-bye in return, he didn’t hear it. He bloody well didn’t want to.

 
 
Chapter 29

Max stood at the window of his chambers and watched as a carriage was brought round to the front of the house. The dawn had come gray and cheerless, with thick clouds sagging low over the hills and the smell of rain clinging to the air.

He wouldn’t stay for this. He’d decided the night before, as he’d sat alone in his room, nursing a brandy and his anger. He wasn’t going to be around to see Anna run off to her cottage, her new life, without him.

She could bloody well watch him ride off to London…Well, to McMullin Hall, really, but she didn’t know that. Let her think it was to town where there were plenty of ladies who might welcome his affections. Lovely, sophisticated, wickedly willing ladies…who didn’t interest him in the least, but she didn’t need to know that either.

It was ridiculous and infantile…but there it was. He was willing to be ridiculous and infantile. He was willing to try anything that might fill the aching hole in his chest.

And so he too borrowed a carriage and, having no need to pack, left Caldwell Manor just as the footmen were finishing loading Anna’s carriage, and just as the first small droplets of rain began to fall from the darkening sky.

The trip to McMullin Hall would be quicker on horseback, but to ride through the rain and mud seemed impossibly forlorn. And he wasn’t forlorn. He was bloody miserable.

He’d lost Anna. Or, more accurately, she’d let go of him. She’d rejected him outright. And holy hell, that
hurt
. It sat on his chest like a boulder, tore at him as he’d never imagined a refusal could.

Worse, there was no sweeping that sort of rejection away. He couldn’t just say,
To hell with her. To hell with all of it.