The Bride Wore Scarlet (9 page)

What a sorry state of affairs this was turning out to be. Bessett's words aside, Anaïs was beginning to
feel
just a bit like a green girl—and in ways she really did not wish to think about.

At that instant, however, Bessett crooked his head and smiled down at her. “We are going to have to do better than Smith, don't you think, when we arrive in Brussels?”

“Who shall we be, then?” She kept her tone artificially bright. “I suppose we should choose something as near our own names as will feel natural.”

For a long moment, he said nothing. Instead, he matched his long stride to her shorter one, and walked beside her without impatience—and without his scowl.

“MacLachlan,” he said after a time, but there was a strange hitch in his voice. “I'll be Geoffrey MacLachlan.”

“A Scottish name?” Anaïs remarked, and for some reason, she took his arm again.

As if it were second nature, Bessett settled his hand over hers. “It is my stepfather's name,” he said. “I can always claim connection to his construction business if pressed. What about yourself?”

“My name is odd, but no one knows me,” she said. “I shall just be Anaïs MacLachlan.”

“It is unusual,” he agreed. “But beautiful.”

“Another of my great-grandmothers,” Anaïs explained. “She was from Catalonia. We still have vineyards there.”

“But not in Alsace?”

Anaïs shook her head. “The estate was burnt in the Revolution,” she said. “My father has never even tried to reclaim the land, though he could have done, perhaps.”

“So a French title, but no land,” Bessett murmured.

Anaïs smiled weakly. “He never used the title until he met my mother,” she replied. “He seemed to think he could not marry her without it. But I don't think titles much matter to her. She was country bred, and raised in—what is the polite euphemism? Genteel poverty? Except that poverty doesn't feel terribly genteel, I daresay, when one is living in it.”

“At least she sounds refreshing.” Bessett seemed to be warming to the topic of her family. “And you have a twin brother, do you not?”

“Yes, Armand.”

“So, you were born at the same time—”

Anaïs laughed. “Twins usually are.”

Bessett did not return her humor. “And yet he was not chosen to be the Guardian?”

Anaïs lifted one shoulder. “I don't know why,” she replied. “Nonna just said it wasn't written in the cards. And perhaps he hasn't the temperament. Armand is very much the young man about town. But Maria still complains about Nonna's decision.”

“Maria?”

“My cousin, Maria Vittorio.” Anaïs paused to kick a stone from their path. “She was my great-grandmother's companion, and the widow of Vittorio's brother. Maria is a grumpy old dear. She lives with me in Wellclose Square—Nonna left us the house—and we used to travel together.”

“Back and forth to Tuscany, you mean?”

“Yes.” Anaïs sighed. “But Maria has always believed it was Armand's place to go, not mine. That I should have been at home embroidering sofa cushions and filling that cavernous house with children.”

“And what do you think?”

Anaïs shrugged again, this time with both shoulders. “I haven't the patience for needlework,” she answered. “Besides, Nonna Sofia lived an unconventional life. She had just one child, my grandmother, who died young. And all Nonna's husbands died young, too. So what good did convention do her? It broke her heart. In the end, she poured herself into the business and made us rich.”

“An unconventional life indeed,” he murmured. “But yours needn't be like that. Not if you don't wish it to be.”

“I think we must be satisfied with the life fate deals us,” she said. “And I have a sense of purpose few women ever have.”

“But—?”

“Why do you think there's a
but
in this conversation?”

“I hear it in your voice.”

She cut him a sidelong glance. “Best to turn that Gift of yours in someone else's direction, I think,” she warned.

He flashed a muted smile. “I don't have that sort of ability.”

“And I am not very deep, or difficult to understand,” she said, resolved to change the subject. “Now, tell me, my dear husband—how long have we been wed?”

“Three months,” he replied after a moment's consideration.

She nodded. “That will explain our knowing little about one another.”

He crooked his head to look down at her. “So it was an arranged marriage?” he asked. “Not a love match?”

Anaïs cast him another sidelong look. “Does this feel like a love match to you, Bessett?”

“That would be Mr. MacLachlan, my dear,” he said lightly.

She laughed. “So, our marriage was arranged,” she said. “I was badly on the shelf, and my father paid you pots of money to marry me.”

He laughed hugely. “That desperate, eh?”

“Why not?” She looked askance at him. “I'll admit, I'm no beauty. Perhaps my virtue was compromised? Or I was an outrageous flirt? You doubtless did my father a huge favor in taking me off his hands.”

His expression sobered then. “Don't say those things,” he said quietly. “Not even in jest.”

“Careful, MacLachlan.” Anaïs smiled. “I might begin to think you have a heart. So, what
do
we know of one another? I daresay we'd best decide.”

“As with our new names, we should keep the details near the truth,” he answered.

“Very well,” she said. “I was raised primarily on my mother's farm in Gloucestershire. Besides Armand, I have two sisters and another brother, all younger and still at home, and Papa's ward, Nate, who is eldest, and on his own now. What about you?”

Bessett seemed to hesitate for a moment. “I was raised abroad,” he finally answered. “Bessett was a scholar of ancient civilizations, so we traveled quite a lot.”

Her eyes widened. “Did you? How fascinating.”

“Yes, but he died when I was young,” he said. “My mother returned to Yorkshire, and a few years after that, we moved to London.”

“How odd that she should take you from your family estate to be raised in Town,” Anaïs murmured.

“I was not an easy child to raise,” he murmured. “She . . . didn't understand me. And I didn't understand myself. In Yorkshire, we were so isolated. In any case, I was not the heir. Bessett had a son by an earlier marriage—Alvin, my stepbrother.”

“You mean your half brother?”

“Yes,” he said swiftly. “He was much older than I, and we were about as alike as chalk and cheese, but I . . . I simply adored him.”

“That's just how it is with Nate and me,” said Anaïs, smiling. “There's nothing so reassuring as a much-elder brother, I think.”

“Oh, yes, steady as a rock, that was Alvin.” Bessett's gaze had turned inward. “But when he married, my mother thought it best she remove from Loughton, the estate in Yorkshire. Unfortunately, there was no heir born of the marriage, so when Alvin died . . .”

“Oh,” she said quietly. “I am very sorry. A title is a fine thing, I daresay, but not at the cost of a beloved brother.”

“My sentiments exactly,” said Bessett, his jaw set tight.

“Has he been gone long?”

“Awhile, yes,” said Bessett. “I was a man grown, and my mother had remarried. I had already come down from Cambridge, and spent a few years in business with my stepfather.”

“So you built things?” she remarked.

“At first, I merely drew them,” said Geoff. “And after a time, he began sending me abroad to oversee certain projects. We did quite a lot of work for the colonial government in North Africa.”

“So you really have done a bit of sailing,” she murmured. “Indeed, you are as well-traveled as I.”

“Does that surprise you?”

“Oh, you know how most Englishmen are.” Anaïs gave an expansive wave of her hand. “They think the world begins at Dover, and ends at Hadrian's Wall.”

“Ah,” he said quietly. “Well, trust me, Miss de Rohan. I am not most Englishmen.”

She pursed her lips, and glanced up at him.
That
, she believed wholeheartedly.

“I really do think you ought to call me Anaïs, you know,” she said softly. “It would be best if you got used to it before we arrive in Belgium.”

He crooked his head again, and smiled down at her—a smile that reached all the way to his ice-blue eyes. “Anaïs, then,” he said. “And I am Geoff—or Geoffrey, if you like.”

“Geoff, then, for the most part.” Anaïs managed a little wink. “I shall save Geoffrey for those moments when I am feeling put out with you.”

“Both syllables, hmm?” he said, as the inn yard came into view. “I have a feeling
that
is what I had best get used to.”

I
n London, the day was brisk, the breeze whipping at Hyde Park's spring blossoms almost violently. Such botanic brutality had not, however, deterred the last of the day's gadabouts from enjoying the twin diversions of seeing and being seen, for the London Season had commenced in earnest, and there were wardrobes to critique, rumors to be passed, and social calendars to be compared.

For most of the park's habitués, it was a pleasant if exhausting ritual. For the occupants of Lord Lazonby's black-and-gold phaeton, however, the Season held little allure. Lady Anisha Stafford was disdainful of the entire business, and about the only thing as strained as Lord Lazonby's relationship with the polite society was the conversation in his carriage.

“So, is it true you are courting Bessett now?” he asked as he cut his matched bays through the Cumberland Gate. “He must be strutting like a peacock.”

“It is true I went to the theatre with Lord Bessett,” said Lady Anisha irritably, “as did my brother. But so far as I know, neither I nor Lucan mean to court him.”

“Don't be coy, Nish,” said Lazonby. “We know one another too well for that.”

“Do we, Rance?” She cut one of her mysterious, sloe-eyed glances at him. “I sometimes wonder if I know you at all. But very well, yes. Bessett asked my brother's permission to pay his attentions to me. Quaint of him, was it not?—particularly when it should have been
me
whom he asked.”

“Bessett is delightfully old-fashioned,” Lazonby concurred. “I think it one of his finer traits.”

“Well, Adrian and I had a bit of row over it,” said Anisha sourly. “I have told my brother time and again that I mean to take a lover before I take another husband.”

Lazonby smiled. “Do you indeed?”

“Yes, someone different and . . . and adventurous, perhaps.” Anisha's chin went up a notch. “Bessett was not quite what I had in mind, but now I think on it, his good looks quite make up for his being so archaic.”

Lazonby settled his hand over hers and gave it a swift squeeze. “Look here, old thing—” He searched his mind for the right words. “I . . . I am not for you. You know that, don't you, Nish?”

Color flashed up her cheeks. “My God, Rance, but you presume a great deal!”

“I presume to account you a dear, dear friend,” he said. “Shall I stop?”

Lady Anisha flounced on the seat, neatening skirts that did not need neatening, then adjusting the tilt of her jaunty little hat. “No,” she finally said. Then she gave a great sigh. “Well, go on. What is it you want of me?”

“What do I
want
?” He cut a curious glance at her.

“Rance, I was married a long while, and I know how men think,” she said. “You did not put on that fine morning coat—I did not know you owned anything so elegant, by the way—merely to tool through Hyde Park in front of people you could not care less about. The same people whom you well know wouldn't give Adrian and me the time of day were it not for my brother's money and title.”

“Anisha, don't sell yourself short.”

She cut another haughty look at him. “Oh, I don't!” she said. “I am quite as arrogant as any one of them. My mother was a Rajput princess, you may recall. London society can go hang for all I care.”

“Good girl,” he said, shooting her a grin.

Lady Anisha clapped a hand onto her jaunty hat as a gust of wind caught it. “So, what do you want?”

“I want you to go with me to Scotland Yard,” he said.

“To
where
?”

“Well, to Number Four, actually,” he said. “To visit Assistant Commissioner Napier. I know it isn't the most refined of places, but I saw you talking to him at the wedding breakfast, and I thought . . . well, I thought the two of you were getting on rather famously.”

“Heavens, I wouldn't call it that,” she said. “I have no use for the man whatever. But he was a guest in my brother's home, and I was polite to him.”

“But he liked you,” Lazonby suggested. “Either that, or he thought you were pinching Ruthveyn's silver, for he never took his eyes from you.”

Lady Anisha seemed to consider it. “Oh, don't be ridiculous,” she finally said. “He was civil enough, yes, but Napier was under no illusion as to why he was invited.”

“Yes,” said Lazonby tightly. “To make it plain to the gossiping public that Lady Ruthveyn was fully exonerated in her employer's murder. After all, he'd all but publicly accused her. It was that or have Ruthveyn rain political hellfire down upon his head.”

“People are forever underestimating the reach of the
Fraternitas
, are they not?” Lady Anisha murmured, still holding her hat against the breeze. “In any case, Napier was asking me about India. He had been offered a position there.”

Lazonby cast his gaze heavenward. “Please, God, tell me he is leaving England forever?”

“I fancy he had already turned it down,” said Lady Anisha. “Something to do with a death in his family. No, I think you will not be rid of Napier quite that easily. And yes, Rance, I know he has hounded you unmercifully. I know it was his father who sent you off to rot in prison. And for those reasons, if no other, Napier will never be my friend.”