Page 53 of Her Wicked Duke
“Mama, how about?—”
“Allyoudo is complain,” Annette continued. “The meat isn’t good enough, the light is too bright when we host parties, my dresses are too revealing, or maybe the sound of my godforsaken breathing is too loud!”
Anne stood up, slamming her cutlery down on the table. “Enough!”
Silence descended immediately over the dinner table.
Anne took a deep breath. “Enough. No wonder Christian went to Europe. It is the only place he would not have to hear yourincessant bickering. Mary has been saved from it, but I shall not listen to you both another moment longer.”
“Now, Anne—” her father began, but she cut him off.
“You can both be cruel to each other, but perhaps one of these days, you will be cruel enough to the point of realizing you both must apologize. But I will not try to make that happen any longer. I shall be staying at Mary’s house for a few days. I shall be gone by this evening.”
With that, she did not wait to be excused from the dining table and strode off. She went upstairs to her bedroom, where she asked a maid to pack her a bag and have it loaded into her carriage.
She could not bear it for a moment longer.
Alexander was right, they needed to work things out themselves. She would only feel obligated to stay in this manor as a mediator, otherwise.
Mary’s house was much quieter, and while the silence often unnerved Anne, at least it was a reprieve from the squabbling. Her niece was a joy to have around, and Anne felt the weight of how much she’d missed her sister in the years since she married Patrick.
Patrick himself was a gentleman, as ever, ensuring Anne was comfortable and felt safe enough in their home. He didn’t ask why she had decided to stay with them for a few days. If anything, the couple seemed relieved to have another person break up the days.
What was more is that the letters stopped coming. Anne felt more relaxed with each day. She attended more parties and sought Alexander’s private company further.
At a dinner party held at Georgia’s house—she was now openly courting the Earl of Marston—Anne sat not with Alexander but Lord Sampson, whom she had danced with at a few parties. He hadn’t yet called on her, no doubt hearing the news of her courtship with Alexander, but he seemed glad she sat next to him.
Anne leaned in close to him. “Lord Sampson, you’re looking very handsome tonight,” she whispered.
Alexander sat opposite her. Around them, candlelight flickered over the faces of the other guests. Clarice was chatting with a group of gentlemen, while Jocelyn and her fiancé were happily gazing at one another further down the table. Georgia and her Earl were at the head of the table, talking and smiling at one another.
When Lord Sampson reached for his wine glass, Anne pretended like she thought it was hers. She giggled when their fingers brushed. “Oh! Do forgive me. I must have gotten the wrong glass.”
She turned toward him fully, enjoying the fury on Alexander’s face. When she swiftly brushed her shoe against Alexander’s leg beneath the table, he raised an eyebrow at her. A silent warning he could not communicate in front of their company.
Anne slipped off her shoe and trailed her foot higher, smiling indulgently, even as she flirted with Lord Sampson, who blushed, much to her delight. However, before she could even get past Alexander’s knee, he caught her ankle between his hands. He held her in place roughly. She halted her conversation to look across at him.
He smiled at her sardonically, as if to say,Well? What, now?
Scandalously, he trailed the back of his hands over her ankle, brushing her skin with his bare knuckles. Anne suppressed a shiver and pulled back her foot, slipping it back into her shoe.
Soon, they were sent off to mingle. Alexander watched over her as she talked with other men, dropping hushed hints about taking a stroll around the terrace in the shadows. She kept catching his eye, hopingsomethingwould make him break.
He remained impassive, watching from the periphery. He was like that, she found—utterly composed to his last thread of restraint in public, but the second they were alone, he snapped.
She arched an eyebrow at him as she ran a finger across a man’s shoulder and spoke about venturing outside with him. How would Alexander react to put her in her place?
When the dinner party wound down, and everyone had eaten their fill of cake and almost drank the cellar dry, they were dismissed, and their carriages were brought around. Anne stumbled toward Alexander, pleasantly intoxicated but not to the point of losing her wits.
“To Mary’s again?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered. “I took your advice and stayed out of my parents’ affairs.”
“Perhaps now you’ll have more time to focus on your own affairs and realize that there is a man who waits for you,” Alexander said in a tight voice. “Do you enjoy making me watch you with other men?”
Anne smiled up at him. “Greatly.”
His face a picture of fury, he tugged her out of the house after she bid her goodbyes and handed her into their carriage. They set off, and he yanked the curtain over the window, concealing them from view.
