Page 37 of His Scandalous Lessons
As Richard turned to leave, his sister grabbed his sleeve. “Oh ho! I don’t think so. You can’t come here and happily greet me, then grow all moody and leave. Sit with me, have tea, have biscuits—”
“No.”
Alexandra’s mouth fell open in shock. “What the devil? You’ve been gone for almost a month and youwon’t even stay for tea?”
“I’m busy. And don’t you have protests to attend?” Richard said, stalking out the door and into the bright sunlight of St. James’s.
But his sister was right on his heels. “I cannot believe this. Are you avoiding me?”
“If I wanted to avoid you, I wouldn’t have bothered coming around. I simply didn’t expect you to follow me onto the street like a stray dog.”
Richard tried to keep his voice down, but they were already attracting more than a few curious stares from the other residents. After all, Richard was walking down the street at quite an alarming clip that more closely resembled a run, and his sister was trotting after him with an expression caught between alarm and a desire to put his head on a platter.
“Stray dog?Stray dog? I’m your bloody sister!”
“God help me,” Richard muttered. “Go home.”
“Not until you tell me what’s going on.”
“Nothing is going on. I have places to be.”
“Ah,” she said with a sweet smile as she finally kept up pace with him. “It’s a woman, then.”
Richard stopped so suddenly that Alexandra stumbled. “How do you know that?”
“Easy. Only a woman would have a man this out of sorts. You’ve that look about you.”
Christ, he had a look? Was it obvious? “What look?”
“I can’t tell, really. It’s like seeing a man experience emotions for the first time. It generally manifests as an expression caught between anger and constipation.”
Richard glared at her. “If I had another sister, you would be my least favorite today.”
Her grin grew wide. “Oh, I do love you. Let me guess: you’re interested in a lady of the lower classes and wish to seek James’s permission to marry her.”
He resumed walking. He didn’t have time for this. “No.”
“All right, then.” Good god, she was following him again. Plague take irritating sisters. She tapped her lips, keeping up with him even as he strode briskly. She gasped then asked in a low voice, “You haven’t got a woman with child, have you?”
“Good god, no.” Then, before he could think better of it: “At least, I don’t believe so.”
After all, he’d spilled inside Anne, hadn’t he? She could very well be carrying his child. He ought to have been alarmed by the idea, but instead it gave him a warm glow he didn’t understand. Anne. Her body swelling with his child.His.
Alexandra must have noticed the change in his expression, because her gaze softened. “Richard...”
He drew in a breath and shook his head. “I have work to do. I’ll call on you later.”
This time, she let him walk away without following.
* * *
It had been days.
Richard checked in with Thorne’s man, Samuel, who was tasked with watching the Prime Minister’s house for any sign of Anne. But while her father had come and gone, Anne had yet to leave the property.
Richard was growing desperate.
He went to see Caroline, who had finally returned to her London residence after the house party. She didn’t seem at all surprised to see him, nor was she shocked by Richard’s state of dishabille, which was a combination of lacking sleep and threatening men into compliance for the ballot vote. He didn’t resort to violence as a general rule — that was Thorne’s territory — but Stanton Sheffield was doubling his efforts to get men into line. The battle for that vote was growing brutal.
