Page 110 of If the Slipper Fits
Zeke’s grin vanished and a flash of annoyance sparked in his blue eyes. “No? I had hoped you’d matured enough to move past this stubborn streak.”
Caden pinched the bridge of his nose, striving for patience. He no longer had the luxury to tell his brother to stuff it, nor, oddly, the inclination. Anna’s influence, no doubt.
“I appreciate the offer, Zeke. However, I have an alternate proposition to make—one that I believe will clear up the recent misapprehension on your part regarding the funds I requested.”
Zeke’s look of annoyance faded, replaced by one of grudging intrigue. “Do you mean to say you actually intend to explain yourself, rather than leave the earl and I to our suppositions and conjectures?”
Caden met his brother’s eyes with an unblinking stare. “I fully intended to explain myself, and would have, had I not heard insulting suppositions and conjectures spoken behind my back.”
“I’d hardly call a private conversation between the earl and I speaking behind your back. One could argue you had no business listening-in to our private discussion. As for the rest, you never gave us a chance to—”
“Boys, enough.” The earl’s gruff tone brooked no argument. He held one hand outstretched like a maestro holding a section of the symphony in check. “This is not the time for another of your squabbles. The ladies are coming.”
Only then did Caden note the muted, distinctly feminine voices echoing down the hall, announcing the ladies’ impending arrival.
“Might I suggest we continue this”—Caden cleared his throat—“discussionafter supper?”
Zeke snorted. “I can hardly wait.”
The ladies’ chatter grew louder. Anticipation tightened Caden’s gut.
In moments he would introduce, Anna, his future wife, to the earl, and he had no earthly idea what she might say. For that matter, he had no notion of what the earl might say.
The black sheep of the family, he had announced his engagement to a married woman on the run from her psychopath husband—a woman apparently not overjoyed by the prospect of marriage to him. It was anyone’s guess how the next hour might unfold.
He closed his eyes briefly and inhaled through his nose, slow and deep. He’d faced worse odds. He thought.
A sudden image of her, strolling one-slippered down the stone corridor, formed unbidden in his mind and he choked back a laugh. He’d carted Anna’s lone satin slipper with him all the way from Yorkshire. Most likely she hadn’t bothered keeping its match. He still didn’t know why he hadn’t surrendered the thing to her the night she’d lost it. No doubt the set had cost her a pretty penny.
He’d make it up to her with a dozen such pairs. Fine slippers or boots or whatever she preferred. Of course, cementing his financial resources meant repairing the damage he’d done with his knee jerk reaction in rejecting Zeke’s authority and all things to do with his familial estate. One thing at a time.
He opened his eyes.
Aunt Lillian entered the chamber, her evening attire impeccable, her white hair piled high in typical fashion. Next came a smiling Kitty, whose pale green eyes shot immediately to him, expectant, and, as always, warm.
Then came Anna.
She had indeed dressed for dinner. She wore one of her new-to-her, oddly well-fitting gowns. This one was fashioned of a pale gold-ish amber that seemed particularly suited to her coloring and which hugged her curves to perfection. Her chestnut hair was styled in a classic chignon, allowing for soft tendrils to frame her crowd-stopping face.
She paused just past the threshold, eyes searching the room, and, spotting him, sent him a tentative smile that hit him like a punch to the gut and drew him to her like a magnet.
In seconds, he held her silk gloved hand to his lips. “Good evening. I trust you had a pleasant rest?”
She nodded once. Her almond-shaped eyes held his, uncharacteristic uncertainty swirling in their depths.
An overwhelming urge to shield her from any discomfort or harm filled him. He’d never in his life felt such an affinity for someonenothis family, and certainly had never felt the need to side-up against his family. But this was Anna.HisAnna. With her, all bets were off.
He tucked her fingers into the crook of his arm and shifted to face the room with her locked at his side. “Come. It’s past time you meet my grandfather, the Earl of Claybourne.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Anna hesitated only a fraction of a moment before allowing Caden to lead her into the small, luxuriously appointed parlor.
She held her chin high, silently commending herself for maintaining a calm veneer in the face of her audience—an earl, his heir, a future countess, and an earl’s sister, blue bloods all, through and through.
She studied the earl as they made their approach. As a young girl, she had, on occasion, seen him, say when he frequented the village market, or rode one of his many horses, or took the road past their cottage atop his dashing barouche. Yet she’d never met the man, despite the fact his grandson had befriended her, and her family resided not a five minute carriage ride away.
Thanks to that, or perhaps due to her mother who always cautioned her against trusting the nobility, she imagined him as aloof and disdainful of those whose social status placed them beneath him—which encompassed almost everyone.
