Incognita (Fairchild Book 2) (13 page)

“I understand what you mean,” he said, keeping his back to her. Impossible to say for certain in this dim light, but his neck might have been flushed. He set the hat on his head, carefully adjusting the angle, then turned and walked past her, heading for the door. Before the breeze of his passing died, he was back at her side, pressing her hand. “I’m not uncomfortable. I should be, but I’m not. Thank your parents again for dinner.”
 

Anna tried to explain after he called again the next day. “He’s just being kind.”
 

“That’s why I like him,” her mother said.
 

“Mama, he’s leaving almost immediately for Spain,” she said, setting down her pen.
 

“Careful. I don’t want any blots,” her mother said, glancing at the Benevolent Society’s neat ledger. She reached out and brushed a dry thumb across Anna’s chin. “Who can say what will happen?”
 

Anna scowled down at the paper. Perhaps her mother would understand if she wrote it up as a balance sheet. On her side, a column of red debits: little money of her own, a son she couldn’t have, and an unholy temper. His interest might make sense if she accounted for her looks—most gentlemen seemed to like them—but she’d made it plain she wasn’t interested in romantic liaisons. So had he.
 

There’s a difference between admiring a painting and wanting to buy it.
 

She felt her cheeks coloring. And on his side . . . well, he was nice to look upon, it was true, but she wasn’t making the mistake of throwing all away on a handsome face again. He was proud—too well born to be content with a bourgeois wife, dependent on the generosity of another man’s son. Besides, she’d be a fool to trust a man so skilled at caressing with his eyes, so easy with his entendres. He was too shady to be trusted.
 

Of course, so was she. It was a useless proposition, not even worth thinking about, with nothing but liabilities on every side.
 

The next day, he called again.
 

“Why do you keep coming?” she asked, after an evening of penny-point whist with her parents. He couldn’t be amused by such games.
 

“I keep hoping you’ll change your mind. I could help you.”
 

“With Henry?” She shook her head. “I can’t see how.” But she slid a smile across the space between them like she was about to pass him a point. He’d played his cards incredibly well tonight, barely managing to lose. “You might have fooled my father, but I know we should have won.”
 

He put his lips on the very tips of her fingers, more a nibble than a kiss. “That wasn’t the game I was playing.”

In front of her parents, he was the soul of respectability, but when the two of them walked alone, he took all kinds of liberties, without ever touching her: approving her dress, her figure, the lazy curl that wound along the side of her neck, her rouge, scent, and her dove grey lace gloves. Easy enough to mistake such candid admiration for something more, but he was a connoisseur, not a collector. She must remember that.
 

“How about Frobisher? He’d do for you. Likes beautiful women,” Captain Beaumaris said, tilting his head at a man trotting by on a bay horse. “Shall I make the introduction?”
 

She refused, of course, blushing and flustering.
 

“No? He’d make a tolerable husband, so long as you can stand his mother,” he said, inadvertently snuffing her warmth.
 

Anna stared into the trees.
 

“You’re chewing your lip again—what must I do to make you stop that?” he asked.

“It won’t harm them. Or you,” she added, seeing he was about to protest.
 

“Don’t be obtuse. Having trouble with the Gorgon?” he asked, using the name she’d given her mother-in-law, the other Mrs. Morris.
 

“Just more of the same,” she said, smoothing the wrinkles in her forehead.
 

But it wasn’t. Two days later, she went again to appeal to Frederick, hoping she might at least glimpse Henry from the bottom of the stairs. Frederick received her with his usual solemnity in the library, the Gorgon at his side. The air was thick with antipathy, making it hard to move. Anna listened. Pled her cause. Asked for leniency, but of course there was none. She had her pride, though. She did not cry until she was facing her own door.
 

*****

It took some days to arrange, but after an examination by a second surgeon—the first one insisted upon it—Alistair was permitted to return to active service. “Give Colonel Halketts my best,” said Mr. Wethers, the surgeon, smiling as he affixed a tight signature to Alistair’s orders.
 

“That I will,” Alistair said. His daily practice with pistol and saber was still unsatisfying and painful—he tired with alarming speed, but could manage Wether’s brief examination with a cheerful face. Distracting the surgeon with talk through most of the appointment helped.
 

Alistair left Wethers’ office at the hospital, thinking about Spain and his shoulder, resolving to pass an hour (if he could stand it) at Manton’s shooting gallery. He made a quick stop at home, then set off to Davies Street, his brother Cyril’s duelling pistols tucked under his arm. They’d been tempting him too long from the back of the library cupboard, finally overcoming his scruples. He culped only three wafers before he started missing.
 

“Problem with your piece?”
 

It was Jasper, lounging against the wood-paneled wall, looking very indolent for a man who, most days, could hit fifteen of twenty wafers.
 

“Wish it was,” said Alistair, calmly reloading. “It’s this shoulder of mine.”
 

Jasper shook his head. “Nasty business.”
 

Alistair nodded, unsure if Jasper’s summation should amuse or irritate him. Squaring off, Alistair fired again.
 

“Might have clipped it,” Jasper suggested, to be kind.
 

Alistair didn’t bother taking a second look, just shook his head. “A clean miss, and not the fault of the equipment.”
 

“Nice looking piece,” Jasper said. “One of a pair?”
 

“Filched them from my brother,” Alistair admitted.
 

Jasper made a face. “Wasted on him. Forgive my plain speaking.”
 

“Oh, I’m with you,” Alistair said, quickly wiping down the pistol so he could tuck it back in the case.
 

“Come by Tatt’s with me?” Jasper suggested, seeing he was preparing to go.
 

He ought to. If he was to find himself another decent horse before leaving . . . .
 

“Love to, but I’m afraid it had better be another time.” Alistair closed the case with a snap. If he went to Tattersall’s he’d have to forego walking with Anna.
 

Jasper followed him outside Manton’s, frowning as he straightened his cuffs. “Gone back into hiding? Haven’t seen you at the club.”
 

“No, just preparing for my journey. Lots to be done,” Alistair said.
 

“Evidently.” Jasper narrowed his mouth. “Where’re you off to?”
 

“Business,” Alistair said, but something in his face must have given him away.
 

Jasper exhaled in a huff. “You can tell me about her next time. Or not.” He touched his hat, perfectly polite, but plainly displeased.
 

Alistair held in a sigh, watching Jasper stroll away, headed to his tailor or his clubs. There really wasn’t anything to tell. And while he had, on rare occasions, hinted to his cousin about a particular lady’s charms, his knowledge of Anna Morris’s predicament was not for sharing. She bore up tolerably well, but someone ought to help her. He didn’t know exactly how or why he’d become convinced the someone should be him.
 

It was past the time for afternoon calls when he knocked on the Fulham’s door, but the maid who answered the door reported that Anna was upstairs.
 

He found her in the drawing room, alone, her forehead resting in her hands. She lifted her face as he approached, brushing her cheeks, unable to hide her red-rimmed eyes.
 

“What’s the matter?” he asked, mired in place, his hand frozen above the table where he usually dropped his gloves.
 

She smiled weakly, corrected her posture and lied. “Nothing.”
 

“My dear, when your eyes look like that, you’ll have to come up with something better.” He held out a handkerchief. “Tell me.”

She dabbed her face obediently, then set the folded square on her lap, smoothing it with her fingers. Her lips clung together, holding everything in.
 

The roundabout approach, then. “Come walking with me,” he said, stretching out his hand to forestall arguments. “Very pretty,” he said, admiring her soft blue walking dress as she rose. “You visited Brother Frederick today?” She always dressed with care and circumspection when meeting her in-laws.
 

Anna caught her lip with her teeth, answering with a sharp nod. Something painful then. Her bonnet was beside her on the sofa, trailing grey ribbons onto Mrs. Fulham’s carpet—the serviceable, quiet design couldn’t have been Anna’s choice. “Don’t forget your hat,” he said.
 

She was close to his height, their eyes nearly level as he fitted it onto her head and fastened the ribbons, wishing he could tell her she didn’t need to hide behind damp eyelashes.
 

“Are your parents out?” he asked, for he didn’t see anyone on their way out of the house.
 

“Father is home. He’s resting.” Instead of turning north, she took him past the church to Hans Town Gardens, a pocket sized bit of greenery compared to Hyde Park.
 

“You won’t see anyone you know here,” she said.
 

It wasn’t something that concerned him, but he’d failed to convince her of the truth of it. “What’s the matter? Is it your son?” Her eyes flashed to his and he knew he’d guessed the truth.
 

“You needn’t—”

“I want to know,” he insisted. It had been satisfying, picturing Frederick Morris standing behind his wafers earlier today. His family treated Anna abominably, stealing her money and keeping her from her son. He didn’t like to think how her husband might have behaved, after seeing the scorn the Morris butler had heaped on her when she’d gone over to see Henry that first Sunday.
 

Her lips folded together, then she said, low and careful, “My mother-in-law is taking Henry back to Warwickshire.”
 

“What will you do?”
 

“I can’t go there. They won’t have me in the house. I’ll have to find a place nearby, or I’ll never see him. It’s just—I never wanted to go back to Warwickshire.”
 

“How—”
 

“I’ve money enough,” she said quickly. “I’ll have to keep to a simple style. A cottage. No more lace gloves or shopping on Bond Street.” She gave a fleeting smile.
 

“Why won’t they let Henry live with you?” he asked.
 

“He needs to be brought up properly,” she said, with a lightness that accentuated the pain in her eyes. “It won’t do to forget that no matter who I am, Henry is a gentleman’s son. I can’t be trusted to teach him what a gentleman ought to know. Nor can my parents.”
 

Alistair did not doubt that she would follow the Morrises to Warwickshire and that she’d be ignored there even more effectively. If, in desperation, she turned to a town lawyer, she might be able to buy herself costly hopes, but nothing more. She needed an ally, someone able to beat Frederick Morris at his own game.
 

His mother would refuse point blank to help her, no question of that, but perhaps Aunt Georgiana might . . . Uncle William said he wished to help him. Of course, one never took up people on offers like that, or asked them to transfer their kindness to another. But it needn’t be for very long. All in all, it wasn’t an enormous favor to ask. They would need a clear reason though, something better from him than pity for a striking face.
 

“Let’s sit down,” he said. One needed to, for conversations like this. He’d done this once before, but it hadn’t frightened him like this. Sophy had been well prepared to hear his offer.
 

“If you were living with respectable people—no, the best people—would Morris let you have Henry?”
 

She turned her palms up fatalistically. “In theory. But Frederick would find a reason to say no. Something about the situation wouldn’t be right enough for him, and besides, I haven’t one. Frederick doesn’t approve of any one I know.”
 

“He’ll approve of me. Of my family.”
 

She faltered, her lips falling open. “Bu—”
 

He stopped her with a lifted finger. Time for that later. He had to take this at full gallop or he’d find a reason why it couldn’t work. “You wouldn’t have to live with my mother. Dreadful situation. My father is dying and her theatrics over it would infuriate a saint.” Anna, bless her, looked far too tempting to be one of those. Besides, he didn’t trust Cyril to keep the line.
 

“I’m thinking of my aunt, Lady Fairchild. She’s perfect,” he said, before Anna could argue. “She’s a notable hostess, a bastion of respectability. If she’s deigned to notice a Morris within the last five years they’d remember it. No one would dare say her house isn’t a good place for Henry. My aunt could get you started, introduce you to the right people.” She’d opened society’s doors for Sophy. Anna had her husband’s name, if not his family’s support. She could find a way in as part of his aunt’s train.
 

“But she wouldn’t do it. Why would anyone?”
 

Being a guest of Lady Fairchild wouldn’t be enough. Anna needed a stronger foothold. And Aunt Georgiana wouldn’t take Anna without an excellent reason. “She’d do it for me,” he said.
Probably
. “Suppose we told her you were to become my wife.”