Practically Wicked (23 page)

Anna patiently waited for Max outside the next morning, until pride told her it was time to go. Then she waited a little longer. Which was a mistake, because by the time she finally left without him, she wasn’t merely disappointed that he’d not come, but also a bit put out with herself for having set such store by his company to start.

How foolish it was for her to have assumed Max would come. How foolish to feel so disappointed. They’d not officially made plans to meet. He’d not promised to walk with her every morning. Just as he’d not promised to attend meals.

He’d not come to dinner the night before, and Lucien had made only a cursory excuse for him. Max, she was told, was attending to business. Anna thought it distinctly unfair that a gentleman could get out of nearly any activity with the excuse of business. But she’d tried not to take Max’s absence, or the irritating explanation given for that absence, personally.

It was difficult not to take his absence personally that morning. When a man avoided a woman after kissing her, it was unlikely to be anything
but
personal.

Unless, of course, he was simply being sensible. They both knew perfectly well that nothing could come of their growing attraction. He was still a viscount and she was still a courtesan’s daughter. They were no more suitable for each other than they had been four years ago.

Maybe, in keeping his distance, he was being mindful of that fact and of her (admittedly questionable) reputation.

She’d really rather he wouldn’t. God’s truth, she wanted to be reckless. Just a little. Just while she was at Caldwell and just with Max. She’d spent her whole life being the Ice Maiden and she had the rest of her life to spend as a hopeless old maid. Right now, she wanted to be…she just wanted to be kissing Max Dane. And, more than anything, she wanted him to want that back.

How ironic that after years of wishing there were more gentlemen in her life, she now found herself wishing there was just one rogue.

Feeling dejected, but nonetheless determined to make the most of her morning, she stopped by the stable and peeked in on a sleeping Hermia before setting off to begin her stroll in proper. She’d not made it far, just to the end of the field where she and Max had played with Hermia the day before when she heard an odd, high-pitched laughter coming through the woods.

Anna stopped and cocked her head, trying to determine why it sounded so strange to her. The cadence of it was off, maybe, or the…

“Oh, no. No, no, no.” It wasn’t laughter she was hearing, it was the broken cries of a child. Horrified, she swiveled on her heel, cupped her hands around her mouth, and yelled back at the stable. “Help! I need help! In the trees!”

Praying someone had heard her but unwilling to wait and find out, Anna picked up her skirts and dashed into the trees, following the sound of the cries. Brush and branches caught at her dress and skin, slowing her down. More than once she tripped over exposed roots, nearly losing her footing. But at last, the woods opened again to pasture and, more immediately, a large pond.

At the center of that pond was a small girl. Visible only from the shoulders up, she was desperately clinging to a rectangular bit of wood and rope that may, or may not, have been the remnants of a raft. Only a portion of it could be seen above the waterline.

As Anna rushed closer, the child caught sight of her, and her young face became a heartbreaking mixture of terror and hope.

“Help me! Please! I can’t swim! I can’t swim!”

“Yes! Yes, I’m coming! It’s all right!”

Anna reached the edge of the water and came to a sliding stop. The girl was in the very middle of the pond. Damn it, she’d no idea how deep the water might be. With an oath, she spun around again, her eyes scanning the ground in front of the trees.

“Don’t leave me!” The child’s voice took on a new edge of panic as Anna turned her back on the pond, searching. “Don’t! Help me!”

“I’m coming! I’m coming, hold on just a moment longer!”

“I can’t!”

Anna glanced over her shoulder. From the looks of it, she could. The top of the girl’s blonde curls weren’t wet. But she’d not have much longer than that moment. Whatever the child had been using to stay afloat was quickly disappearing below the water.

Damn it, where…? “Yes!”

She found what she needed at the edge of the woods. A long, sturdy tree branch, still light enough for her to move. Half carrying, half dragging her find, she raced back to the pond and straight into the water.

The cool temperature of the water scarcely registered, but the weight of it was impossible to ignore as it saturated her skirts and they pulled her down. Her feet sank into the muddy bottom of the pond. She lost one slipper, then the other. The branch floated atop the water, but it was a struggle, towing it behind her.

Her progress was maddeningly slow, and the farther she made it, the more the resistance of water and mud slowed her pace. It reached her waist, her chest, her shoulders, her neck, and then the bottom seemed to drop away.

“
Bloody
hell.”

Just as Anna had feared, the water grew too deep for her to reach the child. One more step and she’d be in over her head.

But the child wasn’t far, perhaps six feet away, and Anna could see that she was very young indeed, no more than seven or eight. The raft was almost entirely submerged now, and the girl was struggling to keep her hands on one slippery corner and her chin above the water.

Anna dragged the branch around and pushed it out before her.

Please reach. Please, God. Please, please, please let it reach.

The end of the branch stopped only inches short of touching the girl.

“Yes!” Anna felt a wash of hope. “Grab hold!”

The girl turned panicked eyes from the branch to Anna. “Help me!”

“Grab hold, love. It’s all right.”

“No!” The girl stretched one arm out toward Anna instead. “Help me!”

Damn it
. Anna tried leaning forward, pushing the branch closer, but it was no use. “I can’t reach you! You must grab the branch. You can do it. Go on.”

Sobbing, the child threw out a small hand, grasping wildly, and somehow managed to take hold of the branch. “I have it! I have it!”

“There’s a girl! Now take a deep breath, grab hold with both hands, and hold tight!”

By some miracle, the girl did exactly as she was told. Anna sent up a prayer the girl’s grip was tight, then pulled on the branch. The child pushed away from the raft at the same time, and the sudden weight on the branch took Anna by surprise. For one terrifying moment, it threatened to pull her over the unseen precipice at her feet, but she was able to shift her weight and regain her balance in time. And then it was but a few pulls of the branch and the child was in grasping distance at last.

Anna grabbed the little girl’s hand and pulled her into her arms. If she’d had the breath for it, she would have shouted with joy and relief. “There we are. Oh, there we are, darling. I have you.”

Wiry arms wrapped around her neck and held fast. If the girl said anything, it couldn’t be heard over the sputtering and sobbing, and the sound of Anna’s name being shouted from the shore.

Anna turned carefully, moving away from the deep-water edge, and caught sight of Max charging into the water. Before she was halfway back to the shore, he was upon them, disheveled and winded, his handsome face set in hard lines.

“Anna—”

“Her boat sank,” she told him and wondered if that sounded as ridiculous to him as it did to her.

He swung the crying, shivering child up in his arms as his eyes raked over Anna. “Are you all right? Are you harmed?”

Anna wasn’t certain which one of them he was addressing, but she shook her head, figuring that worked either way. The girl didn’t have an injury she could see, and her loud sobbing indicated that her lungs were free of water.

Max continued to stare at her. “You’re certain?”

“Yes.” She’d stood in water. What sort of injury was he expecting? To be fair, she was feeling increasingly odd, as if she was becoming slightly detached from what was happening around her, but that scarcely qualified as an injury.

“Right,” Max said, nodding. “Right, then. Let’s get you back to the house.”

With one arm holding the child perched on his hip, Max wrapped the other arm tightly around Anna’s shoulders and ushered her toward the shore. Anna was grateful for the assistance. She didn’t feel tired, exactly, but her legs did feel weak, as if she’d just finished a footrace. Of course, having never actually participated in a footrace, that might not—

“Anna?”

She glanced over and found Max looking at her expectantly and with great concern. He’d asked her something, but she’d not heard him over the splashing of water, the continued rush of blood in her ears, and the little girl’s wailing.

“I’m all right,” she said, figuring that would at least address his concern.

“What?”

Had she not been so out of sorts, she might have laughed a little at their complete inability to communicate. Instead, she reached up and squeezed his hand in reassurance, and waited until they’d reached dry ground to tell him, “I’m fine.”

She wasn’t sure he’d heard her (her voice sounded muted to her own ears) until his arm slipped from her shoulder, and he adjusted the little girl in his hold.

“What’s your name, sweetheart?” He patted her back gently. “Come on, now. Take a deep breath. You’re all right…There you go…Now tell me your name.”

The child coughed, hiccupped, and after several tries, managed, “Cassandra.”

“Cassandra?” Max pulled back to take a better look at the girl’s face. “Cassandra Hughs? Mrs. Webster’s grandniece? Jim Hughs’s girl?”

She sniffled, hiccupped again, and nodded.

Max gave her a bolstering smile. “I’ve not seen you in ages. Grown a mite, haven’t you?”

She took a ragged breath. “Aye, sir?”

“Ah, you don’t remember me, then. I saw you last…” He thought a moment. “Two years ago, I’d say. You were but an infant then. Miss Rees, a proper introduction, if you please.”

“What?” Anna blinked at him as her sluggish mind caught up with the words. “Oh…Yes, of course. Er…Lord Dane, may I present Cassandra Hughs. Miss Hughs, this is Lord Dane.”

Cassandra’s drying eyes widened considerably, presumably at the realization she was being hauled across the countryside in the arms of nobility.

Max pretended not to see. “Cassandra’s father is the finest cabinetmaker in England. Isn’t he, love?”

“Aye, milord,” she readily agreed, awe of nobility forgotten in the face of pride. “Best there is.”

“So I have told all my friends in London.”

“London? Truly?”

“Truly,” he assured her gravely.

Max kept up a friendly banter with the girl for the remainder of the walk home. Anna listened with half an ear, which was all she seemed capable of at present. Her mind was a jumble of racing thoughts, her body was simultaneously bursting with energy and completely exhausted.

Once or twice, she caught Max staring at her over Cassandra’s head, a line of worry across his brow. But she didn’t begin to understand the full extent of that worry until they reached the house.

A footman, who must have spotted them in advance, greeted them just inside the door. “My lord? Miss? Is everything all right?”

“No,” Max snapped, surprising Anna. Apparently, he surprised himself as well. He winced and cleared his throat. “Beg your pardon, Perkins. If you would please, fetch Engsly and send for the physician.”

“Aye, milord.”

Anna looked at Cassandra. She didn’t appear to be in need of a doctor, but she supposed it wouldn’t hurt to have the girl looked over.

A great commotion sounded and Anna turned to see Mrs. Webster come bustling down the hall with three maids. The housekeeper’s eyes grew wide at the sight of the two bedraggled adults and the little girl in Max’s arms.

“Good heavens, is that…?” She gasped, rushed forward, and all but snatched her grandniece away from Max. “Cassie! Gracious, child, what’s happened to you?”

To Anna’s bewilderment, the sight of a familiar face seemed to dissolve the composure Cassandra had managed to achieve in the walk back to the house. The girl wrapped herself around Mrs. Webster, buried her face in the woman’s neck, and sobbed. Loudly.

“She had something of an adventure in the pond,” Max explained over the noise.

“The pond? But she can’t swim.”

Anna reached out and rubbed the girl’s shoulder. “She had a raft, I think, but it sank—”

“Raft?” Mrs. Webster scowled at the top of Cassandra’s head. “That ridiculous bit of nonsense your cousin cobbled together with sticks and twine? Good heavens, what were you thinking? You might have been killed, you foolish girl.”

Cassandra sobbed louder at the rebuke. Mrs. Webster gently patted her back. “You’ll be lucky, you will, if your father doesn’t take a belt to your backside for this.”

“You’ll see to it she reaches her parents?”

Mrs. Webster nodded and strode down the hall, scolding and soothing the young Cassandra all the way.

Anna bit her lip, concerned. “Her father won’t really—?”

“No,” Max assured her before turning to address the nearest maid. “Find Mrs. Culpepper.”

“No, stop. I beg of you, do not tell Mrs. Culpepper of this. Not yet.” There was no keeping it from her for good, of course, but a bit of stalling could be done. “She’ll fuss. Terribly.”

He didn’t appear particularly pleased with her request, but nodded, then sent the staff in search of towels, blankets, brandy, dry clothes, and warmed milk whilst he ushered Anna into the nearest parlor.

“Light a fire,” he instructed a maid as he settled Anna into a seat. “And make certain the physician knows he is to go to Hughs’s home first and come here directly after.”

“You mean to pay him for his care of Cassandra?” Anna asked. She shifted in her chair, uncomfortable in her damp skirts. “That is very thoughtful of you.”

“And you,” he replied. He accepted a blanket from a winded footman and wrapped it around Anna’s shoulders.

How was it thoughtful of her? “I didn’t think of it.”