As she sat in the drawing room, surreptitiously looking at her family around her, she wondered if any of them had ever known someone as unwholesomely prurient as Griffin Lockhart. What a pity for them if they hadn’t.
Just thinking about him had her feeling hot again, and she absently fanned herself as she pretended to peruse the bookshelves of the drawing room while her mother and father played a round of cards, Lucy and Bette pored over the latest fashion plates from Paris, and David, Lord Featherstone, Bette’s husband, sat quietly reading before the fire.
“By the bye,” David said after a time, “Bette and I are planning a weekend affair at Featherstone Manor at the end of the month. A gathering of friends before it becomes unseemly for Bette to be about town.”
“I’ve never understood why pregnancy is unseemly, my lord,” Anna said. “It’s not as if the miracle of birth is a secret. Practically all of us came into this world as the result of a pregnancy, save Lucy.”
“Anna,” her mother said, “it is impolite to speak of such things.”
“What do you mean, ‘save Lucy’?” her younger sister demanded.
“Anna, love,” her father said patiently as he dipped his head to have a look at his cards over the rims of his spectacles, “you mustn’t tease your sister so. You know how sensitive she is.”
“Why is it impolite, Mother?” Anna asked, ignoring Lucy. “It’s perhaps the most natural thing in the world! Why should anything God gives us be considered impolite?”
“No matter the customs of our society,” David interjected, “we are nevertheless determined to host an affair at the end of the month.”
“We plan to invite all the bachelor gentlemen!” Bette added in a singsong voice.
“Why?” Lucy pouted as she flipped the pages of fashion plates. “I am forbidden to entertain even the smallest of offers until Anna is offered for. You might as well save yourself the expense.”
“They will not be invited for your benefit,” Bette said cheerfully. “But for Anna’s.”
Anna laughed at Bette’s teasing; Lucy made a face.
“That’s lovely they are invited for Anna’s benefit!” Mother exclaimed happily. “After all, Lucy, you are the most determined of all of us to see her married.”
“No one wishes it more than me,” Lucy said with a huff. “But she’ll not receive an offer from any of the gentlemen Bette shall invite.”
“And why not?” Mother asked. “She’s as accomplished and favored as you, and as they all can’t offer for you, Lucy, it stands to reason that at least one of them might see their way to offering for Anna,” Mother defiantly argued.
Lucy gave a very unladylike snort to that, and made a show of busying herself with the fashion plates.
Anna just shook her head and returned her attention to the books before her. Actually, a weekend at Featherstone was just the thing, really—just the image of Drake Lockhart sleeping nearby made her smile, and she didn’t give a damn what Lucy thought of it.
But it was not the thought of Drake sleeping nearby that brought the peculiar heat to her face again. Not that Lockhart at all, and she absently fanned herself again.
The next afternoon, at quarter past three, Anna was at the back stoop in the mews of the house on Cavendish Street, still shaken after the spectacular misfortune of having run into Lady Worthall on the street. She had, of course, been forced to make up an excuse for being in this part of town on such a dreary and rain-soaked day. If she was discovered calling on a bachelor gentleman, unescorted… she’d be painted a loose woman.
“Calling on an old friend,” she had answered politely when the meddlesome woman inquired.
“Who?” Lady Worthall demanded loudly, pretending she was deaf.
“A friend,” Anna said again. “But I think I am quite mistaken—I believe she must be on the other end of Cavendish Street,” she said, and turned away, as if studying the other end of the street.
“If you tell me who, dear, perhaps I can help you,” Lady Worthall insisted.
“Aha! I am quite mistaken!” Anna said gaily. “Thank you for your help,” she said, smiling brightly as she reached out to squeeze the woman’s hand. “Good day!” And with that, she pivoted about, went marching off in the opposite direction, and did not stop until she had gone at least a quarter of a mile. Only then did she circle around, using her umbrella as a shield, walking through the alleys and mews that meandered through the neighborhood.
When she at last had managed to slip into the mews undetected, she knocked frantically, watching the street entrance.
The old man who had seen her in yesterday opened the door with a frown. Anna paid him no mind, but quickly stepped past him into the dark interior and closed her umbrella. “I beg your pardon, sir, but there is a frightfully intrusive woman who lives somewhere close by.”
“Directly adjacent, she does.”