Anna grabbed Ardencaple-Lockhart-whoever by the arm and yanked him toward the small parlor. But he was stronger than she and resisted her attempts as he looked down the corridor toward the sitting room.
“We are to meet at Rotten Row,” he reminded her through clenched teeth, “after I call on Miss Lucy.”
“Yes, but there has been a change of plans,” she said, tugging at his arm. He reluctantly allowed her to pull him inside the small parlor, but once inside, he refused to move from the open door, so Anna had to push him.
“What in God’s name are ye about?” he asked, hands on hips as she shut the door and leaned against it.
“Sssh!” she hushed him, waving her hand at him anxiously, and turned so that she could press her ear against the door, listening for any sound. After a moment, she heard the familiar click of Duckworth’s shoes on the entry’s marble floor.
She whirled around, her back pressed against the door. “We haven’t much time. All right, then, I know what you’ve done! Mr. Lockhart—the real Mr. Lockhart—oh, blast it all, shall I call you Grif?” she demanded in a near fit of hysteria.
He blinked. “Aye. Grif.”
“All right, then… Grif,” she said carefully, unaccustomed as she was to calling men by their Christian names. Particularly, tall, handsome…green-eyed men who frowned quite a lot. “You promised me that smiling and laughing were perfectly sufficient to entice him, but as it happens, when we attended the Lockhart tea yesterday, and I smiled and I laughed, he paid me not the least bit of mind!” she cried.
“What did ye say to him, then?”
“He said the gown I was wearing made me radiant. And I said, ‘It’s not the gown that has made me radiant, sir, it is a friendly smile,’ or some such nonsense.”
“Aha,” Grif said, and put his hand to his chin, and looked very thoughtful.
“Aha… what?”
“And what did the rake say to this?”
“Drake said he’d keep that in mind!” she exclaimed, punctuating the air with her hands.
“Ah. Well, then. I think it quite obvious. He’s really rather obtuse, isn’t he, then?”
“Stop that!” she insisted. Grif opened his mouth to respond, but Anna was not quite finished. “So it would seem now that I really haven’t any time, as Barbara avows he will offer for Lucy soon, before the Season’s end, and in spite of my parents’ words to the contrary—they promised they would not accept an offer for Lucy until I had been properly offered for, but as that seems to be an impossibility that grows more and more certain with each day, I suppose they shall accept it!” she cried, the words coming out of her in such a rush now that she couldn’t stop them. It panicked her, and she suddenly darted to the window overlooking the street and drew the sun shades closed.
“All right, then, calm yerself, lass,” Grif said soothingly, although he watched her warily. “I think it is time that ye consider the game is lost.”
Anna’s mouth dropped open in stunned disbelief. “Lost? How could you say such a thing? Lost! I haven’t even begun to try for his attentions! I’ve only just started these blasted lessons, which, I might add, you hardly seem adept at providing—”
“I never claimed to be!”
“And you proclaim my chances lost?” she continued, ignoring him. “You sorely misunderstand me, sir, if you think I shall give up at the least bit of adversity, for I—”
He startled her out of her rant by grabbing her elbow, and only then did she realize he had crossed the room. “All right, then, Anna,” he said softly but firmly, “take a bloody breath ere ye go flying across the room.”
She took a breath.
“Now, then. Before we are discovered and create the Season’s most infamous scandal, what is it ye want at this particular moment, pray tell? For if it is to tell me that I’ve failed ye miserably when it was ye who sought me out, I believe I will bloody well excuse meself and call on yer sister!”
Anna released her breath and glared at the door. “All right,” she said, her voice low and calm. “I have a rather important question. And I beg you, sir, for once, please be truthful.”
“Mary Queen of Scots! Aye, I think he’ll offer for Miss Lucy!” he said angrily.
“NO!” she cried, slapping away his hand from her arm. “That is most certainly not what I intended to ask! I want to…I would like…” She couldn’t say it. She couldn’t bring herself to string the words together to ask the question on her mind.
But then Grif looked impatiently at the door. “Anna—”
“Is it true, do you think,” she blurted, squaring off, “that if a man puts his hand on an unmarried woman’s bare breast, he will, in all likelihood, offer for her?”