Grif had never believed he was more than a perpetual gentleman caller. He’d always assumed he’d be the Lockhart to keep the estate books and keep the family from ruin while enjoying the flesh of many. He’d assumed his brother, Liam, would provide the family heirs. It had never occurred to him that one woman might fulfill him completely and make him question his assumptions.
He had come to believe that Anna could have been that woman, had the circumstances been different. But they weren’t, and he could sense his heart’s impending doom. So Grif did the one thing he knew to do in those long days as he reluctantly prepared Anna—and himself—for the weekend at Featherstone Manor. He removed himself from her charm, forcing his heart and mind away from her, piece by piece, until there was nothing left of the old Grif in her presence.
Diah, but she made it tough sledding! Every day her countenance seemed to lighten. She’d laugh, her eyes sparkling up at him, leaning into him provocatively as he’d taught her, while he clenched his hands into fists behind his back. She’d engage him in some lighthearted debate, and the more Anna tried to engage him, the harder it became to resist her, especially as he watched her transform into a delightful, delectable woman whose every move had the capacity to captivate.
It was enough to make a man bloody well miserable.
And now, as they turned through the massive stone pillar gates that marked the entrance to Featherstone Manor, he’d face his toughest challenge yet—watching her secure Lockhart’s offer of marriage.
The thought of it made him so angry that Grif cuffed Hugh on the shoulder, and none too lightly. “Snap out of it, ye donkey’s arse! We’ve only a short drive until we reach the main house, and if ye alight from this carriage sobbing like a bairn for an Irish lass who has no regard for ye, our hosts will think I’ve lost me mind hiring ye on, and bloody hell if I havena!”
Hugh scowled at Grif and sat up from his lounging position across the forward bench to straighten his neckcloth. “I never knew ye to be so cruel, Lockhart. I’m hardly the reason yer Miss Addison prefers yer English cousin to ye, am I now? There’s no call for ye to take yer frustration out on me.”
“Ye’ve no idea what ye say,” Grif growled.
“I’ve no idea?” Hugh repeated incredulously, then laughed roundly. “Bloody hell, it’s a wonder the whole of London doesna know it as well as I! Ye think me blind, Grif? Ye think I’ve no’ seen how ye mope about after she’s gone, or seen ye staring out the window after her? Ye’ve been smitten, but ye are too stubborn to admit—”
“Shut yer gob, MacAlister, or I’ll shut it for ye, I will,” Grif snapped. “If there’s any moping about, ’tis because I am fearful of someone discovering our perfidy, something ye obviously pay no heed the way ye flit about London chasing after Miss Brody’s skirts!”
“I pay it heed!” Hugh shot back. “But I willna spend each waking hour fretting—”
The coach suddenly lurched to a stop; Grif and Hugh surged as one toward the small window, their argument forgotten.
“Diah,” Hugh breathed as they looked out at a massive Georgian house, built of sandstone and stretching for what seemed a mile. It was three stories tall, with row upon row of sparkling windows reflecting the sunlight. There were at least a dozen chimneys, and in the front of the house, a large wide staircase led up to two huge oaken doors. Down those steps, three footmen and a butler came running to greet them.
“Mind ye now,” Grif said quietly as he straightened his coat. “Ye’re a valet, not a lovesick fool.”
“Aye, and ye’re an earl, no’ a miserable old goat,” Hugh muttered, just as the door of the coach was swung open. He quickly went out.
“My lord,” a man said, bowing deep, as a footman hastily put a stepping stool beneath the door.
Grif climbed down, looked at the man. “MacAlister here will see to me things,” he said, nodding casually toward Hugh, and with one last glare at his old friend, he followed the butler to the entrance hall, leaving Hugh to ride around to the servants’ entrance to unload the baggage. That, at least, put a small smile on his face.
While Grif was attended by the Featherstone butler, Anna was upstairs in the room she was to share with Lucy, lying very still, her head aching as thoughts of Grif bedeviled her.
From the moment they had shared such intimacy in his drawing room, her life had changed irrevocably, and in some sense had only just begun. There was a certain power in the knowledge of what went on between a man and a woman—perhaps not in all its physical forms—but at the very least, the emotion that could bridge the gap between the sexes.
Indeed, that long-past afternoon Anna had felt the stirrings of something mysteriously profound for Grif. It was not what she’d felt for Drake Lockhart— this seemed so much more meaningful. It was the Scotsman’s image she took to her dreams each night, his image that stayed with her throughout each day. He was why she kept the ugly gargoyle in her wardrobe, for it was the only reason she had to see him and feel those stirrings each day.