A chill struck Annie as if she had fallen into a snowdrift. If that was true, Joseph Stephenson would not stop until he had her. He would treat her as his property, if she was his main reason for the proposal. He might grant her concessions for the business, but she would be his entirely.
That was the way his mind worked. He held on to the things he considered closest to him, like his father’s business and the house he lived in.
“You’re sure?” Her throat tightened.
“Yes. He watches you. At the last Guildhall dinner, he rarely took his eyes from you. I swear, he could recount that evening in detail.”
She remembered him, but not that he was particularly enamored with her. He would have been making his plans. Like a spider at the center of a web, he would watch, and weave his threads, not moving until he was certain of his prey. So by coming to him for a lease, she was playing right into his hands.
Annie felt sick. What Joseph Stephenson had, he rarely released. That was how he’d made himself essential to others.
A breeze skittered along the narrow street. Annie pulled her shawl tighter around her.
Lord Carbrooke had awakened her to a different Annie, one who found happiness for herself, and thought of duty a little less. He showed her what she could have.
Except she could not.
“I will have to find a way of turning Stephenson down without offending him.”
“It might be too late for that,” Matilda muttered.
CHAPTER FIVE
GERALD COULD NOT GET THE MEMORY of that kiss with the prim and proper Mrs. Cathcart out of his mind. As he was falling asleep at night, he’d recall the way she nestled into his arms, and the lushness of her lips on his—and then he’d wake up with a groan, longing for a warm body to hold.
Unfortunately not just any warm body, but the one he’d held just once and been so reluctant to release. The harder he tried, the worse his desire grew until he couldn’t think of her without tenting his breeches. Not thinking about her didn’t work, either, because her name occurred to him at the most inopportune moments.
Like when he was squiring the woman everybody expected him to marry. Riding one of his new, high-spirited horses in Hyde Park had seemed like a good way to let off some steam. In his previous life, if he’d wanted to exercise his horses, he’d taken them on the Heath, or out to the country, not to Rotten Row, where the great and the good disported themselves.
Today, however, being the first fine day for weeks, augured well for an early ride in the park. Ten o’clock was the earliest time he could get Elizabeth to agree to. He met her by the gate, and he had to admit that she had the appearance of a princess. She had not one but two attendants, liveried servants riding identical bay horses. The lady herself was resplendent in crimson cloth, the white feather in her cocked hat sweeping down to obscure one side of her vision. In short, she was dressed more to be seen than to enjoy the morning air.
Several other people had braved the inclement weather to parade on the Row. Gerald accepted Elizabeth’s gloved hand, brushed his lips across the back and then mounted his own steed. Perhaps he should not have picked Rebel, who was already dancing with an eagerness Gerald had to admit he felt himself. But the horse was powerful, his glossy black flanks gleaming with bunched muscle and good health, and Gerald longed to ride.
“Good morning, my dear. My mother sends her regards,” Elizabeth said. A few people glanced at them as their horses ambled past. “She wonders if you would send back the list of evening events you intend to appear at once the season starts.”
“That’s weeks off yet.” A squirrel scurried along a branch of one of the trees edging the Row. He would rather not think about the season today.
But Elizabeth was not so easily deterred. “Mama says a good season is like a successful military campaign. It needs planning just as meticulously.”
He didn’t ask her if she deferred to her mother on everything, because he already knew the answer. Yes, she did, and he very much feared he would be expected to do the same.
When he had first unexpectedly acceded to the title six months ago, he had seen marriage to Elizabeth as a fast way of achieving a path to the center of society. She was beautiful, so that did not hurt, either. But could he marry someone who irritated him on a regular basis?
He had to admit the fault might lie with him, but her next words sent a definite itch down his spine.
“I will help make your sisters presentable. We should arrange an appointment with a good mantua maker. My mother recommends Cerisot, of course.”
“Of course,” he murmured, but did not tell her his sisters already had an account there. Although they were not titled before, they’d had enough money to afford a decent gown every now and again. In fact, had Elizabeth or her mother bothered to ask them, they’d have discovered that.