“This will be good for you, Anna,” Rosamund insisted. “You will finally have the independence you have desired for so long. You cannot wish to remain here with us forever. Your father?—”
Her father, on cue, chose that moment to leave. He stormed past Anna without saying a word. Rosamund hopped out of the way as he proceeded upstairs, slamming the door to his chamber. The house echoed with the force of his tantrum.
Anna shook her head, feeling like she might be sick all over her mother’s beloved Prussian carpet. She didn’t hear Rosamund creep up on her until a hand was placed on her back in a half-hearted consoling gesture.
“I know what you will be thinking. We are cruel and without feeling for making this decision behind your back. But my marriage to your father was orchestrated under similar circumstances, and I have not been miserable.” Her grip tightened, her fingers pressing between Anna’s shoulder blades. “Do not suffer needlessly in this. Accept the match and feel sorry for yourself later.”
It was an order, and Anna was in no mood to comply. Whatever love might have remained between her and Rosamund evaporated on the spot.
If Anna had a daughter—and by God, she would never let that happen with Ashwicken—she would never treat her so abysmally. How was her mother not ashamed of herself? Why did Anna feel ashamed in her place?
As Rosamund waited for her to say something, her sadness turned into anger. Hot,writhinganger. It coursed through her so violently that she couldn’t believe she hadn’t burst into flames.
She had never felt like this, rage filling all the places where hope had died within her.
“I have done what I believed to be my duty to you since I was old enough to understand what such a thing meant,” Anna said through gritted teeth, shaking off her mother’s hand. “Regardless of what you may think of me, I have tried my best to please you in my every waking moment—you and Father, and everyone else. If this is the result…”
She wouldn’t waste more breath airing her grievances. Rosamund didn’t look sad so much as disinterested. What was the point in fighting? The earl had made up his mind, and in their house, his word was law.
“Enjoy your evening,” Anna said, keeping her voice steady. She turned on her heel and stormed out of the room.
Once upstairs, she closed her door quietly and then sank against it.
For too long Anna had allowed her parents to walk all over her, thinking she didn’t have a choice. But ifthiswas the alternative—being married off to a man twice her age who she didn’t know and who would never love her—she would rather die.
Raising her head, she glanced across her room. On her writing desk lay the sheet music forTancredi.
It was not unheard of for unmarried women to carve out paths for themselves in this world. They may have been reviled for it, but had they not been happy by being free? Why could Anna not do the same, take up a trade or a post and leave England in pursuit of her dreams?
Be anywhere except right here, under her father’s control? If she disappeared, the ton would never let him forget it. It was an even more delicious prospect than gaining her freedom—seeing her father hurt.
She waited by the window in her bedroom for what felt like hours, until her parents stepped out of the house and climbed into their carriage. She watched the carriage drive out of sight before jumping into action, changing out of her day clothes and into something dark and inconspicuous.
Her hair was forced into a chignon, cheeks painted with a rouge Alicia had smuggled to her years ago. Two messy ringlets framed her face, and redness rimmed her eyes, turning her brown orbs into pools of gold.
The better part of her meager allowance had been spent on dresses for the Season, at her mother’s request. Anna had known better than to spend it all on one thing. In the drawer of her vanity, she found her small embroidered coin purse and shoved it into her reticule.
She had no idea how much a hackney cab cost. At that point, it didn’t matter. She needed to get to George fast. And if not him, then Alicia.
And all the better if the duke was with them.
* * *
“You weren’t inclined to play with the other gentlemen, Your Grace? I recall you being quite skilled at cards when the two of us played Commerce with my family all those years ago.”
Philip looked up from his glass of claret and found Alicia hovering over him. She wore a light blue gown that made her hair look darker than usual, a stray ringlet curling at the nape of her neck in what a less perceptive gentleman would have thought was an accident. She meant to draw the eye there. She meant to drawalleyes to her that night.
Philip had artfully avoided her since she had greeted him at the door some thirty minutes ago. He had arrived late—nothing any of the guests would begrudge a colonel, let alone a duke—and had found the party already well underway in Lady Gwash’s fashionable Richmond flat.
The guests were what he expected them to be: singers, actors, a few gentlemen and their young wives, a number of foreign dignitaries…
He had intended to finish his drink and then make his excuses to leave with George, who at that moment was hanging his head in exasperation over his latest loss at Whist at the card table.
“My fondness for games has waned as of late,” Philip said, taking a sip of his drink.
He shifted his gaze to the fire, hoping Alicia would leave him be. She took the armchair beside him, just recently vacated by a lord with whom Philip had been discussing the recent discontent sweeping over the continent. A young French woman was at the pianoforte in the corner, filling the apartment with a piece by Haydn.
Nothing could distract him from Alicia’s demanding presence as she leaned in closer.
