“No.” She frowned. “But I could not sleep.”
“Do you usually sleep in your day clothes?” He examined her from head to toe. “Why haven’t you called for your maid?”
Anna pursed her lips. “I couldn’t find the bell.”
“What bell?”
“The bell to ring for her, of course,” Anna grumbled and started closing the door. “Just… never mind. She’ll come looking for me in the morning, I’m sure.”
Philip contemplated the closed door before him. By that point, Anna had slipped back into her room, clicking the door shut. He sighed and knocked on it. She opened the door tentatively, and he barged inside.
“You’re supposed to ask for my permission before entering!” Anna cried behind him. “What are you doing? These are my rooms.”
He ignored her, looking around for the bell. He had rarely entered his mother’s bedroom as a child. She had preferred to keep her children at arm’s length.
Her room was nothing like he remembered. A warm rose wallpaper had been fitted to match the burgundy carpets, golden fixtures shining in the soft light of the candles.
It struck him that the room had Anna’s essence already: feminine, reserved, and inviting. Her possessions had been neatly organized in the open drawers of her dresser. Perfumes and jewelry decorated the ivory vanity. A night chemise was laid out on the bed, made of thin white cotton with ruffled sleeves…
He promptly looked elsewhere, determined not to overstay his already fragile welcome.
“In my old sleeping chambers, it hung on the wall at my bedside.”
He crossed the room and approached the bed, pushing back the decorative pink curtains behind it. Its beaded trim jingled with the movement.
“Nothing,” he said, letting the drapery fall back into place.
Philip felt Anna watching him as he searched high and low. He sighed and looked around, squinting in thought.
“I’m starting to think you asked them to remove the bell,” she said, causing him to stop, “so I couldn’t call for help when you inevitably barged in here.”
“You presume I had time to order my staff to do the task and see it completed in the week since our betrothal?” he scoffed. “I have had more important matters to attend than devising creative ways to torment you.”
“Really? I have a few japes planned for you already,” Anna joked—what he hoped had been a joke. “And I came up with several more in the carriage, I’ll have you know.”
“A more productive use of your time than feigning sleep, to be certain,” he muttered, pushing back a standing mirror to check whether the bell was behind it. “Sadly, I will not be around long enough to enjoy the full catalog of your pranks. Once Elinor arrives tomorrow, I will begin preparing my return to London. She will know where the bell is located…”
Philip was close to giving up, having scanned every visible inch of the room. He leaned against the vanity in the corner while Anna sat on the bed, looking for places he had missed.
“Why did Elinor not come with us today, if you are determined to foist me on her at your earliest convenience?” Anna asked softly.
“To keep up appearances.” He put his hands on his hips and exhaled, too distracted to reconsider his answer. “A sister does not accompany her brother on his wedding night. Not when the expectation is for him to—” He stopped himself.
Did Anna know what would have been expected of her that night, if theirs had been anything other than a marriage of convenience?
He glanced at her warily. Her cheeks had flushed pink, the blush spreading to her chest. Someone had said something to enlighten her, but he doubted it had been her mother. Those friends of hers seemed like trouble. One if not all of them must have found time to educate her.
“That is why your maid has not come either,” he added awkwardly. “She will have assumed you were occupied.”
“Well…” Anna gulped, turning away from him and thumbing her chemise. “Clearly, that is not the case. Although this is some sort of occupation, and we are doing it together.”
“I think you’ll find that I aloneam occupied. You are sitting there, sulking as you have been all day, being no help at all.” They were talking at last. It wasn’t the worst time to start pressing her for answers. “Has enough time passed that you can tell me what is bothering you?”
He could see her biting the inside of her cheeks again. She had gnawed on them all afternoon. He had pretended not to notice, even though every movement she had made in the carriage, every pained breath, had distracted him from the book he had been trying to read beside her.
“Are we not past these games by now, Anna? What do you stand to lose by telling me the truth?”
“My ignorance as to who you truly are, for a start,” she admitted, lying back on the bed. The silk coverlet creased beneath her. “So long as I don’t know the truth, I can imagine you being whoever I like. The worst man in the world—or the best.”
