Must be nice to have nothing going on in one’s head.Jeremy wished he could say the same, but Anna had plagued him all night for a second time. The ice-cold bath had been a temporary reprieve, just as the morning’s toil had been, for she was far stealthier when it came to creeping back into his thoughts.
Just then, different footfalls approached. Faster, more urgent. A second later, his housekeeper appeared. She took one look at him and quickly turned her back.
“Yer Grace, I came to tell ye that a letter arrived just now,” she said, while he slowly reached for his shirt and pulled it on. “From Her Ladyship. They’ll be joining us sooner than expected. Tomorrow, in fact.”
A wave of disappointment ran down the back of his neck; he had thought he had more time to make the manor a calmer place. More accurately, he had thought he had more time to keep the reality of his loss at bay. Beatrice might not want to talk about her husband’s death, but Sophie would surely ask about her father and why he was no longer there; why they had been forced to leave McIver Castle; why she could not go home again.
“The rooms are prepared, I assume?” he said tightly.
“They are, Yer Grace.”
He gave a small nod, though she could not see it. “We’ll have a gathering next week. Send out invitations to any important, unattached gentlemen of thetonto join me for a house party. And anyone else of merit, I suppose, to satisfy curiosities.”
“A house party?” The housekeeper almost turned, her voice textured with anxiety.
“If ye don’t know what to write or who to send the invitations to, ask the other housekeeper or the butler,” he replied.
“As ye wish, Yer Grace,” she said, clearing her throat. “Speaking of invitations, there was one delivered with Her Ladyship’sletter. For a masquerade ball at Belford House. I believe it’s nae far from here.”
Jeremy rolled his eyes. “Aye, it’s not nearly far enough.” He paused to take a steadying breath. “When is it?”
“Tonight, Yer Grace,” the housekeeper replied.
“Tonight?” Jeremy’s eyes widened, and he silently cursed Colin for not mentioning the date when they encountered one another on horseback.
He had too much to do, too much to think about; he couldn’t possibly venture off to a masquerade with Anna tonight. After what happened last night, she would probably refuse anyway, and he didn’t know how acceptable it might be to carry a dowager duchess into someone else’s residence over his shoulder.
“The messenger explained that it had been planned for some time, but the Marquess didnae ken if ye’d come, Yer Grace,” the older woman explained with some reluctance in her voice.
“Aye, he told me so, but wouldn’t he have invited the Duchess anyway? Why has he waited so long?” Jeremy grumbled, frustrated that everything seemed to conspire against him at once: his sister-in-law’s arrival, Anna’s defiance, his sleepless nights, the goat that had been put into his care, everything about Anna’s stubborn presence in this manor.
In truth, part of him had hoped he could contend with the Anna problem before Beatrice and Sophie ever arrived, but it seemed his time had run out in that matter. Unless he could somehow do the impossible and have Anna married and out of his way, out of his thoughts, in the span of one night.
“I wouldnae ken, Yer Grace,” the housekeeper replied, bringing a sigh to Jeremy’s chest.
Of course, the older woman wouldn’t know. She was as much a stranger in this part of the world as he was. This wasn’t McIver Castle, where they knew all of their neighbors and were always hosting one gathering after another—Douglas and Beatrice were, at least. This was England. Nothing was the same, and everything that he and his people knew had no place here.
“Find that Katherine girl,” Jeremy muttered. “She seems to be Her Grace’s confidante. Tell her to prepare the Duchess, and that Her Grace is to be ready on time. If there’s any delay, I will come up there and dress her meself.”
A small gasp left the housekeeper’s lips, but her head bobbed in a nod. “I will pass on the message at once, Yer Grace.”
With the same urgency with which she had arrived, the older woman hurried off without waiting to be excused. As she departed, Jeremy groaned and leaned back on the fence he had just built, Sprightly fast asleep on the hay, without a care in the world.
He closed his eyes and shook his head.
Aye, ‘cause the thing I want to do most in the world isdressthe lass.
CHAPTER 11
“The gall of that beastly man,” Anna muttered as she paced throughout the confines of her dressing room.
She knew she was making poor Katherine’s life twice as difficult, the lady’s maid desperately trying to put flowers in her hair, but she couldn’t help it. She simply couldn’t stay still, her nerves in tatters as anger, anxiety, confusion, and frustration vied for control of her mind, not to mention the memories of Jeremy’s kiss that sought to torment her whenever they pleased.
“Does he think he is some king, ordering me around in such a fashion?” she continued, her jaw clenched. “What right does he have to command me to marry? None! None whatsoever! I have done that once already. I have been married. I have been obedient, and I shall not do it again!”
Even if it is into his arms that he commands me to come…
She balled her hands into tight fists at the unruly thought, hating how her mind could be so traitorous. This was all her father’s fault, of course, for allowing her to read, to argue, to voice her opinions, to open her mind, to be curious, to feel she was free in the world. If he had been strict and restrictive, as she had heard most fathers were to their daughters, then she wouldn’t be in this predicament.
