Anna whirled around. A shriek built in her chest—and died in her throat at the heart-shaped face under a frill-less bonnet.
“You need not have run on my account,” Elise said, stepping under the tree’s canopy wearing a dark-blue pelisse—the perfect color to bring out the mocking light in her eyes. “We both know how exertion constricts your lungs.”
“Elise.” Anna sagged against the tree, pain, indeed, coming tight and sharp in her chest. Relief was slow to wash away her nerves... and temper. “How kind... of you... tofinallyshow up.”
Elise raised a dark brow. “There was no point in both of us getting caught.”
Rationality had no place when Anna’s insides were a cluster of knots. Imagining her cousin so close had rattled her to her bones. “When I returned home this morning, you were nowhere to be found.”
“I wasn’t about to get caught outside the Den. A woman. Alone. I knew you’d either get away or hire a hack to drive you home. I waited up all night for you to return,” Elise said, her mouth pressed into an unhappy line. “I retraced my steps back to the Lyon’s Den this morning, but there was no sign of you. I’ve been searching the streets ever since, certain you’d lost your way back to Mayfair.”
Anna’s anger vanished like a puff of smoke. “I know my way back to the house,” she grumbled.Mostly.Truly, why must every road look like the next? And why must the road signs be located so high on the buildings? Would it not be prudent to install signson the lampposts? Since Winsor’s demonstration some years ago, gas lamps were finding their way onto the more traveled streets of London. It would take nothing to slap a few metal signs up.
“I’m on the way to the modiste’s now,” Anna said.
“No wonder you were running in the opposite direction.” Elise laughed, knowing Anna’s disdain for the woman and her sharp pins. “I’m not sure Madame Bomfrey will service you after you called her ministrations ‘the epitome of torture.’”
Anna scowled. “The woman stuck me half a dozen times at that fitting. There was blood! By the end, I suspected she was doing it on purpose for her own sick pleasure.”
Elise chuckled. “And you’re returning to the scene of suffering because...?”
“‘A bride is in need of a trousseau,’” Anna parroted.
Silence.
Elise blinked. “I’ve never found your brand of humor particularly funny.”
Would that it was all a joke.
Meeting Jackson again. Reliving the past, she’d do well to remember who’d laughed last the last time around.
“Mrs. Dove-Lyon shares my gift for dark wit,” Anna said. “Seeing as I am hours away from being ensconced to the country so I may be married by the end of the week.”
“You’re serious?” Elise’s eyes widened. “To whom?”
“The Duke of Grandfellow.”
“The duke!” It was Elise’s turn to sag against the tree. She would know better than anyone of Anna’s history with the family. It had been Elise who’d been a steadfast friend long before she’d taken up the mantle of chaperone. Thefriendwho’d found Anna the day she’d returned from Grandfellow Hall, broken and heart battered six years ago.
“How did this happen?” Elise asked. “Was he there at the Lyon’s Den?”
“Yes.”
Elise went quiet again.
“This is where you cryhuzzahand dance in the streets,” Anna said. “No need to lecture me regarding my unflagging independence once I am successfully shackled.” Anna paused, her humor dimming. “You will always have a place with me.” There would never be a question of Elise staying at her side.
Elise chuckled. “At last, I can expand my repertoire to your comportment, your manners—”
“My dancing,” Anna added.
“Your constant idle threats to nobility.” Elise sobered, not a trace of merriment on her face. “Say the duke hasn’t fallen to his knees and begged your forgiveness repeatedly, and I will have the man’s guts for garters.”
Anna smiled. Elise may have been a poor excuse for a chaperone—Anna was no good as the sister to a lord—but she was a fierce friend.
“He did apologize.” She grinned. Not all her threats were idle. “After I tapped his claret.”
Elise’s hand flew to her mouth. “And the man still wishes to marry you?”
