I better go find her before she loses her way in the maze. Yesterday, when she’d stumbled upon his hiding place on theterrace, had to have been a fluke. She’d only gone through the maze twohundredtimes.
She was bound to get the path right once.
Into the towering hedges, a few quick turns, and there she stood, in the middle of the maze, the fountain’s spray creating a haze of shifting rainbows as the droplets caught the sun’s light.
She turned at his approach, her mouth set in a sardonic curl. “Come to rescue me? More pretty speeches defending my honor?” She gave him her back. “It is unneeded and unwanted, Duke.”
Jackson sat on the edge of the fountain and admired her pride. Only one woman in the world would be irked by a man’s desire to stand between them and verbal injury. “Perhaps I’m rescuing myself.”
“From your noble sense as protector? Truly, it is a wonder you haven’t been knighted for such grand,unnecessaryefforts.”
“Am I not allowed to come to my betrothed’s defense?”
“I don’tneedhelp with my defense,” she reiterated.
“No,” he agreed. Not when a man could harm himself attempting to break down those ice walls around her heart. He shook his head at his own foolishness. Anna had the self-destructive need to see to everything herself, just as Jackson couldn’t stop himself from putting himself between her and harm.
“You’ve always had a bad habit of listening at doors,” he said, running his fingers through the cold water.
“I was listening at the window,” she corrected.
He inclined his head. “A great way to hear things not meant for you.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Sounds as if you have something to hide, Duke.”
He held her gaze. “Hide, yes. Like from stinging barbs.” He smirked. “‘Round-leaved sundew’?”
Anna’s lips twitched. “It’s carnivorous.”
So was she.
“My mother will not soon forget such an insult,” he said.
Anna’s expression fell, but Jackson wasn’t fooled in the least. “That is unfortunate,” she said. “I rather enjoy repeating such colorful slights.”
Jackson chuckled.
Most men found a willful woman to be the very definition of ungenteel vulgarity. The world was full of myopic windbags.
“I won’t apologize,” she said.
“Still as stubborn as ever.” He kept his appreciation to himself this time. “Life is easier when you do not go around making enemies of well-connected ladies,” he pointed out.
“I will not debase myself to those who do not see value below their stations.”
Or to people who de-value those I care for.
Jackson knew the real reason she’d stormed out of the breakfast room. Not for any insult to herself, but for those she loved. He knew how fiercely she defended her own. He’d once had the great privilege of being among them himself.
Chest tight again, he said, “My mother’s attack of your character and family, of title hunting, of everything, was beyond the pale.” Anna had suffered too many egregious insults in the last twenty-four hours. It killed him to think how many more there had been and he hadn’t stood at her side. He bowed his head. “For her unforgiveable behavior”—and mine—“I beg your pardon.”
“Stop that,” Anna said.
Jackson raised his head to see her cross her arms over her chest and an uncomfortable set to her mouth. “The bowing or the apologizing?” he asked.
“Both,” she said. “You know I give no credence to such nonsense.”
“The apologizing or my mother’s conduct?” he quipped.
