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“Anna,” Phoebe spoke to her softly. “He might surprise you, you know. Marriages that begin strangely do not always end that way.”

“Not every story ends as happily as yours and Edward's, Phoebe,” Anna huffed, attempting lightness, though it came out thinner than she intended.

Something flickered across Phoebe's face—not pity, exactly, but something close enough to it that Anna could not bear to look at it directly. Her sister had already carried so much weight on Anna's behalf; she did not wish to add to it now.

“I only wish I knew him better, truthfully,” Anna admitted quickly, steering them both away from the precipice. “It feels rather absurd, does it not, to be marrying a man I scarcely know? We have exchanged perhaps a dozen sentences in total, most of them unpleasant.”

Phoebe seemed to accept the change of subject gratefully, settling back against the cushions as she prepared her response.

“Well. I can tell you what little is known of him, though it is not a great deal. The Duke of Wolvesley is, by all accounts, perfect. Perfect in business — his estates are said to be among the best managed in the county — and perfect in society, always correct, always composed, never a hair out of place nor a word misspoken. He has never shown the least interest in marriage, not once in all the years he has been out, which has made him something of a puzzle among the mothers of the ton.”

“How reassuring,” Anna murmured.

“He keeps his private affairs very close indeed. No one knows much of anything about his personal history — whom he has courted, whom he has not. Though I would wager a considerable sum that he has had lovers in the past.”

Anna blinked. “How on earth would you know that?”

Phoebe's smile turned sly, entirely too pleased with herself. “A married woman can tell these things, darling. There is a particular... assurance, shall we say, that a man carries with him when he is experienced in such matters.”

She winked, clearly enjoying herself enormously, before some flicker of realization crossed her face — as though she suddenly understood that her younger sister had no notion what she was talking about — and she cleared her throat rather abruptly, reaching for her tea with great and unnecessary interest. “In any case. I am sure you will discover his finer qualities in time.”

“His finer qualities have been rather thin on the ground thus far,” Anna mumbled, though without much conviction, some part of her already privately cataloguing the moments that argued otherwise — the surprising gentleness with which he had spoken to her once his temper cooled, the flicker of genuine worry she thought she had glimpsed when he spoke of his brother.

“Give it time,” Phoebe urged again, more gently now. “First impressions are rarely the whole of a person, Anna. I certainly did not think much of Edward when we first met, and look how that turned out.”

“You thought him insufferable.”

“I thought him utterly insufferable, and arrogant besides, and I would have wagered a considerable sum against ever coming to care for him at all.” Phoebe's smile turned soft with memory. “And now I cannot imagine my life without him. People are not always what they seem at first, particularly men who have spent a great deal of their lives guarding themselves rather too carefully.”

“Do you think the duke is guarding himself, then? Rather than simply being cold by nature?”

“I could not say with any certainty, having only met the man briefly at a social event. But I will say this — a man who has never shown the least interest in marriage, in all the years he has been eligible, is either entirely without feeling, or has feeling enough that he has learned to be very careful with where he places it. Additionally, when men such as he decide to marry, they require the whole puzzle – which means he might require you to birth heirs for him. Perhaps that is something to consider and discuss with him when you have the chance. At the end of the day, I know which I would wager on, for what little my wager is worth.”

Anna considered this for a moment, turning it over slowly, though she was not certain what to do with the small, unwelcome hope it stirred in her. “That is a rather generous reading of a man who kidnapped me and attempted to pay off my closest friend.”

“Generosity has never once stopped me from being right,” Phoebe shrugged, entirely unbothered, and returned her attention to the catalogue, clearly sure that she was, indeed, right.

Anna, for her part, was no longer entirely listening.

Something in her sister's words — assurance, experience, the way he carries himself — had summoned an entirely unwelcome memory she had been trying diligently to bury since the moment it happened. The way Hudson's mouth had pressed against hers, the sharp, startling nip of his teeth at her lower lip, and then — worse, far worse — the slow, deliberate stroke of his tongue over the place he had bitten, soothing the sting in a manner that had left her feeling anything but soothed.

She had told herself, quite firmly, in the days since, that she had not thought of it. That she had no intention of thinking of it. And yet here it was again, rising up out of nowhere to set her whole body alight, a slow—burning heat that began somewhere beneath her ribs and spread outward until she was certain her face must be a perfect scarlet.

She wanted more of it. God help her, she wanted more.

The realization horrified her so thoroughly that she nearly upset the catalogue from her lap.

“Anna?” Phoebe was watching her with slight concern. “You have gone quite pink. Are you unwell?”

“I am perfectly well,” Anna replied, far too quickly, reaching for her own tea if only to occupy her hands with something other than the memory of Hudson's hands on her jaw. “Merely warm. It is rather hot in here, with all this fabric.”

Phoebe did not look entirely convinced, but mercifully let the matter drop, returning her attention to the catalogue and beginning, once more, to debate the relative merits of orange blossom against white roses with a particular level of seriousness one might argue was not necessary.

Anna nodded along where required, made her opinions known when pressed, and did her level best to think of ribbon and lace and nothing else at all.

She did not entirely succeed.

By the time the light outside began to soften toward evening, the two of them had settled on a gown — simple, elegant, without the excess of lace Phoebe had favored for her own wedding but had wisely refrained from insisting upon for Anna's — and a modest arrangement of white roses that Phoebe declared, with great authority, would go beautifully against Anna's skin, though neither of them had any means of testing that theory beyond Phoebe's considerable confidence in her own taste.