“If you will excuse me, I think I shall go straight up to my room,” she mumbled, after handing her cloak to their manservant.
“Shall I have Cook fix you a posset?” asked Lady Trumbull.
“No, no, I’m just fatigued is all. A good night’s sleep is the only restorative I need.” Assuming sleep would come. Anna rather doubted it.
Their mother looked unconvinced but yielded with a reluctant nod. “Very well. However, if you are still feeling unwell in the morning, I shall send for a physician.” A tiny pause. “Lord Andover mentioned that he wishes to take you to Lady Riche’s Venetian Breakfast on Thursday and it would be a pity if you had to refuse him.” Another pause, punctuated by a sigh. “He is such a pleasant young man. Handsome and considerate—”
“Rich and titled,” added Caro under her breath.
“Not to speak of possessing a handsome fortune and being heir to an earldom.”
Anna stripped off her gloves, feeling further unsettled by her mother’s ham-handed hints on marriage. Up until recently, she had dutifully accepted the notion that it was up to her marry well in order to provide security for her family—money, not love, was all that mattered. But now…
“Now that Olivia has married Lord Wrexham, we need not be so desperate to catch a rich peer,” she pointed out.
A frown furrowed between Lady Trumbull’s brows. “I wish to see all my daughters well settled, my dear. Money and position are very important in Polite Society.”
Even if they don’t make you happy?
Anna turned away, leaving the retort unvoiced. What right had she to talk of happiness when she hadn’t the foggiest notion of what it was or how to achieve it?
After lighting a taper from the candelabra on the side table, Anna started up the stairs. Perhaps she, too, had imbibed too much bubbly. Her thoughts usually did not sink to such depths of cynicism.
The patter of steps right behind her warned that Caro was not as easily put off as their mother.
“What’s wrong?” demanded her sister as soon as they reached the top of the landing.
“I’m tired,” she snapped.
“Oh? And since when has fatigue grown clever enough to give a girl kiss-ravaged lips?”
Anna clapped a hand over her mouth. “What do you know about kissing?” she said through her fingers.
“You describe it in excruciating detail in your novels,” replied Caro smugly.
“I’m sorry that Olivia and I taught you how to read.” Anna wrenched open her bedroom door and kicked it shut behind her. No wonder men liked hitting each other. There was something very satisfying about lashing out a solid thwock.
“Ha, ha, ha.” Caro slipped in just before the paneled oak fell into place. “Who was it?”
“Never mind.”
Ignoring the order, her sister took a seat on the edge of the bed and began fingering her chin. “Not Andover. He’s much too polite. And Chittenden wouldn’t dare—he’s far too in awe of you.”
“Kindly stubble the speculation. I’m really not in the mood for it.”
“Major Grove is a possibility. Or perhaps that American merchant, Mr. Hale. He’s a little rough around the edges.”
“Caroooo.”
“But it’s amusing to try to guess,” responded her sister with a grin. “Who in the name of the Devil would be bold enough—” Her words suddenly came to a halt in mid-sentence.
Drat.
“Ye gods. Not Lord Davenport.”
Anna dropped her reticule on the dressing table and sat down. A hard yank freed a handful of hairpins. The stinging in her scalp actually felt rather good.
“That is to say, he, of all people, would be bold enough,” went on Caro. “But you would never allow it. You dislike him.”