The Raven Prince (Princes #1)(42)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

“I do. I’ll plant them for you in thanks for the others.” Anna smiled up at him, looking a little shy. “Thank you for the roses, Lord Swartingham.”

Edward cleared his throat. “You’re welcome, Mrs. Wren.” He had a strange urge to shuffle his feet like a little boy. “I suppose I ought to see Hopple.”

She simply looked at him.

“Yes… Ah, yes.” Good God, he was stuttering like an imbecile. “I’ll just go find him, then.” With a muttered farewell, he strode off in search of the steward.

Who knew giving presents to secretaries could be so stressful?

ANNA ABSENTLY WATCHED Lord Swartingham walk away, her hand fisting in the muddy burlap. She knew how this man felt against her in the dark. She knew how his body moved when he made love. She knew the deep husky sounds he produced in the back of his throat when he reached his climax. She knew the most intimate things one could know about a man, but she didn’t know how to reconcile that knowledge to the sight of him in the daylight. To reconcile the man who made love so sublimely to the man who brought her rosebushes from London.

Anna shook her head. Perhaps it was too hard a question. Perhaps one could never understand the difference between the passion of a man at night and the civil face he showed during the day.

She hadn’t realized what it would be like to see him again after spending two unbelievable nights in his arms. Now she knew. She felt sad, as if she’d lost something that had never truly been hers. She’d gone to London with the intention of making love to him, to enjoy the physical act as a man would: unemotionally. But as it turned out, she wasn’t as stoic as a man. She was a woman, and where her body went, her emotions followed willy-nilly. The act had somehow bound her to him, whether he knew it or not.

And he could never know it now. What had transpired between them in that room at Aphrodite’s Grotto must remain her secret alone.

She stared blindly down at the rose stems. Perhaps the roses were a sign that things could still be healed. Anna touched a prickly rose branch. They must mean something, surely? A gentleman didn’t usually give such a lovely gift—such a perfect gift—to his secretary, did he?

A thorn pricked the ball of her thumb. Absentmindedly, she sucked on the wound. Maybe there was hope after all. As long as he never, ever discovered her deception.

LATER THAT MORNING, Edward stood calf-deep in muddy water, inspecting the new drainage ditch. A lark sang in the border of Mr. Grundle’s field. Probably ecstatic it was dry. Nearby, two smock-clad laborers from Grundle’s farm shoveled muck to keep the ditch free of debris.

Hopple also stood in muddy water, looking particularly aggrieved. This might be in part because he had slipped and fallen in the scummy water once already. His waistcoat, formerly an egg-yolk yellow with green piping, was filthy. The water from the ditch gushed into a nearby stream as the steward explained the engineering of the project.

Edward watched the laborers, nodded at Hopple’s sermon, and thought about Anna’s reaction to his gift. When Anna spoke, he had a hard time keeping his eyes off her exotic mouth. How such a mouth had come to be on such a plain little woman was a great mystery, one that apparently could enthrall him for hours. That mouth could lead the Archbishop of Canterbury to sin.

“Don’t you think so, my lord?” Hopple asked.

“Oh, most definitely. Most definitely.”

The steward looked at him strangely.

Edward sighed. “Just continue.”

Jock bounded into view with a small, unfortunate rodent in his mouth. He leaped the ditch and landed with a splash of muddy water, completing the ruin of Hopple’s waistcoat. Jock presented his find to Edward. It was immediately apparent that his treasure had left this life quite some time ago.

Hopple backed hastily away, waving a handkerchief before his face and muttering irritably, “Good gracious! I thought when that dog went missing for several days we were well rid of it.”

Edward absently petted Jock, the odoriferous present still in the dog’s mouth. A maggot fell with a plop into the water. Hopple swallowed and continued his explanation of the wonderful drain with his handkerchief over his nose and mouth.

Of course, after coming to know Anna, Edward had no longer found her so plain. In fact, he was at a loss to explain how he had so thoroughly discounted her the first time they met. How was it that he’d initially thought her rather ordinary? Except for her mouth, of course. He’d always been aware of her mouth.

Edward sighed and kicked at some debris under the water, sending up a splash of mud. She was a lady. That he had never been wrong about even if he had misjudged her attraction at first. As a gentleman, he shouldn’t even be thinking about Anna in this way. That was what whores were for, after all. Ladies simply didn’t contemplate kneeling in front of a man and slowly bending their beautiful, erotic mouths down to…

Edward shifted uncomfortably and scowled. Now that he was officially engaged to Miss Gerard, he must stop thinking about Anna’s mouth. Or any other part of her for that matter. He needed to put Anna—Mrs. Wren—right out of his mind in order to have a successful second marriage.

His future family depended on it.

WHAT FUNNY THINGS roses were: prickly hard on the surface, yet so fragile inside, Anna mused that evening. Roses were one of the most difficult flowers to grow, needing much more coddling and worry than any other plant; yet, once established, they might grow for years, even if abandoned.

The garden behind her cottage was only about twenty feet by thirty, but there was still room for a small shed at the back. She’d used a candle in the gathering dusk to light her way as she had rummaged about in the shed and had found an old washbasin and a couple of tin buckets. Now she carefully laid the roses in the containers and covered them with the bitterly cold water from the little garden well.

Anna stood back and regarded her work critically. It had almost seemed like Lord Swartingham had avoided her after he’d given her the roses. He hadn’t shown up for luncheon, and he’d only stopped by the library once that afternoon. But of course he had plenty of work built up over the five days that he had been gone, and he was a very busy man. She pulled the muddy burlap over the top of the washbasin and buckets. She’d set the containers in the shade of the cottage so they wouldn’t burn in the sun tomorrow. It might be a day or two before she could plant them, but the water would keep them vital. She nodded and went in to wash up for supper.

The Wren household dined on roasted potatoes and a bit of gammon that night. The meal was almost over when Mother Wren dropped her fork and exclaimed, “Oh, I’ve forgotten to tell you, dear. While you were gone, Mrs. Clearwater invited us to her spring soiree the day after next.”