Free The Scandal Before Christmas by Elizabeth Essex Page B

a pot of very good chocolate, and your father his port, there, while you were wandering the house with the lieutenant. What could you have to talk about all that time, I should like to know?” Her mother paused only to draw breath before chattering on. “But we heard the carriage draw up—a traveling carriage it was, a beautiful chaise and four with a crest on the door. So smart and elegant. And we heard his footman clatter up the steps and knock, but the man—the viscount himself—simply burst through the front door. Burst through it, without waiting for it to be opened. We heard it slam open. Did you ever?”
    Anne shook her head in response to keep her mother moving along.
    “And then he shouted . Shouted out, ‘Worth, where are you?’ And then to the servant, ‘I knew I’d run him to ground. Where is he, man?’ And then he threw open the door to the drawing room, where we were, and said, “Who the hell are you?” And then he walked off down the corridor, and then that butler, Pinkerton, came into the doorway and bowed to us, and shut the door. And that was that for a bit, until the butler came back and said he would show us to our rooms.”
    At this point her mother sat back—at least as far as her stays would allow her—and clasped her hand to her bosom dramatically. “Such a to-do. Such manners, and him, a viscount . Makes me wonder if all is right between the viscount and his son. There seems to be something very strange there.”
    “Yes.” Anne judged it best to give her mother the bare facts. “The lieutenant has told his father that we are already married.”
    For the longest moment her mother said nothing—it was for the first time in Anne’s life that her mother was at a loss for words.
    Goodness, there must be quite a storm coming if more than Gull Cottage was freezing over.
    “Why on earth would he say that?” her mother sputtered. “I can’t imagine—”
    “He will have his reasons,” Anne interrupted. “The same reasons that made him seek out Papa to arrange this marriage.”
    “But— Well, I never—”
    “You always. ” Anne firmed her resolve. “But for once you won’t. You won’t say anything. Not to the lieutenant. And not to his father.”
    “Anne!” Her mother’s voice was laced with disbelief and outrage.
    “No.” She made herself speak before she could wish it back. “Our marriage is our private business, not the viscount’s.”
    “It is certainly the viscount’s business,” her mother chided severely. “The lieutenant is his son, and stands to inherit—well, certainly not the estate, but something. Something that will concern you as well. And it is only right that the viscount should want to approve of his son’s marriage.”
    “I should think, Mama, that that is exactly the reason why the lieutenant should like to make his father think the marriage has already happened.”
    Her mother could not follow. “What on earth do you mean?”
    Anne swallowed the bitter tonic of her pride, and let loose the words that had been flying about in her brain like a wheeling flock of sparrows. “I mean, that the lieutenant thinks his father will not approve of me as a wife. I mean, that if you wish to see this marriage happen, you will keep quiet, and keep to yourself, and not be speaking to the viscount. I mean, that if you should like to see me married, you will for once hold your tongue.”
    Again her mother was dumbstruck for a full minute. “Why Anne, I-I think that is the longest speech I have heard from you in years.”
    It was. It was the longest speech Anne had made in nearly her whole life. And it felt good. It felt right to say what she thought, and not try to keep it within for fear of displeasing.
    A knock came to the door, and at her mother’s call, a stout young woman entered, bobbed a graceless curtsy, and said simply, “I’m to do for you, ma’am.”
    Anne rose to take her leave before her mother could argue, or detain her, or say anything