Lady Anne's Deception by Marion Chesney Read Free Book Online Page B

those sorts of remarks were all Annie expected from Marigold. A man settled down once he was married. No one could expect him to behave like a monk before then. All of her romances had been full of wild and savage heroes who had been tamed and brought to heel by the love of a pure and innocent girl. So it must be true.
    The time until the marquess’s return from France hurried past in a bewilderment of fittings and pinnings and shopping. Marigold went alone to balls and parties with Aunt Agatha. The Earl and Countess of Crammarth bustled about Annie as if they had just given birth to her.
    And then the marquess returned. Annie had met his parents and had searched, without success, their austere, cold faces for some sign of their son’s sunny insouciance. They seemed to neither approve nor disapprove of her.
    Her fiancé arrived too late for the wedding rehearsal, so Annie’s cousin, Jimmy Sinclair, had to stand in as groom. But nothing could dim Annie’s flying spirits, her heady feeling of success. The Countess of Crammarth was so engrossed with the multiple arrangements for a society wedding that she failed to arrange for the couple to be left alone when the marquess called to see his fiancée. She also failed to give that little talk to her daughter about the intricacies of the marriage bed.
    Annie was almost as innocent as the day she was born when she walked proudly up to the altar of St.
    George’s, Hanover Square, on her father’s arm.
    Her slim figure in a dress of priceless old lace gave the lie to the gossips who had hinted that there must be a sinister reason—in the heraldic sense—for the rushed wedding.
    Marigold as maid of honor looked a blonde vision. But this was Annie’s day of triumph. She could see no farther ahead than this one splendid, glorious day.
    She knew that she and Jasper were to spend the night at his town house and then to travel to Paris on their honeymoon, but she thought vaguely of it all as a sort of family holiday.
    The wedding breakfast was held at the newly opened Ritz Hotel in Piccadilly since Aunt Agatha’s house in Manchester Square was not nearly large enough to hold all of the guests.
    Annie’s highly colored fairy tale went on. She sat proudly at the head table beside her husband and responded prettily to all of the toasts. Proudly, she took the floor with him, her long train looped gracefully over her arm.
    Breathlessly, she allowed a bevy of maids to assist her into her going-away clothes. Joyfully, she threw the wedding bouquet as far away from Marigold as possible. It was caught by their governess, Miss Higgins, who turned quite pink with delight.
    And then . . . and then . . . they were in his carriage, going to his town house in St. James’s Square.
    And it was all over.
    She had been revenged on Marigold for all those years of humiliation. She had had her day of triumph.
    Now what?
    There was a coachman on the box and two splendid footmen on the backstrap. Barton, the maid, had been assigned to her as her very own.
    But soon the coach would stop and the coachman would take the gaily decorated carriage round to the mews. The footmen would help her down and open the doors, and then they, too, would go away.
    Barton would prepare her mistress for bed and then she would leave.
    And Annie would be alone with her husband.
    All at once it burst over her head, the folly of what she had done.

    The wedding night!
    What was she supposed to do? What would he do—to her?
    He ushered her into a pleasant, book-lined room on the ground floor of his house. “It’s all very masculine,” he said. “But you can make any changes you want.”
    The room smelled of leather and tobacco. The evening had turned chilly and a fire had been lit in the grate. There were pictures of horses and rather dark landscapes in heavy, gilt frames ornamenting the walls. The furniture was a harmonious mixture of periods. There was a Boulle writing table in one corner, and in another a pretty little