Anne wandered back to the escritoire and looked down at the blank paper that lay there. She would accept. She might as well sit down and write to the duchess immediately. She knew deep down that however long she pondered the problem, she would end up going. How could she resist? Alexander would never come to her. That much had become obvious to her a long time before. And she would probably never have the chance again of provoking a meeting with him. It might be very unwise to do so, but the opportunity was quite irresistible. Anyway, she thought, she had the feeling that the duchess really would not accept a refusal. That carriage would come whether she said it might or not, except that if she said no, it might very well contain a very irate duke when it did arrive. He might prove to be just as frightening an adversary as Alexander.

Anne sat and began to write fast, her head bent to the task.


************************************

Alexander Stewart, Viscount Merrick, rode his favorite horse to his grandparents' home. It was a beautiful spring day, and Portland House was a mere thirty miles south of London. He left his valet to follow after with a carriage and his trunks.

He was looking forward to the two-week holiday. It was a long time since he had spent more than a single night with his grandparents. Yet to him they were like parents. They had brought him up. Their house seemed more like home to him than his own because that was where he had spent his childhood and his boyhood until he went away to school. Even then, it was to Portland House he had gone during vacations.

He had a great fondness for the two old people. The duke sometimes fooled people who did not know him into thinking that he was some kind of ogre. He certainly looked the part: extremely tall and stout, with florid complexion and steely gray eyes. His coughs and wheezes could easily be mistaken for bellows of rage. And the duchess abetted this image by constantly referring to her husband's commands and pronouncements, as if only she stood between the listener and his wrath. But Merrick knew by experience that a milder man than his grandfather did not exist, but that it was his grandmother who ruled the household and the family with an iron hand. Yet hers was a benevolent rule. Though tyrannical by nature, she had the interests of her family at heart.

It was this fact that had caused Merrick to keep her at arms' length during the last while. She did not approve of the direction his life had taken and she made no scruples about saying so. She had, as he expected, been loudly horrified by the news of his precipitate marriage, and quite irate at his weakness in giving in to the persuasions of a mere country gentleman. She was even more enraged to learn- there had been no keeping it from her-that before abandoning his bride, her grandson had been foolish enough to consummate the marriage. She had refused to talk to him any more during that visit he had made a few days after his wedding.

Yet only a week or so later, the duchess had appeared at his London residence, the duke in tow, demanding to know where his wife was, how long he planned to keep her incarcerated in the country, and when he planned to present her to them. It had been very difficult to remain firm against her persuasions. She had argued that since his marriage was an accomplished fact, he must make the best of it. The girl must be presented to society; she must be given a chance to acquire some town bronze. She must begin producing his heirs.

But Merrick had stood firm and the duchess had finally gone home, beaten for one of the few times in her life. At least, he had assumed that she had accepted defeat. But it seemed not. He had been completely surprised to receive a letter from his wife a few weeks previously to ask if she might accept an invitation to the house party that was being held in honor of the fiftieth wedding anniversary of his grandparents. Sly old Grandmamma! He had had to write back to refuse his permission, feeling himself the tyrant, as usual.

Merrick frowned and pulled his horse out into the middle of the road, so that he might pass a farmer's wagon loaded with hay, which swung precariously from side to side in front of him. Why did he have to think of Anne and spoil the lighthearted mood that the day and his destination had brought on him? The trouble was that she so often ruined his mood. He just could not put her out of his mind, and the more time passed, the more he thought of her.

It was terrible enough to know that one had done wrong, but it was even worse to know that one had been too lazy or too cowardly or too something to do anything to put the situation right again. The trouble with guilt was that it had the tendency to fester and grow. And the longer one put off the moment of restitution, the harder it became to do anything. He had known soon after leaving his wife at Red-lands, perhaps even before leaving, that his suspicions and accusations were unjust. He had gone over almost word for word their first meeting and had admitted that she had made no deliberate attempt to deceive him into thinking that she was a servant.

And in light of her real identity, he could see that her manner had not been flirtatious at all.

This knowledge had not done much during those first few days after his return to London to soothe his frustration and his bitterness at the changes in his life, but it had made him feel guilt at the way he had treated an innocent young woman. He had made no attempt at all to make her feel at her ease after their wedding, when he was taking her away from her brother and all she had ever known as home. He had treated her on their wedding night as he would a light-skirts, without any regard for her tender sensibilities. Even though she had seemed to enjoy the experience, he had been wrong to treat her so. And then there had been those brutal words he had spoken before leaving. It would have been better far to have left before she had risen from bed.

He had known all this very soon after leaving her, and he had felt the necessity of apologizing, of doing something to make her life more livable than it could be in that bleak and shabby place that he could never quite think of as home. The trouble at first was that he could not face seeing her again. He remembered the plump figure, the round and childish face, the plain features, the lifeless hair, the apparent lack of personality. The fact that he had found her unexpectedly exciting in bed he had conveniently forgotten. He could not-he would not-live with her as his wife. So he had put off the moment of doing something for her. He would go down to Redlands in the spring, he had promised himself at first. Then it was to be during the summer, when the Season was over. When summer had drawn to a close, he had admitted to himself that he was too embarrassed to make the journey. The moment had passed.

He had tried in small ways to salve his conscience. Whenever she wrote to him to ask for something- once, he gathered, it was some flowers, and another time something else for the garden-he would immediately write to assure her that she could continue with her plans. Sometimes he wished that she might demand more so that he could give more. But he became more and more incapable of meeting her. He had spent a sleepless night a few months before after denying her the chance to visit a friend of hers for a week. He would have been only too glad to let her go if the friend had lived anywhere but in London. But how could he let her come to the capital, where he would risk the embarrassment of meeting her and where it would quickly become known that the Viscountess Merrick was in town but not at her husband's residence?

Merrick eased his horse to a walk as a country inn came into view just ahead. He dismounted and turned his mount over to an ostler while he entered the taproom and ordered a mug of ale. The taproom was empty. It was obviously too early in the day for the local people to be relaxing in the inn, and it was not the sort of place where carriages would often stop. He exchanged pleasantries and comments on the weather with the innkeeper and moved into the chimney corner with his ale.

He almost wished now that he had told Anne that she might accept his grandmother's invitation. It might have proved a good opportunity to meet her again and to settle her into a more desirable way of life. The presence of all the other members of the family was one fact that had made him react so negatively when he had first read her letter. He had not wanted the whole tribe to witness the awkwardness of their meeting. But now, on second thoughts, he wondered if the presence of other people would not rather have eased the tension and helped them to communicate as sensible adults.

It was too late, anyway. He had said a very positive no, and she had not written again to argue the point. It was just as well. It would be very depressing to have to spend two weeks in the company of such a dull creature, being civil to her for the sake of appearances. He would enjoy these two weeks for what they were worth, catch up on the news of all the cousins and uncles and aunts, resist any attempts on the part of Grandmamma to order his life, and then return to face the Season that would soon be in full swing. He would have Eleanor to help keep him from brooding. It really was most satisfactory to have a married woman as mistress. She offered everything he could desire in company and sensual gratification without any of the demands on his time and emotions that he had found so wearing with other women. Lorraine would probably be back by the time he returned, too. Her honeymoon would be over. But he had to admit to himself that he had felt no more than a pang of nostalgia when he had read her betrothal announcement in the Gazette.