She was making him her slave, and she must know it. And he hated her for it. He would not let any woman, least of all her, take away from him his freedom to control his own actions. He had ten more days of this torture to endure before he could pack her off back to Redlands, where she belonged, and begin to forget her and get his life back in order again.
Merrick turned in his chair as the door at the other end of the ballroom opened and Claude entered again. With him, surprisingly, was Grandpapa, leaning heavily on a cane and peering fiercely at Anne, who was sitting on the floor in the spot where Merrick had left her, clasping her knees and looking no older than a child.
"Now, what is this?" the duke asked gruffly. "Claude tells me that you are acting like a wooden soldier, Alex. It won't do, you know. You used to be one of the family's star turns. You two are having problems with your marriage, eh? Can't understand why, Alex. She's a pretty-enough little thing and nicely behaved."
"Grandpapa," Merrick said harshly, crossing the room again, "the condition of our marriage is a matter entirely between Anne and me. I will not permit even you to interfere in that."
"And quite right too, my boy," the duke said, looking at his grandson from beneath drawn brows, "and my marriage is my concern. At the moment the happiness of Her Grace depends a great deal on the success of this play. I don't necessarily understand why it is so important to her, but it is. And what is important to Her Grace is important to me. From now on, you will know your lines, my boy, and you will act them as What's-his-name intended them to be acted when he wrote them. And your feelings for your wife will not be allowed to intrude. Is that clear?"
Merrick's hands formed into fists at his sides as he glared back. The two men took each other's measure for long moments as the pair of spectators looked on with bated breath.
Merrick relaxed suddenly. "I always said that your bark was worse than your bite, Grandpapa," he said, "but I never knew anyone whose bark was quite so fierce. Now would you kindly leave so that Claude can start bullying Anne and me again?"
The duke left.
Chapter 9
After dinner, followed by tea and conversation in the drawing room, the duchess insisted that rehearsals resume. And the following morning was no different. As soon as the stragglers could no longer pretend that they were still eating breakfast, they were informed that the small ballroom was awaiting their use. Strangely, no one grumbled on either occasion. The visit of most of the young people to the vicarage had cheered their spirits, and all were looking forward to the return visit that the three Fitzgerald girls and Bertrand had promised for the afternoon.
Even the older people were delighted. The duchess had been prevailed upon to allow them all the afternoon free. Her daughters, Maud and Sarah, with their cousin, Fanny Raine, Claude's wife, had arranged a trip into the village to see if the milliner and the haberdasher had anything worth purchasing. Claude and his brother, Martin, had agreed to play billiards with Charles Lynwood, their cousin Sarah's husband. Stanley and Celia Stewart had promised their children a walk to a hill north of the estate from which it was possible to see three different counties on a clear day.
Anne discovered the children soon after luncheon, when she had escaped to her favorite retreat, the rose arbor. The practices were progressing much better. The outing for several of the others the day before seemed to have done them the world of good. They had somehow rehearsed their way through two whole acts the evening before, and another that morning, without too many pauses for prompting and without causing Claude a near apoplexy with their lifeless acting.
In fact, Peregrine had been downright good that morning, holding them all in stitches in the scene in which he pretended to be making love to Constance Neville for his mother, Mrs. Hardcastle's, benefit and then incurred the latter's wrath by insisting that she read aloud a letter that referred to her as "that old hag."
Aunt Maud had been good, too. One would have sworn that she was about to burst her corsets with indignation. Even Alexander seemed to have mastered his distaste of acting opposite her. When they had repeated this morning the scene that had caused so many problems the afternoon before, his manner had been almost convincingly flirtatious, and he had caught her and kissed her on the lips at the appropriate moment in the script, instead of merely grazing her cheek as he had the day before.
"Please, Kitty's ball is in the tree," a tiny voice said from beside her, and Anne looked up to see a minute girl in frilled dress and white pinafore standing before her, the large bow that held her hair at the back of her head somewhat askew.
"What's that?" Anne asked.
"Kitty's ball is in the tree," the child repeated solemnly. "Davie kicked it there after Nurse had told him to keep it on the ground. But when Kitty told him he was for it, he said a bad word. And Kitty is crying."
"Oh, dear," Anne said. "Perhaps I had better come and see if I can sort things out. Shall I?"
"Yes, please," the child said. "If Papa comes and finds out that Davie said a bad word, he won't be allowed to come to the hill with us. And it won't be such fun to go without Davie, because I should be feeling sorry for him all the time I was there."
"I see," said Anne. "Let's hurry, then, before Papa comes, shall we?"
Kitty was indeed crying with loud wails. She was a smaller replica of her sister, even down to the crooked hair ribbon. Davie, a thin lad of about ten, stood defiantly a few feet away from her, legs apart, arms folded, looking as if he might apologize if he could only be persuaded that it was not an unmanly thing to do.
"Now, where is this ball?" Anne asked cheerfully above the wails of Kitty. "Can we reach it and get it down maybe?"
Kitty paused long enough to look up at the new arrival and point to a branch above their heads, where a bright-blue ball had been trapped by the foliage. She gave her brother an accusing glare and then began to howl again.
"Now," said Anne, "if I promise to climb up for the ball, and if Davie promises to say he is sorry for putting it there, will you stop crying, Kitty?"
Kitty stopped immediately. "He said a naughty word," she said quite steadily, and the wailing resumed.
"Well, I'm sorry anyway, you stupid girl," Davie said magnanimously. "And I can climb the stupid tree."
"No, you will not," Anne said firmly. "You have been all spruced up for an outing with your parents, I gather. The last thing you need is a hole through the knee of your stocking. And would you like to inform me what could possibly be stupid about a tree? I did not know that it had any intelligence at all that could be measured." She looked inquiringly at Davie.
"That's true, Davie," the older sister said gravely, "you must admit."
"Hush up, Meggie," the boy said, but Anne noticed that he did not include her in his opinion of the intelligence of the world around him.
Climbing a tree in a flimsy muslin dress and thin slippers was not an easy activity, Anne soon discovered. It was quite simple to climb the branches, but the twigs and leaves caught at her dress with every movement and she had to keep stopping to disentangle herself. It took fully five minutes to reach the ball and drop it down into the waiting hands of Kitty.