“I am not interested in your assessment of me,” Anne scoffed.
“That is unfortunate,” he said, “considering how firmly you have already formed one of me.”
“You took him,” she accused.
“I purchased him,” he corrected calmly.
“From a family that could not refuse you.”
He studied her more carefully, as though trying to understand rather than dismissing her words.
“I was not told that,” he said.
“It does not change where he belongs,” Anne argued.
“But it does,” he countered. “Money changed hands, and he is now mine.”
Mine.That single word lingered.
“But he…” she trailed off.
In truth, there was not much that she could do. The purchase was legal, whether she liked it or not, and it seemed that the man before her was unwilling to part with Tempest even if he was difficult to manage.
“He is all that I have left of him,” she whispered.
“What did you say?”
She tensed, straightening and looking the Duke in the eye. She would not get what she wanted from him, but that did not mean that she would look broken as it happened.
“I will return one day,” she said steadily. “I will come back, and I will take him with me, no matter what it takes.”
She turned and rode away without waiting for him to say anything more, for if she had hesitated, he would have seen that she was crying.
Anne did not sleep that night, and by morning, the house felt even emptier than it had the day before. When she entered the drawing room, she found her mother already waiting by the window.
“Sit down,” her mother said without turning.
Anne stopped just inside the room. “I would rather stand.”
“Then stand.” After a moment, her mother turned away from the window. “You already seem willing to do exactly as you please without a care for what happens to this family.”
“You are one to speak of such things.”
Anne expected her mother to argue the point, but for once she did not.
“There is very little left of Rosemere that can be considered secure,” she said. “The debts have become worse than you were led to believe. Since you wish to make such decisions for yourself, I may as well no longer shield you.”
“We have been selling anything of value for months. Did you think that I was unaware something was amiss?”
“Well, it has not been enough to fix what was already built into the estate’s finances long before your father died. All that remains to be sold are parts of the property itself. If matters do not improve, Rosemere House will have to be sold entirely.”
“And are you telling me this now because there is still time to change it, or because there is not?”
“I am telling you because you deserve to understand the situation fully,” Lady Carlisle replied. “Fortunately, we have been offered a solution, and you will be happy to know that you may remain an old maid this way.”
Anne raised an eyebrow. She did not think that she was old at all, but then she did have to accept that at four-and-twenty, she should have perhaps married earlier. Then again, it was not as though she had not tried.
“Mr. Holloway has made his intentions clear,” Lady Carlisle continued. “He expects an answer to his marriage proposal within days. He has offered financial assistance, enough to stabilize what remains of the estate, but only under one condition.”
