Hidden Affections (18 page)

“Yes, I should have known,” he replied. Harrison climbed up into the coach, ready to embark on one adventure he had never anticipated—learning how to be friends with a woman who also happened to be his intriguingly beautiful, unpredictable, and very temporary wife.

Annabelle was relieved to learn that Harrison had not planned a winter picnic after all, but she still felt a bit apprehensive about encountering Eric when they arrived in the city.

Once Harrison made sure she was safely inside the Refuge, she finally began to relax. Eric was far too interested in his own needs to ever consider showing up here. She left the basket of food with the director of the Refuge, who promised to give it to the elderly widow who monitored the facility after he left at the end of each day, in order to make sure no destitute woman was turned away during the night.

She ventured into the main dormitory and found nearly two dozen women waiting for her, just as the director assured her they would be.

She spent the next few hours visiting with the indigent mothers and their babies while their older children were in another room. Other than caring for their children, she learned that the women’s main tasks were to keep their dormitory-style living spaces clean and to operate the kitchen, which relied on donated food, leaving them with several free hours every day.

Surprised to discover that most of them knew how to knit, she also learned they merely lacked the tools necessary and the funds to purchase the wool they could use to make warm socks and other winter essentials for themselves and their children.

The inside of the building was nearly as cold as it was outside, and she was grateful that she had worn all three of her woolen petticoats. She also made a mental note to speak to Harrison about finding a way to secure firewood for the massive fireplace at the far end of this room.

Although burdened by the tales the women had told her, which gave her a frightening firsthand view of how precarious a woman’s life could be when she was left alone to raise her children, she left them buoyed by the possibility she could do something more to help them than offer hopeful words.

She made a promise to return the next day and left the women, mindful to be on time to meet Harrison so he would not have to run about looking for her as he had done this morning at home. She stepped outside and a cold wind whipped at her cape, chilling the few bones she had left at that point that had not already frozen. Shifting her weight from one foot to the other to try to generate some warmth, she was scanning the street for any sign of Eric when she spied a sign for a wool shop in the next square. Impulsively, she decided she could probably get to the shop, place an order for some basic wool and knitting needles, and still be back in time to meet him.

Harrison had repeatedly told her to spend as much as she wished, so she did not even have to consider he would object. She kept her hood low enough, however, to cover most of her face to keep anyone from recognizing her as she rushed past the few people who had dared the elements to shop today. She entered the store, and since she was the only customer, Annabelle managed to complete her mission in less than five minutes. She waited at the counter while the shopkeeper, Eleanor Wallace, tallied up the charges. The sum would have strained the wages she had earned for an entire year while she was teaching, but she knew Harrison would dismiss the amount as paltry and instructed the woman to put it on the account in his name.

When the bell over the door announced another customer, Mrs. Wallace paused and looked past Annabelle. “Please look around. I’m almost finished here,” she announced before turning her attention back to Annabelle. “I’ll see that everything is delivered this afternoon.”

“Since it’s a surprise, I’d rather pick everything up tomorrow morning. You’ll be open by ten o’clock?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am. I will.”

Annabelle smiled. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow at ten.” She turned to leave but froze when she saw Eric’s wife standing just a few yards away from her. Even though they had not been introduced at the Sullivans’ ball, there was still a chance that Eric’s wife had seen her and someone else had told her Annabelle’s name. If she had, she might be tempted to introduce herself now.

While that posed no immediate problem, Annabelle could not take the risk that she would mention to Eric that she had met the new Mrs. Graymoor. She might also describe Annabelle in enough detail that he would be curious about a woman who looked like the secret wife he had divorced.

Fortunately, the woman was so intent on studying an assortment of imported wool that she did not look up to see Annabelle. Once the shopkeeper ushered her new customer into the side room on the opposite side of the shop to show her something else, she also gave Annabelle the chance to slip out of the shop unnoticed if she was very, very careful not to make a sound.

Heart pounding, Annabelle tiptoed as quickly as she could to the door. When she spied the coach sitting directly outside through the small display window, however, she hesitated. The curtains were drawn tight against the cold and wind so she could not see inside. Although she doubted that Eric would have accompanied his wife while she was out shopping, she could not take the chance he had. If he picked the exact moment she decided to step out of the shop to lift the curtain and peer outside, she had no hope at all that he would not recognize her.

When she heard the two women return to the main room of the shop, she was near panic. There was no way she could leave, and there was no place to hide.

Miraculously, the two women walked to the rear of the main display room, so engrossed with their conversation neither woman seemed to realize she was even there. Treading softly, she escaped into the side room closest to her and turned her back as if she were interested in skeins of wool she could barely see through her tears.

She waited five minutes. Then ten more. By the time Eric’s wife finally left, twenty minutes had passed and Annabelle’s pulse was racing so fast, she was growing faint.

She waited a few more minutes before she turned her head, just in time to see the coach pulling away, and nearly collapsed with relief. Gathering up her courage, she rushed out of the room, convinced that Harrison had already gone inside the Refuge to search for her.

The shopkeeper gasped the moment she saw her. “Mrs. Graymoor! I thought you left a good while ago.”

“That’s what I’d planned, but I couldn’t resist taking a peek at some more wool before I left. I’ve also reconsidered and I’d like you to deliver everything to the Refuge this afternoon,” she gushed and hurried out the door.

Fearful that Eric’s coach might turn around and come back in this direction, she picked up her skirts and cape and ran back the entire length of the square. By the time she reached Harrison’s coach, she was panting for breath and the cold air had turned her throat raw. She looked up at Graham. “Mr. Graymoor. Did he go inside the Refuge?”

The driver shook his head and pointed at the coach as he started to climb down to help her embark.

She waved him back. “I’ll have my husband help me, if I have need,” she insisted and opened the coach door by herself. “I’m so sorry I’m late,” she said and climbed aboard without giving Harrison a chance to help her.

When she dropped into the seat across from him, he reached over to pull the door closed.

“I’m truly, truly sorry. I was so worried that you’d have to charge around looking for me again or just leave me here to teach me a lesson.”

He laughed and tapped at the roof to signal Graham to start them for home. “On the contrary. I’ve learned my lesson. As I see it, I have two choices when I’m picking you up to go anywhere. I can simply wait for you in the coach, or I can stop at the harness maker today and have him make a special leash you can wear so all I have to do is give it a tug to let you know I’m waiting.”

She pursed her lips and put both hands on the seat to keep her balance when the coach rounded a corner. “I should hope you’d choose the former, rather than the latter,” she quipped. “I suppose I should be thankful you didn’t decide to leave me here so I’d have to hire a hack to take me home again.”

“You should have known I wouldn’t leave. Not without you,” he said, turning her own words against her.

Her heart skipped a beat, and she wondered if becoming friends with this man might be inviting precisely the kind of trouble she did not need. At the moment, she had more trouble than she knew how to handle—trouble that would not go away until Eric Bradley and his wife left the city.

Or she did.

Harrison left after dinner to spend the afternoon with friends, and Annabelle’s plans for the afternoon definitely included a nap to calm her frazzled nerves. Before long she’d need to dress for another late evening in the city, where she feared Eric and his wife would also be in attendance.

Instead of napping, however, she had sat at the dining room table with nearly three dozen invitations Harrison had brought back from the city mansion that he expected her to respond to in short notes he would take back with him tomorrow morning to have delivered. After sorting the invitations into two piles, she had spent an hour declining daytime invitations directed to her, just as he told her to do.

She set the pen down and opened and closed her hand to ease the cramps before attempting to write more notes. She stared at the remaining pile of invitations to evening events Harrison said they would agree to attend as a couple and groaned. She wished she could stay here tonight, and the prospect of attending so many affairs in the city made her stomach quiver.

She had been able to avoid an encounter with Eric’s wife today, but sooner or later it was almost inevitable that Eric would be at one of these evening affairs, and the only way she could avoid that debacle would be to stay right here at Graymoor Gardens. It would keep her safe from Vienna Biddle, as well.

There didn’t seem to be any choice but to accept the invitations, but her mind wrestled with one excuse after another in hopes she could at least stay home tonight. If she said she was tired, Harrison would blame her for getting up so early to walk with Irene and work with her on her lessons. He might even go so far as to forbid her to continue. If she claimed she was not feeling well, he could claim she was overexerting herself by volunteering at the Refuge and take that away from her, too.

She signed her name to the last note she would have to write and sighed. “Short of telling him the truth, I don’t have a whisper of a hope to stay home tonight.”

“What truth would that be?”

Startled by Harrison’s voice, she dropped the pen and splattered ink on the last note she had written. She turned to see him standing in the doorway holding back the baize curtain. “Y-you’re back already?”

He entered the room, letting the curtain fall back into place. “Why don’t you want to go to the museum with me tonight? I hope it isn’t because you’re too tired. If that’s the case, perhaps you shouldn’t get up quite so early or spend the day traveling back and forth from the city, especially when you know we have plans for the evening.”

“No. I’m not tired at all,” she retorted, annoyed that he had developed an uncanny ability to read her mind. “I’ve even had enough energy to respond to all these invitations, just like I promised I’d do.”

He walked over to her and studied her face so intently, she felt her cheeks warm. “You’re not feeling well? Is that it?”

“I’m perfectly fine,” she insisted and retrieved the pen she had dropped.

“If you’re worried that Vienna might be there tonight, then you shouldn’t be. She won’t be there. In point of fact, there won’t be more than a few dozen people in attendance, if that many.”

Grateful that he had introduced the partial truth behind her reluctance to attend the affair at the museum tonight, she moistened her lips. “Are you certain she won’t be there? I thought you said this was a very important event at the museum, and from all I could gather at the Sullivan ball, her father is a very important man.”

He grinned. “He is, but this event is strictly for the donors who have contributed more than one thousand dollars to the museum this year. After Peale died four years ago—he was the man who started the museum—and his sons took over, many of the donors lost interest and stopped their support. Paul Biddle, Vienna’s father, was one of them.”