“Yes,” Annie said, lifting her chin higher. She felt something snap. She had had enough of her mother’s anger and the rules that had dictated her life for so long. Was there really anything truly wrong with caring for Luke? No! Nothing wrong at all.
“Then you are a greater fool than I ever thought you .” Barbara’s accusation was cutting. She stepped away, turning her back on Annie with a wave of her hands, dismissing her as she would a chimney sweep. It made the anger burn so strongly within Annie that she couldn’t sit still anymore. She couldn’t stay sat and simmer with her fury. She had to do something.
Jumping to her feet, she stepped forward, ready to follow her mother across the room.
“I am no fool, mother. Just because I have fallen in love, it does not make me devoid of intellect.” Her words were so loud that Barbara came to a stop, and she slowly turned around, a quivering hand on her chest as if to calm her racing heart.
“You are in love?” Barbara asked, practically sneering at the idea.
The words had fallen from Annie’s lips so easily. She had suspected she was in love before, but after hearing how Peggy had talked of love earlier that day and feeling what she felt now, Annie was in little doubt of what she felt.
“Yes,” she said with firmness. “Not only that, but I am confident that Lord Yeatman loves me too.”
“Then you are wrong.” Barbara shook her head. “On many things. You are a fool, and Lord Yeatman does not love you.”
“But I—”
“No, Annie! Listen to me.” Barbara stepped forward, her hand outstretched in Annie’s direction. “That man works like this. It is in all the scandal sheets. Many ladies have fallen for his charms. He hunts them as if he is a shooter, and they are his prey, pheasants fluttering in the sky that are not so willing to escape.Thatis the truth of the matter. He made you believe he loved you so that he could have his secret meetings with you.”
“I do not believe that.” Annie refused to believe it. She knew the real Luke. She had seen him that very day crippled by the thought that she might have been intimate with Mr Knight. Would a man not in love have been so hurt by such a fear?
“Then it is time you woke up and realised what is really happening here.”
“What do you mean?” Annie folded her arms and stood tall, trying to hold onto her brief.
Luke loves me. I know he does.
“If this man loves you,if...”Barbara stressed the word, holding Annie’s gaze with eyes that were full of angry tears. “Then he would have asked you to marry him. He would have done such a thing in order to rescue your reputation. Tell me this, did he say anything after you were caught together?”
Annie thought back to the moment of how Luke had looked down at the floor, unable to meet her gaze.
“No, I thought not. Let me make the matter plain for you.” Barbara stepped forward again, making Annie’s spine begin to crumple, and her shoulders slump. “This man has no need to marry you. If he loved you, he would have asked you to. What is more, he is the son of an earl. He can do far better than to marry the daughter of a viscount that has little money to her name and such a small dowry that it is almost laughable.”
The words made Annie look away, trying to hide the fact that more tears were ready to fall. She scrunched the handkerchief she was holding in her hands, wrinkling it beyond recognition.
“Thatis the man you have thrown your life away for, Annie,” Barbara said, her voice sharp. “He will not help you, and he has no inducement too. From now on, you are very much alone.”