Anne's Perfect Husband

Either the girls were having a joke or there had been some mistake in who had been called for. In either case, going along would prove more entertaining than what she was presently doing. If it were a prank, then the others would enjoy a laugh at her expense, nothing she was averse to. And if it weren’t, the mistake would probably have been straightened out by the time she reached the headmistress’s office. Until then…

“Well, of course, I won’t keep him waiting,” Anne said cheerfully. “Come from London, I suppose.”

“I don’t know about that,” Margaret confided, “but he arrived in a bang-up rig with four of the primest bits of horseflesh I’ve ever seen.”

“If Mrs. Kemp hears you talking like that, my girl,” Anne warned, “you’ll be the banged-up rig.”

She lightened the rebuke with a smile and then ran down the wide hallway with the younger girl at her heels. Not setting a good example, Mrs. Kemp would have said, especially for someone about to become a teacher.

Since the headmistress wasn’t by to say it, however, Anne didn’t see any reason not to run off the excess energy the recent weather’s confinement had produced. She would be so glad when spring arrived and the woods and fields were again available for roaming.

She slowed to a sedate walk as she neared the open door of the school’s office. Working by feel, she tucked a few tendrils of hair back into the neat coil from which they had managed to escape and straightened the shoulders of her linsey-woolsey dress, brushing her hands over the bodice. Then she cast a quick glance behind her to evaluate Margaret’s appearance, knowing that in Mrs. Kemp’s opinion it, too, could usually be improved upon.

She was right. The younger girl’s flannel pinafore was unbuttoned. Anne turned and, still walking backwards, attempted a couple of quick adjustments to the ten-year-old’s attire.

Margaret’s widening eyes should have been a warning, but she didn’t notice them until it was too late. Anne backed into something quite solid and heard a soft gasp of response.

Someone, she realized belatedly when she whirled around. Someone very tall. And dressed in what even such a provincial as she knew to be the height of fashion, from his gleaming tasseled Hessians to the broad shoulders of an expertly cut coat of navy superfine. Considering the weather, there would no doubt be a multicaped greatcoat and a tall beaver hat residing safely in Mrs. Kemp’s office.

“Oh, dear,” she said. “I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

He certainly appeared sturdy enough that she couldn’t possibly have done him damage, but that gasp had sounded pained. And there was something in the tightness of the lines around that beautifully shaped mouth that also spoke of discomfort.

It was not until the mouth tilted, destroying that ridiculous notion that Anne looked up and found his eyes. They were hazel, and they were smiling as openly as were his lips.

Smiling eyes. She had read the phrase once in a novel, that strictly forbidden pastime carefully concealed from Mrs. Kemp, of course. She had never quite known what it meant until today. Until now. And her heart began to beat a little irregularly.

“I believe I have managed to survive your charge,” he said. “It is customary to look in the direction you’re treading, however. Just to prevent bowling over the un-suspecting.”

Anne laughed. “Only think how boring it should be to always look where one is going. I confess that I much prefer to back my way through life.” She longed to add, “One meets such interesting people that way,” but she couldn’t decide if that would sound sophisticated or simply fast.

And while she was trying to resolve that dilemma, the hazel eyes left her face and settled, still smiling, on Margaret’s. Anne swallowed her disappointment and turned to look at her young friend as well. Margaret’s brown eyes were still stretched. Indeed, they had widened enough to be outright rude as she stared, openmouthed, at the visitor.

“Hello,” he said.

“’Lo,” Margaret mumbled.

The self-important air of confidence with which she had delivered her message had disappeared. Of course, Anne could hardly blame her for that. They were neither very often exposed to someone who was so obviously Top of the Trees.

“I’m not quite sure how this should be done,” the elegant gentleman was saying, “but I have satisfied Mrs. Kemp as to my identity and my legal position as your guardian. She has agreed that we may leave as soon as you’re ready. Since I gave you no warning, I should imagine it will take you some time to pack. I hope you will make as quick a work of that as you can, however, because the weather is worsening by the moment.”

Margaret said nothing, her eyes and mouth continuing to gape unbecomingly as he talked. When he had finished, and the silence yawned empty for a few seconds, she reluctantly pulled her gaze away from his face to look at Anne.

“It’s not me you want,” she said, pointing a trembling finger. “It’s her. That’s Anne Darlington.”

The hazel eyes followed the gesture, and as Anne’s met them, she realized they were no longer smiling. They had widened as much as Margaret’s, and even that was attractive, she decided.

“You’re Anne Darlington?” he asked, his shock evident.

No mistake about the name, then, Anne thought, trying to make sense of this.

“I am,” she said, inclining her head in agreement, hoping to add a touch of dignity to the confession.

“Colonel George Darlington’s daughter?”

“Did you know my father, sir?” she asked.

Again there was a small silence.

“I served with your father in Iberia, ma’am. May I offer my condolences on your recent loss.”

Anne had never in her life been called ma’am. It was rather shocking, but despite that, finally she was beginning to have a glimmer of understanding. Perhaps this man was indeed her guardian. Perhaps when she was much younger, her father had named a military friend to look after her if anything happened to him. And now that it had…

“Thank you,” she said softly.

She supposed she had grieved in the abstract for her father, but since she had not seen him in over seven years, and not very often before that, she had quickly recovered from the news of his death, about which she had been informed only two months ago.

“My name is Ian Sinclair, and your father’s will asked me to serve as your guardian.”

How strange, Anne thought. Not “your father asked me,” which is what she would have expected, but “your father’s will.”

“And you agreed?”

“Colonel Darlington was a…comrade in arms.”

Anne wondered about that brief hesitation, but then she knew less than nothing about military matters. Apparently her father had chosen from among his acquaintances a man he felt would be trustworthy to look after her.

She wondered how many years ago that decision had been made. And considering Mr. Sinclair’s confusion in thinking Margaret was his ward, she wondered if her father had even remembered how old she was. He had certainly never acknowledged birthdays. In actuality, he had seldom acknowledged her existence.

“As you can see, Mr. Sinclair, I am hardly in need of a guardian,” she said briskly. “I shall be twenty my next birthday, and Mrs. Kemp has very kindly offered me a teaching post here. My father was unaware of the offer, of course, which was made after his death.”

“Then you were in frequent correspondence with your father?”

The hazel eyes were focused intently on her face, and for some reason, Anne found herself compelled to tell him the truth.

“I was not,” she said succinctly.

“I see.”

Even living as she had among the female offspring of parents who obviously did not wish to be burdened with hiring governesses and tutors for them, Anne had finally been forced to admit her father’s total lack of interest in her was unusual. Most of her schoolmates got the occasional letter or present or visit. In all the years she had been at Fenton School, she couldn’t remember receiving any of those things.

“I’m very sorry you have made this journey for nothing,” Anne said. “Especially since, as you say, the weather is uncertain.”

The fine mouth tightened, and again Anne noticed the deeply graven lines that bracketed it. She wondered at his age, but there was something about his face that defied an attempt to judge it, despite the sweep of gray at the temples of his dark chestnut hair. His eyes, when they were smiling, made him seem quite young. Now, however…

“Actually, I have been dreading spending Christmas alone,” he said. And then he smiled at her again.

Anne had not been dreading the holidays. She enjoyed the quieter times they provided. There would be only a few girls left at the school, some of them, like Sally, quite small. Since Anne was the oldest student, and the one who had been here the longest, their Christmas entertainment had always fallen on her shoulders. And she welcomed the task.