Almost precisely one day later, Daniel was sitting in Whipple Hill’s wood-paneled library, wondering how it had come to pass that this day was so utterly less perfect than the one before.
After he had kissed Miss Wynter down by the lake, they had hiked back up to the clearing where poor Lord Finstead had been courting his beautiful but dim-witted princess, arriving only moments before Harriet, Elizabeth, and Frances did, accompanied by two footmen with picnic hampers. After a hearty meal, they had read from The Strange, Sad Tragedy of Lord Finstead for several more hours, until Daniel had begged for mercy, claiming that his sides hurt from so much laughter.
Even Harriet, who kept trying to remind them that her masterwork was not a comedy, took no offense.
Back to the house they’d gone, only to discover that Daniel’s mother and sister had arrived. And while everyone was greeting everyone else as if they had not seen each other just two days earlier, Miss Wynter slipped away and retired to her room.
He had not seen her since.
Not at supper, which she’d been required to take in the nursery with Elizabeth and Frances, and not at breakfast, which . . . Well, he didn’t know why she hadn’t come down to breakfast. All he knew was that it was well past noon and he was still uncomfortably full from having lingered at the table for two hours, hoping for a glimpse of her.
He’d been on his second complete breakfast by the time Sarah had seen fit to inform him that Lady Pleinsworth had given Miss Wynter much of the day off. It was a bonus, apparently, for all the extra work she had been performing. First the musicale, and now her double duty as governess and nanny. Miss Wynter had mentioned that she wanted to go to the village, Sarah had told him, and with the sun once again peeking through the clouds, it seemed an ideal day for her outing.
And so Daniel had set out to do all those things the lord of a manor was supposed to do when he wasn’t wildly infatuated with the governess. He met with the butler. He looked over the account books from the last three years, belatedly remembering that he did not particularly like adding sums, and he’d never been good at it, anyway.
There ought to have been a thousand things to do, and he was sure there were, but every time he sat down to complete a task, his mind wandered to her. Her smile. Her mouth when it was laughing, her eyes when they were sad.
Anne.
He liked her name. It suited her, simple and direct. Loyal to the bone. Those who did not know her well might think that her beauty required something more dramatic—perhaps Esmerelda, or Melissande.
But he knew her. He did not know her past, and he did not know her secrets, but he knew her. And she was an Anne through and through.
An Anne who was currently someplace he was not.
Good heavens, this was ridiculous. He was a grown man, and here he was moping about his (albeit large) house, all because he missed the company of the governess. He could not sit still, he could not even seem to sit straight. He even had to change chairs in the south salon because he was facing a mirror, and when he spied his reflection, he looked so hangdog and pathetic he could not tolerate it.
Finally he went off to find someone who might be up for a game of cards. Honoria liked to play; Sarah, too. And if misery did not love company, at least it could be distracted by it. But when he arrived in the blue drawing room, all of his female relations (even the children), were huddled around a table, deep in discussions about Honoria’s upcoming wedding.
Daniel began his very quiet retreat to the door.
“Oh, Daniel,” his mother exclaimed, catching him before he could make his escape, “do come join us. We’re trying to decide if Honoria should be married in lavender-blue or blue-lavender.”
He opened his mouth to ask the difference, then decided against it. “Blue-lavender,” he said firmly, not having a clue as to what he was talking about.
“Do you think so?” his mother responded, frowning. “I really think lavender-blue would be better.”
The obvious question would have been why she’d asked his opinion in the first place, but once again, he decided that the wise man did not make such queries. Instead he gave the ladies a polite bow and informed them that he was going to go off and catalogue the recent additions to the library.
“The library?” Honoria asked. “Really?”
“I like to read,” he said.
“So do I, but what has that to do with cataloguing?”
He leaned down and murmured in her ear, “Is this where I am supposed to say aloud that I am trying to escape a gaggle of women?”
She smiled, waited until he straightened, and replied, “I believe this is where you say that it has been far too long since you have read a book in English.”
“Indeed.” And off he went.
But after five minutes in the library, he could not bear it any longer. He was not a man who liked to mope, and so finally, after he realized that he had been resting his forehead on the table for at least a minute, he sat up, considered all the reasons why he might need to head down to the village (this took about half a second), and decided to head on out.
He was the Earl of Winstead. This was his home, and he’d been gone for three years. He had a moral duty to visit the village. These were his people.
He reminded himself never to utter those words aloud, lest Honoria and Sarah expire from laughter, and he donned his coat and walked out to the stables. The weather was not quite so fine as the day before, with more clouds above than sky. Daniel did not think it would rain, at least not in the immediate future, so he had his curricle readied for the two-mile journey. A coach was far too ostentatious for a trip to the village, and there seemed no reason not to drive himself. Besides, he rather liked the touch of the wind on his face.
And he’d missed driving his curricle. It was a fast little carriage, not as dashing as a phaeton, but also not as unstable. And he’d had it for only two months when he’d been forced to leave the country. Needless to say, smart little curricles had not been thick on the ground for exiled young Englishmen on the run.
When he reached the village, he handed off his reins to a boy at the posting inn and set off to make his calls. He would need to visit every establishment, lest someone feel slighted, so he started at the bottom of the high street at the chandler and worked his way up. News of his appearance in town spread quickly, and by the time Daniel entered Percy’s Fine Hats and Bonnets (only his third call of the day), Mr. and Mrs. Percy were waiting at the front of their store with identically wide smiles on their faces.
“My lord,” Mrs. Percy said, dropping into as deep a curtsy as her largish frame would allow. “May I be one of the first to welcome you home? We are both so honored to see you again.”
She cleared her throat, and her husband said, “Indeed.”
Daniel gave both of them a gracious nod, surreptitiously glancing about the establishment for other customers. Or rather, one other customer. Specifically. “Thank you, Mrs. Percy, Mr. Percy,” he said. “I am delighted to be home.”
Mrs. Percy nodded enthusiastically. “We never believed any of the things they said about you. Not a thing.”
Which led Daniel to wonder what sorts of things had been said. As far as he knew, every tale that had been spread about him had been true. He had dueled with Hugh Prentice, and he had shot him in the leg. As for his fleeing the country, Daniel didn’t know what sort of embellishment that story might have acquired; he rather thought that Lord Ramsgate’s ranting vows of revenge would have been titillating enough.
But if Daniel hadn’t wanted to debate the merits of blue-lavender and lavender-blue with his mother, he definitely did not wish to discuss himself with Mrs. Percy.
The Sad, Strange Tale of Lord Winstead. That’s what it would be.
So he simply said, “Thank you,” and moved quickly to a display of hats, hoping that his interest in their merchandise might overshadow Mrs. Percy’s interest in his life.
Which it did. She immediately launched into a list of the qualities of their most recent top hat design, which, she assured him, could be made to fit his head precisely.
Mr. Percy said, “Indeed.”
“Would you care to try one on, my lord?” Mrs. Percy asked. “I think you’ll find that the curve of the brim is most flattering.”
He did need a new hat, so he reached out to take it from her hands, but before he could place it onto his head, the door to the shop opened, tugging onto a small bell that tinkled merrily through the air. Daniel turned, but he didn’t need to see her before he knew.
Anne.
The air changed when she walked into a room.
“Miss Wynter,” he said, “what a lovely surprise.”
She looked startled, but only for a moment, and while Mrs. Percy regarded her with obvious curiosity, she bobbed a curtsy and said, “Lord Winstead.”
“Miss Wynter is governess to my young cousins,” he said to Mrs. Percy. “They are visiting for a short spell.”
Mrs. Percy expressed her pleasure in making the acquaintance, Mr. Percy said, “Indeed,” and Anne was whisked off to the ladies’ side of the shop, where Mrs. Percy had a dark blue bonnet with striped ribbons that would suit her perfectly. Daniel ambled along after them, still holding the black topper in his hands.
“Oh, your lordship,” Mrs. Percy exclaimed, once she realized that he had followed, “won’t you tell Miss Wynter how lovely she looks?”
He preferred her without a bonnet, with the sun glinting on her hair, but when she looked up at him, the sooty sweep of her lashes framing the dark, dark blue of her eyes, he didn’t think there was a man in Christendom who would have disagreed with him when he said, “Most lovely, indeed.”
“There, you see,” Mrs. Percy said to Anne with an encouraging smile. “You look like a vision.”
“I do like it,” Anne said wistfully. “Very much. But it’s terribly dear.” She untied the ribbons with reluctant fingers, pulled it from her head, then looked down at it with obvious longing.
“Such workmanship would cost you twice as much in London,” Mrs. Percy reminded her.
“I know,” Anne said with a rueful smile, “but governesses aren’t paid twice as much in London. So I rarely have much left over for bonnets, even those as lovely as yours.”
Daniel suddenly felt like a bit of a cad, standing there with the top hat in his hand, a top hat they all knew he could have bought and sold a thousand times without even feeling a pinch in his pocket. “Excuse me,” he said, clearing his throat awkwardly. He popped back over to the men’s side of the shop, handed the hat to Mr. Percy, who said, “Indeed,” and then returned to the ladies, who were still gazing down at the blue bonnet.
“Here you are,” Miss Wynter said, finally handing it back to Mrs. Percy. “I shall certainly tell Lady Pleinsworth how lovely your bonnets are. I am sure that she will wish to take her daughters shopping while she is visiting.”
“Daughters?” Mrs. Percy echoed, brightening at the prospect.
“Four of them,” Daniel told her amiably. “And my mother and sister are at Whipple Hill, as well.”
While Mrs. Percy was fanning herself, flushed from the excitement of having seven aristocratic ladies in residence so close to her hat shop, Daniel took the opportunity to offer his arm to Anne.
“May I escort you on your next errand?” he asked her, knowing full well how awkward it would be for her to refuse in front of Mrs. Percy.
“I’m almost done,” she told him. “I’ve only to buy a bit of sealing wax.”
“Luckily for you, I know exactly where that can be purchased.”
“The stationer’s, I would imagine.”
Good gracious, she was making this difficult. “Yes, but I know where the stationer’s is,” he said.
She motioned with her finger someplace vaguely to the west. “Across the street, I think, and up the hill.”
He shifted his position so that Mr. and Mrs. Percy could not easily watch their conversation. Under his breath, he said, “Will you stop being so difficult and let me escort you to buy your sealing wax?”
Her mouth was pressed shut, which meant that the little snort of laughter he heard must have come through her nose. All the same, she still looked quite dignified as she said, “Well, if you put it that way, I don’t see how I could possibly refuse.”
He thought of several replies, but he had a feeling none would be as witty from his lips as they were in his head, so instead he nodded in acknowledgment and held out his arm, which she took with a smile.
Once they stepped outside, however, Anne turned to him with narrowed eyes and asked, quite bluntly, “Are you following me?”
He coughed. “Well, I wouldn’t say following, exactly.”
“Not exactly?” Her lips were doing a very good job of not smiling, but her eyes were not.
“Well,” he said, adopting his most innocent expression, “I was in the hat shop before you came in. Some might even say that you were following me.”
“Some might,” she agreed. “But not me. Or you.”
“No,” he said, biting back a grin. “Definitely not.”
They began walking uphill toward the stationer’s shop, and even though she had not pressed the matter any further, he was enjoying the conversation far too much to let it go, so he said, “If you must know, I had been made aware of your possible presence in the village.”
“Clearly, I must know,” she murmured.
“And as I was also required to complete a few errands—”
“You?” she interrupted. “Required?”
He decided to ignore that. “And as it looked as if it might rain, I thought it my duty as a gentleman to make my trip into the village today, lest you get caught in inclement weather without proper conveyance home.”
She was quiet for just long enough to level a dubious stare in his direction, then said (not asked, said), “Really.”
“No,” he admitted with a grin, “I was mostly just looking for you. But I do need to visit with all the shopkeepers eventually, and I—” He stopped, looked up. “It’s raining.”
Anne held out her hand, and sure enough, a fat drop landed near her fingertips. “Well, I suppose that shouldn’t be a surprise. The clouds have been gathering all day.”
“Shall we see about your sealing wax and be off, then? I came in my curricle and am more than happy to see you home.”
“Your curricle?” she asked, eyebrows up.
“You’ll still get wet,” he allowed, “but you’ll look very stylish while doing so.” At her answering grin, he added, “And you’ll get back to Whipple Hill faster.”
By the time they took care of her sealing wax, choosing a deep, dark blue the exact color of the bonnet she’d left behind, the rain was coming down lightly but steadily. Daniel offered to wait with her in the village until it let up, but she told him she was expected back by teatime, and besides, who was to say that it would let up? The clouds were covering the sky like a thick blanket; it could very well rain until next Tuesday. “And it’s not raining that hard,” she said, frowning out the stationer’s window.
True enough, but when they reached Percy’s Fine Hats and Bonnets, he stopped and asked her, “Do you recall if they sold umbrellas?”
“I think they did.”
He held up a finger, signaling for her to wait, and was back out with an umbrella in no more time than it took for him to direct them to send the bill to Whipple Hill and Mr. Percy to say, “Indeed.”
“My lady,” Daniel said, with enough gallantry to make her smile. He pushed the umbrella open and held it above her as they made their way down to the posting inn.
“You should hold it over yourself as well,” she said, carefully stepping over puddles. The hem of her dress was getting wet, even as she tried to lift it off the ground with her hands.
“I am,” he lied. But he didn’t mind getting wet. His hat would resist the rain far better than her bonnet, in any case.
The posting inn wasn’t much farther, but when they arrived, the rain was coming down with a bit more vigor, so Daniel suggested once again that they wait for the rain to let up. “The food is rather good here,” he told her. “No kippers this time of day, but I’m sure we can find something to your liking.”
She chuckled, and to his great surprise, she said, “I am a bit hungry.”
He glanced at the sky. “I don’t think you’ll be home by teatime.”
“It’s all right. I can’t imagine anyone would expect me to walk home in this.”
“I shall be completely honest,” he told her. “They were deep in discussions about the upcoming wedding. I sincerely doubt anyone has even noticed you’re gone.”
She smiled as they headed inside to the dining room. “That is how it should be. Your sister should have the wedding of her dreams.”
And what of your dreams?
The question traveled to the tip of his tongue, but he held it back. It would make her uncomfortable and ruin the lovely, easy camaraderie that had settled upon them.
And he doubted she would answer.
He was growing to treasure each tiny drop of her past that slipped by her lips. The colors of her parents’ eyes, the fact that she had a sister, and both loved to fish . . . These were the little things she revealed, and whether she did so by accident or on purpose, he couldn’t be sure.
But he wanted more. When he looked in her eyes, he wanted to understand everything, every moment that had brought her to this moment. He didn’t want to call it obsession—that seemed far too dark for what he felt.
A mad infatuation, that’s what it was. A strange and giddy flight of fancy. Surely he wasn’t the first man to have been so quickly enchanted by a beautiful woman.
But as they settled into their seats in the inn’s busy dining room, he looked at her across the table and it wasn’t her beauty he saw. It was her heart. And her soul. And he had a sinking feeling that his life was never going to be the same.