The following morning, before any female member of his family could put a stop to what Daniel knew was improper behavior, he strode down the hall and rapped sharply on the door to the blue guest bedroom. He was already dressed for traveling; he planned to leave for London within the hour.
There was no sound from within the chamber, so Daniel knocked again. This time he heard a bit of rustling, followed by a groggy “Enter.”
He did, shutting the door behind him just in time to hear Anne gasp, “My lord!”
“I need to speak with you,” he said succinctly.
She nodded, scrambling to pull her covers up to her chin, which he frankly thought was ridiculous, given the thoroughly unappealing sack she appeared to have put on in lieu of a nightgown.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, blinking furiously.
Without preamble, he said, “I’m leaving for London this morning.”
She didn’t say anything.
“I’m sure you know by now that the harness was cut.”
She nodded.
“It was Lord Ramsgate,” he said. “One of his men. Probably the one I went out to investigate. The one I told you was a drunkard.”
“You said he wreaked havoc from the stables to the inn,” she whispered.
“Indeed,” he said, every muscle in his body straining to keep himself perfectly still as he spoke. If he moved, if he let down his guard for even one moment, he did not know what would happen. He might scream. He might beat the walls. All he knew was that something furious was building within him, and every time he thought it was done, that his rage could not possibly expand further, something inside seemed to pop and crackle. His skin grew too tight, and the anger, the fury—it fought to break free.
Hotter. Blacker. Squeezing at his very soul.
“Lord Winstead?” she said quietly, and he could not imagine what sliver of rage had shown on his face, because her eyes had grown wide and alarmed. And then, in the barest of whispers: “Daniel?”
It was the first time she had said his name.
He swallowed, clenching his teeth together as he fought for control. “This would not be the first time he has tried to kill me,” he finally said. “But it is the first time he has very nearly killed someone else in the attempt.”
He watched her closely. She was still clutching the covers under her chin, her fingers wrapped over the edge. Her mouth moved, as if she wanted to say something. He waited.
She did not speak.
He remained still, his body straight, his hands clasped behind his back. There was something so unbearably formal about the tableau, despite the fact that Anne was in bed, her hair mussed with sleep, a single thick braid resting on her right shoulder.
They did not usually speak with such stiffness. Perhaps they should have done, perhaps that would have saved him from such infatuation, which would have saved her from being in his company on the day Ramsgate had chosen to make his move.
It would have been better for her if they had never met, clearly.
“What will you do?” she finally asked.
“When I find him?”
She gave a small nod.
“I don’t know. If he’s lucky I won’t strangle him on sight. He was probably behind the attack in London, too. The one we all thought was just bad luck, a couple of petty thieves out for a heavy purse.”
“It might have been,” she said. “You can’t know. People are robbed all the time in London. It’s—”
“Are you defending him?” he asked incredulously.
“No! Of course not. It’s just that . . . Well . . .” She swallowed, the convulsive movement rippling down her throat. When she spoke again her voice was quite small. “You don’t have all of the information.”
For a moment he just stared at her, not trusting himself to speak. “I spent the last three years running from his men in Europe,” he finally said. “Did you know that? No? Well, I did. And I’m sick of it. If he wanted revenge on me, he has surely wrought it. Three years of my life, stolen. Do you have any idea what that’s like? To have three years of your life ripped from you?”
Her lips parted, and for a moment he thought she might actually say yes. She looked dazed, almost hypnotized, and then finally she said, “I’m sorry. Go on.”
“I will speak to his son first. I can trust Lord Hugh. Or at least I always thought I could.” Daniel closed his eyes for a moment and simply breathed, trying to keep hold of an equilibrium that would not stay still. “I don’t know whom I can trust any longer.”
“You can—” She stopped. Swallowed. Had she been about to say that he could trust her? He looked at her closely, but she had turned away, her eyes focused on the nearby window. The curtains were drawn, but she was still staring at it as if there were something to see. “I wish you the safest of journeys,” she whispered.
“You’re angry with me,” he said.
Her head whipped around to face him. “No. No, of course not. I would never—”
“You would not have been injured had you not been in my curricle,” he cut in. He would never forgive himself for the injuries he had caused her. He needed her to know that. “It is my fault that you—”
“No!” she cried out, and she jumped from the bed, rushing toward him but then stopping abruptly. “No, that’s not true. I— I just— No,” she said, so firmly that her chin bobbed in sharp punctuation. “It’s not true.”
He stared at her. She was almost within his reach. If he leaned forward, if he stretched out his arm, he could take hold of her sleeve. He could pull her to him, and together they would melt, he into her, she into him, until they would not know where one ended and the other began.
“It’s not your fault,” she said with quiet force.
“I am the one upon whom Lord Ramsgate wishes revenge,” he reminded her softly.
“We are not—” She looked away, but not before she wiped one of her eyes with the back of her hand. “We are not responsible for the actions of others,” she said. Her voice shook with emotion, and her gaze did not meet his. “Especially not those of a madman,” she finished.
“No,” he said, his voice a strange staccato in the soft morning air. “But we do bear responsibility for those around us. Harriet, Elizabeth, and Frances—would you not have me keep them safe?”
“No,” she said, her brow coming together in distress. “That’s not what I meant. You know it wasn’t—”
“I am responsible for every person on this land,” he cut in. “For you, too, while you are here. And as long as I know that someone wishes me ill, it is my charge and obligation to make sure that I do not carry a single other person into my danger.”
She stared at him with wide, unblinking eyes, and Daniel wondered what she saw. Who she saw. The words coming from his mouth were unfamiliar. He sounded like his father, and his grandfather before him. Was this what it meant to have inherited an ancient title, to have been entrusted with the lives and livelihoods of all who resided on his land? He had been made the earl so young, and then been forced to leave England but a year later.
This was what it meant, he finally realized. This was what it all meant.
“I will not see you hurt,” he said, his voice so low it almost shook.
She closed her eyes, but then the skin at her temples wrinkled and tensed, almost as if she was in pain.
“Anne,” he said, stepping forward.
But she shook her head, almost violently, and an awful choking sob burst from her throat.
It nearly tore him in two.
“What is it?” he said, crossing the distance between them. He put his hands on her upper arms, maybe to support her . . . maybe to support himself. And then he had to stop, to simply breathe. The urge to hold her closer was overwhelming. When he’d come into her room this morning he had told himself he would not touch her, he would not come close enough to feel the way the air moved across her skin. But this—he could not bear it.
“No,” she said, her body twisting, but not enough to make him think she meant it. “Please. Go. Just go.”
“Not until you tell—”
“I can’t,” she cried out, and then she did shake him off, stepping back until they were once again separated by the chill air of the morning. “I can’t tell you what you want to hear. I can’t be with you, and I can’t even see you again. Do you understand?”
He did not answer. Because he did understand what she was saying. But he did not agree with it.
She swallowed and her hands came to cover her face, rubbing and stretching across her skin with such anguish that he almost reached out to stop her. “I can’t be with you,” she said, the words coming out with such suddenness and force that he wondered just whom she was trying to convince. “I am not . . . the person . . .”
She looked away.
“I am not a suitable woman for you,” she said to the window. “I am not of your station, and I am not—”
He waited. She’d almost said something else. He was sure of it.
But when she spoke, her voice had changed tenor, and she sounded too deliberate. “You will ruin me,” she said. “You won’t mean to, but you will, and I will lose my position and all I hold dear.”
She looked him in the eye as she said that, and he nearly flinched at the emptiness he saw in her face.
“Anne,” he said, “I will protect you.”
“I don’t want your protection,” she cried. “Don’t you understand? I have learned how to care for myself, to keep myself—” She stopped, then finished with: “I can’t be responsible for you, too.”
“You don’t have to be,” he answered, trying to make sense of her words.
She turned away. “You don’t understand.”
“No,” he said harshly. “No, I don’t.” How could he? She kept secrets, held them to her chest like tiny treasures, leaving him to beg for her memories like some damned dog.
“Daniel . . . ,” she said softly, and there it was again. His name, and it was like he’d never heard it before. Because when she spoke, he felt every sound like a caress. Every syllable landed on his skin like a kiss.
“Anne,” he said, and he didn’t even recognize his voice. It was rough, and hoarse with need, and laced with desire, and . . . and . . .
And then, before he had a clue what he was about, he pulled her roughly into his arms and was kissing her like she was water, air, his very salvation. He needed her with a desperation that would have shaken him to his core if he’d let himself think about it.
But he wasn’t thinking. Not right now. He was tired of thinking, tired of worrying. He wanted just to feel. He wanted to let passion rule his senses, and his senses rule his body.
He wanted her to want him the very same way.
“Anne, Anne,” he gasped, his hands frantically tugging against the awful wool of her nightgown. “What you do to me—”
She cut him off, not with words but with her body, pressing it against his with an urgency that matched his own. Her hands were on his shirt, tearing at the front, pulling it open until he felt her on his skin.
It was more than he could bear.
With a guttural moan, he half-lifted, half-turned her until they went tumbling to the bed, and finally he had her exactly where he’d wanted her for what felt like a lifetime. Under him, her legs softly cradling him.
“I want you,” he said, even though it could hardly have been in doubt. “I want you now, in every way a man can want a woman.”
His words were coarse, but he liked them that way. This wasn’t romance, this was pure need. She’d almost died. He might die tomorrow. And if that happened, if the end came and he hadn’t tasted paradise first . . .
He nearly ripped her nightgown from her body.
And then . . . he stopped.
He stopped to breathe, to simply look at her and revel in the glorious perfection of her body. Her breasts rose and fell with each breath, and with a trembling hand, he reached out and cupped one, nearly shuddering with pleasure from just that simple touch.
“You are so beautiful,” he whispered. She must have heard those words before, thousands of times, but he wanted her to hear them from him. “You are so . . .”
But he didn’t finish, because she was so much more than her beauty. And there was no way he could say it all, no way he could put into words all the reasons his breath quickened every time he saw her.
Her hands rose to cover some of her nakedness, and she blushed, reminding him that this must be new to her. It was new to him, too. He’d made love to women before, probably more than he wanted to admit to, but this was the first time . . . she was the first one . . .
It had never been like this. He couldn’t explain the difference, but it had never been like this.
“Kiss me,” she whispered, “please.”
He did, yanking his shirt over his head right before he settled his body atop hers, skin to glorious skin. He kissed her deeply, then he kissed her neck, and the hollow of her collarbone, and then finally, with a pleasure that tightened every muscle in his body, he kissed her breast. She let out a soft squeal and arched underneath him, which he took as an invitation to move to the other side, kissing and sucking and nipping until he thought he might lose control right then and there.
Dear God, she hadn’t even touched him. He still had his breeches fully fastened, and he’d almost lost himself. That hadn’t even happened when he was a green boy.
He had to get inside her. He had to get inside her now. It went beyond desire. It went beyond need. It was primal, an urge that rose from deep within him, as if to say that his very life depended on making love to this woman. If that was mad, then he was mad.
For her. He was mad for her, and he had a feeling it was never going to go away.
“Anne,” he moaned, pausing for a moment to try to gain his breath. His face rested lightly on the tender skin of her belly, and he inhaled the scent of her even as he fought for control of his body. “Anne, I need you.” He looked up. “Now. Do you understand?”
He rose to his knees, and his hands went to his breeches, and then she said . . .
“No.”
His hands stilled. No, she didn’t understand? No, not now? Or no, not—
“I can’t,” she whispered, and she tugged at the sheet in a desperate attempt to cover herself.
Dear God, not that no.
“I’m sorry,” she said with an agonized gasp. “I’m so sorry. Oh, my God, I’m so sorry.” With frenetic motions she lurched from the bed, trying to pull the sheet along with her. But Daniel was still pinning it down, and she stumbled, then found herself jerked backward toward the bed. Still, she held on, tugging and pulling and over and over again saying, “I’m sorry.”
Daniel just tried to breathe, great big gulps of air that he prayed would ease what was now a painful erection. He was so far gone he couldn’t even think straight, let alone put together a sentence.
“I shouldn’t have,” she said, still trying to cover herself with the damned bedsheet. She couldn’t get away from the side of the bed, not if she wanted to keep herself covered. He could reach out for her; his arms were long enough. He could wrap his hands around her shoulders and pull her back, tempt her back into his arms. He could make her writhe and squirm with pleasure until she couldn’t remember her own name. He knew how to do it.
And yet he didn’t move. He was a bloody stupid statue, up there on the four-poster bed, on his knees with his hands clutching at the fastening of his breeches.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, for what had to be the fiftieth time. “I’m sorry, I just . . . I can’t. It’s the only thing I have. Do you understand? It’s the only thing I have.”
Her virginity.
He hadn’t even given it a thought. What kind of man was he? “I’m sorry,” he said, and then he almost laughed at the absurdity of it. It was a symphony of apologies, uncomfortable and utterly discordant.
“No, no,” she returned, her head still shaking back and forth, “I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have let you, and I shouldn’t have let myself. I know better. I know better.”
So did he.
With a muttered curse he got down from the bed, forgetting that he’d been pinning her in place with the sheet. She went stumbling and twirling, tripping over her own feet until she landed in a nearby wingback chair, wrapped up like a clumsy Roman, toga askew.
It would have been funny if he hadn’t been so bloody close to exploding.
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
“Stop saying that,” he practically begged her. His voice was laced with exasperation—no, make that desperation—and she must have heard it, too, for she clamped her mouth shut, swallowing nervously as she watched him pull on his shirt.
“I have to leave for London, anyway,” he said, not that that would have stopped him if she hadn’t done so.
She nodded.
“We will discuss this later,” he said firmly. He had no idea what he’d say, but they would talk about it. Just not right now, with the entire house waking up around him.
The entire house. Good God, he really had lost his head. In his determination to show Anne honor and respect the night before, he’d ordered the maids to put her in the finest guest bedroom, on the same hall as the rest of the family. Anyone could have walked through the door. His mother could have seen them. Or worse, one of his young cousins. He couldn’t imagine what they would have thought he was doing. At least his mother would have known he wasn’t killing the governess.
Anne nodded again, but she wasn’t quite looking at him. Some little part of him thought this was curious, but then some other, larger part of him promptly forgot about it. He was far too concerned with the painful results of unfulfilled desire to think about the fact that she wouldn’t look him in the eye when she nodded.
“I will call upon you when you arrive in town,” he said.
She said something in return, so softly that he couldn’t make out the words.
“What was that?”
“I said—” She cleared her throat. Then she did it again. “I said that I don’t think that’s wise.”
He looked at her. Hard. “Would you have me pretend to visit my cousins again?”
“No. I— I would—” She turned away, but he saw her eyes flash with anguish, and maybe anger, and then, finally, resignation. When she looked back up, she met his gaze directly, but the spark in her expression, the one that so often drew him to her . . . It seemed to have gone out.
“I would prefer,” she said, her voice so carefully even it was almost a monotone, “that you not call at all.”
He crossed his arms. “Is that so?”
“Yes.”
He fought for a moment—against himself. Finally he asked, somewhat belligerently, “Because of this?”
His eyes fell to her shoulder, where the sheet had slipped, revealing a tiny patch of skin, rosy pink and supple in the morning light. It was barely an inch square, but in that moment he wanted it so badly he could barely speak.
He wanted her.
She looked at him, at his eyes, so firmly fixed to one spot, then down at her bare shoulder. With a little gasp she yanked the sheet back up.
“I—” She swallowed, perhaps summoning her courage, then continued. “I would not lie to you and say that I did not want this.”
“Me,” he cut in peevishly. “You wanted me.”
She closed her eyes. “Yes,” she finally said, “I wanted you.”
Part of him wanted to interrupt again, to remind her that she still wanted him, that it wasn’t and would never be in the past.
“But I can’t have you,” she said quietly, “and because of that, you can’t have me.”
And then, to his complete astonishment, he asked, “What if I married you?”
Anne stared at him in shock. Then she stared at him in horror, because he looked just as surprised as she felt, and she was fairly certain that if he could have taken back the words, he would have done.
With haste.
But his question—she couldn’t possibly think of it as a proposal—hung in the air, and they both stared at each other, unmoving, until finally her feet seemed to recognize that this was not a laughing matter, and she leapt up, skittering backward until she had managed to put the wingback chair between them.
“You can’t,” she blurted out.
Which seemed to rouse that masculine don’t-you-tell-me-what-to-do reaction. “Why not?” he demanded.
“You just can’t,” she shot back, tugging at the sheet, which had snagged on the corner of the chair. “You should know that. For heaven’s sake, you’re an earl. You can’t marry a nobody.” Especially not a nobody with a falsified name.
“I can marry anyone I damn well please.”
Oh, for heaven’s sake. Now he looked like a three-year-old who’d had his toy snatched away. Didn’t he understand that she couldn’t do this? He might delude himself, but she would never be so naïve. Especially after her conversation with Lady Pleinsworth the night before.
“You’re being foolish,” she told him, yanking at the damned sheet again. Dear God, was it too much just to want to be free? “And impractical. And furthermore, you don’t even want to marry me, you just want to get me into your bed.”
He drew back, visibly angered by her statement. But he did not contradict.
She let out an impatient breath. She hadn’t meant to insult him, and he should have realized that. “I do not think that you meant to seduce and abandon,” she said, because no matter how furious he made her, she could not bear his believing that she thought him a scoundrel. “I know that sort of man, and you are not he. But you hardly intended to propose marriage, and I certainly will not hold you to it.”
His eyes narrowed, but not before she saw them glint dangerously. “When did you come to know my mind better than I do?”
“When you stopped thinking.” She pulled at the sheet again, this time with such violence that the chair lurched forward and nearly toppled. And Anne very nearly found herself naked. “Aaargh!” she let out, so frustrated she wanted to punch something. Looking up, she saw Daniel standing there, just watching her, and she nearly screamed, she was so bloody angry. At him, at George Chervil, at the damned damned sheet that kept tangling her legs. “Will you just go?” she snapped. “Now, before someone comes in.”
He smiled then, but it wasn’t anything like the smiles she knew of him. It was cold, and it was mocking, and the sight of it on his face tore through her heart. “What would happen then?” he murmured. “You, dressed in nothing but a sheet. Me, rather rumpled.”
“No one would insist upon marriage,” she snapped. “That much I can tell you. You’d go back to your merry life, and I would be cast out without a reference.”
He stared at her sourly. “I suppose you’re going to say that that was my plan all along. To bankrupt you until you had no choice but to become my mistress.”
“No,” she said curtly, because she could not lie to him, not about this. And then, in a softer voice, she added, “I would never think that of you.”
He fell silent, his eyes watching her intently. He was hurting, she could see that. He hadn’t proposed marriage, not really, but still she’d somehow managed to reject him. And she hated that he was in pain. She hated the look on his face, and she hated the stiff way his arms were held at his sides, and most of all she hated that nothing was ever going to be the same. They would not talk. They would not laugh.
They would not kiss.
Why had she stopped him? She’d been in his arms, skin to skin, and she’d wanted him. She’d wanted him with a fire she’d never dreamed possible. She’d wanted to take him into her, and she’d wanted to love him with her body as she already loved him with her heart.
She loved him.
Dear God.
“Anne?”
She didn’t respond.
Daniel’s brow knit with concern. “Anne, are you all right? You’ve gone pale.”
She wasn’t all right. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be all right again.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“Anne . . .” Now he looked worried, and he was walking toward her, and if he touched her, if he so much as reached for her, she’d lose her resolve.
“No,” she practically barked, hating the way her voice came from deep in her throat. It hurt. The word hurt. It hurt her neck, and it hurt her ears, and it hurt him, too.
But she had to do it.
“Please don’t,” she said. “I need you to leave me alone. This. . . . This . . .” She fought for a word; she couldn’t bear to call it a thing. “This feeling between us . . .” she finally settled upon. “Nothing can come of it. You must realize that. And if you care for me at all, you will leave.”
But he did not move.
“You will leave now,” she practically cried, and she sounded like a wounded animal. Which was what she was, she supposed.
For several seconds more he stood frozen, and then finally, in a voice as low as it was determined, he said, “I am leaving, but not for any of the reasons you request. I am going to London to settle the issue with Ramsgate, and then—and then,” he said with greater force, “we will talk.”
Silently, she shook her head. She could not do this again. It was too painful to listen to him spin stories about happy endings that would never be hers.
He strode to the door. “We will talk,” he said again.
It wasn’t until after he’d left that Anne whispered, “No. We won’t.”