London
One week later
She was back.
Daniel had heard it from his sister, who had heard it from his mother, who had heard it directly from his aunt.
A more efficient chain of communication he could not imagine.
He hadn’t really expected the Pleinsworths to remain at Whipple Hill for quite so long after he left. Or perhaps more to the point, he hadn’t given any thought to the matter, not until several days had passed and they’d still remained in the country.
But as it turned out, it was probably for the best that they (and by they, he really meant Anne) had stayed out of town. It had been a busy week—busy and frustrating, and the knowledge of Miss Wynter’s presence within walking distance would have been a distraction he could not afford.
He had talked to Hugh. Again. And Hugh had talked to his father. Again. And when Hugh had returned, reporting back to Daniel that he still did not think that his father had been involved in the recent attacks, Daniel had flown off the handle. Hugh had done what Daniel should have insisted upon weeks earlier.
He took him to speak with Lord Ramsgate directly.
And now Daniel was at a complete loss, because he, too, did not think that Lord Ramsgate had tried to kill him. Maybe he was a fool, maybe he just wanted to believe that this horrific chapter of his life was finally over, but the fury just hadn’t been in Ramsgate’s eyes. Not like the last time they’d met, right after Hugh had been shot.
Plus there was the new development of Hugh’s threatened suicide. Daniel was not sure if his friend was brilliant or mad, but either way, when he reiterated his vow to kill himself if anything untoward happened to Daniel, it had been chilling. Lord Ramsgate was visibly shaken, even though it was hardly the first time he’d heard his son make the threat. Even Daniel had felt ill, being witness to such an unholy promise.
And he believed him. The look in Hugh’s eyes . . . The icy, almost expressionless way he’d delivered the statement . . . It was terrifying.
All this meant that when Lord Ramsgate had practically spat at Daniel, vowing that he would do him no harm, Daniel believed him.
That had been two days earlier, two days during which Daniel had had little to do but think. About who else might wish to see him dead. About what Anne could possibly have meant when she’d said that she couldn’t be responsible for him. About the secrets she was hiding, and why she’d said he didn’t have all the information.
What in bloody hell had she meant by that?
Could the attack have been directed toward her? It wasn’t inconceivable that someone might have realized she’d be riding home in his curricle. They’d certainly been inside the inn long enough for someone to sabotage the harness.
He thought back to the day she’d run into Hoby’s, wild-eyed and terrified. She’d said there was someone she did not wish to see.
Who?
And didn’t she realize that he could help her? He might be recently returned from exile, but he had position, and with that came power, certainly enough to keep her safe. Yes, he had been on the run for three years, but he’d been up against the Marquess of Ramsgate.
Daniel was the Earl of Winstead; there were only so many men who outranked him. A handful of dukes, a few more marquesses, and the royals. Surely Anne had not managed to make an enemy among that exalted population.
But when he had marched up the steps of Pleinsworth House to demand an interview, he had been informed that she was not at home.
And when he had repeated the request the following morning, he was met with the same answer.
Now, several hours later, he was back, and this time his aunt came in person to deliver the refusal.
“You must leave that poor girl alone,” she said sharply.
Daniel was not in the mood to be lectured by his aunt Charlotte, so he cut straight to the point. “I need to speak with her.”
“Well, she is not here.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Aunt, I know she’s—”
“I fully admit that she was upstairs when you called this morning,” Lady Pleinsworth cut in. “Fortunately, Miss Wynter has the sense to cut off this flirtation, even if you do not. But she is not here now.”
“Aunt Charlotte . . .” he warned.
“She’s not!” Her chin lifted ever so slightly in the air. “It is her afternoon free. She always goes out on her afternoon free.”
“Always?”
“As far as I know.” His aunt flicked her hand impatiently through the air. “She has errands, and . . . And whatever it is she does.”
Whatever it is she does. What a statement.
“Very well,” Daniel said in a curt voice. “I shall wait for her.”
“Oh, no, you won’t.”
“You’re going to bar me from your sitting room,” he said, giving her a look of mild disbelief.
She crossed her arms. “If I must.”
He crossed his. “I am your nephew.”
“And amazingly enough, the connection does not seem to have imbued you with common sense.”
He stared at her.
“That was an insult,” she mentioned, “in case you’re having difficulty sorting it out.”
Good God.
“If you have any care for Miss Wynter,” Lady Pleinsworth continued imperiously, “you will leave her in peace. She is a sensible lady, and I keep her in my employ because I am fully certain that it is you who have pursued her and not the other way around.”
“Did you talk with her about me?” Daniel demanded. “Did you threaten her?”
“Of course not,” his aunt snapped, but she looked away for a split second, and Daniel knew she was lying. “As if I would threaten her,” she continued in a huff. “And furthermore, she’s not the one who needs a talking to. She knows how the world works, even if you do not. What happened at Whipple Hill can be overlooked—”
“What happened?” Daniel echoed, panic rising within him as he wondered to what, precisely, his aunt was referring. Had someone found out about his visit to Anne’s bedroom? No, that was impossible. Anne would have been thrown out of the house if that had been the case.
“Your time spent alone with her,” Lady Pleinsworth clarified. “Don’t think I was unaware. As much as I would like to believe that you have suddenly taken an interest in Harriet, Elizabeth, and Frances, any fool could see that you’ve been panting after Miss Wynter like a puppy dog.”
“Another insult, I assume,” he bit off.
She pursed her lips but otherwise ignored his comment. “I do not want to have to let her go,” she said, “but if you pursue the connection, I will have no choice. And you can be sure that no family of good standing would hire a governess who consorts with an earl.”
“Consorts?” he repeated, his voice somewhere between disbelief and disgust. “Don’t insult her with such a word.”
His aunt drew back and regarded him with mild pity. “It is not I who insults her. In fact, I applaud Miss Wynter for possessing good judgment where you do not. I was warned not to hire such an attractive young woman as a governess, but despite her looks she is extremely intelligent. And the girls quite adore her. Would you have me discriminate against her for her beauty?”
“No,” he bit off, ready to climb the walls with frustration. “And what the devil has that to do with anything? I just want to speak with her.” His voice rose at the end, coming dangerously close to a roar.
Lady Pleinsworth leveled a long stare at his face. “No,” she said.
Daniel practically bit his tongue to keep from snapping at her. The only way his aunt was going to let him see Anne was if he told her that he suspected that she had been the target of the attack at Whipple Hill. But anything that hinted at a scandalous past would have her fired immediately, and he would not be the cause of her loss of employment.
Finally, his patience worn down to a threadbare string, he let out a between-the-teeth exhale and said, “I need to speak with her once. One time only. It may be in your sitting room with the door ajar, but I would insist upon privacy.”
His aunt regarded him suspiciously. “Once?”
“Once.” It was not strictly true; he wished for a great deal more than that, but that was all he was going to request.
“I shall think about it,” she sniffed.
“Aunt Charlotte!”
“Oh, very well, just once, and only because I wish to believe that your mother raised a son who has some sense of right and wrong.”
“Oh, for the love of—”
“Don’t blaspheme in front of me,” she warned, “and make me reconsider my judgment.”
Daniel clamped his mouth shut, gritting his teeth so hard he fully expected to taste powder.
“You may call upon her tomorrow,” Lady Pleinsworth granted. “At eleven in the morning. The girls plan to go shopping with Sarah and Honoria. I would prefer not to have them in the house while you are . . .” She appeared not to know how to describe it, instead flicking her hand distastefully in the air.
He nodded, then bowed, then left.
But like his aunt, he did not see Anne, watching them from a crack in the door to the next room, listening to every word they said.
Anne waited until Daniel stormed out of the house, then looked down at the letter in her hands. Lady Pleinsworth hadn’t been lying; she had gone out to run her errands. But she’d returned through the back door, as was her usual practice when she did not have the girls with her. She’d been on her way up to her room when she realized that Daniel was in the front hall. She shouldn’t have eavesdropped, but she could not help herself. It wasn’t so much what he said; she just wanted to hear his voice.
It would be the last time she would hear it.
The letter was from her sister Charlotte, and it was a bit out of date, as it had been sitting at the receiving house where Anne preferred to pick up her mail since well before she had left for Whipple Hill. The receiving house she hadn’t gone to that day she’d run into the bootmaker’s shop in a panic. If she’d had this letter before she’d thought she’d seen George Chervil, she wouldn’t have been frightened.
She’d have been terrified.
According to Charlotte, he’d come by the house again, this time when Mr. and Mrs. Shawcross were out. He’d first tried to cajole her into revealing Anne’s whereabouts, then he’d ranted and screamed until the servants had come in, worried for Charlotte’s safety. He’d left then, but not until he had revealed that he knew Anne was working as a governess for an aristocratic family, and that this being springtime, she was likely in London. Charlotte did not think he knew which family Anne was working for; else why would he have expended so much energy trying to get the answer from her? Still, she was worried, and she begged Anne to take caution.
Anne crumpled the letter in her hands, then eyed the tidy fire burning in the grate. She always burned Charlotte’s letters after she received them. It was painful every time; these wispy slips of paper were her only link to her old life, and more than once she had sat at her small writing table, blinking back tears as she traced the familiar loops of Charlotte’s script with her index finger. But Anne had no illusions that she enjoyed perfect privacy as a servant, and she had no idea how she might explain them if they were ever discovered. This time, however, she happily threw the paper into the fire.
Well, not happily. She wasn’t sure she would do anything happily, ever again. But she enjoyed destroying it, however grim and furious that joy might be.
She shut her eyes, keeping them tightly closed against her tears. She was almost certainly going to have to leave the Pleinsworths. And she was bloody angry about it. This was the best position she’d ever had. She was not trapped on an island with an aging old lady, caught in a endless circle of endless boredom. She was not bolting her door at night against a crude old man who seemed to think he should be educating her while his children slept. She liked living with the Pleinsworths. It was the closest she’d ever felt to home, since . . . since . . .
Since she’d had a home.
She forced herself to breathe, then roughly wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. But then, just as she was about to head into the main hall and up the stairs, a knock sounded at the door. It was probably Daniel; he must have forgot something.
She darted back into the sitting room, pulling the door almost shut. She ought to close it completely, she knew that, but this might very well be her last glimpse of him. With her eye to the crack, she watched as the butler went to answer the knock. But as Granby swung the door open, she saw not Daniel but a man she’d never seen before.
He was a rather ordinary-looking fellow, dressed in clothing that marked him as someone who worked for a living. Not a laborer; he was too clean and tidy for that. But there was something rough about him, and when he spoke, his accent held the harsh cadence of East London.
“Deliveries are in the rear,” Granby said immediately.
“I’m not here to make a delivery,” the man said with a nod. His accent might be coarse but his manners were polite, and the butler did not close the door on his face.
“What, then, is your business?”
“I’m looking for a woman who might live here. Miss Annelise Shawcross.”
Anne stopped breathing.
“There is no one here by that name,” Granby said crisply. “If you will excuse me—”
“She might call herself something else,” the man cut in. “I’m not sure what name she’s using, but she has dark hair, blue eyes, and I’m told she is quite beautiful.” He shrugged. “I’ve never seen her myself. She could be working as a servant. But she’s gentry, make no mistake of it.”
Anne’s body tensed for flight. There was no way Granby would not recognize her from that description.
But Granby said, “That does not sound like anyone in this household. Good day, sir.”
The man’s face tightened with determination, and he shoved his foot in the door before Granby could close it. “If you change your mind, sir,” he said, holding something forth, “here is my card.”
Granby’s arms remained stiffly at his sides. “It is hardly a matter of changing my mind.”
“If that’s what you say.” The man placed the card back in his breast pocket, waited for one more moment, then left the house.
Anne placed her hand over her heart and tried to take deep, silent breaths. If she’d had any doubts that the attack at Whipple Hill had been the work of George Chervil, they were gone now. And if he was willing to risk the life of the Earl of Winstead to carry out his revenge, he wouldn’t think twice about harming one of the young Pleinsworth daughters.
Anne had ruined her own life when she’d let him seduce her at sixteen, but she would be damned before she allowed him to destroy anyone else. She was going to have to disappear. Immediately. George knew where she was, and he knew who she was.
But she could not leave the sitting room until Granby exited the hall, and he was just standing there, frozen in position with his hand on the doorknob. Then he turned, and when he did . . . Anne should have remembered that he missed nothing. If it had been Daniel at the door, he would not have noticed that the sitting room door was slightly ajar, but Granby? It was like waving a red flag in front of a bull. The door should be open, or it should be shut. But it was never left ajar, with a strip of air one inch wide.
And of course he saw her.
Anne did not pretend to hide. She owed him that much, after what he had just done for her. She opened the door and stepped out into the hall.
Their eyes met, and she waited, breath held, but he only nodded and said, “Miss Wynter.”
She nodded in return, then dipped into a small curtsy of respect. “Mr. Granby.”
“It is a fine day, is it not?”
She swallowed. “Very fine.”
“Your afternoon off, I believe?”
“Indeed, sir.”
He nodded once more, then said, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred, “Carry on.”
Carry on.
Wasn’t that what she always did? For three years on the Isle of Man, never seeing another person her own age except for Mrs. Summerlin’s nephew, who thought it good sport to chase her around the dining table. Then for nine months near Birmingham, only to be dismissed without a reference when Mrs. Barraclough caught Mr. Barraclough pounding on her door. Then three years in Shropshire, which hadn’t been too bad. Her employer was a widow, and her sons had more often than not been off at university. But then the daughters had had the effrontery to grow up, and Anne had been informed that her services were no longer needed.
But she’d carried on. She’d obtained a second letter of reference, which was what she’d needed to gain a position in the Pleinsworth household. And now that she’d be leaving, she’d carry on again.
Although where she’d carry herself to, she had no idea.