She wasn’t surprised.
Why would she be surprised? He had told her he would be here, even when she had said she would not be at home when he called. He had told her he would be there again, even when she’d told him again that she wouldn’t be at home.
Again.
He was the Earl of Winstead. Men of his position did as they pleased. When it came to women, she thought irritably, men below his position did as they pleased.
He was not a malicious man, nor even truly selfish. Anne liked to think she had become a good judge of character over the years, certainly better than she’d been at sixteen. Lord Winstead was not going to seduce anyone who didn’t know what she was doing, and he wasn’t going to ruin or threaten or blackmail or any of those things, at least not on purpose.
If she found her life upended by this man it would not be because he’d meant to do it. It would simply happen because he fancied her and he wanted her to fancy him. And it would never occur to him that he should not allow himself to pursue her.
He was allowed to do anything else. Why not that?
“You should not have come,” she said quietly as they walked to the park, the three Pleinsworth daughters several yards ahead of them.
“I wished to see my cousins,” he replied, all innocence.
She glanced at him sideways. “Then why are you lagging behind with me?”
“Look at them,” he said, motioning with his hand. “Would you have me shove one of them into the street?”
It was true. Harriet, Elizabeth, and Frances were walking three across along the pavement, oldest to youngest, the way their mother liked for them to promenade. Anne could not believe they had chosen this day to finally follow directions.
“How is your eye?” she asked. It looked worse in the harsh light of day, almost as if the bruise was melting across the bridge of his nose. But at least now she knew what color his eyes were—light, bright blue. It was almost absurd how much she had wondered about that.
“It’s not so bad as long as I don’t touch it,” he told her. “If you would endeavor not to throw stones at my face, I would be much obliged.”
“All my plans for the afternoon,” she quipped. “Ruined. Just like that.”
He chuckled, and Anne was assaulted by memory. Not of anything specific, but of herself, and how lovely it had felt to flirt, and laugh, and bask in the regard of a gentleman.
The flirting had been lovely. But not the consequences. She was still paying for those.
“The weather is fine,” she said after a moment.
“Have we already run out of things to say?”
His voice was light and teasing, and when she turned to steal a glance at his face, he was looking straight ahead, a small, secret smile touching his lips.
“The weather is very fine,” she amended.
His smile deepened. So did hers.
“Shall we go to The Serpentine?” Harriet called out from up ahead.
“Anywhere you wish,” Daniel said indulgently.
“Rotten Row,” Anne corrected. When he looked at her with raised brows, she said, “I am still in charge of them, am I not?”
He saluted her with a nod, then called out, “Anywhere Miss Wynter wishes.”
“We’re not doing maths again?” Harriet lamented.
Lord Winstead looked at Anne with unconcealed curiosity. “Mathematics? On Rotten Row?”
“We have been studying measurement,” she informed him. “They have already measured the average length of their strides. Now they will count their steps and compute the length of the path.”
“Very nice,” he said approvingly. “And it keeps them busy and quiet as they count.”
“You have not heard them count,” Anne told him.
He turned to her with some alarm. “Don’t say they don’t know how?”
“Of course not.” She smiled; she could not help herself. He looked so ridiculous with his one surprised eye. The other was still too swollen to register much of any emotion. “Your cousins do everything with great flair,” she told him. “Even counting.”
He considered this. “So what you are saying is, in five or so years, when the Pleinsworths have taken over the Smythe-Smith quartet, I should endeavor to be far, far away?”
“I should never say such a thing,” she replied. “But I will tell you this: Frances has elected to break with tradition and has taken up the contrabassoon.”
He winced.
“Indeed.”
And then they laughed, the both of them. Together.
It was a marvelous sound.
“Oh, girls!” Anne called out, because she could not resist. “Lord Winstead is going to join you.”
“I am?”
“He is,” Anne confirmed, as the girls came trotting back. “He told me himself that he is most interested in your studies.”
“Liar,” he murmured.
She ignored the gibe, but when she allowed herself a smirky half smile, she made sure the upturned side of her mouth was facing him. “Here is what we shall do,” she said. “You shall measure the length of the path as we discussed, multiplying the number of your strides times the length.”
“But Cousin Daniel doesn’t know the length of his stride.”
“Precisely. That is what makes the lesson so much better. Once you have determined the length of the path, you must work backwards to determine the length of his stride.”
“In our heads?”
She might as well have said they must learn to wrestle an octopus. “It is the only way to learn how to do it,” she told them.
“I have great love for pen and ink myself,” Lord Winstead remarked.
“Don’t listen to him, girls. It is extremely useful to be able to do sums and tables in your head. Just think of the applications.”
They just stared at her, all four of them. Applications, apparently, were not jumping to mind.
“Shopping,” Anne said, hoping to appeal to the girls. “Mathematics is of tremendous help when one goes shopping. You’re not going to carry pen and paper with you when you go to the milliner’s, are you?”
Still, they stared. Anne had a feeling they had never so much as inquired about price at the milliner’s, or any establishment, for that matter.
“What about games?” she tried. “If you sharpen your arithmetic skills, there is no telling what you can achieve in a game of cards.”
“You have no idea,” Lord Winstead murmured.
“I don’t think our mother wants you to teach us how to gamble,” Elizabeth said.
Anne could hear the earl chortling with amusement beside her.
“How do you intend to verify our results?” Harriet wanted to know.
“That is a very good question,” Anne replied, “and one that I will answer tomorrow.” She paused for precisely one second. “When I have figured out how I am going to do it.”
All three girls tittered, which had been her intention. There was nothing like a little self-deprecating humor to regain control of the conversation.
“I shall have to return for the results,” Lord Winstead remarked.
“There is no need for that,” Anne said quickly. “We can send them over with a footman.”
“Or we could walk,” Frances suggested. She turned to Lord Winstead with hopeful eyes. “It’s not very far to Winstead House, and Miss Wynter does love to make us take walks.”
“Walking is healthful for the body and mind,” Anne said primly.
“But far more enjoyable when one has company,” Lord Winstead said.
Anne took a breath—the better to hold back a retort—and turned to the girls. “Let us begin,” she said briskly, directing them to the top of the path. “Start over there and then make your way down. I shall wait right there on that bench.”
“You’re not coming?” Frances demanded. She gave Anne the sort of look normally reserved for those found guilty of high treason.
“I wouldn’t want to get in your way,” Anne demurred.
“Oh, but you would not be in the way, Miss Wynter,” said Lord Winstead. “The path is very wide.”
“Nevertheless.”
“Nevertheless?” he echoed.
She gave a crisp nod.
“Hardly a rebuttal worthy of London’s finest governess.”
“A lovely compliment to be sure,” she volleyed, “but unlikely to spur me to battle.”
He stepped toward her, murmuring, “Coward.”
“Hardly,” she returned, managing to respond without even moving her lips. And then, with a bright smile: “Come along, girls, let’s get started. I shall remain here for a moment to help you begin.”
“I don’t need help,” Frances grumbled. “I just need to not have to do it.”
Anne just smiled. She knew that Frances would be boasting of her steps and calculations later that evening.
“You, too, Lord Winstead.” Anne gazed at him with her most benign expression. The girls were already moving forward, unfortunately at differing speeds, which meant that a cacophony of numbers filled the air.
“Oh, but I can’t,” he said. One of his hands fluttered up to rest over his heart.
“Why can’t you?” Harriet asked, at the same moment that Anne said, “Of course you can.”
“I feel dizzy,” he said, and it was such an obvious clanker that Anne could not help but roll her eyes. “It’s true,” he insisted. “I have the . . . oh, what was it that befell poor Sarah . . . the vertigo.”
“It was a stomach ailment,” corrected Harriet, and she took a discreet step back.
“You didn’t seem dizzy before,” Frances said.
“Well, that was because I wasn’t closing my eye.”
That silenced all of them.
And then finally: “I beg your pardon?” From Anne, who really did want to know what closing his eye had to do with anything.
“I always close my eye when I count,” he told her. With a completely straight face.
“You always— Wait a moment,” Anne said suspiciously. “You close one of your eyes when you count?”
“Well, I could hardly close both.”
“Why not?” Frances asked.
“I wouldn’t be able to see,” he said, as if the answer were plain as day.
“You don’t need to be able to see to count,” Frances replied.
“I do.”
He was lying. Anne could not believe the girls weren’t howling in protest. But they weren’t. In fact, Elizabeth looked utterly fascinated. “Which eye?” she asked.
He cleared his throat, and Anne was fairly certain she saw him wink each of his eyes, as if to remember which was the injured party. “The right one,” he finally decided.
“Of course,” Harriet said.
Anne looked at her. “What?”
“Well, he’s right-handed, isn’t he?” Harriet looked to her cousin. “Aren’t you?”
“I am,” he confirmed.
Anne looked from Lord Winstead to Harriet and back again. “And this is relevant because . . . ?”
Lord Winstead gave her a tiny shrug, saved from having to answer by Harriet, who said, “It just is.”
“I’m sure I could take on the challenge next week,” Lord Winstead said, “once my eye has healed. I don’t know why it did not occur to me that I would lose my sense of balance with only the swollen eye to look through.”
Anne’s eyes—both of them—narrowed. “I thought one’s balance was affected by one’s hearing.”
Frances gasped. “Don’t tell me he’s going deaf?”
“He’s not going deaf,” Anne retorted. “Although I might, if you yell like that again. Now, get going, the three of you, and carry on with your work. I’m going to sit down.”
“As am I,” Lord Winstead said jauntily. “But I shall be with you three in spirit.”
The girls went back to their counting, and Anne strode over to the bench. Lord Winstead was right behind her, and as they sat she said, “I can’t believe they believed that nonsense about your eye.”
“Oh, they didn’t believe it,” he said nonchalantly. “I told them earlier I’d give them a pound each if they endeavored to give us a few moments alone.”
“What?” Anne screeched.
He doubled over laughing. “Of course I didn’t. Good heavens, do you think me a complete dunce? No, don’t answer that.”
She shook her head, annoyed with herself for having been such an easy mark. Still, she couldn’t be angry; his laughter was far too good-natured.
“I’m surprised no one has come over to greet you,” she said. The park was not any more crowded than usual for this time of day, but they were hardly the only people out for a stroll. Anne knew that Lord Winstead had been an extremely popular gentleman when he’d lived in London; it was hard to believe that no one had noticed his presence in Hyde Park.
“I don’t think it was common knowledge that I planned to return,” he said. “People see what they expect to see, and no one in the park expects to see me.” He gave her a rueful half grin and glanced up and to the left, as if motioning to his swollen eye. “Especially not in this condition.”
“And not with me,” she added.
“Who are you, I wonder?”
She turned, sharply.
“That’s quite a reaction for so basic a question,” he murmured.
“I am Anne Wynter,” she said evenly. “Governess to your cousins.”
“Anne,” he said softly, and she realized he was savoring her name like a prize. He tilted his head to the side. “Is it Wynter with an i or a y?”
“Y. Why?” And then she couldn’t help but chuckle at what she’d just said.
“No reason,” he replied. “Just my natural curiosity.” He was silent for a bit longer, then said, “It doesn’t suit you.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your name. Wynter. It does not suit you. Even with the y.”
“We are rarely given the choice of our names,” she pointed out.
“True, but still, I have often found it interesting how well some of us are suited to them.”
She could not hide an impish smile. “What, then, does it mean to be a Smythe-Smith?”
He sighed, with perhaps too much drama. “I suppose we were doomed to perform the same musicale over and over and over . . .”
He looked so despondent she had to laugh. “Whatever do you mean by that?”
“It’s a bit repetitive, don’t you think?”
“Smythe-Smith? I think there is something rather friendly about it.”
“Hardly. One would think if a Smythe married a Smith, they might be able to settle their differences and pick a name rather than saddling the rest of us with both.”
Anne chuckled. “How long ago was the name hyphenated?”
“Several hundred years.” He turned, and for a moment she forgot his scrapes and his bruises. She saw only him, watching her as if she were the only woman in the world.
She coughed, using it to mask her tiny motion away from him on the bench. He was dangerous, this man. Even when they were sitting in a public park, talking about nothing of great importance, she felt him.
Something within her had been awakened, and she desperately needed to shut it back away.
“I’ve heard conflicting stories,” he said, seemingly oblivious to her turmoil. “The Smythes had the money and the Smiths had the position. Or the romantic version: The Smythes had the money and the position but the Smiths had the beautiful daughter.”
“With hair of spun gold and eyes of cerulean blue? It sounds rather like an Arthurian legend.”
“Hardly. The beautiful daughter turned out to be a shrew.” He tilted his head to her with a dry grin. “Who did not age well.”
Anne laughed, despite herself. “Why did the family not cast off the name, then, and go back to being Smythes?”
“I have no idea. Perhaps they signed a contract. Or someone thought we sounded more dignified with an extra syllable. At any rate, I don’t even know if the story is true.”
She laughed again, gazing out over the park to watch the girls. Harriet and Elizabeth were bickering over something, probably nothing more than a blade of grass, and Frances was powering on, taking giant steps that were going to ruin her results. Anne knew she should go over to correct her, but it was so pleasant to sit on the bench with the earl.
“Do you like being a governess?” he asked.
“Do I like it?” She looked at him with furrowed brow. “What an odd question.”
“I can’t think of anything less odd, considering your profession.”
Which showed just how much he knew about having a job. “No one asks a governess if she likes being one,” she said. “No one asks that of anyone.”
She’d thought that would be the end of it, but when she glanced back at his face, he was watching her with a true and honest curiosity.
“Have you ever asked a footman if he likes being one?” she pointed out. “Or a maid?”
“A governess is hardly a footman or a maid.”
“We are closer than you think. Paid a wage, living in someone else’s house, always one misstep away from being tossed in the street.” And while he was pondering that, she turned the tables and asked, “Do you like being an earl?”
He thought for a moment. “I have no idea.” At her look of surprise, he added, “I haven’t had much chance to know what it means. I held the title for barely a year before I left England, and I’m ashamed to say I didn’t do much with it during that time. If the earldom is thriving, it is due to my father’s excellent stewardship, and his foresight in appointing several capable managers.”
Still, she persisted. “But you still were the earl. It did not matter what land you stood upon. When you made an acquaintance you said, ‘I am Winstead,’ not ‘I am Mr. Winstead.’ ”
He looked at her frankly. “I made very few acquaintances while I was abroad.”
“Oh.” It was a remarkably odd statement, and she did not know how to respond. He didn’t say anything more, and she did not think she could bear the touch of melancholy that had misted over them, so she said, “I do like being a governess. To them, at least,” she clarified, smiling and waving at the girls.
“I take it this is not your first position,” he surmised.
“No. My third. And I have also served as a companion.” She wasn’t sure why she was telling him all this. It was more of herself than she usually shared. But it wasn’t anything he could not discover by quizzing his aunt. All of her previous positions had been disclosed when Anne had applied to teach the Pleinsworth daughters, even the one that had not ended well. Anne strove for honesty whenever possible, probably because it so often wasn’t possible. And she was most grateful that Lady Pleinsworth had not thought less of her for having departed a position where every day had ended with her having to barricade her door against her students’ father.
Lord Winstead regarded her with an oddly penetrating stare, then finally said, “I still don’t think you’re a Wynter,” he said.
How odd that he seemed so stuck on the idea. Still, she shrugged. “There is not much for me to do about it. Unless I marry.” Which, as they both knew, was an unlikely prospect. Governesses rarely had the opportunity to meet eligible gentlemen of their own station. And Anne did not want to marry, in any case. It was difficult to imagine giving any man complete control over her life and her body.
“Look at that lady, for example,” he said, motioning with his head toward a woman who was disdainfully dodging Frances and Elizabeth as they leapt across the path. “She looks like a Wynter. Icy blond, cold of character.”
“How can you possibly judge her character?”
“Some dissembling on my part,” he admitted. “I used to know her.”
Anne didn’t even want to think about what that meant.
“I think you’re an autumn,” he mused.
“I would rather be spring,” she said softly. To herself, really.
He did not ask her why. She didn’t even think about his silence until later, when she was in her small room, remembering the details of the day. It was the sort of statement that begged for explanation, but he hadn’t asked. He’d known not to.
She wished he had asked. She wouldn’t have liked him so well if he had.
And she had a feeling that liking Daniel Smythe-Smith, the equal parts famous and infamous Earl of Winstead, could lead only to downfall.
As Daniel walked home that evening, after having stopped by Marcus’s house to convey his formal congratulations, he realized that he could not recall the last time he had so enjoyed an afternoon.
He supposed this was not such a difficult achievement; he had spent the last three years of his life in exile, after all, frequently on the run from Lord Ramsgate’s hired thugs. It was not an existence that lent itself to lazy outings and pleasant, aimless conversation.
But that was what his afternoon had turned out to be. While the girls counted their steps along Rotten Row, he and Miss Wynter had sat and chatted, talking about very little in particular. And all the time he could not stop thinking how very much he’d wanted to take her hand.
That was all. Just her hand.
He would bring it to his lips, and bow his head in tender salute. And he would have known that that simple, chivalrous kiss would be the beginning of something amazing.
That was why it would have been enough. Because it would be a promise.
Now that he was alone with his thoughts, his mind wandered to everything that promise might hold. The curve of her neck, the lush intimacy of her undone hair. He could not recall wanting a woman this way. It went beyond mere desire. His need for her went deeper than his body. He wanted to worship her, to—
The blow came out of nowhere, clipping him below his ear, sending him tumbling back against a lamppost.
“What the hell?” he grunted, looking up just in time to see two men lunging toward him.
“Aye, there’s a good guv,” one of them said, and as he moved, snakelike in the misty air, Daniel saw the glint of a knife, flashing in the lamplight.
Ramsgate.
These were his men. They had to be.
Damn it, Hugh had promised him it was safe to return. Had Daniel been a fool to believe him, so desperate to go home he’d not been able to bring himself to see the truth?
Daniel had learned how to fight dirty and mean in the last three years, and while the first of his attackers lay curled on the pavement from a kick to the groin, the other was forced to wrestle for control of the knife.
“Who sent you?” Daniel growled. They were face-to-face, almost nose to nose, their arms stretched high as they both strained for the weapon.
“I jest want yer coin,” the ruffian said. He smiled, and his eyes held a glittery sheen of cruelty. “Give me yer money, and we’ll all walk away.”
He was lying. Daniel knew this as well as he knew how to draw breath. If he let go of the man’s wrists, even for one moment, that knife would be plunged between his ribs. As it was, he had only moments before the man on the ground regained his equilibrium.
“Hey now! What’s going on here?”
Daniel flicked his eyes across the street for just long enough to see two men running out from a public house. His attacker saw them, too, and with a jerk of his wrists, he flung the knife into the street. Twisting and shoving, he freed himself from Daniel’s grasp and took off running, his friend scrambling behind him.
Daniel sprinted after them, determined to capture at least one. It would be the only way he would get any answers. But before he reached the corner, one of the men from the pub tackled him, mistaking him for one of the criminals.
“Damn it,” Daniel grunted. But there was no use in cursing the man who’d knocked him to the street. He knew he might well be dead if not for his intervention.
If he wanted answers, he was going to have to find Hugh Prentice.
Now.