The following evening, Anne stepped down from the Pleinsworths’ traveling coach and looked up, taking in her first glance at Whipple Hill. It was a lovely house, solid and stately, situated amidst gently rolling hills that sloped down to a large, tree-lined pond. There was something very homey about it, Anne thought, which struck her as interesting since it was the ancestral estate of the Earls of Winstead. Not that she was terribly familiar with the great homes of the aristocracy, but those that she had seen had always been terribly ornate and imperious.
The sun had already set, but the orange glow of twilight still hung in the air, lending just a touch of warmth to the rapidly approaching night. Anne was eager to find her room and perhaps have a bowl of hot soup for supper, but the night before their departure Nanny Flanders had come down with a stomach ailment. With Nanny remaining behind in London, Anne had been pressed into double duty, serving as nurse and governess, which meant that she would be required to get the girls settled into their room before she could tend to any of her own needs. Lady Pleinsworth had promised her an extra afternoon off while they were in the country, but she had not been specific as to when, and Anne feared that it would slip her mind completely.
“Come along, girls,” she said briskly. Harriet had run ahead to one of the other carriages—the one with Sarah and Lady Pleinsworth—and Elizabeth had run back to the other. Although what she was talking about with the ladies’ maids, Anne could not begin to guess.
“I’m right here,” Frances said gamely.
“So you are,” Anne replied. “Gold star for you.”
“It’s really too bad that you don’t have actual gold stars. I shouldn’t have to pinch up my pin money each week.”
“If I had actual gold stars,” Anne replied with a quirk of her brow, “I shouldn’t have to be your governess.”
“Touché,” Frances said admiringly.
Anne gave her a wink. There was something rather satisfying about earning the regard of a ten-year-old. “Where are your sisters?” she muttered, then called, “Harriet! Elizabeth!”
Harriet came bounding back. “Mama says I may eat with the adults while we are here.”
“Ooooh, Elizabeth is not going to be happy about that,” Frances predicted.
“Not happy about what?” Elizabeth asked. “And you would not believe what Peggy just told me.”
Peggy was Sarah’s maid. Anne quite liked her, although she was a terrible gossip.
“What did she say?” Frances asked. “And Harriet will be eating with the adults while we’re here.”
Elizabeth gasped in righteous outrage. “That is patently unfair. And Peggy said that Sarah said that Daniel said that Miss Wynter is to eat with the family as well.”
“That won’t happen,” Anne said firmly. It would be highly out of the ordinary—a governess generally only joined the family when she was needed to bolster the numbers—but beyond that, she had work to do. She popped her hand lightly on Frances’s head. “I shall be eating with you.”
The unexpected blessing of Nanny Flanders having taken sick. Anne could not imagine what Lord Winstead had been thinking, requesting that she join the family for supper. If ever there was a move designed to put her in an awkward position, that was it. The lord of the manor asking to dine with the governess? He might as well just come out and say he was trying to get her into his bed.
Which she had a feeling he was. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d had to fend off unwanted advances from her employers.
But it would be the first time a part of her had wanted to give in.
“Good evening!” It was Lord Winstead, come out onto the portico to greet them.
“Daniel!” Frances shrieked. She did a 180 degree turn, kicking up dust all over her sisters, and ran toward him, practically knocking him down as she launched herself into his arms.
“Frances!” Lady Pleinsworth scolded. “You are far too old to be jumping on your cousin.”
“I don’t mind,” Lord Winstead said with a laugh. He tousled Frances’s hair, which earned him a wide grin.
Frances twisted her head backwards to ask her mother, “If I’m too old to jump on Daniel, does that mean I’m old enough to eat with the adults?”
“Not even close to it,” Lady Pleinsworth replied pertly.
“But Harriet—”
“—is five years your elder.”
“We shall have a grand time in the nursery,” Anne announced, walking over to pluck her charge off Lord Winstead. He turned to face her, his eyes flaring with a familiarity that made her skin turn warm. She could tell he was about to say something about her joining the family for supper, so she quickly added, in a voice that everyone could hear, “Normally I take my supper in my room, but with Nanny Flanders sick, I am more than happy to take her place with Elizabeth and Frances in the nursery.”
“Once again, you are our savior, Miss Wynter,” chimed Lady Pleinsworth. “I don’t know what we would do without you.”
“First the musicale and now this,” Lord Winstead said approvingly.
Anne glanced at him, trying to discern his motive for saying such a thing, but he had already turned his attention back to Frances.
“Perhaps we shall stage a concert while we are here,” Elizabeth suggested. “It would be great fun.”
It was hard to tell in the twilight, but Anne thought she might have seen Lord Winstead blanch. “I did not bring your viola,” she said quickly. “Nor Harriet’s violin.”
“What about—”
“And not your contrabassoon, either,” Anne said to Frances before she could even ask.
“Oh, but this is Whipple Hill,” Lady Pleinsworth said. “No Smythe-Smith home would be complete without a generous assortment of musical instruments.”
“Even a contrabassoon?” Frances asked hopefully.
Lord Winstead looked dubious, but he said, “I suppose you can look.”
“I shall! Miss Wynter, will you help me?”
“Of course,” Anne murmured. It seemed as good an enterprise as any to keep her out of the way of the family.
“With Sarah feeling so much better, you won’t have to play the pianoforte this time,” Elizabeth pointed out.
It was a good thing Lady Sarah had already entered the house, Anne thought, because she would have had to stage an elaborate relapse right then and there.
“Let us all come inside,” Lord Winstead said. “There is no need to change from your traveling clothes. Mrs. Barnaby has seen to an informal supper, of which we may all partake, Elizabeth and Frances included.”
And you, too, Miss Wynter.
He didn’t say it. He didn’t even look at her, but Anne felt the words nonetheless.
“If you will be dining en famille,” Anne said to Lady Pleinsworth, “I should be most grateful to retire to my room. I find myself weary from the journey.”
“Of course, my dear. You will need to reserve your energy for this week. I’m afraid we shall be working you to the bone. Poor Nanny.”
“Don’t you mean poor Miss Wynter?” Frances asked.
Anne smiled at her charge. Indeed.
“Never fear, Miss Wynter,” Elizabeth said. “We shall go easy on you.”
“Oh you shall, shall you?”
Elizabeth assumed an innocent mien. “I am willing to forgo all mathematics for the duration.”
Lord Winstead chuckled, then turned to Anne. “Shall I have someone show you to your room?”
“Thank you, my lord.”
“Come with me. I shall see to it.” He turned to his aunt and cousins. “The rest of you, go along to the breakfast room. Mrs. Barnaby had the footmen set up supper there, since we are so informal this evening.”
Anne had no choice but to follow him through the main hall and then to a long portrait gallery. She appeared to be at the early side of it, she thought, judging from the Elizabethan ruff on the rather portly man staring down at her. She looked about for a maid, or a footman, or whoever it was he planned to have show her to her room, but they were quite alone.
Except for two dozen Winsteads of years gone by.
She stood and clasped her hands primly in front of her. “I’m sure you wish to join your family. Perhaps a maid . . .”
“What kind of host would I be?” he asked smoothly. “Pawning you off like a piece of baggage.”
“I beg your pardon?” Anne murmured with some alarm. Surely he could not mean . . .
He smiled. Like a wolf. “I shall see you to your room myself.”
Daniel did not know what manner of devil had come over him, but Miss Wynter had looked so unbearably fetching as she squinted up at the third Earl of Winstead (too many turkey legs shared with Henry VIII, that much was clear). He’d planned to summon a maid to show her to her room, truly he had, but apparently he could not resist the delicate wrinkle of her nose.
“Lord Winstead,” she began, “surely you recognize the impropriety of such a . . . such a . . .”
“Oh, don’t worry,” he said, happy to save her from her articulation difficulties. “Your virtue is safe with me.”
“But not my reputation!”
She did have a point there.
“I shall be quick as a . . .” He paused. “Well, whatever it is that is quick and not terribly unattractive.”
She stared at him as if he’d sprouted horns. Unattractive horns.
He smiled gamely. “I shall be down to supper so quickly no one will even realize I went with you.”
“That is not the point.”
“Isn’t it? You said you were concerned for your reputation.”
“I am, but—”
“So quick,” he interrupted, putting an end to whatever manner of protest she’d been working toward. “I’d hardly have time to ravish you even if that were my intention.”
She gasped. “Lord Winstead!”
Wrong thing to say. But so terribly entertaining.
“I jest,” he said to her.
She stared at him.
“The saying of it is the jest,” he quickly explained. “Not the sentiment.”
Still, she said nothing. And then: “I think you have gone mad.”
“It is certainly a possibility,” he said agreeably. He motioned to the corridor that led to the west stairs. “Here, come this way.” He waited for a moment, then added, “It’s not as if you have a choice.”
She stiffened, and he realized that he had said something terribly wrong. Wrong because of something that had happened in her past, some other time when she had had no choices.
But perhaps also wrong simply because it was wrong, no matter what her history. He did not pinch the maids or corner young girls at parties. He had always tried to treat women with respect. There was no justification for offering Miss Wynter anything less.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, bowing his head in esteem. “I have behaved badly.”
Her lips parted, and she blinked several times in rapid succession. She did not know whether to believe him, and he realized in stunned silence that her indecision was heartbreaking.
“My apology is genuine,” he said.
“Of course,” she said quickly, and he thought she meant it. He hoped she did. She would have said the same even if she hadn’t, just to be polite.
“I would explain, though,” he told her, “that I said you had no choice not because of your position in the employ of my aunt but rather because you simply do not know your way about the house.”
“Of course,” she said again.
But he felt compelled to say more, because . . . because . . . Because he could not bear the thought of her thinking badly of him. “Any visitor would have been in the same position,” he said, hoping he did not sound defensive.
She started to say something, then stopped herself, probably because it had been another “Of course.” He waited patiently—she was still standing over by the painting of the third earl—content just to watch her until she finally said, “Thank you.”
He nodded. It was a gracious movement, elegant and urbane, the same sort of acknowledgment he’d done thousands of times. But inside he was nearly swept away by a cascading rush of relief. It was humbling. Or, more to the point, unnerving.
“You are not the sort of man to take advantage,” she said, and in that moment he knew.
Someone had hurt her. Anne Wynter knew what it meant to be at the mercy of someone stronger and more powerful.
Daniel felt something within him harden with fury. Or maybe sorrow. Or regret.
He didn’t know what he felt. For the first time in his life, his thoughts were a jumble, tossing and turning and writing over each other like an endlessly edited story. The only certainty was that it was taking every ounce of his strength not to close the difference between them and pull her against him. His body remembered her, her scent, her curves, even the precise temperature of her skin against his.
He wanted her. He wanted her completely.
But his family was waiting for him at supper, and his ancestors were staring down at him from their portrait frames, and she—the woman in question—was watching him with a wariness that broke his heart.
“If you will wait right here,” he said quietly, “I will fetch a maid to show you to your room.”
“Thank you,” she said, and she bobbed a small curtsy.
He started to walk to the far end of the gallery, but after a few steps he stopped. When he turned around, she was standing precisely where he’d left her.
“Is something amiss?” she asked.
“I just want you to know—” he said abruptly.
What? What did he want her to know? He didn’t even know why he’d spoken.
He was a fool. But he knew that already. He’d been a fool since the moment he’d met her.
“Lord Winstead?” she asked, after a full minute had passed without his having finished his statement.
“It’s nothing,” he muttered, and he turned again, fully expecting his feet to carry him out of the gallery. But they didn’t. He stood breathlessly still, his back to her as his mind screamed at him to just . . . move. Take a step. Go!
But instead he turned, some traitorous part of him still desperate for one last look at her.
“As you wish,” she said quietly.
And then, before he had a chance to consider his actions, he found himself striding back toward her. “Precisely,” he said.
“I’m sorry?” Her eyes clouded with confusion. Confusion twinned with unease.
“As I wish,” he repeated. “That’s what you said.”
“Lord Winstead, I don’t think—”
He came to a halt three feet away from her. Beyond the length of his arms. He trusted himself, but not completely.
“You shouldn’t do this,” she whispered.
But he was too far gone. “I wish to kiss you. That is what I wanted you to know. Because if I’m not going to do it, and it appears that I am not, because it isn’t what you want, at least not right now . . . but if I’m not going to do it, you need to know that I wanted it.” He paused, staring at her mouth, at her lips, full and trembling. “I still want it.”
He heard a rush of air gasp across her lips, but when he looked into her eyes, their blue so midnight they might as well have been black, he knew that she wanted him. He had shocked her, that much was obvious, but still, she wanted him.
He wasn’t going to kiss her now; he had already realized it was not the right time. But he had to let her know. She had to know just what it was he wanted.
What she wanted, too, if only she allowed herself to see it.
“This kiss,” he said, his voice burning with tightly held desire. “This kiss . . . I wish for it with a fervor that shakes my soul. I have no idea why I wish it, only that I felt it the moment I saw you at the piano, and it has only intensified in the days since.”
She swallowed, and the candlelight danced across her delicate neck. But she didn’t say anything. That was all right; he had not expected her to.
“I want the kiss,” he said huskily, “and then I want more. I want things you cannot even know about.”
They stood in silence, eyes locked.
“But most of all,” he whispered, “I want to kiss you.”
And then, in a voice so soft it was barely more than breath, she said, “I want it, too.”