The Raven Prince (Princes #1)(56)

But something was wrong; Anna could feel it. He was slipping away. She was losing him. She pressed closer, trying to hold on. He ran his lips across her cheekbones and lightly, softly, over her closed eyelids. She felt his breath sift through her eyelashes.

His arms dropped, and she sensed him step away from her.

She opened her eyes to see him running his hands through his hair. “I’m sorry. That was—God, I’m so sorry.”

“No, please don’t apologize.” She smiled, warmth spreading through her breast as she gathered her courage. Maybe this was the time. “I wanted the kiss just as much as you. As a matter of—”

“I’m engaged.”

“What?” Anna recoiled as if he had struck her.

“I’m engaged to be married.” Edward grimaced as if in self-disgust or possibly pain.

She stood frozen, struggling to comprehend the simple words. A numbness seeped throughout her body, driving out the warmth as if it had never been.

“That’s why I went up to London. To finalize the marital settlements.” Edward paced, his hands agitatedly running through his disheveled hair. “She’s the daughter of a baronet, a very old family. I think they might have come over with the Conqueror, which is more than the de Raafs can say. Her lands—” He stopped suddenly as if she’d interrupted.

She hadn’t.

He met her eyes for an agonizing moment and then looked away. It was as if a cord that had stretched between them had been severed.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Wren.” He cleared his throat. “I never should have behaved so badly with you. You have my word of honor that it won’t happen again.”

“I-I—” She struggled to force words through her swelling throat. “I ought to return to work, my lord.” Her only coherent thought was that she must maintain her composure. Anna moved to go—to flee, really—but his voice stopped her.

“Sam…”

“What?” All she wanted was a hole to curl up in so she could never think again. Never feel again. But something in his face kept her from leaving.

Edward stared up at the loft as if searching for something, or someone. Anna followed his gaze. There was nothing there. The old loft was nearly empty. Where once mounds of hay must have lain, now only dust motes floated. The hay for the horses was stored below in empty stalls.

But still he stared at the loft. “This was my brother’s favorite place,” he said finally. “Samuel, my younger brother. He was nine years old, born six years after me. It was enough of a gap that I did not pay him much attention. He was a quiet boy. He used to hide in the loft, even though it gave Mother fits; she was afraid he’d fall and kill himself. It didn’t stop him. He’d spend half the day up there, playing, I don’t know, with tin soldiers or tops or something. It was easy to forget he was up there, and sometimes he’d throw hay down on my head just to aggravate me.” His brows drew together. “Or, I suppose, he wanted his elder brother’s attention. Not that I gave it to him. I was too busy at fifteen, learning to shoot and drink and be a man, to pay attention to a child.”

He walked a few paces away, still studying the loft. Anna tried to swallow down the lump in her throat. Why now? Why reveal all this pain to her now, when it couldn’t matter?

He continued, “It’s funny, though. When I first came back, I kept expecting to see him here in the stables. I’d walk in and look up—for his face, I guess.” Edward blinked and murmured, almost to himself, “Sometimes I still do.”

Anna shoved her knuckle into her mouth and bit down. She didn’t want to hear this. Didn’t want to feel any sympathy for this man.

“This stable was full before,” he said. “My father loved horses, used to breed them. There were lots of grooms and my father’s cronies hanging around out here, talking horseflesh and hunting. My mother was in the Abbey, holding parties and planning my sister’s coming-out. This place was so busy. So happy. It was the best place in the world.”

Edward touched the worn door of an empty stall with his fingertips. “I never thought I would leave. I never wanted to.”

Anna hugged herself and bit back a sob.

“But then the smallpox came.” He seemed to stare into space, and the lines in his face stood out in sharp relief. “And they died, one by one. First Sammy, then Father and Mother. Elizabeth, my sister, was the last to go. They cut off her hair because of the fever, and she cried and cried inconsolably; she thought it her best feature. Two days later, they put her into the family vault. We were lucky, I guess, if you can call it luck. Other families had to wait for spring to bury their dead. It was winter and the ground was frozen.”

He drew a breath. “But I don’t remember that last, only what they told me later, because by then I had it, too.”

He stroked a finger over his cheekbone where the smallpox scars clustered, and Anna wondered how often he had made the gesture in the years since.

“And, of course, I survived.” He looked at her with the bitterest smile she’d ever seen, as if he tasted bile on his tongue. “I alone lived. Out of all of them, I survived.”

He closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, his face was smoothed into a blank, firm mask. “I’m the last of my line, the last of the de Raafs,” he said. “There are no distant cousins to inherit the title and the Abbey, no waiting obscure heirs. When I die—if I die without a son—it all reverts to the crown.”