A Night Like This (Smythe-Smith Quartet #2)(64)

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.

Chapter Seventeen


The following day, Daniel arrived at Pleinsworth House at precisely five minutes before eleven. He had prepared in his mind a list of questions he must ask of Anne, but when the butler admitted him to the house, he was met with considerable uproar. Harriet and Elizabeth were yelling at each other at the end of the hall, their mother was yelling at both of them, and on a backless bench near the sitting room door, three maids sat sobbing.