A Night Like This (Smythe-Smith Quartet #2)(70)

She had tried to talk to him about her proposition, insisting that it was her only option, but he had not been able to listen. For her to have offered herself up to him in such a way . . . She could only have done so if she felt herself to be completely without hope.
And that was something he could not bear to imagine.
He heard the door to his bathroom open, and when he turned he saw her, scrubbed clean and new, her wet hair combed away from her face and hanging down over her right shoulder. She’d twisted it somehow; not a braid but more of a spiral that kept the strands in one thick cord.
“Daniel?” She said his name quietly as she peered out into the room, her bare feet padding along the plush carpet. She was wearing his dressing gown, the deep midnight blue almost the same color as her eyes. It was huge on her, falling nearly to her ankles, and she had her arms wrapped around her waist just to keep it in place.
He thought she’d never looked so beautiful.
“I’m right here,” he said when he realized she didn’t see him standing by the window. He’d removed his coat while she was bathing, his neckcloth and boots, too. His valet had been put out that he had not wished for assistance, so Daniel had set the boots outside the door, hoping he’d take that as an invitation to take them back to his quarters and polish them.
Tonight was not a night for interruptions.
“I hope you don’t mind that I took your dressing gown,” Anne said, hugging her arms more tightly to her body. “There was nothing else . . .”
“Of course not,” he replied, motioning to nothing in particular. “You may use anything you wish.”
She nodded, and even from ten feet away, he saw her swallow nervously. “It occurred to me,” she said, her voice catching as she spoke, “that you probably already knew my name.”
He looked at her.
“From Granby,” she clarified.
“Yes,” he said. “He told me about the man who was looking for you. It was all I had to go on when I was searching for you.”
“I imagine it wasn’t much help.”
“No.” His lips twisted into a wry smile. “I did find Mary Philpott, though.”
Her lips parted with momentary surprise. “It was the name I used to write to my sister Charlotte so that my parents would not realize she was corresponding with me. It was through her letters that I knew that George was still—” She cut herself off. “I’m getting ahead of myself.”
Daniel’s hands clenched at the sound of another man’s name. Whoever this George was, he had tried to hurt her. To kill her. And the urge to swing out his arms and punch something was overwhelming. He wanted to find this man, to hurt him, to make him understand that if anything—anything—happened to Anne again, Daniel would tear him apart with his bare hands.
And he had never considered himself to be a violent man.
He looked up at Anne. She was still standing in the center of the room, her arms hugging her body. “My name is— My name was Annelise Shawcross,” she said. “I made a terrible mistake when I was sixteen, and I’ve been paying for it ever since.”
“Whatever you did—” he began, but she held up her hand.
“I’m not a virgin,” she said to him, the words blunt in the air.
“I don’t care,” he said, and he realized he didn’t.
“You should.”
“But I don’t.”
She smiled at him—forlornly, as if she was preparing to forgive him for changing his mind. “His name was George Chervil,” she said. “Sir George Chervil now that his father has died. I grew up in Northumberland, in a medium-sized village in the western part of the county. My father is a country gentleman. We were always comfortable, but not particularly wealthy. Still, we were respected. We were invited everywhere, and it was expected that my sisters and I would make good matches.”
He nodded. It was an easy picture to paint in his mind.
“The Chervils were very rich, or at least they were in comparison to everyone else. When I look at this . . .” She glanced around his elegant bedchamber, at all the luxuries he used to take for granted. He’d not had so many material comforts while in Europe; he would not fail to appreciate such things again.
“They were not of this status,” she continued, “but to us—to everyone in the district—they were unquestionably the most important family we knew. And George was their only child. He was very handsome, and he said lovely things, and I thought I loved him.” She shrugged helplessly and glanced up at the ceiling, almost as if begging forgiveness for her younger self.
“He said he loved me,” she whispered.
Daniel swallowed, and he had the strangest sensation, almost a premonition of what it must like to be a parent. Someday, God willing, he’d have a daughter, and that daughter would look like the woman standing in front of him, and if ever she looked at him with that bewildered expression, whispering, “He said he loved me . . .”
Nothing short of murder would be an acceptable response.
“I thought he was going to marry me,” Anne said, bringing his thoughts back to the here and now. She seemed to have regained some of her composure, and her voice was brisk, almost businesslike. “But the thing is, he never said he would. He never even mentioned it. So I suppose, in a way, I bear some of the blame myself—”
“No,” Daniel said fiercely, because whatever happened, he knew it could not be her fault. It was all too easy to guess what would happen next. The rich, handsome man, the impressionable young girl . . . It was a terrible tableau, and terribly common.