by Julia Quinn
She looked away.
“I am not a suitable woman for you,” she said to the window. “I am not of your station, and I am not—”
He waited. She’d almost said something else. He was sure of it.
But when she spoke, her voice had changed tenor, and she sounded too deliberate. “You will ruin me,” she said. “You won’t mean to, but you will, and I will lose my position and all I hold dear.”
She looked him in the eye as she said that, and he nearly flinched at the emptiness he saw in her face.
“Anne,” he said, “I will protect you.”
“I don’t want your protection,” she cried. “Don’t you understand? I have learned how to care for myself, to keep myself—” She stopped, then finished with: “I can’t be responsible for you, too.”
“You don’t have to be,” he answered, trying to make sense of her words.
She turned away. “You don’t understand.”
“No,” he said harshly. “No, I don’t.” How could he? She kept secrets, held them to her chest like tiny treasures, leaving him to beg for her memories like some damned dog.
“Daniel . . . ,” she said softly, and there it was again. His name, and it was like he’d never heard it before. Because when she spoke, he felt every sound like a caress. Every syllable landed on his skin like a kiss.
“Anne,” he said, and he didn’t even recognize his voice. It was rough, and hoarse with need, and laced with desire, and . . . and . . .
And then, before he had a clue what he was about, he pulled her roughly into his arms and was kissing her like she was water, air, his very salvation. He needed her with a desperation that would have shaken him to his core if he’d let himself think about it.
But he wasn’t thinking. Not right now. He was tired of thinking, tired of worrying. He wanted just to feel. He wanted to let passion rule his senses, and his senses rule his body.
He wanted her to want him the very same way.
“Anne, Anne,” he gasped, his hands frantically tugging against the awful wool of her nightgown. “What you do to me—”
She cut him off, not with words but with her body, pressing it against his with an urgency that matched his own. Her hands were on his shirt, tearing at the front, pulling it open until he felt her on his skin.
It was more than he could bear.
With a guttural moan, he half-lifted, half-turned her until they went tumbling to the bed, and finally he had her exactly where he’d wanted her for what felt like a lifetime. Under him, her legs softly cradling him.
“I want you,” he said, even though it could hardly have been in doubt. “I want you now, in every way a man can want a woman.”
His words were coarse, but he liked them that way. This wasn’t romance, this was pure need. She’d almost died. He might die tomorrow. And if that happened, if the end came and he hadn’t tasted paradise first . . .
He nearly ripped her nightgown from her body.
And then . . . he stopped.
He stopped to breathe, to simply look at her and revel in the glorious perfection of her body. Her breasts rose and fell with each breath, and with a trembling hand, he reached out and cupped one, nearly shuddering with pleasure from just that simple touch.
“You are so beautiful,” he whispered. She must have heard those words before, thousands of times, but he wanted her to hear them from him. “You are so . . .”
But he didn’t finish, because she was so much more than her beauty. And there was no way he could say it all, no way he could put into words all the reasons his breath quickened every time he saw her.
Her hands rose to cover some of her nakedness, and she blushed, reminding him that this must be new to her. It was new to him, too. He’d made love to women before, probably more than he wanted to admit to, but this was the first time . . . she was the first one . . .
It had never been like this. He couldn’t explain the difference, but it had never been like this.
“Kiss me,” she whispered, “please.”
He did, yanking his shirt over his head right before he settled his body atop hers, skin to glorious skin. He kissed her deeply, then he kissed her neck, and the hollow of her collarbone, and then finally, with a pleasure that tightened every muscle in his body, he kissed her breast. She let out a soft squeal and arched underneath him, which he took as an invitation to move to the other side, kissing and sucking and nipping until he thought he might lose control right then and there.
Dear God, she hadn’t even touched him. He still had his breeches fully fastened, and he’d almost lost himself. That hadn’t even happened when he was a green boy.
He had to get inside her. He had to get inside her now. It went beyond desire. It went beyond need. It was primal, an urge that rose from deep within him, as if to say that his very life depended on making love to this woman. If that was mad, then he was mad.
For her. He was mad for her, and he had a feeling it was never going to go away.
“Anne,” he moaned, pausing for a moment to try to gain his breath. His face rested lightly on the tender skin of her belly, and he inhaled the scent of her even as he fought for control of his body. “Anne, I need you.” He looked up. “Now. Do you understand?”
He rose to his knees, and his hands went to his breeches, and then she said . . .
“No.”
His hands stilled. No, she didn’t understand? No, not now? Or no, not—
“I can’t,” she whispered, and she tugged at the sheet in a desperate attempt to cover herself.
Dear God, not that no.
“I’m sorry,” she said with an agonized gasp. “I’m so sorry. Oh, my God, I’m so sorry.” With frenetic motions she lurched from the bed, trying to pull the sheet along with her. But Daniel was still pinning it down, and she stumbled, then found herself jerked backward toward the bed. Still, she held on, tugging and pulling and over and over again saying, “I’m sorry.”
Daniel just tried to breathe, great big gulps of air that he prayed would ease what was now a painful erection. He was so far gone he couldn’t even think straight, let alone put together a sentence.
“I shouldn’t have,” she said, still trying to cover herself with the damned bedsheet. She couldn’t get away from the side of the bed, not if she wanted to keep herself covered. He could reach out for her; his arms were long enough. He could wrap his hands around her shoulders and pull her back, tempt her back into his arms. He could make her writhe and squirm with pleasure until she couldn’t remember her own name. He knew how to do it.
And yet he didn’t move. He was a bloody stupid statue, up there on the four-poster bed, on his knees with his hands clutching at the fastening of his breeches.
“I’m sorry,” she said again, for what had to be the fiftieth time. “I’m sorry, I just . . . I can’t. It’s the only thing I have. Do you understand? It’s the only thing I have.”
Her virginity.
He hadn’t even given it a thought. What kind of man was he? “I’m sorry,” he said, and then he almost laughed at the absurdity of it. It was a symphony of apologies, uncomfortable and utterly discordant.
“No, no,” she returned, her head still shaking back and forth, “I shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have let you, and I shouldn’t have let myself. I know better. I know better.”
So did he.
With a muttered curse he got down from the bed, forgetting that he’d been pinning her in place with the sheet. She went stumbling and twirling, tripping over her own feet until she landed in a nearby wingback chair, wrapped up like a clumsy Roman, toga askew.
It would have been funny if he hadn’t been so bloody close to exploding.
“I’m sorry,” she said again.
“Stop saying that,” he practically begged her. His voice was laced with exasperation—no, make that desperation—and she must have heard it, too, for she clamped her mouth shut, swallowing nervously as she watched him pull on his shirt.
“I have to le
ave for London, anyway,” he said, not that that would have stopped him if she hadn’t done so.
She nodded.
“We will discuss this later,” he said firmly. He had no idea what he’d say, but they would talk about it. Just not right now, with the entire house waking up around him.
The entire house. Good God, he really had lost his head. In his determination to show Anne honor and respect the night before, he’d ordered the maids to put her in the finest guest bedroom, on the same hall as the rest of the family. Anyone could have walked through the door. His mother could have seen them. Or worse, one of his young cousins. He couldn’t imagine what they would have thought he was doing. At least his mother would have known he wasn’t killing the governess.
Anne nodded again, but she wasn’t quite looking at him. Some little part of him thought this was curious, but then some other, larger part of him promptly forgot about it. He was far too concerned with the painful results of unfulfilled desire to think about the fact that she wouldn’t look him in the eye when she nodded.
“I will call upon you when you arrive in town,” he said.
She said something in return, so softly that he couldn’t make out the words.
“What was that?”
“I said—” She cleared her throat. Then she did it again. “I said that I don’t think that’s wise.”
He looked at her. Hard. “Would you have me pretend to visit my cousins again?”
“No. I— I would—” She turned away, but he saw her eyes flash with anguish, and maybe anger, and then, finally, resignation. When she looked back up, she met his gaze directly, but the spark in her expression, the one that so often drew him to her . . . It seemed to have gone out.
“I would prefer,” she said, her voice so carefully even it was almost a monotone, “that you not call at all.”
He crossed his arms. “Is that so?”
“Yes.”
He fought for a moment—against himself. Finally he asked, somewhat belligerently, “Because of this?”
His eyes fell to her shoulder, where the sheet had slipped, revealing a tiny patch of skin, rosy pink and supple in the morning light. It was barely an inch square, but in that moment he wanted it so badly he could barely speak.
He wanted her.
She looked at him, at his eyes, so firmly fixed to one spot, then down at her bare shoulder. With a little gasp she yanked the sheet back up.
“I—” She swallowed, perhaps summoning her courage, then continued. “I would not lie to you and say that I did not want this.”
“Me,” he cut in peevishly. “You wanted me.”
She closed her eyes. “Yes,” she finally said, “I wanted you.”
Part of him wanted to interrupt again, to remind her that she still wanted him, that it wasn’t and would never be in the past.
“But I can’t have you,” she said quietly, “and because of that, you can’t have me.”
And then, to his complete astonishment, he asked, “What if I married you?”
Anne stared at him in shock. Then she stared at him in horror, because he looked just as surprised as she felt, and she was fairly certain that if he could have taken back the words, he would have done.
With haste.
But his question—she couldn’t possibly think of it as a proposal—hung in the air, and they both stared at each other, unmoving, until finally her feet seemed to recognize that this was not a laughing matter, and she leapt up, skittering backward until she had managed to put the wingback chair between them.
“You can’t,” she blurted out.
Which seemed to rouse that masculine don’t-you-tell-me-what-to-do reaction. “Why not?” he demanded.
“You just can’t,” she shot back, tugging at the sheet, which had snagged on the corner of the chair. “You should know that. For heaven’s sake, you’re an earl. You can’t marry a nobody.” Especially not a nobody with a falsified name.
“I can marry anyone I damn well please.”
Oh, for heaven’s sake. Now he looked like a three-year-old who’d had his toy snatched away. Didn’t he understand that she couldn’t do this? He might delude himself, but she would never be so naïve. Especially after her conversation with Lady Pleinsworth the night before.
“You’re being foolish,” she told him, yanking at the damned sheet again. Dear God, was it too much just to want to be free? “And impractical. And furthermore, you don’t even want to marry me, you just want to get me into your bed.”
He drew back, visibly angered by her statement. But he did not contradict.
She let out an impatient breath. She hadn’t meant to insult him, and he should have realized that. “I do not think that you meant to seduce and abandon,” she said, because no matter how furious he made her, she could not bear his believing that she thought him a scoundrel. “I know that sort of man, and you are not he. But you hardly intended to propose marriage, and I certainly will not hold you to it.”
His eyes narrowed, but not before she saw them glint dangerously. “When did you come to know my mind better than I do?”
“When you stopped thinking.” She pulled at the sheet again, this time with such violence that the chair lurched forward and nearly toppled. And Anne very nearly found herself naked. “Aaargh!” she let out, so frustrated she wanted to punch something. Looking up, she saw Daniel standing there, just watching her, and she nearly screamed, she was so bloody angry. At him, at George Chervil, at the damned damned sheet that kept tangling her legs. “Will you just go?” she snapped. “Now, before someone comes in.”
He smiled then, but it wasn’t anything like the smiles she knew of him. It was cold, and it was mocking, and the sight of it on his face tore through her heart. “What would happen then?” he murmured. “You, dressed in nothing but a sheet. Me, rather rumpled.”
“No one would insist upon marriage,” she snapped. “That much I can tell you. You’d go back to your merry life, and I would be cast out without a reference.”
He stared at her sourly. “I suppose you’re going to say that that was my plan all along. To bankrupt you until you had no choice but to become my mistress.”
“No,” she said curtly, because she could not lie to him, not about this. And then, in a softer voice, she added, “I would never think that of you.”
He fell silent, his eyes watching her intently. He was hurting, she could see that. He hadn’t proposed marriage, not really, but still she’d somehow managed to reject him. And she hated that he was in pain. She hated the look on his face, and she hated the stiff way his arms were held at his sides, and most of all she hated that nothing was ever going to be the same. They would not talk. They would not laugh.
They would not kiss.
Why had she stopped him? She’d been in his arms, skin to skin, and she’d wanted him. She’d wanted him with a fire she’d never dreamed possible. She’d wanted to take him into her, and she’d wanted to love him with her body as she already loved him with her heart.
She loved him.
Dear God.
“Anne?”
She didn’t respond.
Daniel’s brow knit with concern. “Anne, are you all right? You’ve gone pale.”
She wasn’t all right. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be all right again.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“Anne . . .” Now he looked worried, and he was walking toward her, and if he touched her, if he so much as reached for her, she’d lose her resolve.
“No,” she practically barked, hating the way her voice came from deep in her throat. It hurt. The word hurt. It hurt her neck, and it hurt her ears, and it hurt him, too.
But she had to do it.
“Please don’t,” she said. “I need you to leave me alone. This. . . . This . . .” She fought for a word; she couldn’t bear to call it a thing. “This feeling between us . . .” she finally settled upon. “Nothing can come of it. You must realize that. And if you care for me at all, you will lea
ve.”
But he did not move.
“You will leave now,” she practically cried, and she sounded like a wounded animal. Which was what she was, she supposed.
For several seconds more he stood frozen, and then finally, in a voice as low as it was determined, he said, “I am leaving, but not for any of the reasons you request. I am going to London to settle the issue with Ramsgate, and then—and then,” he said with greater force, “we will talk.”
Silently, she shook her head. She could not do this again. It was too painful to listen to him spin stories about happy endings that would never be hers.
He strode to the door. “We will talk,” he said again.
It wasn’t until after he’d left that Anne whispered, “No. We won’t.”
Chapter Sixteen
London
One week later
She was back.
Daniel had heard it from his sister, who had heard it from his mother, who had heard it directly from his aunt.
A more efficient chain of communication he could not imagine.
He hadn’t really expected the Pleinsworths to remain at Whipple Hill for quite so long after he left. Or perhaps more to the point, he hadn’t given any thought to the matter, not until several days had passed and they’d still remained in the country.
But as it turned out, it was probably for the best that they (and by they, he really meant Anne) had stayed out of town. It had been a busy week—busy and frustrating, and the knowledge of Miss Wynter’s presence within walking distance would have been a distraction he could not afford.
He had talked to Hugh. Again. And Hugh had talked to his father. Again. And when Hugh had returned, reporting back to Daniel that he still did not think that his father had been involved in the recent attacks, Daniel had flown off the handle. Hugh had done what Daniel should have insisted upon weeks earlier.
He took him to speak with Lord Ramsgate directly.
And now Daniel was at a complete loss, because he, too, did not think that Lord Ramsgate had tried to kill him. Maybe he was a fool, maybe he just wanted to believe that this horrific chapter of his life was finally over, but the fury just hadn’t been in Ramsgate’s eyes. Not like the last time they’d met, right after Hugh had been shot.