by Julia Quinn
“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.”
Chapter Nine
I want it, too.
She was mad.
There could be no other explanation. She had spent the last two days telling herself all the reasons why she could not possibly allow herself to want this man, and now, at the first moment when they were truly alone and secluded, she said that?
Her hand flew up to cover her mouth, and she had no idea if it was from shock or because her fingertips had more sense than the rest of her and were trying to prevent her from making a huge, huge mistake.
“Anne,” he whispered, staring at her with searing intimacy.
Not Miss Wynter. Anne. He was taking liberties; she had not given him permission to use her given name. But she could not summon the outrage she knew she should feel. Because when he called her Anne, it was the first time she felt as if the name was truly hers. For eight years she had called herself Anne Wynter, but to the rest of the world she was always Miss Wynter. There had been no one in her life to call her Anne. Not a single person.
She wasn’t sure she’d even realized it until this very moment.
She’d always thought she wanted to be Annelise again, to return to a life where her biggest concern was which dress to wear each morning, but now, when she heard Lord Winstead whisper her name, she realized that she liked the woman she’d become. She might not have liked the events that had brought her to this point, or the still present fear that George Chervil might someday find her and try to destroy her, but she liked herself.
It was an amazing thought.
“Can you kiss me just once?” she whispered. Because she did want it. She wanted a taste of perfection, even if she knew she could pursue it no further. “Can you kiss me once, and then never do so again?”
His eyes clouded, and for a moment she thought he might not speak. He was holding himself so tightly that his jaw trembled, and the only noise was the labored sound of his breath.
Disappointment trickled through her. She didn’t know what she had been thinking, to ask such a thing. One kiss, and then nothing else? One kiss, when she, too, knew that she wanted so much more? She was—
“I don’t know,” he said abruptly.
Her eyes, which she had allowed to drift down to their feet, flew back to his face. He was still watching her with unwavering intensity, staring as if she might be his salvation. His face was not healed, with cuts and scrapes on his skin, and blue-black bruising around his eye, but in that moment he
was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.
“I don’t think once will be enough,” he said.
His words were thrilling. What woman wouldn’t want to be so desired? But the careful part of her, the sensible part, realized that she was treading down a dangerous path. She had done this once before, allowed herself to fall for a man who would never marry her. The only difference was that this time she understood this. Lord Winstead was an earl—recently disgraced, it was true—but still an earl, and with his looks and charm, society would soon reopen their arms.
And she was . . . what? A governess? A false governess whose life history began in 1816 when she’d stepped off the ferry, seasick and petrified, and placed her feet on the rocky soil of the Isle of Man.
Anne Wynter had been born that day, and Annelise Shawcross . . .
She had disappeared. Gone in a puff like the spray of the ocean all around her.
But really, it didn’t matter who she was. Anne Wynter . . . Annelise Shawcross . . . Neither one of them was a suitable match for Daniel Smythe-Smith, Earl of Winstead, Viscount Streathermore, and Baron Touchton of Stoke.
He had more names than she did. It was almost funny.
But not really. His were all true. He got to keep them all. And they were a badge of his position, of every reason why she should not be here with him, tipping her face toward his.
But still, she wanted this moment. She wanted to kiss him, to feel his arms around her, to lose herself in his embrace, to lose herself in the very night that surrounded them. Soft and mysterious, aching with promise . . .
What was it about a night like this?
He reached out and took her hand, and she let him. His fingers wrapped through hers, and even though he did not pull her toward him, she felt the tug, hot and pulsing, drawing her closer. Her body knew what to do. It knew what it wanted.
It would have been so easy to deny it if it hadn’t been what her heart wanted, too.
“I cannot make that promise,” he said softly, “but I will tell you this. Even if I don’t kiss you now, if I turn and walk away and go eat supper and pretend none of this ever happened, I can’t promise that I will never kiss you again.” He lifted her hand to his mouth. She’d removed her gloves in the carriage, and her bare skin prickled and danced with desire where his lips touched it.
She swallowed. She did not know what to say.
“I can kiss you now,” he said, “without the promise. Or we can do nothing, also without the promise. It is your choice.”
If he had sounded overconfident, she would have found the strength to pull away. If his posture had held swagger, or if there had been anything in his voice that spoke of seduction, it would have been different.
But he wasn’t making threats. He wasn’t even making promises. He was simply telling her the truth.
And giving her a choice.
She took a breath. Tilted her face toward his.
And whispered, “Kiss me.”
She would regret this tomorrow. Or maybe she wouldn’t. But right now she did not care. The space between them melted away, and his arms, so strong and safe, wrapped around her. And when his lips touched hers, she thought she heard him say her name again.
“Anne.”
It was a sigh. A plea. A benediction.
Without hesitation she reached out to touch him, her fingers sinking softly into his dark hair. Now that she had done it, had actually asked him to kiss her, she wanted it all. She wanted to take control of her life, or at least of this moment.
“Say my name,” he murmured, his lips moving along her cheek to her earlobe. His voice was warm against her ear, seeping into her skin like a balm.
But she couldn’t. It was too intimate. Why this might be so, she had no idea, since she had already thrilled to the sound of her name on his lips, and more to the point, she was wrapped in his arms and desperately wanted to stay there forever.
But she wasn’t quite ready to call him Daniel.
Instead she let out a little sigh, or maybe it was a little moan, and she let herself lean more heavily into him. His body was warm, and hers was so hot that she thought they might go up in flames.
His hands slid down her back, one settling at the small of it, the other reaching down to cup her bottom. She felt herself lifted, pressed hard against him, hard against the evidence of his need for her. And although she knew she should be shocked, or at the very least reminded that she should not be here with him, she could only shiver with delight.
It was so lovely to be so desired. To have someone want her so desperately. Her. Not some pretty little governess one could back into a corner and paw at. Not the companion of some lady whose nephew thought she ought to be grateful for the attention.
Not even some young girl who was really just an easy mark.
Lord Winstead wanted her. He’d wanted her before he’d even known who she was. That night at Winstead House, when he’d kissed her . . . For all he’d known she was the daughter of a duke, whom he’d be honor bound to marry just for being alone with her in a darkened hallway. And maybe that wasn’t so meaningful, because it wasn’t as if they’d shared more than a few sentences, but he still wanted her now, and she didn’t think it was just because he thought he could take advantage of her.
But eventually sanity settled upon her, or maybe it was simply the specter of reality, and she forced herself to pull away from his kiss. “You need to get back,” she said, wishing her voice was a bit steadier. “They will be waiting for you.”
He nodded, and his eyes looked a little wild, as if he didn’t quite know what had just happened within him.
Anne understood. She felt precisely the same way.
“Stay here,” he finally said. “I will send a maid to show you to your room.”
She nodded, watching as he headed across the gallery, his gait not quite as purposeful as she was used to seeing in him.
“But this—” he said, turning with one outstretched arm. “This is not over.” And then, in a voice that held desire, and determination, and more than a little bewilderment, he added, “It can’t be over.”
This time she did not nod. One of them had to be sensible. Over was the only thing it could be.
English weather did not have a lot to recommend it, but when the sun and air got it right, there was no place more perfect, especially in the morning, when the light was still slanted and pink, and the dew-topped grass sparkled in the breeze.
Daniel was feeling particularly fine as he headed down to breakfast. The morning sun was streaming through every window, bathing the house in a celestial glow, the heavenly aroma of bacon wafted past his nose, and—not that there had been much of an ulterior motive to this—the previous night he had suggested that Elizabeth and Frances take their breakfast with the rest of the family rather than up in the nursery.
It was silly for them to eat apart in the mornings. It was extra work for everyone involved, and of course he did not want to be deprived of their company. He had only just returned to the country after three long years away. This, he told them, was the time to be with his family, especially his young cousins, who had changed so much in his absence.
Sarah might have given him a sarcastic look when he said that, and his aunt might have wondered aloud as to why, then, he was not with his own mother and sister. But he was excellent at ignoring his female relations when it suited him, and besides, he could hardly have responded what with the whooping and cheering coming from the two youngest Pleinsworths.
So it was settled. Elizabeth and Frances would not take their breakfast in the nursery and instead come down with the rest of the family. And if the girls were down, then Miss Wynter would also be there, and breakfast would be lovely, indeed.
With an admittedly goofy spring in his step, he made his way across the main hall to the breakfast room, pausing only to peek through the sitting room at the large window, which some enterprising footman had pulled open to let in the warm, spring air. What a day, what a day
. Birds were chirping, the sky was blue, the grass was green (as always, but it was still an excellent thing), and he had kissed Miss Wynter.
He nearly bounced right off his feet, just thinking about it.
It had been splendid. Marvelous. A kiss to deny all previous kisses. Really, he didn’t know what he’d been doing with all those other women, because whatever had happened when his lips had touched theirs, those had not been kisses.
Not like last night.
When he reached the breakfast room, he was delighted to see Miss Wynter standing by the sideboard. But any thought of flirtation was dashed when he also spied Frances, who was being directed to put more food on her plate.
“But I don’t like kippers,” Frances said.
“You don’t have to eat them,” Miss Wynter replied with great patience. “But you will not survive to dinner with only one piece of bacon on your plate. Have some eggs.”
“I don’t like them that way.”
“Since when?” Miss Wynter asked, sounding rather suspicious. Or perhaps merely exasperated.
Frances wrinkled her nose and bent over the chafing dish. “They look very runny.”
“Which can be rectified immediately,” Daniel announced, deciding it was as good a time as any to make his presence known.
“Daniel!” Frances exclaimed, her eyes lighting with delight.
He stole a glance at Miss Wynter—he still was not quite thinking of her as Anne, except, it seemed, when he had her in his arms. Her reaction was not quite so effusive, but her cheeks did turn an extremely fetching shade of pink.
“I’ll ask the cook to prepare you a fresh portion,” he said to Frances, reaching out to tousle her hair.
“You’ll do no such thing,” Miss Wynter said sternly. “These eggs are perfectly acceptable. It would be a dreadful waste of food to prepare more.”
He glanced down at Frances, giving her a sympathetic shrug. “There will be no crossing Miss Wynter, I’m afraid. Why don’t you find something else to your liking?”