A Night Like This (Smythe-Smith Quartet)

by Julia Quinn

  Daniel asked the innkeeper for two mugs of tea, then turned back to her. “At the risk of revealing myself to be completely ignorant of the realities of life in service, I must say that I find it difficult to believe that my aunt does not pay you enough to purchase a new pair of gloves.”

  Anne was quite sure that he was, indeed, completely ignorant of the realities of life in service, but she did appreciate that he at least acknowledged the deficit. She also suspected that he was completely ignorant of the cost of a pair of gloves, or just about anything else, for that matter. She had been shopping with the upper classes often enough to know that they never bothered to inquire the price of anything. If they liked it, they bought it and had the bill sent to their homes, where someone else would take care of making sure it was paid.

  “She does,” she said to him. “Pay me enough, that is. But there is virtue in thrift, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Not if it means your fingers are freezing.”

  She smiled, perhaps a little patronizingly. “It will hardly come to that. These gloves have at least one or two more mendings left in them.”

  He scowled. “How many times have you mended them already?”

  “Oh, goodness, I don’t know. Five? Six?”

  His expression turned to one of mild outrage. “That is entirely unacceptable. I will inform Aunt Charlotte that she must provide you with an adequate wardrobe.”

  “You will do no such thing,” she said with haste. Good heavens, was he mad? One more show of undue interest from him, and Anne would be out on the street. It was bad enough that she was sitting with him in front of the entire village at the posting inn, but at least she had the excuse of the inclement weather. She could hardly be faulted for having taken refuge from the rain.

  “I assure you,” she said, motioning to the gloves, “these are in better condition than most people’s.” Her eyes fell to the table, where his gloves, made of gloriously luxurious lined leather, sat in an untended heap. She cleared her throat. “Present company excluded.”

  He shifted very slightly in his seat.

  “Of course it is quite possible that your gloves have been mended and remended as well,” she added without thinking. “The only difference is that your valet whisks them from your sight before you even notice they require attention.”

  He did not say anything, and she instantly felt ashamed of her comment. Reverse snobbery was not nearly so bad as the real thing, but still, she ought to be better than that. “I beg your pardon,” she said.

  He stared at her for a moment longer, then asked, “Why are we talking about gloves?”

  “I have absolutely no idea.” But that wasn’t quite true. He might have been the one to bring it up, but she had not needed to go on about it. She’d wanted to remind him of the difference in their stations, she realized. Or maybe she’d wanted to remind herself.

  “Enough of that,” she said briskly, giving the overdiscussed handwear a pat. She looked up at him again, about to say something completely benign about the weather, but he was smiling at her in a way that made his eyes crinkle, and—

  “I think you’re healing,” she heard herself say. She hadn’t realized how much swelling there had been along with the bruise that wrapped around his eye, but now that it was gone, his smile was different. Perhaps even more joyful.

  He touched his face. “My cheek?”

  “No, your eye. It’s still a bit discolored, but it doesn’t look swollen any longer.” She gave him a regretful sort of look. “Your cheek looks much the same.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, actually worse, I’m sorry to say, but that’s to be expected. These things usually look worse before they look better.”

  His brows rose. “And how is it that you have come to be such an expert on scrapes and bruises?”

  “I’m a governess,” she said. Because really, that ought to be explanation enough.

  “Yes, but you teach three girls—”

  She laughed at this, cutting him off rather neatly. “Do you think that girls never get into mischief?”

  “Oh, I know that they do.” He tapped one hand against his heart. “Five sisters. Did you know that? Five.”

  “Is that meant to invoke pity?”

  “It certainly should,” he said. “But still, I don’t recall them ever coming to blows.”

  “Half the time Frances thinks she’s a unicorn,” Anne said plainly. “Trust me when I tell you that she acquires more than her fair share of bumps and bruises. And besides that, I’ve taught little boys, too. Someone must give them instruction before they go off to school.”

  “I suppose,” he said with a little shrug of concession. Then, with a cheeky quirk of his brows, he leaned forward and murmured, “Would it be improper of me to admit that I am inordinately flattered by your attention to the details of my face?”

  Anne snorted out a laugh. “Improper and ludicrous.”

  “It is true that I have never felt quite so colorful,” he said, with a clearly feigned sigh.

  “You are a veritable rainbow,” she agreed. “I see red and . . . well, no orange and yellow, but certainly green and blue and violet.”

  “You forgot indigo.”

  “I did not,” she said, with her very best governess voice. “I have always found it to be a foolish addition to the spectrum. Have you ever actually seen a rainbow?”

  “Once or twice,” he replied, looking rather amused by her rant.

  “It’s difficult enough to note the difference between the blue and violet, much less find the indigo in between.”

  He paused for a moment, then, lips twitching with humor, said, “You’ve given this a lot of thought.”

  Anne pressed her own lips together, trying not to smile in return. “Indeed,” she finally said, then burst out laughing. It was the most ridiculous conversation, and so perfectly lovely at the same time.

  Daniel laughed with her, and they both sat back as a maid came by with two steaming mugs of tea. Anne instantly put her hands around hers and sighed with pleasure as the warmth seeped through her skin.

  Daniel took a sip, shivered as the hot liquid went down his throat, then sipped again. “I think I look very dashing,” he said, “all mottled and bruised. Perhaps I should start making up stories of how I was injured. Fighting with Marcus lacks all excitement.”

  “Don’t forget the footpads,” she reminded him.

  “And that,” he replied in a dry voice, “lacks all dignity.”

  She smiled at that. It was a rare man who could poke fun at himself.

  “What do you think?” he asked, turning as if to preen. “Shall I say I wrestled with a wild boar? Or perhaps fought off pirates with a machete?”

  “Well, that depends,” she returned. “Did you have the machete or did the pirates?”

  “Oh, the pirates, I should think. It’s far more impressive if I held them off with my bare hands.” He waved them about as if practicing some ancient Oriental technique.

  “Stop,” she said, laughing. “Everyone is looking at you.”

  He shrugged. “They would look, regardless. I haven’t been here in three years.”

  “Yes, but they’ll think you a madman.”

  “Ah, but I’m allowed to be eccentric.” He gave her a dashing half smile and let his eyebrows bob up and then down. “It’s one of the perks of the title.”

  “Not the money and the power?”

  “Well, those, too,” he admitted, “but right now I’m most enjoying the eccentricity. The bruises help the cause, don’t you think?”

  She rolled her eyes, taking another sip of her tea.

  “Perhaps a scar,” he mused, turning to present her with his cheek. “What do you think? Right along here. I could—”

  But Anne did not hear the rest of his words. She only saw his hand, slicing through air from his temple to his chin. A long, furious diagonal, just like—

  She saw it—George’s face as he ripped the bandages from his skin in his f
ather’s study.

  And she felt it, the awful plunge of the knife when it had gone through his skin.

  She turned away quickly, trying to breathe. But she couldn’t. It was like a vise around her lungs, a great weight sitting on her chest. She was choking and drowning at the same time, desperate for air. Oh, dear God, why was this happening now? It had been years since she’d felt this kind of spontaneous terror. She’d thought she was past it.

  “Anne,” Daniel said urgently, reaching across the table to take her hand. “What can be wrong?”

  It was as if his touch snapped some sort of constricting band, because her entire body suddenly spasmed with a deep, convulsive breath. The black edges that had been squeezing down on her vision shimmered and dissolved, and very slowly, she felt her body returning to normal.

  “Anne,” he said again, but she didn’t look at him. She did not want to see the concern on his face. He had been joking, she knew that perfectly well. How on earth would she explain such an overreaction?

  “The tea,” she said, hoping he did not remember that she had already put down her mug when he’d made his comment. “I think—” She coughed, and she was not faking it. “I think it went down the wrong way.”

  He watched her face intently. “Are you certain?”

  “Or maybe it was too hot,” she said, her shoulders quivering in a nervous little shrug. “But I’m almost recovered now, I assure you.” She smiled, or at least tried to. “It’s terribly embarrassing, really.”

  “Can I help you in any way?”

  “No, of course not.” She fanned herself. “My goodness, I’m suddenly quite warm. Are you?”

  He shook his head, his eyes never leaving her face.

  “The tea,” she said, trying to sound bright and cheery. “As I said, it’s quite hot.”

  “It is.”

  She swallowed. He saw through her act, she was sure of it. He did not know what the truth was, just that she was not saying it. And for the first time since she’d left home eight years earlier, she felt a pang of remorse over her silence. She had no obligation to share her secrets with this man, and yet, here she was, feeling evasive and guilty.

  “Do you think the weather has improved?” she asked, turning to face the window. It was hard to tell; the glass was old and wavy, and the inn’s large overhang shielded it from the direct onslaught of the rain.

  “Not yet, no,” he replied.

  She turned back, murmuring, “No, of course not.” She fixed a smile on her face. “I should finish my tea, in any case.”

  He looked at her curiously. “You’re no longer too warm?”

  She blinked, taking a moment to remember that she had been fanning herself just a few moments earlier. “No,” she said. “Funny, that.” She smiled again and brought her mug to her lips. But she was saved from having to figure out how to set the conversation back on its previous, easygoing course by a loud crashing noise just outside the dining room.

  “What can that be?” Anne asked, but Daniel was already on his feet.

  “Stay here,” he ordered, and strode quickly to the door. He looked tense, and Anne saw something familiar in his stance. Something she’d seen in herself, time and again. It was almost as if he was expecting trouble. But that made no sense. She’d heard that the man who had driven him out of the country had dropped his quest for revenge.

  But she supposed that old habits died very hard. If George Chervil suddenly choked on a chicken bone or moved to the East Indies, how long would it take her to stop looking over her shoulder?

  “It was nothing,” Daniel said, coming back to the table. “Just a drunkard who managed to wreak havoc from the inn to the stables and back.” He picked up his mug of tea, took a long swig, then added, “But the rain is thinning out. It’s still drizzling, but I think we should leave soon.”

  “Of course,” Anne said, coming to her feet.

  “I’ve already asked them to bring the carriage around,” he said, escorting her to the door.

  She gave him a nod as she stepped outside. The fresh air was bracing, and she did not mind the cold. There was a cleansing quality to the chilly mist, and it made her feel more like herself.

  And right then, in that very moment, that wasn’t such a bad person to be.

  Daniel still had no idea what had happened to Anne back in the dining room. He supposed it could have been exactly what she’d said, that she’d choked on a bit of her tea. He’d done so before, and it was certainly enough to set a body coughing, especially when the tea was steaming hot.

  But she’d looked terribly pale, and her eyes—in that split second before she’d turned away—had looked hunted. Terrified.

  It brought to mind that time he’d seen her in London, when she’d stumbled into Hoby’s, scared out of her wits. She’d said she’d seen someone. Or rather, she’d said there was someone she did not want to see.

  But that was London. This was Berkshire, and more to the point, they had been sitting in an inn full of villagers he’d known since birth. There hadn’t been a soul in that room who would have had cause to harm so much as a hair on her head.

  Maybe it was the tea. Maybe he’d imagined everything else. Anne certainly seemed back to normal now, smiling at him as he helped her up into the curricle. The half canopy had been raised against the rain, but even if the weather held, they would both be thoroughly chilled by the time they reached Whipple Hill.

  Hot baths for the both of them. He’d order them the moment they arrived.

  Although sadly, not to be shared.

  “I’ve never ridden in a curricle,” Anne said, smiling as she tightened the ribbons on her bonnet.

  “No?” He did not know why this surprised him. Certainly a governess would have no cause to ride in one, but everything about her spoke of a gentle birth. At some point in her life she must have been an eligible young lady; he could not imagine she hadn’t had scores of gentlemen begging for her company in their curricles and phaetons.

  “Well, I’ve been in a gig,” she said. “My former employer had one, and I had to learn to drive it. She was quite elderly, and no one trusted her with the reins.”

  “Was this on the Isle of Man?” he asked, keeping his voice deliberately light. It was so rare that she offered pieces of her past. He was afraid she would bottle herself back up if he questioned too intensely.

  But she did not seem put off by his query. “It was,” she confirmed. “I’d only driven a cart before that. My father would not have kept a carriage that seated only two people. He was never a man for impracticalities.”

  “Do you ride?” he asked.

  “No,” she said simply.

  Another clue. If her parents had been titled, she would have been placed in a sidesaddle before she could read.

  “How long did you live there?” he asked conversationally. “On the Isle of Man.”

  She did not answer right away, and he thought she might not do so at all, but then, in a soft voice, laced with memory, she said, “Three years. Three years and four months.”

  Keeping his eyes scrupulously on the road, he said, “You don’t sound as if you have fond memories.”

  “No.” She was quiet again, for at least ten seconds, then she said, “It was not dreadful. It was just . . . I don’t know. I was young. And it was not home.”

  Home. Something she almost never mentioned. Something he knew he should not ask about, so instead he said, “You were a lady’s companion?”

  She nodded. He just barely saw it out of the corner of his eye; she seemed to have forgotten that he was watching the horses and not her. “It was not an onerous position,” she said. “She liked to be read to, so I did quite a lot of that. Needlework. I wrote all of her correspondence, as well. Her hands shook quite a bit.”

  “You left when she died, I presume.”

  “Yes. I was quite fortunate in that she had a great-niece near Birmingham who was in need of a governess. I think she knew that her time was near, and she made the arr
angements for a new position before she passed.” Anne was quiet for a moment, then he felt her straighten beside him, almost as if she were shaking off the foggy mantle of memory. “And I’ve been a governess ever since.”

  “It seems to suit you.”

  “Most of the time, yes.”

  “I should think—” He cut himself off sharply. Something was amiss with the horses.

  “What is it?” Anne asked.

  He shook his head. He couldn’t talk right now. He needed to focus. The team was pulling to the right, which made no sense. Something snapped, and the horses took off at breakneck speed, pulling the curricle along with them until—

  “Dear God above,” Daniel breathed. As he watched in horror, still struggling to control the team, the harness came separated from the shaft and the horses took off to the left.

  Without the carriage.

  Anne let out a little cry of surprised terror as the curricle sped down the hill, tilting wildly on its two wheels. “Lean forward!” Daniel yelled. If they could keep the carriage balanced, they could ride out the hill until they slowed down. But the canopy weighted it down at the back, and bumps and ruts in the oft-traveled road made it nearly impossible to hold their positions leaning forward.

  And then Daniel remembered the turn. Halfway down the hill the road curved sharply to the left. If they continued straight on, they’d be tossed down the hill, into a thick wood.

  “Listen to me,” he said to Anne urgently. “When we reach the bottom of the hill, lean left. With everything you have, lean left.”

  She gave a frantic nod. Her eyes were terrified, but she was not hysterical. She would do what she needed to do. As soon as—

  “Now!” he yelled.

  They both threw themselves to the left, Anne landing half atop him. The curricle lifted onto one wheel, its wooden spokes protesting with a horrible shriek at the extra burden. “Forward!” Daniel yelled, and they heaved themselves forward, causing the carriage to turn left, narrowly missing the edge of the road.

  But as they turned, their left wheel—the only one in contact with the ground—caught on something, and the curricle pitched forward, bouncing into the air before landing back on its wheel with a sickening crack. Daniel held on for dear life, and he thought Anne was doing the same, but as he watched in helpless terror, the curricle spit her out, and the wheel— Oh, dear God, the wheel! If it ran over her—