Chapter 20

“Do you realize the danger you are putting yourself in?” Percy growled, gazing down into Anna’s frightened blue eyes.

He had watched her step out onto the terrace with Simon, had seen Simon return indoors with a furtive, rather pleased look upon his face, and had known something was amiss. When he had gone out to see where Anna was, he had spotted her creeping across the darkened lawns to the Orangery, behaving very much like someone who was on their way to a clandestine rendezvous.

He had raced to get to the Orangery ahead of her, and passing a sheepish Simon not twenty paces from the doors, his suspicions had been confirmed. Fortunately, Simon had spotted him and mumbled an excuse, before heading back the way he had come.

“What danger?” Anna finally found her voice, tugging her hand out of Percy’s. “Indeed, what are you doing here? Am I to have no peace? I told you to find Lady Joan. I told you to dance with Lady Joan. Or if not Lady Joan, then any lady who takes your fancy!”

Percy grasped her hand again. “I am saving your reputation, Anna. I am here to protect you, as your friend and as your brother’s friend.”

“Saving my reputation?” She laughed. “From what?”

Percy shook his head. “It is beyond foolish, Anna, to attempt to be alone with a gentleman. Nothing can be gained from it that cannot be gained from speaking with a gentleman in the safety of company, where your chaperone can see you.”

“I am six-and-twenty, Percival,” she replied. “I debuted eight years ago. Eight seasons unmarried, unwanted, cast aside. I hardly think there is any need for a chaperone, even if I were to attempt to be alone with a gentleman. Which I am not. Remove the ‘with a gentleman’ part, and that is what I was trying to do!”

Percy frowned. “But… I saw you. I saw Lord Luminport in the hallway, not two minutes ago.” He hesitated. “Were you not intending to meet him here?”

“What?” She stared at him as if he had grown another head. “Are you quite serious?”

He straightened up. “I am gravely serious.”

“Lord Luminport is not interested in me, Percival!” she said, her voice tight, her eyes brimming. “This evening, he has written his name on my spinster card, and his shall be the last written there. I was a pawn, Percival. A pawn, so he could get closer to Caro, so he could learn if Caro liked you. It was all a performance, and would you like to know the very worst part about it? I fell for it. I knew he was not right for me, I knew my heart did not want him, but I thought—I would settle for this. If it means not being the outcast, if it means gaining a place in the Wives’ and Mothers’ Club, if it means my friends view me as an equal again, I would settle for this.”

Percy gazed at the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, dressed in all her finery, resembling a goddess, and wished to throttle the man who had made such a divine creature shed tears. His heart twinged at her sorrow, the utter desolation in her voice, and before he knew what he was doing, he had pulled her into his arms.

He held her tightly, one hand cradling the back of her head, his lips whispering comforting, hushing sounds against the silky softness of her golden hair.

“I did not know,” he said. “My goodness, I did not know.”

“But you thought you knew enough about me, about how desperate I am, to accuse me of trying to steal away with a gentleman by myself,” she replied, though she made no attempt to pull away.

Instead, her arms slipped around his waist, and she buried her face in his chest, hiding her tears from him.

“I put two and two together, and made five,” he murmured, cursing inwardly at his stupidity. Of course, Anna was not the sort of woman who would wander off alone with a gentleman. Around everyone but him, she was a lady of propriety and procedure, longing to find her love in the ‘proper’ way.

She sniffed. “Indeed, you have no right to scold me when you are not my brother and yet, you are in this room alone with me.” She paused, hiccupping. “Embracing me because I have had my silly heart broken by a gentleman I did not even like that much.”

“Your heart is not silly, Anna,” he told her, his thumb lightly stroking the middle of her back. “Lord Luminport is the idiot. I knew he was not worthy of you, but I held my tongue because you seemed interested. Anna, you are a rare creature, brimming with humor and vitality and charm, and he is a dullard.”

A small laugh puffed against his chest, and he held her closer.

“I suspect Caro will think the same thing,” she mumbled.

He smiled against her hair. “Does The Matchmaker believe so?”

“I am not manipulative,” she replied. “I will not intervene.”

“Do you think anyone is good enough for Caro?”

She shrugged. “Probably not. A foreign prince, perhaps—ridiculously handsome, endlessly kind, with grace and charm and dignity.” She froze in his arms, pushing back. “You should not be here. We should not be here together. I thank you for your comfort, but… this is wrong.”

“It is?” It did not feel wrong to him.

“You cannot do this to me, Percival,” she said, peering up. “It is too confusing. If you treat me kindly, at such a time as this, I am likely to misunderstand, and your friendship is not something I can afford to lose. Please, you should leave.”

He did not move. “In what way would you misunderstand?”

“I… Percival, I… Oh, mercy, I am already bewildered.” She shook her head. “Perhaps, if you were to start an argument with me, I would feel better.”

“But I do not want to argue anymore.”

A shaky breath left her lips. “You see, this is what I am referring to. When you speak to me like that, I do not know what to make of it. Why, you are behaving as if you?—”

He kissed her, not to quieten her or confuse her, but because he could not help it. He wanted her to understand, and where words failed him, a kiss surely would not.

Her lips were soft against his, her body rigid in his arms as he pulled her to him again. The shock was evident in the tremble of her mouth, but as she thawed from the initial surprise, she relaxed in his embrace. Her hands pressed against his chest as her lips moved hesitantly, with the nervousness of someone who had never been kissed before.

A slow graze guided her, his lips catching hers in a gentle ebb and flow, while his hand cradled the nape of her neck. His thumb brushed that sensitive skin, while his other arm continued to hold her close, as if he feared she might vanish if he were to loosen his grip even a little.

He waited for his honor to kick in, or for it to feel wrong, but neither came. Indeed, it was, perhaps, the only thing that had felt right in a very, very long time. And his heart swelled as they kissed more deeply, as if it had been waiting for him to realize that what he was searching for had been in front of him, all along. Something he had acknowledged a few days ago, but had pushed away with all his might, fearing the change it might bring to his relationship with her.

No, Percy… You cannot give her what she wants, a small voice whispered in the back of his mind.

He fought to block out that irksome voice, and the touch of Anna’s lips proved to be a most beneficial distraction. Within seconds, he had regained that warm, blissful peace, where no warning bells could hope to chime.

Just then, Anna reached up to brush her fingertips across his cheek. But as they touched upon his still-sensitive bruise, a sharp pain splintered up the side of his face. A harsh gasp slipped from his throat and, in that instant, the whisper in his mind became a clamoring shout. The peace had shattered, well and truly.

You cannot love her. You cannot give her everything she has ever dreamed of. You are as unworthy as Lord Luminport.

He halted, breaking the kiss as those words circled in his mind. He willed them to be mistaken, but as he looked down into the wide and wonder-filled eyes of the beautiful woman in front of him, he knew that common sense had kicked in at last. He would only disappoint her, adding his name to her ‘spinster card,’ as Simon had done.

“I am sorry,” she murmured. “Did I hurt you?”

Love was her fairytale, and he did not believe in it either. Indeed, he had come to warn her because he thought she was in danger and had ended up putting her reputation at greater risk.

“No, I apologize,” he said, stepping back. “I should not have done that. It was improper of me. Goodness, I do not know why I did that. It was… shameful.”

The sudden transformation upon Anna’s face was like taking a croquet mallet to the chest. Where before she had been wide-eyed and sparkling, she had now retreated behind her walls, staring at him with a coldness he had seen often enough.

She gave a small, stiff shrug. “No, that is not something a self-proclaimed friend would do.”

“Anna, do not look at me like that. I?—”

She put her hand up to silence him. “I have forgotten it already. There is no need to make excuses or to make this into something it was not. I know you have no interest in marrying me, and I have no interest in marrying you. Let us consider it a mistake, made in a moment of vulnerability and confusion.”

She turned her back on him. “I will send a letter to Lady Joan from The Matchmaker tomorrow, so this will be over quickly. I will have played my part, and you can have what you truly want—an obedient, convenient wife, who knows her place and has no silly notions of love and such.” She paused. “I asked you to leave. Why did you not leave?”

“You were upset,” he said, fighting for something better to say, something to thaw the cold front that had set in.

“Clearly, distance and sense are what we both need,” she said quietly. “If you will not go, then I will.”

She headed for the Orangery doors that led back out into the gardens, and before he could think to stop her, she was gone, blending into the darkness. He stared at the open door for a second, then shook his head, realizing that he was being the idiot. Indeed, if she would but give him a moment of her time, perhaps he could try to explain what was going on in his head. A moment to sift through the mess of thoughts to dig out the truth.

He was just about to cross the threshold to pursue her when the interior doors burst open, and Max and Dickie came running in, wearing expressions of fury.

“What on earth are you playing at?” Max spat, with more venom in his voice than Percy had ever heard. “Why have I just heard that you were alone in this room with my sister?”

Dickie eyed the open door. “I will catch her before she reaches the ballroom.”

“The ballroom?” Percy asked, puzzled. “Why?”

Max shook his head slowly, approaching. “What have you done, Sinclair? My goodness, what have you done?”