A Night Like This (21 page)

She gave him a grateful smile. “I don’t mean to say I blame myself, because I don’t. Not any longer. But I should have known better.”

“Anne . . .”

“No,” she said, stopping his protest. “I
should
have known better. He did not mention marriage. Not once. I assumed he would ask. Because . . . I don’t know. I just did. I came from a good family. It never occurred to me that he wouldn’t want to marry me. And . . . Oh, it sounds horrible now, but the truth was, I was young and I was pretty and I knew it. My God, it sounds so sily now.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Daniel said quietly. “We have all been young.”

“I let him kiss me,” she said, then quietly added, “and then I let him do a great deal more.” Daniel held himself very still, waiting for the wave of jealousy that never came. He was furious with the man who’d taken advantage of her innocence, but he did Daniel held himself very still, waiting for the wave of jealousy that never came. He was furious with the man who’d taken advantage of her innocence, but he did not feel jealous. He did not need to be her first, he realized. He simply needed to be her last.

Her only.

“You don’t have to say anything about it,” he told her.

She sighed. “No, I do. Not because of that. Because of what happened next.” She walked across the room in a burst of nervous energy and grasped the back of a chair. Her fingers bit into the upholstery, and it gave her something to look at when she said, “I must be honest, I did like what he did up to a point, and after that, wel, it wasn’t dreadful. It just seemed rather awkward, realy, and a bit uncomfortable.” She looked back up at him, her eyes meeting his with stunning honesty. “But I did like the way it seemed to make
him
feel. And that made
me
feel powerful, and the next time I saw him, I was fuly prepared to let him do it all again.”

She closed her eyes, and Daniel could practicaly see the memory washing over her face. “It was such a lovely night,” she whispered. “Midsummer, and so very clear. You could have counted the stars forever.”

“What happened?” he quietly asked.

She blinked, almost as if waking from a dream, and when she spoke, it was with an offhandedness that was almost disconcerting. “I found out he had proposed marriage to someone else. The day after I gave myself to him, as a matter of fact.”

The fury that had been building within began to crackle. He had never, not once in his life, felt such anger on behalf of another person. Was this what love meant?

That another person’s pain cut more deeply than one’s own?

“He tried to have his way with me, anyway,” she continued. “He told me I was . . . I can’t even remember the exact words, but he made me feel like a whore.

And maybe that’s what I was, but—”

“No,” Daniel said forcefuly. He could accept that she should have known better, that she could have been more sensible. But he would never alow her to think such a thing of herself. He strode across the room, and his hands came down on her shoulders. She tilted her face toward his, her eyes . . . those bottomless, deep blue eyes . . . He wanted to lose himself. Forever.

“He took advantage of you,” he said with quiet intensity. “He should have been drawn and quartered for—” A horrified bubble of laughter burst from her mouth. “Oh, dear,” she said, “just wait until you hear the rest of the story.” His brows rose.

“I cut him,” she said, and it took him a moment to understand what she meant. “He came at me, and I was trying to get away, and I suppose I grabbed the first thing my hand touched. It was a letter opener.”

Oh, dear God.

“I was trying to defend myself, and I only meant to wave the thing at him, but he lunged at me, and then—” She shuddered, and the blood drained from her face.

“From here to here,” she whispered, her finger sliding from her temple to her chin. “It was awful. And of course there was no hiding it. I was ruined,” she said with a little shrug. “I was sent away, told to change my name, and sever all ties with my family.”

“Your parents alowed this?” Daniel asked in disbelief.

“It was the only way to protect my sisters. No one would have married them if it got out that I had slept with George Chervil. Can you imagine? Slept with him and then
stabbed
him?”

“What I cannot imagine,” he bit off, “is a family who would turn you out.”

“It’s all right,” she said, even though they both knew it wasn’t. “My sister and I have corresponded clandestinely all this time, so I wasn’t completely alone.”

“The receiving houses,” he murmured.

She smiled faintly. “I always made sure I knew where they were,” she said. “It seemed safer to send and receive my mail from a more anonymous location.”

“What happened tonight?” he asked. “Why did you leave last week?”

“When I left . . .” She swalowed convulsively, turning her head away from his, her eyes finding some unknown spot on the floor. “He was enraged. He wanted to take me before the magistrate and have me hanged or transported or something, but his father was quite stern. If George made a spectacle of me, he’d lose his engagement with Miss Beckwith. And she was the daughter of a viscount.” She looked up with a wry expression. “It was quite the coup.”

“Did the marriage go forward?”

Anne nodded. “But he has never let go of his vow for revenge. The scar healed better than I might have expected, but he is still marked most visibly. And he was so very handsome before. I used to think he wanted to kill me, but now . . .”

“What?” Daniel demanded when she did not finish the sentence.

“He wants to cut me,” she said, very quietly.

Daniel let out a vicious curse. It did not matter that he was in the presence of a lady. There was no way he could stop the foul language that spat from his mouth.

“I’m going to kill him,” he said.

“No,” Anne said, “you’re not. After what happened with Hugh Prentice—”

“No one would mind if I removed Chervil from the face of this earth,” he cut in. “I have no worries on that score.”

“You will not kill him,” Anne said sternly. “I have already injured him grievously—”

“Surely you do not make
excuses
for him?”

“No,” she replied, with enough alacrity to set his mind at ease. “But I do think he has paid for what he did to me that night. He will never escape what I did to him.”

“As well he shouldn’t,” Daniel bit off.

“I want this to
stop,
” she said firmly. “I want to live my life without looking over my shoulder. But I don’t want revenge. I don’t need it.” Daniel rather thought
he
might need it, but he knew it was her decision to make. It took him a moment to stuff down his anger, but he managed it, and finaly he asked, “How did he explain the injury?”

Anne looked relieved that he had changed the subject. “A riding accident. Charlotte told me no one believed it, but they said that he’d been thrown by his horse and his face had been cut open by the branch of a tree. I don’t think anyone suspected the truth—I’m sure people thought the worst of me when I disappeared so suddenly, but I can’t imagine anyone thought I would stab him in the face.”

Much to his surprise, Daniel felt himself smile. “I’m glad you did.”

She looked at him with surprise.

“You should have cut him somewhere else.”

Her eyes widened, and then she let out a snort of laughter.

“Call me bloodthirsty,” he murmured.

Her expression grew a little bit wicked. “You’ll be pleased to know that tonight, while I was getting away . . .”

“Oh, tell me you kneed him in the bals,” he begged. “Please please
please
tell me that.” She pressed her lips together, trying not to laugh again. “I might have done.”

He tugged her close. “Hard?”

“Not as hard as I kicked him once he was on the ground.”

Daniel kissed one of her hands, and then the other. “May I say that I’m very proud to know you?” She flushed with pleasure.

“And I’m very
very
proud to call you mine.” He kissed her, lightly. “But you will never be my mistress.” She drew back. “Dan—”

He stopped her with a finger to her lips. “I have already announced that I plan to marry you. Would you make me a liar?”

“Daniel, you can’t!”

“I can.”

“No, you—”

“I
can,
” he said firmly. “And I wil.”

Her eyes searched his face with frantic movement. “But George is still out there. And if he hurts you . . .”

“I can take care of the George Chervils of the world,” he assured her, “as long as you can take care of me.”

“But—”

“I love you,” he said, and it felt as if the whole world settled into place when he finaly told her. “I love you, and I cannot bear the thought of a moment without you. I want you at my side and in my bed. I want you to bear my children, and I want every bloody person in the world to know that you are mine.”

“Daniel,” she said, and he couldn’t tell if she was protesting or giving in. But her eyes had filed with tears, and he knew he was close.

“I won’t be satisfied with anything less than everything,” he whispered. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to marry me.” Her chin trembled. It might have been a nod. “I love you,” she whispered. “I love you, too.”

“And . . . ?” he prodded. Because he was going to make her say it.

“Yes,” she said. “If you’re brave enough to want me, I will marry you.”

He puled her against him, kissing her with all of the passion, and fear, and emotion he’d been holding inside of him for a week. “Bravery has nothing to do with it,” he told her, and he almost laughed, he was so exquisitely happy. “It’s self-preservation.” Her brow furrowed.

He kissed her again. He couldn’t seem to stop. “I believe I would die without you,” he murmured.

“I think . . . ,” she whispered, but she didn’t finish, at least not right away. “I think that before . . . with George . . . I don’t think it counts.” She lifted her face to his, her eyes shining with love and promise. “Tonight is going to be my first time. With you.”
Chapter Nineteen

A
nd then Anne said one word. Just one.

“Please.”

She didn’t know
why
she said it; it certainly wasn’t the result of rational thought. It was just that she had spent the last five years of her life reminding people that it never hurt to use good manners and say please for the things one wanted.

And she wanted this very badly.

“Then I,” Daniel murmured, bowing his head in a courtly gesture, “can say only ‘thank you.’ ” She smiled then, but not the smile of amusement or humor. It was a different thing altogether, the kind of smile that took a body by surprise, that wobbled on the lips until it found its bearing. It was the smile of pure happiness, coming so deep from within that Anne had to remind herself to breathe.

One tear roled down her cheek. She reached up to wipe it away, but Daniel’s fingers found it first. “A happy tear, I hope,” he said.

She nodded.

His hand cupped her cheek, the pad of his thumb brushing lightly over the faint bruise near her temple. “He hurt you.” Anne had seen the bruise when she had looked at her reflection in the bathroom looking glass. It didn’t hurt much, and she couldn’t even remember exactly how she’d got it. The fight with George was a blur, and she decided it was better that way.

still, she smiled slyly, murmuring, “He looks worse.”

It took Daniel a moment, but then his eyes flared with quiet humor. “Does he?”

“Oh, yes.”

He kissed her softly behind her ear, his breath hot on her skin. “Wel, that’s very important.”

“Mmm-hmm.” She arched her neck as his lips moved slowly toward her colarbone. “I was told once that the most important part of a fight is making sure your opponent looks worse than you do when you’re through.”

“You have very wise advisors.”

Anne sucked in her breath again. His hands had moved to the silken tie of the dressing gown, and she could feel the belt grow loose as he undid the knot. “Just one,” she whispered, trying not to lose herself completely when she felt his large hands slide along the tender skin of her bely and then around to her back.

“Just one?” he asked, cupping her bottom.

“One advisor, but he’s—oh, my!”

He squeezed again. “Was
this
the ‘oh my’?” Then he did something entirely different, something that involved just one very wicked finger. “Or this?” He squeezed again. “Was
this
the ‘oh my’?” Then he did something entirely different, something that involved just one very wicked finger. “Or this?”

“Oh, Daniell. . .”

His lips found her ear again, and his voice was hot and husky on her skin. “Before the night is through, I’m going to make you scream.” She had just enough sense left to say, “No. You can’t.”

He lifted her against him, with just enough roughness that her feet left the ground and she had no choice but to wrap her legs around his. “I assure you, I can.”

“No, no . . . I’m not . . .”

His finger, which had been drawing lazy circles on her mound, dipped in a little further.

“No one knows that I am here,” Anne gasped, clutching desperately at his shoulders. He was moving within her now, languid and slow, but every touch seemed to send shivers of desire to the very center of her body. “If we wake someone up . . .”

“Oh, that’s right,” he murmured, but she could hear a wicked smile in his voice. “I suppose I shal have to be prudent and save a few things for when we’re married.”

Anne couldn’t even begin to imagine what he was talking about, but his words were having just as much effect on her as his hands, spinning her into a heated coil of passion.

“For tonight,” he said, carrying her to the edge of the bed, “I will have no choice but to make sure that you are a very good girl indeed.”

“A good girl?” she echoed. She was backed up against the edge of a sinfuly large bed, wearing a man’s dressing gown that was hanging open to reveal the curve of her breasts, and there was a finger inside of her, making her pant with pleasure.

There was nothing good about her just then.

Nothing good, and everything wonderful.