A Night Like This

by Julia Quinn

  Two weeks. That would correspond with the day Anne had come running into Hoby’s looking as if she’d seen a ghost. Had she been on her way to pick up her mail when she’d run into the mysterious person she had not wished to see? He had driven her to a receiving house to post the letter she’d held in her reticule, but it had not been the same one “Mary Philpott” used to receive her letters.

  At any rate, the man at the receiving house had continued, she’d come back a few weeks later. Tuesday, it was. Always Tuesday.

  Daniel frowned. She had disappeared on a Wednesday.

  Daniel had left his name at all three receiving houses, along with a promise of a reward should they notify him of her appearance. But beyond that, he didn’t know what to do. How was he supposed to find one woman in all of London?

  And so he just walked and walked and walked, constantly searching faces in crowds. It would have been like the proverbial needle in the haystack, except that it was worse. At least the needle was in the haystack. For all he knew, Anne had left town entirely.

  But it was dark now, and he needed sleep, and so he dragged himself back to Mayfair, praying that his mother and sister would not be at home when he arrived. They had not asked what he was doing each day from dawn to late evening, and he had not told them, but they knew. And it was easier if he did not have to see the pity on their faces.

  Finally, he reached his street. It was quiet, blessedly so, and the only sound was his own groan as he lifted his foot to the first stone step at the entrance to Winstead House. The only sound, that was, until someone whispered his name.

  He froze. “Anne?”

  A figure stepped out of the shadows, trembling in the night. “Daniel,” she said again, and if she said anything more, he did not hear it. He was down the stairs in an instant, and she was in his arms, and for the first time in nearly a week, the world felt steady on its axis.

  “Anne,” he said, touching her back, her arms, her hair. “Anne, Anne, Anne.” It seemed the only thing he could say, just her name. He kissed her face, the top of her head. “Where have you—”

  He stopped, suddenly realizing that her hands had been bound. Carefully, very carefully so as not to terrify her with the extent of his fury, he began to work at the knots at her wrists.

  “Who did this to you?” he asked.

  She just swallowed, nervously wetting her lips as she held out her hands.

  “Anne . . .”

  “It was someone I used to know,” she finally told him. “He— I— I will tell you later. Just not now. I can’t— I need—”

  “It’s all right,” he said soothingly. He squeezed one of her hands, then went back to work on the knots. They had been tied furiously tight, and she had probably made it worse with her struggles. “It’ll just be a moment,” he said.

  “I didn’t know where else to go,” she said tremulously.

  “You did the right thing,” he assured her, yanking the cloth from her wrists and tossing it aside. She had started to shake, and even her breath began to tremble.

  “I can’t stop them,” she said, staring down at her quivering hands as if she did not recognize them.

  “You will be fine,” he said, covering her hands with his. He held them tight, trying to keep her steady. “It is only your nerves. The same thing has happened to me.”

  She looked up at him, her eyes huge and questioning.

  “When Ramsgate’s men were chasing me in Europe,” he explained. “When it was through, and I knew I was safe. Something inside of me let go, and I shook.”

  “It will stop, then?”

  He gave her a reassuring smile. “I promise.”

  She nodded, in that moment looking so terribly fragile that it was all he could do not to wrap his arms around her and try to protect her from the entire world. Instead he allowed himself to place his arm around her shoulders and steer her toward his home. “Let’s get you inside,” he said. He was so overcome—with relief, with dread, with fury—but no matter what, he had to get her inside. She needed care. She probably needed food. And everything else could sort itself out later.

  “Can we go in the back?” she said haltingly. “I’m not— I can’t—”

  “You will always use the front door,” he said fiercely.

  “No, it’s not that, it’s—please,” she begged. “I’m in such a state. I don’t want anyone to see me like this.”

  He took her hand. “I see you,” he said quietly.

  Her eyes met his, and he could swear he saw some of the bleakness wash away. “I know,” she whispered.

  He brought her hand to his lips. “I was terrified,” he told her, laying his soul bare. “I did not know where to find you.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I won’t do it again.”

  But there was something in her apology that unsettled him. Something too meek, too nervous.

  “I have to ask you something,” she said.

  “Soon,” he promised. He guided her up the steps, then held up a hand. “Wait one moment.” He peered inside the hall, ascertained that all was quiet, then motioned to her to come inside. “This way,” he whispered, and together they silently dashed up the stairs to his room.

  Once he shut the door behind him, however, he found himself at a loss. He wanted to know everything—Who had done this to her? Why had she run? Who was she, really? He wanted answers, and he wanted them now.

  No one treated her this way. Not while he took breath.

  But first she needed to get warm, and she needed to simply breathe, and allow herself to realize that she was safe. He had been in her place before. He knew what it was like to run.

  He lit a lamp, and then another. They needed light, the both of them.

  Anne stood awkwardly near the window, rubbing at her wrists, and for the first time that evening, Daniel really looked at her. He’d known she was disheveled, but in his relief to have finally found her he had not realized how much. Her hair was pinned up on one side but hung loose on the other, her coat was missing a button, and there was a bruise on her cheek that made his blood run cold.

  “Anne,” he said, trying to find the words for the question that must be asked. “Tonight . . . Whoever this was . . . Did he . . . ?”

  He couldn’t get the word out. It sat at the back of his tongue, tasting like acid and rage.

  “No,” she said, holding herself with quiet dignity. “He would have done, but when he found me, I was outside, and—” She looked away then, squeezing her eyes shut against the memory. “He told me that— He said he was going to—”

  “You don’t have to say anything,” he said quickly. At least not now, when she was so upset.

  But she shook her head, and her eyes held a determination that he could not contradict. “I want to tell you everything,” she said.

  “Later,” he said gently. “After you take a bath.”

  “No,” she said, her voice barely a choke. “You have to let me speak. I stood outside for hours, and I have only so much courage.”

  “Anne, you don’t need courage with—”

  “My name is Annelise Shawcross,” she blurted out. “And I would like to be your mistress.” And then, while he was staring at her in stunned disbelief, she added, “If you’ll have me.”

  Almost an hour later, Daniel was standing by his window, waiting for Anne to finish with her bath. She had not wanted anyone to know that she was in the house, so he had hidden her in a wardrobe while several footmen saw to the task of filling a tub, and now she was presumably still soaking in it, waiting for the chill of fear to leave her body.

  She had tried to talk to him about her proposition, insisting that it was her only option, but he had not been able to listen. For her to have offered herself up to him in such a way . . . She could only have done so if she felt herself to be completely without hope.

  And that was something he could not bear to imagine.

  He heard the door to his bathroom open, and when he turned he saw her, scrubbe
d clean and new, her wet hair combed away from her face and hanging down over her right shoulder. She’d twisted it somehow; not a braid but more of a spiral that kept the strands in one thick cord.

  “Daniel?” She said his name quietly as she peered out into the room, her bare feet padding along the plush carpet. She was wearing his dressing gown, the deep midnight blue almost the same color as her eyes. It was huge on her, falling nearly to her ankles, and she had her arms wrapped around her waist just to keep it in place.

  He thought she’d never looked so beautiful.

  “I’m right here,” he said when he realized she didn’t see him standing by the window. He’d removed his coat while she was bathing, his neckcloth and boots, too. His valet had been put out that he had not wished for assistance, so Daniel had set the boots outside the door, hoping he’d take that as an invitation to take them back to his quarters and polish them.

  Tonight was not a night for interruptions.

  “I hope you don’t mind that I took your dressing gown,” Anne said, hugging her arms more tightly to her body. “There was nothing else . . .”

  “Of course not,” he replied, motioning to nothing in particular. “You may use anything you wish.”

  She nodded, and even from ten feet away, he saw her swallow nervously. “It occurred to me,” she said, her voice catching as she spoke, “that you probably already knew my name.”

  He looked at her.

  “From Granby,” she clarified.

  “Yes,” he said. “He told me about the man who was looking for you. It was all I had to go on when I was searching for you.”

  “I imagine it wasn’t much help.”

  “No.” His lips twisted into a wry smile. “I did find Mary Philpott, though.”

  Her lips parted with momentary surprise. “It was the name I used to write to my sister Charlotte so that my parents would not realize she was corresponding with me. It was through her letters that I knew that George was still—” She cut herself off. “I’m getting ahead of myself.”

  Daniel’s hands clenched at the sound of another man’s name. Whoever this George was, he had tried to hurt her. To kill her. And the urge to swing out his arms and punch something was overwhelming. He wanted to find this man, to hurt him, to make him understand that if anything—anything—happened to Anne again, Daniel would tear him apart with his bare hands.

  And he had never considered himself to be a violent man.

  He looked up at Anne. She was still standing in the center of the room, her arms hugging her body. “My name is— My name was Annelise Shawcross,” she said. “I made a terrible mistake when I was sixteen, and I’ve been paying for it ever since.”

  “Whatever you did—” he began, but she held up her hand.

  “I’m not a virgin,” she said to him, the words blunt in the air.

  “I don’t care,” he said, and he realized he didn’t.

  “You should.”

  “But I don’t.”

  She smiled at him—forlornly, as if she was preparing to forgive him for changing his mind. “His name was George Chervil,” she said. “Sir George Chervil now that his father has died. I grew up in Northumberland, in a medium-sized village in the western part of the county. My father is a country gentleman. We were always comfortable, but not particularly wealthy. Still, we were respected. We were invited everywhere, and it was expected that my sisters and I would make good matches.”

  He nodded. It was an easy picture to paint in his mind.

  “The Chervils were very rich, or at least they were in comparison to everyone else. When I look at this . . .” She glanced around his elegant bedchamber, at all the luxuries he used to take for granted. He’d not had so many material comforts while in Europe; he would not fail to appreciate such things again.

  “They were not of this status,” she continued, “but to us—to everyone in the district—they were unquestionably the most important family we knew. And George was their only child. He was very handsome, and he said lovely things, and I thought I loved him.” She shrugged helplessly and glanced up at the ceiling, almost as if begging forgiveness for her younger self.

  “He said he loved me,” she whispered.

  Daniel swallowed, and he had the strangest sensation, almost a premonition of what it must like to be a parent. Someday, God willing, he’d have a daughter, and that daughter would look like the woman standing in front of him, and if ever she looked at him with that bewildered expression, whispering, “He said he loved me . . .”

  Nothing short of murder would be an acceptable response.

  “I thought he was going to marry me,” Anne said, bringing his thoughts back to the here and now. She seemed to have regained some of her composure, and her voice was brisk, almost businesslike. “But the thing is, he never said he would. He never even mentioned it. So I suppose, in a way, I bear some of the blame myself—”

  “No,” Daniel said fiercely, because whatever happened, he knew it could not be her fault. It was all too easy to guess what would happen next. The rich, handsome man, the impressionable young girl . . . It was a terrible tableau, and terribly common.

  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 silly 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 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, well, it wasn’t dreadful. It just seemed rather awkward, really, 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 fully prepared to let him do it all again.”

  She closed her eyes, and Daniel could practically 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 forcefully. He could accept that she should have known better, that she could have been more sensible. But he would never allow her to think such a thing of herself. He strode across the room, and his hands came down o
n 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 allowed 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.”