Mr. Green kicked the back of the chair I had been sitting on until recently. “I cannot believe the way this woman has misled me for years. It’s disgraceful.”
“Mr. Green.” David’s voice was icy. “I’m going to tell you this once kindly, and if I need to say it again, I will not be so kind. Have a care for how you speak of Anna. Or of any woman, for that matter. I highly doubt she bestowed any special favors upon you over the past years. It is your own folly if you looked upon common human decency and saw it as encouragement.”
One of the veins in Mr. Green’s neck looked as though it might burst. But he sized up David’s arms and general youth and must have thought better of aggravating him further. Instead, he turned to me, his eyes stopping briefly at the point where David’s and my hands touched. When his eyes met mine they were furious. “I hope younever set foot in Derbyshire again, for you won’t receive any sort of welcome from me or the rest of the county.”
“I am aware of that, Mr. Green.” I smiled at him and tightened my hold on David’s hand, which he immediately returned with a squeeze of his own. This was going to be a mess to sort out once Mr. Green left, but it was worth it to hear him say he was finally done pursuing me. My chest felt light enough that I could fly out the window.
David ran his thumb quickly over the top of my hand before dropping it and striding to the door. He opened it and looked at Mr. Green expectantly. Mr. Green narrowed his eyes and, seeing no support, even from Mama, stomped out of the drawing room. A moment later, the front door slammed.
I waited for David to tell everyone it was all an act, but it didn’t happen. We stood there looking at each other. My heart swelled with gratitude for this man and what he had done, but he must be panicking. It was up to me to tell everyone the truth so no harm could be done to his name.
“Mama ...” How would I start? She looked up at me expectantly, and although I could tell she was put out not to have been privy to this pretend engagement, I also knew she was scared enough to have asked Mr. Green here. But there was nothing to be done about it. I couldn’t entrap David. He had too much of his life ahead of him. He might even already have someone in mind whom he would like to marry. “None of this—”
“Mr. Preston,” David interrupted. “I haven’t actually had time to hear Miss Atwood’s reply to my proposal. I wonder if I could borrow a private room for a moment of her time. Assuming Mrs. Atwood and Anna are willing?”
My heart sped up at his words, but not in the way it had when Mr. Green had asked the same thing. Alone, with David?
“Of course,” Mr. Preston said. “You may use the library for a few minutes. Would that be agreeable, Mrs. Atwood?”
Mama looked to be in shock. Her eyes widened when her name was called and then seemed to process what had been said. “Yes, I suppose that would be all right.” She glanced at David. “But afterward, I would also like to speak with you.”
I shook my head. “That won’t be necessary, Mama.”
Mama’s hands flitted about, and she walked up to me and leaned in. “I know us being here means you must have already made up your mind to marry him, but I know next to nothing about the man. I think it is only proper that he speak to me as well.”
“Certainly,” David said. “I will speak with you directly after I have a word with Anna, that is.” He held out his arm, solid and so very different from Mr. Green’s. Mr. Green’s arm had been a way to claim me. David’s was an invitation. “If Anna will join me.”
Anna. That was me. I wasn’t certain what we needed to talk about in private, but I had no objections to being alone with him in the library. I took his arm. My hand wasn’t shaking, at least. That was something.
He gave Mr. Preston a short bow, then led me out of the dining room. He walked directly down a corridor and to the library. I suppose as a neighbor, he knew the house well enough to find it. Opening the door, he motioned for me to step inside the unlit room.
I did.
And then he closed the door behind us.
W
Chapter 4
“She likes to help those in need, and if she knew my family’s name, she might think I don’t need her. But I need her more than anyone.”
David Tate, 1841, Age 14
The silence in the room was deafening and intimate. We hadn’t thought to bring a lamp, and the room was dim, with only the soft moonlight from the window illuminating the walls of books and bathing the man in front of me in silken shadows.
“Mr. Tate,” I said.
“David,” he corrected, motioning to the door with a tip of his head and a flash of his eyes. His message was clear. Someone could be listening there, and he wasn’t wrong. Unless Mr. Preston had physically restrained Mama, she was certain to have pressed her ear against the barrier between us. He leaned forward, and as he was at most two inches taller than I, it brought his face level with mine. “You should call me David. And not only because of what just happened. Mr. Tate feels wrong coming from you.”
I sighed because he was right. I’d tried and failed to think of him as Mr. Tate ever since learning his surname; our past made it a nearly impossible task. He was David, the young boy who’d followed me around for a summer.
I grabbed his hand as I might have when we’d been young and pulled him to the tall windows on the other side of the room, where our voices would be less likely to carry into the corridor and more light would get the romantic idea of an actual engagement out of my head. Once there, I took two steps away from him.
“David.” His Christian name flowed much easier. His lips turned up at the corners, and his shoulders seemed to relax at my use of it. “You shouldn’t have done that. You were less impulsive at fourteen.”
“If you recall,” his voice was barely above a whisper, “I was just as impulsive at fourteen.” His eyes flashed in the moonlight. Having more of it wasn’t actually helping, and the way his eyes raked over me wasn’t either.
“We don’t need to be so quiet,” I said, not matching his tone. “We will be explaining ourselves to everyone within minutes. Mama and I are in unfortunate circumstances, but I will find a way out of it.”
