“Oh, my dear girl.” In a rare display of maternal affection that went beyond the boundaries of lady’s maid and lady, Becca left her seat to envelop Annalise in a hug. Rubbing her back in soothing circular strokes, she said, “Men can be, on their best day, careless creatures. Not always on purpose, as I hope is the case with the Duke of Tennyson, although I must say his reputation precedes him. Still, I’ve found people aren’t nearly as bad as they are portrayed to be, nor as good, but somewhere in the middle where we are all infinitely human.”
“Thank you,” Annalise sniffled, “That helps a great - wait. How do you know his name?”
“Well…” said Becca, dragging the word out as she returned to her chair and took her own turn at poking at her cucumber sandwich. “I followed you.”
“What,” she gasped.
“Please do not take offense, my lady. It is my duty to protect you. I have no greater responsibility than that.” Becca folded her hands primly. “Did you really believe I would allow my favorite charge to go off in the company of a stranger and not follow at a safe distance?”
“I am youronlycharge.”
“Yes, which makes you all the more special.”
“Maybe I’m not meant to marry,” Annalise mused aloud. Tilting her head back, she studied a trail of fluffy white clouds as they slowly made their way across the clear blue sky. “Maybe I am meant to stay in this house forever, slowly drying out like a rose left too long in a vase.”
Becca clucked her tongue. “What else did he say? This duke of yours.”
“He’s notmyduke.”
“He was this morning.”
Yes, she thought silently.Yes, he had been. All hers. For a little while, at least.
“We argued, mostly. First about the geese, and then about whether love at first sight truly existed.”
“And then?” Becca prompted.
“And then…” Closing her eyes, she traced the pad of her thumb across the swell of her bottom lip where she could still taste him. “And then he kissed me. The first time.”
“What brought on the second kiss?”
“I questioned how disreputable he really was if he was trying to help me. For some reason, that seemed to annoy him. So he kissed me to prove me work.”
“And?”
Her eyes opened. “It worked. He must be as disreputable and debaucherous as he claimed, or else why would he have left as he did? I was… I was nothing more than a passing amusement for him. A toy to be played with and then cast aside.”
“Oh, I don’t know ifthat’strue.”
“Why not?”
“Because if I am not mistaken, your duke is standing outside our gate.”
***
What was Derrick doing at a young woman’s private residence with a trail of three honking geese behind him?
The hell if he knew.
Once again, he blamed Grieves. If not for the valet’s suggestion to go for a walk… but no. No, he couldn’t really blame him. Because to blame someone for something, you had to beunhappy with the outcome. And if he searched deep within himself, Derrick wasn’t unhappy.
He was nervous.
Nervous that after squandering the start of his adulthood on gratuitous drinking and gambling, he’d ruined his one chance at true fulfillment. He had wasted countless hours, days, months in dark rooms that stank of cigars and stale sweat, searching for meaning in the shadow of sin. Then all it had taken was a single morning in the sunlight to show him what his lifecouldbe like… if Annalise were in it.
Annalise, with a feather in her hair and mud on her skirts.
Annalise, with her laughter that sounded like wind chimes.
