Page 22 of The Risk of Rogues
Noises in the hall made him break off. Both of them froze. He put a finger to his lips as footsteps sounded near the door, so close by that they held their breaths.
“None of you have found Anne?” Delia asked. “I could have sworn she came this way.”
“I haven’t seen her.” That was Clarissa. “Perhaps she went to the ballroom. We only have a few hours to finish getting everything ready before the crowds come first thing in the morning. Weneedher.”
“Yvette, go look for her on the balcony,” Delia said. “Clarissa and I will look in the ballroom. She’s got to be around here somewhere.”
As soon as the footsteps faded, Anne headed for the door. “I have to go, Hart. We can talk tomorrow.”
He caught her by the arm. “Anne,please...”
She met his gaze, shaken to find him looking stricken. “They’ll return any minute, and I can’t be found with you or we’ll have no choicebutto marry.”
“And would that be so bad?” he asked hoarsely, running a finger over the patch of skin left bare between her evening glove and her cap sleeve. “Being married to the man you love who also lovesyou?”
The words arrested her. Tantalized her. If she dared believe them. “No, not bad at all,” she whispered. “It’s what I want most. But I would always wonder if...” She shook her head, not wanting to discuss it anymore. “I have to go.”
Pulling her arm free, she unlocked the door and slipped out. She knew she was being a coward, knew she might be making the biggest mistake of her life. But she had to think this through and decide if she could trust him when he said he loved her for herself.
Because if she couldn’t...
That sort of marriage would be worse than no marriage at all.
Hart watched her go, her reaction a punch in the gut. It had never occurred to him that she might still feel so uncertain about what had happened between them through the years. And it had never occurred to him that she might see herself as something less than the creative, highly original beauty he saw her as. Or, worse yet, she might fear that she was “the peculiar woman you have to marry in order to ensure your fine career as undersecretary.”
Now that he realized why she’d been so skittish, he saw how thoroughly he’d mucked things up. He honestly couldn’t blame her. She was right. He could have looked harder for her. He could have fought harder for her.
He’d had the chance to watch what his friends and relations had gone through for love—risking blackmail, scandal, ruin, and sometimes even death. Anne had been willing to risk poverty, though he’d never known it because he’d never given her the chance. And why? Because some small part of him had been afraid that if he’d asked her to run away with him with nothing but the clothes on their backs, she wouldn’t have gone.
His throat tightened. He’d always been seen as the failure of the family. The gambler who’d had to be packed off to India. Father had never told the rest of his brothers why, so they’d assumed it had been to keep him away from creditors, and he’d let them think so.
Still, there was some truth to their perception of him as the devil-may-care wastrel. Until Fulkham had taken a chance on him, he’d drifted aimlessly from one post to the next in the regiment, drinking and gambling and doing what all young men did who had little chance of military advancement with no war going on.
Fulkham had given him a goal to cut his teeth on, and for that he would be eternally grateful. But Anne had always been at the back of his mind. So why hadn’t he looked harder for her?
Because it had been better to think of her as pining for him all these years than to discover that she might be happily married. That she might have moved on without sparing him another thought.
All the while, she’d been hurting. Feeling abandoned. Any fool who’d met her father could have figured out why she hadn’t written or responded. And if he’d truly thought she’d done it deliberately, he wouldn’t have looked for her in Stilford. No, he simply hadn’t tried. So she was right about that.
Very well. Then it was time hedidtry. Really try to win her. And there was only one way he could think of to show her that he wanted her for her—not for who she was now, or even for what she’d had then. Only one way to show her that she wasnot“the freckle-faced, ginger-haired hat lady” to him.
Fulkham wouldn’t like it, but it didn’t matter. Because given the choice between a life with Anne and one without her, Hart would choose her every time.
Seven
ON THE AFTERNOONof St. Valentine’s Day, the charity sale was moving along nicely. Thanks to the pleasant weather and the thawing of the snow, half of Shrewsbury seemed to have turned out to buy embroidered gloves, needlepointed screens, and scores of other fripperies, not to mention Anne’s hats.
She ought to be ecstatic over that, since they’d raised an enormous sum for the orphanage. But the absence of Hart made it difficult for her to rejoice. She hadn’t seen him once today, and she was starting to worry.
Perhaps she’d been too harsh last night. But what had he expected? He’d told her that he’d spent the past few years being a spy, yet he hadn’t lifted a finger to find her! How was she supposed to take that?
Was she reading too much into it? Had he thought so, too?
Or had he, as usual, just given up on her? If he had...
No, she refused to let herself grieve over that. If she mattered that little to him, it was better she know it now than later. Yet the thought that he really could only have cared about her for her connections, flimsy as they were, cut her to the bone after all his sweet words and passionate actions this week.
Was it really possible for a man to show so much affection to a woman he didn’t care about? Was her heartthatfoolish? The part of her that loved him and wouldn’t listen to her practical, doubting side still wanted to trust him.
