Page 10 of What's an Earl Gotta Do?
It felt unreal to Michael, after four years of struggling to accept that Anne would never be his, to be standing on the balcony of this fancy London town house, different in every way to the square log cabin he had inhabited out on the Canadian frontier, with Anne standing close enough to touch.
He was so glad her mask was off and he could finally see her. She looked much the same as he remembered—perhaps a touch paler than she’d been four years ago and missing the spray of freckles that typically appeared across her nose in the summertime, which made him wonder if she spent too much of her time stuck indoors. Her figure had ripened a bit since last he saw her, and although she couldn’t be described as anything but slender, she’d lost the slightly coltish quality she’d once had. Michael didn’t much mind either way—he’d thought she looked perfect before, and she looked every bit as perfect now.
Those were the only changes he could detect. She wore her warm brown hair the same way, piled atop her head, highlighting her long, elegant neck. As for her eyes… Michael knew Anne wished she had blue eyes like her sisters, but he’d never understood it. He could stare into Anne’s big, rich, gorgeous brown eyes for days.
He drew in a breath, and there it was: a hint of strawberries. She had always smelled like strawberries; he happened to know it was from the hand cream she used. He’d caught the scent the second he swept her into his arms, and his knees had gone slightly weak, so much did that sweet, familiar scent remind him of her.
He felt the way you did after a bad chest cold, the kind where no matter how desperately you gasped and struggled, you could never get a satisfying lungful of air.
Seeing Anne again… it was as though he had drawn his first full breath in four years.
He found his gaze drifting to her lips. Anne’s lips were naturally rose-pink, and they were full and wide enough that when she smiled, that smile had a way of taking over her whole face. No one could smile at you like Anne Astley. When she did, it all but knocked him flat.
Notably, she was not smiling at him at the moment. And he couldn’t say that he blamed her.
He cleared his throat, recalling that she had asked him a question. “I’m so glad I can finally tell you. I’ve been wanting to explain everything for so long. Although—” he broke off, inclining his head toward the crowded ballroom “—perhaps not right here.”
Anne nodded. “I understand. Your father told me… well, nothing detailed. But he implied that you were on some sort of mission for the Crown.”
“I was. Although the details shouldn’t get out, at this point, there’s no reason I might not confide in you. And I will, Anne. I swear, I’ll tell you everything, just as soon as we’re somewhere we won’t be overheard.”
“It’s not so much that. I mean…” A guilty look crossed her face. “Of course, I want to hear about it. But it’s more…” She looked down, and he watched her steel herself. “Did you receive my letters?”
He had known this was coming, too. How could it not? They had corresponded regularly for all the years he was away at school, first at Eton and then at Oxford. It must’ve been jarring when he stopped writing altogether.
The problem was that it was impossible to write a coherent reply when one hadn’t read the recipient’s original missive. After Michael had completed the task that brought him to Canada, he’d made his way to his father’s farm near Lake Simcoe. There he’d found a small mountain of correspondence waiting for him. He could remember searching through the pile for Anne’s hand and struggling to open her letter with fingers that shook, his heart in his throat at the prospect of reading her answer to his proposal.
But it contained no answer, no mention of his proposal at all. It was as though she’d never received his letter. And what was more, it contained such unexpected, horrific news that he fell to his knees when he read it: she had married someone else.
He hadn’t opened any of her letters after that. He couldn’t bear to. If they had contained one word of her happiness with another man, it would have gutted him.
Anne was waiting for him to respond. He decided to tell her the truth.
At least, some of it.
“I did receive them,” he said.
It was physically painful to see the heartbreak steal over her face. She swallowed. “Then may I ask why you didn’t reply?”
Michael froze, scrambling for a response.
After a moment, Anne continued, “I wondered if it was something I’d done, if you were mad at me, or—”
“I’m not mad at you,” Michael said. That at least was true.
To be sure, there had been moments when he had been furious, not with her but with himself (why had he let her go to London without declaring himself first? How could he have been so stupid as to assume she knew?) He had also been mad at fate, which had seen fit to separate them at the worst possible moment, when Anne was making her debut upon the Marriage Mart.
But as he worked his way through the rest of his mail, it became clear that something had gone terribly wrong. That Anne had somehow never received his letter. That her parents had formed the impression that she had refused him and had therefore given their consent when she announced her wish to accept this Lord Wynters.
And by the time they realized she had never received his proposal it had been too late.
However miserable he had been, he’d always known deep down that it wasn’t Anne’s fault.
She was awaiting his answer. He studied her face, hating to see sadness in her eyes. “I hurt you. I mean—of course I did. How could it not have hurt?” He took both of her hands in his. “I am sorry for it, Anne. Because hurting you is the last thing I would ever want to do. There’s a reason I didn’t write back. That I couldn’t. And I’ll explain everything, I promise you.” He made a sound of frustration. “Just as soon as we’re not surrounded by four hundred people.”
She peered up at him for a moment, and Michael could scarcely breathe, so anxious was he for her reaction. Then he saw her brow slowly unknot, her shoulders relax, and he felt her squeeze his hands. “Thank you for that,” she said. “I’m sure once you’ve had a chance to explain, it will all make sense.”
It was such a relief to see the sorrow gone from her face. “So,” he said, eager to redirect the conversation, “I’ve been travelling for the past three months. How are you?”
