She laughed again, such a sweet and musical sound. “I am glad. Indeed, I would like to thank you for defending me like that. You did not need to, but… I am thankful, nevertheless.”
“I thought you said you could fight your own battles?” He nudged her gently in the ribs. “What happened to your warrior courage?”
She grinned up at him. “I suppose I realized that I am much smaller than I thought, and that a tongue is only a vicious weapon in certain company.”
“Ah, I have been lashed well enough in my years with you. If you had reprimanded him half as savagely as you have reprimanded me in the past, there would not have been a drop of his pride left.” His half-smile became a full smile, as the warm sunlight bathed her in a glorious golden light that made her look as if she really had come from a different, more ethereal world altogether.
Anna tilted her face up to that shining sunlight. “But this is better, is it not?”
“What?”
She inhaled a deep breath of the summer air. “Being friends. Being friendlywith one another.”
“I daresay it is,” he replied, as they reached her carriage.
But I want more.
The thought was a barb in his mind as he helped Anna into her carriage, holding onto her hand for far longer than was necessary. Indeed, he held on for so long that she turned back, wearing a puzzled frown upon her face.
“I believe it is customary for you to let go, once you have stolen such a task from the footman,” she said, smiling uncertainly.
He put one foot on the step and rose higher, until he was face to face with the woman he adored; her hand still held in his. Her eyes widened as he stood there gazing at her, his throat bobbing as he swallowed thickly.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
His other hand came up to cradle her cheek, his thumb brushing soft strokes across that rosy apple. He waited for her to shove him backward, to tell him to leave her alone, but when the rebuke did not come, he dared to let his gaze flit from her eyes to her lips. Remembering.
Slowly, he dipped his head, pressing a tender kiss to her soft lips. A moment of bliss, then no more. A goodbye that he could not resist.
“Go home,” he murmured, pulling back. “Tell Max that you have changed your mind and forget about this summer.”
She blinked at him. “What?”
“My estateisno place for a lady,” he told her. “It is no place for any sort of lady. I am giving up my search, Anna.”
As he stepped back, she shook her head as if emerging from a trance. “You… kiss me, twice, and then you tell me to… go home? What sort of… devil are you?” Her breath hitched. “Are you determined to see if you can leave a greater wound than any gentleman before you?”
“I do not mean to wound you at all,” he replied sincerely. “But I am selfish, and I am harsh, and I am not capable of inflicting anythingbutharm. I am not capable of gentleness and affection and love. Love makes people do the most foolish things, after all.”
He closed the carriage door on her and walked to the front, where he looked up at the driver. “When the front carriage leaves, you are to remain here. Lady Anna will be residing at Westyork tonight—it is against her wishes, but her brother has commanded it.”
The driver tapped the side of his nose. “Aye, Your Grace.”
As Percival walked to the front carriage and got inside, his mind was made up; he would spend a few days with Dickie and Max at Granville House and then, no more of that either. For he had realized that he could not have one without the other, and he simply did not have it in him to be just a friend to Anna.
Sitting down, he rubbed the heel of his palm against his chest, where that strange ache had returned with a vengeance.
CHAPTERTWENTY-EIGHT
“Istill cannot fathom why she said nothing to us,” Max grumbled, as the carriage rattled through rolling countryside, and the bright light of afternoon slowly softened into early evening.
Dickie chuckled. “I thought you would be thrilled, considering you did not want her to join us in the first place.”
“Did she give a reason?” Max looked at Percy, frowning.
Percy shrugged. “I believe seeing Lord Luminport again put her in something of an ill mood. The kind of mood that demands that one be with one’s friends.”
He had hoped he would not have to tell Anna’s brothers where she was until they were at Granville House and realized that the second carriage was not there. But Max had asked for the carriage to stop about an hour into the journey, and when the second was nowhere to be seen, he had flown into a panic.
