“Have you gone mad?” Anna stopped abruptly. “What is the matter with you? I asked you this once before, but what manner of devil are you, to laugh at me when I have had my bonnet eaten? It was my favorite bonnet, and the only one who is supposed to be eating bonnets is Caro!”
Percy put his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I am just… glad to see you.”
“What?” She huffed and puffed, her face paler than he had ever seen it, in the silvery light of the moon. “Oh, this must be some trick that the fates have decided to play with me. Yes, this must be. I have not been humiliated enough, clearly!”
At that moment, Max stuck his head out of the carriage. “Anna, is that you?”
“Yes, it is me, and I should like to know why neither of you noticed that yoursisterwas not behind you!” she shot back, running a hand across her windswept and tousled hair. It had come loose from her bun, falling freely past her shoulders in long, golden waves. Percy doubted he had ever seen anything finer, his fingertips itching to discover if they were as silky as they looked.
Max frowned. “Sinclair informed us that you wished to stay behind at Westyork after all of that unpleasantness with Lord Luminport. I believe he said you were in the sort of mood that only friends could appease.”
“Did you now?” Anna glowered at Percy, as if she wished she had another croquet mallet in her hand and a ball ready to fire in his direction. “Well,Max, you were misinformed. I sat there waiting for the carriage to move, and it did not. I got out and I ran—yes, I ran!—to catch up to you. Did you not hear me shouting?”
Max pulled an apologetic face. “I daresay I did not.”
“I thought there was some screeching on the wind, but I assumed it was seagulls,” Dickie added, putting a foot on the carriage steps. He wore a wicked grin, and had his arm stretched casually across the doorway, preventing Max from stepping out. But Percy had a feeling there was nothing casual about it.
“Seagulls?” Anna spluttered. “Westyork is nowhere near the sea, Dickie!”
Dickie shrugged. “My knowledge of ornithology has always been atrocious. Truly, I do not know my sparrows from my bullfinches.”
“Percival told the driver I was staying behind!” Anna leaped back in. “I had to prize it out of the fellow, and when I demanded that he follow, he refused. He assumed the order had come from you, Max, and I was being difficult. In the end, I had to pay him from my pin money to exchange places with one of Daniel’s drivers, so he could not be blamed if the orderhadcome from you.”
Max’s bewildered gaze darted toward Percy. “Is this true? Did you ask the driver to leave her behind?”
“I thought it pointless for her to come all the way to Granville House just to have to return,” Percy replied. “She would have had to journey in the dark, and as you can see from our own near-miss, these roads are not the safest.”
Max’s expression softened. “I admire your forethought, Sinclair, but you might have told me the truth. In all likelihood, I would have agreed with you.”
“Do not side with him!” Anna implored, stepping closer. “Indeed, it is my belief that you should… you should… never associate with this gentleman again. And I use the word ‘gentleman’ very loosely.”
Alarm bells clamored in Percy’s head, and before he knew what he was doing, he had closed the gap between himself and Anna. His hand grasped for hers, his eyes pleading as he whispered, “Do not. Anna, please. Do not.”
“Why should I not?” she choked, tears sparkling in her eyes. “Why should I not tell my brothers how… how… viciously you have hurt me? Why should I not tell them that it is not Lord Luminport who has wounded me? I might be small, I might not have much in the way of courage, I might have a heart that is… too soft, but you had no right… you had no right to…” Her words faded into juddering hiccups and ragged breaths, as if it was taking everything she possessed not to cry.
Max’s demeanor switched in an instant as he tried to push against Dickie’s arm. “What did you say, Anna? Did you say that Sinclair hurt you?” He pushed harder, but Dickie put his entire body in the doorway, his arms and legs splayed out like a starfish to prevent his brother from getting out. “Sinclair, I hope you have brought your pistols with you! Dickie, I swear to you I shall clout you on the back of the head if you do not move!”
“I am not letting you out,” Dickie strained to reply. “I refuse to see either one of you end up bloodied or worse!”
“Dickie, move!” Max shoved him hard, but he did not budge.
Meanwhile, all Percy could do was stare at Anna, witnessing the pain that he had caused her, etched across her remarkable face. Every mole, every freckle, every too-large or too-small feature a thing of absolute perfection to him.
You were here all along, and I have wasted so much time.It was the only thing he wanted to say to her, and the only thing that would not come out of his mouth.
“You had no right,” Anna whispered, her lower lip trembling. “You stole my first and my second kiss, and you called it shameful. You said, ‘Goodness, I do not know why I did that.’ And you had a look upon your face of such horror that… though I have never considered myself to be pretty, I have never felt uglier than in that moment. And you hadno rightto make me feel that way.”
He staggered a half step back as if she had kicked him in the stomach, pushing all of the air out of his lungs. “What?”
“Do not pretend you behaved otherwise, for when I sought to speak of it, you said we should not. You told me to forget it,” she replied, the agony in her voice like a thousand tiny blades twisting at once in his chest. “I have an excellent memory, remember? That look you gave me in the Orangery has haunted me. Your words have haunted me. I thought I could forgive and forget, but the trick you have just played on me, separating me from my brothers, has made me realize that I cannot.”
“What are they saying?” Max demanded to know, leaning his entire weight against Dickie in an attempt to get him to move. “Do not speak to her, Sinclair! If youhavehurt her, you shall regret it!”
Anna smiled coldly, her eyes gleaming with the tears she was trying to blink back. “I already regret it,” she said quietly. “I regret it more than you could possibly fathom. Lord Luminport had his reasons for toying with me—unforgivable but understandable. You toyed with me for no reason at all.”
“That is not true.” Percy finally found his voice. “Anna, that is simply not true.”
She met his gaze with the kind of ferocity he had never seen from her, even in the midst of her angriest retorts. “Which part?”
