Anne sank back down and lifted her skirts to inspect the swollen flesh. She gently probed the nasty area and winced. Blast and double blast. She should have never come. Then she wouldn’t have seen Harry and his perfect Lady Margaret. And she wouldn’t have fled like a silly ninny in attempt to be free of the sight of them. Anne sighed. And she certainly wouldn’t be sprawled gracelessly on her derriere like a real shepherdess. She let her skirts flutter back into place and lay on her back. She tossed her arms wide and stared at the glittering stars in the black, London night.
The irony of life not lost on her. Over the years, her sisters, Society, everyone had taken her as nothing more than a self-serving, selfish young lady who placed her own personal desires before all else. And here she lay, humbled by the loss of her own making, born of the greatest sacrifice she could have or would ever make.
“It appears you’ve lost your sheep, my lady.”
Anne sat up quickly. Her heart hammered at the unexpected interruption. She peered up at the long, towering muscle-hewn frame of Harry, Earl of Stanhope. Her heart slowed and then picked up its fast rhythm. “Hello, my lord.” Was he intending to meet his Lady Margaret? A hysterical half-sob, half-cry bubbled past her lips at the idea of having stumbled upon their clandestine tryst.
A cold smile tugged at those once tender lips. “I gather I’ve intruded on your assignation with the duke. Forgive me, I do know the inconvenience of having my trysts interrupted by bothersome people I’d really rather do without,” he said, confirming her earlier suspicions.
Anne recoiled. She curled her fingers into the soft patch of earth as his deliberate taunting words ravaged her heart. He might see her as a cruel, title-grasping miss who’d toyed with his affections, but she’d done this for him. She angled her chin up. “What do you want, Harry?” she asked quietly, finding little solace in her sacrifice.
He wandered closer. A faint breeze caught the fabric of his black cloak. It snapped wildly against his legs as he paused above her. His grin, that cold, patently false one, widened. “I must admit, you look quite fetching after an evening’s tryst.”
An evening’s tryst? She wrinkled her brow. What was he on about? She widened her eyes as the truth settled slowly into her mind. By God, he thought…he believed… she met a lover?
Anne narrowed her eyes. She knew she’d sent him away quite deliberately believing all the worst about her. But really, was his opinion so very low? Or was it because that is the exact exchange she herself had interrupted? The tender reunion between two lovers, stealing a moment for themselves until Anne and Katherine had the misfortune of stumbling upon their exchange.
“Will you not say anything, Anne?”
She folded her arms across her chest. “Thank you,” she said pertly.
“Crawford?” He quirked an eyebrow. As though he had a right to know the imagined gentleman she’d been…doing…doing that with.
She gave a flounce of her curls. “Oh, it…was just splendid,” she said on a breathless laugh. That is, if one considered a bruised ankle and injured derriere splendid. “Quite splendid,” she added for good measure, because this was at least preferable to watching him kiss Lady Margaret Monteith.
A dark look passed over his harshly beautiful face.
Anne shoved herself up onto her elbows. Harry shot a hand out. She eyed his long, tan fingers a moment and then placed her hand tentatively in his. Not because she craved his touch. No, not that at all. Rather, because she needed assistance. The whole business with her ankle, and all.
He retained his hold. “You always did have beautiful fingers.”
She remembered back to a day not long ago when he’d drawn her fingers soothingly into his mouth. “Er…” She cleared her throat. “Thank you.” That seemed like a rather odd compliment. She held her hand up and tried to note what it is he might admire in the five digits but failed to see anything unique in them.
He tweaked a golden ringlet. “Tsk, tsk, ringlets, again.” The jeering edge of his tone grated along her skin.
“Yes,” she said, dropping her gaze to the green grass. She’d never wear her hair loose and down about her shoulders. Not again. It would forever remind her of how he favored it.
“Indeed, perfect for a shepherdess gathering the hearts of dukes throughout the kingdom.”
She gritted her teeth at the icy condescension in his heartless charge. She found solace in knowing that for his ill opinion of her, she didn’t give a fig about the heart of a duke; that the only heart she longed to gather close and forever hold was his. “Have you sought me out to taunt me, Harry? Does this make you feel better about yourself?” It made her hate this man she didn’t recognize.