Page 33 of A Virgin to Tempt the Duke

Percy blinked once, slowly, silently. Frederick looked at the drawer.

Yes, it is dangerous, but she cannot not go. That is the plain truth of it. Barnes is right. Delay helps Birchall, not Anna.

Every week the petition sat without her deposition was another week in which Birchall’s solicitors could maneuver, raise objections, manufacture complications.

The faster this moves, the safer she will be… And the faster she has her freedom back, the sooner she will be free of this house, of this impossible situation…

Of strange late nights that Frederick would not think about.

He would see to it that she was protected in London. He would ensure she was not exposed. He would be with her, and Rachel would be with her. That was not ideal, but then nothing about any of this had been ideal from the very beginning.

He found them after dinner in the drawing room, which Rachel had arranged as she often did. Books had migrated from the library and a fire built too large, the sofa pulled closer to the hearth than was seemly.

Anna had a piece of embroidery she had been working on, and Rachel had a novel in her lap. Frederick walked through thethreshold and stood just inside the door, which was enough of an entry that both of them looked up.

“I had a letter from Barnes,” he said.

Rachel closed her novel. She set the book on the cushion beside her and folded her hands. “And?”

“He believes the petition is progressing well.” He looked at Anna, who had set down her embroidery and was watching him steadily.

Her composure was intact, or at least the face of it was. He had learned to see, now, the subtle signs of the effort it cost her. The slight stillness of her hands, the way her full lips went imperceptibly thinner.

“He has advised, however, that the next step requires your presence in London, Anna.” He said it plainly; there was no useful way to soften it. “A formal deposition. Two or three meetings, perhaps, depending on how the process moves. It cannot be done by correspondence alone.”

“London,” Rachel said after a short silence.

“Yes.”

“With Birchall?—”

“Birchall will not be a concern,” Frederick said. “I will ensure that.” He did not look at Rachel as he said this, but at Anna. “I am aware it is not ideal. I would not propose it if I saw another way.”

Anna had not spoken. She was looking at him with those brilliant hazel eyes, luminous in the firelight. He could see her working through it the same way she worked through everything, quietly and with a kind of careful steadiness that, even now, he found?—

“Is it the fastest path?” she asked, interrupting his thoughts.

“I beg your pardon?” He asked, embarrassed by his drifting thoughts, which he concealed expertly, or at least hoped.

“The deposition. Is it the thing that moves everything forward most directly?”

“According to Barnes, yes. Significantly so,” he recovered.

“And if we delay? Or attempt to do it by correspondence?”

“It introduces complications. More time is more opportunity for the opposition to file objections and complicate the proceedings.”

Anna looked at her hands briefly and then looked back up. “And you believe Barnes?”

“Yes. His judgment is sound.”

A short silence. He watched her reach the same conclusion he had reached an hour ago, following the same unsparing logic to the same unavoidable end. There was no argument to be made against it.

“Then we go,” she said.

Rachel made a small, unhappy sound. “But Anna…”

“It is the right next step, Rachel.” Anna’s voice was quiet but certain. “I knew this day would come. It is what must happen to finish this.” She looked at Frederick again. “What will we need? For the London house, for the meetings. What does Barnes require from me beforehand, so I may prepare?”