Page 89 of A Virgin to Tempt the Duke

He was looking at her with the same warmth he always had, and behind it, she could see that he meant it. This was not a casual offer or a convenient one. Anna knew that he had genuinely come to want this, and she stood in the dim alcove and felt her entire life arrange itself before her.

I should accept him. She should marry a good man, a kind man, a man who will give me children and treat me well. A man who will never once make me feel the way I felt three minutes ago on that ballroom floor.

She would live a life that was quiet and decent, but hollow at the center. Every morning, she would wake up next to a man she did not love and could not love.

She knew this, suddenly and completely, the way she knew very few things with that kind of certainty. She knew it in her chest, in her hands, in the specific ache that had been sitting deep inside since a dark carriage, and an unanswered question, and a waltz she should not have agreed to.

I cannot go through with it.

The thought arrived not as drama but as plain fact, the way the floor is there when you step on it. She could not do it. She was not, it turned out, as practical as she had been telling herself for a year. She had tried, and failed.

“Lord Wexford.” Her voice was steady, which surprised her, and she was grateful for it. “I am deeply honored by your offer. Truly, and without qualification. You are a good man, and any woman who accepts you will be very fortunate indeed.” She paused, and met his eyes directly, because he deserved that much. “But I must decline. I am so sorry. I am not able to accept you, and I would not do you the disservice of agreeing to a marriage in which I could not give you the whole of what you so richly deserve.”

Lord Wexford was quiet for a moment. His expression shifted.

“I understand,” he said, and she believed him.

“Thank you,” she said. “For everything this Season. Truly.”

She walked away before either of them could say anything further, through the alcove and back into the brightness of the ballroom that mocked her. She cut right through the ballroom, through the hall, and past the startled footman who offered to fetch her carriage.

Venus walked out of the party, and out through the front door into the cold summer’s night.

It was beginning to pour. It did not matter to her, for she felt nothing.

She kept on walking.

Within half a minute her ivory silk was ruined, and her hair was soaked flat. The gilded laurel wreath was equally ruined, and she could not make herself care even a little. The streets were quiet, and the lamps made yellow smears on the wet cobblestones. She walked through all of it with her arms wrapped around herself. She needed to hold onto something, and there was nothing else to hold.

She was walking away from having nearly made a terrible mistake for the rest of her life. She wanted a husband she loved. She had said so in a market on a bright morning, and she still meant it, meant it rather more now than she had then, meant it in a way that had teeth in it, and she was not going to apologize for it.

The rain came down. She kept walking.

CHAPTER 33

Iwent to check on Anna after her early departure from the ball. I regret to inform you that she is unwell, and I am staying to help. Please do not expect me tonight. I will write when there is more information.

R.

The note from Rachel found him the following morning at breakfast as he sat alone. After the waltz, he’d lost Anna somewhere in the crush of silk and candlelight. He decided he didn’t deserve to be looking for her. But the one word on the page unnerved him. Unwell.

He had no right to run after her, yet he was reaching for his coat. Only in the hall, hat in hand, did he stop for a breath.

Unwell covers a wide range of possibilities. A cold, a headache, the ordinary aftermath of an evening spent in too-warm rooms.

He told himself this all the way to Anna’s townhouse and did not believe it. He could feel that something was wrong in his marrow, and it set his blood on fire. He wrapped on the door, and the footman who answered the door looked faintly startled at finding a duke on the step.

“I have been informed that Lady Birchall is unwell. My sister Lady Rachel is here. Where is she?” He asked in a tone that did not leave room for the usual introductions or a calling card.

He was shown upstairs without further discussion. Rachel met him in the corridor outside Anna’s room. She pulled the door closed behind her softly. She looked tired, as if she had been awake for most of the night.

“Frederick.” Whatever she had been about to say rearranged itself when she saw his face. “How quickly did you? Never mind. Come inside.” She lowered her voice. “The physician has been by this morning. Her fever is serious. She walked home in the rain last night and was soaked through by the time she arrived. The housekeeper found her in the hall barely able to stand.” A pause. “He says there is nothing to do but help her body fight it. Cold compresses, broth when she can take it, keep her comfortable and watched at all times.”

“Where is he now? I’d like to speak with him?—”

“He’ll return this evening.”

Frederick absorbed this. He kept his expression even, which required more effort than usual.