Anna froze. A man was sitting in a deep leather wingback chair in the corner of the room. His legs were stretched out, crossed at the ankles. In the dim light, she couldn't make out his features clearly, only the stark white of his cravat, the dark outline of a well-tailored evening coat, and the amber glint of liquid in the crystal glass he held. Anna's heart gave a dull, tired thud.
She didn't scream. She didn't run. She merely sighed, quickly shoving the pins back into her hair. "My apologies," she said, her voice dry.
"I thought the room was empty." "It was." "Until I sought refuge in it." "And then you sought refuge in it." "I suppose it is now a sanctuary for the damned." He took a slow sip of his drink.
His voice was deep, resonant, and laced with the same cynical exhaustion she felt in her own bones. "You don't sound very damned," Anna noted, taking a step back toward the door. "You sound like a man hiding from his host." "I am hiding from the mothers," he corrected.
He gestured loosely with his glass toward the door. "It is a dangerous world out there tonight. A man cannot stand by the punch bowl for three seconds without being accosted by a matriarch wielding a remarkably dull daughter like a weapon." Anna let out a short, surprised bark of laughter.
She clapped a hand over her mouth, shocked by her own breach of decorum. The man shifted in his chair. He leaned forward into the soft light of the candles. Anna took him in. He wasn't classically handsome in the soft powdered way the society boys were.
His jaw was too sharp, his brow too heavy. He had dark hair swept back haphazardly, as if he had run his hands through it multiple times in frustration. There were lines of weariness around his eyes. He looked like a man who had fought a war, or perhaps simply survived too many London seasons.
"You laugh," he said, his tone curious. "Are you not one of the daughters meant to be wielded?" "I am the defective merchandise," Anna said frankly, leaning against the doorframe.
The darkness offered a strange anonymity. She felt no need to perform. "I'm kept in the back of the shop while my sisters are put in the front window." He tilted his head.
"They overlook you." "They look through me." Anna crossed her arms over her chest. "Usually to ask what time my elder sister takes her tea, or what sheet music my younger sister prefers. I am a directory of information disguised as a woman in a green dress." He looked at her.
Really looked at her. It was a stark, uncomfortably piercing gaze. Men never looked at Anna. They glanced, they skimmed.
This man stared. "Green suits you," he said quietly. "It doesn't scream for attention, it simply exists, waiting for someone to have the sense to appreciate it." Anna felt a sudden strange tightness in her chest.
She pushed it down immediately. "Are you a poet, sir? Or just deep into that brandy?" A corner of his mouth twitched upward.
"The latter, unfortunately. I'm entirely out of poetry." He stood up.
He was tall, much taller than she had realized while he was sitting. He set the empty glass on the desk. "I should return before a search party is sent.
If I am absent too long, they will assume I have fled to the continent." "Best of luck to you," Anna said, stepping aside to give him a wide berth. "Beware Lady Hawthorne. She is currently patrolling the east perimeter near the musicians.
She takes no prisoners." He paused right beside her. He smelled of rain, clean linen, and fine tobacco.
"I will keep that in mind. And you, Miss Directory, what will you do?" "I will wait in the shadows until it is time to go home," Anna said, looking up at him. "It is what I do best." For a moment, he didn't move.
He just looked down at her, his dark eyes unreadable. "Perhaps," he murmured, his voice low. "You’re simply waiting for a man who knows how to ask the right question." He bowed slightly and respectfully and walked out the door. Anna stood in the quiet library for a long time, the scent of his tobacco lingering in the air. She felt strange, off balance.
It was a ridiculous feeling. He was likely just a bored baron trying to amuse himself. When she finally returned to the ballroom, the atmosphere had shifted. The music had stopped playing a waltz and moved to a frantic reel. The air hummed with an electric, chaotic energy.
Her mother grabbed her by the arm the second she stepped into the light, her fingernails digging painfully into Anna's flesh. "Where have you been?" Lady Hawthorne hissed, her face flushed red with genuine panic. "The library," Anna said, wincing.
"Mother, you're hurting me." "He was here!" her mother gasped, ignoring her. She pointed a trembling fan toward the grand entrance doors, which were currently closing behind a tall figure. "He was here for twenty minutes, and we missed him.
I was stuck talking to Lord Fife, and Arabella was dancing with a mere knight." "Who was here?" Anna asked, rubbing her arm as her mother let go. "The Duke of Westford," Cecilia breathed, appearing beside them, her eyes wide. "He just arrived in London yesterday.
They say he's looking for a wife to settle his estate. He has £50,000 a year, Anna. £50,000. And he owns half of Yorkshire." "He walked straight through the room, spoke to no one, went down the mirrored hall, and left," Lady Hawthorne lamented, looking as though she might weep.