"They... they ask about her. Everyone asks about her." Arthur's jaw tightened.
He looked at her with a fierceness that stripped away the last of her cynical armor. "I came for you," he said, his voice a low, rough truth, "not them." Anna felt the world tilt on its axis. She looked at his outstretched hand. She looked past his shoulder to her mother, whose jaw was practically resting on her collarbone, eyes wide with a mixture of horror and shock.
She saw Arabella staring in uncomprehending silence. For twenty-two years, Anna had stepped back. She had made room. She had faded. She looked back up at Arthur.
He was waiting. He was not rushing her. He was standing like a stone wall, shielding her from the hundreds of gaping stares, simply waiting for her to decide. Anna, slowly, with trembling fingers, lifted her hand and placed it in his. His grip was warm, strong, and entirely solid.
He closed his fingers around hers, pulling her gently away from the pillar, out of the shadows, and into the blinding light of the ballroom. "They're playing a waltz, I believe," Arthur said smoothly, turning to lead her toward the center of the floor.
"The orchestra isn't playing anything, Your Grace," Anna whispered, acutely aware of the hundreds of eyes on their every move. Arthur glanced over his shoulder toward the musicians. He didn't shout.
He simply gave the conductor a single dark look. Three seconds later, the frantic, panicked scraping of bows against strings began, launching into the opening notes of a waltz. He pulled her into his arms. One hand held hers, the other settled firmly on the small of her back, pressing against the cheap navy silk. It was a scandalously tight hold.
He stepped off, sweeping her onto the floor. "You did not tell me you were a duke," she breathed, her feet struggling to keep up with his powerful strides as they spun across the polished wood. "You did not ask," he replied, his eyes never leaving her face. "And you did not tell me you look this captivating in navy blue."
"I am invisible." "You are blinding," he corrected quietly. "And I'm incredibly tired of the dark." As they spun past the edge of the dance floor, Anna caught a final glimpse of her mother.
Lady Hawthorne was leaning heavily against Lord Fife, frantically waving a smelling salt beneath her nose.
For the first time in her life, Anna Hawthorne threw her head back and gave a genuine, radiant laugh.
The morning sun did not care that the world had tilted on its axis. It poured through the tall windows of the Hawthorne breakfast room with a brutal, cheerful indifference. The toast was cold. The tea was bitter. The silence was absolute.
Anna sat at the edge of her chair, her hands folded tightly in her lap. Across the table, Arabella was systematically tearing a perfectly good piece of brioche into microscopic shreds. Her eyes were red-rimmed, though she managed to look tragically beautiful even in her distress. Cecilia was staring at Anna as if she had suddenly grown a second head. At the head of the table, Lady Hawthorne was pacing.
The rhythmic thud, thud, thud of her sensible morning slippers against the Axminster rug sounded like a countdown to an explosion. "A political maneuver," Lady Hawthorne announced abruptly, breaking the agonizing silence. She stopped pacing and pointed a silver butter knife at the ceiling. "It is the only logical explanation. He's sending a message to the Duke of Rutland's faction, or perhaps he had a wager with Lord Fife.
Yes, a wager." Anna looked down at her untouched plate. The cynical armor she had worn for twenty-two years, momentarily stripped away by a waltz and a pair of dark eyes, began to pull itself back into place, piece by heavy piece.
Of course it was a maneuver. Arthur Pendleton was a duke. Dukes did not marry the spinster middle sister who wore drab colors and hid in libraries. They played games. They made statements.
They moved people like pieces on a chessboard. Last night, Anna had been a remarkably convenient pawn. "He looked right past me," Arabella whispered, her voice catching. It was the first time she had spoken all morning. She looked down at her hands, genuinely bewildered. "Did I have a smudge on my nose?
Was my posture incorrect?" "Do not be absurd, Arabella.
You were flawless," Lady Hawthorne snapped, resuming her pacing. "This has nothing to do with you. This is about power. He wanted to shock the room, and he chose the most" She glanced at Anna, her eyes raking over Anna's plain brown morning dress. She cleared her throat. "The most unexpected avenue to do so.
The most pathetic avenue." The unsaid words hung thickly in the air. "He danced with her for fifteen minutes." "Mother?" Cecilia chimed in, leaning her chin on her hand. "And he didn't even look at the ceiling once.
"He looked right at Anna the whole time."
"He was establishing the ruse," Lady Hawthorne dismissed with a wave of her hand. "By noon today, the entire town will have forgotten it. We must focus on the task at hand. Lord Harrington is calling at 3:00."
"Arabella, you will wear the blue muslin. Anna, you will—" The heavy oak door of the breakfast room swung open. Higgins, the Hawthornes' aging butler, stood in the threshold. He looked pale, and in his white-gloved hand he held a silver salver. Resting precisely in the center of the tray was a thick cream-colored calling card bearing a heavy wax seal.
Lady Hawthorne stopped breathing. Higgins cleared his throat. The sound echoed like a gunshot. "The Duke of Westford, my lady. He awaits in the drawing room."