Page 18 of A Virgin to Tempt the Duke

Rachel looked pleased. “People do say so. My brother would not consider it a compliment in either direction.”

The baker’s wife laughed with the ease of someone who could picture it exactly. Anna ate her pastry in two careful bites, standing slightly behind Rachel. She found her thoughts drifting, despite the cinnamon, to a man who came out into the fields, dealt with boundary disputes, and was out by five o’clock to check on the drainage work.

Not a warm man, as such.But you know where you stand.

They were on the main street soon after, heading back toward the lane, Rachel with a ribbon and Anna with a small packet of soap Rachel had bought her from the apothecary.

She heard the horse before she saw it, and for one contracted second she forgot to breathe out. Luckily, it was a single horse, unhurried, moving at an easy trot, and when she looked up it was a bay she recognized from the Rathbourne stables.

And the man on it was the Duke. He saw them at the same moment, and the horse came to a stop.

Rachel looked at her, then up at her brother, and then arranged her face into the expression of a woman who considered herself entirely reasonable.

“Frederick,” she said, pleasantly. “What a surprise to see you here!”

He dismounted carefully, with control and without haste. He led the horse by the rein, and time seemed to stand still.

“Come,” he said. That was all. He turned toward the lane.

He waited until they were through the park gate, out of the lane and the earshot of anyone, before he turned to face them. The horse stood patient at his shoulder, and the autumn light came sideways through the trees.

“You took her to the village.” He looked at Anna. “In a maid’s cap.”

“It worked,” Anna said, which was factually true—and, she was aware, was not the point.

“Itworked,” he repeated. “Birchall does not know your face well, you have met twice. But your cousin does. There are any number of people who might have?—”

“There was no one,” Rachel said. “We were careful, brother.”

“You werelucky.” He looked at her directly. “There is a considerable difference, Rachel, and I need you to understand it.”

“What I understand,” Rachel said, “is that Anna has been inside those walls for five days. She is not a captive. She is ourguest.” She stepped forward slightly. “She has done nothing wrong. She has been frightened out of a carriage, dragged to an altar, and hidden in in to Derbyshire, and she has managed all of it without a single word of complaint! She needed one afternoon of fresh air in a village where no one knows her name.” Her eyes were very bright. “I will not apologize for giving her that.”

“I am not asking for an apology.” The temperature in Frederick’s voice had not changed. “I am asking you tothink.”

“Ididthink. I thought that my friend deserved to be treated like a person and not a problem that needs to be solved.”

“Rachel—”

“Don’t.” She shook her head. “I know you are trying to protect her. I know that is what you do. What you have always done! But there is a way of protecting someone that…that…” She stopped, frustrated, gestured. Suddenly, Anna wasn’t sure she was talking about her. “That makes them feel like a very well-organized difficulty. And she is not that.” She looked at him for a moment longer, then turned. “I’m going inside.”

She went. Not running, as Rachel did not run from arguments. She exited them with dignity, but with the decisiveness of a closing door. The park was quiet; the birds had gone still.

The Duke looked at his sister, and then turned back to Anna. Anna looked at him.

“She’s not wrong,” Anna said. She said it carefully, without Rachel’s fire. “About the solving.”

“I’m aware you think so.”

“I am grateful. I want to be clear about that, because I don’t want this conversation to seem… I know what you’ve done and what it costs you. I know you are trying to keep me safe.” She held his gaze. “But being kept safe and being spokenat, there is a difference. And I am not…” She stopped. “I am not used to having no say in my own movements. I know the irony of saying that, given the week I’ve had. But today was air. A street and a baker’s and a draper’s. It was an hour.”

“An hour in which you could have been recognized.”

“By whom? My cousin is in London. Birchall is in Wiltshire, most likely. I was in a maid’s cap in a village where the primary news is the drainage work you’ve commissioned for the south field.” She felt the edge coming into her voice and measured it. “I am not reckless. I thought about it before I went. I weighed the risk against five days of waiting for something I can’t even name yet, and I made a choice.”

“You made a choice,” he said, “that was not yours to make alone. Not while you are here. Not while my family is implicated. You are under my care.”

“Then tell me whatismine,” Anna said. Her voice was still quiet, but the thread in it had pulled taut. “Tell me what I am permitted, and I will work within it. I would rather know than guess. I would rather be toldyou may walk in the garden and the library and no furtherthan believe I have some freedom and discover I was wrong.”