“They were not of this status,” she continued, “but to us—to everyone in the district—they were unquestionably the most important family we knew. And George was their only child. He was very handsome, and he said lovely things, and I thought I loved him.” She shrugged helplessly and glanced up at the ceiling, almost as if begging forgiveness for her younger self.
“He said he loved me,” she whispered.
Daniel swallowed, and he had the strangest sensation, almost a premonition of what it must like to be a parent. Someday, God willing, he’d have a daughter, and that daughter would look like the woman standing in front of him, and if ever she looked at him with that bewildered expression, whispering, “He said he loved me . . .”
Nothing short of murder would be an acceptable response.
“I thought he was going to marry me,” Anne said, bringing his thoughts back to the here and now. She seemed to have regained some of her composure, and her voice was brisk, almost businesslike. “But the thing is, he never said he would. He never even mentioned it. So I suppose, in a way, I bear some of the blame myself—”
“No,” Daniel said fiercely, because whatever happened, he knew it could not be her fault. It was all too easy to guess what would happen next. The rich, handsome man, the impressionable young girl . . . It was a terrible tableau, and terribly common.
She gave him a grateful smile. “I don’t mean to say I blame myself, because I don’t. Not any longer. But I should have known better.”
“Anne . . .”
“No,” she said, stopping his protest. “I should have known better. He did not mention marriage. Not once. I assumed he would ask. Because . . . I don’t know. I just did. I came from a good family. It never occurred to me that he wouldn’t want to marry me. And . . . Oh, it sounds horrible now, but the truth was, I was young and I was pretty and I knew it. My God, it sounds so silly now.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Daniel said quietly. “We have all been young.”
“I let him kiss me,” she said, then quietly added, “and then I let him do a great deal more.”
Daniel held himself very still, waiting for the wave of jealousy that never came. He was furious with the man who’d taken advantage of her innocence, but he did not feel jealous. He did not need to be her first, he realized. He simply needed to be her last.
Her only.
“You don’t have to say anything about it,” he told her.
She sighed. “No, I do. Not because of that. Because of what happened next.” She walked across the room in a burst of nervous energy and grasped the back of a chair. Her fingers bit into the upholstery, and it gave her something to look at when she said, “I must be honest, I did like what he did up to a point, and after that, well, it wasn’t dreadful. It just seemed rather awkward, really, and a bit uncomfortable.”
She looked back up at him, her eyes meeting his with stunning honesty. “But I did like the way it seemed to make him feel. And that made me feel powerful, and the next time I saw him, I was fully prepared to let him do it all again.”
She closed her eyes, and Daniel could practically see the memory washing over her face. “It was such a lovely night,” she whispered. “Midsummer, and so very clear. You could have counted the stars forever.”
“What happened?” he quietly asked.
She blinked, almost as if waking from a dream, and when she spoke, it was with an offhandedness that was almost disconcerting. “I found out he had proposed marriage to someone else. The day after I gave myself to him, as a matter of fact.”
The fury that had been building within began to crackle. He had never, not once in his life, felt such anger on behalf of another person. Was this what love meant? That another person’s pain cut more deeply than one’s own?
“He tried to have his way with me, anyway,” she continued. “He told me I was . . . I can’t even remember the exact words, but he made me feel like a whore. And maybe that’s what I was, but—”
“No,” Daniel said forcefully. He could accept that she should have known better, that she could have been more sensible. But he would never allow her to think such a thing of herself. He strode across the room, and his hands came down on her shoulders. She tilted her face toward his, her eyes . . . those bottomless, deep blue eyes . . . He wanted to lose himself. Forever.
“He took advantage of you,” he said with quiet intensity. “He should have been drawn and quartered for—”