Page 41 of The Devil’s Waltz

“I thought you didn’t ride?” Mrs. Browne said blankly.

Annelise was so tired of explaining. She should have kept her mouth shut in the first place. “l used to ride,” she said. “Before my father died.”

“Ah, I see,” the housekeeper said. “I think you need to go home.”

“I do.” Annelise wasn’t going to cry again—there weren’t any tears left. “But I don’t have a home anymore.” She swallowed a hiccup. “Do you have any more biscuits?”

“All the ginger biscuits in the world for you, sweeting,” Mrs. Browne said. “It will all work out in the end. It always does.”

Annelise managed a smile. “If you say so,” she said. Not believing it for a moment.

Annelise stared out at the rain as it lashed against the leaded glass windows.

They needed fixing, like everything else in this old, decaying house, and the wind rattled against the casement like a hungry ghost. But there were no ghosts in Annelise’s life—those whom she loved stayed dead once they died.

She would have liked the chance to see her father again.

Liked the chance to tell him she loved him. To tell him...

She was back in her serviceable brown dress and her plain cotton underthings. She still had only one of her shoes, though Mrs. Browne had cleaned it as best she could. Still Cinderella, except that she was already on her way back into the shadows.

A good thing too, she told herself with a sniff that was nowhere near the tears that had overwhelmed her earlier. She was a level-headed woman, and she knew better than to have airs above her station.

In fact, her station in life was far too tenuous. Her name, her pedigree, the Honorable Miss Annelise Kempton, guaranteed her a certain standing and privilege. Her impoverished state tore most of that away, leaving only her impeccable reputation to sustain her. And by now it was sorely tarnished.

She should have known the moment she set eyes on the beautiful Christian Montcalm that he would be her undoing. And the wretched, damnable part of it was that he hadn’t undone anything about her. Except, perhaps, her resolve. And that wasn’t enough to make it worthwhile.

Her elder sister Eugenia would lecture her, telling her she’d always thought too highly of herself.

It wasn’t true, though. She just thought she’d known who and what she was, who and what she wanted after almost thirty years of living in this body.

All it had taken was the touch of Christian Montcalm’s mouth to realize she knew nothing at all about herself.

She rose from the window seat to fetch the velvet bag carrying the false pearls, as false as her belief in her own power.

In defiance she put them on, letting them rest against her chastely covered bosom.

She moved back to the window seat to stare into the darkness.

She had to leave, had to make some kind of plan, but her mind was blank.

The thought of abandoning Gertie once more was unbearably painful.

The thought of never seeing Christian Montcalm again was far, far worse.

And the only thing she could sanely hope for.

She didn’t hear him coming-—his step was stealthy, like a cat or a sneak thief. And he didn’t bother to knock on her door—he simply opened it and walked into her room as if he owned it. As he did, she supposed. But he didn’t own her.

“Mrs. Browne said you didn’t touch your dinner,” he said abruptly. There were only a few candles lit in the room, and she couldn’t see his face clearly. A small blessing, she reminded herself.

“I wasn’t hungry,” she said in a tight voice.

“And you’re back to wearing your nun’s robes. I must say I like you better in my great aunt’s dishabille. Though the riding habit wasn’t bad.”

She ignored his jibe. “I need to leave here.”

He hadn’t closed the door behind him, a small reassurance, and the hall was better lit than her bedroom, silhouetting him. He seemed restless, uneasy, as he prowled around her room. “They haven’t sent a carriage back for you yet,” he said, pausing by the rumpled bed. Staring down at it.

“But we both know that if you wanted to you could find a carriage. It was a lie, wasn’t it? I could have always left?”

“You needn’t be so harsh. It was never impossible— nothing is, if you have the money and right now I’m quite awash with it.

It was just very difficult and would have necessitated having that wretched brat in my house for hours, perhaps even a day, longer.

When it was a choice between my sanity and your reputation my sanity won. I’m a very selfish man.”

In better times she could have raised an eyebrow, but right then she was too weary and defeated to bother.

“I need to leave here,” she said again, her voice listless.

He frowned—she could see him by the light of her bedside candle. “There’s a horse you know well, and I could send Harry with you for protection. You wouldn’t even have to be in any rush to return her—she’s livelier today than I’ve ever known her to be.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I haven’t the means nor the place to keep her. Besides, I’ve told you, I don’t ride.”

“But you did. When did you stop? On the day your father died?”

Even that couldn’t goad her into anything more than a numb response.

Of course he’d know that. He was a devil—he knew everything he wanted to know about her.

Knew just how vulnerable she was to him, despite her protests.

Knew that more than anything she just wanted him to touch her, kiss her, take her.

It didn’t matter how much it hurt or how unpleasant it was; it didn’t matter that it would leave her totally ruined and bereft with no future whatsoever. She still wanted it.

“Since the day my father died,” she echoed.

He was still edgy. In another man she might have thought he was nervous, but Christian Montcalm wasn’t prey to such petty emotions. Particularly around her.

“I’ve decided to be noble,” he said abruptly.

His words were enough to startle Annelise out of her malaise. If he was thinking of being noble then he had every reason to be nervous—it would be a novel experience for him.

“Indeed?” she said, turning to face him.

But he wasn’t looking at her—he was still prowling.

“I’m going to let you go.”

“Was there ever any doubt of it?”

“No,” he said. “The only question was what shape you were going to be in when you left, and I’ve changed my mind.

You get to leave here just as virginal as the day you arrived.

Two or three more stolen kisses shouldn’t make much difference, and you’re such an upstanding, starchy dragon that no one would dare believe you capable of licentious romping. ”

“Licentious romping? I think not. But you already swore to Will Dickinson that I was perfectly safe. Swore to me, as well, I believe.”

He didn’t even blink .“I lied,” he said simply. ‘I do that you know, when it suits me. I would have thought you’d realized that by now.”

It was enough to rouse her. She swiveled around on the window seat, putting her stockinged feet on the floor. “What are you talking about?”

Somehow during his edgy perambulations he’d come dangerously close. She’d seen the wild animals at Astley’s Circus, had been mesmerized by the beauty and inherent danger. She should have realized the resemblance sooner.

“I was going to ruin you, dragon,” he said softly.

“Quite thoroughly, quite deliciously. I had every intention of going well beyond lesson three until you were a bona fide expert. I was going to teach you everything I know and could think of, until there wasn’t the tiniest bit of starch left in you.

” His voice was soft, regretful and still utterly beguiling.

“But why? For the sheer sport?” she demanded. “For a wager? Out of malice? Why would you want to ruin my life? Why would you be so cruel? What have I ever done to you?”

His smile was the definition of rueful. “Such a silly dragon. Malice, sport and cruelty had absolutely nothing to do with it. I wanted you. And when I want something I tend to take it, without considering the consequences.”

His voice was detached, distant almost as if he were talking about another man. As indeed he seemed to be. The Christian Montcalm standing in her bedroom had little resemblance to the man who had once planned her seduction. Except that he was fully as beautiful.

She couldn’t even begin to sort through the reactions that flooded her, wouldn’t even consider why it felt so much like pain.

Her voice was cool when she spoke. “I’m pleased to know you’ve seen the error of your ways,” she said, as starchy as he’d ever accused her of being.

“When can I expect transport out of here?”

“Browne should be able to come up with a decent carriage by tomorrow, and I’ll have Mrs. Browne find one of the village girls to provide you company during the trip.

I expect you’ll pass my returning carriage on the way, but that is of little import.

The most important thing is to get you out of my wicked clutches, is it not? ”

“Yes,” she said.

He stood there, unmoving, clearly at a loss. “You should eat something. I’ll have Mrs. Browne send up another tray.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Damn it, I don’t care,” he shot back, shoving his long hair away from his hollow, beautiful face. “You need to eat something.”

“Damn it, I don’t,” she replied deliberately. ‘I don’t have to do a blasted thing I don’t want and there’s nothing you can do to make me.”

She’d managed to surprise him, and a faint smile played around his mouth. “Such language, dragon!” he scolded. “Where did you learn that-—in your father’s stables?”

“Yes.”

“There’s always been something irresistible about a starchy virgin who curses like a stable hand,” he murmured.

“But you are nobly resisting my siren lures anyway,” she shot back. She recognized the faintly aggrieved note in her voice and should haye bitten back the words, but with any luck at all he wouldn’t notice the slip.

But then, she had no luck at all. He stared at her for a long moment, tilting his head to one side, and his smile widened, reaching his dark, unreadable eyes.

“Perhaps not,” he said.

And he reached out for her.