Chapter Nineteen
"I know you let me win, George. Do you think me a fool? Or some simpering young lady who will bat her eyes at you and thank you? I thought you were different."
Lady Anne did not wait for his answer. She turned away and crossed the lawn towards the lower gardens, her pace quick enough to make it plain that she had no wish to be followed.
George remained where she had left him, staring after her dumbly.
Only moments earlier, he had drawn back his arm for the final throw just as Anne laughed at something said behind her.
She had turned towards the sound, and the afternoon light had caught the ebony curls at her temple.
Her lips had curved before parting into a bright, unguarded smile that softened her whole face.
George had blinked, the sight of her holding him for one fatal second too long.
His fingers had released the ball early, and it had struck the grass short of the stake before rolling towards the roots of a nearby shrub.
The ladies had cheered. Lady Hortensia had awarded the point, and George, still amused by his own failure, had smiled at Anne in the hope that she might understand what had happened. Instead, she had taken one look at him and gone pale with anger.
"Anne," he called, disregarding his teammates who had come over to playfully remonstrate with him. She did not turn.
"Anne," he tried again, setting off after her at a run. Behind him, conversation continued around the game, though he was aware of a shift in attention towards him. He knew that people were watching and he did not care.
He caught up with Anne where the lower lawn narrowed between two clipped hedges. The path dipped only slightly from the house, leaving them plainly visible to anyone still standing near the terrace. Anne heard him coming but did not stop until he called her name for a third time.
"What?" she demanded, turning on him. "Have you come to explain how gallant you were?"
George stopped a few feet away, breathing harder than the short distance warranted. "I did not let you win."
"You threw the ball into a shrub."
"Because I was looking at you, my heart, and you were magnificent."
The anger in her face did not disappear, but it changed. George saw the question before she asked it. "You expect me to believe that?"
"I expect you to believe the truth." He took a step towards her, then checked himself when she drew back. "You laughed and I was lost. That was all it took."
Anne folded her arms. "And then you smiled at me as though I ought to be grateful."
"I smiled because I had made an idiot of myself and thought you might find it amusing. I did not understand what you believed until you spoke."
She looked away, towards the path that ran beside the maze. "I cannot bear being indulged as if I am a small child. My brothers do it and my father. Half the men I meet treat me as if I haven’t a thought in my head. I thought you saw me more clearly than that."
"I do." The words had escaped before he could soften them, but George found he no longer wished to. He had spent days choosing caution when plain speech would have served him better. "I have been falling in love with you since you accosted me over the archery bows," he said.
"Then you smiled at me and offered to rescue me from the wilds of Derbyshire.
" George moved closer, his gaze fixed upon hers.
"You were so fierce and beautiful and witty that I could think of very little else for the rest of the day.
Since then, I have listened for your voice in every conversation and found myself agreeing to any foolish contest that might place me beside you. "
He took her hand. "You notice the things others overlook, yet you have no patience with anyone who deserves a scolding. You make me laugh when I least expect it, and somehow the air in a room feels altered the moment you enter it."
Anne's eyes lifted to his. He had meant to speak more carefully than this.
He had meant to go first to her father and present himself as a dignified, serious suitor.
He knew he fell well below her in rank, though his family was wealthy and well established.
Every one of those sensible thoughts deserted him.
Instead, he was standing in Lady Hortensia's garden declaring himself with an audience of half the household watching from the lawn and grass stains on his shoes.
"I love you," he said. "And if I leave this garden without asking you, I shall regret it for the rest of my life."
Anne's lips parted, but before she could answer, George sank to one knee in the damp grass and took her hand.
"I had meant to do this properly," he said, looking up at her.
"I had meant to speak to your father first, to choose my words with greater care and to avoid proposing while several of the highest-ranking people in England gawped at me from Lady Hortensia's lawn. "
The sight of him there, his breathing still uneven from running after her and one knee already darkening with mud, undid the last of Anne's anger. She moved closer, her fingers tightening around his.
Then George remembered the ring. A sudden look of alarm crossed his face, and he released her hand only long enough to reach inside his coat. The small leather box was still there. He drew it out with such visible relief that Anne gave a breathless laugh.
"I sent Simmins back to Pemberley for this yesterday," he said. "I had hoped to speak to your father this evening."
He opened the box. The emerald caught the afternoon light, deep green at its centre and surrounded by a close circle of small diamonds. For a moment Anne could only stare.
"You had already decided," she said softly.
"I had hoped," George replied. "I would never presume to decide for you."
He lifted the ring between his fingers, though his hand was no longer entirely steady.
"Anne, I do not know what the future will ask of us, but I know I want every part of it with you. I want to spend the rest of my life trying to deserve the happiness you have already given me. Will you be my wife?"
She looked down at him for a long moment, while the sounds from the lawn faded behind them. Then she held out her left hand.
"Yes," she said. "Though you must never let me win again."
The breath left him in a laugh. "I give you my word."
He slid the emerald onto her finger and rose quickly, catching her about the waist when she stepped into him. Anne put both hands against his face and kissed him before he could say anything more.
A cheer rose from the bowling lawn. George glanced back and saw the company gathered along its edge, with Lady Hortensia at their centre and Mr Pritchard still holding the open ledger.
"You had better kiss me again," Anne said. "We may as well give them something worth watching."