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.

Tea?” Daniel asked, signaling to the innkeeper.
“Please. Or anything that is hot.” She pulled off her gloves, pausing to frown at a little hole that was growing at the tip of her right forefinger. That wouldn’t do. She needed all the dignity she could muster in that finger.
Heaven knew she shook it at the girls often enough.

Finally, he reached his street. It was quiet, blessedly so, and the only sound was his own groan as he lifted his foot to the first stone step at the entrance to Winstead House. The only sound, that was, until someone whispered his name.
He froze. “Anne?”
A figure stepped out of the shadows, trembling in the night. “Daniel,” she said again, and if she said anything more, he did not hear it. He was down the stairs in an instant, and she was in his arms, and for the first time in nearly a week, the world felt steady on its axis.

His brows rose. “And how is it that you have come to be such an expert on scrapes and bruises?”
“I’m a governess,” she said. Because really, that ought to be explanation enough.

Then, with a cheeky quirk of his brows, he leaned forward and murmured, “Would it be improper of me to admit that I am inordinately flattered by your attention to
the details of my face?”
Anne snorted out a laugh. “Improper and ludicrous.”
“It is true that I have never felt quite so colorful,” he said, with a clearly feigned sigh.
“You are a veritable rainbow,” she agreed. “I see red and . . . well, no orange and yellow, but certainly green and blue and violet.”
“You forgot indigo.”
“I did not,” she said, with her very best governess voice. “I have always found it to be a foolish addition to the spectrum. Have you ever actually seen a rainbow?”
“Once or twice,” he replied, looking rather amused by her rant.

Daniel chuckled. Whoever that poor girl was, he hoped his family was paying her well.
And then, finally, she lifted her fingers from the keys as Daisy began her painful violin solo. He watched her exhale, stretching her fingers, and then . . .

She looked up.

Time stopped. It simply stopped. It was the most maudlin and clichéd way of describing it, but those few seconds when her face was lifted toward his . . . they stretched and pulled, melting into eternity.

She was beautiful. But that didn’t explain it. He’d seen beautiful women before. He’d slept with plenty of them, even. But this . . . Her . . . She . . .

Even his thoughts were tongue-tied.