Page 77 of The Language of Love

“He doesn’t know, does he?” Uncle Thomas asked.

“Is this true, Annis?” Henry demanded.

They spoke at the same time, but it was Henry’s question she forced herself to answer.

“I—it was never my intention—” She bit her lip, looked directly into his horrified gaze, and said, “Yes, it is true.”

***

Henry knew his mouth was hanging open, but he couldn’t find the strength to shut it. “Who?” was all he could manage.

It was her uncle who answered, “Mr. Harold Norburg.”

“Norburg the banker?” Henry asked, wrenching his gaze away from Annis’s guilty, miserable face.

“Yes.” Bowman’s mouth shriveled up like a prune. “He might not be a peer, my lord, but he is an extremely wealthy, influential man, and one to be reckoned with.” The way Bowman had gone gray told Henry he must have some dealings with the savvy banker, a man Henry had heard about, but didn’t know personally.

Bowman’s jaws flexed, as if he were exerting a massive amount of will to control himself. “It was Norburg who told me of my niece’s afternoon jaunts after seeing the two of you together. He was most displeasedand was prepared to sever their relationship. But I assured him that what she was doing was harmless.” He narrowed his eyes at his niece. “Then today—”

“So, you had her followed,” Henry said. “And what about Norburg—did he send somebody to follow her?”

“I sincerely hope not,” Bowman retorted.

So did Henry, but probably not for the same reasons. Just thinking about another man watching Annis—be it a footman or a rich banker—made him want to destroy something.

On the heels of that thought was another that was even more infuriating: he was jealous—surely the lowest of human emotions—of a woman who’d been plotting and planning to marry another man. A very wealthy man.

Bowman’s voice yanked Henry from his spiraling anger. “So, this poses a significant problem, my lord.”

They both turned to look at his niece.

To her credit, Annis didn’t flinch away from Henry’s glare.

Another man had courted her while she was meeting him. She was all but betrothed while she’d writhed beneath his hand today?

He looked into her crystalline blue eyes and shook his head; how easily she had fooled him into believing she was an innocent.

Henry’s head throbbed with anger, jealousy, and betrayal.

Get hold of yourself, Henry. Yes, she was betrothed, but you don’t know the full story—what if her aunt and uncle were forcing her? After all, it makes little sense that she would have done what she’d done today with a mere clerk if she didn’t have feelings for you?

The thought stopped his anger in its tracks, the effect on him so sudden it gave him a sort of emotional whiplash.

That last part was true. No woman in her right mind would do what Annis had done today with a poor man if she was genuinely angling to marry a rich one.

Henry realized that both uncle and niece were waiting for him to speak.

He shoved away the tangle of emotions, which he would have the rest of the day—hell, the rest of his life—to sort out, and turned to his host.

“May I have a few moments alone with your niece, Mr. Bowman?”

***

Annis’s face scalded as Ford, her aunt’s maid, trooped into the library with her needlework basket over her arm.

It was ridiculous that her uncle insisted on her having a chaperon at this point. Annis could see by Henry’s expression that he was more amused than annoyed by what was, now, a hollow propriety. All it did was ensure that they could have no honest or direct conversation.

That was probably just as well; Annis was hardly in a hurry to explain to Henry why she’d behaved like a wanton while she was all but engaged to another man.