A Wanton for All Seasons Read online

  “Do not kill your brother, or else where will we be? Precisely as we were. It’s all very precarious, you know.”

  “Yes, my dying young is certainly secondary to all that,” he said when he managed to get a proper breath.

  His mother gave a curt nod. “Precisely.”

  She was nothing if not honest in her aspirations and views about her children’s usefulness.

  “Your brother must marry Lady Diana, Kitty,” their mother went on to explain. “It was ordained.”

  Ordained.

  Had anything other than blood and heartbreak and ruin been born on the fields of Peterloo?

  “Ah, how could I forget?” Kitty made a show of sitting back in her chair, a study in revelation. “Isn’t it enough that Wayland’s a lord and you’re the mother of a baron and I’m a baron’s sister, and that Wayland has estates in England, and Scotland, and wealth to our name?”

  “Nooo.” Their mother eyed her youngest offspring as though she were half-mad.

  “Of course not. Foolish me,” Kitty said under her breath. She waved them on. “As you were.”

  “It was noted that you were there, dancing attendance upon the lady, Wayland.”

  “I am aware,” he said tersely. “We have discussed it ad nauseam.”

  Their mother swept to her feet. “We cannot afford this, Wayland. Not when our reputation is”—she glanced at the servants lined over at the sideboard and dropped her voice—“what it is.”

  He gritted his teeth. As if he needed any further reminders. Sometimes, however, he wondered how much of her ambition came from a desire to climb that damned social ladder, and how much of it was really about Kitty. “Your concerns are duly noted,” he said. Anything to be rid of her.

  Her shoulders rose and fell in a tangible display of her relief. “You are a good boy.” With that, she gathered her newspapers and left.

  The moment she’d gone, there were several beats of silence . . . that Kitty broke.

  “Do you know she used to speak the same exact words to our old hound, Mr. Jumbles,” Kitty remarked, pulling a laugh from Wayland.

  She winked. “That is better, brother. You mustn’t let her get you down, and you shouldn’t let her decide whether or not you dance with Annalee. In fact, given how magnificent Annalee is, why should you not?”

  Because when he held her, he recalled . . . all manner of sins they’d committed together, ones that these past two days had reminded him he wasn’t so very honorable as to be above committing again. Because it made him want to forget the easiest path forward to his sister’s happiness—a union with Lady Diana—and instead, focus on the greatest path toward his own.

  “Are you all right, brother?” Kitty asked, giving him a look. “You’ve gone all . . . queer. I didn’t make you sick from your coffee, after all . . . did I?”

  “Visits from Mother ofttimes have this . . . effect upon me.” The reason for his upset had to do with the pressing need to help make the world right for Kitty, and guilt for having failed Annalee all those years ago.

  Footfalls sounded at the entry, and they looked up.

  His butler, Belding, attired in gold and the most ridiculously high powdered wig, as insisted upon by Wayland’s mother, stepped forward. “My lord, you have a visitor.”

  Thank God. Anyone. Absolutely anyone, as long as it was not his mother returning, would be preferable to sitting here, enduring more of what he’d suffered through that morning.

  Belding stepped aside.

  “I took the liberty of showing Lord Montgomery here.”

  Wayland’s stomach sank. Oh, bloody hell.

  And then his gaze went to the very damning copy of The Times tucked under Jeremy’s elbow.

  He’d been wrong. There had been one person whose company he’d rather not face at this particular moment. Bloody, bloody hell.

  Kicking him under the table, Kitty hopped up, springing Wayland into belated action.

  He rose, the legs of his chair scraping along the hardwood floor, while Kitty dipped a curtsy. “You must forgive my brother. He just had the most unpleasant visit from— Oww.” Her words cut off as she glared at him. “Did you just step on my foot?”

  He briefly closed his eyes. “I was shifting my boot.”

  “Onto my foot?” she demanded indignantly.

  God love her loyalty, she was still hopeless when it came to subtleties.

  Jeremy stared at them bemusedly.

  “Yes, well, then . . . I trust that my brother stomping my foot most viciously now had something to do with something I wasn’t supposed to say, which also undoubtedly means there are other matters that you gentlemen have to discuss that make my presence a bother.”

  “Your presence could never be a bother,” Jeremy murmured, sweeping another bow.

  “Oh, splendid,” Kitty said, her expression deadpan as she perched herself on the edge of the table. “Then I’ll stay.”

  Over the top of her head, Wayland leveled a scowl on the other man.

  Jeremy, with his spare hand, wrestled with his cravat. “Uh . . .”

  A smile widened Kitty’s lips. “I’m teasing.” She hopped up. “I’ll let you both to your”—she dropped her voice, deepening it several shades—“very serious business.” With a wink, she headed out . . . and closed the door behind her.

  Jeremy stared at the panel a moment. “She’s a bit of a whirlwind, isn’t she? When did that happen?”

  “I think . . . forever?”

  Alas, it was too much to hope that his closest—also his only—friend in the world had come to discuss his sister.

  “I can only . . . imagine the reason for your mother’s upset.” The other man tossed his newspaper down on the table. It landed with a decisive thwack alongside Kitty’s empty plate.

  Wayland winced. Could he, though? Could Jeremy know precisely what his faithless mother had said? “You know my mother,” he said carefully. Though that was likely the lesser offense to worry about. Nay, his having danced with Annalee had raised questions amongst Polite Society. And it was to be expected that Jeremy might have those same—

  “Because you know my sister,” Jeremy said, and the unexpectedness of those words sent heat up Wayland’s neck, and he prayed for a second rescue. This time, he’d even take it from his damned status-climbing mother. Anything. Anyone.

  “Uh . . .” Nothing. Wayland had absolutely no response to that. For he did know Annalee. Intimately, in ways that would have likely ended not only his friendship with Jeremy but also Wayland’s life.

  Jeremy looked him in the eye. “Annalee brings scandal on all she comes into contact with.” The other man began pacing. “And now she’s brought scandal to you.”

  So caught up in his own guilt and musings about Annalee, Wayland took a moment to register what the other man had said. He blinked slowly. “Come again?”

  Jeremy abruptly stopped that annoying back-and-forth stride, and grabbing the chair vacated by Kitty, he seated himself. “You were gracious enough to dance with my sister, and I’m grateful to you for extending that courtesy. But I also came to apologize for . . . for . . .”

  Wayland fell into his own seat. “You are thanking me for dancing with your sister . . . ,” he echoed dumbly.

  “And apologizing, of course.”

  Apologizing.

  Wayland attempted to sort out which was worse from a faithless brother . . . the apology or the gratitude. And between first his damned mother and now Annalee’s disloyal brother, all the earlier unease at having his name in the papers faded. “I don’t need an apology or your words of thanks,” he said curtly. Nor did he point out that Annalee had pulled him onto the dance floor because, well, hell, it really didn’t matter.

  Jeremy rested a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t deserve your friendship, old chum. This”—he grabbed his well-worn copy of The Times and held it up—“I know is everything you seek to avoid. Scandal. Shame.”

  Yes, after Peterloo, Wayland had pledged himself to everyt
hing his friend now spoke of. And yet, to hear him speak so . . . of his sister? Of Annalee . . . Even if there was truth to what he said, it grated. “Nothing shameful transpired last evening,” he bit out. But plenty shameful transpired years before it, a voice jeered and taunted, calling him out for that faithlessness that he’d never paid a proper price for. He stormed to his feet. “Nothing at all. It was a damned dance.”

  The other man blinked up at him. “No. I . . . I wasn’t suggesting that it did. I didn’t mean to. Rather, I was just saying that simply being with my sister—”

  “I know what you’re saying,” he snapped.

  Jeremy continued to stare wide-eyed.

  Oh, bloody hell.

  In the end, Wayland found himself rescued.

  The door burst open, and they both looked over.

  Kitty had returned, like an avenging warrior. “I require saving.”

  The hell she did. His sister could have saved Wellington’s men better than the old general himself. “Mother is attempting to squire me to the modiste, and you know when she does, she attires me in”—she lifted up her arms—“this.”

  Both men looked to the entirely unremarkable blue satin day dress.

  “Uh . . . I fail to see anything wrong with your dress,” Jeremy said, cocking his head.

  Sweeping over, she patted him on the hand. “You’re just being a dear because you are Wayland’s best friend and a gentleman.” She clapped her hands. “Now, if you’ll excuse Wayland and me?”

  “Uh . . . of course.” Jeremy shoved to his feet. “We . . . can speak about this later?”

  “Indeed.”

  But for now, Wayland had been granted a reprieve.

  Chapter 10

  Annalee had grown accustomed to people leaving rooms when she entered them.

  That was, when she entered places where the respectable sort mingled.

  Mamas dragged their daughters away when she came near.

  Wives held their husbands’ arms all the tighter.

  Though if those respectable wives would have cared to know the truth, Annalee didn’t bother with married men. Faithless bounders who couldn’t respect their vows were hardly the manner of men she kept company with. Nay, at least unentangled rogues and rakes were honest in their dealings and what they wanted.

  At that very moment, the latest room she was responsible for clearing was . . . a shop.

  A modiste’s, to be exact.

  Silence continued to fill Madame Bouchard’s as the mothers and their daughters present stared on at Annalee and Valerie.

  And then, almost as one, clutching their daughters the way they snatched their pearls when she was near, the ladies filed past.

  “And here I was worried about having to mingle with the ton,” Valerie said with her usual drollness. “Now it appears the only worry is as to whether we’ll be served.”

  Together, they looked to the modiste and the shopgirls, hovering at the back of the shop and eyeing them with the same wariness they might have reserved for a visit by some specter. “Oh, they’ll attend us.” Annalee made that prediction with complete confidence. “Furthermore, you’ll never have to worry about mingling with the proper members of the peerage when I’m about.” Removing her flask, she uncorked the piece, saluted her friend, and raised the spirits to her lips. “Particularly after my latest scandal.”

  “They left because of me,” Valerie said as they moved down the aisles, assessing bolts of fabric.

  Annalee snorted. “Do not flatter yourself, dear. I and I alone possess the power of clearing places of polite people. And particularly after last evening.” She sighed. Alas, her first real attempt at a return to politeness and properness . . . which had, of course, descended into her leaving a ball early and attending Lady Wilmot’s and drinking and—

  Valerie lifted a swatch of orange, examining it. “I do not see what was so scandalous about your dancing with a respectable lord. That seems the manner of activity that would put rumors to rest.”

  For another lady, perhaps. But that waltz . . . Annalee’s heart kicked up its cadence as she—and her body—recalled the feel of Wayland’s hands upon her, the slightly possessive grip he’d had at her waist, a fierce hold that had always left her breathless. And that place between her legs ached . . . even though she’d brought herself to pleasure last evening, thinking of that same dance that now consumed her. Because no one danced like Wayland. Her body never moved more perfectly than when he held her for something so simple as a waltz, and yet more erotic than lovemaking itself.

  “It is splendorous . . .”

  “Yes,” she breathed . . . There was nothing more splendorous—

  Across a bolt of pale green, her friend smiled.

  Wait . . . what?

  Valerie wagged the nauseating fabric in her hands.

  Annalee followed that slight rustle and blanched. “Do put that down.” She plucked the fabric from her friend’s fingers. “I’d look like a plate of peas made into puree in that one. And I hate peas. They hardly belong on a plate, let alone a person.”

  Valerie looked wounded. “I thought you said it was splendorous,” she protested, picking up the swatch.

  “I was being sarcastic.” The lie came entirely too easily, born of a need to keep from mentioning how special that moment had been to her. “This fabric offends me.” It had been blasphemous to have—even in error—applied the same word she had for dancing with Wayland to a material such as the one her friend encouraged her to have made into a proper dress.

  “There’s hardly anything scandalous about peas,” her friend pointed out. “Well?” Valerie gave it another shake, waggling her eyebrows like she was one of those vendors hawking their wares on the streets.

  Together, they stared with a renewed interest in the satin.

  Annalee looked at the fabric dubiously. Perhaps Valerie was correct and she should consider an entirely different aesthetic for her wardrobe. Particularly one that couldn’t or wouldn’t attract the looks that crimsons and blacks and golds invariably did. Simultaneously, she and Valerie cocked their heads in opposite directions, eyeing the fabric still. Why, attired in a shade such as this, it was a certainty that absolutely no one would lust after her or look at her.

  That was, look at someone in such a shade of green for any reasons beyond horror.

  She sighed. Mayhap that was the very reason she should consider it, then.

  “Hmm?” Valerie caught her eye and gave the bolt a little shake.

  With reluctant movements, Annalee stretched her fingers toward it, then promptly drew them back. “I can’t do it. I just . . . cannot wear that.”

  “You’re trying to be proper,” Valerie persisted.

  Yes, but the line had to be drawn somewhere. “I’m trying to be proper, not”—Annalee swept her fingers in a little circle, gesturing in the direction of the item in question—“put myself through any self-flagellation.” Good God, this was going to be even harder than she’d anticipated. All of this. Removing her flask from her reticule, she uncorked the desperately needed spirits.

  Valerie stared pointedly at the silver flask, and Annalee returned the object in question to her bag.

  “This is different.”

  “Drinking spirits in one of the most posh, well-respected modiste’s?” Valerie promptly dropped that hideous fabric. “This I have to hear.”

  “Well,” Annalee began in the elevated tones she’d used years earlier, when she’d been a girl instructing her brother and Wayland on some point that they’d needed to know, “it is simply that . . . we are”—she stretched her arms wide—“alone. Uh . . . with the exception of the modiste.”

  Again, they looked to the still dawdling shopkeeper.

  The modiste tensed her mouth.

  Valerie tipped her head in the young woman’s direction. “And the only reason we’re alone is because we drove everyone away.”

  “And because of that, I’m certainly free to indulge in a bit of whiskey.”

/>   “And it’s also the reason you should be of a mind to pick a fabric like—”

  “You are nothing if not tenacious.” With a laugh, Annalee claimed the material once more from her determined friend’s clutch. “No.”

  Valerie glanced about for the still tarrying shopkeeper. “You know we’re only moments from being thrown out, don’t you?”

  Pouting, Annalee helped herself to one of the decorative feathers from the table. “Ah, but I do not know that,” she said, wagging that pink scrap in her friend’s direction. “Because Madame Bouchard is in a pickle. She doesn’t want to have me sully her steps, but also, she recognizes that I’m the daughter of one of her greatest, most free-spending patrons. And as such, she won’t throw me out.” She tapped her friend on the nose. “Yet.”

  Eventually the woman would get around to it. Eventually, all the respectable sorts tired of her. But Annalee rather suspected Madame Bouchard would come over, grant her the quickest of quick appointments, and rush her off.

  “She is upset that we’ve driven off all her patrons.”

  And that she’d women of Valerie’s and Annalee’s reputations in her shop.

  The bell tinkled at the front, followed by the click of an opening door. Annalee lifted a finger. “Not everyone.”

  Valerie rolled her eyes. As they resumed their stroll down the aisles, her friend collected a swath of brown muslin. “This?”

  “Egad, noooo. Brown? Valerie.” Annalee lamented her dearest friend’s very terrible taste. She did a search of the table and then widened her eyes. Quitting the other woman’s side, inexorably pulled to the very end of the table at the farthest end of the aisle, Annalee stopped. With reverent hands, she reached for the shimmering scarlet silk and lifted it closer for inspection. That slight movement sent the material rippling, and the light streaming through the shop windows played off the fabric, giving it a glossy sheen that added radiance to—

  “No.”

  Annalee jumped and clutched the scarlet silk protectively to her chest. “But—”

  “No,” the other woman repeated more emphatically. “It’s red.”