A Wanton for All Seasons Page 17

  Chapter 14

  That had turned out to be a disaster. Annalee’s meeting with Wayland had decidedly not gone as planned.

  At all.

  Even as she’d told herself it would be difficult securing his cooperation because he was a new, proper, always decorous gentleman. In her mind’s eye, she’d seen that exchange playing out altogether differently. He was to have said yes, and they were to have followed through on the ruse she’d promised Sylvia he would.

  He was always going to have said yes.

  But he hadn’t.

  And Sylvia was gone to the country, with Annalee left to oversee the society . . . with really only one course and recourse available to her.

  All her muscles seized under this greatest of losses, a loss made all the more agonizing, having voiced it aloud.

  Seated around the parlor with the other Mismatch Society members, Annalee finished explaining all the latest troubles to the group. Because they had a right to know. Because they should have been told from the start. Neither she nor Sylvia nor Valerie had any place withholding from them matters that pertained to the health of the overall group.

  Anwen Kearsley was the one to speak first.

  “He rejected your offer,” she whispered, and Annalee appreciated the shock and disbelief from the eldest Kearsley sister. She really did. After all, it bespoke a confidence in Annalee’s abilities. Granted, one she was undeserving of, but a generous and kindly sign of her friendship.

  That also was the part the young lady would focus on—the betrayal, or if not betrayal, the rejection by Annalee’s friend. Or former friend. They weren’t friends any longer. Oddly, that was meant to ease the frustration and hurt, but it only added a stone to those already weighing on her chest.

  Annalee cleared her throat. “Yes, he did.” And he’d been quite decisive in his rejection. That, however, was neither here nor there. She’d not mention that Wayland saw them as too scandalous to link himself to. “As a result, I have called this emergency meeting to share with you my . . . decision . . .” Oh, God. She couldn’t do this. It was impossible. This was the one place where she felt a sense of true belonging with other women. A sisterhood. “The only conclusion I’ve been able to draw,” she continued, stumbling, attempting to get the words out. “The only safe and wise course for the society is that I step back and step down, and . . . remove myself from the household.”

  Silence came quick, but the thunderous tide of shocked exclamations and declinations came on the heels, even louder and more forceful.

  All the words blended together, with the occasional shout piercing the noise of the upset membership.

  “Absolutely not . . .”

  “You cannot . . .”

  Cressida promptly dissolved into copious weeping, crying into the shoulder of Brenna Kearsley beside her. Brenna patted the other young woman on the back, while also swiping the moisture from her own cheeks.

  Annalee’s heart lurched.

  And tears. There were tears, too. For her?

  And blast if a sheen didn’t film across Annalee’s own eyes. She fought desperately to drive them back, digging her nails hard into her lap, distracting herself with a different pain.

  “What about Thérèse?” Anwen whispered.

  “If you read the book . . . it will answer most of what I would have shared anyway,” Annalee assured.

  The Dowager Viscountess St. John shot up a hand. As one, they looked to her. The oldest member of their group, the mother of the Kearsley sisters, with daughters who ranged from five to twenty-five, the respected if eccentric matron did not make all meetings, but she’d proven devout and devoted. She was positioned on a pale-blue settee, seated between two of her daughters, Cora and Anwen. “If I might make a suggestion,” she began. “As dear Emma is off traveling for her honeymoon and Clara is otherwise busy with her music hall and—”

  “Get to it, already, Mother,” Cora urged.

  “I volunteer to lead the discussion pertaining to sexual relations,” the dowager viscountess finished.

  The woman’s daughters visibly recoiled.

  “Absolutely not,” Cora hissed. “I forbid it.”

  The Kearsley mother bristled. “I beg your pardon. I have seven children and am quite adept at answering questions about the pleasure I found with your fath—”

  Cora stuffed her fingers in her ears. “Laa-la-laa.”

  “I’ll quit again,” Anwen vowed, her voice inordinately loud for the fact she had her palms clamped firmly over her ears.

  “Well, I shall gouge my eyes out,” Brenna swore.

  “I daresay that won’t help with what you’ll hear,” Isla Gately pointed out.

  Valerie brought the gavel down hard, pounding it until the room had fallen quiet. “Sylvia would not approve of this,” she said quietly.

  “I agree. She’d be as horrified as all of us at the idea of my mother instructing us on such matters,” Cora muttered.

  Lady St. John frowned. “All women should be so lucky as to have a mother so free to speak of ‘such matters,’ as you call them.” A murmur of agreement rolled around the room, and the dowager viscountess preened. “Eh—see?” she asked, pointing out the other members to her daughter.

  “I was speaking about the possibility of Annalee leaving,” Valerie said impatiently. She glared sharply at Annalee. “And neither do I approve.”

  Another round of agreement rolled around the parlor.

  It had been inevitable—with the spirited crew amongst them, the initial upset had been destined to give way to rebellion.

  “This isn’t for Sylvia to know about,” Annalee spoke firmly, intending to quash those efforts. Sylvia, one of her dearest friends, was with child. Despite the world’s low opinion of Annalee—most of those ill thoughts true—she wasn’t so selfish as to be a burden for Sylvia at this delicate time. That was, any more selfish than she’d already been. “And . . . and . . . it doesn’t have to be forever.” It would just feel like forever. “I will go, and then . . . when she returns, I’ll come back.” She smiled. “It is that simple.” That was, if her soul managed to survive her departure.

  Nay, there was nothing, absolutely nothing, simple about it.

  Valerie took to her feet, drawing everyone’s attention her way. “First, I will say I do not believe you should go,” she said to the room at large. “It is not who we are.”

  And yet, they were also nothing if the ladies present were barred from attending because of Annalee.

  “It is my decision,” Annalee murmured, speaking the one statement she knew these women could understand and respect. Ultimately, they, who were denied choices over everything in life, honored one another’s control of self and their decisions.

  Flattening her mouth, Valerie wrenched her gaze over to the window and shook her head, her disapproval more palpable than had she spoken it aloud.

  “Where will you go?”

  Oh, God. Isla’s quiet murmuring forced Annalee to think about the one thing her mind had been shying away from. Because . . . there was one place she’d have to go . . . because there were no other options. Not ones that didn’t compromise the women here, or their society. Annalee drew in a shaky breath, getting the air into her lungs to expel the loathsome words. “To my parents’,” she said, infusing all the tranquility she could manage into them.

  If one had dropped an embroidering pin, one might have heard it strike the walnut planks, as quiet as the room fell.

  “They will . . . have you?” Isla Gately asked the better, if blunt, question.

  Olivia shoved an elbow into the younger woman’s side.

  “Whaaat? I’m just asking,” Isla groused.

  “No one is going anywhere.” That pronouncement echoed around the room. The dowager viscountess came to her feet. “My dear, we do not need a gentleman to salvage your reputation.”

  “What are you suggesting, Mother?” Anwen asked, hope tingeing her query.

  With all the members’ attention restin
g on her, the dowager viscountess glided across the room, headed on a path toward Annalee. “I’m suggesting Annalee go about as she has these past several days, attending respectable . . . if dull”—the dowager viscountess added under her breath—“affairs and reputable establishments.” Lady St. John reached Annalee’s chair.

  Annalee craned her neck back. “I’ve attempted that. All I’ve managed to create is gossip.” That was, even more gossip.

  The dowager viscountess’s eyes twinkled, and she slipped onto the arm of Annalee’s white upholstered French fauteuil and placed her hand on Annalee’s shoulder. “Ah, but that is because you, my dear, are a unicorn. Rare sightings do not make it a horse. Being a horse makes it a horse.”

  “Unicorns are fictional creatures,” Brenna Kearsley, the bluestocking member of their group, and also one of the most literal-speaking ones, called to her mother. “Mythical.”

  Mythical. Fictional. Both perfect words to describe the charade Annalee had attempted to take part in. Only . . .

  What if she transformed herself? Yes, a partnership with the highly esteemed and prim Lord Darlington would have been the easier course, but if she continued to show herself in a new light . . .

  “Rome was not built in a day, my dear,” Lady St. John murmured, squeezing Annalee’s shoulder gently.

  “That is another cliché,” Brenna pointed out. “One that is— Owwww!” she exclaimed, glaring at her older sister Cora. “Whatever is that for?”

  “Because Mama is making good points. Important ones. And you are taking away from her very vital messaging for Annalee,” Cora shot back. Cupping her hands about her mouth, she yelled across the room, “As you were, Mama!”

  The dowager viscountess lifted her head. “Thank you, dearest.”

  The older woman would not only support her daughters and join them in the revolutionary group but also fight to keep Annalee within the membership ranks? What would it be like to have a mother such as her?

  “Now, my dear, he has rejected your offer, and to that I say . . . pooh on him.” The dowager threw her arms wide, like a veritable Cleopatra thwarting her male counterparts and calling her people to join her insurrection. “When they bring you a battle, the only course is to declare an all-out war!”

  Wild hurrahs went up, feet stomped. Clapping commenced, along with whistles and cheering.

  With the Mismatch Society come undone over this rebellion, Lady St. John leaned close and whispered in Annalee’s ear, “Instead of that defeatist attitude, dear, I’d think about how you can one-up the gentleman and make him regret ever daring to reject you.”

  Annalee shook her head. “I don’t know . . .”

  Lady St. John smiled. “First”—she shot up a finger—“you hold your head high at a respectable ton event.” She lifted another digit. “And two, you bring within our folds the lady of the gentleman’s household.”

  An image popped in her head: Wayland’s straitlaced shrew of a mother. She strangled on a laugh. “His mother?”

  Lady St. John shook her head slowly. “No, my dear. Think again.” The dowager viscountess looked about the room to the other ladies present. “Who holds the real power over a gentleman?”

  Different answers all rolled together from the members.

  “A wife.”

  “A daughter.”

  “A mother?”

  “Yes, well, it does differ from family to family,” the dowager viscountess allowed. She brightened. “Perhaps I might offer a group lecture on that topic someday?”

  “Mother,” Anwen called over impatiently.

  “Oh, yes. Right. Right. As I was saying, as to which woman holds most sway over a household . . . it varies.”

  Annalee froze.

  What I care about more is Kitty’s reputation. She is an outcast, and I worry about her being accepted by society . . .

  “Sisters,” she whispered.

  Why . . . of course. Why had she not thought of it? She could bring Kitty within the fold and, in so doing, connect Wayland’s sister with women who would be true friends . . . And also Wayland would have to lend his support to Annalee and the society. A smile curled her mouth upward.

  Lady St. John patted her affectionately on the shoulder. “That is better, dear. Much better.”

  That same night

  Mayfair, England

  Wayland and his sister had often jested in private that if the whole world were on fire and they’d also been invited to a powerful peer’s formal gathering, their mother would have dressed them all in garments soaked in water and gotten them through the conflagration to the respective ball, and on time, no less.

  It would appear, that night, that not even an invitation from the Duke and Duchess of Fitzhugh had an effect.

  And it was also a testament to the lengths to which he’d go to avoid a discussion with his mother that he’d rather attend a ball where he felt about as comfortable as a pig in church.

  As his mother whipped back and forth, pacing, Wayland latched his gaze to the clock across the room.

  “Might I point out that we are going to be late, Mother?”

  Not even that reminder had an effect.

  Nay, instead she just quickened her pace, back and forth, over and over again. “You may not. This is dire, Wayland. Dire!”

  It certainly was not good.

  Of course he should have expected, knowing Annalee, tenacious and spirited and stubborn as the English day was rainy, that the lady would have never taken his rejection lightly. But this . . . sending around an invitation for Kitty to join her league? Well, this was a battle he’d little hope of winning. “You must do something.”

  “We must do something. We have the ball—”

  “Enough with the ball, Wayland,” his mother cried. “I command you to forbid her from attending.”

  “The hell he will.” Kitty’s voice came muffled but clear through the locked door of his offices.

  He pressed his fingertips against his head. Bloody hell. He should have expected there’d be hell to pay for refusing to help Annalee. She’d invited his sister into the folds of her society.

  She had landed the upper hand, after all. But then, had there been any other way with her?

  “Why are you smiling, Wayland?” his mother squawked.

  “I . . .” He hadn’t realized he’d been. It appeared Annalee still had that effect upon him.

  Quickening her pacing, his mother wrung her hands as she flew back and forth. “How could Annalee invite our Kitty to take part in that . . . that club?”

  “It is a society.” His and his sister’s still muffled responses came as one.

  Furthermore, he knew exactly what had been behind Kitty’s invite. He also knew he’d sooner cut out his tongue than mention he’d inadvertently been the one who’d prompted her receiving one.

  “Open this bloody door this damned instant.”

  As one, Wayland and his mother looked to that closed panel his sister had set herself at, periodically jiggling the handle.

  Horror rounded their mother’s eyes, and this time when she spoke, she did so in the most hushed of voices. “Do you see? She’s already become wicked.”

  “Kitty has always cursed,” he felt inclined to point out.

  “That is right, Mother. I have,” came Kitty’s latest reply.

  “Furthermore,” he continued, stalking across the room and past his mother to unlock and open the door. “This is no new phenomenon,” he said, letting Kitty in.

  His sister immediately scrambled inside.

  “And,” he went on, closing the panel once more behind them, “she’s not even yet met with the club.” He paused. Or . . . “You . . . haven’t yet joined their ranks?”

  Kitty shook her tightly coiffed head.

  “See?”

  “Not yet,” Kitty added with a wink.

  Wayland briefly closed his eyes and dropped a curse in his mind.

  Their mother’s eyes rounded until her irises bulged, and she released an
ear-piercing shriek. Stalking past her daughter, she stopped before Wayland. “You must speak to that woman. Tell her that you absolutely forbid her from allowing Kitty entry. Do you hear me?” And with that, she stormed off. “Now, come,” she ordered, not looking back. “We have the Duchess of Fitzhugh’s ball.”

  The moment she’d made her exit, he looked to Kitty.

  Damn his mother for making this . . . worse. If that was possible.

  Actually, it was. He knew that very well. She may as well have gone and thrown down a gauntlet, and dared Kitty to do her best.

  “Kitty,” he began tiredly, sinking a hip onto the desk.

  “No.”

  He furrowed his brow. “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You didn’t need to. You were going to pretend your weak defense was a legitimate one.”

  He bristled. “It wasn’t a weak defense.”

  “Neither was it a strong or admirable one,” she countered. “When all the while, you have no intention of gainsaying Mama.” Her mouth pulled. “Or as she likes to think of herself”—Kitty raised the timbre of her voice and put the pitch in her nose—“Mottther . . .”

  Reflexively, his lips formed a smile.

  Kitty punched him hard in the chest, instantly killing that amusement. “Oomph.” He rubbed where she’d landed her blow. “What was—”

  “Because you don’t get to smile or speak.” She stuck a finger under his nose. “Not so much as a word, Wayland Smith. Not a single word.” And then she must have seen something in his eyes. She gasped, recoiling from him. “Surely . . . you aren’t going to speak with Annalee about barring me.”

  Kitty’s reputation was that of a blacksmith’s daughter who’d found her fortune but would never have a superior bloodline. Living their lives above reproach was the one way to find a semblance of fitting into this new world they’d landed in. Joining the ranks of society’s most scandalous women . . . would never serve her or her future well.

  “Wayland,” she whispered.

  “Kitty, this . . . change for us, from blacksmith’s children to peerage, it isn’t a temporary one. It isn’t the party thrown by the duke and duchess after . . . after . . .” His gut kicked.

  “After you saved their daughter,” she supplied, filling in the easier words. But then, child that she’d been, and entirely removed as she was from Peterloo, she’d not ever think of it in the same light or terms as people like he . . . or Annalee . . . would.