A Wanton for All Seasons Read online

  Never more, however, had he regretted the commitment to being that aboveboard fellow who’d not turn down a plea for help than he did in this particular moment, answering a summons from his best friend, Jeremy, the Viscount Montgomery—and in the middle of the other man’s betrothal ball, no less.

  “What was that?” Wayland asked in pained tones, hoping that the hum of a sea of guests on the other side of the Countess of Kempthorne’s elaborately painted oak panel had merely made a bungle of his hearing and the words—and request—he’d heard were something he’d imagined.

  As it was, with no immediate response from his only friend in the world, hope found a place in his chest.

  “I need you to help with Annalee.”

  Alas, there it was, for a second time.

  I need you to help with Annalee . . .

  As in Jeremy’s sister . . . but also the first—and only—woman Wayland had ever loved. Of course, Jeremy had never had so much as an inkling. He’d seen the trio of friends they’d been as children. If he’d known the extent of his friend’s relationship with Annalee, Wayland would have been the last person Jeremy would have come to about the young lady.

  Nay, he’d have called you out and put a bullet through your heart years ago.

  Wayland adjusted his cravat—or rather, ruined the folds.

  “Are you listening to me, man?” Jeremy demanded on a quiet whisper.

  “No.”

  His friend’s eyebrows dipped.

  “Yes?” Wayland said quickly.

  “I can’t help her. I don’t know who she is since”—don’t say it—“Peterloo.” Not only did Jeremy mention that nightmare, but he did so with a casualness that, as someone who’d lived the hell of that day, Wayland couldn’t understand. “She’s a stranger to me.”

  “What kind of help could I possibly provide Annalee?” An eccentric, after Peterloo she’d ended their affair by refusing to respond to his letters.

  “The most important kind.” Jeremy held his gaze. “I’ve tried to reach out to her, and . . . You were there that day, and look at you, chap. You’re happy, and hell, you are more proper than ever.”

  Proper, because Wayland had learned a very important lesson that day on the fields of Manchester: rebellious attitudes and actions brought only suffering and sorrow.

  Jeremy’s jaw hardened. “Unlike Annalee, who’s gone running in red dresses through Almack’s, searching for members for that ridiculous club she’s started, and who thinks nothing of visiting scandalous wagering parties with those men and women she calls friends.”

  “Has . . . she asked for my help?”

  “Of course not.” Jeremy’s reply was instantaneous, and Wayland wasn’t sure how to account for the odd pang of disappointment.

  Still, he latched on to that. “There you have it. The lady doesn’t want my help.” And why should she? Why, when the sole reason she’d joined her friend Lila that day at Peterloo had been so she could go meet Wayland?

  “No, Wayland. But she needs it.” Pacing a quick path back and forth along the luxuriant floral carpet, Jeremy didn’t so much as break stride. “If you can remind her of how she used to be, and of the benefits of living a righteous life . . .”

  Wayland checked his timepiece. “Jeremy, it’s your betrothal ball.” His voice emerged strained. But perhaps if he could . . . put him off, the other man would either forget this request or realize the lunacy in what he proposed. “I hardly think this is the time or place to be . . . talking about”—Annalee—“this.”

  “This is the perfect time,” Jeremy said. “‘Do not invite her,’ they said . . . ‘It is better if she weren’t here,’ they said . . . And I insisted they were wrong because, of course, she belongs . . .” Jeremy shot a glance Wayland’s way. “She’s gone missing during the ball . . . and that does not bode well.”

  Guilt slithered around inside Wayland.

  No, it didn’t.

  Jeremy abruptly stopped and gave Wayland a meaningful look. “My parents are growing tired of her behavior. It was bad enough when she moved in with two other women. But now the papers are all saying that Annalee is doling out lessons on . . . on . . .” Color flared in the other man’s face, and he dropped his voice to a horrified whisper. “Carnal matters. And given”—Jeremy gestured vaguely at the air—“all this, everyone is expecting she’s going to cause some new scandal, and she needs to be watched this night, Wayland.”

  And just like that, this sudden and unexpected request for help with Annalee, in the middle of Jeremy’s ball, made sense. Why it was suddenly so important that Annalee start behaving. And coward that he was, Wayland didn’t want to know just what the earl and countess had planned for Annalee, should she continue to rain down scandals wherever she went.

  “Will you at least think on what I’ve asked?”

  “Of course,” Wayland said instantly. The answer would remain a decided no. Nothing good could come from renewing a friendship with the woman he’d been so hopelessly in love with.

  “When you find her, mayhap you can at least try talking to her . . . as a friend.”

  “Y—” Wayland stopped. “Wait.” When he found her? “What?”

  Jeremy’s features twisted. “If she’s not located, she will get herself into some manner of trouble.” Because she always does. It hung there, unfinished, but not necessary to be spoken. For they both knew. The world knew. Pain filled the other man’s eyes. “And I cannot have that for Sophrona.” Ah, Jeremy’s fiancée. “Not this time.” Once again, his friend stopped, and his gaze fixed on the doorway leading out to the revelries in the ballroom. “Lord knows, she has been understanding and tolerant of . . . of . . . who”—Jeremy grimaced—“what Annalee has become.”

  What she’s become . . .

  Wayland’s stomach muscles spasmed.

  Annalee hadn’t always been the nonconformist who never failed to shock society. Having been welcomed into the folds of the Spencer family, Wayland knew his friendship with Jeremy, a viscount and the son of an earl, had been an unlikely one. He’d found himself a de facto member of the family, and as such, he’d known Annalee quite well from when she was just a girl of eight and he a boy of ten—only one year younger than her brother. She’d always been sweet and sunny and given to daring, but she’d never been . . . reckless. Or scandalous and shameful. And—

  “I have to return,” Jeremy said. “As it is, my absence has surely been noted. Will you just . . . see that Annalee doesn’t land herself in any scrapes this evening, and bring her back to the ball?”

  A pained laugh escaped Wayland. “You are asking me to serve as a chaperone to the lady? My God, man, do you know who your sister is?” Wayland’s tone was strained to his own ears. The all-powerful Earl and Countess of Kempthorne couldn’t get their headstrong daughter to do as they wished, and yet Jeremy expected Wayland should? “You clearly don’t.”

  “Obviously I do,” Jeremy said flatly. “Which is why I’m asking you. You are reliable and can be trusted, and you know Annalee.”

  You know Annalee . . .

  His muscles seized once more.

  “You were her friend,” Jeremy went on, twisting the blade all the more.

  I was her lover . . .

  Following that fated day at Peterloo, she’d gone her way and he’d gone his, and they’d become two separate people, with the man now standing before Wayland the only thing in common between them.

  The man whose features were a study of misery and worry and—

  Wayland briefly closed his eyes. He was undeserving of the other man’s faith. Bloody hell. He could no sooner reject Jeremy’s plea for help than turn himself over to the reckless, rabble-rousing person he’d been in the past.

  “Very well,” Wayland said, committing himself to the task. “I will do it.”

  Just then, the door opened, and a figure sailed through.

  Pale, her wrinkling features drawn, the countess was a study of worry. “You are missing, and your sister is nowhere t
o be—”

  “I know,” Jeremy cut off his mother. “Wayland has been so good as to volunteer.”

  Volunteer? Was that what they were calling it?

  The countess lifted her head in a regal, queenly inclination. “We are indebted to you, Darlington.” With that, she looked to her son. “I am so very sorry that you need to bear the hardship of having this on your day, Jeremy.”

  The gentleman inclined his head. “It is fine, Mother,” he assured in placating tones.

  “But it isn’t. It is . . .” And while mother and son proceeded to speak about that most intimate of matters, Wayland clasped his hands behind him and attempted to make himself as small as possible.

  Initially distant, back when her husband had been the one who’d opened their home to a blacksmith’s son, the countess had warmed considerably to Wayland after he’d been awarded a title for acts of heroism in his timely rescue of a powerful peer’s young daughter. So much so that she, like the rest of the world, hadn’t cared—as she should have—about why he’d been there in the first place. For had she known the role he’d played in her daughter’s attendance at Peterloo that day—that the sole reason she’d been there was because Annalee and Wayland had been lovers—it was a certainty there’d be no further warmth shown his way by any member of this family. Nay, only the door.

  Just as Jeremy would likely end their friendship, were the truth to come to light. And as such, it was the great lie Wayland lived.

  Sins that could never be atoned.

  Debts that could never be paid.

  Crimes that had gone unpunished.

  Truths he’d expected, following that fated day of hell, Annalee would share with her family. But she hadn’t.

  As such, helping the family locate the lady and ensuring she didn’t find herself in trouble was the least of the services he could provide in light of . . . all he’d done and failed to do where Annalee was concerned.

  “I should go,” he blurted.

  The conversing pair abruptly stopped mid-discourse and looked to him.

  The countess swept over and clasped his hands in hers. “I can never thank you enough for being the friend that you are to this family.”

  “The best.” Jeremy lifted a flute of half-empty champagne in salute.

  Friend that he was . . .

  Never gladder to quit a room than this one, Wayland beat a quick retreat and set out in search of Lady Annalee. Turning all his focus on the task at hand—a far safer and wiser way to think of his assignment—Wayland went through everything he knew about Annalee.

  That was, everything he knew about this new version of Annalee.

  She liked hidden corners and fountains and conservatories, and more often than not, when discovered in those places, she was also in the company of some gentleman or another.

  Once, the stories coming out of the papers had hit him like a punch to the gut . . . and not for reasons that had anything to do with guilt for his role in her transformation. Rather, his shock stemmed from the thought of her with those bounders. Shameful rogues.

  “You’re looking for my sister, aren’t you?”

  That unexpected question called down the hall brought Wayland up short. With a silent curse, he whipped back about.

  Some five paces away stood the most fearsome of creatures.

  Blunt and direct, and given to mischief, the girl had all the traits of her elder sister.

  And with feet planted as they were, with her hands on her hips and her legs slightly parted, giving her the look of a military general squaring off against a less-worthy opponent, she was going to give Annalee a run for her money.

  Wayland dropped a bow. “My lady—”

  “Oh, stop trying to turn me up sweet, Darling,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “Spare me your gentlemanly pomp and circumstance. I’m no lady.”

  He repressed a smile. “May I caution you from going on about that in the presence of your mother? She would not take well to having you reject the title of a lady.”

  The girl shrugged. “So?”

  So.

  Yes, with the spirit this one possessed, if there was an un-grey hair on the earl’s and countess’s heads after Annalee, they would go fully white by the time Lady Harlow Spencer reached her majority. As it was, the countess had struggled mightily with Annalee’s transformation into one of society’s most scandalous socialites—the family’s turmoil having only grown over the years since that transformation had begun. Guilt, a familiar sentiment where this family was concerned, swirled. “I was only advising you to be careful.” To help her.

  Lady Harlow narrowed her eyes. “Are you challenging me, Darling?” she snapped, a warning there. Her small hand hovered about the hilt of her rapier.

  “I wouldn’t dare think of challenging so fierce a warrior. Lovely scabbard,” he added, knowing the child well enough to shift tactics and get back in her good graces.

  Instantly, the girl’s scowl faded, and a smile brightened her plump cheeks. “Annalee’s latest gift.”

  His lips twitched. “Of course,” he said, before he could call back the words.

  “You dare to insult my sister!” That truce he’d struck with Harlow proved short lived. In one fluid movement, she unsheathed her rapier and thrust the blade at his chest, touching the point to his person.

  “I would never,” he said indignantly. Not solely because Annalee was his best friend’s sister, but because of the relationship they’d once had together. Either way, he’d tarried long enough. There was the matter of seeing to the task his friend had put to him. “If you will excuse me? I do have matters to see to.”

  Apparently, neither his assurance of fealty to her beloved elder sister nor the pressing obligation he referenced did anything to sway the furious Harlow.

  She shot her arm out sideways so that the tip of her rapier kissed the countess’s canary-yellow-painted wallpaper and effectively blocked him from walking past. “Halt, sir! What are you doing here? State your intentions.”

  “Or you will run me through?” he asked with a proper amount of solemnity for his friend’s youngest sister.

  The blade quivered as she pressed the tip slightly. “Argh, do I detect a note of sarcasm there, knave?”

  “Am I to take that as a definite yes in the matter of running me through?” he countered.

  “A very definite yes, Darling.”

  And to emphasize that point, she applied another hint of pressure, enough to give the blade a greater bend.

  “Duly noted,” he muttered under his breath. Apparently it had not been the correct degree of somberness, after all.

  “You are looking for her, aren’t you?” she demanded, entirely too astute for a girl of her tender years. How much of this child’s transformation had been a product of the struggles their family had faced since Peterloo? His chest went tight. “Theyyyy sent you. Didn’t they? My terrible parents and faithless brother?” She spat that last word as though it were an epithet that had burnt her tongue.

  And mature as she was, and appreciating honesty as she did, he gave her the truth. “I’m looking for your sister.”

  Wary eyes met his. “Because of them?” she pressed, refusing to let him skate by without owning all the reasons for his presence here.

  “Do you know Annalee and I were once close friends?”

  I will love you until the day I die, Wayland Smith . . .

  That whispering of long ago drifted into his consciousness.

  Harlow moved her gaze over his face, as though she searched out the truth, indecision marching across her features.

  In the end, she proved very much the cynic her sister had become.

  The girl hardened her mouth. “Someone needs to defend Annalee from the likes of my parents.” She shifted her weapon and wagged the tip of the rapier around his nose as if she were contemplating slicing that slab of flesh clear off. He swallowed hard. Given her penchant for pirates and her threat of moments ago, perhaps she was a good deal closer to s
eparating him from that appendage, after all. “Are you prepared to help Annalee?” And not Jeremy . . . or the earl or countess.

  He hesitated.

  Armed with an impeccable acuity for one so young, Harlow growled.

  “It is your brother’s special night,” he said gently. “And he wants your sister there.”

  “Annalee can do what she wants, when she wants.”

  Was that, even now, where Annalee was? Off meeting someone? An unexpected jealousy sluiced through him.

  “And anyway,” Harlow said, pulling him back from the black thoughts that had slipped in, “my brother only wants to make sure she doesn’t cause him and his bride any trouble.” Harlow’s heavily freckled face pulled, saying clearer than words just what she thought of her brother’s betrothed. In fairness, serene and quiet and calm where the Spencer sisters were a tempest, Lady Sophrona would have never met with the young girl’s approval. “Don’t make it something more honorable than it is, Darling.” She flashed another disapproving look his way before, thankfully, lowering her weapon and sheathing it at her waist. “I, however, never expected this betrayal from you.”

  That was because she, like the rest of the world, had no idea the depth of betrayal he was capable of. The woman he’d failed. This family he’d subsequently failed.

  He was a good deal more skilled at handling his own sister than he was Jeremy and Annalee’s thirteen-year-old spitfire of a sibling. Wayland brought his palms up slowly. “No betrayal.” Not this time anyway. “Your sister is missing, and your brother asked that I escort her back to the ball. It is nothing more than that. Can you tell me where she is?”

  Harlow stared at him for a good long moment.

  “And betray her and the good time she’s having to the likes of you, Darling?” She snorted. “I think not.” She hovered a hand around the holster of her rapier, and he eyed those little fingers warily, more than half expecting and fearing she intended to brandish that blade and off him, after all. “You want her? You find her yourself.”

  The likes of you . . .

  For the truth of it was, Harlow saw what the world did not.

  His birthright had made him invisible to all except the Spencer family, and society had come to see him only when he’d been titled. Very few in society shunned him because of his roots. Most accepted him because of his newly minted rank and his connection to the Spencers. But all regarded him as proper and honorable, all the while failing to know of his earliest sins and scandals.