A Wanton for All Seasons Read online

  But he knew her, the way she’d trapped her lower lip between her teeth and the brittleness of her smile; she’d been mortified, and he hated that she’d been so discovered.

  Now, with most of the guests having filed out, Wayland, collecting his cloak alongside his mother and sister, planned to join their ranks.

  “Heartbreaking,” his mother was saying as she adjusted the clasp of her cloak. “Just heartbreaking.”

  “For Annalee,” Kitty rejoined.

  “Do hush.” Their mother stole a look around the foyer, empty of all except the servants. “As it is, I cannot believe you dared to offer your coat to her.”

  “Oh, yes,” Kitty said, her face and voice a flawless deadpan. “Imagine Wayland doing something so ungentlemanly as to rush to the aid of a lady in need.”

  “Psst, Darling.”

  Wayland was so close. With his cloak on, and with the Earl and Countess of Kempthorne’s doorway already hanging open, all he need do was pretend he’d not heard and continue marching right on through.

  Between the loaded carriages rumbling on, there was certainly enough noise for him to pretend he’d heard nothing beyond the rattling of those wheels as the guests left for the evening.

  The butler, Tanning, gave him a questioning look.

  And yet . . .

  He and his family followed that frantic whispering to the girl seated above, at the balustrade overlooking the foyer, her legs dangling over the edge. Stretching her fingers through the posts, Harlow waved him up. “You’re needed,” she said, this time in a near yell that there could absolutely be no mistaking.

  “Do go see what Jeremy requires.” His mother took him by the arm and steered him toward Annalee and Jeremy’s sister. “He will need a friend in this moment.”

  He’d wager his very soul to Satan himself that it was less the friendship his mother worried after than the prestige that came from the connections provided through Lord and Lady Kempthorne’s oldest and most respected of titles.

  It spoke volumes of how little his mother knew of this particular family’s dynamics that it wouldn’t be Jeremy Harlow had fetched him for.

  “Did you hear me?” Harlow pointed her rapier downward. “Don’t make me come fetch you.”

  “Get moving, brother,” Kitty said, shoving him slightly. A devilish glimmer lit her brown eyes. “Though it would be quite entertaining to see what she did when she came for you.”

  “What a devoted sister,” he muttered.

  Alas, it appeared there was to be no escaping.

  Damn this night.

  He didn’t want to do any more damned favors this evening for this family . . . even as he owed them for debts that could not be paid.

  Nay, Wayland wished to seek out his own household and sleep in his own damned bed, and forget this night had ever happened.

  Alas, the person putting this latest request to him was the last person he could deny.

  Unclasping his cloak, he handed the article over to the Spencer family’s most loyal of servants. “Please instruct my driver to escort my sister and mother home.”

  “Very good, and . . . thank you, my lord,” the butler quietly murmured as he accepted the garment. And Wayland heard within those four words that it was not the cloak he expressed any gratitude over.

  Harlow scrambled to her feet.

  Leaning over, she waved her hand, motioning him up. “This way, Darling. Quickly!”

  Hastening his steps, Wayland made the climb.

  When he reached the top, he met Harlow with a smart salute. “My captain.”

  Except the young girl stared back with a gravity better suited to a person two decades her senior. Her earlier affront and child’s innocence had all faded from their last meeting. An hour ago? A lifetime ago? Time with this family really defied all sense of realness and meaning.

  “This isn’t the time for games, Darling,” she whispered. “There’s trouble.”

  Yes, there’d been any manner of it, this night.

  “It’s . . . Annalee.” A tug on his sleeve brought his attention downward. “Did you hear what happened?”

  He hesitated.

  “You saw?” Harlow correctly surmised.

  “I may have,” he allowed. Nearly every illustrious guest had.

  Annalee’s little sister gave a wrinkle of her nose. “Do you know, that doesn’t really make sense.” At his questioning look, she clarified. “The whole ‘I may have,’ when what you really mean to say is that you did see. That is what you meant, isn’t it?”

  “Indeed.”

  Harlow sank down, and as if she were the queen herself, urging a subject into a proper seat, she patted the floor.

  Wayland promptly sank down, claiming the place beside her.

  “She didn’t do it,” she said the moment his arse hit the floor.

  “It?”

  Harlow rolled her eyes. “Anything. She wasn’t misbehaving.” There was a slight pause. “Not this time.”

  No. She hadn’t been. She’d been headed back in. She’d given her word, and he didn’t doubt she’d intended to follow it. Eventually. The question was . . . What had happened between the moment he’d left her and the moment she’d been caught in the fountain? A disquiet filled him, and he recalled once more Jeremy’s favor. “Do you know if . . . something happened to Annalee tonight?” he asked gently.

  “She didn’t do anything,” the little girl said quickly, speaking over him, her words all rolling together. “She was doing everything she could to stay out of mischief tonight. It was why she was in the conservatory. We were playing cards and eating treats and sipping lemonade . . .” Harlow paused. “Well, I was sipping lemonade. She was sipping champagne, but you get the point, Darling.”

  He recalled what Annalee had shared. Her reasons for being in the countess’s indoor gardens. Not because she’d been meeting a lover, as he’d initially suspected, but because she’d wanted to be with the sister she was prevented from knowing.

  In the conservatory she may have been alone with her sister . . . but what had transpired in the fountain . . . ?

  “Oomph.” All the air left Wayland as Harlow sent an impressive fist into his side. “What . . . ?”

  “She was alone. I saw her. She fell in. She was leaning over, and just . . . pitched forward.”

  He wiped a tired hand over his face. “I believe you.”

  “She needs you.” Harlow caught his hand. “She wants you to be there for her.”

  “Did she ask for me?” There was . . . hope within his own question—he didn’t know where it even came from.

  Harlow rolled her eyes. “Of course not. Annalee doesn’t ask for help from anyone. Including me.”

  She’d always been self-possessed, one who’d never put favors or requests to anyone. When she’d wished to learn something her governesses and parents had deemed unfit knowledge for ladies, she’d taken it upon herself to do the research, finding those answers for herself. What had it been like for her that day at Peterloo? Back when they’d been on different ends of the field, divided by a stretch of land run with chaos and blood? Had she accepted the little help that was to be found that day? Or had she seen to herself as she always had?

  His chest hitched, and it hurt physically to try to breathe through it.

  “Go to her, Darling,” Harlow said softly. “She needs you.”

  She needed him . . .

  For a second time that night, those words had been put to him by a Spencer. Just not the one from whom he wished to hear them. Nay, he suspected he was the last person in the world Annalee needed, or wanted . . .

  The youngest, far-too-astute Spencer sibling must have sensed his wavering. “She is in Father’s office . . .” Her little features grew pinched. “The Lecture.” At his look, she clarified. “That is what Annalee and I call it when Mother and Father bring her in for a scolding.”

  The girl referred to it as a scolding, and yet, given the earl and countess’s searing outrage and fury, that wou
ld be a mild way of thinking of whatever was unfolding in the office. Whatever it was, it was entirely too intimate a family moment for him to intrude on.

  “I can hardly interfere,” he said regretfully. Nay, he couldn’t very well go storming into the earl’s office and rush to the lady’s defense. But that was what she’d desperately needed over the years—a champion. He was seeing that now.

  Harlow’s eyes hardened. “She should have someone to defend her. It won’t be Jeremy, and me, they won’t take seriously. At the very leeassst”—in her entreaty she managed to squeeze several syllables into that word—“wait until they are done yelling at her and then go to her. When my parents and Jeremy are done with her, she is going to need a friend. Please,” Harlow whispered.

  Please.

  And he was lost.

  Wayland came to his feet, and her eyes filled with an adulation he was wholly undeserving of. He’d brought nothing but sorrow and suffering to this family.

  “I may allow you into my pirates’ club once more, Darling,” Harlow said with her usual cheer restored.

  Wayland swept a flourishing bow befitting such a benefaction. “I cannot think of a greater honor, my lady.”

  “Thank Annalee. She was the one who said I shouldn’t hold you in ill will and reminded me you were just being a friend to Jeremy when you were looking for her.”

  He hesitated. “She said that?” She’d defended him? And here he’d imagined there wouldn’t be, and couldn’t be, a good thing the lady had to say about him. He’d expected her resentment and hatred of him were so strong that there wouldn’t be a nice thing for her to say. Just as he wouldn’t have expected before this night that she’d want him to sit and speak with her outside. Nor had he blamed her for those sentiments. She was not only entitled but also deserving of them.

  “Stop woolgathering.” Harlow unsheathed her rapier and pointed to the winding spiral staircase. “Now get on with you, and promise that you will not tell her I sent you.”

  “You have my word.”

  And for the third time that night, Wayland found himself in the unlikeliest of ways where Annalee was concerned—searching her out.

  That hadn’t always been the case. A lifetime ago, that was all he’d ever done. That was all they’d ever done—looked for one another. When they’d not been together with Jeremy, Annalee and Wayland had gone about trying to steal private moments to talk and read . . . and simply be with one another. And what had started out as a close friendship had grown to more.

  Wayland made his way through the palatial townhouse, headed past the liveried servants standing on alert in their full gold regalia and black epaulets, the epitome of wealth and power.

  The moment he reached the hall leading to the earl’s office, the first thing to reach him was silence. Perhaps they’d finished with the discussion, after all. Perhaps Annalee had already made her way abovestairs.

  The young footman near him caught his eye, and there was a regretful glint there as he shook his head, confirming the family still met.

  The servants’ loyalty toward Annalee was greater than to the lord and lady who employed them, and it was . . . telling.

  But then, Annalee had always been warm and friendly to the servants. And like her brother, who’d thought nothing of befriending the blacksmith’s son, neither had Annalee turned up her nose at Wayland’s station. She’d befriended him and then, years later, when they’d grown up, entertained thoughts of marriage to him.

  And so Wayland slipped off, and turning down the next corridor, he seated himself on the floor, resting his back against the wall, and waited for the business to conclude.

  Chapter 5

  Tension hung over her father’s office.

  In fairness, tension was the mood of choice whenever Annalee attended a familial gathering. Such meetings had become less frequent since she’d moved out of her parents’ home and in with her two equally scandalous friends. They’d collectively been called the Wantons of Waverton.

  Her father sat behind his desk like some great, overblown king of yore, her mother, his perfect counterpoint queen, pacing before him. And with the rant she’d been on since they’d assembled, speaking enough for all of them.

  From where he stood beside the hearth, Jeremy’s features were drawn.

  His gaze condemning.

  Over the years, Annalee had come to find that, when dealing with the fallout of a scandal she was at the heart of, there was a pattern to her parents’ behavior, usually with her mother in charge of the Lecture.

  First, there came the cataloging:

  “No, it wasn’t enough that she was discovered alone with Lady Bedford’s vicar son just a fortnight ago, constructing a champagne tower in the middle of that family’s betrothal ball.” Her mother trilled a patently false laugh as she paced. “Or that she was seen accompanying that terrible earl into that outrageous gaming hell just last evening.” That terrible earl was none other than Annalee’s dear friend Lord Willoughby. Willoughby, who’d also proven more loyal than her parents and brother combined.

  Then, of course, came the parental woes and lamentation:

  “Why must she be so difficult? Why must she live to make our life mayhem?”

  “I do not know, dearest,” Annalee’s father said from his place behind his desk. He slid his gaze Annalee’s way, and the sadness within those blue eyes hit her like a kick to the stomach. It always did. For she remembered when he’d swung her around and let her dance upon the tops of his shoes. He moved his stare back to the countess, and Annalee was forgotten . . . once more. “She was not always this way.”

  No, she hadn’t been. As they resumed their parental rant, she stared blankly off to where her brother stood. None of them knew the reasons for her transformation. Of course they didn’t. It had been far easier for them to never have to acknowledge what she’d faced that day in Manchester. It had been easier for all of them to make believe it had never happened. And Annalee? She had been the greatest at that game of pretend. Throwing herself fully into a life of distractions.

  Her mother’s pacing grew frenzied, indicating this latest exchange was coming to a head. “Whatever are we to do with her?” the Countess of Kempthorne seethed. “Whatever are we to do?” She repeated that question, slowing each word down to agonizingly precise syllables.

  Annalee stilled.

  For, on occasion, there was also the most terrifying response to her scandal: her mother’s furious musings.

  Whatever are we to do with her?

  They were the most chilling words spoken by Annalee’s mother. For Annalee knew she pushed the boundaries of their patience. It had been a delicate dance, conducting herself in a way that allowed her the freedom and escape she sought in life, while not pushing her parents beyond the point of what they tolerated. Keeping company with the fringe members of society as she had, she was well aware of the fate awaiting the daughters and sisters and wives who displeased.

  Isolation.

  Banishment.

  Institutions.

  And mayhap that is the perfect place for you . . . You are, after all, stark raving mad.

  That silent voice taunted Annalee, as it so often did, with what she’d become. A woman not in control of her own faculties or senses, who couldn’t keep the nightmares at bay. A woman who at times forgot where she was and couldn’t sort out past from present.

  “Annalee.” She blinked slowly. “Annalee.” That furious whisper pulled her from her thoughts, and she looked to Jeremy.

  “Are you even listening?” he whispered.

  And for another moment, she could believe he was still on her side—her hero, her champion of a big brother.

  But then he shook his head in disgust.

  That shoulder of coldness was the greatest cut of all.

  A pang struck her chest. Her gut clenched.

  Her parents’ disdain she’d come to expect and accept, but facing that same coldness in her brother? Even if, for all intents and purposes, she was d
eserving of his outrage and contempt?

  After all, she’d gone and turned his betrothal ball to the illustrious, respectable Miss Oatley into a scandal. Annalee’s latest scandal, that was.

  She couldn’t care less about what a single person in attendance this night thought . . . beyond the one six feet apart from her at the other end of the mantel. And yet, if Jeremy despised the changes he saw in her? What would he say . . . ? How would he treat her if he discovered all the times she wasn’t in control of her own faculties? Nay, it was something he could never learn. Something no one could ever discover.

  “And what is it with her and fountains?” Annalee’s father was asking. He sounded on the verge of tears.

  “It is always the fountains,” her mother hissed.

  The countess may as well have been reviling Satan himself for the loathing in those five words. “I love fountains,” Annalee said indignantly, feeling a deep need to defend them.

  Her parents gave her a look, and she resisted the urge to squirm as she had when she’d been a child called in for getting grass stains upon her white skirts.

  The moment the earl and countess returned to their discussion, Jeremy, where he stood at the hearth, glanced her way. “Really?” he mouthed.

  Annalee brought a shoulder up. “What?” she returned silently. “I do.” At least fountains had given her comfort after Peterloo. They were made of stone but always dependable in helping her chase away the demons and monsters.

  Closing his eyes, Jeremy gave his head a shake, and turning dismissively, he returned his focus to their parents’ discussion.

  Annalee slouched in her seat. She really did love all fountains. The small watering ones. The stone and marble sorts.

  But she particularly loved the enormous, life-size ones.