He’d always been driven for greater goals, for the greater good. Even with all the time that had passed and everything that had changed, he had not. Not really.
“You’ve not yet let them see how daringly bold you might be, Wayland.”
His mouth tightened, harsh creases forming at the sides. “That daringly bold person got himself . . . and others . . . into more trouble than was ever wise or safe.”
Peterloo whispered there in the air, in veiled words from his lips that really weren’t all that veiled. It was an event they had never spoken of . . . for the simple reason that, after that day, their relationship had been severed.
A breeze stole through, and she rubbed at her arms. To ward off the slight chill as much as the whisper of memories stirred with the most innocuous of words.
“Yes, well, I prefer ‘daringly bold’ still, Wayland.”
She braced for his pompous condemnation. What she wasn’t prepared for was the slight softening of his features, or the wistful smile that brought his hard lips up at their corners. “You always were the braver of our pair.”
And she knew the moment between them had come to an end. She felt it in the air, and perhaps it was that speaking about the past with her former friend and lover, whom she’d not truly spoken to in years, that accounted for the emptiness that swept through her as he stood. “I should return,” Wayland said.
First.
“Oh, yes. It wouldn’t do for us to be spotted returning together.” Annalee reached for her slippers, and when he still hovered there, she gave him a wave. “Go. I’ll be along. I’m not one to break my word.”
“I didn’t say you would.”
“You didn’t need to.”
Wayland lingered still. “It was . . .”
“It was,” she said quietly. He didn’t need to complete his sentence. This had been nice, and . . . missed.
Dropping a bow, Wayland left.
With him gone, she set to work tugging on her slippers.
You always were the braver of our pair . . .
“A pair,” she murmured, tasting those words on her tongue. That had been precisely what they’d been. No two had been closer than they, as friends and lovers. Everything, however, had changed.
Everything.
Hisssss.
Annalee’s entire body recoiled, and she whipped around, her skirts snapping noisily about her. She searched frantically for the source of that whistling.
A bright glow lit up the sky, transforming night into day.
Her pulse hammered loudly in her ears. What was . . . ?
Booom!
She gasped as the errant echo of that forceful explosion ricocheted, rocking the ground under her feet, and she was jolted to another moment. Another time.
“Chaaaarge . . .”
The thunderous command shouted above the cries of the crowd slipped in.
Biting her lower lip hard, Annalee shoved her fingertips into her temples and frantically rubbed, trying to tamp out memories fighting their way forward—dark thoughts threatening to suck her back to that long-ago day.
Don’t let it in . . . You are here . . . You are in London . . . alone. Not in Manchester. You are not about to be overcome by a sea of stampeding men and women fighting their way to freedom.
Breathing heavily, Annalee fixed her gaze out on the expanse of her mother’s gardens.
They are empty. No one is here. Just you.
No crowd.
No charging soldiers.
No bayonet blades.
No gun—
There came another loud sizzle, rapidly followed by a sharp pop, and once again the skies lit up brightly.
A panicky laugh gurgled in her throat, and she choked on that empty amusement.
Ah, yes, of course. There would be fireworks marking the occasion of her brother’s betrothal. A resplendent, garish display.
How ironic that she’d thought it safer to be away from the crowd, only to find herself thrown into the fire.
Pop-pop . . .
Boooom.
That enormous explosion shook the ground, the force of it so deep that she felt it all the way to her belly, and she was jolted once more from the now and back into the hell of that time long ago.
Frantic, her heart knocking erratically against her rib cage, she searched about for Wayland as the past converged with the present.
He was here.
She’d seen him.
Where was he?
No, that wasn’t right.
She didn’t want to see him. Not anymore.
Annalee fought through the fog of the past, and falling to her haunches, she clutched at her head again, yanking her hair free of its elegant coiffure.
Panting, she jerked a panicky gaze up, and unblinking, she looked around.
Wait, no, that didn’t make sense. None of this made sense. Her hair hadn’t been elegant that day. It had been casually plaited, a plait that had so worked against her.
Boom-boom-boom.
Grabbed by passing strangers rushing by her, threatening to pull her under.
She flung her head wildly, left and right, fighting free of the hold they had on her. The memories? Or wait . . . Were there actual strangers with their hands scrabbling in her hair, using her to leverage themselves forward to safety?
Annalee whimpered. Why can’t I get free? Why can’t I sort it out?
And then there they came, the distant thunder of approaching feet. Excited cries.
Or was that laughter? She knocked her head against a stone ledge. A fountain? Why would there be a fountain in the fields of Manchester. Or laughter?
The cries grew louder, closer, and gasping for breath, she lurched to her feet and stumbled around. Her knees caught the crude stone wall on the edge of the pasture.
But stone walls weren’t crude . . .
Then the ground was rushing up to meet her.
Nay, not the ground.
Water.
It closed over her head, swallowing her cry and flooding her mouth and nostrils that burnt, bringing her back to the moment.
Not Peterloo.
Through the glassy sheen of the ice-cold water, the fireworks marking the celebratory announcement of her brother’s betrothal filled the star-studded night sky.
Annalee propelled herself upright, breaking through the water, gasping for breath, her body shaking from the cold—
To find a wide-eyed audience staring back. Of course, they’d assembled to watch the display of fireworks, only to be treated to an altogether different spectacle—her.
Splendid. Just splendid.
She forced a cheeky grin and waggled her fingers at a long line of her brother’s betrothal guests, all straining for a glimpse of her, sprawled in her family’s fountain.
And then her smile faltered as it landed on a group of five breaking through that line: her parents, horror lighting their faces. Jeremy. His ashen betrothed.
And . . . Wayland.
What must he think?
And why, out of all those people present, did she focus on him first? Here, when she’d gone and made a spectacle of her brother’s big night. Her breathing hitched, shame and regret and so much pain making her heart squeeze. This was why it was best if she didn’t come ’round the respectable sorts. Her family included. Especially her family.
The quiet proved deafening, made all the more powerful by the intermittent booming of the fireworks. Those same blasted fireworks that had startled her into an inadvertent swim.
Annalee shivered. “Forgive me,” she called out into the shock of silence. “I’d invite you to join me. Alas, the water is a bit cold.” With that, she stood, her drenched skirts heavy, pulling her back. She faltered.