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 would 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.