“No. It’s not,” she said quietly. Almost everything was. Her more-loyal-than-she’d-deserved-over-the-years brother? Anything surrounding him and his life was not. Annalee swept over to his side. He’d been the only one there for her following . . . Peterloo. Following that foolish, fateful decision to go to the fields, where chaos had reigned supreme. She caught Jeremy’s hands and gave them a squeeze. “I love you. You are my brother.”
“It isn’t about love, Annalee,” he said in that same tired voice, drawing back his hands. “It is about you making decisions that are dangerous . . . ones that hurt yourself . . . and now . . .”
And now, him. “How can I fix it?” And yet, even as the question escaped her, she knew the answer. There was no fixing a scandal. Once born, forever there, and gone only when replaced with some other juicy morsel. One that she more often than not provided.
“Don’t you see, Annalee? I don’t give a jot about how it reflects upon me. I care about Sophrona.”
She’d once imagined to have a love like the one he knew now. Once upon a lifetime ago, when she’d not been aware of the ugliness in the world, she’d dreamed of marriage . . .
And she’d almost had it.
Annalee gave her head a slight shake, pushing aside thoughts now as unwelcome as the memories of Peterloo. Nay, somehow worse. Because those belonged to a naive girl, so very green, and entirely removed from the reality that was life. At least the thoughts of Peterloo, as unpleasant as the memories were, harkened to a time when she’d ceased being a girl and had become a woman with eyes wide open about what the world truly was.
“I am sorry,” she said, weakly, hearing within the words their inherent uselessness. “For so much.” So very much.
He looked at her for a long while, his blue-green gaze so faintly pitying and sad and resentful that she had to look away.
From within the crystal panes abutting her father’s desk, she caught Jeremy moving with swift, purposeful steps, quitting the room.
Well, that could have been worse.
Liar.
Lighting herself another cheroot, Annalee headed out of her father’s offices, leaving a soggy trail upon the hardwood floor which had previously been cleaned of the water she’d left on her way in. She headed for the foyer, eager to be free of her childhood household. The moment she turned the corner, Annalee stopped.
Halfway down the hall, seated on the floor with his back propped against the wall, was Wayland. Casual in his shirtsleeves, because she’d, of course, stolen his jacket. Nay, he’d given it to her.
He immediately stood, springing to his feet with an ease uncommon for a man as tall and broad as he was.
She briefly considered the path behind her. Of course the great witness to her latest misery should be Wayland. Putting on a brave face, she continued toward him, the dark wool jacket he’d given her slipping open at the front.
He watched her approach warily.
But then that was the way most eyed her—with unease from the proper ladies and sorts. Interest and appreciation from the less proper gentlemen.
There’d been a time when Wayland had felt he knew the woman approaching him even better than he knew himself.
Then Peterloo . . . and time . . . had divided them. They’d gone from two lovers as close as any souls could be to people who, on occasion, ended up at the same social affair and exchanged nothing more than a polite greeting before going their separate ways.
Only for him to discover as she came toward him, exaggerating the sway of her hips, infusing a siren’s stride into her stroll, that he knew something else about this grown-up, mature version of Annalee.
Her sexuality was a shield. Did she even realize it was a barrier she kept up?
And just like that, the favor Jeremy had put to Wayland came whispering forward . . .
You were there that day, and look at you, chap. You’re happy, and hell, you are more proper than ever.
His friend had been right about a part of that statement.
Wayland had been there. He’d survived the hell of that day and battled the same demons Annalee no doubt did. Perhaps Jeremy’s request hadn’t been . . . so far off, after all. Perhaps Wayland might rekindle a friendship with her and, in so doing, make up for past wrongs.
Annalee reached him. Clamping her cheroot between her teeth, she freed her hands and shrugged out of the now wet garment that hung huge upon her frame. “I trust you’re here for this, Wayland-dear.” Wayland-dear. That special name she’d once had for him. How very much he’d adored hearing it fall from her lips, and yet this was what she thought of him?
That the only reason he’d come was to collect his jacket? What did that say about how she’d been treated by others through the years?
“No, I’m . . . not here for my jacket. You are . . . free to it.”
She lingered there. “I . . . thank you for your assistance earlier, Wayland,” she said softly. She took another draw from her cheroot. “You did so much for me this night. Between you and Harlow, you were the only friends I had here.”
Those sad and surprisingly frank words were a kick to the gut . . . and also a reminder of Jeremy’s favor. “You needn’t thank me.” Perhaps he hadn’t tried enough all those years ago to reach her. What if he had? Would they be together even now? Would that sad smile have been the exuberant, joyous one he’d loved to tickle her lips into giving?
Annalee looked at him with a sudden suspicion in her eyes. “Why are you here?”
When other ladies tiptoed around plain speaking, she veered to bluntness. She’d always been direct. It had been just one of the many things he’d loved about her. “I’m here because I wanted to be, Annalee,” he said, opting to leave out mention of Jeremy and the request the other man had put before him. She took another draw from her cheroot. “I wanted to be certain . . . you were all right.” And it wasn’t untrue.
Annalee puffed a little cloud of smoke out from the corner of her closed lips.
When she didn’t speak, he was encouraged to continue. “What happened?”
“I don’t know—”
“Come, Annalee.” He infused a gentleness into that interruption. “I was with you just moments before.”
Her eyes instantly grew shadowed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said tersely, and turning, she headed down the corridor.
Wayland stared after her slender form as she slipped inside her father’s offices.
He’d tried.
She’d left.
His obligation to Jeremy was surely complete.
Only, as he stared after the place she’d been, he knew he could no sooner walk away from her than he could cut off his own limbs.
Wayland entered the earl’s offices, closing the door quietly behind him . . . and immediately found her.
But then he’d always had an uncanny way of knowing when she was near. Apparently, for everything that had changed between them, that had remained a constant.
Annalee, however, gave no indication she heard him. She rummaged through the drawers, bypassing papers and ledgers and pens. She was methodical in her search.
Finally, she paused. “Don’t you have . . . other more pressing responsibilities, Wayland?” she asked tiredly, wiping a hand over her brow.