And ironically, Kitty was the main reason he ultimately needed that formal union.
With a curse, Wayland tossed down the gossip pages.
“Now, that there would really scandalize them, brother,” she said, waving a heavily buttered biscuit his way. “You swearing at the breakfast table in the presence of a lady—” She laughed as he grabbed up the newspaper and playfully swatted her on the arm with those sheets. “Oh, come, brother dearest. It’s really not so bad as all of that. Why, I think this is perhaps the most interesting thing about you in . . . in”—she wrinkled her nose—“why, years!”
“Thank you for that devotion,” he said wryly, picking up his coffee. He blew on the still steaming contents.
She patted his hand, leaving a greasy bit of butter atop. “You’re quite welcome.”
She’d always been hopelessly inept when it came to identifying sarcasm, and any other time her innocent response would have raised a smile.
This time . . .
It was the likeliest outcome—gossip. Gossip followed Annalee, trailing her like the king’s finest bloodhound on a hunt.
Wayland glanced down once again at the same newspaper he’d been reading that morning. The same blasted one now being read all over London, at every table in every polite household. Including . . . Jeremy’s. The duke and duchess, as well as Lady Diana, were reading that gossip.
His gut tightened.
Bloody, bloody hell. This was bad. No matter which way one looked at it.
“I for one do not think there was anything wrong with it, brother,” Kitty said softly, cutting into his panicky musings. “It was just a dance, and it was just Annalee. Why, you were friends when you were children.” She wrinkled her nose. “They don’t mention anything about that now, though, do they?”
His response emerged tired to his own ears. “No, they didn’t.”
But that was because, to the ton, Wayland’s life before Peterloo may as well have not existed. They knew he was a blacksmith’s son, but beyond that, no one delved into the life of a common man. No, they were content to focus on the title he’d been granted, and forget the past he’d come from.
“And you looked happy, Wayland.”
Happy . . .
There’d been the same thrill that had always been there when taking Annalee in his arms for a waltz or quadrille or country reel. She’d always been filled with an effervescent joy, radiant like the sun, but that orb had blazed brighter, all but consuming her since Peterloo.
The furious echo of footfalls reached the breakfast room, and he and his sister looked up.
“This is a disaster,” their mother cried, brandishing a thoroughly rumpled version of the same scandal sheet he and Kitty had been speaking over.
Kitty held up the remnants of her chocolate pastry. “I agree most strenuously. There were but three chocolate-covered biscuits . . . three . . . and they are gone.” And in a grand flourish, she slapped the back of her spare hand across her brow.
God love his sister. His lips twitched in the first real humor he’d felt since waking up to find that damned gossip sheet.
“Biscuits.” Their mother’s lower lip trembled. She grabbed the chair on the other side of Wayland before one of the two footmen could, a suspension of decorum from a woman who’d committed herself entirely to it that spoke volumes of her upset. “I am not talking about biiiiiscuits.”
Any other time he would have been impressed with the extra three syllables she’d managed to squeeze into that particular word.
Kitty cupped a hand about the side of her lips, visible to their mother, and mouthed, “Sorry . . . I tried.”
He winked.
“Are you paying attention to me, Wayland?” Mother cried, jerking his focus back her way.
“Yes, yes. Of course.”
Kitty ripped off another piece of her biscuit. “As though he could be focused on anything else with your yelling,” she said around that mouthful.
“All anyone is talking about is the fact that you danced with that woman.”
“‘That woman’ is Lady Annalee,” he said tightly. “Also Jeremy’s sister, and—”
His mother shoved the newspaper with the words he’d already committed to memory in his face, interrupting the rest of his defense. “I know who she is, but she is not respectable.”
No. He tightened his grip upon his cup. Her reputation was not what it had once been. Even so . . . “She is an earl’s daughter.”
“Who drinks, Wayland.” His mother proved unrelenting. “Who drinks and smokes cheroots and wagers.”
“IIII think she is quite fun,” Kitty said casually. Having moved on from biscuits to toast, she was now buttering a thick slice of bread.
Their mother gasped, her eyes bulging enough that he worried they might actually pop from their sockets. “Not another word, Kitty Smith.”
His entirely unrepentant-looking sister made a show of marking an X across her closed lips, before returning to her toast.
Dragging her chair closer to Wayland, his mother continued on in her tirade. “This will never do, Wayland,” she said quietly. “We are outcasts as it is. You . . . well, you are largely fine. Accepted enough. But me and Kitty . . .” She gave her head a sad shake. “We shall never be welcomed unless everything about us is above reproach, and that includes you not engaging that woman so . . . so intimately,” she said on a hushed whisper.
Now she opted for discretion. As though she’d not just come screeching into the room, airing their family’s business before their servants.
“It was one dance,” he said, as much a reminder for himself as for his fretting mama. It shouldn’t result in this level of scrutiny . . . even if it was Annalee. “One dance,” he repeated.
“And he danced two with Lady Diana.” Kitty’s reminder came muffled from the bite she still chewed.
Their mother leaned around Wayland so she might better turn a frown upon her daughter. “Do not talk with your mouth full. It is very plebeian. And I’ll remind you both, there are certain rules and expectations which must be followed by respectable members of Polite Society . . .”
With that, their mother proceeded to dole out essential lessons that they need remember. As though he weren’t entirely aware. As though he hadn’t dedicated himself these past years to being respectable and honorable and proper. He gritted his teeth. And now because of one dance with Annalee, he’d find himself not only the subject of gossip throughout every breakfast room and parlor but also the recipient of a lecture from his mother.
His sister leaned in and whispered, “What is more plebeian than a blacksmith’s kin, though, eh, big brother?”
“Indeed.”
Even as they shared another commiserative-sibling smile, his gut clenched.
Blacksmith’s children was what they were, and what they would always be. And while he’d come to accept how the world viewed him, he’d never be at peace as long as Kitty was treated as she was by Polite Society. Shunned. Mocked. Nay, there could never be humor in those words she’d uttered. Not when she was an outcast amongst the ladies, a wallflower without even a dancing partner or suitor.
His mother spoke, bringing him back from his troubled musings. “Two dances with Lady Diana is still only one more than a set with . . . with . . . Lady Annalee.” She wrung the edges of that paper in her gloved fingers, staining the white satin with ink as she did.