“But three”—Kitty waggled three of her fingers—“is tantamount to an offer of marriage.”
“Which is the goalllll,” their grasping mama whispered furiously. “The whole world knows that.”
More than anyone amongst Polite Society, his and Kitty’s mother had bought into the romance of a future match between Wayland, the heroic rescuer, and the duke’s beloved daughter. When Diana had been a child, it had been easy enough to not give any real thought to the expectations society and his mother had for them. But now that the lady had made her Come Out, he was being forced into a place of having to actually commit—or not—to that union.
Kitty furrowed her brow in an overexaggerated confusion, and even with the misery of the day, Wayland found himself smiling. “The goal is . . . marriage?”
Mother threw up her arms. “Of course.”
His sister sat forward, dropping an elbow on the table. “So marriage between Wayland and Annalee is the goal?”
He promptly choked on his swallow, and the force of his paroxysm sent the black brew spilling over the sides of his cup.
“Oh, dear. I’ve gone and given you a fit, brother. I was simply teasing.”
Teasing about him and Annalee . . . when no one knew anything of his former relationship with the lady, no idea that marriage had been something they’d dreamed of and spoken of before . . . life had interfered.
Kitty thumped him hard between the shoulder blades, only sending more droplets splashing.
“Do not kill your brother, or else where will we be? Precisely as we were. It’s all very precarious, you know.”
“Yes, my dying young is certainly secondary to all that,” he said when he managed to get a proper breath.
His mother gave a curt nod. “Precisely.”
She was nothing if not honest in her aspirations and views about her children’s usefulness.
“Your brother must marry Lady Diana, Kitty,” their mother went on to explain. “It was ordained.”
Ordained.
Had anything other than blood and heartbreak and ruin been born on the fields of Peterloo?
“Ah, how could I forget?” Kitty made a show of sitting back in her chair, a study in revelation. “Isn’t it enough that Wayland’s a lord and you’re the mother of a baron and I’m a baron’s sister, and that Wayland has estates in England, and Scotland, and wealth to our name?”
“Nooo.” Their mother eyed her youngest offspring as though she were half-mad.
“Of course not. Foolish me,” Kitty said under her breath. She waved them on. “As you were.”
“It was noted that you were there, dancing attendance upon the lady, Wayland.”
“I am aware,” he said tersely. “We have discussed it ad nauseam.”
Their mother swept to her feet. “We cannot afford this, Wayland. Not when our reputation is”—she glanced at the servants lined over at the sideboard and dropped her voice—“what it is.”
He gritted his teeth. As if he needed any further reminders. Sometimes, however, he wondered how much of her ambition came from a desire to climb that damned social ladder, and how much of it was really about Kitty. “Your concerns are duly noted,” he said. Anything to be rid of her.
Her shoulders rose and fell in a tangible display of her relief. “You are a good boy.” With that, she gathered her newspapers and left.
The moment she’d gone, there were several beats of silence . . . that Kitty broke.
“Do you know she used to speak the same exact words to our old hound, Mr. Jumbles,” Kitty remarked, pulling a laugh from Wayland.
She winked. “That is better, brother. You mustn’t let her get you down, and you shouldn’t let her decide whether or not you dance with Annalee. In fact, given how magnificent Annalee is, why should you not?”
Because when he held her, he recalled . . . all manner of sins they’d committed together, ones that these past two days had reminded him he wasn’t so very honorable as to be above committing again. Because it made him want to forget the easiest path forward to his sister’s happiness—a union with Lady Diana—and instead, focus on the greatest path toward his own.
“Are you all right, brother?” Kitty asked, giving him a look. “You’ve gone all . . . queer. I didn’t make you sick from your coffee, after all . . . did I?”
“Visits from Mother ofttimes have this . . . effect upon me.” The reason for his upset had to do with the pressing need to help make the world right for Kitty, and guilt for having failed Annalee all those years ago.
Footfalls sounded at the entry, and they looked up.
His butler, Belding, attired in gold and the most ridiculously high powdered wig, as insisted upon by Wayland’s mother, stepped forward. “My lord, you have a visitor.”
Thank God. Anyone. Absolutely anyone, as long as it was not his mother returning, would be preferable to sitting here, enduring more of what he’d suffered through that morning.
Belding stepped aside.
“I took the liberty of showing Lord Montgomery here.”
Wayland’s stomach sank. Oh, bloody hell.
And then his gaze went to the very damning copy of The Times tucked under Jeremy’s elbow.
He’d been wrong. There had been one person whose company he’d rather not face at this particular moment. Bloody, bloody hell.
Kicking him under the table, Kitty hopped up, springing Wayland into belated action.
He rose, the legs of his chair scraping along the hardwood floor, while Kitty dipped a curtsy. “You must forgive my brother. He just had the most unpleasant visit from— Oww.” Her words cut off as she glared at him. “Did you just step on my foot?”
He briefly closed his eyes. “I was shifting my boot.”
“Onto my foot?” she demanded indignantly.
God love her loyalty, she was still hopeless when it came to subtleties.
Jeremy stared at them bemusedly.
“Yes, well, then . . . I trust that my brother stomping my foot most viciously now had something to do with something I wasn’t supposed to say, which also undoubtedly means there are other matters that you gentlemen have to discuss that make my presence a bother.”
“Your presence could never be a bother,” Jeremy murmured, sweeping another bow.
“Oh, splendid,” Kitty said, her expression deadpan as she perched herself on the edge of the table. “Then I’ll stay.”
Over the top of her head, Wayland leveled a scowl on the other man.
Jeremy, with his spare hand, wrestled with his cravat. “Uh . . .”
A smile widened Kitty’s lips. “I’m teasing.” She hopped up. “I’ll let you both to your”—she dropped her voice, deepening it several shades—“very serious business.” With a wink, she headed out . . . and closed the door behind her.
Jeremy stared at the panel a moment. “She’s a bit of a whirlwind, isn’t she? When did that happen?”
“I think . . . forever?”
Alas, it was too much to hope that his closest—also his only—friend in the world had come to discuss his sister.
“I can only . . . imagine the reason for your mother’s upset.” The other man tossed his newspaper down on the table. It landed with a decisive thwack alongside Kitty’s empty plate.