She’d always dared him.
Nay, they’d always dared one another in various pursuits or games.
“You expect that I will leave.”
“I expect you will,” she said. “But then, I expected you should not have anything nice to say about my Mismatch Society, and you proved me wrong just moments ago.” And that quiet murmuring didn’t contain the usual brash confidence and jest.
“I surrendered my rebellious roots, but that does not mean I cannot admire what you have created and what you attempt to do for women.”
Her jaw slipped and her lips parted, and standing as close as he was, he caught the breathy little sigh. “I liked your rebellious roots, Wayland,” she said softly.
“No good came from them.” Certainly this woman, more than any other, should have realized that.
“Yes, well, not all of us have the luxury of abandoning our rebellious ways. Women aren’t afforded the same luxuries as men.”
“No. I am aware of that.”
“Speaking of rebellious ways,” she whispered, leaning close. “What will the world say to your speaking here with me now?”
Absolutely nothing good. It would fuel the gossip, and throw further fire upon the ton’s fascination with him and Lady Diana, and the frustration that the romantic match the world craved was being so thwarted.
Given the state of his sister’s ostracism by Polite Society, all that should matter most.
And yet . . .
“I don’t care,” he said quietly.
And found . . . there to be truth in that admission.
Annalee started.
Be her friend . . . she needs you . . .
All Harlow’s and Jeremy’s separate urgings slipped forward.
She dampened her lips. “Well, that . . . is quite surprising.”
Sadness swept through him. “Then that is because I’ve been the most miserable of friends.” He’d failed her . . . not just at Peterloo. But after, too. He’d made so many mistakes.
“Not the most miserable,” she protested. “The most absent, perhaps.” She gave him a slight playful nudge with her elbow. “Well, then, as you are interested in stepping forward as a friend, I must really insist you help me.” And then she slipped her arm through his, and with that one exchange, he may as well have transported them back a lifetime ago to when they’d been both friends and secret lovers. “I am going for respectable, and the modiste is otherwise busy,” she said as they began a stroll through the shop.
Together, they looked over to where the shopkeeper tended Kitty. Kitty, who’d arrived after Annalee.
She’d been given the cut direct by the damned modiste. He’d been so consumed with how Kitty had been shunned, only to have failed to see that Annalee had found herself . . . suffering that same cruelty? How had it taken Jeremy pointing out just how much Annalee was and had always been deserving of his support?
He glared at the modiste.
“Oh, do stop. It’s really quite fine,” Annalee said on a rush, so very accurately reading him and his outrage.
“It isn’t,” he gritted out. In any way. “She’s no reason to deny you service.”
“She’s not denied me. She’s just . . . made me . . . wait.” She smiled up at him, the radiant expression that dimpled her cheeks and lit her eyes, and always made a muddle of his mind. It never failed to.
Except . . . this time. This time, rage consumed him. “I’ll not tolerate it.”
“Well, you have no choice,” she said firmly, “because I do, and I’ve found that it is best to know which battles are worth taking up. And this? This is decidedly not it.”
He remained there, his entire body tense, staring at the modiste. Warring with the need to stomp over and demand she respect a woman deserving it, when Annalee lightly squeezed his arm.
“She’s done me a favor, Wayland.”
A muscle ticked at the corner of his eye, and he forced his gaze away from that viper and over to the woman at his side. “I daresay you’ll have to enlighten me as to how.”
Annalee briefly leaned her head against his shoulder. “Why, there isn’t a better person to help me achieve proper than you.”
“Thank you,” he said dryly as they started their walk around the edge of the shop.
“I meant that as the greatest of compliments. I do have a need for respectability, you know.” She brought them to another stop, this time alongside a table littered with fabric. Collecting a crimson bolt in her long fingers, she held the material aloft. “Eh?” she said, molding it to her frame.
Images slithered forward, of her draped in that shimmery red silk and him tugging it free and kissing each swath of skin exposed. He resisted the urge to tug at his cravat. “Uh . . .”
“I’m teasing.” She tossed it down and gave a roll of her eyes. “I’m not quite so hopeless.” With that she held up another, bringing it close to her person. A blue so pale it was as though the weaver who’d created the fabric hadn’t known whether to wish for a white or sky blue, and had managed to meld those shades and hues along with several others within. She cleared her throat. “What do you think?”
He stared, riveted—frozen. Completely captivated by this . . . vulnerable, hesitant woman before him. Wayland’s gaze locked with hers. “Perfect,” he said quietly. “Utterly and completely . . . perfect.”
And along the way he’d ceased to speak about the fabric and was capable of seeing and talking about only her.
Her arm wavered, the bolt slipping, and she drifted close, and just several days ago . . . he would have cared. He would have cared so very much.
Somewhere at the front of the shop, he registered a slight tinkling of a bell.
Perhaps those were warning ones in his brain?
The slightest whisper of rose water wafted over him, filling his senses. It was the delicate scent of her, gardens and glory.
“Annalee,” he began hoarsely.
“Wayland!”
And just like that, the moment came to a jarring and miserable halt.
They looked as one to the owner of that voice.
A bright-eyed, white-skirt-wearing young lady rushed through the shop to meet him, waving as she went.
Oh, hell.
His stomach sank.
“I thought I spied your carriage outside, Wayland, and I hoped to see Kitty, but you are here, too!” Diana’s smile wavered as she looked to Annalee. Annalee, who’d gone silent and made an impressive show of studying the fabric. “Oh . . . hello. You have . . . a friend.”
And ironically, there it was. That term applied yet again to his former lover, and from this woman, whom Polite Society all expected him to wed. He cleared his throat. “Forgive me. Yes. Lady Diana, may I present Lady Annalee. Lady Annalee, Lady Diana.”
Annalee dropped a curtsy. “How do you do, my lady?” she murmured.
“Ever so well.” And much the way Annalee had done moments ago, Diana joined her arm with his. “Now that I’ve seen Wayland. Our friendship runs deep”—she lifted a simpering gaze to his—“does it not?”
Oh, God. I am going to throw up.
“You know one another through Lord Jeremy . . . do you not?” The duke’s daughter chatted happily, as though she were not talking to his first and only love. Because she couldn’t possibly know. No one ever had.