“Well, either way, it is preposterous,” Sylvia was saying, pulling Annalee out of her own head.
“Their linking you romantically to one such as Lord Darlington? Darlington?” A snorting laugh spilled past Sylvia’s lips, and she shook her head. “It’s ridiculous.”
Annalee forced herself to add a chuckle, joining in Sylvia’s mirth, the sound of her own slightly strained. Yes, it was rather hard to conceive. The world would have never dared pair Annalee with one such as Wayland, but the world also didn’t know a thing about the man he’d once been or the passion and fire he was capable of. Where he’d doused that light, however, Annalee had let herself be consumed by it, and those changes from their once equally passionate selves accounted for Sylvia’s incredulity.
“However much truth there is to it,” Valerie said brusquely, “there still remains the fact that the ton has once more turned their focus on . . . on . . .”
“My influence,” Annalee quietly supplied. “It is me.” She, who was supposed to be leading the Mismatch Society, had thrown the group into tumult once more. And this time she’d actually engaged in nothing scandalous. Well, not to her usual level of scandal.
“Yes, well, either way,” Valerie continued, “that doesn’t change the fact that the gossips are talking, and the mothers and fathers and overprotective brothers of our members will certainly have something to say to their daughters and sisters . . .”
“I said I will fix it.”
“And just exactly how will you fix it?” Valerie shot back.
How would she . . . And then Annalee went still. Why, yes, of course. Society saw her as the “other woman.” But . . . what if she were, in fact, not the other woman, but rather, “the woman”?
Only . . . what if Wayland does, in fact, have feelings for the girl? As soon as the thought slid in, her stomach muscles again clenched. Surely . . . he didn’t. He couldn’t. Why, he was well over a decade older than the duke’s daughter.
But then, that was what a proper, respectable gentleman would seek in a wife: one who was perfectly virginal and young and not as jaded by life as Annalee was.
“What are you thinking?” Sylvia asked gently.
She was thinking she had a sudden urge to cry. “I’ll . . . strike a proper courtship, and by establishing a respectable image, I’ll be free to lead the meetings and continue educating the other members.”
Another round of laughter, this time from both Sylvia and Valerie, met that pronouncement.
“What?” she asked indignantly.
And then both women’s amusement faded, and a like understanding dawned in their eyes.
“You are . . . serious,” Sylvia said on a quiet exhale.
Annalee resisted the urge to squirm. “And why not? It should work.”
Sylvia found herself. “Because you shouldn’t have to—”
“You did it.” Annalee interrupted her friend with that reminder. “You enlisted the aid of a respectable gentleman to save the Mismatch Society; why should I not do the same?”
“Because it’s not the same.” Sylvia frowned. “In fact, it’s entirely different. Clayton and I had a friendship that went back, and he was willing to take part because of our past relationship.”
And yet . . . not unlike Sylvia, Annalee also had a former friendship with a gentleman who was—if possible—even more proper than Sylvia’s husband, the Viscount St. John.
“Then I shall strike a courtship with the most proper of lords.”
“Who are you thinking of?” Sylvia asked.
Her friend still didn’t realize.
Annalee spelled it out precisely. “Lord Darlington.”
“Darlington?” Sylvia echoed, her gaze going to the newspaper and then to Annalee, and back once more to the copy of The Times. “As in”—she tapped a fingernail in the middle of the page—“this Darlington?”
“Why, he makes perfect sense as a choice,” Annalee said, her words rolling together as she warmed to her quickly evolving plot. “He is my brother’s closest friend. We knew one another as children. And in striking up a courtship, I shall turn what the world sees as scandalous into that which is not only acceptable but also respectable . . .” Annalee spread her arms wide. “A proper courtship.”
Another round of silence fell. Then, chewing at her fingertip, Sylvia began striding before the table, her pace unhurried, the lines of her brow creased in contemplation. Suddenly she stopped and lifted the copy of The Times. “Why . . . it may just work,” she said quietly.
“And what happens when your proper courtship comes to an end?” Valerie asked with her usual bluntness. “What then?”
“Oh, do not be the slayer of optimism and ingenuity.” Annalee softened that scolding by looping her arms about the other woman and hugging her.
Valerie shrugged her off. “I’m not,” she said flatly. “I’m being realistic.”
“Perhaps we realize our bond has never moved beyond the deep friendship we had as children. Perhaps he or I discover a desire to travel that the other one helped”—she framed her face with her hands—“open our eyes to.”
Valerie drew back. “You’d do that?” She looked stricken. “You’d go travel and leave the Mismatch Society?”
“To save the Mismatch Society? Yes, yes, I would,” Annalee said without hesitation, that declaration coming from a place of love and devotion to this group which had saved her. It would break her heart to miss out on so much as a single moment with the ladies, but for as selfish as she was in so many ways, to save the group, she’d leave. “Even if it means I have to separate from the society altogether.”
Valerie gasped, visibly recoiling.
Sylvia lifted a hand. “No one is going anywhere.” She scrunched up her nose. “Other than me to the countryside, but only temporarily. We are a family, and we weather storms and scandals as friends do, damn it,” she finished, punching a fist toward the floor.
So much love for this woman filled her. Tears pricked Annalee’s eyes, and she tossed her arms around Sylvia.
“Come now, Annalee,” Sylvia said softly as she folded her in her embrace, stroking her back. “We are friends.”
Ones of whom, with the way Annalee had decided to live her life, she was undeserving.
“And there will be no parting with one another,” the viscountess went on. “Ever.”
Sniffling, Annalee stepped out of her friend’s arms and swiped at her cheeks. “You are entirely too good to me.” A resolve strengthened her spine and brought her shoulders back. “I will make this right,” she vowed. If anyone might restore her reputation and paint her in a new, favorable-to-Polite-Society light, that man was Wayland. “You may rest assured the Mismatch Society will not only be fine in your absence but will also thrive, and you will return to find us flourishing even more than ever.”
Sylvia smiled. “I do not doubt it. First, however, there is the matter of Darlington and petitioning him for his help. Do you think he will be amenable to assisting us?”
Petitioning him for his help . . .
This was a mistake . . . Forgive me. Us, being together . . . It cannot—