No, and it had broken him. Left him shattered and more crippled than the broken ankle he’d suffered that day. A wound set by the duke’s finest doctors, healing so that the scars were invisible to all . . . but Wayland.
“She didn’t write because the same way you committed yourself to being a different man, living respectably and honorably, she committed herself to shameful, hedonistic pleasures, putting only herself first.”
“You don’t know that,” he said, his voice toneless and dead.
“How else do you account for her shameful living, hmm?”
He couldn’t.
He couldn’t understand why she’d ended their affair by refusing to respond to his letters. He couldn’t understand the scoundrels she opted to keep company with.
Pain cleaved through his chest, like a fiery lance that slashed him open, and let free all the agony, all the resentment, and all the jealousy that he’d bottled up within him, emotions he thought he’d ceased to feel. And in that moment, it wasn’t Annalee he resented, or even himself for his failings of her.
It was his mother.
“I’m not certain what you want me to say that will appease your worrying. Nor am I certain I altogether care,” he said coolly, wringing a gasp from his mother.
“Wayland,” she whispered.
“However, I’ve told you numerous times now that there is nothing between Annalee and myself. So do not come to me with scandal sheets and your baseless worrying, built on nothing more than gossip and your own aspirations.”
Tears gleamed in her eyes, and she clutched a hand at her chest. “I just want to know that you and Lady Diana will find the happiness her family and I all know you can achieve together.” She rested a hand upon his sleeve. “That was your fate, Wayland. She was your destiny.” On that note, she left.
Diana was his destiny.
They were words he’d heard entirely too often where he and the young lady were concerned. At the time, she’d been a child. Now, a woman grown, that expectation had morphed into something more real . . . for her family. For his mother. And . . . even for him.
Because marrying her made sense. They were compatible. They had a shared past. And yes, there was the fact that her connection would only provide a greater security for his own family.
And yet, these past two days, he’d not thought of all that he’d committed himself to: respectable, honorable living. Instead, he’d been walking around in a haze of lust and confusion because of Annalee.
She’d exploded into his life all over again with all the passion and exuberance she’d always moved about with. A veritable firestorm that consumed anything . . . and everyone . . . in her wake.
Only, there could be nothing respectable with her. For the simple reason that she didn’t want that . . .
And if she did . . . ?
His mind shied away from that . . .
Because she didn’t. She’d been clear in her silence all those years ago, and her avoidance of him, and her movement in other circles, that she and he were entirely different people and the furthest thing from a suitable match.
A knock sounded at the door, and he glanced up.
A bewigged footman entered. Clutched within his white-gloved palms was a silver tray with a sheet of vellum upon it. “A missive arrived, my lord,” he announced.
Wayland straightened, his heart knocking a quicker beat when the young servant stopped before him.
He quickly grabbed for the note and then froze as his gaze took in the harsh, bold strokes of an unfamiliar hand.
Not the sweeping and almost airily fun and light strokes belonging to a certain woman. And also a woman who hasn’t written you in years. Pathetic fool.
The servant blinked. “Beg pardon, my lord?”
And she had him talking to himself. “I . . . was just remarking upon the academic rule that’s surely responsible for such . . . impressive pen strokes. Always been something of a connoisseur of good handwriting.” Stop. Just stop. He winced at his own pathetic explanation.
“Uh, yes, right, my lord,” the young man said with a suitable—and certainly appropriate—degree of perplexity.
“That’ll be all,” Wayland said quickly, and considering the speed with which the footman bowed and raced off, it was hard to say who was more relieved by that reprieve.
The moment he’d gone and Wayland was alone, he returned his focus to the note belonging to not the person he’d initially hoped—that was, thought—it had belonged to. “You are a fool, you know,” he muttered under his breath as he slid his fingertip under the seal.
What foolish nonsense was this? Thinking that she’d written him? He gave his head a hard shake meant to dislodge that fleeting insanity.
Cracking the seal, he unfolded the page and read.
Darlington,
I’m aware of your opinions on the proposal of Lord Lansdowne’s Act in Parliament. I thought we might speak of my thoughts on the proposed legislation, along with several changes that I’d like to put forward. As there is a matter of urgency, I’d request your presence this morn quarter past eleven o’clock.
~St. John
An urgent summons from the Viscount St. John.
One requesting Wayland’s consideration of a bill he was attempting to see passed. There couldn’t be anything more different or more proper than this particular missive.
And it was a timely reminder that it was best, and safest, to continue the course he’d set himself upon. Not the scandal he’d flirted with at Madame Bouchard’s. Or in the Earl of Kempthorne’s conservatory or hall with Annalee.
Steeling his resolve and commitment, Wayland quit the billiards room, and a short horse ride later, he found his way to the viscount’s residence. The viscount’s very bustling residence. Servants streamed about, carrying trunks and valises past him, to the three carriages waiting outside.
Furrowing his brow, Wayland took in that activity, then allowed himself to be shown in by the butler. A footman immediately came forward to take his cloak.
“I don’t like this. I don’t like this one bit.” Even over the noise made by the servants at work, that less-than-quiet announcement echoed around the spacious foyer, and Wayland followed it up . . . to a bevy of girls lined at the balustrade above, who frowned down at him. Well, not all of them. One had her head buried behind her book.
The girl next to her, an identical match marking her a twin, threw a sharp jab. “He’s here,” the lady whispered, and the book was instantly lowered, and he found yet another glare turned his way.
The youngest one, however. It was the youngest one, with her angry little stare, who inspired the most unease. And then, she took a little finger and made the motion of drawing a line . . . across her throat . . . and then jabbing that same finger Wayland’s way in a message that couldn’t be clearer. By God, he was amassing quite the collection of young ladies who seemed to have him on their lists.
“Worry not.” That emotionless tone came from St. John’s sister clad in all-black mourning skirts. The young lady stepped forward and leaned slightly over the railing. “You’ll not die at Eris’s hand.”
He forced a laugh. “Well, that is certainly reassu—”
“It’ll be in a garden,” she murmured. “When you are old and very wrinkled and very grey.”