Annalee shook her head. “I don’t know . . .”
Lady St. John smiled. “First”—she shot up a finger—“you hold your head high at a respectable ton event.” She lifted another digit. “And two, you bring within our folds the lady of the gentleman’s household.”
An image popped in her head: Wayland’s straitlaced shrew of a mother. She strangled on a laugh. “His mother?”
Lady St. John shook her head slowly. “No, my dear. Think again.” The dowager viscountess looked about the room to the other ladies present. “Who holds the real power over a gentleman?”
Different answers all rolled together from the members.
“A wife.”
“A daughter.”
“A mother?”
“Yes, well, it does differ from family to family,” the dowager viscountess allowed. She brightened. “Perhaps I might offer a group lecture on that topic someday?”
“Mother,” Anwen called over impatiently.
“Oh, yes. Right. Right. As I was saying, as to which woman holds most sway over a household . . . it varies.”
Annalee froze.
What I care about more is Kitty’s reputation. She is an outcast, and I worry about her being accepted by society . . .
“Sisters,” she whispered.
Why . . . of course. Why had she not thought of it? She could bring Kitty within the fold and, in so doing, connect Wayland’s sister with women who would be true friends . . . And also Wayland would have to lend his support to Annalee and the society. A smile curled her mouth upward.
Lady St. John patted her affectionately on the shoulder. “That is better, dear. Much better.”
That same night
Mayfair, England
Wayland and his sister had often jested in private that if the whole world were on fire and they’d also been invited to a powerful peer’s formal gathering, their mother would have dressed them all in garments soaked in water and gotten them through the conflagration to the respective ball, and on time, no less.
It would appear, that night, that not even an invitation from the Duke and Duchess of Fitzhugh had an effect.
And it was also a testament to the lengths to which he’d go to avoid a discussion with his mother that he’d rather attend a ball where he felt about as comfortable as a pig in church.
As his mother whipped back and forth, pacing, Wayland latched his gaze to the clock across the room.
“Might I point out that we are going to be late, Mother?”
Not even that reminder had an effect.
Nay, instead she just quickened her pace, back and forth, over and over again. “You may not. This is dire, Wayland. Dire!”
It certainly was not good.
Of course he should have expected, knowing Annalee, tenacious and spirited and stubborn as the English day was rainy, that the lady would have never taken his rejection lightly. But this . . . sending around an invitation for Kitty to join her league? Well, this was a battle he’d little hope of winning. “You must do something.”
“We must do something. We have the ball—”
“Enough with the ball, Wayland,” his mother cried. “I command you to forbid her from attending.”
“The hell he will.” Kitty’s voice came muffled but clear through the locked door of his offices.
He pressed his fingertips against his head. Bloody hell. He should have expected there’d be hell to pay for refusing to help Annalee. She’d invited his sister into the folds of her society.
She had landed the upper hand, after all. But then, had there been any other way with her?
“Why are you smiling, Wayland?” his mother squawked.
“I . . .” He hadn’t realized he’d been. It appeared Annalee still had that effect upon him.
Quickening her pacing, his mother wrung her hands as she flew back and forth. “How could Annalee invite our Kitty to take part in that . . . that club?”
“It is a society.” His and his sister’s still muffled responses came as one.
Furthermore, he knew exactly what had been behind Kitty’s invite. He also knew he’d sooner cut out his tongue than mention he’d inadvertently been the one who’d prompted her receiving one.
“Open this bloody door this damned instant.”
As one, Wayland and his mother looked to that closed panel his sister had set herself at, periodically jiggling the handle.
Horror rounded their mother’s eyes, and this time when she spoke, she did so in the most hushed of voices. “Do you see? She’s already become wicked.”
“Kitty has always cursed,” he felt inclined to point out.
“That is right, Mother. I have,” came Kitty’s latest reply.
“Furthermore,” he continued, stalking across the room and past his mother to unlock and open the door. “This is no new phenomenon,” he said, letting Kitty in.
His sister immediately scrambled inside.
“And,” he went on, closing the panel once more behind them, “she’s not even yet met with the club.” He paused. Or . . . “You . . . haven’t yet joined their ranks?”
Kitty shook her tightly coiffed head.
“See?”
“Not yet,” Kitty added with a wink.
Wayland briefly closed his eyes and dropped a curse in his mind.
Their mother’s eyes rounded until her irises bulged, and she released an ear-piercing shriek. Stalking past her daughter, she stopped before Wayland. “You must speak to that woman. Tell her that you absolutely forbid her from allowing Kitty entry. Do you hear me?” And with that, she stormed off. “Now, come,” she ordered, not looking back. “We have the Duchess of Fitzhugh’s ball.”
The moment she’d made her exit, he looked to Kitty.
Damn his mother for making this . . . worse. If that was possible.
Actually, it was. He knew that very well. She may as well have gone and thrown down a gauntlet, and dared Kitty to do her best.
“Kitty,” he began tiredly, sinking a hip onto the desk.
“No.”
He furrowed his brow. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t need to. You were going to pretend your weak defense was a legitimate one.”
He bristled. “It wasn’t a weak defense.”
“Neither was it a strong or admirable one,” she countered. “When all the while, you have no intention of gainsaying Mama.” Her mouth pulled. “Or as she likes to think of herself”—Kitty raised the timbre of her voice and put the pitch in her nose—“Mottther . . .”
Reflexively, his lips formed a smile.
Kitty punched him hard in the chest, instantly killing that amusement. “Oomph.” He rubbed where she’d landed her blow. “What was—”
“Because you don’t get to smile or speak.” She stuck a finger under his nose. “Not so much as a word, Wayland Smith. Not a single word.” And then she must have seen something in his eyes. She gasped, recoiling from him. “Surely . . . you aren’t going to speak with Annalee about barring me.”
Kitty’s reputation was that of a blacksmith’s daughter who’d found her fortune but would never have a superior bloodline. Living their lives above reproach was the one way to find a semblance of fitting into this new world they’d landed in. Joining the ranks of society’s most scandalous women . . . would never serve her or her future well.