Jeremy buried his face in his hands.
“Perhaps we . . . adjourn,” Wayland said tightly, casting a pointed look in the little girl’s direction. Because the things he intended to say to the other man about this decision weren’t fit for a child. None of this was.
“Who are you to say?” Harlow shot his way. “I have more grounds of being here than you. After all, I’m family.”
“Of course you do,” he said soothingly, placatingly. What in hell was the other man thinking in allowing the thirteen-year-old girl to attend this discussion?
“Oh, hush. You clearly don’t mean that.” Folding her arms at her chest, she glared. “This is why Annalee is the way she is,” Harlow muttered under her breath, speaking to herself. “Independent and bold and strong. It’s because all you men go about trying to cut us out of important discourse.”
Jeremy cleared his throat. “In fairness, I was of the opinion you should be here,” he pointed out in a moment of cowardice, making that concession which spared him some of the little girl’s wrath.
Over the top of Harlow’s head, Wayland gave his faithless friend a long look. “Thank you,” he mouthed dryly.
“My apologies,” Jeremy responded in equally soundless tones.
Not that Wayland much blamed the other man at all. He himself was deathly terrified of Harlow on good days. When her hackles were up . . . ? Best stay clear.
With a sigh, Jeremy rubbed at his temples. “Perhaps we can cease arguing and put our attention where it belongs?”
On Annalee.
And for the first time in all the years that he’d known her, Harlow remained silent and nodded slowly. It was a signal and sign of the young girl’s devotion. Suddenly, Jeremy let his arms fall. “Mother and Father are of the opinion that Annalee would best be served . . . living away for a short while.”
Lines of confusion puckered Harlow’s high brow. “But she already lives someplace else. With Valerie.” She frowned and grabbed her brother’s arm. “What. Is. This. Place.”
“A quiet, lovely place in Lamel Hill for . . . people who are sick.”
A quiet, lovely place? Wayland’s gut roiled, and bile burnt the back of his throat. With an utterance such as Jeremy’s at that moment, there was only one Spencer sibling proving to be mad, and it was decidedly not Annalee or her sister.
Harlow’s mouth moved. “But she’s not sick,” she blurted.
Except there were different forms of sickness. And there could be no doubting or disputing that Annalee’s dependency upon drink was in fact a sickness of its own sort.
One a product of him and Peterloo . . . and . . . He squeezed his eyes briefly shut.
“As I said, there are different types of sickness. Perhaps . . . it is best . . . ,” Jeremy murmured. “In this . . . one rare instance, Mother and Father are right, and that it would best serve Annalee . . . if even for just a short while . . . if—”
It hit Wayland all at once.
Why, this wasn’t a discussion. That was why the other man had insisted on Harlow’s attendance in a topic difficult for most adults, let alone a girl of thirteen. Jeremy hadn’t requested his presence here as a collaborative participant in a discussion about what the earl and countess planned. Rather, Wayland was here to help break the news and be a voice of support for Harlow . . . on a matter that had already been decided.
Oh, God.
“What are you saying?” Harlow demanded, fixing a glare on her brother.
“Just as I said, Harlow. Perhaps it is best if she goes away for a . . . short while.”
Silence descended upon the billiards parlor.
“What?” Harlow whispered.
Or mayhap that was Wayland. Perhaps he’d spoken aloud the only response or thought he was capable of, following his friend’s pronouncement.
Harlow recoiled. And in that instant, her cheeks pale and her eyes enormously rounded, she was very much a scared child and not the fearless pirate warrior who battled the world.
“It’s not fair. And it’s not right. You get to do what you want,” Harlow cried.
Jeremy tried to speak. “Harlow.”
“Where are you sending her?” Harlow pointed the tip of her rapier at her brother’s chest.
“It is a hospital.”
There it was. Spoken into existence by Jeremy, converting what had just been a horrified fear in Wayland’s mind into reality.
Wayland’s entire body recoiled; a buzz, like the thousands of bees he and Annalee had inadvertently released from their hive while jumping from that old oak above the river, filled his ears. And then sound became as muffled as when they’d dived under the water, swimming far until his lungs felt close to bursting to be free of those angered insects.
Harlow’s little arm quavered and then fell to her side.
While Jeremy attempted to ease Harlow’s worrying, the words the other man spoke moved in and out of focus. “Not like other institutions . . . minimal restraints . . . It is run by Quakers, and it is a place where she will be treated with kindness.”
“Treated with kindness,” Harlow whispered. The rapier slipped from her fingers and clattered to the floor. “Treated with kindness?” she repeated, raising her voice, and she screamed her brother into silence. “You are a monster. You are all monsters. You hate her because she is spirited. You hate her because she lives her life as she pleases. You hate her because of who she is.” Grabbing her brother by the shirt, Harlow shoved him with all her might, knocking him down.
And in that moment, the little girl shouting and fighting was Wayland on the inside.
Jeremy shoved himself up onto his elbows and got to his feet. “Harlow, you don’t understand—”
“Oh, I may be thirteen, but I understand perfectly. Annalee isn’t like other ladies. And Mother and Father hate it. And you’re too busy with your fine Lady Sophrona to worry about the sister you should be protecting. You never protected her. You never looked after her.” Every word she shouted sent Jeremy recoiling. “You will all send her away because she doesn’t act the way every other woman does. But do you know what?” Seething, the little girl, a veritable tempest, stormed forward. “I don’t want her to be like everyone else. I love her for who she is. And you don’t. And someday, you and Mother and Father will send me away, too.”
Jeremy’s face crumpled. “I would never—”
“Wouldn’t you?” She cut him off, sneering with a vitriol no girl of her tender years should know. And yet . . . she was right to her resentment. “Aren’t you trying to send Annalee away? And someday, when I’m not the proper lady, you’ll let our parents send me away, too.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Excuse me if I don’t believe you,” she spat, and with a sound of disgust, she headed for the door.
Wayland stood there stiffly. He’d been so very certain there was nowhere in the world worse than Manchester. Every utterance Annalee had spoken, every challenge she’d issued at the Fitzhughs’, about her place in this world and lack of security, was actualized in this hideous moment with a cowardly Jeremy. Her family would send her to York, and after that . . . when . . . nay, if she were freed? She’d never recover. Her soul would wither and die, and he couldn’t bear it.