“There is another way.” Before he could talk himself out of it, Wayland called out, his voice hoarse. He wouldn’t.
That brought Harlow to a jarring halt. She whipped around, facing him with such hope that it reached all the way across the room.
“I will court her,” Wayland said to the room at large, breathing his idea aloud.
It made sense. This was the only way.
Harlow ventured over with a tentativeness that bespoke a fear of believing too hard that her sister had been saved.
“What are you saying?” Jeremy asked.
He’d been the reason she was at Peterloo. He’d been the reason her life had fallen apart after that fateful day. And yet . . . this time . . . it was different. What was at stake was Annalee’s freedom . . . and her future. To shut her away would be to put her through a different kind of death. And she’d suffered so much already. “I’m saying . . . I was with her last night. My name has been linked to hers, and . . . a courtship can kill that gossip.” And he would also be providing Annalee with precisely the favor she’d put to him. Only now, its purpose proved . . . twofold.
“But—”
Wayland glared the other man into silence. “What the hell would you do? Send her to a bloody institution?”
All the color bled from Jeremy’s cheeks. Good, let the bastard feel guilty. Wayland had made enough mistakes where Annalee was concerned. He’d be damned if he’d sit idle and allow her family to silence her, punishing her and hurting her in a way that she could likely never recover from.
“If she’ll allow me to court her, I will.” He glanced between the pair. “And none of this is spoken beyond us three. Is that clear? If it is, then all of this is for naught, and the earl and countess will succeed in . . . in . . .” Wayland couldn’t get the rest of that out past the fear and horror of it clogging his throat.
Brother and sister exchanged a look, and then Jeremy nodded.
“You are a hero, Wayland,” Harlow whispered, and then going up on tiptoe, she pressed a kiss upon his cheek. “I was right to have knighted you.”
A hero.
It was the last thing he’d ever been where Annalee was concerned.
But mayhap, in this, this time, he could make it right.
Chapter 21
That morning, following his meeting with Jeremy and Harlow, one matter took importance above all others: making himself seen.
As someone who’d sought to avoid and steer clear of scrutiny, it was a new way to find himself . . . and singularly miserable.
Wayland’s first order of business had been to go to one of the most famous, and even more importantly, the most frequented, hothouses in London, and now with a ridiculously large—and also deliberately eye-catching—bouquet of fuchsia and pale-pink peonies in hand, he descended the steps of his crested carriage and marched a deliberately slow path up the steps of the infamous Waverton residence.
He was no hero, as Harlow had called him that morn.
But he was determined to help Annalee out of this mess she found herself in, in some part because of his violent outburst at the Duke of Fitzhugh’s ball.
Cresting the stairs, Wayland looped the velvet-tied flowers behind his back, putting them on display for the passersby, and raising his spare hand, he collected the ring and brought it down hard.
He was going to make this right . . . for Annalee.
He’d never be absolved of his sins that day in Manchester, but he could spare her this pain her family would inflict upon her.
Puzzling his brow, he stared at the pretty painted pale-green door.
That was, if a servant bothered to open the door and he had the opportunity to put his suit to Annalee.
At last, footfalls fell on the other side of the panels, and Wayland straightened.
“I’m coming. I’m coming,” an impatience-filled voice called out.
The doors were jerked open, and the most unconventional of servants glared back. Tall as Wayland’s six feet, and as broad of shoulder, he fit more with the laborers Wayland had grown up alongside, and Wayland himself, than with the usual scrawny fellows stuffed into grand uniforms and wigs propped atop their heads.
The man gave him an annoyed once-over. “Which one are you?”
Which one? Which meant . . . Annalee was accustomed to fielding suitors, and for a minute his pretense in being here, the real role he played at pretending, was forgotten by the rush of jealousy for—
“Well?” the butler demanded, taking a step forward. “Which daughter or sister are you trying to claim?” And then, with a menacing slowness, the servant locked his fingers together and cracked his knuckles.
“Daughter or sister?” Wayland repeated back slowly. And then it occurred to him . . . The man wasn’t speaking of men who’d come here in pursuit of Annalee, but rather of the outraged papas and other protectors who’d come to claim their daughters from attending her society.
“Uh . . . neither?”
“That’s the correct answer.” The butler grunted. “I thought so.” He made to close the door in Wayland’s face.
Oh, bloody hell. Wayland reflexively shot out the hand with Annalee’s flowers, the enormous bouquet preventing that panel from closing, but also subsequently suffering the beheading of three of those blooms and badly rumpling the others.
“Now, see here,” he began firmly.
“Are you looking to threaten me?” And by the gleeful relish there in the bulky butler’s eyes and voice, he was decidedly hoping the answer was in the affirmative.
“Of course not,” Wayland said, calling for calm to defuse a situation that was rapidly getting away from him. “I’m here to call on Lady Annalee.”
There was such a long break in silence, with only the rattle of passing carriages and the clip-clop of horses’ feet, that Wayland suspected the older man may have not heard him. He tried again. “I am here to see—”
The butler found his voice. “I heard you,” he snapped. “The lady ain’t receiving. Not of the gentleman sort. Not of any of the man sort.” And this time, Annalee’s loyal servant slammed the door shut so hard it shook the frame.
There came the slight thwack of a lock falling, and just like that, Wayland found himself barred entry, standing there with nothing but one empty hand, the other holding an increasingly tired-looking bunch of peonies.
Glancing down at the forlorn heads chopped off by Annalee’s front door, he muttered a curse under his breath.
Well, this wasn’t going to plan. This wasn’t going to plan at all. Wayland was to arrive and be shown to a formal parlor, and she was to come down immediately. At no point in how he’d played this out in his mind had it gone the way of him being barred entry and denied the right to see her.
And now, here he stood . . . with no access to Annalee . . .
Feeling gazes upon him, Wayland glanced over his shoulder . . .
At some point an audience had assembled to watch the show that Wayland had found himself putting on for their benefit.
But there was the attention from members of the ton that he’d managed to gather himself that morning. In fairness, that was one thing that had gone to plan about all this.
People had noted his arrival with flowers, and as such, some of the day’s goals had been achieved.