The most important piece of this whole charade, however, the one that would ultimately spare Annalee from a fate she didn’t deserve, was speaking to the lady herself.
Firming his jaw, he took a step forward and pounded again on the panel. Any other time, he would have appreciated that Annalee had a butler who scared off male visitors. But he’d be damned if he was turned out. Not with what her brother had revealed to Wayland that morning.
Alas, after three solid minutes of knocking—as confirmed by his timepiece—it became clear there’d be no entry.
Not through the front door anyway . . .
Christ in hell. He’d have to become one of the criminal sorts, then. Finding a different entry. Wayland had started down the steps when, suddenly, there came the scrape of the latch lifting, and the door opened a fraction A birdlike woman ducked her head out, her white hair frazzled, her buglike eyes round. “You there,” she called, and Wayland immediately came bounding up, taking the stairs two at a time.
“Yes,” he said quickly.
She jabbed a finger through the opening and wagged it in warning. “Don’t think to break in, or I’ll clout ye good.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he hurried to assure her. He lied. If it meant sparing Annalee from what her family sought to do, he’d do it. Scandal be damned. Broken promises to this woman or anyone be damned.
The servant’s gaze went to his flowers and then back to Wayland. She glanced over her shoulder. “You looking for Her Ladyship?” she asked on a loud whisper.
“I am,” he said calmly.
“Are your intentions honorable or not?” she asked, peppering him with questions.
He bowed his head. “The most honorable.”
Her eyes immediately narrowed, suspicion blazing from within the tiny pinpricks they’d formed. “Don’t trust the honorable sorts. They’re always coming in here with their fancy speech and stately manners, and causing nothing but trouble for the ladies here.”
Wayland mentally filed that revealing bit away. “I am a . . . friend of Annalee’s?”
The old woman angled her head, eyeing him with a new interest. “Never ’eard of you before,” she said, her voice slipping between Cockney and a proper King’s English. “And just because you used to be friends before doesn’t mean your intentions are good now.”
Ironically, what the old servant couldn’t know was that he’d been driven to this doorstep, and this moment, by only good intentions.
It had been everything else that had come before this moment where Annalee was concerned which had proven dishonorable.
“I’m a friend still,” he said quietly, and . . . he was. He realized that the bond between them hadn’t been broken by the divide Peterloo and time apart had wrought. That, to Annalee’s question of just this: Were they friends? They had been and always would be.
The servant peered closer. She must have seen something there in the sincerity of what he spoke. “You’re not looking to shut the misses’ society down?” she finally asked, revealing the first hints of wavering.
Wayland raised the bouquet in his hands, touching it to his chest. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Wouldn’t be able to do it if you wanted to anyway,” she snapped. “Other men have tried. They’ve all failed.”
And with Annalee’s spirit and strength and courage, those men had been destined for defeat. Admiration filled him. “I don’t doubt it,” he said, a wistful smile on his lips. She’d gone and taken on the most powerful peers of Polite Society, and Wayland, who’d once attempted that very thing, was left admiring Annalee for having remained committed to challenging the ways of the world. When he himself had so failed. And he’d be damned if her family locked her away. Wayland moved his face close to the opening. “Will you help me speak to her? I believe she will not turn me away.”
“No gentlemen allowed,” she said gruffly, and his hope for this woman being his entry in to Annalee flagged, but was quickly raised once more by her next words. “But if you were looking to speak to the lady, you might find your way around the back to the ladies’ gardens.”
Relief zipped through him as, with that most important of offerings, she shut the door in his face.
Grinning, and flowers in hand, Wayland bounded down the steps and made his way along the side of the residence, following the gated, graveled path that emptied out to a . . . He skidded to a halt, his boots kicking up pebbles, as he stared up at the ivy-covered wall. A veritable fortress suited for a medieval manor surrounded what he presumed were the gardens . . . and the back entry.
Stepping back several feet, Wayland rested his hands on his hips, leaving the bouquet to dangle at his side as he considered his path forward.
You’ve changed . . .
And yes, she’d been right.
Wayland, however, had been given to scaling trees and even trellises and walls to see her.
With that in mind, he stuffed the flowers he’d brought between his teeth. Several pink petals fell down around his feet. He assessed the thick swath of English ivy climbing along Annalee’s wall, eyeing the thickest, densest patch of the plant.
Experimentally testing, he fished around the leaves, searching for the bricks underneath and footholds within.
And with a quiet sigh and a long prayer, Wayland proceeded to climb.
It had been years since he’d done so.
He’d once been rather good at it.
Particularly as, invariably, on the other side of whatever structure he’d been scaling, there’d been Annalee, who would have been awaiting him. This time was no different.
A branch broke under his foot, and he cursed around a mouthful of flowers as his leg slid out from under him.
He was too old for this.
And big.
He’d always been big, but he’d grown even more through the years in height and stone to make entry by climbing—hell, entry by anything other than a respectable door—not only folly but also a dangerous one at that.
At last, he neared the top. He made the mistake of glancing back.
Ten feet were between him and the ground. He’d no doubt survive it, but he certainly didn’t want the pain that came with a tumble such as this one.
Catching the edge of the wall, he used all his effort and muscles and energy as, with a grunt, he heaved himself up and shimmied onto his stomach.
Out of breath from his efforts, Wayland paused at that two-foot-wide purchase he found and readjusted the flowers in his teeth. And clasping the edge, he lowered himself.
“Intruder!” someone cried.
Something hit him square in the back.
At that unexpected shout, his grip slackened, and the ground rushed up to meet him.
Oh, Christ.
He closed his eyes, and instead of tensing, he forced himself to relax, and rolled slightly.
Even so, when he landed on his back, all the air was knocked out of him.
“Have we killed him?” That voice, decidedly not Annalee’s, sounded entirely too gleeful at the prospect.
“No. No,” came another. “See, his chest is moving.”
His chest was moving, but his entire body hurt. He’d underestimated how activities which had come so easily, and actions—like a fall—that had once resulted in barely the blinking of an eye, now came harder and hurt like the very devil. Wayland couldn’t help it.