“I didn’t build it.” He clipped out each syllable between his clenched teeth. “It was given to me.”
Leave it to an honorable man such as Wayland to claim as much. Annalee collected his hands. “Either way,” she said gently, “it is a life that matters very much to you, and being connected with me?” She shook her head. “That will bring you nothing good.” Again, she attempted to stand, but he caught her hand, holding it in a grip that somehow managed to merge strength and tenderness.
“What has changed?” he demanded, his eyes moving quickly over her face. “I’m offering you what you wished for.”
She’d offended him. That had never been her intention. Particularly given the sacrifice she knew this proposal to be.
“Between that moment and now, it occurred to me that I’ll always be a scandal, Wayland,” she said flatly. “I thought I could enlist your help, and that by behaving a certain way and presenting a united showing with you, I would be viewed a certain way.” What she’d failed to consider was how his association with her would so adversely impact him. Or Kitty. Or his mother. “But that isn’t the case,” she said, unable to account for the sadness that realization brought. “It doesn’t matter how many proper balls I attend or how modest the gowns I don are or the language I use, society has seen me in one light, and yet, just like the sun, its movement does not change.”
“Actually, the sun does move. Verrrry slowly, Annalee. Just like the Earth, it rotates on its axis.”
Annalee laughed softly, briefly closing her eyes. When she opened them, she found his intent gaze locked on her face. “I’m not going to change,” she said with a gentle firmness. “Which is why what I’d proposed and what you’re now suggesting? It will not work.” Firming her words with a finality meant to end this discussion, she sailed to her feet. “Now, I thank you. I do. But I must decline that offer.”
“Do you truly wish to leave the ladies there?” he called out, freezing her as she walked. “I saw you with them, Annalee.” His voice drifted closer, indicating he’d moved. “I saw how they admire you, and how you love them, and you don’t want to leave them for however long it will be before Lady Sylvia returns.”
She felt him the moment he stepped close.
Annalee bit the inside of her cheek so hard she tasted the metallic tinge of blood.
He knew that. How could he know that after a quick encounter between her and the other members?
Because he always knew you.
Because he could always read you.
Even all these years later.
And that scared the hell out of her.
And it also tempted her in ways that were only dangerous. Because like a veritable Eve, she’d always freely surrendered herself to temptation.
It was why, the moment Wayland laid his hands upon her shoulders and guided her back around, she knew what she should do, but also what she would do.
“If there is anything I can do, Wayland”—she spoke fast—“or if you change your mind at any time or—”
He touched a fingertip to her lips, silencing her words, and she wished it was his mouth, ached for his harsh, firm lips on hers.
“I’ll not change my mind, Annalee,” he said quietly. “I’m not a man who is swayed in his feelings or thoughts . . . A ride in Hyde Park, tomorrow at noon.”
“Thank—” And this time, he covered her mouth with his, giving her what she’d craved. All too briefly. Her lashes fluttered, heavy from just a hint of what she desperately ached for more of.
“Until tomorrow, love.”
Love.
It had slipped past his lips so very easily and effortlessly, as it once had, doing wild things to her heart’s cadence.
She followed his retreat until he’d gone and the door closed behind him.
The moment he was gone, Annalee sagged, wrapping her arms about herself, his deep baritone, alluringly rough and so utterly masculine, echoing in his absence.
I’ll not change my mind, Annalee . . . I’m not a man who is swayed in his feelings or thoughts . . .
For with Wayland gone, she didn’t know if he’d been speaking in veiled terms about something more . . . or if she had simply heard what she wished.
Either way, she wanted him and this coming time with him, and that . . . could only be perilous.
Chapter 23
Through the years, every moment Wayland had with Annalee had been stolen. Clandestine. A secret they’d been forced to keep from her family. The world.
And Wayland had always despised it. He’d hated a world in which they had to hide their love and keep secret the feelings between them. He’d wanted their relationship to be real and recognized by all. Because he’d loved her. Because to hide it had been to make it tawdry. A sordid secret they could not share.
During those early years, he’d dreamed of the moment they would cease hiding what was between them, and had thought about what life would be like, living freely with the love they had for one another. Where social stations didn’t divide them. Where his relationship with her brother didn’t complicate what had been special between Wayland and Annalee.
They would have discovered London together, the same way they had explored every corner of Worsley. From the forests to the canals, they’d investigated it all.
Of course, they wouldn’t have discovered it together. Not really. For Annalee and Jeremy had been off during much of the social Season, and that fashionable world had been hers. But he would have been part of it with her, and for Wayland, that would have been enough.
So much of what he’d wanted for them had been laid to waste in the fields of Manchester.
But it didn’t have to mean that he couldn’t steal some of those moments he’d yearned for. That, in this arrangement he’d agreed to, he couldn’t help Annalee remember some of what she’d loved in life before his folly had seen it all ripped from her.
Adjusting her parasol, Annalee tipped back her head at the entrance of the grounds.
When she looked at Wayland, surprise lent her mouth a tempting moue.
He offered his elbow.
“I . . . confess to not understanding your selection, Lord Darlington,” she said, using his proper form of address for the benefit of the lady’s maid she’d brought with her. A servant whose presence made sense—yet at the same time, he’d not thought of having her there with him and Annalee, interrupting this time they had together. “I thought we were to visit Hyde Park, but you’ve brought us . . . here.”
He wavered.
It was a place different from where she was now rumored to frequent. He’d merely made the assumption that she might still like to visit, that it would do her good to see it.
And then she dismissed her maid, who curtsied and took herself off, allowing Wayland and Annalee the privacy he’d craved. When the girl had gone, Annalee placed her fingers upon his sleeve, as he’d long ago yearned for her to be able to do publicly, and followed him inside Vauxhall Gardens.
Walkway after walkway intersected in every direction, lined by piebald-color lamps that lent an added vibrance that was missing at night, when most of the ton visited. Her eyes took in the quiet grounds as though it were the first time she’d been here. In fairness, in the light of day, admission was low. It was at night, when the productions were biggest, with fireworks and lit paths and orchestras playing, that the ton flocked to Vauxhall.