The moment they reached the parlor, he shut the door behind himself and his mother.
“What is the meaning of this?” she demanded, stopping in the middle of the parlor. “This . . . affair between you and Annalee.”
“I don’t owe you any explanations, Mother,” he said coolly, tugging off his gloves. He stuffed them into the front of his jacket.
“No, but do you know who you owe explanations to?” She stuck out a foot. “The Duke and Duchess of Kipling. The duchess, who came by today and asked the meaning of . . . of all of this.”
Oh, bloody hell.
And there it was.
Somewhere along the way, his mother’s hopes for a greater connection between Wayland and the most powerful of noble families he’d saved that day had at last materialized into a most real possibility.
He scrubbed a hand over his face.
“I . . . do not have feelings for the lady.”
“Bah, what is this?” She scoffed. “You saved her. You were her hero, and from that, feelings will grow,” his mother said with a crisp pragmatism born of her ruthless ambition to climb higher than either of them could have dreamed. “You aren’t a romantic. Look at what romance got you. Nearly killed. Other people dead.” She whisked over. “You, dear son, are now calm and rational and logical, and as such, you know that nothing good can come from a relationship with Annalee, and only everything great can come of a partnership with the duke’s daughter. So . . . whatever”—she swirled a palm in the air—“this is between you and Annalee, get it out of your system. Bed her. Make Annalee your lover after you marry, but by God, do your responsibility by this family.” Sweeping around him, his mother marched for the door.
A haze of fury fell over his eyes. Bed her. Make Annalee your lover after you marry . . .
“This is not over,” he said between grated teeth.
“No, but it very nearly was.” Whirling back, she glared at him. “The duchess expressed that the duke is quite put out with you. That his daughter has developed affection for you and is quite hurt by your disinterest. And that the only reason he is not giving us the cut direct is because, for reasons I cannot understand, Lady Diana still wants to marry you.”
“No, that is not what I’m referring to, Mother. I’m referring to this discussion between you and me. I am in love with Annalee.”
A horrified gasp exploded from her lips. “What?”
“I have always loved her. And . . . if she’ll have me, I intend to marry her.”
Horror wreathed her face. “My God. You cannot be serious. That woman is a scandal!”
Yes, she had been.
“She has had lovers,” she pressed, four words that in their truth were a lash upon his soul and always would be.
And yet . . .
“I don’t care.” Not in the way his mother expected he should. He cared that other men had known her in ways that he had, and had hoped to be the only one to know her. “That doesn’t matter to me.”
“That is different, and you know it. Ladies are to be chaste. Annalee could not be further from that. And an arrangement with her would be selfish,” she spat. “Utterly and completely selfish. It is a match that does not take into consideration your sister and her own lack of prospects.” Hands on her hips, she stormed over. “Prospects that will be considerably lessened from her already nonexistent ones, Wayland. You’d put your happiness first, and not think of Kitty.”
Guilt knotted at his chest, and yet—
“I can’t forsake the woman I love. Not for anyone. She is a good woman, Mother,” he said, imploring her to see that. “She is a woman of strength who survived something the most hardened soldier shouldn’t have to face.” And he should have stormed her family’s household years earlier when she rejected his letters. To find out why. And to remind her of his love. So much time had passed. But it was not too late.
His mother scoured his face, and then, touching trembling fingers to her mouth, she rocked back. “If you think I will be happy for you, I will not, Wayland.”
“No,” he said coolly. “I don’t think you would or could, because my happiness is secondary to this new life you’ve dreamed up for yourself and our family. It isn’t enough that we have the funds to know safety and security, and that should Kitty wish to never marry, she’ll still be financially protected by what we have.”
“You don’t know that. It’s not enough.”
“No.” He looked down the length of his nose at her. “That is my point exactly. It will never be enough. But I? I will have happiness . . .” That was, if Annalee would have him this time. “I’ve already paid a visit to Lady Diana.”
His mother recoiled. “What did you do?” she whispered.
“I explained as gently as I could that I couldn’t offer her the love she wanted.”
“No.” His mother’s voice emerged weak.
Continuing over her interruption, he added a firmer layer of insistence, one that would put to bed once and for all the delusions she’d allowed herself where Wayland’s and Lady Diana’s futures were concerned. “I reminded the lady that her feelings for me might be misdirected, born of her girlish fantasies and encouraged by two matchmaking mamas.”
His mother cried out. “How could you have said those things to her?” She began to pace frantically back and forth. “The duke and duchess will never forgive this transgression. Never.”
He took a placating tone. “You may rest assured, the meeting was amicable.” The calm and almost indifference of the lady’s response had confirmed the sentiments she’d carried had not been the passionate ones motivated by any real feelings on Lady Diana’s part. “I wished the lady much joy and reminded her that she would only have it were she to marry a man who was capable of loving her as she deserved. Which I am . . . decidedly not, as my heart belongs fully and completely to Annalee. She was reserved. Completely emotionally detached.”
His efforts at infusing calm proved in vain.
His mother abruptly stopped and stormed over in a whir of skirts. “You selfish, self-centered man. You had your sister to consider, and instead, you’ve put Annalee first.”
“As I will always do from this day forward.” As he should have done long, long ago.
If looks could kill, he would have found himself a victim of maternal filicide in that very moment.
And with his mother breaking down into a fit of tears, Wayland stalked off . . . feeling freer than he had since Manchester.
Chapter 26
Entering through the front doors that she’d come through so many times before as a girl, Annalee swept her stare over the expansive marble foyer, expecting to be suffocated, as she inevitably was by her family’s residence.
This time . . . her parents had extended her an invitation.
Granted, it had come because her parents believed Wayland was courting her in truth.
And this welcome would go away.
And along with it, so much else would be gone, too.
Her time with Wayland.
Refusing to let herself be bogged down in the misery of what would come when their time together ended, she greeted the butler, murmuring a word of thanks to the servant, who assisted her out of her cloak. “Tanning, old chum.”