His eyes twinkled. “It is so very good to see you, Lady Annalee.”
She moved her gaze upward to the top of the staircase, where her sister sat, dejected, with her right cheek on her knees and her rapier at her side. Annalee gave a little nod up toward her. “What is going on there?” she murmured in hushed tones to Tanning.
The smile instantly faded from the older man’s long face. “I . . . could not say, Lady Annalee,” he whispered. “She has . . . been this way for some time now.”
Cupping her hands around her mouth, Annalee called up to her younger sibling. “Why so glum, chum?”
Instead of popping up and shimmying down the banister, as was her way, Harlow lifted her shoulders in a jerky little shrug.
Bypassing the parlor, where her family had no doubt assembled, Annalee lifted her hem and headed abovestairs. “You’re disappointed because you won’t be permitted to play pianoforte when dinner is done?” she asked in a bid to elicit a smile or laugh. The whole Spencer family well knew the younger girl’s aversion to instruments.
“I hate playing,” Harlow mumbled.
“I know.” Annalee leaned in. “That’s why it is a jest. If it is any consolation, dearest sister, I feel much the same way about dinner parties with Mother and Father. Look at it this way: at least you are spared suffering through it.” That was normally true. Not this night. Not with Wayland present.
Harlow edged away, shifting closer to the wall, refusing to look at Annalee.
A deepening worry took root. “What is it?” she asked softly, taking a seat beside her younger sibling. “Has Mother been harping on your swordplay?”
Harlow hesitated, then muttered under her breath, “She always does. Nothing new there.”
No, there wasn’t. So then what accounted for this . . . sadness?
“Hey, now. Perhaps it will be good to talk about what is bothering you,” she said gently. “I find it always helps to talk to my friends about what has upset—”
“Like you did with Lila?” her sister charged. “When you ran away from Lila during Mother’s musical?”
She drew back. Her sister had seen that exchange. And more . . . How much had she heard? Either way, Harlow’s words . . . they were fair. Or they had been. “I’ve begun opening up more, too, poppet. That’s how I know it is important to not just keep my feelings inside. Lila and I spoke . . . about my departure.” Annalee had eventually gone back to Lila after her breakdown and talked about everything. Every last piece of herself and Peterloo she’d resisted speaking to her friend about: The demons that had haunted her. The vices she’d sought out to cope. The life she wanted for herself.
Her sister looked at her. “You did?”
She nodded. “I did. And it helped.” For so long, she’d been pushing away the people who could most understand her experience. She’d depended upon liaisons and other distractions to keep the emotions from overwhelming her. “I’ve come to appreciate my friendships and learn that talking through”—my experiences—“anything”—she substituted—“is a balm.” And because of those gifts, her need for other distractions had lessened. “Wayland helped me to see that,” she said softly to herself.
Her sister stared at her with stricken eyes, bringing Annalee back to the moment.
She folded an arm about Harlow’s small, narrow shoulders. “I thought you should like that I’m coming around more.” The time they’d had together since Peterloo had been limited, cut off by their mother and father, who sought to keep their last remaining innocent daughter unsullied.
“I do. But do youuuu?”
“I . . . Of course I do.”
“You hate it here.”
“I love being here because you’re here.”
“But you were never happy like this before, and . . . what if Wayland wasn’t . . . courting you, would you still be happy to visit?”
Annalee sat back on the seat.
“Because it won’t last,” Harlow whispered.
No, it wouldn’t.
“You’ll do something to displease Mother and Father, and Wayland . . .” Her voice broke, and something lit her eyes, but then was gone. Her sister looked away.
Annalee frowned. Her sister knew something. Warning bells banged loudly in her mind. “And what of Wayland?” she urged.
Harlow shook her head hard, then made to rise.
Annalee caught her by the shoulder. “What is it?”
“Mother and Father want to send you away,” Harlow said, her voice threadbare. “To a hospital. They were going to, but then Jeremy shared their intentions with Darlington.”
Annalee’s heart pounded in her ears, drowning out the remainder of her sister’s words. There it was. That great fear she’d always carried. That eventually her parents would tire of her and send her away. Not just to the country, but to the very place her sister now spoke of.
Her breathing grew labored.
And Wayland had known as much.
It was why he’d had the sudden change of heart. It was why he’d been so insistent. Because he’d known her family would send her away, and he’d have spared her both that fate and that humiliation.
Her eyes slid shut.
He’d been so consumed by guilt; it had been there in his initial letters after Peterloo. Why, it had lived and breathed with a lifelike force, even in their every exchange all these years later.
And because of it, he’d put his reputation and his future marriage to Lady Diana aside . . . for her.
Annalee hugged her arms around her middle and squeezed tight.
She dimly registered Harlow wrapping her slender little limbs around her shoulders. “I am . . . so sorry. I should have told you. Because that is what sisters do. But I was just so worried about keeping you out of that place, but then I saw you today, Annalee, and you were so happy, but I know it is just pretend, and I don’t want you to be hurt.”
It was too late.
This was a pain she’d not recover from.
Tanning cleared his throat. “His and Her Ladyship asked me to remind you that you are late,” the butler called from belowstairs. “That the families have already gathered for the evening meal.”
“Go,” Harlow whispered. “Before they make it any worse for you.”
Could there be . . . a “worse” than this? Than discovering that her parents had intended to shut her away in an institution, and that the only thing that stood between her and that imprisonment was Wayland, who’d jeopardized his reputation and happiness?
Because of me.
Numb, Annalee managed to rise. And with the aid of the railing, she made a slow descent, heading for the dining room.
The sight that greeted her was as happy a tableau as she’d ever seen.
Her and Wayland’s mothers, conversing.
Except, if one looked close enough, one saw cracks.
The brittle lines at the edges of his mother’s lips.
The worry in his mother’s eyes.
His mother, who feared a union between them.
Her mother, who feared a union between them would not be seen to fruition.
And it wouldn’t.
Wayland caught her standing there and immediately jumped up, and the rest of the table followed suit.