She pressed her fingertips to her mouth. “Wayland—”
Gasps filtered around the room. But by God, he was done caring about familial approval or guilt about Annalee being Jeremy’s sister.
“Except you.” He pointed to Kitty. “You’re fine enough. You’ve defended Annalee and helped me open my damned eyes to what I was not allowing myself to see.”
“Thank you, big brother.” His sister offered a pert smile. “And you’re welcome,” she said with a flounce of her curls.
“But you . . .” He gestured to Jeremy. “My God, what manner of brother have you been? You should have called out any number of bounders over the years, and you didn’t. You’d be willing to see her consigned to the worst of fates.” Hatred singed his veins. “And you.” He turned his wrath upon her parents. “What parents reject their child so?” God, were he to be so blessed as to have a future and babes with Annalee in it, he’d treat those children as the treasures they were. He’d slay goddamned mountains and monsters for them. “A daughter who faced what she faced? You let her to her battles alone.”
The earl bristled. “I’ve never . . .”
“Never what?” Wayland shot back. “Been the father she deserved? No, you haven’t. But then”—he glanced about at the guilty parties—“none of us really have been the people Annalee deserved.” He paused. “Again, except for Kitty.”
“Wayland, sit down right now,” his mother ordered.
Ah, and then there was his mother. His self-centered, materialistic, power-driven, dear mama.
“Oh, but you already know what I think of you and your quest for power. I’ve allowed you to obsess over”—he waved a hand at the elegant dining room—“this lifestyle, and made excuses, telling myself you worried about our family’s security, but it was always more about our standing.” Wayland didn’t bother to hold back the sound of disgust that spilled from his lips. “But you know what? I’m done. With all of it.” He found her with his gaze. “I love Annalee.” He directed those words for the room at large to Annalee herself, more silent than he’d ever seen her. And absolutely pale. What is she thinking? Why can’t I tell in this moment, when I’ve been able to tell every other time before this where Annalee was concerned? “And the people you’d judge her for keeping company with? They’ve proven more loyal and more loving than the lot of you.” He continued to lock his stare with her unblinking one. “Annalee, at your brother’s betrothal ball, you put a question to me. Do you remember what you asked?”
She hesitated, and then gave the faintest of nods.
Even so, he reminded her. Even though he knew she knew and she’d confirmed as much.
He took a step nearer to her so only an arm’s length divided them. “You asked . . . what brings me joy, and you rightfully called me out for not knowing happiness.” A half laugh, half sob exploded from his lungs. “Nothing did.” He cupped her cheek, and she leaned into his touch, and he took faith and found hope in that. “Until you.” He let his arm fall. “You bring me joy. You are my life’s pleasure. And my life is dark without you. It has been dark. And empty, and there’s only light when you are in it.”
She caught a sob in her fist.
Wayland stretched out his fingers toward Annalee. “Let’s be done with this place . . . and these people.”
“But not Kitty,” his sister whispered loudly behind them.
“No,” he allowed. “Not Kitty.”
Annalee stared at his palm. White-faced, her eyes wide, her lips trembling . . . and she made no move to take his fingers.
Oh, God.
This was agony.
He wavered. His hand faltering, falling, and then she shot out her fingers, catching his palm before it fell.
“Wayland, sit down,” his mother cried.
A whistle went up, followed by a lone stomping of feet.
“Enough, Kitty.”
Wayland and Annalee shared a smile.
And together, hand in hand, they left.
Epilogue
A fortnight later
Waverton Street
It was a first for the Mismatch Society.
Oh, there’d been marriages within the ranks of members—two, to be specific.
But there’d never been a wedding hosted at Waverton Street.
“Sacrilegious, it is, I say,” Isla Gately muttered loudly enough to be overheard from her seat in the second row of the gardens.
“Annalee appears ready to cry. We must stop the affair nowwww,” Brenna Kearsley cried.
A pair of hands settled over Annalee’s shoulders.
Wayland drew her close, so her back rested against his chest, and he folded his arms around her. “What do you think my chances of making you Lady Darlington are this day, given the rumblings of discontent from that lot?” he whispered against her ear.
She giggled, tipping her head and aiding him in his quest to that little spot just below the lobe; she so loved when he teased it with kisses. “I think our outlook is favorable this day.”
“Are we certain someone doesn’t wish to speak to Annalee . . . ?” Lady Cora suggested.
“You’re more confident than I am, my love.”
My love.
Closing her eyes, Annalee silently mouthed those two words, letting the syllables he’d spoken roll off her tongue.
How she’d missed hearing him speak that endearment.
It had never been crass or careless, a hurried moniker dropped as it was by the men who would speak it after him. Rather, it had always possessed a husky quality, enlivened with emotion born of that real, purest of love he carried for her.
Turning in his arms, she leaned up and touched her nose to his. “Yes, well, as they are my friends, they know I’ll not ever be deterred in following my heart, Wayland Smith.” Her eyes slid shut once more as Wayland kissed her. A tender, unhurried meeting that left her heart light and filled her with the most buoyant warmth.
There came the rush of footfalls as more guests arrived, cutting into her stolen moment before the intimate ceremony they’d planned. With a regretful sigh, she opened her eyes. “I thought all of our guests . . . oh.”
She stared wide-eyed at the quartet that made up her parents and siblings.
“I did not invite your parents and brother,” he said quietly with a slight shake of his head. “I requested Harlow’s presence.” Wayland took a step closer and slid his fingers into Annalee’s, and hers reflexively curled, twining with his, as was their natural place of belonging.
Harlow broke free of their family, and raced headfirst into Annalee’s arms. Annalee folded her arms about the younger girl.
Jeremy spoke for the family. “No, Darlington didn’t invite us.” He paused. “Aside from a letter he sent requesting that I arrange for Harlow to be here, that is.”
Tears blurred Annalee’s vision as she glanced over her sister’s head to Wayland. Once more, he’d thought of uniting her and Harlow, even reaching out to Jeremy, whom he’d not spoken to since that dinner party two weeks earlier, because he’d known Annalee had desperately yearned for her sister’s presence that day.
“No one sent for us,” her brother repeated into the quiet. “We . . . have no right to be here. Darlington was right,” he said, his voice catching. His face spasmed. “About so much. And we are . . . I am”—he took several steps forward and touched a gloved hand hard to his chest—“sorrier than I could ever express. For all the ways that I wasn’t there for you.”