And just like that, this sudden and unexpected request for help with Annalee, in the middle of Jeremy’s ball, made sense. Why it was suddenly so important that Annalee start behaving. And coward that he was, Wayland didn’t want to know just what the earl and countess had planned for Annalee, should she continue to rain down scandals wherever she went.
“Will you at least think on what I’ve asked?”
“Of course,” Wayland said instantly. The answer would remain a decided no. Nothing good could come from renewing a friendship with the woman he’d been so hopelessly in love with.
“When you find her, mayhap you can at least try talking to her . . . as a friend.”
“Y—” Wayland stopped. “Wait.” When he found her? “What?”
Jeremy’s features twisted. “If she’s not located, she will get herself into some manner of trouble.” Because she always does. It hung there, unfinished, but not necessary to be spoken. For they both knew. The world knew. Pain filled the other man’s eyes. “And I cannot have that for Sophrona.” Ah, Jeremy’s fiancée. “Not this time.” Once again, his friend stopped, and his gaze fixed on the doorway leading out to the revelries in the ballroom. “Lord knows, she has been understanding and tolerant of . . . of . . . who”—Jeremy grimaced—“what Annalee has become.”
What she’s become . . .
Wayland’s stomach muscles spasmed.
Annalee hadn’t always been the nonconformist who never failed to shock society. Having been welcomed into the folds of the Spencer family, Wayland knew his friendship with Jeremy, a viscount and the son of an earl, had been an unlikely one. He’d found himself a de facto member of the family, and as such, he’d known Annalee quite well from when she was just a girl of eight and he a boy of ten—only one year younger than her brother. She’d always been sweet and sunny and given to daring, but she’d never been . . . reckless. Or scandalous and shameful. And—
“I have to return,” Jeremy said. “As it is, my absence has surely been noted. Will you just . . . see that Annalee doesn’t land herself in any scrapes this evening, and bring her back to the ball?”
A pained laugh escaped Wayland. “You are asking me to serve as a chaperone to the lady? My God, man, do you know who your sister is?” Wayland’s tone was strained to his own ears. The all-powerful Earl and Countess of Kempthorne couldn’t get their headstrong daughter to do as they wished, and yet Jeremy expected Wayland should? “You clearly don’t.”
“Obviously I do,” Jeremy said flatly. “Which is why I’m asking you. You are reliable and can be trusted, and you know Annalee.”
You know Annalee . . .
His muscles seized once more.
“You were her friend,” Jeremy went on, twisting the blade all the more.
I was her lover . . .
Following that fated day at Peterloo, she’d gone her way and he’d gone his, and they’d become two separate people, with the man now standing before Wayland the only thing in common between them.
The man whose features were a study of misery and worry and—
Wayland briefly closed his eyes. He was undeserving of the other man’s faith. Bloody hell. He could no sooner reject Jeremy’s plea for help than turn himself over to the reckless, rabble-rousing person he’d been in the past.
“Very well,” Wayland said, committing himself to the task. “I will do it.”
Just then, the door opened, and a figure sailed through.
Pale, her wrinkling features drawn, the countess was a study of worry. “You are missing, and your sister is nowhere to be—”
“I know,” Jeremy cut off his mother. “Wayland has been so good as to volunteer.”
Volunteer? Was that what they were calling it?
The countess lifted her head in a regal, queenly inclination. “We are indebted to you, Darlington.” With that, she looked to her son. “I am so very sorry that you need to bear the hardship of having this on your day, Jeremy.”
The gentleman inclined his head. “It is fine, Mother,” he assured in placating tones.
“But it isn’t. It is . . .” And while mother and son proceeded to speak about that most intimate of matters, Wayland clasped his hands behind him and attempted to make himself as small as possible.
Initially distant, back when her husband had been the one who’d opened their home to a blacksmith’s son, the countess had warmed considerably to Wayland after he’d been awarded a title for acts of heroism in his timely rescue of a powerful peer’s young daughter. So much so that she, like the rest of the world, hadn’t cared—as she should have—about why he’d been there in the first place. For had she known the role he’d played in her daughter’s attendance at Peterloo that day—that the sole reason she’d been there was because Annalee and Wayland had been lovers—it was a certainty there’d be no further warmth shown his way by any member of this family. Nay, only the door.
Just as Jeremy would likely end their friendship, were the truth to come to light. And as such, it was the great lie Wayland lived.
Sins that could never be atoned.
Debts that could never be paid.
Crimes that had gone unpunished.
Truths he’d expected, following that fated day of hell, Annalee would share with her family. But she hadn’t.
As such, helping the family locate the lady and ensuring she didn’t find herself in trouble was the least of the services he could provide in light of . . . all he’d done and failed to do where Annalee was concerned.
“I should go,” he blurted.
The conversing pair abruptly stopped mid-discourse and looked to him.
The countess swept over and clasped his hands in hers. “I can never thank you enough for being the friend that you are to this family.”
“The best.” Jeremy lifted a flute of half-empty champagne in salute.
Friend that he was . . .
Never gladder to quit a room than this one, Wayland beat a quick retreat and set out in search of Lady Annalee. Turning all his focus on the task at hand—a far safer and wiser way to think of his assignment—Wayland went through everything he knew about Annalee.
That was, everything he knew about this new version of Annalee.
She liked hidden corners and fountains and conservatories, and more often than not, when discovered in those places, she was also in the company of some gentleman or another.
Once, the stories coming out of the papers had hit him like a punch to the gut . . . and not for reasons that had anything to do with guilt for his role in her transformation. Rather, his shock stemmed from the thought of her with those bounders. Shameful rogues.
“You’re looking for my sister, aren’t you?”
That unexpected question called down the hall brought Wayland up short. With a silent curse, he whipped back about.
Some five paces away stood the most fearsome of creatures.
Blunt and direct, and given to mischief, the girl had all the traits of her elder sister.
And with feet planted as they were, with her hands on her hips and her legs slightly parted, giving her the look of a military general squaring off against a less-worthy opponent, she was going to give Annalee a run for her money.