Capturing his sleeve, Annalee pressed herself against him. “Should we give her something to really be scandalized by?” she whispered in a throaty contralto and his shaft stirred.
It was all a game of pretend and jest, and yet his body knew nothing of games.
Her words were a tempting proposition that ushered in more wicked thoughts, recent ones with her straddling his thigh, panting and moaning, as she’d sought a climax. A climax he’d desperately wished to provide her.
She cast him a look, and through that haze of lust, he recalled an answer was needed. “No.”
“Methinks your protest is half-hearted and belated,” she rightly noted on a full, husky laugh that ended on a regretful sigh. “Alas, it appears our fun has come to an end . . .”
Fortunately, Kitty came to the rescue, pulling at their mother’s arm, forcing her to look away from Wayland and Annalee. His sister, God love her, caught his gaze and winked before tugging the older woman off.
He firmed his jaw, annoyance coursing through him at a mother so concerned with their reputation and standing that she’d be publicly cold to Annalee. She’d not always been that way where Annalee was concerned. Once upon a lifetime ago, she’d even urged him on to a match with his best friend’s sister, seeing it as an entry to a better life.
“You do know you’re tempting scandal by conversing alone with me,” she remarked.
He scoffed. “I’d hardly call it a scandal.”
“For me, no,” she allowed. “For you?” She waggled her perfectly shaped golden eyebrows. “Absolutely.”
He stole a glance about, realizing the number of stares now upon them. Most of the earl and countess’s guests stared baldly on at him . . . and Annalee. Slightly curious, but not the rabid gawking that usually was directed her way. Some of that a product of the ton’s knowledge of his connection to her family.
Annalee held out her half-empty champagne flute.
He waved off that offering.
With a little shrug, she finished the contents of her glass. In one fluid movement, she deposited it upon a passing servant’s tray, all the while, with an impressive simultaneousness to her agile movements, retrieving herself another.
Folding her arms at her chest, she inadvertently plumped that already voluptuous bosom, and his mouth went dry as he stared at the olive-hued flesh of a woman who’d always loved the sun on her—
“I take it you’re doing reconnaissance for Jeremy. Keeping an eye on his most wicked sister.”
He laughed . . . before she sluiced a sideways look his way, and it hit him. “You’re serious.” He was unable to keep the indignation from creeping into his response.
“Generally, as a rule? No. In this—”
“Of course I’m not here because of your brother,” he snapped, now having a taste for what ole Cartwright had felt.
“La”—she pressed a satin-gloved hand against her bosom, and this time, he fought the pull to gaze upon that glistening skin like the enrapt schoolboy he’d once been—“how utterly silly for me to think so, given the fact that you searched me out three times last evening.”
“My hide-and-seek skills have improved exponentially from when we were younger,” he said.
Annalee stared at him for a long moment, and then tossing back her head, she laughed. It was the unrestrained, freeing sound of a woman content in her right to surrender to her own happiness and amusement. It was also one of the things he’d first fallen in love with about her. And with her cheeks flushed from laughter he’d brought her to, he was reminded all over again just how much he’d loved her laugh and, more, making her laugh.
When her mirth faded, she gave her head a wry shake. Annalee finished off her drink, and then summoning a servant, she deposited her empty flute. Instead of taking another, however, she issued a word of thanks and waved off a third glass.
“Though I am surprised to see you here,” he admitted when they were once again alone.
“Where should I be?”
“I . . .” He felt his neck go hot. “No, that is not what I mean.” What had happened to the ease with which he’d once been able to speak to her? Or, for that matter, anyone? Since his entry into the peerage, he’d lost the ability to be comfortable in his own words. “I’m, of course, glad to see you here and—”
“Not at a more wicked affair?” she supplied.
“No. Yes. I—” He reached for his cravat, but Annalee deftly caught his fingers.
“Relax, Wayland.” She leaned close. “I’m teasing,” she whispered, her body arching toward his, and as it did, he detected a hint of rose blossom upon her. It was a different scent than that which she’d used to dab behind her earlobes—apple blossom.
There was a sultriness to the fragrance that filled his nostrils; it tempted.
“Of course,” he said, his voice hoarse and rough to his own ears.
He recalled belatedly that he still held her hand in his. For at some point when she’d grabbed his fingers, he’d curled them around her palm. He made to draw his hand quickly back, lest he bring them any more attention than he already had . . .
But Annalee gripped him more tightly. Retaining a hold upon him, she brought her other palm to rest on his sleeve.
“I would be honored to dance this set with you,” she murmured, perfectly skilled at steering them away from scandal . . . and onto the now filling dance floor.
And as they took their place amongst the sets of other dancers, he wasn’t certain which posed the greater danger: the risk of scandal they’d raised this night or the taking of Annalee into his arms.
Chapter 8
Dancing with Wayland seemed like the safest way of touching him while still avoiding scandal.
Not that she would have much cared.
He, on the other hand, would have.
For all their earlier repartee and teasing about his mother, Wayland cared very much about fitting in amongst Polite Society.
This world she’d been born to—that she’d be more than happy to be without—he’d been attempting to bind himself to since he’d been titled.
Mayhap it had really been long before that.
When she thought about the future they’d imagined, and the talks they’d once had, there were signs that he’d cared: His fear of revealing the nature of their relationship to Jeremy. His insistence that he’d be something more . . . that he’d create an existence greater so that she could have the life she deserved.
Even as she’d assured him that he was all she wanted.
In retrospect, as a woman fully grown, matured by time and struggle and suffering, she could now see Wayland had been fighting for a grander life for himself as much as for her. Mayhap even more than.
But it was her business, however, to care now, too. For the reasons Sylvia had raised.
Still, it did not keep her from wishing that she and Wayland could go back to the more comfortable sparring they’d been enjoying moments ago.
Nay, he was all stiff and proper, once more.
Her body, however, didn’t seem to care . . . or even mind, for that matter.
Quite the opposite. It reveled in the challenge he posed with his decorous self.
There was a tautness to his powerful physique, to their nearness. To the eyes now trained upon them. It hadn’t ever been this way when they’d danced. “I daresay your dancing instructor did not do an adequate job in teaching you that relaxing one’s body and feeling the music is the most important part of the waltz, my lord,” she murmured.
A lifetime ago, a smile would have grazed his lips; nay, they would have turned up in a wide grin. “I had the finest instructor.”
Those lessons had come without the benefit of music, just what she’d hummed and sung while guiding him through the motions and movements. The strains of the orchestra muted the noise of the room, and Annalee closed her eyes, surrendering herself to the music and the joy that had always come in dancing.
Liar . . . in this man’s arms. There’d always b
een something splendorous about the way their bodies had moved so beautifully in time.
And yet . . . it was also not the same, and she silently and secretly mourned this change that time had wrought.
Annalee opened her eyes.
Wayland’s gaze remained directed at the top of her head, and his lips moved faintly, the way they had when he’d counted steps. “Relax, Wayland,” she murmured, careful to not let her mouth move lest the world now watching saw his name falling from her lips. “It is just a dance.”
Nor was her concern wholly about him, if she were being honest with herself. Since Sylvia’s talk earlier, Annalee had committed herself to proper behavior.
“I know,” he said stiffly. “I’m not concerned.”
She snorted. Surely he didn’t believe it. “You’re always worried about your reputation.” Annalee lightly stroked her fingers at his shoulder; the muscles rippled and rolled under her touch.
“Some of us don’t have the luxury of not caring, Annalee,” he said quietly.
Annalee followed his pointed stare across the room to where his mother stood alongside a white-skirt-wearing young lady, who smiled, where the older woman was scowling. Eyes as warm as they’d always been when Annalee had come ’round to visit. “She is all grown up,” Annalee said, more to herself. Kitty was near an age to Annalee when she’d gone off to meet Wayland on the fringes of that Manchester field.
“She is. And she is not received. And while I don’t give a damn about myself, I do care about Kitty.”
“What a devoted brother you are,” she murmured.
His mouth tightened. “You’d make light.”
Because he, like the rest of the world, believed Annalee incapable of solemnity or somberness.
In fairness, over the years she’d given little reason for the world to believe. She’d lived a carefree existence, one where she put her own pleasures and needs and happiness first, and yet neither did that mean she was an empty-headed person who didn’t take anything seriously. She held his eyes. “On the contrary, Wayland,” she said softly. “I do believe you are devoted to your sister and family, and I can only find that honorable . . . But do you know what else I think?”
He adjusted his hold at her waist, his fingers dipping a shade lower as he glided her through a perfect turn, a dizzying one that left her faintly breathless. Or perhaps it was the feel of his palm on her person.
He searched his gaze over Annalee’s face. “What is that?” His fingers moved almost reflexively at her waist as he drew her faintly closer. Or was it that she leaned into Wayland, drawn as she’d always been, a moth to that fiery flame?
“I believe there is a part of you, perhaps one you’re not aware of or capable of acknowledging to yourself, that cares very much”—perhaps just as much as he did about his sister and mother—“what the world says about you and thinks about you.”
His fingers curled almost reflexively as he clasped her. “That’s not true.” He paused. “But if I did, would that be so very wrong?” he asked brusquely.
“That you deny yourself happiness? There is a lot bad with that.”
“I don’t deny myself happiness. I live with caution and care.”
As he hadn’t before.
The message and meaning were clear as day, even as those words went unspoken.
“And there is something to be said of that, Annalee,” he added.
“Ah, unlike me, who plays with fire?” she purred.
She stroked her fingers along his sleeve, that caress born not of a deliberate need to taunt or tempt, but rather to fulfill this insatiable need to just . . . touch him. With every back-and-forth glide, those muscles tensed and eased. The heat burning through her had nothing to do with the crush of the crowd or the thousands of candles drenching the countess’s ballroom in light.
Her husky urging of years past whispered forward. “Waltz with me, Wayland . . .”
“We’re naked, Annalee.” And yet he came to his feet anyway and gathered her in his arms, their bodies pressed close as they danced a different, forbidden dance together that morning.
An ache pulsed between her legs, a throbbing need born of those erotic thoughts of the past.
Their eyes locked; his eyes glinted and glimmered, reflecting his desire and her own within those greenish-blue pools. Wayland’s gaze slipped to her mouth, and seeing his focus where it was, where she wanted it, Annalee slowly, deliberately flicked her tongue along the middle portion of her lower lip, inviting him to look.
His chest moved fast, and reveling in that display of his desire, Annalee continued to glide that tip of flesh he was so focused on to the corner, and then up and around.
Wayland dipped his head lower. She knew propriety was the night’s effort, the sole reason for being here, and yet she was hopeless against the magnetic pull that brought her neck back as she lifted her mouth.
His gaze continued to linger there.
He wanted to kiss her.
Annalee’s heart pounded.
He was going to kiss her.
Wayland, her first lover and London’s most proper gentleman . . . Here, in the middle of the earl and countess’s ballroom floor.
And she wanted it. Desperately. She shifted her hips to alleviate some of the ache between her legs. Her efforts proved futile.
But then Wayland’s gaze slid away from her mouth and back to that point of her tiara. And as a woman with a knowledge of men and desire and gaming, she now knew that to be his tell. When he didn’t trust himself, he stared at the top of her head. It was a new action from a man she’d once known so intimately as to have had the exact count of freckles and birthmarks upon his naked chest and bare back.
As he guided her through another deep, sweeping turn, one that left her light-headed with passion, she whispered huskily, “You remember dancing in the fields of Manchester?”
A flush dulled his cheeks, and his jaw rippled, his mouth tensed. But straitlaced as he was, he still did not confirm that which she already knew to be truth anyway.
“And you loved it.” She pressed herself closer; near as their bodies were, she detected . . . every subtle nuance of his movements—his audible swallow, the way his throat worked. “You loved every single moment of it, Wayland Smith. I think you miss those days when you were free.”
“No,” he said so sharply she almost believed his denial. “No, I do not. There is nothing good that comes from being careless or impulsive, Annalee. I matured, and I learned what I wanted, and . . . this is it.”
She followed his glance out to the swarm of dancing partners, and to the even greater swarm of people watching on the sidelines.
This was what he craved. This, as in Polite Society. As in acceptance amongst the ton. A people he still had yet to learn never truly accepted anyone because they’d rather cut a person off at the knees and subsist on the scandals and gossip that came when they ultimately fell.
In short, he wished to belong to a world that she never, ever would truly belong to. Not again.
And something in that left a bitter taste on her tongue.
“You might profess to having matured with . . . life.” Odd that Peterloo had been such a part of their lives, the final moment they’d shared as young lovers, and yet they had never, and likely would never, speak of it. “But you were never content with being a blacksmith’s son. You were always determined to be viewed and treated differently, Wayland. And have more.” After all, hadn’t that been why he’d been at Manchester in the first place? Fighting for a seat at the proverbial table? Calling out—and justly so—for a voice in a world that reserved speaking for those born to the most privileged class? “You were always craving . . . this.” As a naive, lovestruck girl, she’d believed she was what he wanted most. Foolish, foolish child.
His nostrils flared. Wayland of old would have called her out, gone toe to toe to challenge Annalee of her opinion, unconcerned about being viewed as polite, instead treating her as an equal in debate or discourse . . . It h
ad been one of the things she’d loved about him. And also, apparently, one more thing that had changed about him that day.
The music came to a stop, and Annalee and Wayland glided to a halt amidst the other partners.
“I found my way, and I’ll not make apologies for who I’ve become, Annalee,” he murmured as the lords and ladies around them lifted their hands to politely clap at the efforts of the orchestra.
“And without blood on your hands or talks of revolution or sedition, my lord.” She inclined her head. “Imagine that.”
He jerked like she’d struck him. The color leached from his cheeks. And if she were a better woman, perhaps she’d feel some compunction about so wounding him. But damn him, she didn’t feel bad. She was angry with him for passing judgment on her when he had become . . . become . . . this.
And alas, because he was ever the gentleman he prided himself on being, Wayland dipped a stiff but still polite bow. “My lady,” he said tersely, and then stalked off, leaving Annalee alone.
The hum of whispers immediately went up . . . as they invariably and inevitably did.
With a smile, Annalee lifted her shoulders, and with her head back, she cut a path across the ballroom floor, waving and smiling as she went. Because to hell with them. She’d not be made to feel less. Not when she’d come to find herself and realized she was deserving of more.
God, how she was done with all this already.
Suffering through politeness was a torment she’d take on only for her sisters of the Mismatch Society.
Once she reached the foyer and her carriage was called, she shrugged into the cloak handed over by her hosts’ dutiful servant. Annalee fastened it at her throat; however, a short time later, after she’d boarded her carriage and the conveyance rumbled onward, she wrestled off those fastenings, suffocating.
How she despised those stilted affairs. Not because she was every person’s favorite object to gawk at and whisper about. To her mother’s horror, Annalee had never really cared about that. She’d cared even less after Peterloo.
Rather, it was the tiredness of the affairs, a place where women’s souls went to die. At the respectable events, ladies were expected to behave a certain way, and anyone who didn’t found herself cast out of the ton’s good graces.
A Wanton for All Seasons Page 10