A Wanton for All Seasons

by Caldwell, Christi

  “I’m aware of your group’s work.”

  Yes, that was right. Her heart thumped extra fast and hard in her chest at the reminder he’d not only been aware of her work but also had not judged it, as she’d expected.

  “Uh . . . yes. Then you’re no doubt also aware of the disapproval we are occasionally met with.”

  “I am.”

  “You would be,” she muttered under her breath before she could stifle the utterance. Women of every station rising up and challenging the existing institutions was something he’d have approved of, and likely joined in support of, years earlier. As he’d done at Peterloo. Not anymore.

  A frown ghosted the edges of his lips, and Wayland angled in closer, raising a hand to his ear. “What was that?”

  Annalee made a clearing sound with her throat. “That is, you would be impressed by our commitment to the improvement of the lives of women.”

  He narrowed his eyes.

  Of course he’d sense that lie. But he was too polite to say as much.

  She flashed her most beatific smile.

  His hard features remained a mask.

  But he isn’t entirely as apathetic as he’d have you or the world believe. Nay, he’d draped his jacket over her at the fountain, and strolled with her through the shop.

  “We’ve recently learned that the young ladies of society are not knowledgeable in the ways they should be.”

  He stared blankly at her.

  She nodded.

  He shook his head.

  Annalee briefly closed her eyes. “Sex, Wayland. I’m speaking about sex.”

  He immediately jumped. “Yes, I . . . uh . . . of course.” There was a brief pause. “And that is a problem?”

  She stared incredulously at him. “Of course it is a problem, Wayland.” Jumping up, Annalee began to pace. “Young women have no idea of anything that takes place between a man and a woman. They are expected to marry and go into their unions knowing absolutely nothing. Nothing. And that is wrong. I’ve recently been charged with delivering lectures and lessons to the young women.”

  “Lessons,” he ventured, his voice strained.

  She stopped abruptly. “Don’t be a prude. If you’ve made love, and you have”—color bloomed in his cheeks—“and you’re educated on what happens, then women should be afforded that same education.”

  He choked.

  Annalee rolled her eyes. “The knowledge, Wayland. I’m speaking about the knowledge.”

  Wayland scrabbled with his cravat, thoroughly crushing the fabric. “Annalee—”

  “Here,” she murmured. Gliding closer, she pushed his hands out of the way and adjusted the lines of the fabric.

  “Are you asking me to”—he dropped his voice to a furious whisper—“to serve as a guest lecturer?”

  She froze, and then a laugh exploded from her chest. God, how she’d missed him. Lowering her brow to his, she shook her head. “You, dear man? No. I assure you, I have that covered all on my own, no assistance necessary.”

  A vein bulged and ticked at the corner of his temple the way it had when one of the village boys had attempted to steal a kiss from her during the May Day festivities. “What is it, exactly, you are asking of me, then?” he said curtly.

  Surely, he wasn’t . . . jealous? Nay. He’d ceased loving her long ago. But he had remained a friend, and that was what allowed her to continue.

  She retook her seat near him. “The papers have been speculating on the nature of our relationship, and none of it is good. There is a greater forgiveness of behavior generally deemed unsuitable for young women when ideas and actions and events are sanctioned by leading members of Polite Society. And with Lady Sylvia and by her marriage to the viscount and her husband’s association to the Mismatch, the ton turns up their noses but still allows their daughters to attend.”

  “Annalee, I . . . fail to see what I have to do with this.”

  Had he always been . . . this direct? This to the point?

  Perhaps with others. Never with her.

  “Lady Sylvia will be retiring to the country,” she said softly, divulging that intimate secret with the other woman’s consent. “And the membership will fall to me. If society continues to believe that I’m . . . the wicked, awful wanton who is seducing you, then I’ll never be seen as respectable. But if they . . . believed . . . there was . . . is . . . something”—she held his stare and gave a slight nod his way—“respectable between us . . .”

  “You want me to speak out in support of your club?” he asked slowly, the hesitancy of a man desperately trying to work through—and struggling with—exactly what she was saying.

  “I want you to court me.”

  He went absolutely motionless.

  “Not in truth,” she said, hurrying to put him at ease. “Just . . . in pretend, and only as long as Sylvia is gone. When she returns, you may go your way, and I will go mine.”

  This was why he’d been called here.

  Not because the Viscount St. John wanted to discuss legislation with him, but because Annalee had wished to see him and put this favor before him.

  He should be disappointed. He, who was on a never-ending quest to find partners for his progressive legislation in Parliament that concerned men and women belonging to the station he’d been born to.

  And yet, he couldn’t think of anything else beyond the great lengths Annalee had gone to, soliciting assistance from the recently married Lord and Lady St. John.

  There’d been a time once when he wouldn’t have denied her anything. And yet . . . this? Taking part in a ruse when he knew that there was nothing there? When he knew Polite Society would all turn their eyes to them, and he would be putting on a facade, one made all the more dangerous for the passion that blazed between them still. And by the secret hungering . . . for more. And it was also that secret hungering that didn’t make him immediately reject outright that which she requested.

  She stared intently at him, and he searched her always sparkling eyes, and then it occurred to him. This wasn’t a test. Or a game.

  His stomach churned.

  Coward that he was, it would have been a great deal easier were she making light.

  “I am capable of . . . seriousness, you know,” she added, and by the solemnity of her declaration, he wasn’t sure whether she was attempting to convince him or remind herself. Her expression hardened. “People think I can’t . . .”

  “I don’t think that.” He moved closer in his seat. “I’m not one of those people.” And without realizing what he did, his fingers moving as though of their own free will, he collected her palm in his.

  He froze, as did Annalee; both of them looked down at the same moment to the sight of their joined fingers. Taking her hand was an act so natural, one he’d done so many times in his life as to lose count, and yet he had not done it in so long that there was a . . . new awkwardness to locking his digits with hers. One that he mourned and regretted and resented.

  Reluctantly, he disentangled their hands, and Annalee formed a steeple with the tips of those gloveless digits. How he missed the warmth and naturalness that had once existed. A naturalness that was no more.

  “I do not see how my courting you will help . . . your club.”

  She chuckled, that sound low and husky. “Of course you do. I’m the villain. The seductress setting out to ruin you. But . . . if they believe that there is something proper between us . . .” Annalee’s fingers pinched at the lacy overlay of her seafoam muslin, and she briefly dropped her gaze to her lap. When she glanced up and caught his focus upon that nervous movement, she immediately stopped. Her eyes locked with his. “Then they will cease speaking ill of me . . . at least for now . . . and I will be free to run my lectures. Furthermore, a lady who is courted by a respectable man is different from one who has a vast collection of lovers.”

  A vast collection of lovers.

  How casual she was with that.

  She may as well have kicked him in the teeth, then punc
hed him hard between the legs for good measure.

  His facial muscles froze. His entire body coiled, and he tried to breathe. And he failed.

  Because he well knew the stories about her and various rakes and rogues, but . . . hearing her speak it aloud, lending a real life to what had previously been gossip, shredded him inside.

  “I don’t, you know,” she said, the slightly strained quality of her contralto at odds with the airy show she put on. But he knew her. Even all these years later, how to pick out the telltale tension, the way she dipped her head ever so faintly. Her slightly tucked chin. “Have a collection of them.”

  But she did have lovers, and that truth would break him and then break him down all over again with each time he let himself think of it.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I want to help you, Annalee.”

  Her eyes lit so bright, those blue depths vibrant with such joy and hope that he wanted to give her what she sought. “Splendid! I knew I could rely upon you, Wayland.”

  He tried to interject but it proved impossible.

  “You’re worried.” She rightly identified that emotion but misunderstood the reason for it. “Rest assured, the arrangement needn’t be for long, and I will be entirely well behaved.” She laughed. “As much as I’m able, of course.”

  God, she was determined to make this impossible for him.

  “Annalee,” he began quietly.

  That managed to penetrate her elation.

  “What . . . is it?”

  He wanted to give her what she asked of him.

  And yet . . .

  He briefly closed his eyes.

  He couldn’t.

  When he opened them, he found Annalee staring back without her usual show of confidence, and it was the hesitancy there that made him falter once more.

  Quitting his seat, he fell to a knee beside her. “Annalee,” he said. “I . . . don’t want a ruse.”

  Her lips slipped a fraction, and then she moistened her full lips. “You want a real courtship, then?”

  Color splotched his cheeks, and he instantly fell back on his haunches.

  Her pretty blue eyes sparkled with a glimmer that had shades of sadness contained with that sparkle. “I’m teasing, Wayland.” She laid her palm over his gloved one. “Obviously you don’t.”

  He stared blankly at her hand resting on his, eyes fixed on the leather of his glove—a stark contrast against her flesh.

  Of course he’d once hungered for a relationship with her, one with a permanence to it and not the clandestine secret they’d been forced to keep because of their different social statuses and his relationship with Jeremy. There hadn’t been anything he’d wanted in the world more than that future with her. She was all he’d ever wished for. But time had divided them; it had stuck a great big wedge between them that they’d only just begun to peek around to see the other person still standing there.

  “And of course, I don’t want a real courtship with you, either,” Annalee said, wielding those words like a master swordsman laying the blade upon a weaker opponent. Her lips twitched. “Or any gentleman, for that matter.” She grew serious once more. “I . . . This rejection . . . Is it because of . . . Lady Diana? Is there something more between you?”

  “No.” He surged to his feet. “Yes.” Only in some small part.

  “Oh,” Annalee said, her voice soft and sad.

  Surely he imagined that sentiment.

  He tried to explain. “Diana . . . she is still a child, but there remains an expectation . . . and I have to be careful in all my dealings with her.” If he didn’t make the match the world expected . . . if he made missteps in that relationship, he would be vilified, and his sister would pay the price.

  Annalee’s lowered lashes concealed whatever she thought of that.

  Wayland swiped a hand through his hair. “Annalee, nothing good can come from us playing games before Polite Society.” He tried to make her see reason. “There’s nothing I can truly contribute to this . . . or you.”

  “Actually,” she said calmly, sliding forward in her seat. “Something very good can . . . My reputation stands to benefit, and because of that, the Mismatch Society’s, which stands to improve the lives of women, and as one who dedicated much of his earlier years to improving the lives of people, then yes, I think very much it is something you could and would get behind.”

  He ran his eyes over her face. He’d never before seen her this . . . solemn. Not even when she’d been a young girl and young woman had she been so . . . serious. This didn’t fit with the new Annalee the world had come to know. And for that reason alone, even if there hadn’t been so many other reasons before this, he wanted to give her what she sought. “Annalee,” he began, carefully picking through his words, “I am honored you think I might help.”

  Her eyes hardened. “Please do not take that appeasing tone with me. I’m not a child.”

  “I don’t think you are,” he bit out. “I’m trying to be polite.”

  “Well, you’re failing. Try harder. Your tone is coming across as pompous.”

  “Very well.” He spoke flatly and plainly this time. “Your society is scandalous.”

  She eyed him for a long while. “Scandalous.”

  “And that is . . . fine,” he said on a rush. “I respect your convictions and your spirit, and what you wish to do. But I have only just managed to establish respectability for myself.” She recoiled. God, he was making a muck of this. Wayland scraped his hand through his hair. “Even as much as I wish I could help you, I don’t have the same luxury of just doing what I want. Having been born outside the peerage,” he explained, needing her to understand, “I am not afforded those choices.” Even if he had been, however, putting himself in close quarters any more than he already had with Jeremy’s sister would prove a disaster because of Wayland’s own weakness. For her. He’d always been weak where she was concerned. These past days had proven just how dangerous it was, being with her. Every moment spent with Annalee, he remembered just how much he’d missed her . . . And yet, there could not be a future between them.

  Annalee frowned. “And you care so very much about your reputation.” There was a trace of scorn within that statement that wasn’t even really a question, and yet he answered anyway.

  “Yes, I do,” he said instantly. “But what I care about more is Kitty’s reputation. She is an outcast, and I worry about her being accepted by society. And I care about yours. Even if—” He stopped himself from finishing the remainder of that, but she was entirely too clever to miss his intended meaning.

  “Even if I don’t?” With a sound of disgust, she came to her feet.

  “That isn’t what I meant, Annalee,” he said.

  “Yes, it is. Don’t be a liar on top of a coward, Wayland,” she tossed back.

  Fire suffused his cheeks; that insult from this woman struck a perfect blow to his gut.

  “Annalee, there is Kitty to consider.”

  “Don’t hide behind your sister,” she spat.

  He recoiled. “I’m not. She has even less of a luxury than I do, Annalee.” His voice rose as he spoke. “At least be honest and acknowledge that. She is and will always be a blacksmith’s daughter, treated with derision and shamed because of circumstances that were always beyond her control.”

  Annalee drifted closer, angling her face up toward his. “Tell me this, Lord Darlington,” she rejoined. “Is it Kitty who is bothered by society’s condemnation . . . or is it you?”

  “I . . .” He opened his mouth to confirm the former, but something froze that response on his lips.

  Annalee smiled. “I thought so.” Then that luminescent smile faded, and it was as though the sun’s rays had been snatched from the sky, leaving the world dark. “You might say I don’t care how the world views me, Wayland,” she said softly without the earlier vitriol. “But that isn’t altogether true. I’ve had to listen to what people say about me.” She took a step closer, and he immediately backed away. An
nalee stopped, a small, knowing smile on her lips as she looked him up and down. Only, no . . . It wasn’t entirely knowing. Disgust and disappointment poured from her person, spilling onto him all those sentiments she had for the man he’d become. “I care about the recent gossip surrounding my reputation, but do you know the difference between you and me? The difference is you have just your sister to worry after, but I? I have to think about almost two dozen ladies who are trying to find their place in this world, Wayland. Women who do not have the benefit or protection of a loving, loyal brother.” Like Jeremy, who’d cut her off . . . She’d been looking after herself, and now had taken the responsibility of helping ladies who found themselves in a similar way.

  Wayland curled his hands so sharply his nails marked up his palms.

  Giving him a derisory up-and-down look, Annalee swept off.

  He should let her go. He wasn’t going to change his mind . . . no matter how much he wished he might be able to help her. She’d accepted his rejection, and they were better off parting ways sooner. And yet—

  “It is about Kitty, you know,” he called after her, an exclamation that would have halted any other person, but Annalee continued her march across the viscount’s offices.

  And something about that . . . Her not even breaking stride. Annalee not so much as glancing back his way.

  That she didn’t even care what he intended to say, or what defense he’d give for his declination, proved the greatest insult he’d been dealt, an insult without words. Or worse, that she didn’t believe him. All of which was saying a good deal, given his treatment by Polite Society through the years.

  And yet, as she left, with her accusations lingering in the room where they’d met and still ringing in his mind, a part of him deep inside that he didn’t want to acknowledge or confront whispered that mayhap it wasn’t just Kitty he was so very concerned about, after all. And he hated himself for that buried truth that Annalee had so effortlessly wrenched out of him.