Was the other man out of his goddamned mind?
And that increasingly familiar rage that had besieged Wayland since that night reared its head once more, slipping and twisting around inside him, this time for the man before him. “You’re apologizing to me?” he demanded. “My God, man, for Welles’s affront on your sister,” he hissed, “he deserved to be called out and felled with a bullet at dawn.”
Jeremy blanched, the color leaching from haggard cheeks. “I . . .”
On the heels of Wayland’s charged words, the accusation he’d inadvertently leveled registered too late.
He briefly closed his eyes. “Forgive me. It was not my intention to call you out—”
“But you’re right.” All the life seemed to drain from Jeremy as he sank once more onto the edge of the table. “I have been a shite brother to her,” he whispered, his voice threadbare. “You defended her two evenings ago when I did not. You tarnished your carefully protected reputation with scandal.”
And he’d gladly do so all over again—
“You are the best of friends.”
This was too much.
The long blade of guilt twisted and wrenched once more.
Unable to look his friend in the eye, Wayland looked past his shoulder to the mustard-colored, velvet curtains that hung from the ceiling to the floor. “I am . . . not the friend you think I am,” he finally managed to say, uttering those long-overdue words at last.
He felt Jeremy’s stare. “I don’t . . .” Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the slight movement as his friend shook his head in confusion.
Inhaling air into his lungs, he spoke on a rush. “I . . . loved your sister, Jeremy.”
There it was.
He’d said it.
Jeremy stared at him for a long while, then gave him a peculiar look. “Of course you did. We were three peas in a pod, we were.” My God, had the other man been this oblivious? Or had he been willingly blind? “She was like a second sister to you, tagging about. I care for your sister in that same—”
“No,” Wayland said curtly, determined to disabuse his friend of that erroneous assumption. “Not like that. Like . . .” His tongue grew thick and heavy in his mouth. “Like . . . in a romantic sense.”
Silence reigned supreme over their exchange.
Jeremy’s lips slackened; his jaw fell. “I . . . oh.”
Wayland’s heart pounded hard. At last, he’d set that revelation free. “I . . . before Peterloo. We’d spoken of marriage. We were in love. She’d come that day to meet me.”
And then it had all fallen apart. His life. Hers. The future they’d imagined for one another.
“I . . .” Annalee’s brother scrubbed a hand down the side of his face once more and released a sad sigh. “She was always reckless,” he said sadly. “And either way, she is not the girl she was, and . . .” His friend sucked in a shaky breath and shook his head. “Your defense of her brought you scandal.”
Disbelief kept Wayland momentarily motionless. That was what he’d say. “I beat him because he deserved it. Because he disrespected your sister.” Just as Jeremy should have pulverized every single bastard who’d ever done so. Just as Wayland should have. Just as Wayland wanted to beat Jeremy to a blasted pulp now for his absolute . . . indifference to what Wayland had revealed.
“Either way, Darlington, my parents have reached their limit where Annalee is concerned. They’ve run out of their last shred of patience.” Sadness filled Jeremy’s eyes, his gaze distant. “It was inevitable,” he murmured, that last part more to himself.
Yes, the earl and countess, with their commitment to social standing, weren’t ones who’d tolerated Annalee. Those words she’d shared two nights earlier whispered around his memory.
Even as a grown woman, I’ve had my dowry withheld, and any monies that were to be mine remain locked away. I’m at the mercy of Lady Sylvia’s generosity, and any funds I do have are because of any wagers I’ve won . . .
All these years, he’d appreciated the Spencer family because they’d accepted him. When most other noble families would have turned up their noses at Wayland for his humble origins, they’d allowed his friendship with Jeremy and then thrown their support behind him when he’d been titled.
Because of the generosity they’d shown him, a blacksmith’s son, he’d let himself remain blind to . . . just how much they’d wronged Annalee.
But there were so many who had wronged her.
Wayland, Jeremy, her parents . . . They were all guilty.
“I asked you here because the responsibility of speaking to Harlow has been ceded to me,” Jeremy said, slashing through his musings.
Harlow. Annalee’s like-spirited sister, who wasn’t quite a small child, but certainly was many years from being a woman. An age by which family struggles and pain couldn’t be kept from her, the way they would have been were she still a babe. Nay, she’d be aware of the gossip.
“Speaking to her about what, exactly?” he asked, straining to follow.
“Annalee’s future.”
Her future? Warning bells clanged in his brain.
Jeremy frowned. “You’re like another brother to Harlow . . . and me.” Pain ravaged the other man’s features. “And I need help with this, man,” he whispered. “I cannot do this alone.”
“Can’t do what?” he demanded.
“My parents are sending her away.”
The other man’s quiet pronouncement knocked Wayland back on his heels. They’d shutter her away in the country, stripping her of her choice of remaining in London.
They cut me off . . . because I bring much shaaame to the family name . . . So much shame that they’ve pleaded with me and threatened to send me away, back to their country house in Ma-Manchester . . . They would send me back to the place of my nightmares . . . just to be free of me.
“My God, man,” he said on a furious whisper. “You cannot allow that.” To force her back to that place, of all places? Did they love their daughter so little? Did his friend care not at all for the demons Annalee battled? “She will be haunted.” More haunted than she was. All those who’d lived through Peterloo had ghosts and demons they battled daily.
“With the life she is living here in London, how she conducts herself, the drinking and the smoking . . . What else can they do?” The strained lines at the corners of Jeremy’s eyes and the brittleness of his mouth spoke of a man who’d wrestled with his parents’ decision—but ultimately capitulated. “Perhaps had she wed you, she wouldn’t be in this . . . situation,” Jeremy said tiredly.
“Would you have supported a match between us?” Wayland asked, the curiosity he’d carried all these years bringing him to ask the question he’d always wondered.
And he knew by the way Jeremy’s eyes slid away from his, and by the hesitancy in his response, everything he’d always known as a young man desperately in love with Annalee: his suit would have never been accepted. It had been destined to be met with nothing but resistance from her powerfully connected family. Even his best friend.
“I don’t know,” Annalee’s brother said.
Lying to himself, and to Wayland.
Did the other man even know it?
The door exploded open.
And just like that, Wayland found he’d been wrong earlier. There was a meeting worse than one with Jeremy. One with Annalee’s young sister.
Harlow stormed inside, her rapier drawn. She shoved the door shut with the bottom of her bare foot and stormed over.
Donning a strained smile, Jeremy straightened and made to greet his youngest sister. “Har—”
“Not one word.” She stuck the tip of her rapier against her brother’s throat, ending the remainder of his words. “I’m not pleased with you and will decide when you talk.” She turned all her thirteen-year-old ire Wayland’s way, and he tensed.
Except . . . she smiled, her eyes soft. “You defended her.”
“I . . .”
“Annalee,” she said, as
though there’d been a bevy of other women for whom he’d intervened and the matter required clarifying. Harlow tapped the side of her blade onto his right shoulder. “I knight thee.”
“I thought you were more the pirate sort,” he said solemnly, and bowed his head to accept that high praise she’d conferred.
“Yes, well, in matters of heroism and heroics, a certain ceremony is required. I reserve the pirate’s wrath for”—her features immediately went dark as she swiveled her focus over to an unfortunate Jeremy—“dastards like youuu,” she seethed.
“Harlow,” Jeremy began again.
The girl brought her blade slashing down close to her brother’s face in a decisive X she wrote in the air. “I’ve not given you permission to speak. I’m still recognizing Wayland’s valor and honor.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. The moment he’d really needed to save Annalee had been at Peterloo. It was a failure that could never be forgiven.
Harlow smiled. “Thank you,” she said softly, her lower lip trembling, and in that moment, her tender years were on full display.
“I only did what was right, and what she deserved.”
Harlow nodded. “She did deserve it. Because she is a good woman who just happens to be surrounded by disloyal kin.” She fixed another glare on Jeremy, pointing her rapier at her brother’s heart. “What do you want?”
Bringing up a hand slowly, Jeremy guided the tip down. “I thought we might speak.”
She folded her arms, her weapon dangling menacingly at her side. “Well? Out with it, then.”
“There are . . . concerns about Annalee.”
“What kind of concerns?” Harlow asked for the both of them.
Jeremy dropped to a knee. “You know when you caught that fever five years ago?”
She hesitated, and nodded.
“You were sick,” Jeremy said. “Well, there are many different types of sick. When you’ve got an upset stomach, or when you’ve a fever or—”
Unease tripped along Wayland’s spine.
“Would you spare me the child’s explanation,” Harlow snapped, as impatient as Wayland was to understand just what the other man was on about. “I know what sickness is. Who is sick?” She peered at him a moment. “Is it you?” Not waiting for him to respond, she switched her attention over to Wayland. “Are you? You do have a queer look about you.”
“I’m . . . not.” Though he did feel close to casting up the contents of his stomach.
“There are . . . sicknesses of the spirit and soul,” Jeremy continued in what rang as a scripted explanation he’d run over time and time again until memorized.
That apprehension grew in Wayland’s gut. His mind slipping down a path it didn’t want. Praying he was wrong.
“Will you just get out with it?” Harlow shouted. “Who is—”
“Annalee.”
All the air left Wayland on a swift, noisy exhale.
“Annalee is sick.” And with that, Jeremy began speaking quickly, all the words tumbling from his lips. “And she has been making decisions that are not safe, and so Mother and Father—we,” he amended, “have made the decision to send her away to a place where she will be cared for.”
And there it was.
The cruelest place to ever consider sending her. The one place she didn’t wish to be.
“Where is she going?” Harlow whispered.
“Not . . . one of those places,” Jeremy said quickly.
Wayland blinked slowly, knocked off course by that response, which was decidedly not “Manchester.”
Not one of those places? Surely his friend wasn’t saying what . . . Wayland thought he was? That they were thinking of . . . Nay, planning to send Annalee to a goddamned institution? A place where men and women were locked up and stripped of their dignity and beaten and abused, all in the name of reform and—
Wayland squeezed his eyes shut.
I’m going to be sick . . .
Harlow scrunched up her brow. “What places?” When neither gentleman spoke, she looked back and forth between them, ultimately settling on her brother. “What. Places?”
Jeremy buried his face in his hands.
“Perhaps we . . . adjourn,” Wayland said tightly, casting a pointed look in the little girl’s direction. Because the things he intended to say to the other man about this decision weren’t fit for a child. None of this was.
“Who are you to say?” Harlow shot his way. “I have more grounds of being here than you. After all, I’m family.”
“Of course you do,” he said soothingly, placatingly. What in hell was the other man thinking in allowing the thirteen-year-old girl to attend this discussion?
“Oh, hush. You clearly don’t mean that.” Folding her arms at her chest, she glared. “This is why Annalee is the way she is,” Harlow muttered under her breath, speaking to herself. “Independent and bold and strong. It’s because all you men go about trying to cut us out of important discourse.”
Jeremy cleared his throat. “In fairness, I was of the opinion you should be here,” he pointed out in a moment of cowardice, making that concession which spared him some of the little girl’s wrath.
Over the top of Harlow’s head, Wayland gave his faithless friend a long look. “Thank you,” he mouthed dryly.
“My apologies,” Jeremy responded in equally soundless tones.
Not that Wayland much blamed the other man at all. He himself was deathly terrified of Harlow on good days. When her hackles were up . . . ? Best stay clear.
With a sigh, Jeremy rubbed at his temples. “Perhaps we can cease arguing and put our attention where it belongs?”
On Annalee.
And for the first time in all the years that he’d known her, Harlow remained silent and nodded slowly. It was a signal and sign of the young girl’s devotion. Suddenly, Jeremy let his arms fall. “Mother and Father are of the opinion that Annalee would best be served . . . living away for a short while.”
Lines of confusion puckered Harlow’s high brow. “But she already lives someplace else. With Valerie.” She frowned and grabbed her brother’s arm. “What. Is. This. Place.”
“A quiet, lovely place in Lamel Hill for . . . people who are sick.”
A quiet, lovely place? Wayland’s gut roiled, and bile burnt the back of his throat. With an utterance such as Jeremy’s at that moment, there was only one Spencer sibling proving to be mad, and it was decidedly not Annalee or her sister.
Harlow’s mouth moved. “But she’s not sick,” she blurted.
Except there were different forms of sickness. And there could be no doubting or disputing that Annalee’s dependency upon drink was in fact a sickness of its own sort.
One a product of him and Peterloo . . . and . . . He squeezed his eyes briefly shut.
“As I said, there are different types of sickness. Perhaps . . . it is best . . . ,” Jeremy murmured. “In this . . . one rare instance, Mother and Father are right, and that it would best serve Annalee . . . if even for just a short while . . . if—”
It hit Wayland all at once.
Why, this wasn’t a discussion. That was why the other man had insisted on Harlow’s attendance in a topic difficult for most adults, let alone a girl of thirteen. Jeremy hadn’t requested his presence here as a collaborative participant in a discussion about what the earl and countess planned. Rather, Wayland was here to help break the news and be a voice of support for Harlow . . . on a matter that had already been decided.
Oh, God.
“What are you saying?” Harlow demanded, fixing a glare on her brother.
“Just as I said, Harlow. Perhaps it is best if she goes away for a . . . short while.”
Silence descended upon the billiards parlor.
“What?” Harlow whispered.
Or mayhap that was Wayland. Perhaps he’d spoken aloud the only response or thought he was capable of, following his friend’s pronouncement.
Harlow recoiled. And in that instant, her cheeks pale
and her eyes enormously rounded, she was very much a scared child and not the fearless pirate warrior who battled the world.
“It’s not fair. And it’s not right. You get to do what you want,” Harlow cried.
Jeremy tried to speak. “Harlow.”
“Where are you sending her?” Harlow pointed the tip of her rapier at her brother’s chest.
“It is a hospital.”
There it was. Spoken into existence by Jeremy, converting what had just been a horrified fear in Wayland’s mind into reality.
Wayland’s entire body recoiled; a buzz, like the thousands of bees he and Annalee had inadvertently released from their hive while jumping from that old oak above the river, filled his ears. And then sound became as muffled as when they’d dived under the water, swimming far until his lungs felt close to bursting to be free of those angered insects.
Harlow’s little arm quavered and then fell to her side.
While Jeremy attempted to ease Harlow’s worrying, the words the other man spoke moved in and out of focus. “Not like other institutions . . . minimal restraints . . . It is run by Quakers, and it is a place where she will be treated with kindness.”
“Treated with kindness,” Harlow whispered. The rapier slipped from her fingers and clattered to the floor. “Treated with kindness?” she repeated, raising her voice, and she screamed her brother into silence. “You are a monster. You are all monsters. You hate her because she is spirited. You hate her because she lives her life as she pleases. You hate her because of who she is.” Grabbing her brother by the shirt, Harlow shoved him with all her might, knocking him down.
And in that moment, the little girl shouting and fighting was Wayland on the inside.
Jeremy shoved himself up onto his elbows and got to his feet. “Harlow, you don’t understand—”
“Oh, I may be thirteen, but I understand perfectly. Annalee isn’t like other ladies. And Mother and Father hate it. And you’re too busy with your fine Lady Sophrona to worry about the sister you should be protecting. You never protected her. You never looked after her.” Every word she shouted sent Jeremy recoiling. “You will all send her away because she doesn’t act the way every other woman does. But do you know what?” Seething, the little girl, a veritable tempest, stormed forward. “I don’t want her to be like everyone else. I love her for who she is. And you don’t. And someday, you and Mother and Father will send me away, too.”
A Wanton for All Seasons Page 25