Seducing Mr. Knightly

by Maya Rodale

  “I have a fortune,” Knightly answered. “And influence.”

  There was a pause, in which undoubtedly they both thought of the rumors that plagued the Marsdens, from her missing season to their evaporating funds, and the ability to stop it.

  “Most of the newspapers are terrified of him,” she replied, but did not correct his presumption that his wealth was appealing. So much so that his lower status could perhaps be overlooked.

  “No one of any sense reads that rubbish,” he replied, and Lady Lydia laughed.

  “So if you are not here to talk about newspapers and my brother and his mad schemes, then what brings you?” she asked. She paused under a tree and pulled her shawl close around her shoulders. “I know my brother wants me to marry you. But what of my wishes on the matter?” she asked. And there was something desperate in her voice: What about me?

  “What are they?” he asked.

  Lady Lydia paused. Her jaw dropped open. She remembered she was a lady and closed it. Obviously he was the first man to inquire about her wishes.

  “My wishes would not be supported by society,” she said stiffly.

  “Does this have anything to do with your extended stay in the country?” he asked. The reporter in him didn’t shy away from questions, even the insensitive ones. Besides, Lady Lydia seemed to respond well to direct and open conversation. He liked that about her.

  “Perhaps. You do know, of course, that The Times reporter was after me,” she told him. He did not know that . . . but he stitched that fact together with what he had learned from Brinsley. Rumors of a pregnancy. An extended stay in the country. A missing season. It was now clear to him what her secret was.

  Knightly said none of that. Instead he asked, “Whatever do you mean?”

  “Do not play obtuse, Knightly. It doesn’t suit you. There were rumors about me, being with child. What better way to confirm them than by disguising oneself as a physician?”

  “Other than time?”

  “Time will tell, usually. But that is not as lucrative. The rumors were bad enough, but it was the blackmail and suppression fees that have nearly bankrupted us. And still, in spite of that . . . the gossip has been horrendous. I had to go away.” She shuddered, and Knightly actually felt a strong stab of guilt for all the gossip peddling he’d done in his day. It had earned him a fortune, which might be the Marsdens’ salvation. Funny, that.

  “You’re intriguing, Lady Marsden,” he said. And wasn’t that the truth. The web of secrets and gossip was woven thick around him. He imagined Julianna would be beside herself to have this conversation.

  “You might as well call me Lydia. Though it will certainly set tongues a-wagging,” she replied with a wry smile.

  “You never did answer about your wishes on the matter of my courtship,” Knightly replied.

  “I’m agog that you would mention it again after what I just confessed to you.”

  “I’ll be frank with you, Lady Lydia. There is no pretense that it is a love match. You and your brother would benefit from my fortune, and your brother’s political career particularly would benefit from my influence. I want an entrée into the ton. This would be a marriage of convenience, but we could get along.”

  As far as proposals went, it was certainly a contender for “least romantic” or “the worst.” But it was the truth.

  It wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

  Lady Lydia blinked and asked, “What if I want a love match?”

  Chapter 30

  The Hero, at Work

  DOMESTIC INTELLIGENCE

  Two newspapers have folded—The Society Chronicle and Tittle Tattle—for lack of staff after too many writers were arrested for questionable journalistic practices by Lord Marsden’s Inquiry.

  The London Weekly

  Offices of The London Weekly

  LADY LYDIA hadn’t said yes. But Lady Lydia hadn’t said no either. His fate hung suspended in the hands of a noblewoman in need of a fortune who wished for a love match, presumably with some impoverished mystery lover.

  And then there was Annabelle . . .

  His thoughts kept returning to Annabelle.

  He kept tasting her on his lips, no matter how much wine or brandy he drank.

  The hour was late, and Knightly was still at his desk. Candles burned low. A stack of articles begged for his attention, but he couldn’t give it. One sheet of paper in particular haunted him. Dear Annabelle.

  Dear God, Annabelle.

  It was just a newspaper article. Some femalecentric fluff that appeared on page seventeen, between adverts for medications of dubious efficacy and haberdashery. Or so he told himself, even though he was well aware that Dear Annabelle contained hopes and dreams of a beautiful woman. It was a fleet of devastating words in her girlish script. It was a love story that had nearly all of London riveted.

  He picked up the sheet of paper, determined to see only grammar and spelling.

  Would she write of their kiss? he wondered. And if she did . . . he leaned back and raked his fingers through his hair.

  It all came down to one question, didn’t it?

  Was he the Nodcock?

  Suspicions remained. They lurked in the back of his head, and Knightly did his damnedest to ignore them.

  He edited Grenville’s twelve-page transcription of parliamentary debates. He corrected the grammar in Owens’s news reports on fires, robberies, and other crimes. He edited out the libelous statements from Lady Julianna’s “Fashionable Intelligence.” He poured a brandy and did the rest.

  And it all came back to Annabelle.

  Amongst all the articles was a quick portrait of her that he’d requested done, partially inspired by Drummond’s and Gage’s obsession and curiosity, partly inspired by seeing the men who couldn’t read listening to the paper being read aloud. In this sketch she looked pretty. Quiet. Shy. He set it aside, knowing what trouble it would cause her if this were printed and her horrible relatives witnessed such undeniable proof of her Writing Girl status. Knightly placed it in the top drawer of his desk. And when he could avoid it no more, he gave his attention to the newest installment of Dear Annabelle.

  Dear readers, your suggestions are becoming more outrageous by the day, much to the amusement of my fellow Writing Girls and myself. From moonlit serenades to specially commissioned portraits or even a simple declaration in these pages . . . Yet one writer writes with a suggestion that is utterly simple and unbelievably risky: Do nothing . . .

  Oh no, she did not get to do nothing when he desperately needed a clue, a confirmation. When he wondered what he was to Annabelle. Wondered when he wanted to be something to her.

  They had kissed, and the whole world seemed askew, like it shifted on its axis and started spinning in the other direction. This new world intrigued him, even though Knightly could see it meant letting go of the old world . . .

  What if I want a love match? Lady Lydia’s question was pointed, the implications devastating. If she married him, it would be reluctantly and he would never again taste Annabelle on his lips. If they did not marry, The London Weekly would have to survive on wits and popularity alone in a climate when every printed word risked imprisonment for the writer. These were the tangible things that he could wrap his muddled brain around.

  Knightly closed up the offices and set out for home. A walk in the cool night air would clear his head, and somewhere between Fleet Street and Mayfair he would figure out what was to be done about Lydia’s love match, his newspaper, and the constant craving for the sweet taste of Annabelle’s kiss.

  The houses in Mayfair were lit up, with balls and soirees in full swing. Knightly wove his way through streets congested with carriages and drunken revelers until he came to one house in particular.

  The one belonging to all the Earls of Harrowby, and where the earl had lived with his other family. Knightly had nev
er graced the halls. He had never been summoned before the desk in his father’s study to report on his lessons or receive a punishment. He had never strolled through the portrait gallery to observe the paintings of centuries of relatives whose names and stories were still a mystery to him. He had never slept in the nursery, climbed a tree in the garden, or explored the attics. There was an entire life he had never lived.

  As things stood now, he would never dine with his brother in the family home. Nor would they smoke cigars and sip port and make stupid wagers whilst the ladies took tea in the drawing room. They would not reminisce about their father. They wouldn’t speak at all.

  It was likely they never would, unless he married well.

  If he were the Nodcock . . . then he’d have to break Annabelle’s heart in order to obtain entry to his father’s house.

  It was just one kiss. He tried to convince himself of this, and failed. It was so much more than just a meeting of lips one afternoon. If he was the Nodcock, then Annabelle was the price he’d have to pay to live out his life-long dream.

  Chapter 31

  Annabelle Truly Falls in Love

  THE MAN ABOUT TOWN

  It is a small consolation that Lady Harrowby is no longer alive to witness her husband’s illegitimate child swiftly climbing the rungs of the social ladder. How mortifying it would have been for the countess to be confronted by her husband’s transgression at something so civilized as a soiree. One must sympathize with Earl Harrowby, who must encounter this family shame with an appallingly increasing frequency.

  The London Times

  ANNABELLE arrived at the ball with Julianna and was quickly left to her own devices as her friend spent more time trolling the private alcoves and other dimly lit areas where gossip and scandal lurked. Awkwardly on her own, Annabelle stood next to a potted palm while she tried to identify which corner belonged to the wallflowers and spinsters, and thus where she would go.

  A conversation happening just to her left intrigued her. Temporarily abandoning plans to spend the ball in a state of hopeful desperation with other imperfect girls, she retreated into the protection afforded by the large plant and eavesdropped.

  “They let anyone in these days, do they not?” The man who made this remark was tall, with dark hair brushed back from his face and deep blue eyes. Everything about him screamed overbearing aristocrat, from the perfect cut of his evening clothes to his rigid posture.

  “It is a charity ball, Harrowby. Anyone who can afford a significant donation is welcome to attend,” the friend said, with a notable emphasis on afford.

  Annabelle peered out to look at these . . . snobs. But her gaze was drawn to Knightly, standing just behind them. His mouth was pressed in a firm line and the hand holding his drink was a fist. He must have heard. He must have assumed they were speaking about him. Her gaze shifted between the two men and she noticed a similarity in their appearance.

  “What is this world coming to?” the man named Harrowby said to his friend, but it was Knightly who replied.

  “Welcome to the future, Harrowby, when talent supersedes nitwits with nothing to recommend them other than the name of long dead ancestors,” he said easily. But still, Annabelle saw the fierce grip he kept on his drink. She wouldn’t have been shocked if he cracked the cut crystal glass with his bare hands.

  “A name you’d do anything to have,” Harrowby replied with such disdain that Annabelle recoiled behind a palm frond. “I cannot believe you have the audacity to speak to me.”

  Harrowby glanced uneasily around to see who might be witnessing the exchange. Annabelle shrank back even farther into the refuge afforded by the potted palm.

  “Nothing like family, though is there?” Knightly mused in a jovial tone likely designed to be particularly provoking. Annabelle continued to watch his hands, still gripping the glass so hard his knuckles were white. He was anything but relaxed, no matter how he might seem.

  “Apparently not,” Harrowby said, his voice like ice. “As my father abandoned his real family for some doxy and her bastard.”

  If she understood the conversation correctly—Annabelle never presumed things of that nature—then it seemed that Knightly had a brother. Or if one wanted to be precise, a half brother. Had she heard anything about his family? He didn’t seem like a man who had one. It seemed that Knightly had been born all-powerful and fully formed.

  “Talk about me all you like, but leave my mother out of it,” Knightly said. Or so Annabelle thought he’d said. His voice was low and his expression menacing. But he stood his ground as she shrank back and away from the conflict.

  “You are a stain on the Harrowby name,” Harrowby uttered viciously. She gasped. But Knightly stood tall, shoulders back, as if he wasn’t bothered. Annabelle stood in awe.

  “Out, out damn spot,” the third man quipped. Both men turned to glare at him. When they realized their identical reactions, both stalked off in opposite directions and pushed their way through the crowd.

  It was a miracle to Annabelle that Knightly had been able to coolly stand there and trade cutting remarks with the half brother who so obviously loathed him. She would have slinked off, or never even approached him, and bent over backward to make sure no one ever felt the same way toward her.

  But not Knightly. He was a tower of calm strength, of self-possession. He dared to venture where she never might, and with wit and grace, too.

  It was why she loved him.

  “Why are you seeking refuge in a potted plant, Miss Swift?”

  “Oh! Lord Marsden! Good evening,” she replied, a blush staining her cheeks.

  “Perhaps you would like to waltz instead?” Marsden offered his hand, and Annabelle accepted.

  On the terrace, in the moonlight

  LATER that evening, Annabelle strolled past Knightly and gave him a flippant glance over her shoulder—or what she hoped seemed a flippant, coy, inviting glance as Flirtatious in Finchley Road had instructed.

  Knightly’s gaze locked with hers for that brief, potent second. Her skin seemed to tingle with a strange delight, like awakening. Or anticipation. Her heart began to beat faster. Would he follow?

  She sauntered outside, where all manner of danger and romance might befall her, if the stories were to be believed. She attempted to lean casually against the cool stone balustrade, as she had seen Knightly do. And then he stood before her and she didn’t notice much else.

  “Annabelle.” Knightly said her name softly. It was a statement, a greeting, and a question all at once. “I did not realize you would be in attendance this evening.”

  “I came with Julianna and Roxbury. Yet I seem to have lost them, for it has been some time since I’ve seen either of them . . .”

  “I saw you waltzing with Lord Marsden,” Knightly said flatly. Annabelle thought of the advice to cultivate a rival. Or another reader’s advice to hold herself at a distance and not throw her heart and soul at his mercy. And another’s suggestion to play coy.

  “I imagine most of the guests here this evening did as well,” New Annabelle remarked.

  “It was a stupid suggestion, Annabelle. And I’m sorry I asked you to encourage him to protect the paper,” Knightly said urgently, still fixated on his wretched suggestion from days ago. Weeks ago! She had moved past it after his sincere apology. Quite forgotten all about it, really, after he had kissed her. She was forgiving like that.

  “Who says I’m encouraging him for you or The Weekly, Mr. Knightly? What does it matter, anyway?” she asked. He had apologized, she accepted it, and they had moved on, hadn’t they? Or was there another reason?

  “I don’t know, Annabelle, I don’t know,” he said, sounding awfully frustrated.

  She took a deep breath and straightened her spine, as if it might give her the courage to ask a certain vexing question.

  “Is it for the newspaper that you are courting Lady Ly
dia? So that she will plead your cause with her brother?”

  “It’s more complicated than that,” Knightly replied, which only raised more questions. Did he love her? She wished to express her skepticism, her curiosity, with the lift of one brow arched.

  “I really wish I had the ability to raise one eyebrow,” she said wistfully, and Knightly laughed. The conversation had been taking a turn for the far-too-serious anyway. “You can do it. Julianna can. All the heroes and heroines in novels can do it.”

  “It’s easy. You just have to look all haughty and superior. Like this.” Knightly’s demonstration looked remarkably like . . . Knightly did all the time. Lofty, unattainable, wickedly handsome, mysterious.

  “Who is Harrowby?” she asked, and Knightly’s shock was evident. But how could she not ask, after what she had heard? “I saw you speaking to him. And when I say ‘I saw,’ I might actually mean that I happened to overhear your conversation with him. I’m sorry.”

  “I didn’t see you,” Knightly replied, and Annabelle smiled wryly at that. She gazed at his face, which she knew and loved so well—the slanting cheekbones, firm jaw, dark hair, and piercing blue eyes and dark lashes.

  “Haven’t I told you that I am Miss Overlooked Swift? There might have been a potted fern standing between myself and the rest of the ballroom,” she replied, a touch ruefully. “I understand you and that Lord Harrowby fellow are related in some fashion?”

  “You’ve an awful lot of personal questions this evening, my dear Annabelle.” Knightly brushed a wayward curl away from her face. His fingers grazed her cheek, ever so slightly. It was the familiarity of the gesture that made heart beat faster, and it was the possessive my in my dear Annabelle that thrilled her.

  She remembered a time when he addressed a letter to her as “Miss Swift.” How far they’d come!

  She was his Dear Annabelle, wasn’t she? Always had been since he’d named the column she was to write, and named it after her, thus bestowing an identity beyond Spinster Auntie or unfortunate, destitute relation.