by Maya Rodale
It was his turn to groan.
“Dear Annabelle,” Drummond said with a sigh. “How fares your quest for love?”
Knightly rubbed his stubbled jaw. He leaned back in his chair. This was going to be interesting.
Drummond grinned at Annabelle’s words on the page and then laughed at something she’d written. Knightly remembered editing it in an advanced state of frustration. The exact words hadn’t stuck with him; just a feeling of confusion, wanting, refusal to engage.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“She fainted into his arms!” Drummond said with unabashed amusement. “Listen to this,” he said, as he read aloud from the paper: “ ‘Quite a few letters arrived my way, written in a matronly handwriting from Mayfair addresses, encouraging me to feign a swoon in the particular gentleman’s arms. I am given to understand that this maneuver plays to a man’s chivalrous instincts—to start. But then to hold a comely young maiden in his arms is supposed to arouse his baser inclinations as well.’ ”
“That’s funny,” Gage muttered, managing to lift his head from his hands, but only for a moment. Green. The man was positively green.
“This girl . . .” Drummond said, shaking his head and grinning. “I say, I am in love and have never even met the chit.”
Knightly fought to keep a scowl off his face.
Annabelle was his.
In the only way that mattered.
Memories of that night crashed over him, like waves on a beach.
Annabelle in the moonlight—desperately hanging on outside of his window. He’d heard the phrase “having one’s heart in the throat,” but hadn’t understood it until that moment. He almost lost her, far too soon.
Annabelle in breeches, showing off her long slender legs. Later in the night, she wrapped those legs around him as he buried himself deep inside her. Knightly closed his eyes . . .
Annabelle in nothing. Her skin, oh God, her skin was milky white and pure, and so soft. A soft pink blush, everywhere. Her mouth, her kiss, her tentative touch growing more bold as he showed her dizzying heights of pleasure.
He could still feel her, still taste her. He still craved her.
His lungs felt tight, like he couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t because of the smoky haze in the coffeehouse either.
He still desired her, still wanted her, and still needed more of her. And yet—how badly? How much? What price was he willing to pay for Annabelle in his bed?
Drummond chuckled and muttered, “Baser inclinations. God, I’d love to show her—”
Before he even knew what he was doing, Knightly had leapt across the table and grabbed a fistful of Drummond’s cravat.
Coffee spilled across the table, pouring over the edge. The ceramic mug cracked in pieces as it hit the hardwood floor.
Drummond’s face took on a shade of crimson.
“Oi! Some of us are sorely feeling the aftereffects of alcohol,” Gage muttered, but no one paid him any mind.
“I strongly suggest you do not finish that sentence,” Knightly said. There was a lethal tone to his voice he didn’t recognize.
“Really?” Drummond asked. Since he managed to imbue the word with some sarcasm, Knightly determined that he still had too much air, so he twisted the bunch of fabric in his fist until Drummond was gasping for breath.
“Really,” Knightly drawled. Then he let go, took a seat and waved for another coffee.
“You’re the Nodcock, aren’t you?” Drummond said.
“Bugger off,” Knightly told him. It was the wrong thing to say. It only encouraged him. Even Gage lifted his head.
“How did it feel to have Dear Annabelle faint into your embrace?” Drummond inquired. “Were your baser inclinations aroused?”
Gage snorted, laughed, and then groaned.
“Really?” Knightly replied, lifting one brow for emphasis.
“Really. How have you missed her all these years?” Drummond propped his head on his palm, elbow on the table. Beside him, Gage laid his head on the table in defeat.
“What’s wrong with him?” Knightly asked, looking warily at their supremely ill friend.
“Some people think it’s a good idea to accept a wager to see if one can drink an entire bottle of brandy in one evening,” Drummond explained witheringly.
“I won,” Gage grumbled.
“But at what cost?” Knightly mused.
“But let’s not discuss Gage’s idiocy, as that is expected of him,” Drummond said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I’m more interested in your idiocy, Knightly. How have you missed Annabelle all these years? Is she actually not that pretty?”
“She’s pretty,” he said tightly. By pretty he meant soul-wrenchingly beautiful, the kind of gorgeous that brought a man to his knees. Actually did, last night.
“Pretty? And you only just noticed this . . .” Drummond pointedly let his voice trail off. “ . . . yesterday . . . a week ago . . . a month ago?”
When she started trying to make him notice. When he informally betrothed himself to a perfectly fine woman who possessed no traits that attracted him, other than her high society connections. When it was too late for him.
Aye, he noticed Annabelle not in all the years when he could have, but waited until it was absolutely and completely inconvenient to do so. No wonder she called him the Nodcock.
“I take it you’ve noticed her now, Nodcock,” Drummond remarked.
Knightly lunged across the table once more, once again tugging hard on Drummond’s cravat, by now a limp and wrinkled scrap of fabric.
“Have mercy on a man,” Gage pleaded. “Please. For the love of Annabelle.”
“This is serious, is it?” Drummond asked after Knightly released him—but not without a threatening look.
“It’s none of your damned business,” Knightly said. And still—still!—Drummond blithely carried on, provoking him more with each word he uttered. That was the problem with longstanding friends—they felt utterly free to go too far and to enjoy every step they took over the line.
“Au contraire, mon frère,” Drummond declared. “Annabelle’s business is all of London’s business. If you do not do right by this chit, I will come for you—if you are the Nodcock, that is, and not some desperate pretender—and I will bring the mob. And then I will go and console Annabelle myself. Nakedly.”
This time Knightly swung at him, his fist connecting solidly with Drummond’s jaw. Satisfied his point had been made, Knightly quit the coffeehouse.
Chapter 39
An Offer She Can Refuse
DEAR ANNABELLE
Attentions are one thing, affections are quite another. True love cannot be sparked by parlor tricks. A lower bodice will catch a man’s gaze, but it will not make him care. A forgotten shawl may afford a moment alone, but it will not lead to love . . . and if it did, would that be fair? This author thinks not and encourages all—particularly Scandalously in Love—to hold out for true love.
The London Weekly
KNIGHTLY arrived at the Swift household later that afternoon, after a nightmare-plagued sleep in which Annabelle fell from that branch and he hadn’t caught her in time.
A maid answered the door. That wicked sister-of-law of hers made the most snide and horrid comments when he stepped into the drawing room. This time, children were present. Plump little faces looked up at him from their books and games with sullen expressions. They did not seem pleasant.
Her brother reluctantly took his damned issue of The London Times and the rest of the family into another room, only at Knightly’s request that he and Annabelle might have some privacy.
The man did not seem the slightest bit curious why his unmarried sister might wish to have a private audience with a gentleman. Really, he ought to have pulled him aside to ask his intentions. That he did not was a black mark in Knightly�
��s book, even though it was to his own benefit.
He needed to take her away from this house, the awful relatives and uncomfortable furniture. He would install her in his town house. They’d make love each night. And during the day she’d easily be able to walk to the Mayfair homes of the other Writing Girls and the shops on Bond Street. She’d want for nothing.
Maybe he’d even marry her. The thought crossed his mind, and for the first time his heart didn’t rebel.
Knightly was glad he’d brought flowers. Pink roses. She seemed like a pink roses kind of woman. She had told him that, at any rate. He’d waffled because Marsden had sent them to her. Knightly had no idea that the purchase of flowers for a woman was so fraught with peril.
“Annabelle,” he said once they were alone. “Annabelle,” he said, with urgency and lust and fear and restraint.
“Good afternoon, Derek,” she said softly.
She smiled faintly, with just a slight curve to her lips. Her eyes seemed more gray than blue—he noticed those subtle distinctions now. Something was wrong. He knew it, because he knew her now.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner,” he said.
“That’s all right. You had quite a lot to do with the paper. I understand,” she said softly. Annabelle was always so understanding and generous. In this situation, any other woman would be hollering at him like a banshee. But Annabelle knew what this meant to him and let him have his moment. It was admirable of her—or was it too nobly self-sacrificing?
“I brought you flowers,” he said, reduced to stating the bloody obvious. Good God, what did this woman do to him? He mastered tense negotiations, dealt with irate readers, and conducted interviews and interrogations eliciting all manner of incriminating confessions.
“Thank you,” she said softly. She took the bouquet and inhaled deeply with her eyes closed, the pink buds casting a pink glow over her skin.
When she opened her eyes, they were still more gray than blue, more haunted than happy.
He exhaled impatiently, annoyed with himself. He should just treat this like a business negotiation in which the goal was to achieve a mutually satisfying outcome.
Yet he was dealing with a woman, with Annabelle . . . A confession of his feelings was in order, which was a problem because he didn’t know how to make sense enough to explain them. Hoping she’d favor disorganized honesty rather than artfully arranged sentiments, he plowed ahead.
“Annabelle, about the other night . . .” he said, clasping her hands. “I can’t stop thinking about it. About you. Now that I finally see you, I never want to close my eyes. I want to know you.”
“Oh, Knightly,” she whispered. Those haunted gray eyes were now slicked over with tears. Her eyelashes were dark, damp. Where those tears of joy? A man could hope, but he could not be sure.
Knightly felt as if he were thrust upon the stage on opening night, to perform in a play he had never watched or read. He didn’t have a flair for the dramatic, or an ability to improvise.
He stated facts. That was all. He would state them now.
“I want you to live with me, Annabelle. And I want to save you from this awful household. You’ll stay with me and spend your days with the Writing Girls and writing your advice column and we’ll spend long nights together.
“That does sound lovely,” she said, and he heard the however that was yet unspoken. And then she sighed—a sigh so laden with feeling that even he felt it deep in his bones. It was a sigh containing heartache, whispering of a cruel, cruel world, and suggestive of utter, unrelenting sadness.
She used to sigh with happiness when he walked into the room. Bewildered, he wondered when that had changed, and why.
“But I cannot.” She said the words flatly.
She said no.
Annabelle said no.
For a second Knightly’s heart stopped beating. Blood stopped circulating, air ceased to flow. He would have sworn that the earth stopped spinning. Even though he stood on firm ground, the sensation of falling stole over him. In this epic fall, he reached out for Annabelle but she pulled back her hand and turned away.
He stiffened all over, bit down hard. He had felt this before, years before, when he was thrown out of his own father’s funeral. Throw the bastard out. He doesn’t belong here. This feeling was a desperate, driving need to belong. It was abandonment and rejection from the one he needed approval from.
At this moment it was all the more devastating because he’d never expected it—she was Dear Annabelle intent on wooing him, the Nodcock. All of London knew this. All of London had cheered her on. This was her moment, and she refused it.
He had thought she’d throw herself into his arms and kiss him with love and gratitude. He never thought she would say no.
Worse, worse, a thousand times worse, he realized in this moment that he wanted her to say yes.
“Cannot or will not?” he asked sharply. His chest was tight. Breathing was impossible.
“I forced your hand, and that wasn’t right,” she explained in an anguished voice. “And now with this awful business at The Weekly . . .”
“Leave the paper out of this, Annabelle,” he said roughly. He didn’t want any favors or her idea of better judgment. His temper flared, and he didn’t try all that hard to restrain the anger. He stepped closer to her, looming above her. There was no anguish in his voice when he said, “You made me notice you. You made me see, and now I can’t stop thinking of you.”
“I didn’t realize the consequences!” she cried, stepping back. “And you say forget the paper, but you can’t really mean it. I know you, Knightly. I know you better than anyone.”
They were both thinking of how he’d rushed out and left her alone in the morning after making love to her. He had not forgotten the paper. It had been at the forefront of his mind even as a beautiful, naked woman who loved him was in his bed. After risking her life and her reputation and her everything to get there.
These facts revealed a brutal and unflattering truth.
“Knightly, you ought to marry Lady Lydia and have your newspaper and forget about me.” She said this in such a small, pitiful voice. But he couldn’t feel pity, not now.
Not when he only discovered what he’d lost as it was slipping away.
Like he hadn’t appreciated sunlight until a month of gray skies and rain, he had the feeling a long, dark winter was only just beginning.
He was angry, and though it was petty and cruel, he needed her to know that.
“I can’t stop thinking about you, Annabelle. You wanted my attentions, and now you have them and you’re throwing it back in my face.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. A few tears streamed down her cheeks. He wanted to kiss those tears away. Wanted to take her in his arms and hold her. They probably both wanted that. But she wouldn’t allow it now, would she?
“That makes two of us,” he said. With those parting words, he left.
Chapter 40
Woman Drowns in Own Tears (Almost)
If you love something, set it free.
Some heartless and unfeeling person
Annabelle’s attic bedroom
ANNABELLE sat at her little writing desk, tears sliding forlornly down her cheeks. To her left, a bouquet of dead and dried pink roses. To her right, a fresh bouquet all luscious and fragrant. Before her was a sheet of paper and her writing things. She intended a reply to Lady Marsden. And she owed an explanation to London.
But her heart was too broken for her brain to even contemplate words and sentences.
Relinquishing Knightly and releasing him from any obligation to her was the right thing to do. She was certain of it.
But God, oh God, it hurt. Hurt like when they buried her parents, but worse, because Knightly was still living and breathing in the world. Probably hating her, too, which was not the passion she’d been trying
to incite in him.
She could still vividly recall what it felt like to be held in his arms. She could still taste his kiss, and her body remembered what it was like to have him inside of her. To be wanted and possessed by him. It was . . . it was a kind of glory that could never be replaced. It was why she had refused Mr. Nathan Smythe from the bakery up the road. She had waited for this and it had been worth it.
Yet she refused him.
She was mad, utterly mad.
No, she was a Good Girl. She was Annabelle who always did the right thing, and who always put others before herself. Old Annabelle or New Annabelle, it was all the same. Her own happiness was the least of her concerns, especially when it came to what was right. Or what was best for Knightly.
She knew the truth: she had teased and tugged his affections from him. Could they ever be happy knowing that she conjured up love like a wicked sorceress? Could they ever be happy knowing that he had sacrificed his life’s ambition of conquering the haute ton for marriage to a Spinster Auntie of no consequence?
Annabelle did not believe happiness was possible under such circumstances. She wanted true happiness.
Much as she loved him, she still loved and cherished herself, too. If she cared any less, she would have accepted his paltry offer. She would have sacrificed her body and soul to be his lover. She would be his little mistress who penned the cute advice column until he tired of her or found a duke’s sister or an earl’s daughter to marry.
So parted they must be, however much it might hurt. Dear God, this hurt.
She’d made him notice her. But she didn’t make him love her.
Chapter 41
Breaking News: the Nodcock Finally Falls in Love
Dear Annabelle,
We, the undersigned, think the Nodcock does not deserve you. Nevertheless, we wish that he would come to his senses and love you.