by Maya Rodale
You made a mistake and you will rue the day you threw his proposal into his face, wrote Harriet from Hampstead Heath.
You’re a cruel, heartless woman. How do I cancel my subscription? wrote Angry in Amersham.
My sympathies had been with you and now they are with the Nodcock, you wanton hussy, wrote some coward who hadn’t dared sign a name.
Had she made a mistake? She thought about it and shed copious amounts of hot, salty tears and thought some more (and in all honesty wept more, too). In the end she concluded that she had done the right thing, despite the furious letters. It was love under false pretenses—if at all—and it wasn’t acceptable.
She had waited far too long to settle for anything less than true, eternal love.
The Writing Girls had discussed it over a strong pot of black tea and ginger biscuits.
“I think you might be absolutely mad,” Julianna had told her. “But that is always what they say of the most courageous.”
“I think she is very wise and noble in her actions,” Sophie said. “Especially as she was so swept up in the throes of passion.”
“You did the right thing, Annabelle,” Eliza said, patting her hand consolingly. “He’ll come around.”
“And if not . . . ?” Annabelle asked. She tried to lift one brow and couldn’t manage it. She’d taken to practicing that in front of the mirror and had about as much luck as she did with the sultry gazes. Which is to say, no luck at all. Curses.
They hadn’t a reply for that, which was not reassuring in the slightest.
Would it really be the end of the world if Knightly never truly loved her?
Yes, she concluded. It was one thing to be a Spinster Auntie to Wretched Relatives, but to do so after knowing, for one night, the most exquisite and glorious passions and the heart-stopping, breathtaking, soul-shattering touch of a devastatingly handsome man? Returning to the dull lonely life of Old Annabelle was unbearable.
Nevertheless, Annabelle endured, because that is what Annabelle did.
Thus she attended meetings even as they were now a particular kind of torture because of the pleasure she had known and forgone.
There was never any thought of giving up her writing, though. Other people’s problems distracted her from her own. And it felt good to help other people use the right fork, address a countess properly, find new uses for vinegar, or solve a spat between sisters. With her writing, she made other people happier, and someone ought to be happy, if it wouldn’t be her.
The writers had all gathered, waiting. Knightly always made it a point to arrive last. Outside, wind rattled the windowpanes. There was a low rumble of thunder in the distance. The air was positively electric.
Knightly strolled in.
“Ladies first,” he said with a grin. She didn’t sigh because she was distracted by something particularly wicked in his grin today. She saw a certain light in his eyes. It went without saying she knew all the sparks and dimensions of Knightly’s gaze.
Annabelle sat up straighter.
A meeting progressed in which nothing remarkable happened, or so Annabelle assumed. Her attention had been drawn to the exposed vee of Knightly’s chest. Once again he was eschewing fashion and modesty and not wearing a cravat. How positively scandalous.
It put her in mind of that night. That one glorious night. She clasped her hands in her lap.
About halfway through the meeting he slowly shrugged out of his jacket. That night he’d allowed his shirt to slide off his shoulders, down his muscled arms and falling to the floor, exposing the broad expanse of his chest. Today he set the jacket on the chair and carried on with the meeting wearing nothing but his shirtsleeves and a waistcoat that highlighted how his chest tapered from his broad shoulders to his waist . . . and lower.
Annabelle’s cheeks flamed at her wicked thoughts of Knightly, naked. She bit her lip, hard.
Of course he took his jacket off, she thought; the temperature seemed to have spiked ten degrees. Yet when she glanced around, no one else seemed bothered. Sophie even pulled her shawl tighter around her. She ought to see a doctor about that, for she herself was just about burning up.
Knightly stretched his arms, and she could have sworn she saw the ripple of muscles under the thin white linen of his shirt. Her mouth went dry. She was suddenly parched.
She missed him. Oh, did she ever. She missed his voice and his smile and discovering the real Mr. Knightly. She missed his touch and a whole lot of very unladylike things.
Knightly rolled up the sleeves on his shirt, exposing his forearms. Good Lord, she was now all agog over his arms. Who was the Nodcock now? But those arms had held her—no one else ever held her. Those arms had pulled her close and made her feel loved and cherished, if only for one night. She decided then and there that Knightly would be the only man to know her thus. No matter what happened, there would be no one else.
The heat increased, her skin felt feverish. She was certain her cheeks were pink and that everyone would know she was thinking such wanton thoughts.
Perhaps she did make a mistake. Perhaps she had been too picky and particular about the exact proper circumstances in which love ought to happen. It was a wild thing, wasn’t it? Who was she to impose all the rules and strictures on love?
The meeting concluded and Knightly walked out. She felt the loss intensely as she watched his retreating form while still stuck in her chair.
The other writers trickled out and Sophie dawdled gathering her things. The Writing Girls chattered about society gossip and the latest Paris fashions and other things Annabelle was only paying half a mind to.
In the distance thunder rumbled again. It would rain. Perhaps that would cool her heated skin. But even the thought of cool raindrops tumbling on her scorching skin made her breath hitch. She had become far too sensitive lately.
And then Knightly returned.
“I forgot my jacket,” he drawled, leaning in the doorway. She fought hard for a gulp of air. God, she loved it when he leaned like that. Her mouth went dry. Words eluded her.
“Oh, goodness, is that the time!” Sophie said. “I have an appointment with the modiste.” Annabelle was too tongue-tied to point out that she hadn’t even looked at a timepiece.
“Yes, I promised Roxbury . . .” Julianna said, hot on Sophie’s heels as they pushed past Knightly.
“Wycliff is expecting me . . .” Eliza said, and she too followed the others out of the room, leaving Annabelle and Knightly alone. Quite alone.
“Hello, Annabelle.” His voice was low, and it sent shivers up and down her spine. Goodness, she had better steel herself if he only had to say Hello, Annabelle and she nearly went to pieces. She’d do well to remember that he was probably going to marry lady Lydia to save his newspapers.
But she had to reply to his hello; it would be rude not to. Annabelle, both Old and New, was nothing if not polite.
“Hello.” Her voice had never sounded so breathless, as if she had dashed through Hyde Park with a vile seducer and nefarious murderer in hot pursuit.
“How are you?” he asked. The question was politeness itself, and yet he managed to imbue each word with a hint of wickedness.
“I’m fine, thank you. And yourself?” she replied politely. Young ladies were polite. Young ladies also did not imagine handsome partially clad men closing the door and ravishing them upon the tabletop. Oh very well, this one did. What had become of her?
“Oh, I’m good. Very good,” he said, sounding wicked, very wicked. She longed to fan herself.
“Good,” she echoed, as her brain was not up to the task of forming complex thoughts or sentences. It was still focused on him, leaning, against the doorway. She could see the muscles of his chest outlined through the thin fabric of his shirt. That vee of exposed skin taunted her, begged for her to touch. With her mouth.
“Might you need someone to esc
ort you home?” he inquired.
The words were polite, but delivered in such a wicked way. And how torturous would it be to find herself in an enclosed carriage with him for the long ride to Bloomsbury whilst rain lashed at the windows, and the air was so electrified, and when he had mischief in his eyes?
Annabelle could not conceive of a greater torment. Other than his marriage to Lady Lydia. She ought to remember that. She ought not to think of all the privacy his carriage afforded, those plush velvet seats . . .
“I don’t think so. Why?” she replied suspiciously.
“Because your fellow Writing Girls just left in quite a hurry,” he said. “Which makes me think you may require alternate means of transport.”
“I’ll just walk,” she replied, as if it were really no bother at all. As if Bloomsbury weren’t on the far side of London. But really, how was she to restrain herself if she were alone with him and when he was looking especially sinful in a very seductive way, and when she knew how it felt to kiss him as if her soul’s salvation depended upon it? Her soul suddenly felt in desperate need of salvation.
The thunder rumbled again. The wind rattled the windowpanes again, darkness drenched the city, and the rain now began in earnest, slapping against the windows.
“Really? You will walk from Fleet Street to Bloomsbury in the driving rain?” Knightly asked skeptically.
“Given the weather, I might hire a hack,” she replied. “I am nothing if not sensible.”
“Yes, hired hacks are a-plenty when it is raining,” he said, which was of course utter nonsense. She thought he really ought to pick her up, sling her over his shoulder, and just be done with it, if he was so intent upon taking her home in his carriage. Her protest would be halfhearted, at best.
Clearly, she was doomed.
“I shall manage,” she said, because that’s what she did best: she managed to get by. Managed to restrain her passions. Managed to be polite when she wanted to act with outrageous impropriety. She excelled at managing.
“Come with me, Annabelle,” he said in a low voice. He was leaning, and he smiled at her. He reached out, clasping her hand in his. The thunder rumbled and the rain picked up and, really, how could she say no?
Chapter 45
Love, Restrained. Alas.
TOWN TALK
It seems that Mr. Derek Knightly is the most wanted man in London—both by Dear Annabelle and Lord Marsden’s Inquiry.
The Morning Post
THE carriage ride with Knightly progressed exactly as she expected. It was a slow, sensual torture that tested her resolve. The velvet upholstery was soft under her bare fingertips. The rain lashed gently at the carriage windows, which became opaque with steam from the interior warmth of the carriage. The wheels clattered over the cobblestones, and the conveyance swayed in a gentle, rhythmic motion.
Love under false pretenses was not love at all, she reminded herself.
Even in the short jaunt from the door of The Weekly offices to the door of the carriage, Knightly managed to become drenched in the rain. With his jacket open, his white shirt now clung to his skin, revealing every outline of his sculpted muscles. Annabelle managed to steal only a few sly glances, which she prayed he didn’t notice in the dim interior of the carriage.
Did other women lust after men like this? It wasn’t exactly the conversation of polite or mixed company. Perhaps it would make a good topic for her column . . . if she was feeling wicked.
At this moment she was feeling wicked.
But determined to be good.
She did not want Knightly by hook or by crook.
Keep telling yourself that, Annabelle, a cruel voice in her head taunted.
Raindrops clung to his black eyelashes and then dropped off to roll down his impossibly high cheeks. She was struck by the strange desire to lick them . . . before she kissed him and tasted raindrops warmed from his lips.
Oh, for Lord’s sake, Annabelle, she thought to herself.
She folded her hands primly on her lap, interweaving her fingers and clasping her palms together so she might not be tempted to touch anything. Be. Good. She would Be Good. She would make polite conversation so that she might be distracted from lusty thoughts of sitting on his lap rather than properly on the opposite seat.
“How goes the scandal with The Weekly?” she asked. Politely.
“We covered that in the meeting, Annabelle,” he said, smirking, as if the blasted man knew she hadn’t been paying the slightest attention all along. How mortifying.
“My apologies. I must have been woolgathering,” she replied primly.
“I noticed,” he said in a seductive tone that made her heart skip a beat. “What was on your mind, Annabelle?”
Licking you. Kissing you. The insane feeling of your hands on my skin. Every sensation from the one night we spent together.
“Chores. For Blanche,” Annabelle lied, shamelessly. Some things were just not said aloud, not even by Bold Annabelle.
“Why do you stay there?” Knightly asked. She wasn’t surprised by the question. She could always tell it was on the verge of being voiced by her friends and those who were aware of how her family treated her.
“I have nowhere else to go,” she answered with a shrug. It wasn’t quite the truth, but she didn’t know how to explain the real reason. Because they had almost committed her—a shy, gangly girl of just thirteen—to the workhouse or some other employment where she would have never survived. She worked for her own family instead, grateful to have been spared a worse fate.
“That’s not true,” he said softly. She winced, recalling his offer for her to reside with him—but as his mistress or his pet or his plaything. Not even Old Annabelle would sell herself so short. “I’m sure any one of your friends would and could take you in.”
“I would hate to impose on them. Besides, I am needed there, which makes me feel useful. And they are my family. One ought to devote themselves to their family.”
“All very good reasons,” he said, then he leaned forward, looked deeply into her eyes. “They don’t appreciate you, Annabelle.”
“I know,” she said, even adding a little shrug. Oh, she knew. But having lost some family, she clung to those she had left. Even if it was Thomas, the most inattentive brother in Christendom, and his harridan of a wife. Annabelle couldn’t say those words aloud, and it was bittersweet that she didn’t have to with Knightly. He saw. He knew.
“Do you not feel the same way with your half brother?” she asked, turning the tables on him. “As much as he may scorn you, he is still your family. And people tend to stick with their families, for better or for worse.”
“He doesn’t,” Knightly said flatly, and that was the end of that conversation. She refused to feel badly about introducing a sensitive topic, because after all, she had already lost him. She had nothing left to lose.
The silence, however, would not do.
“Well, how is the scandal?” she asked.
“There are rumors I may be arrested,” Knightly said, uttering such devastating words as easily as one might say There are rumors it is going to be cloudy tomorrow.
“Arrested?” Annabelle gasped.
The carriage rolled to a stop in front of her home. What wretched timing.
She rubbed the steam away from the windows and peeked out. There was a rustle at the drapes in the drawing room window. Blanche was likely watching.
“Oh look, here we are,” Knightly remarked lightly, as if he had not just mentioned such an awful fate looming. “Come, I shall walk you to your door.”
They dashed madly through the downpour, arm in arm from the carriage to the front door. They stood under the porch, seeking its small refuge as rain tumbled down around them. His eyes were dark in the gray light, but they were locked upon hers.
It was a moment in which every breath, every gaze,
was laden with depth and passion and vexing words unsaid. She recognized it from novels. She recognized it because she was living it in this real, heart-pounding moment.
Annabelle tilted her head up to his, and she knew her lips parted, practically begging for his kiss. To be fair, it seemed like he might kiss her. He brushed a wet strand of her hair away from her eyes, his knuckles gently grazing her cheek. His eyes never looked away from hers.
But he didn’t kiss her. She’d have sworn that he wanted to. And yet—
“Goodbye, Annabelle,” he said in his sultry voice. She stood there in the rain and watched him walk away. There was a swagger in his walk, and that, with the mischief she’d seen in his eyes, made her wonder just what Knightly was up to.
Chapter 46
The Arrest
Dear Annabelle . . .
Unfinished letter on the desk of Derek Knightly
Knightly’s Mayfair town house
IT had been impossible to not touch her. He wouldn’t allow himself, much as he wanted to, as part of the seduction. Leave her wanting more. Hadn’t that been one of the schemes? Knightly knew now that however much he’d been tortured by her tricks, she must have suffered mightily in the execution. Seduction, and the willpower required for it, was no walk in the park.
Such were his thoughts as he wandered from one room to the next. He paused near the fire in the drawing room and leaned against the gray marble mantel. Annabelle, dear Annabelle. He craved her touch and ached to caress her so much that he feared his survival depended upon it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to survive if he could not have her.
After that carriage ride in which they both suffered the torment of unrequited love, Knightly had allowed himself to brush one damp curl out of her eyes and indulged in the touch of her cheek, which set him afire. She had reduced him to that mere caress.
His desire for her had not been sated in the slightest by such a benign touch. In fact it only inflamed more, as he was reminded of the softness of her skin. Of how he had once touched her all over, and where no one had ever touched her. Not even Annabelle herself. That he knew of. God, that thought made him hard.