Seducing Mr. Knightly (32 page)

“This is awkward,” she muttered to herself. Being a Good Girl her entire life meant that she had never even contemplated what she might do if she found herself naked and alone in a gentleman’s bedchamber in broad daylight.

Her first thought was to put some clothes on. Yet the only clothing she had with her was better fit for a lad and in a wrinkled heap on the floor on the far side of the room.

It was one thing for a woman to dress as a boy with the darkness of night to aid her. It was quite another for her to stroll through the streets of Mayfair during midday. Julianna had done it once . . . but Annabelle did not possess Julianna’s brisk, determined stride.

Plus, she thought her shirt might have been divested of a few buttons.

Even more perilous than walking through the streets of London at midday in such a state was returning to the Swift household. By now they must have discovered that she was missing, if only because breakfast wasn’t set out or fires weren’t lit or the children weren’t woken at precisely six in the morning.

Annabelle glanced at the clock; it was eleven. Eleven in the morning!

“Oh, dear,” she said to herself. The raptures of pleasure and love she’d been basking in were now ebbing, replaced with panic.

She should know what to do. She was Dear Annabelle. She always knew what to do. Matters of practicality were her strong suit. It was in the romance department that she was an utter nitwit. In her head, she positioned her situation as a letter to Dear Annabelle, with half a mind to submit it to Knightly.

Dear Annabelle?

A “gentleman” left me stranded and naked in his bed. What to do?

Mortified in Mayfair.

If only Knightly hadn’t dashed off, leaving her like this!

What had she expected? If there was one thing known about Knightly, one carved-in-stone fact, it was that
The London Weekly
came first and last. He spent so much of his time in the office that the Writing Girls had fiercely debated whether she should climb into his bedroom or drop in to
The Weekly
offices. They only settled on his bedchamber because Mayfair would be safer than Fleet Street at such an hour.

She should not take it personally that he had run out, leaving her naked in his bed with no clothes. It was just how he was.

Unless he meant to strand her here, awaiting his return, like some obliging mistress? While there were worse things than laying about in bed all day, with Knightly’s scent still on the pillows, she knew she could not wait for him. For one thing, it seemed undignified. For another, for all she knew it could be days before he returned.

What to do, oh what to do?

She pulled the silk bell cord. And waited. Pulled the sheet up higher and waited until a moment later when an older woman opened the door and behind her a maid with a tray.

“Mr. Knightly told us to take care of you, so we’ll do just that. I’m Mrs. Featherstone, the housekeeper.”

The women acted thoroughly unsurprised to find a naked woman in his bed. Annabelle scowled. She didn’t think he’d been a monk, but why didn’t anyone find it at all remarkable?

She considered asking, but decided she did not want the answer. Instead, she requested assistance in sending a note to Sophie.

Chapter 37

Quest for Rogue’s Heart Leads to Disaster

F
ASHIONABLE
I
NTELLIGENCE BY A
L
ADY OF
D
ISTINCTION

Dear Annabelle has launched a craze for feigning faints and tantalizingly low bodices among the ton’s debutantes. Mothers and determined bachelors are afraid of what she will do next.

The London Weekly

S
OPHIE
came to her rescue and arrived shortly with a dress, stockings, a bonnet, and all the other items necessary for her to appear in public. It was lovely that she did not have to explain why such a favor was required.

“I trust the evening was successful,” Sophie inquired after they were comfortably ensconced in her carriage.

“Oh yes,” Annabelle said. At the thought of it, that warm glow returned. Her cheeks inflamed, as they were wont to do, when images from the night before flashed in her mind. But then she recalled Knightly’s abrupt exit. “But this morning . . .” How to explain this morning?

“I trust you both saw the news.
The London Weekly
under attack,” Sophie said softly. “Did you read the article?”

She had done so while nibbling toast and drinking tea. Mrs. Featherstone had given her one of Knightly’s shirts to wear, and she’d been loath to take it off when Sophie arrived with more suitable public attire.

“It’s rather bad, isn’t it?” Annabelle asked.
The London Times
had reported that Marsden’s Inquiry would be expanding to review all newspapers, starting first and foremost with
The London Weekly
. The newspaper’s owner and editor would be called to testify. He might be charged with libel. He would almost certainly find himself in prison.

“He might lose the paper, Annabelle.” Sophie said this softly, her expression woeful.

“He owns it. How can they take it away?” she asked. More to the point,
The London Weekly
belonged to Knightly in a way that went beyond mere possession. Like it was his heart, or his soul.

“Well, the paper might lose him if the Inquiry determines that we broke the law with our reporting methods. Just think of Owens and Eliza . . .” Sophie said, wincing.

The devil only knew what Owens had done for stories: he’d posed as a Bow Street Runner, a guard at Windsor Castle, a footman at the Duke of Kent’s residence. Those were the exploits they knew of.

Eliza had been disguised for weeks as a housemaid in the Duke of Wycliff’s household, exposing his most intimate secrets each week (before he married her, that is).

“They couldn’t possibly send a duchess to the tower.” Annabelle’s heart clenched, imagining such an awful fate for people whom she loved so dearly. They hadn’t really done anything wrong. No one had been hurt.

“It’s unlikely they would go after Eliza. Really, Marsden is just out for Knightly. Rest assured, Brandon is working tirelessly behind the scenes, and even Roxbury and Wycliff have deigned to show their faces at the House of Lords for the first time. But Marsden is furious.”

“Why? What has Knightly ever done to him?” Marsden, who had sent her pink roses. Marsden, who had coined the phrase “the Nodcock.” Marsden, who had been one of the few gentlemen to ever pay attention to her. She felt betrayed for thinking him kind, a friend. She felt like a traitor to Knightly for her friendliness toward Marsden. She also felt like a fool.

“Marsden is livid because it seems Knightly and his fortune were supposed to marry his sister—whom no one else will have,” Sophie said, and with an apologetic smile added, “Then Knightly was seen with you . . .”

“Oh,” Annabelle said in small voice, thinking of their kiss in the moonlight at the charity ball. The moment when she really, truly fell in love with Knightly as he was, not Knightly of her dreams. She had thought that hour enchanted, and never considered that such destruction would be left in its wake.

Knightly had been courting Lady Lydia and was her only marital prospect, thanks to all those rumors and the missing second season. Was she now doomed to a life of spinsterhood, because of her? Knightly had been courting her, too, in order to protect his beloved newspaper. Was he doomed to lose the thing he loved most in the world?

It trying to obtain her own happiness, it seemed she ruined the lives of two innocent people.

“Oh no,” she whispered as she all too clearly saw how this was her fault. All of it—Marsden’s fury, Knightly’s fight for
The Weekly,
Lady Lydia’s impending spinsterhood. If she hadn’t caught his eye and glanced over her shoulder, as per the suggestion of some stranger, when she strolled onto the terrace . . .

If she hadn’t fainted into his arms, or left that shawl behind, or lowered the bodice on each dress she owned in a hope to catch his eye, and then his heart . . .

If she hadn’t thrown herself at him week after week . . .

If Knightly had never noticed her, he would have married Lady Lydia and everything would be fine. There wouldn’t be an inquiry or a trial or the threat of prison. He wouldn’t be faced with the loss of the thing he loved most of all.

But she had grown selfish and desperate in her loneliness. She had tried tricks and schemes to turn his head. She had forced him to catch her when she fainted. She had climbed a tree and tumbled into his bedroom in the middle of the night.

It had never occurred to Annabelle that she was distracting him from something else or someone else.

She had only wanted his love. Now it seemed that she’d ruined his life in her quest for it.

“What do I do?” she asked. She had to fix this, somehow. Because this disaster was her fault and because she loved him, she had to make this right.

“Wait and see, I suppose . . .” Sophie said with a little shrug.

“No, I must fix this,” Annabelle vowed. She would. No matter what it cost her.

Chapter 38

The London Weekly
Courts Scandal

F
ASHIONABLE
I
NTELLIGENCE BY A
L
ADY OF
D
ISTINCTION

The matrons of the ton are united in their fury against the vice of gossip in the press and have pledged their support to Lord Marsden’s efforts to promote a “decent and honorable” newspaper industry. That is, until they must go without their scandal sheets.

The London Weekly

Galloway’s Coffeehouse

I
T
had been one hell of a day and one hell of a night. Darkness came and went; Knightly noted its arrival and passing from his desk.

He barely slept, barely ate, barely drank.

Barely even thought of Annabelle.

Oh, she was there, in a way—somehow her scent had clung to his skin. When his attention faltered and his gaze drifted to the clock, Knightly thought, At this hour last night, Annabelle was clinging to my windowsill for dear life. At this time last night Annabelle was climaxing in my arms, from my touch.

And truth be told, he even thought, At this time yesterday, I was blissfully unaware . . .

He had been blissfully unaware that Dear Annabelle was intent upon seducing him. Didn’t know that Annabelle loved him. Hadn’t claimed her in the most irrevocable way. He didn’t have to do anything about it. But now there was no question that something must be done about Annabelle. But he couldn’t think about it. He did not have the time to puzzle it out. Not tonight, of all nights, when he had few precious hours to respond to the direct attack to his beloved newspaper.

Knightly and Owens had taken the unprecedented action of stopping the presses so they might rewrite, reset, and reprint a new edition of
The London Weekly
that included a letter from the editor responding to the attack.

They ended up rewriting nearly the entire issue.