Seducing Mr. Knightly (33 page)

“This isn’t working,” Owens had muttered, staring down at the draft of a letter from the editor on the table between them. Dusk was settling over the city, and they’d been working ceaselessly since first light.

“You’re right,” Knightly reluctantly agreed. The front-page story just wasn’t hitting the right notes of outrage, defiance, and humor. Instead it came across like a boorish lecture on the importance of a free press.

Knightly rubbed his jaw. He had left Annabelle hours ago . . . Was she still in his bed? What would it be like to come home, knowing Annabelle awaited him?

He refused to consider it. Instead, he strolled across the room and poured a brandy for himself and Owens.

“You know, Owens, we should show them what a government approved paper reads like.”

“You mean cut out all the good bits?” Owens retorted.

“Basically. And then we rewrite this first page article to explain. You know, ‘
The London Weekly
gives its readers exactly what they want. You asked for this piece of rubbish edition of the paper. And the readers who didn’t want this know why they should be riled up, and who they should direct their anger at. Enjoy.’ ”

“I like it,” Owens said with a grin. “One hell of a statement. But we won’t have time to rewrite and reset the type for the whole issue.”

“Black it out. Cross it out. That way there’s no change in the pages just black lines showing what they’re missing,” Knightly said, and then he thought about it more and got excited. “Can you just see it? Most of the paper will be blacked out.”

“Genius. There will be hell to pay for this,” Owens said. But he was grinning, and Knightly knew he was imagining this utterly defiant edition of the paper with those taunting black lines.

“Publish and be damned,” Knightly said, raising his glass in cheers.

It was one hell of a gamble. Give ’em all exactly what they ask for, sit back and watch them howl. Marsden might be on a personal quest against him, but he was going to make this into a public spectacle. Which is why, exhausted as he was after working for twenty-four straight hours, he went not home to his bed, but to the coffeehouse. To Galloway’s. His club.

He wanted to watch readers react. Wanted to see what he left a beautiful woman in bed for.

He would go to her. Even though he didn’t know quite what to say. The irony that he, a professional master of words, did not know the right ones for this occasion. She loved him. He made love to her.

A proposal of marriage wouldn’t be remiss, but . . . what about love matches and half brothers who refused to acknowledge him? What about hopes and plans he’d long possessed, and what about his impending imprisonment? They would arrest him, surely. Especially after the stunt he pulled with this new issue.

Knightly sipped his coffee, flipped through the pages of
The London Weekly
, and more often than not glanced at the other patrons around the room.

He noted with no small amount of satisfaction that most of the blokes in the coffeehouse were reading his newspaper. Some laughed. Some had their brows knit into deep lines as they tried to puzzle out what the damned articles said. Or maybe they were realizing the stranglehold on news that the government was attempting. More than stamp taxes, or window taxes.

Knightly was reminded, then, that this wasn’t just a personal battle between Marsden and himself, nor was
The Weekly
just his darling pet. It was the newspaper that was written for the people he grew up with—tradesmen and actors, barristers and shopkeepers. And it was the paper for the people he aspired to associate with. It was, like himself, a mix of high and low. He was not one or the other, no matter what his aspirations might be.

As per their usual routine, Drummond and Gage ambled in and took seats at Knightly’s table near the window. They also looked worse for wear, Gage especially, probably after a long night at the theatre and an even longer night at some demimonde soiree. Those routs were much less decorous, Knightly had to say, and thus much more fun than ton parties.

Gage held his head in his hands and groaned. One could practically smell the alcohol emanating from his pores.

Drummond took the paper and wordlessly flipped through quickly until hitting a certain page. Knightly watched, slack-jawed in something akin to horror. All those hours, all the careful deletions, the presses stopped and restarted, a staff on the verge of mutiny, all on a day he could have spent in bed with a beautiful, loving woman . . . and the man went straight to Dear Annabelle.

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

D
EAR
A
NNABELLE

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

K
NIGHTLY
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.