Seducing Mr. Knightly (34 page)

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

A
NNABELLE
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.

Penelope from Piccadilly (and two hundred additional signatures)

S
HE
made him want her.

She giveth and she taketh away. He wanteth.

He didn’t know . . . didn’t know . . . until it was gone, all gone.

Last night the wind had blown, knocking a branch against the glass and rattling the windowpanes. The alacrity with which he dashed out of bed and leapt to the window was mortifying when it was all too clear that Annabelle wasn’t there, awaiting his rescue. It was just the wind, and he’d suffered from an extreme case of wishful thinking.

He drank, as a man is wont to do when confronted with his innermost emotions, particularly ones pertaining to the heart.

He threw himself into work but found no joy in it, not even when
The Weekly
’s rebellious version outsold all others. Another sales record had been reached. His mantra,
scandal equals sales
, had once again proven to be gold, pure gold. The milestone passed, uncelebrated.

There were rumors he would be arrested. He didn’t give a damn.

When it came time for the weekly writers’ meeting, Knightly strolled in, taught and tense and determined to show no emotion.

“Ladies first,” he said with what he hoped was a good approximation of a grin. He glanced around the room, fighting and losing the battle of where his focus would reside. His gaze landed on Annabelle.

She wore one of the Old Annabelle dresses, a drab frock in a particularly dull shade of grayish brown. The cut and fit of the dress did her no favors. He could say that now because he knew the long, lithe legs hidden under those skirts. He knew the gentle taper of her waist, the flare of her hips, and the perfect swells of her breasts.

It was all hidden away behind a sackcloth disguised as a dress.

The sight of her still took his breath away. He felt a hot, tortured flare of longing.

He saw her shoulders roll forward as she clasped her hands in her lap. Her eyes were downcast. It was the posture of Overlooked Annabelle.

She no longer wanted him to notice her, did she?

Yet she sighed when he walked in; his every nerve was attuned for this one small indication that she still cared. It was vitally important that she still cared.