Seducing Mr. Knightly (41 page)

Dear Annabelle’s True Identity Discovered

D
EAR
A
NNABELLE

This author discourages standing in the path of true love.

The London Weekly

Earlier . . .

A
NNABELLE
had grabbed her shawl and was reaching for her bonnet for her journey to Newgate, where she was going to tell Knightly YES. It didn’t matter that it was Newgate, the least romantic location in Europe, possibly even the entire Northern Hemisphere.

He loved her. She loved him.

Nothing could stop them now.

An obstacle immediately presented itself: Blanche and her friend Mrs. Underwood, the witch. They entered through the front door, effectively blocking Annabelle’s path.

“What horrible disaster is in the news that has you weeping, a fire in an orphanage?” Blanche asked as she absorbed the tears on Annabelle’s face and the newspaper she clutched in her hands. Mrs. Underwood hovered just behind Blanche’s shoulder with an evil gleam in her eye.

“Nothing,” Annabelle said stupidly. Then she cringed. It was tantamount to shouting
I’m not guilty!
or
Look at this!
or
Question me further!

“Nothing? Nothing has you weeping like a schoolgirl at a rubbish novel? Let me see that!” Blanche said, snatching the newspaper from Annabelle’s hands and quickly scanning the lines.

It was the picture that did her in. Owens must have found it and plunked it in to fill space, not knowing the damage it would do. Knightly wouldn’t have exposed her thusly.

“You’re Dear Annabelle?” Mrs. Underwood said incredulously from her position still behind Blanche’s shoulder. She gave Annabelle a once-over and then pulled a face of utter disbelief. “I never would have thought you capable of that.”

“What is that?” Blanche asked, frowning.

“Blanche, you are the only one who doesn’t read
The London Weekly
. And it looks like you’ve been living with one of the Weekly Wenches,” Mrs. Underwood said, her voice tinged with a cackle.

“I suppose this is the work of that gentleman caller you entertained,” Blanche said icily.

“Has the Nodcock been here?” Mrs. Underwood asked, gasping with unabashed excitement. She was obviously going to dine out on this story of months, Annabelle could tell. And she didn’t like it. She felt a flush of anger. “Blanche, have you met him? Oh goodness me. ‘Entertained’ is one way to put it. She had climbed into his bedroom window in the dead of the night!”

Amongst all the things Annabelle felt at the moment, she suffered a particular irritation that she would be so betrayed by a regular reader of the column. She had assumed, in her eternal good faith, that her readers were championing her. Perhaps the rest of them were. Just not Mrs. Underwood. She tried to inch toward the door. To freedom. To true love.

“Allow me to summarize the facts,” Blanche said in a voice that allowed no contradiction. “You have been dallying with a man.”

“Don’t deny it,” Mrs. Underwood said, wagging her finger. “All of London knows you did.”

Of course they did. Because she thought to pen her most intimate thoughts and actions in the most widely read newspaper in London. Widely read, that is, save for her own household. A fire started to burn in her belly at the unjust treatment of her. So what if she dallied with a man she loved, who loved her back? She was a free, consenting adult in the eyes of the law and everyone else, save for Blanche and her horrid friend.

“You have been writing for this news rag,” Blanche gasped with the same degree of horror had, say, Annabelle been caught digging up dead bodies in the cemetery and selling them to science. Not only was the act itself repugnant, but she didn’t believe Annabelle possessed the strength.

Maybe I do, Annabelle thought. The fire in her belly grew hotter.

“I suppose all that charity work was a lie,” Blanche carried on, her eyes narrowed. Annabelle could see the machinery churning in her brain as she stitched all the pieces together. One could practically see the steam rising from her ears and hear the roar of the engine.

“She’s been writing for years,” Mrs. Underwood said. “This column started four years ago, I think it was?” she asked, damning her even more. Annabelle decided her next column would be about minding one’s own business.

Blanche drew a deep breath and squared her shoulders; the effect made her appear larger and more formidable. Her eyes narrowed and her mouth pinched into a mean line.

Annabelle knew she was meant to be intimated, or feel guilt or shame for her secret. However, instead of cowering as she tended to do, inspired by the brilliant and courageous man who loved her, she drew up to her full height—which was considerably taller than Blanche, she noted. She lifted her head high. She was a writer at the best newspaper in the world and she had the love of a good man. A man who was defiant and proud, and would want her to be defiant and proud, too.

“Three years, eight months, two weeks, and six days,” Annabelle said, looking Blanche in the eye. Without blinking. Or blushing. The fire in her belly raged.

“And in that time I have given you room and board out of our own pockets when you have had an income of your own,” Blanche said, absolutely aghast.

“Yes, and I did the work of a housemaid and a governess in exchange,” Annabelle said. She could feel Knightly cheering her on and the thrill of his pride. Oh, she was so excited to tell him YES and to tell him about this scene in which Dear Annabelle stood up for herself.

He would be so proud of her. But it wouldn’t compare to the pride she felt for herself.

Blanche’s explosion started with a huff. And then a
harrumph
. And then a wail. She grabbed a fistful of Annabelle’s hair, now an option thanks to Owens’s coiffure suggestions, and yanked hard. Annabelle flailed, trying to stop Blanche without loosing a significant portion of her hair and scalp.

Mrs. Underwood hovered and cackled.

With a firm grasp on Annabelle’s hair, her fingernails digging her scalp, and a wicked twist of her wrist, Blanche pulled Annabelle to the stairs.

Annabelle tripped halfway up and was dragged the rest of the way. She was kicked and shoved and ruthlessly forced up the creaky flight of stairs leading to her attic bedroom.

It was only there that Blanche released her, and she did so with a forceful thrust that sent Annabelle tumbling to the floor, landing with a thud on the hardwood.

“I’d set you out on the doorstep now were it not for Thomas. You just wait here until he comes home,” Blanche hissed, eyes blazing with fury. Thomas was on a business trip. It was not certain when he would return.

With that, Blanche slammed the door behind her, and locked it.

Chapter 52

True Love Stops at Nothing

M
ISS
H
ARLOW’S
M
ARRIAGE IN
H
IGH
L
IFE

This author suspects a highly anticipated wedding will occur—soon. Three years, eight months, two weeks, and one day after love at first sight.

The London Weekly

The tree conveniently growing outside of Annabelle’s attic bedroom

Midnight

B
EING
a born and bred city boy, Knightly did not have much practice climbing trees. Logic dictated that Annabelle didn’t have much experience with it either, and yet she had managed it, therefore he should be able to as well.

“Here goes,” he muttered, grabbing onto the lowest branch and pulling himself up. He thought about taking care not to wake Annabelle’s awful relatives and then decided he cared more about getting to Annabelle alive and unbroken than he did about the quality of their sleep.

If this went according to plan, it would be a loud night indeed with his and Annabelle’s cries of pleasure. He loved her. He needed to tell her, and to show her. Anticipation spurred him on as he grabbed one branch then another and pulled himself up. More than once he uttered a prayer of thanks for Annabelle’s column in which she shared tips for midnight tree climbing.

Of course her bedroom had to be in the attic, three stories off the ground. Her fellow Writing Girls gleefully offered this information to him—after he was acquitted on all charges and ordered to find Annabelle and provide a satisfying resolution to her quest to secure the attentions and affections of the Nodcock. The Judge also let it be known he expected to read about a happy ending in the next issue of
The London Weekly.

That would all have to wait. Some things were more important.

He could have called upon her tomorrow, with an entire hothouse worth of pink roses and sapphires to match her blue eyes. There was time for flowers and roses. But he could not wait any longer to tell her that he loved her or to show her that he would do anything to be with her, including climbing an old tree on a moonless night all the way up to her third-story bedroom.

Knightly finally hauled himself onto her window ledge. Fortunately it was a warm summer night and she kept the window open just a few inches. After all, why would she suspect that anyone would climb three stories into her bedroom? It was the act of a desperate man.

Finally he tumbled into her bedroom. Somewhere, a clock chimed midnight.

A
NNABELLE
awoke immediately, hearing someone thudding into her bedroom from the window.
The third-story window.
She lay still, her heart pounding and breath held, while considering her options.

She could feign sleep, or death.

She could discreetly reach for the pewter candleholder on her bedside table and wield it as a weapon.

Or she could assume that it would be useless to fight whomever had gone to all the bother of climbing into her third-story bedroom window in the dead of the night. Obviously, the person was determined.

Or insane. She reached for the candleholder and clutched it tightly against her chest. She recalled that the door to the rest of the house was locked. Thus, she would have to fight or climb out the window and shimmy down the tree in her nightgown.

She was about to sigh and curse her luck when a voice spoke in the darkness.

“Annabelle, it’s me.”

She knew that voice. Her heart pounded hard, but no longer from fear. She sat up in bed, blankets pooling around her waist, her hair a tumbling mess around her shoulders. Of course he climbed into her window on the night she wore some plain, drab, spinsterish nightgown. She thought of all the silky underthings in her armoire and considered asking him to wait whilst she changed.

She sighed and cursed her luck.

“Derek? What are you doing here?” she asked. She set down the candlestick and fumbled to light it. With the candle lit, she blinked, not quite believing the sight of her beloved Knightly in her attic bedroom.

“Well I couldn’t very well faint into your arms, now could I?” Knightly replied, grinning. She wondered if this was a dream.

“What are you talking about?” she asked. Men didn’t faint and they certainly didn’t do so into a woman’s arms. It would be impractical. And embarrassing. Injurious. This must be a dream.

“Oh, Annabelle,” he said, and she heard warmth and laughter in his voice.

“It’s the middle of the night and you have tumbled into my bedroom. I’m not sure if I’m awake or dreaming. Don’t ‘oh Annabelle’ me. What is going on?” she asked, utterly perplexed and not quite her cheerful self until at least a quarter hour after waking. “I thought you were in prison.”

“I was. But the courts have found me not guilty,” he told her. She released a breath she didn’t know she had been holding.

“And so you have come here. At midnight,” Annabelle said. He loved her, he had declared so in the newspaper. But it was the middle of the night and she possessed a fantastic imagination, which made her fear she was imagining this entire encounter.

But no, Knightly crossed the room and sat beside her on the bed. He brushed a lock of hair away from her face and brushed his lips across hers. There was no mistaking his touch.

“It so happens that I fell in love with an amazing woman and wanted to capture her attention,” he told her. “Being a nodcock, I didn’t know what to do other than rely on the experiences of a certain popular advice columnist.”