Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Amelia hadn’t been particularly interested in taking breakfast in the morning room again, but her husband had sent away the servant holding a breakfast tray, insisting they start the day together as a family.
She’d been amused by that insistence, but now it was odd, having a man watch her eat as closely as he was doing. There was no one else in the room to distract him besides the children. The duke and duchess had not arrived downstairs as yet.
She was glad of that. She was still somewhat shaken by the duke’s disapproval. She could not remain at Stapleton if that was how he would act toward her every day of her marriage.
But without the duke and duchess around, she could appreciate the splendor of this room and the manor she would one day live in.
It was clear this room was used often, central to the duke’s study and the drawing room, as it were.
The servants had a hidden stairway just outside the chamber, leading downward to the estate kitchen.
She had not met the housekeeper yet, or anyone beyond a handful of efficient upstairs servants.
She glanced across at her husband, studying him while his attention was directed at the children sitting between them.
He was fond of them, but not playful. He was good at keeping his affection evenly balanced between the boy and girl, although the girl tried hard to claim the bulk of his attention.
Lucy would be a handful when she grew up. High-spirited and used to coming first in her father’s eyes. Amelia hoped to temper her demanding ways before another sibling came along. If one ever did.
She found it hard to know how to react to her husband. He was a man of intense feeling, but the direction of those feelings was often unclear.
He had been badly burned by his late wife’s behavior, and until they’d discussed a marriage between them, he had seemed dismissive of all women.
But she found Chatham intelligent, attractive, and she’d enjoyed his kisses very much.
“A letter for you, Lord Chatham,” the butler announced, hurrying into the room.
Amelia breathed a sigh of relief that her husband’s attention would be distracted for a little while as he read it.
“There are letters for you as well, Lady Chatham,” the butler announced, startling her enough to drop her fork. Would she ever become used to being addressed as Lady Chatham?
“Thank you, Mr. Brown,” she answered, reaching for a stack of letters perched on a small silver tray.
She flicked through them, astonished to have received so many at once, and here. There was one from her brother, her sister, and from the aunt she’d never gotten along with.
She glanced across the table and found Chatham watching her closely again. “News from Devon. Your things have arrived, and I am assured everything is whole and sound.”
“That could not be true,” she told him with a sigh. “My harp was damaged long ago.”
Chatham glanced at the letter and scowled. “There is no mention of that here. Damnation.”
“Papa!”
He winced. “You did not hear that.”
“Yes, we did,” Adam said with a giggle, which made his father laugh, too.
He looked across at Amelia’s letters and his expression grew serious once more.
Amelia set her letters aside to read later in favor of finishing her breakfast. “I appear to be very popular today.”
He made an odd noise, a grumble of discontent, and she looked to him, startled.
“Go ahead, read them now,” he told her, tossing his napkin onto his empty plate and sitting back.
Amelia was still eating and did not rush to comply. “They can wait until we are done here.”
His expression grew dark, angry, and she frowned at him. He had no cause to react like that, acting as if she was wrong not to do as he said. There surely couldn’t be anything important in her letters. Unless…
Amelia closed her eyes, struck by an uncomfortable suspicion.
The late Lady Chatham had conducted many affairs behind his back…and would likely have received love letters by mail.
Had Chatham just been reminded of that?
Well, Amelia would not be conducting affairs or keeping secrets from her husband.
But she took her time finishing her food, and once the children became restless, she led the way out to the garden, where they could play and her husband could prowl, expressing his agitation to his heart’s content without a servant looking on.
She carried her letters with her as she walked beside her husband, fighting the instinct to react to his tension. “I prefer to read in bright light,” she told him, and it was the truth. She pointed to the distant dark clouds. “I do hope the weather will hold long enough to get through them all.”
She sat down and read her letter from her brother in front of Chatham, smiling as Anthony complained that the servants were unmanageable already.
But his complaints only meant that at last he understood all Amelia had done for him.
She had made Anthony’s life easy. He now had to make some decisions on his own, and perhaps that would help him change his mind about taking a wife at last.
She casually passed the letter to her husband to read and watched for his reaction. “My poor brother is overwhelmed by his new solitude.”
Although appearing surprised by her offer of the letter, Chatham devoured her brother’s words with obvious interest. Slowly, a smile blossomed on his face. “What did he expect when he let you go?”
“He probably never knew how much I did for him.”
“Or appreciated it, it seems.”
Amelia turned her attention to the next letter, penned in a hand she recognized too well.
Her younger sister’s letter was not amusing. Caroline complained of being the last to know about the marriage and felt certain Amelia had married a man of rank out of pure spite.
She also demanded that Amelia and Chatham present themselves immediately at her home before she would approve the match.
Amelia had been utterly blindsided by her sister’s marriage to her beau, and would not be seeking her sister’s approval for anything in her new life. She was the elder, and now of higher rank than her petulant little sister, who was only Mrs. Norris.
The betrayal by her younger sibling still cut too deeply and would never be forgotten. But at the time, Amelia had been forced to be accepting of the match.
Savaged dreams of love and family took a long time to heal, if they ever completely went away.
She passed her sister’s letter to her husband, also, but did not watch him read it.
Her aunt’s note was blunt and brutal.
She closed the letter with a shaking hand and set it aside, feeling burned all over again due to the unfair criticisms. But the words repeated in her head.
Brazen hussy, adventuress, desperate to outrank her more deserving sister, and despised for the cunning of seducing a widower who should have been left for a debutant on the marriage mart to claim.
Suddenly, Chatham was sitting by her side. “Amelia? What is it?”
“Nothing I shouldn’t have expected.”
“You’re so pale that I must know. Let me see.”
“I would prefer it if you did not read that letter. My aunt does not say much that is flattering about my character.”
“Show me.” Chatham held out his hand…and reluctantly, Amelia passed it over.
His response was as quick as she feared it would be.
“Devil take it! No wonder your face grew so pale. Foolish old goat, to blame you for the fickle attentions of a bounder like Norris still. She is not, under any circumstances, to be invited to visit us if that is how she speaks of you. Your sister, too. Our butler can burn all future letters from them if you wish him to do so.”
Amelia sat back with a breath of surprise.
It was quite unexpected to have someone so completely on her side for once that they offered ways to protect her feelings.
She had been dreading introducing her aunt to her husband’s family, to be honest. His family would have disliked her even more after her aunt was done gossiping about her shortcomings.
“Thank you.”
“I shall give your sister the cut direct if she so much as looks at you unkindly, too,” Chatham continued. “The damn nerve to say such things to my wife.”
She laughed softly. “I’m sure the cut direct won’t be necessary, but thank you for the offer.”
“I’ve never understood why your family thinks so poorly of you, when you were the one betrayed.”
She smiled slightly. “My little sister was forever their favorite. Mrs. Norris can do no wrong in their eyes.”
“She did a great deal wrong, I think, in stealing your beau from under your nose.”
Amelia shook her head. “Looking back, perhaps she did me a favor. I’ve heard the rumors about his behavior, and hers. For all their declaration of love and devotion for each other, they both took lovers in the first year of their marriage, and he has a mistress now, I believe.”
“Lucky for me, as well,” Chatham murmured.
Amelia laughed at his smug expression. “Yes, I suppose my ruin was to your advantage in the end.”
“But you were not ruined. Not the way people gossiped about.” He caught up her hand and brought it to his lips.
His lips grazed her knuckles, his breath warming her skin, setting her heart to hammer against her ribs, as it always seemed to do.
“I insist you never think that way about yourself again.”
Amelia clutched her letters with one hand but couldn’t look away from her husband’s eyes, and how he was kissing her fingers. No, she hadn’t truly been ruined, but only Chatham and the servants washing their bedsheets would ever know that for sure.
She stole her hand back slowly as his cheeks grew warm. She was glad that the one person who knew the truth about her was Chatham.
Adam suddenly began to cry, and Amelia glanced around Chatham, then sprinted across the lawn to check on the boy.
Lucy still reached him first. The little boy was hugging his knee, and Lucy hugged him. “It’s all right, Addy,” the girl whispered. “It’s just a scratch.”