Chapter 23
Amelia wasn’t entirely sure how long she stood in the ballroom after Stephen had left. A minute? Two?
Did it matter?
It was something of a surprise when the door creaked open a moment later. Not the main door Stephen had exited through, but a small side door, probably reserved for servants.
“Amelia?” Madeline’s voice skittered across the silence. The music tutor had left a while ago, and now she was alone. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” Amelia managed, forcing a smile. “Yes, of course.”
Did Madeline know about Stephen’s abduction? His press-ganging? Did she know who was behind it? Did Tristan know? Did it matter?
Proving that a man like her brother had committed such a crime would not be easy. In fact, she was fairly sure that it would be impossible. He would have covered his tracks well.
Madeline eyed her for a long moment, nibbling on her lower lip.
“I should tell you that when it comes to those clubs,” she said at last, “all the founding members have met their matches in… in unorthodox ways. You can believe me there. My husband is a founding member of the Ton’s Devils.
Our courtship was…” She paused, amusement crossing her face.
“Unusual. But the truth is that he is the love of my life. And I am his. Despite the oddness of it all, we love each other. We wouldn’t want it any other way. ”
Amelia smiled tiredly. “The difference is that I do not love Stephen.”
Madeline tilted her head. “That’s what I said about Tristan, too.”
What was she getting at? Amelia was too exhausted to work it through.
“I see,” she murmured. “I’m sorry, Madeline, but I’m tired. I would like to retire. Could you give my apologies to Letitia?”
Madeline’s shoulders sank a little, almost in disappointment. “Yes, of course.” She offered a quick smile. “I’ll be sure to tell her.”
The maid glanced up sharply as Amelia entered the room.
“Oh, Miss Holt, I didn’t think you’d come up at this hour,” she gasped, wringing her hands. “There’s dusting to be done up here, and the housekeeper said that I should get a start on it while—”
“It’s all right, Jane,” Amelia murmured, clambering onto the bed and dropping face down. “Just do your work. I wouldn’t normally be here so early, but I… I find myself tired.”
Jane gave a little hum of understanding, or at least that was how Amelia interpreted it.
She lay where she was, listening to the maid bustle around the room. She heard the brush and swish of a feather duster as it slid around hard-to-reach places, and imagined it tugging down cobwebs from the corners.
“Do you need anything, Miss Holt?” Jane asked, after a few moments. “Tea, or something to eat?”
“No, thank you. I suppose I’m just a little overwhelmed. The wedding and all.”
“Of course, Miss Holt. I can’t say I envy you.”
Silence ensued as Amelia slowly registered what Jane had said. She pushed herself up into a sitting position, her hair tangled around her face.
Jane had her back turned and appeared to be vigorously polishing a low wooden table.
“What did you mean by that?”
Jane flinched, glancing over her shoulder. She reddened at once. “Forgive me, Miss Holt, I spoke out of turn.”
“No, I… I want to understand what you meant. I’m not angry,” Amelia added.
Jane wavered for a moment, twisting the duster between her fingers. At last, she sighed, turning to face her.
“Well, the truth is that… that I wouldn’t want to be in your place, Miss Holt. We’re not so different, you and I, are we? I’m a housemaid, but you’re a seamstress. In any other condition, I’d be glad to see one of my own rising high enough to become a duchess, but not… not like this.”
“I don’t understand. Not like what? Why wouldn’t you want to be in my place?”
“Not with a man so easily seduced,” Jane murmured.
“It’s every woman’s nightmare, isn’t it?
If you’re unwed, you have a measure of freedom if you can escape censure.
But once you’re wed to a man, you’re bound to him.
He can have a thousand mistresses under your roof if he chooses, and there’s nothing you can do about it. ”
“Stephen wouldn’t do that,” Amelia shot back.
But even as she said it, unease crept into the back of her mind.
Jane had described him as easily seduced.
Well, she’d done very little to entice him.
Surely it couldn’t simply be that he was attracted to her, an ordinary seamstress with no birth and an ordinary beauty?
Didn’t it make more sense to think that he was simply a man who took an opportunity when it came his way?
Bile rose to the back of her throat.
“You fancy him, don’t you?” she heard herself ask, her voice raw with jealousy. “Why should I trust you? You want the Duke for yourself.”
Jane sighed. “I imagine that I could have spent time with him if I had wished, Miss Holt. He’s not the kind of man I’d care to marry. And he shouldn’t be yours, either.”
Amelia flinched back, almost as if she’d been slapped. “You can’t say that.”
Jane sighed again, taking a tentative step forward. “If you want to escape, Miss Holt, I can help you. I want to help you. In truth, I think you deserve better. I’d like to see you do better.”
Amelia said nothing. She wasn’t sure that she could have spoken if her life depended on it.
Jane bit her lip, glancing away. “I think I’m finished here, Miss Holt,” she murmured, and it took Amelia a moment to understand that she meant the dusting. She left without another word, leaving Amelia alone.
About an hour had passed by the time Amelia realized she had to do something. Scrambling up from the bed, wrinkling the sheets in her wake, she left her room, her heart pounding.
By her calculations, dinner would be long over by now. People would have retired to their rooms. Stephen might well be in his room, as she knew he preferred to take a glass of port in his private parlor rather than in the large drawing room.
She would tell him what Jane had said—she wouldn’t be cruel enough to name the maid, of course, as that would likely get her dismissed—and see what he had to say. Perhaps he would reassure her, or perhaps he would admit to a propensity for philandering.
It wouldn’t be a surprise, would it? Lots of men in the ton kept mistresses, opera singers, and so on. Why not? They were allowed. Their wives could not play around, but men could do as they liked. Rich men could do as they liked.
For the first time, Amelia stretched her mind beyond her mother’s feelings, past her father’s, and all the way to her father’s wife, the Viscountess.
She was not someone they had ever discussed.
Her father, of course, had never mentioned her during his visits.
Her mama never mentioned her existence, because to do so would be to admit the impossible—that she was a fallen woman, a man’s mistress, with no more legal right to him than a stranger on the street. No, impossible.
The Viscountess had been alive when her father met her mama. She had been alive through the births of Amelia and her sisters. She was dead now, or so Amelia thought. She’d never met the woman, never heard her name mentioned.
Perhaps my brother adored his mother. Perhaps that’s why he hates us so much.
She swallowed hard. In all her imaginings of the future, she’d put herself in her mama’s place. She would be the woman who gave it all up for love, a tragic beauty. Now, she imagined herself in the Viscountess’ place, a scorned woman, powerless and humiliated.
I can’t live that way. I won’t be either of those women.
She reached Stephen’s hallway, and her heart pounded even harder. Perhaps he would laugh at her. Perhaps he would dismiss her. Perhaps he would lie.
The door was closed, not ajar as it had been before. She lifted a hand to knock, and a voice clearly echoed from inside. She froze.
“Oh,” a woman gasped, clearly in the throes of delight. “Oh, yes!”
It was Jane. Jane.
Amelia dropped her hand at once, understanding crashing over her. She didn’t even need to hear the name that came next.
“Oh, Stephen!”
Amelia pressed a hand to her mouth, stepping back.
Jane is in there. Jane and Stephen, together.
The image her mind conjured—Stephen kissing Jane like he had kissed her, touching Jane like he had touched her—hurt more than anything she’d ever endured. There was a giggle from inside the room, and that was the last straw.
Amelia turned and fled, not caring how much noise she made. She ran down the hallway, down the stairs. Not to her room, because it felt as though it were his, too. As if he could wander in at any time, as if Jane could, with her pitying smile and offers of help.
She ran into the butler in the hall, nearly colliding with him.
“Miss Holt, is everything all right?” he gasped, reaching out as if to touch her shoulder and then withdrawing his hand, thinking better of it.
She could see the moment when he remembered that she would not be a mere seamstress, a mere miss, for much longer, but the Duchess of Redcliffe herself.
When I’m a duchess, nobody will ever touch me again. They won’t risk it. And Stephen does not care for me, so he won’t touch me either. I’ll be like a marble statue on a plinth. Very high and grand, but not real at all. Not reachable.
“I’m fine,” she choked out. “I only want to go out into the gardens. For some air.”
“Air?” he echoed, frowning. “But Miss Holt, night air can be injurious to the complexion.”
I don’t give a damn about my complexion. And I can’t believe that the air at night is any worse than the air during the day.
“I don’t mind,” she answered tightly. “Open the door, please.”
“Shall I fetch a chaperone? One of your sisters, perhaps, or a maid?” he suggested, a gentle reminder that ladies who were almost duchesses didn’t go bounding around the place alone.
Amelia gritted her teeth, imagining what she would do if Jane were the maid selected to chaperone her. In fact, it could not be Jane, because she was up in Stephen’s room with Stephen.
“I’d rather go alone,” she insisted.
If he doesn’t open the door soon, I shall scream.
The butler eyed her with obvious disappointment. “As you like, Miss Holt. I will just mention to Her Grace that you have gone out into the gardens alone. She may disapprove,” he added, as if in warning.
Amelia gave a tight smile and said nothing.
The butler unlocked the front door, and she darted out past him. The air was cool and lovely, the sky above shimmering with stars. She kept walking, stumbling down the wide marble steps, aware of the butler standing in the doorway above her. He was watching her with obvious, heavy disapproval.
Ladies don’t do this. Stephen said that I was more of a lady than many others he’d met. Perhaps that is true, or perhaps he just has a taste for commoners. Seamstresses and housemaids.
He would find those aplenty, no doubt. Perhaps common girls—working women and bastards—were easier to charm and impress. Perhaps he didn’t have to work so hard to seduce them. Perhaps they were more grateful.
And I was grateful, wasn’t I? So glad for his attention, his touch. Even though I dressed it all up, determined not to end up like Mama. He acted as though he cared about that, didn’t he? I imagine that was a pretense, too.
How could she have been so foolish?
The gravel under her feet turned to grass. She had stormed across the courtyard and onto the lawn. Trees loomed overhead. The air was cooler here, smelling green. Green and wet, with dew already collecting on the grass. Her hem swept it up as she walked, getting wetter and wetter.
There was a stone bench just ahead, under a glade of trees. Almost without thinking, Amelia headed toward it. She reached the bench and flopped down in a most unladylike manner. The seat was, of course, very wet. The dew soaked into her gown, and she resisted the urge to groan.
Just when I think I can’t be more humiliated.
Well, what now? Where would she go? What would she do? It was only a matter of time before she was named in the scandal sheets. Only a matter of time before her parentage was discovered.
That would put her in danger, of course, but it would also put Marjory and Nancy in danger. There would be other dangers too, troubles ahead that she could not foresee. If Emmeline knew that Amelia was ruined, she might dismiss her anyway, knowing there’d be no repercussions from Stephen.
Or, she could marry him and prepare herself for a life of humiliation and neglect.
At least Marjory and Nancy would be safe. They’d have Letitia to dote on them. They’d have money, dowries, and opportunity. They could marry men who truly loved them. A good sister would provide for them.
She closed her eyes, gripping the edge of her seat, and tilted back her head. A cool breeze raked over her heated skin, cooling her instantly.
In the silence that followed, Amelia heard footsteps crunching on the gravel. She straightened, her eyes snapping open.
There was a man walking toward her. He had just crossed the gravel and stepped onto the grass. A moment later, and she wouldn’t have heard his footsteps at all. He carried a lantern, high around his face. It ruined her night vision and threw him into shadow. He was tall. He was…
Was it Stephen?
Amelia’s treacherous heart flipped.
Then the man came closer, only a few feet away, and all hope drained out of her, replaced by a nasty coldness. She wanted to rise to her feet, maybe run, but where was the sense in that?
“Dear Amelia,” said her brother. “Are you crying?”
Amelia dashed at the tears clinging to her cheeks. “No. Why are you here, Harry?”
“I’m here for your wedding, of course. I wanted to talk to you.”
She stared at him for a long moment, swallowing.
What do I have to lose?
“Very well,” she said. “You have five minutes.”