Chapter 3
Chapter Three
Ican prove it if you like.
Had the ox—who was impossibly the Duke of Ripon—truly spoken those words to her?
She ought to…she ought to…
Amelia clenched her fists at her sides and stamped her foot.
All that seemed to do was amuse him, judging by the glimmer in his eyes.
She didn’t know how to respond to such words. They sparked outrage, of course, but something else, too. A funny little feeling that crept through her, leaving a trail of heightened sensation, making her a trifle winded.
“I say,” said Archie, her trouble-making, disloyal brother who should be challenging the duke to a duel instead of snickering, “do you know each other?”
“No,” Amelia responded, too quickly. She sounded like she was lying, which of course, she was. Both Archie and Ripon quirked an eyebrow. Oh, she needed to get away from these men.
She directed a shallow curtsy in the direction of the duke. “Meeting you was certainly—”
Awful. The worst thing to happen to her since she left England. But she couldn’t say that. Not in polite company, anyway.
So, she pasted the smile reserved for polite company onto her face and finished with, “Diverting.”
The man snorted.
The absolute cheek.
She swiveled in a flurry of skirts, her ears clouded with a strange sort of fury. Why did she let the man upset her so? It was simply that he was so very rude.
But was it rudeness?
Yes. But something else, too.
Honesty.
She couldn’t understand it. Who ventured into society with honesty?
Everything in her rejected the very idea.
The unstated social contract demanded that the haute ton gather at balls and soirées and musicales and fêtes with smiles on their faces and platitudes on their mouths, and if not platitudes, then gossip.
In short, it was all a great big game of pretend and the important thing was that they all agree to play by the rules.
But people like the Duke of Ripon and—it had to be admitted—Archie, and sometimes Delilah, acted as if the rules didn’t apply to them.
Rules applied to everyone, that was what Amelia had learned this last year. Rules didn’t go away because one didn’t like them or chose to ignore them. Instead, they lurked in the shadows and waited patiently for their opportunity to strike and punish when one fell afoul of them.
Amelia snatched a cup of punch off a passing tray and took a cooling sip. The cotton in her ears cleared, and she thought she might’ve heard her name.
She glanced around to find a group of ladies staring at her. She knew a few of them vaguely, but none well. Or not well enough for them to be desirous—a few looked shockingly eager—for her company.
“Is your brother an intimate of the duke?”
“The duke?” she asked, momentarily flummoxed.
Her audience stared at her as if she was the biggest dolt in this—or any other—room.
“Of Ripon.”
Oh, the ox. “I’m not sure.”
“Or are you, perhaps?” giggled one of the ladies.
Amelia’s cheeks shot into instant flame. “I can most definitely say no on that point.”
A few of her audience looked disappointed, others plainly curious. “But why would you want to say no?”
Amelia gasped before her mouth snapped shut. Sometimes she forgot she wasn’t in England. In Italy, lovers were allowed, if one stayed discreet. She couldn’t allow such mores to rub off on her, or on Delilah and Juliet. She glanced around. Where were they anyway?
She was about to excuse herself when one of the ladies said, “Didn’t you know his fiancée left him at the altar?”
Amelia’s feet remained exactly where they were.
She shouldn’t listen, but she was, oh, so very curious about the ox. And if knowledge came in the form of unreliable gossip, so be it. After all, where there was smoke, fire often followed.
“What woman would jilt such a man?”
Every eye—including Amelia’s, shamefully—swung toward him.
Of a sudden, the path between them and him cleared, allowing an unimpeded view of the Duke of Ripon.
He looked every inch the English duke of novels that Amelia only read in the privacy of her bedroom.
Thick, tousled sable hair. Gray eyes that pierced.
Clean-shaven, square masculine jaw. Purely from an artist’s point of view, the man was devastatingly handsome.
“It is whispered he told his fiancée she could take lovers,” whispered one lady.
“Why would she need to?” asked another.
An appreciative silence followed.
“They say he has no morals.”
“The Dissolute Duke.”
Amelia suspected she was alone in finding amorality and dissolution to be negative qualities in one’s husband.
“Of course, he came to Italy.”
A round of snickers followed.
“But you came to Italy,” said Amelia for some reason she couldn’t fathom.
One lady with a particularly wicked smile held Amelia in her cool gaze. “Esattamente.”
That was Amelia put in her place. This time, the snickers directed at her sounded no small amount mean-spirited. She might’ve been one of them according to Debrett’s, but she wasn’t one of them, the hard glints in their eyes seemed to say.
She gathered the shreds of her dignity about her—she seemed to be doing that a lot lately—and aimed her feet for the ladies’ retiring room. She needed a moment to herself. She’d made it no more than halfway to her destination when she heard, “Amelia.”
She turned to find Delilah and Juliet fast approaching.
“Dearest sister, you’re as pale as a sheet,” said Delilah. “What is it you’re drinking?”
“Punch.”
“That would explain it,” said Delilah, waving a server over. “You’re in need of something stronger.”
“I can assure you I am not.”
“Like prosecco.” Delilah lifted two glasses of the bubbly spirit off a silver tray.
“Young, marriageable ladies do not drink prosecco at soirées,” said Amelia, refusing to accept a coupe.
“They do in Italy,” observed Juliet.
“Besides, you’re seven and twenty, dear sister,” said Delilah, taking a delicate sip. “You’re too old to be young.”
“Delilah!”
Her sister wasn’t finished. “And as far as marriageability goes, it might be fair to say you’re on the shelf.”
“Only until we return to England,” said Amelia, defensive.
“And what did you call it before then?”
“I simply haven’t met the gentleman who suits me.” Before Delilah could voice more opinions on the matter, Amelia added, “Yet.”
Delilah and Juliet exchanged one of their looks.
“Did you know Archie arrived?” asked Amelia.
“Oh, yes,” said Delilah, “with his great lumbering Scottish friend, Rory.”
“Lord Kilmuir,” corrected Juliet.
Amelia cared not either way. “I didn’t notice him.” She’d only had eyes for the ox.
She wouldn’t be speaking that last part aloud.
“Come,” said Delilah. “Let us look at the offerings for the raffle.”
Twenty minutes later, between the three of them, they’d bought tickets for items ranging from a Lagotto Romagnolo puppy to a marble bust carved by a local sculptor.
“How could we have bid on every single item?” asked Amelia.
“They make it remarkably easy,” said Juliet. “You simply write your name on a card and splash out the blunt.”
Amelia resisted the urge to roll her eyes toward the ceiling. “I know how raffles work, Juliet, but, really, do any of us need a stone bust?”
Delilah shrugged. “You’re only young once, so may as well immortalize it in stone.”
“I thought I was no longer young.”
“Well, you’ve been old since the day you were born—”
“That’ll be quite enough.”
“Oh, I almost forgot,” said Delilah. “Did you meet the old, decrepit duke?”
Oh. This subject. “Um, yes.”
“Is he a complete lech?”
“Possibly.”
Likely.
Delilah craned her head to better scan the room. “Well, where is he?”
It didn’t take long for Amelia to find him engaged in conversation with no fewer than eight ladies. A strange feeling tingled through her. The same uncomfortable one from earlier.
“There.”
Delilah and Juliet followed the jut of her chin. Juliet’s eyebrows shot upwards, and Delilah’s jaw fell to the floor. “That is our old, decrepit duke?”
“Um, yes.”
“Oh, my,” exhaled Juliet.
Again, leave it to Juliet to sum up a situation perfectly.
Delilah lifted another two coupes of prosecco off a passing tray and again tried to hand one to Amelia.
She gave her head a decided shake. Delilah shrugged and began alternating sips between the two coupes.
Juliet giggled. Which was all the encouragement Delilah needed.
Perfect peas in a pod, those two. One in need of an adoring audience; the other only too happy to provide it.
Ding-ding-ding. The sound of metal tapping crystal, calling the gathered’s attention to a low stage set before the large bow window overlooking the back garden. The raffle began, which meant this interminable night was—blessedly—nearing its end.
Juliet won two items—a length of Brussels lace and an enameled snuffbox—and Delilah won one—a silver brush and mirror set. Thankfully, someone else got the puppy. With only a single item remaining Amelia began encouraging Delilah and Juliet toward the door.
Then it happened.
Her name was called.
People began staring at her, as if they expected something. Delilah gave a quick jerk of her head in the direction of the bow window.
Finally, it hit Amelia. She’d won the night’s grand prize, and she was to accept it before all.
Oh, she didn’t like that one bit.
The sharp point of Juliet’s elbow nudged between her ribs to get her moving. The Contessa di Mapelli waited with a patient, regal smile on her face. But it was the person standing beside the Contessa who claimed all Amelia’s attention. Him—the ox…the Duke of Ripon.
Dread clawed its way through her. Why was he regarding her with that expression on his face? As if he were experiencing the same foreboding as she?
Once Amelia finally reached the low stage, the contessa said, “Lady Amelia Windermere, our grand prize winner. Thank you to all who generously donated of your pounds tonight, I look forward to receiving notes from each and every one of you.” And if you don’t pay up, her smile seemed to say, I know where you sleep.
An awkward smile on her face, hands clenched at her sides, Amelia cut the duke a quick glance. Why was he staring at her like that?
“…and a bust done by no other hands than those of the Duke of Ripon.”
Amelia blinked. What was the contessa saying?
She met the duke’s gaze. He simply kept staring at her.
And she understood.
“I…I…” she stammered. “I cannot possibly accept such a”—terrible…awful…horrifying—“generous gift. Perhaps I could donate it—”
“As you English say, pish,” dismissed the contessa. Was that a glint of mischief in her eyes? “The bust is yours, fairly won.”
“But, truly, I cannot—” The rest of the sentence died in Amelia’s mouth when she gazed out upon the gathered.
That was definitely mischief shining in Delilah’s eyes.
Juliet’s, too. And the other ladies? To a one, they glared at her with false smiles on their mouths and envy in their eyes.
This wasn’t a crowd sympathetic to her predicament. Perhaps the duke—
He was no help.
He simply observed her as if from a safe distance.
She was on her own.
She smiled graciously, thanked the contessa, and stepped from the platform, the blood rioting through her veins. She kept going hot, then cold, then hot again as she moved trance-like through the crowd that was now dispersing.
His gaze…it was upon her.
It hadn’t once left her, she knew it. And it wouldn’t until she was gone from the room.
She knew that, too.
Her step quickened. She couldn’t think properly with that man’s gaze upon her.
Delilah and Juliet filed in behind her as they stepped from the contessa’s palazzo and into their waiting carriage.
The dazed feeling began to dissipate, and Amelia’s first clear thought of the evening was allowed entry. She could let the contessa keep her money and beg off, couldn’t she? No one would be the wiser, except for her and the Duke of Ripon. But the way he’d been observing her…
Was that interest she’d detected?
Perhaps he wouldn’t let her beg off.
Strange thought.
And perhaps she wouldn’t want him to.
Stranger thought, still.
The carriage lurched into motion, and her gaze flew up to find Delilah and Juliet staring at her from their bench opposite. They had something to say.
It was Delilah who said it. “Do not even think of begging off.”