Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Next evening
“Ishan’t sit for the bust,” said Amelia with the certainty of one who knew for a fact that she occupied the moral high ground. “It wouldn’t be—”
“Proper!” shouted Archie and Delilah from their end of the long dining table that could easily sit thirty, but tonight sat only five—the Windermeres and Lord Rory Macbeth, current Viscount Kilmuir and future Sixth Earl of Carrick.
Amelia resisted the urge to roll her eyes toward the half-lit chandelier.
Those two ever delighted in teaming up against her.
Juliet smiled down into her soup, and Kilmuir stared morosely out the window.
Apparently, his proposal of marriage had been turned down by Miss Davina Dalhousie, and he was having difficulty reconciling himself to the fact.
Actually, the ton being the close-knit society it was, the Windermeres and Dalhousies had long been family friends, and while Amelia had never been close to Miss Dalhousie, who was several years her junior, she knew the young lady to be possessed of a clear head and good sense. And Kilmuir…
He’d always been perfectly amiable and pleasant and quite handsome to gaze upon with his top of golden red hair and clear blue eyes—the thought had even crossed her mind that Juliet might harbor a slight infatuation for him—but…
there didn’t seem to be all that much more to him.
In other words, Amelia doubted not that Miss Dalhousie must’ve had a good reason for refusing a proposal of marriage from such an eminently eligible gentleman.
Speaking of refusals of marriage from eminently eligible gentlemen…
Amelia’s gaze shifted and landed on Delilah. “You know, Delilah,” she began, settling back to allow a servant to remove her soup bowl, “you received a perfectly good proposal of marriage from Mr. Oliver Quincy.”
Having only just eaten her last spoonful of soup, Delilah nearly succumbed to a coughing fit.
She held up a finger and downed several unladylike gulps of water before clearing her throat on a loud harrumph.
“Perhaps the Italian heat has muddled your brain, Amelia,” she said, her voice scratchy.
“There was and is nothing perfectly good about that marriage proposal.”
“Oh, come now,” said Archie, no mistaking the tease in his voice, “just imagine spending the rest of your days in worship to a man who loves nothing more than to pontificate about the nobility’s right to rule or the importance of achieving a perfect knot on one’s cravat.”
Delilah primly wiped each corner of her mouth. “I don’t believe I shall.”
“By the by,” said Archie, “we’ll have guests for supper.”
“Just tell me the night,” said Amelia, “and I’ll arrange it with the servants.”
“Oh, well, that’s easy.” Archie smiled the too-charming smile she knew to be wary of. “Tonight.”
Amelia willed the patience of Job into her response. “But supper has already begun, Archie.”
“I’d forgotten you eat when it’s still daylight.”
Amelia ignored the jibe. “And who are these guests?”
“As it happens, one is Ripon.”
“The Duke of Ripon? Here?” The very idea walloped Amelia over the head. The Duke of Ripon? In her home? “Oh, Archie, why have you gone and done that?”
“The man is a legend,” he said, as if that explained it.
It explained nothing.
“From the gossip about him last night,” said Amelia, “it’s quite clear the man is a scandal.”
“We are a scandal,” said Delilah with no small amount of glee.
Which was exactly why they needed to distance themselves as far away as possible from the man. Did her siblings understand nothing?
“Ripon is a scandal and a legend,” said Archie.
Before he could regale them with the legendary exploits of the Duke of Ripon—and, in truth, Amelia was just a wee bit curious—in strode a tall, striking man known to all in the room.
His Grace Sebastian Crewe, the Duke of Ravensworth.
Amelia reckoned he was the other guest that Archie hadn’t yet mentioned.
Two dukes to an informal supper.
Only in Italy.
“Seb,” said Archie, standing and giving his friend a great clap on the back before indicating Ravensworth take the seat beside him. Amelia gave a servant a quick instruction to set the duke’s place for supper.
The instant Ravensworth sat bottom on seat, Delilah shot to her feet, her chair nearly toppling over behind her. Without a word, she marched from the room in a fury. One never knew what form Delilah’s moods would take from one moment to the next.
“Actresses,” said Archie, dismissive.
“I’m certain it’s nothing to do with you personally,” said Amelia, as ever smoothing over the ruffled feathers left in her siblings’ wake.
“Oh, it has everything to do with me personally,” said the duke, unfussed, his gaze lingering on the doorway Delilah had disappeared through. “Further, I can’t blame her for seeing herself as in the right.”
A beat of silence followed, but Ravensworth clearly didn’t feel the need to elaborate, and no one could make a duke expand on a topic if he chose not to. Especially a duke like Ravensworth, who possessed a surety and seriousness that intimidated even Amelia.
Archie picked up the conversation. “I was just about to tell them about the night Ripon rescued that first-year.”
“Rescued?” asked Amelia, despite her intention to show not a speck of curiosity about the blasted man.
Kilmuir snorted grumpily, and Ravensworth said, “That was his final year at Eton, no?”
Archie nodded. “He was two years—”
“Three,” corrected Ravensworth.
“Three years above us. Anyway, this barmy little first-year got it into his head that he desperately missed his mummy and couldn’t be away from her a minute longer.”
“In the dead of night,” said Ravensworth.
“In the middle of a freak snowstorm,” said Kilmuir.
“Fortunately for the little bugger,” continued Archie, “Ripon was returning from a late-night tea in the kitchens when he saw the lad escaping into the night wearing naught but his nightshirt, a wool scarf, and a pair of boots. Instead of sounding the alarm, he got dressed and retrieved the boy himself, though it took him several hours because the stupid lad got lost and stuck in a snowdrift.”
“Both spent a few weeks with lung ailments, as I recall,” said Ravensworth.
“But the prefect never found out,” said Kilmuir.
“The head boy did.”
“Oliver Quincy, wasn’t it?”
“Ripon threatened to throttle him if he ever breathed a word.”
“And Ripon didn’t make idle threats.”
“Anyone who ever met him on the rugby pitch knows it, too,” said Kilmuir, unconsciously rubbing his shoulder.
“Like I said,” said Archie, “a legend.”
As if the mere mention of his name held the power to conjure the man, the Duke of Ripon appeared in the doorway.
Amelia gasped and immediately felt embarrassed.
Still, she only just caught herself before she started gawping.
But, oh, the man did have a presence with his massive form and towering height and brooding glower that should render him brutish, but somehow came across as dangerously handsome.
“If it isn’t the old chap himself,” said Archie. “Come, have a seat and a bite.”
Amelia avoided the table’s greetings by asking a servant to set yet another place, this one directly across from her, for that was the seat Ripon chose.
How on earth was she expected to get through this night with that man sitting directly in her line of sight?
Fortunately, she wasn’t expected to make conversation with him as Ravensworth began quizzing Ripon about his support for local building work, which led the conversation toward Ravensworth’s own dedicated support for the arts in both Italy and England, which led to Ravensworth suggesting that Ripon take up a similar interest as he was an artist himself.
“A sculptor, no?” asked Ravensworth.
“Of sorts,” said Ripon, as if the two words had been painfully extracted from him one by one.
The man wasn’t the most sparkling supper conversationalist as his vocabulary seemed to consist of fewer than fifty words. Perhaps he was a brute.
Further, he kept staring at her. She could feel it. His attention made her uncomfortable, to be sure, but it sent another sensation fizzing through her as well—one she couldn’t identify, but the one he always evoked.
It was as though her blood coursed hotter in her veins with a single cut of his stormy gray eyes.
As the lemon ice was being served, Juliet pushed away from the table. “That’s me for the night. I think I’ll see where Delilah skulked off to.”
“Send her my regards,” said Ravensworth.
Amelia’s eyebrows lifted toward the ceiling—who knew Ravensworth could be saucy?—but Juliet remained cool. “I think I shan’t.”
Amelia could grudgingly admit she rather admired that quality about Juliet. She could tell off a duke without seeming to and simply walk away.
Archie dug his watch from a pocket. “If we’re to make it to the Teatro della Pergola before the start of the first act, we must hop the twig.”
Relief soared through Amelia. They would be leaving.
And by they, she meant one man—the ox.
But her relief wasn’t to last long, for Archie asked, “Are you joining us, Ripon?”
What was this?
Impossibly, the duke shook his head. “I’m not much for evening entertainments.”
Archie shrugged, and within thirty seconds, he was gone with Ravensworth and Kilmuir.
Which meant that within thirty seconds, Amelia was left alone with the Duke of Ripon.
How dare Archie invite Ripon to supper and not take the blasted man with him when he left? None of this would pass muster in London, that much she knew. Yet another reason she couldn’t wait to return to her homeland and a sense of normality.