Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Amatter worth sulking over,” George shouted as he climbed the knoll on horseback. He took off his hat and waved it, but the gesture seemed forced, marked with fear.
Nicholas sighed, wondering whether it was too late—whether it would be too indecorous—to roll himself down the hill out of George’s reach.
“Samuel said I would find you here,” George announced as he dismounted, barely managing to tie the reins of his horse around the thick trunk of the oak. “So, will you tell me of things or not?”
“What things do you mean, exactly?” Nicholas could not keep his weariness out of his voice. What an inane question. “To my knowledge, things are no different today than they were yesterday,” he lied.
“Your retreat, up top this hill, like a hermit, begs otherwise.”
“I am not—” Nicholas stopped himself, turning from his friend to look over the valley. His hand flexed around his book as he stood. “You will not have ridden here for entertainment. Tell me what you came to say or leave.”
His friend looked slightly taken aback, glancing down at the hat he had wrung between his hands. The wind rustled George’s hair, turning the tips of his ears pink. For a moment, Nicholas was reminded of their youth, running up and down this very knoll without a care in all the world.
A simpler time. But better…?
“You know that is not my habit. Entertainment? At your expense? Never,” George said, straightening. His eyes rounded in misery. “There is… talk, in town.”
Nicholas had expected as much, but not so soon. “The woman fell—convulsed. Was I to leave her, for all I knew, to her death?” he said in his defense.
“There is no need to explain yourself to me. I know who you are. What you are. Not a gentleman who would seek out a troubled woman like Miss Tate. Not like that Paul de Rees…”
The name reanimated the anger burning low inside Nicholas. “How do you know?” he asked.
“Philippa… Miss Ashwood… I caught her while the ball was closing and asked if she had any idea what had transpired. She said Miss Tate had been lured outside by De Rees. How you ended up at her side instead is still a mystery. But the Oxford folk have devised a sinful explanation indeed.”
“As is their wont, always.”
Nicholas flinched at the thought of Miss Tate’s name passing from one Oxonian to the next. Another scandal she did not deserve. Samuel’s opinion—that she had faked the whole ordeal—was not worth considering. She was blameless.
He could still see the sudden panic wash across her face in his mind’s eye. No one could feign that.
“What will you do?” George asked, gesturing around them. “For you cannot remain here forever.”
He was inclined to ask whether he should do anything.
But fleeing was beneath him. It was not the first time Nicholas had found himself in trouble—not even in recent memory.
He took no issue in being fodder for writers and ton gossips when he was culpable.
But to pay for a crime he did not commit was a lofty ask.
It seemed obvious, thinking back to the moment he had come across Miss Tate in the dark, what would need to happen next.
“To fight a fire… one must first approach the flames,” Nicholas pressed, punctuating the sentence with a sigh. “I must go to Miss Tate.”
“And do what?” George stepped forward as Nicholas made to move. “To be seen at the house would only incriminate you further.”
“If society believes we are entangled, there will be no unraveling us by force of will…” Nicholas took a final look at the horizon, an idea forming in his mind. “We must play the parts they have assigned us.”
For better or for worse.
Amelia curled into the window seat in her room, wrapping her arms around her legs. Her head hurt from crying, and she pressed her swollen eyes shut, focusing on the sounds of passing carriages outdoors. Rain trickled down the windowpane, and she wished she were outside, somewhere far away…
Away from Oxford, where everyone thought she had fallen from grace.
A knock rapped on the door, and Amelia’s breath hitched. Before she could say anything, Mary-Ann crept inside, closing the door behind her.
“Mama sent me up to make sure you were not dead,” Mary-Ann jibed, leaning against the door. She hissed at the inelegance of her words. “That was a silly thing to say. Not her words, but mine… Though really, Amelia, worse things have happened.”
Amelia laughed miserably. “I know full well, though it does not feel like it now.” She tucked her head between her knees, the cotton of her day dress soft against her cheeks. “What are they saying?”
“Mama…? Oh, you mean… out there.” Mary-Ann locked the door and crossed the room, pushing Amelia’s legs out of the way so she could sit beside her.
“I did go for my morning promenade today, despite Papa’s order to remain indoors.
You know I never listen to him. And I do not see why I should be punished for your indiscretion anyway. ” She paused. “Did he kiss you?”
“No,” Amelia swore, frowning. “He did no such thing.”
“Because that is what they are saying, if you really want to know.” Mary-Ann grinned, looping a ringlet of hair around her finger. “Well, that and more, though I shan’t repeat the worst of it. They may believe you have compromised yourself, but I know you are too pure for that.”
Feeling like she might be sick, Amelia tucked her head back between her knees. She felt Mary-Ann’s hand on the crown of her head, stroking her hair in an unusual display of affection.
“If we wait long enough—”
Mary-Ann barked a laugh. “Oh, heavens! You’re not about to suggest that time will make people forget, are you? Amelia, please. Not even you are that na?ve.”
Amelia blinked the tears from her lashes and stared up at her cousin. Her words were unusually acerbic—as though she took some deranged pleasure in seeing Amelia so upset. Or perhaps it was the involvement of the Duke that pleased Mary-Ann.
“So long as you live, they will be talking about your dalliance with the Duke of Avon. It does not matter whether anything really happened. You are tied to him for life—and no doubt he knows it too.”
Amelia groaned. The sound of Mr. Moore’s real name did little to alleviate her distress. When she had awoken in the carriage after the ball, Mary-Ann had wasted no time telling her where they had found her, collapsed and convulsing, and with whom.
It had taken longer than she cared to admit for Amelia to realize the truth.
Mr. Moore and the Duke of Avon are one and the same and always have been. He used me, toyed with me. And for what?
She rose from her seat and wrapped her arms around herself, trying hard not to think of the duke, how close she had been to him without knowing. If she had known Mr. Moore’s true identity, she would never have allowed herself to be alone with him.
The Duke of Avon, one of the worst rakes to have ever lived in Oxfordshire. And me, a madwoman. She shivered. Not a story they are likely to forget anytime soon, just like Mary-Ann said. I was foolish to hope otherwise, if only for a moment.
She glanced at her preening cousin. “Why do you look so happy? You realize this will affect us all? Uncle Benjamin, Aunt Beatrice… I fear even you will not be able to charm yourself out of this one. And I’m so sorry.”
“Save your apologies for a woman who feels they are her due,” Mary-Ann exclaimed. Her smile intensified. “Let’s just say, I have a feeling that—”
Before she could complete her thought, someone tried and failed to enter the room. Amelia’s heart clenched as she walked toward the door.
“Amelia?” came the muffled sound of Uncle Benjamin’s voice. “A word, if you would.”
She could barely stand the thought of looking her uncle in the eye. She may not have been compromised in the way they thought, but she was still guilty of following a gentleman outside, of failing to heed her guardian’s warnings.
In the hallway, her uncle stood motionless. He looked like he had not slept at all that night, his hair in disarray. Amelia opened her mouth to say something, but her uncle interrupted.
“You have a caller.”
Who would have come at a time like this?
“I do not wish to see anyone,” Amelia mumbled, swallowing hard. “Uncle Benjamin, please… Do not make me go down.”
Her uncle shook his head almost imperceptibly, proceeding down the hallway and expecting Amelia to follow.
She glanced back at Mary-Ann, who turned with wide eyes from the window.
“You really should go down,” she sputtered, “if that carriage below belongs to whom I think it does.”
Overtaking Amelia on the stairs, Mary-Ann waited giddily at the bottom, bobbing up and down in excitement. Amelia’s hand clenched around the railing, each step swaying beneath her.
“No,” Benjamin warned, holding up a hand to Mary-Ann as she tried to follow him into the drawing room. “Amelia and I will attend to this alone.”
It was only when the drawing room door closed behind her that Amelia dared to look up.
What she saw, quite took her breath away.
Mr. Moore—the Duke of Avon—stood before the drawing room windows, staring out at the rain. The overcast sky cast a grey pallor on his figure. He scarcely moved as Amelia entered behind her uncle.
But her whole world shifted.
Despite everything that had occurred the night prior, the sight of him set her on fire with more than fear.
“She has come to you,” Benjamin intoned, gaze trained on Amelia as she moved unconsciously toward the Duke. Her uncle grabbed her by the wrist, stopping her from drifting toward him like a ghost, and guided her down into an armchair.
“Why…” Amelia paused, her fragile words catching in her throat. “Why are you here?”
“I thought that much at least would be obvious,” he answered after a moment of silence. He glanced behind him toward her uncle. Benjamin had retreated into the shadows by the hearth, allowing them a modicum of privacy. “Do you know who I am?”
Someone else might have interpreted the question as a threat. But Amelia knew precisely what he was asking: had she realized that he had lied to her?
“Yes, Your Grace. I know who you are.”
“Thank heavens for small mercies,” he murmured under his breath.
He turned from the window to face her. The Duke looked older than she remembered him. Perhaps he was not the shallow rake they claimed he was. His face bore the evidence of his guilt.
“Before I called for you, I told your uncle of the events of the night prior. He understands now, wise man that he is, that you were lured away by another man—a man who was not me.” The Duke paused for a moment, perhaps wondering whether he should say her attacker’s name.
“I explained that I subsequently found you, by wicked chance, at which point you collapsed.”
It was a foolish thing to feel—embarrassment—but that was what came over Amelia like a cold wave.
“It is all true,” she murmured for her uncle’s benefit, staring at the floor. “His Grace did not touch me.”
The floorboards creaked under her uncle’s boots as he stepped forward. “For that, if nothing else, I am grateful.”
“Miss Tate, look at me.”
Both Amelia and her uncle stirred at his command. She raised her eyes timidly, her face flaming as she met his piercing gaze.
“I had hoped our encounter last night would be interpreted correctly by those who dislike us most,” the Duke carried on. “But what little I have heard already suggests otherwise, much to my dismay.
“I had returned to Oxford hoping precisely to avoid drawing the attention of society. And yet, I cannot allow my wishes for a simple life to cloud my judgment, as tempting as that prospect is and forever has been.”
Amelia nodded, mostly in confusion.
“Though all within this room know what truly occurred, those without will not be convinced of the truth, even if they should be confronted directly with it. That is to say, we will not recover from this scandal—for that is what it has become—by trying to appeal to the better natures of people who see you and me as the worst phantoms of ourselves.”
“Then… then what do you propose?” she asked, falteringly.
The Duke hesitated.
“Well, Miss Tate. I propose to take your hand in marriage.”