Chapter 18 #2
“That is all well and good,” Amelia declared, leading her company of young actors down the stairs from their attic where they took their rehearsals.
“And I am so glad that you are honing your directorial voices. But we will not be able to train a donkey in time, I am afraid. Not even if we started now.”
Mary, one of the oldest children at St. George’s, scolded the others from the bottom of the staircase.
“I told you not to ask her, Charlie!” she cried, scowling at the young boy holding Amelia’s hand. “Really, I did tell him, Miss Amelia. But he would not listen to me. He never does.”
Amelia laughed. “I do admire your ambition, Charlie. But perhaps a donkey’s head would suffice?”
The children squealed in terror, then with laughter, and Amelia realized her error. She scooped up one of the young boys trailing far behind, still dressed in fairy wings, and carried him down on her hip.
Mrs. Thatcher exited the schoolroom just as the children arrived on the landing. She stroked Charlie’s light brown hair and pulled him in close, her face brightening at the sight of them.
“What is this I am hearing about donkeys and their heads?” she asked.
“We were discussing our props for the play,” Amelia replied, setting the smallest child down at her feet.
He filed into the schoolroom behind the others, giving Amelia and Mrs. Thatcher a moment alone.
“I am starting to wonder whether I have burned the candle at both ends with this one,” Amelia sighed, watching the tips of the fairy wings disappear through the door. “There are only four weeks left until their first performance.”
“More than enough time to set things into order—or to find and behead a donkey.” She wrapped an arm around Amelia’s waist and embraced her. “Will you be getting off now, Your Grace?”
“I suppose I must.” Amelia pulled the chatelaine from her pocket and inspected the time. It had been an hour and a half since she had left Nicholas in the kitchens. “Merciful heavens! I had no idea the rehearsals had lasted so long.”
Bidding a quick farewell to Mrs. Thatcher, Amelia raced through the house. Panting as she arrived in the cellar, she fluffed her hair and composed herself before she entered the kitchens, and found Nicholas where she had left him.
He turned on his stool, and the sight of him warmed her heart.
“Back already?” he asked.
“It has been an hour and more, Your Grace.”
“Ah,” Nicholas mouthed, rising. He raked his hands over his face. “I find that I am impossible to distract once I set my mind to something.” He reached for his coat. “Did you… Were the children… well-behaved?”
Amelia suppressed a laugh, fetching her cloak from the coat room. “One day, I will show you that children need not alarm you so,” she promised upon returning. “Though there must be a reason for your disdain for them?”
A side-smile. “Disdain is a strong word.”
“I wanted to say fear, but worried that would offend you.”
“I doubt you could offend me if you tried, dear.” He slipped his arms into his coat. “And why must there be a reason for my dislike of children? People dislike things all the time without just cause.”
“Such as?” she asked.
“You dislike Haydn’s compositions.”
She was surprised he remembered, having forbidden them from their wedding breakfast.
“I have good reason for not liking them,” she defended, hoping he would drop the subject. She hurried over to the door leading to the small courtyard behind the house.
“No good reason I can think of,” he argued, moving quicker than her and blocking her exit. He held the ledger under his arm, clearly intending to continue work later. “Are his pieces much too structured for you? Or perhaps you reject the Austrians altogether?”
She feigned a smile, trying to step around him.
“Why should that not be the case?” she said, unconvincingly.
His playful expression dropped in response.
“What is it?” he asked with an exhale. “What are you hiding from me now?”
Amelia looked up at him, surprised by her rising irritation. Of course there was a reason she disliked Haydn! But who was Nicholas to accuse her of being dishonest—when he had told her nothing about himself voluntarily?
“Hiding from you?” she repeated slowly, shaking her head. “I am an open book.”
He laughed.
“I am,” she protested. “Certainly, compared to you.”
“If that makes you feel better,” he said jokingly. “So be it.”
“It is not about feeling better,” she quipped, and the sudden tension between them reminded her of their unfinished encounter in the bathing room. “What would be the use in trying to beat you in this marriage when it will all end one day soon anyway?”
“Amelia, is that what has been bothering you? You knew as well as I—”
“Yes, I knew a great many things before I married you,” she groused, turning too quickly and making herself dizzy. “And though I sought to learn more—”
Something flashed in the periphery of her vision, and Amelia cut herself off. With an angry groan, she tried to barge past Nicholas, grabbing the door handle behind him.
Suddenly, her ears began to ring.
And it dawned on her what was happening.
Her hand fell limply from the door handle as she stumbled backward. She grabbed Nicholas’s arm, fingers clutching the thick fabric of his coat.
“Amelia?” she heard beyond the fog of her thoughts—that infernal ringing. “Amelia, what are you—”
Nicholas’s voice fractured into discordant sounds as the room tilted unnaturally.
Terror, like an old friend, gathered its forces within her.
She clutched onto his coat, her whole world listing like a ship in a storm.
“Look at me, Amelia! Amelia!”
But she could not. His arms came around her fast and hard, holding her against him. Her body went rigid, eyes rolling in the back of her head.
Her last thought was of those damnable ledgers.
And the sweetness of her husband’s embrace.