by Lucy Leroux
Gideon’s tone was low and his face remained impassive, but she sensed his frustration with her answer. “Those marks are old. Several days at least.”
When she didn’t reply, he increased the pressure of his hold on her, not enough to hurt her but to hold her more securely. Already giddy and emotionally exhausted, it took active restraint to keep from collapsing into his arms.
“It’s nothing. Old business.” Amelia’s smile was careless, masking her misgiving and discomfort at having to dissemble with him—the one person she wanted most to confide in.
Instead, she let her pleasure in his company warm her expression, leaning closer to him. “Gideon, I really must thank you for dancing with me again.”
“Again?” He frowned.
She beamed at him. “Don’t you remember? We danced a few times that summer Martin was studying with Fontaine, the French dancing master.”
The memory must have surfaced because his expression lightened. “Oh, yes.”
His eyes narrowed, a devilish twinkle in his eye. “Although I seem to recall you hid when the man would come around.”
“Well…you and Martin were taking turns crushing my toes. I hid to preserve my ability to walk. I’m pleased to see your skill has considerably improved since then.”
His lips twitched. “Hmm, yes. I forget exactly when it was, but there came a point when I decided dancing was a useful skill to have.”
Amelia laughed. “It was probably when you realized all those village girls expected you to partner with them at those local assemblies…”
Though he smiled in response, his expression was distant. “Actually, I believe it was much later.”
“In any case, I am grateful,” she rasped, looking down to avoid his too-perceptive gaze.
“It’s just a waltz, cousin.”
It was much more…and he knew it. By coming to her rescue and sharing a dance with her, he was publicly declaring his belief in her innocence. As one of Martin’s closest relations, the gesture could not be disregarded or ignored.
Though Gideon was new to his title, he was a powerful man. Not only was he a major landholder, but if what Crispin said was true, Gideon also possessed a dangerous reputation. Few in the ton would dare cross him. From what she’d just witnessed, the anger so quickly and efficiently hidden—it was starting to dawn on her he might have earned that reputation.
“Amelia, you know you can tell me anything. I will keep your confidence.”
Her lips parted, the temptation to do that overwhelming. But the weight of all her secrets was too much. She closed her mouth.
Gideon reluctantly released her as the song ended. “Perhaps in time,” he murmured, surprising her with a surfeit of patience he hadn’t possessed as a youth.
He bowed and offered his arm, walking her off the dance floor. “Incidentally, Martin did mention Mapleton to me once. It was while he was still at school.”
She looked at him, raising an eyebrow.
He bent to whisper conspiratorially. “Martin said he was a self-satisfied prig that secretly picked his nose when he thought no one was looking.”
Her levity returning, Amelia giggled, watching Crispin out of the corner of her eye as he rushed to join them.
“Regrettably, we must leave,” the viscount announced breathlessly as he reached their side. “I promised to make an appearance at the Duquesne ball,” he added with a reasonable facsimile of regret and a charming grin.
“Of course.” Gideon inclined his head, his inflection as correct and unconcerned as Crispin’s. “Don’t let me keep you.”
Still marveling over Gideon’s new air of self-mastery, Amelia waved goodbye, allowing herself to be ushered away. But once they were inside Crispin’s carriage, she pleaded exhaustion and asked to be taken home instead.
“It has been an eventful night,” Crispin agreed with bright eyes, directing his driver to change course.
For the remainder of the drive, he marveled at Gideon’s chivalrous behavior, prattling on about how she now had the upper hand in the ton thanks to the earl. His gratitude was not enough, however, to stop the admonishments about taking the man into her confidence.
“Don’t worry. I haven’t forsaken all caution, my friend,” she assured him before bidding him good night.
Amelia walked to her door slowly, feigning fatigue. In truth, she felt energized, her heart and mind fully occupied. She opened her door and dismissed her butler.
“Will you want the fire in your room, ma’am?” he asked before retiring.
“No, thank you, Adolfo. Go on to bed,” she said, sending him on his way.
He bowed and headed for the servants’ quarters.
Too restless to retire to her room, she made her way to her private parlor. She crossed the room to open the windows, still humming the tune of tonight’s waltz.
That’s odd.
Amelia straightened, examining the glass panes of the open casement. She traced her finger over the surface. Though the house was relatively new, the glass in the panes looked different from when she’d seen them last. Now it had waves and ripples in it, the kind found in the windows of much older manor houses.
It was as if the glass had melted somehow. Amelia frowned. In her father’s old texts, she’d read that glass was melted sand, and though it appeared solid, it still had some of the attributes of a liquid. Over prolonged periods of time, glass revealed its liquid nature, by warping and running…except this morning, the glass had been clear. This house was only about a decade old. Nor had the window glass been exposed to a fire.
Perhaps she had drunk too much champagne at the ball. Rubbing her head, she debated on ringing for tea, but the hour was late and the staff had all gone to sleep. Instead, she pulled a favorite novel off a nearby shelf and settled on her settee to read.
It was all a pretense, however. Amelia could not even be honest with herself. All she wanted was to close her eyes and pretend she was still dancing with Gideon. Perhaps if she relived that moment in her mind she could create an imprint of the sensation, a treasured memory she could take out and examine when she was in her dotage.
Absently, she reached out to set the book on the adjoining table, laughing over her own clumsiness when the book tumbled to the floor. She bent and picked it up, frowning as she set it on the wooden surface.
Someone had moved the table. No. Someone had moved her settee. It was no longer in the same alignment with the fireplace.
Amelia stood and examined the furniture. There were no marks in the rug showing the settee had been moved. Which meant the rug had been moved as well. The Aubusson carpet was quite large, extending more than half the length of the room. It would have taken several servants to shift it.
She pivoted on her heel, taking in the whole room. It wasn’t just the settee or the carpet. Her desk, the sofa, and all the end tables had also been moved. Even the smaller objects had shifted. Vases, books, pens. Their locations were the same in most cases, but they were now off by less than an inch.
Either the maids had been overzealous with their dusting, or…The door. The door was also in a different place.
Apprehension prickled her skin. How was this possible?
It had to be her imagination. A doorway couldn’t move. But she knew the dimensions of this room like the lines of her own hand. The entrance had been several inches to the left, slightly off center from the decorative flower in the molding above. Now the edge of the doorjamb was aligned with that flower.
Wait. The heavy shelf in the corner could not have moved. It was built into the wall. But her eyes did not deceive her. It, too, had been repositioned. She could see the gap next to it—and it was growing before her eyes.
Amelia inhaled sharply, trying desperately to get enough air into her lungs. The room was no longer static. It appeared to swell, the walls ballooning out, furniture scraping the floor as it expanded.
She tried to scream, but no sound came out. There was no air in her lungs. Her fear was literally choking her.
The last thing Amelia remembered was the pattern of the carpet as it rose to meet her face.
Chapter 6
“What do you mean she’s not here?” Gideon was beyond the point of irritation. “You told me yesterday that she is always back from her afternoon calls at this hour.”
“I am very sorry, Lord Flint,” the butler said, clutching Gideon’s card. “I’m sure if Mrs. Montgomery had known you were the one who called yesterday she would have made a point of staying home.”
Gideon suppressed a snort. What the man meant was if he’d known Gideon was an earl, then he would have actually passed on his message.
“Do you know when she’ll return?” he asked, running his hand roughly through his hair.
“Um, I’m not certain.” The butler coughed. “I believe she’s supposed to be taking a turn in the park right now, but madam has been keeping unpredictable hours of late.”
Well, if that wasn’t an understatement.
“I’ll be sure to give her your card as soon as she comes home,” the butler said helpfully.
Gideon slammed his beaver hat back on his head and turned up his collar against the drizzling rain. Was the bloody woman riding in this weather? Or was Amelia lying about her whereabouts to her own staff?
True the rain had only just started, but the dark clouds had been threatening to burst since before breakfast. And from what he remembered, he didn’t think Amelia was devoted enough a rider to voluntarily be out in this weather. No, if memory served him, she would rather be curled up with a book on a day like this.
And to think Gideon had started to give her the benefit of the doubt.
After that night he’d waltzed with her, he’d begun to think her innocent. With those bruises on her arm, he’d cast her as a victim. He’d even suspected Lord Worthing was hurting her, forcing her to do as he instructed.
But since that night, Amelia had been out riding in the park or paying afternoon calls every day. Every night, she attended at least two or three functions. He lost count of the number of balls and soirees he’d attended in the last week trying to run her to ground. And half the time, she hadn’t bothered to take Lord Worthing with her.
Clarke may have been right. Now that Amelia Montgomery had the Earl of Flint’s social approbation, she was throwing herself into the whirl and glitter of the ton.
“She’s glorying in her newfound social acceptance,” his friend had said at the club last night after Gideon had missed Amelia at the opera. “She married very young, didn’t she? And before that, old spendthrift Clarence never gave the chit a season. I wouldn’t judge her too harshly. It can be overpowering to experience freedom for the first time. It’s only natural she would want to partake in society’s little pleasures and peccadillos now that she’s able to.”
Those words rang in Gideon’s ears as he turned up his collar against the damp air, but he rejected them. It was true Amelia had spent most of her life buried in Northumberland and had only socialized among foreigners, but he didn’t agree with the assertion that Amelia wanted to be embraced by the ton.
She doesn’t consider them her people, he thought as he cut through the park on the way to his townhouse.
Amelia’s father had taught her to detest the artificiality and pretense of the British upper class. Gideon knew that because whenever Sir Clarence would make his snide comments about his and Amelia’s parentage, she would repeat her father’s words.
A man’s worth is defined by his actions, not his birth.
Though Gideon had never been cut as deeply by Sir Clarence’s constant barbs, he had found comfort in the earnestly delivered words at the time. He still did despite his unexpected inheritance.
However, Amelia had been little more than a child when she’d said them. What if she’d only been spouting her father’s ideas with no understanding of what they truly meant?
He hadn’t believed that at the time. Or did Amelia simply not hold to them now?
What if she’d changed? It wouldn’t be the first time a young sheltered woman was seduced by the glitter and pomp of high society. Gideon would never have guessed that Amelia could be one of them; however, recent events were making him re-evaluate what he knew about her.
Could she be a murderer? He snorted. Just because Amelia suddenly enjoyed balls did not mean she had committed such a heinous act. He needed to adhere to the facts at hand. The problem was that he had precious few of them, despite his best efforts.
Clarke had successfully befriended Amelia’s maid, Carlotta. He’d managed to meet the Italian woman on one of her half-days off in the market, but little had been learned from that source. The language barrier notwithstanding, all Clarke had managed to get out of her was that the maid was lonely.
As for Willie, the servant who’d witnessed Martin’s death, he was being as elusive as Amelia.
The buzz of questions in Gideon’s mind stopped when he spotted a woman in a navy riding habit in the distance. By rights, she was too far away to be sure of her identity, but he knew it was her. He would recognize the graceful lines of her figure anywhere.
There were other women in the ton with similar coloring and figures just as fine, yet for some reason, he could always spot Amelia in a crowd—even when her back was turned or his view was partly obscured. Funny that.
Gideon studied her impatiently as she and her companions approached. Amelia appeared more comfortable in the saddle than when he’d last seen her riding. She’d been an accomplished rider as a child, but lack of opportunity to continue practicing had made her more hesitant as a young girl. It had been his teasing that had gotten her back on a horse—but only when Sir Clarence had been away on business.
Amelia must have ridden often since then. Her back was straight and she held the reins with grace, but even from this distance, he could see the strain in her form.
She was between two men riding on matching chestnut mares, both eager young pups he recognized as belonging to the dandy set. Ignoring them, he raised his hand in greeting as she approached. The involuntary scowl that darkened his face went unnoticed as the trio passed him.
Amelia hadn’t acknowledged his wave. Indeed, she never even glanced his way. And her companions were too engrossed in their conversation to notice him. He caught enough of what they were saying to know they were gossiping, sharing the latest amusing on-dits as if they were competing for her attention.
But she wasn’t paying them any mind. Amelia looked distracted and…miserable.
She was hiding it, but he recognized that resigned blankness of expression. It was one she wore whenever Sir Clarence had started disparaging her father. He’d seen it multiple times on the faces of others during his time with the war office.
The wind picked up, its icy tendrils working their way under the collar of his greatcoat. He pulled it closer around him, debating if he should follow the riders. Hesitating, he swore and decided to head home. Tonight was the Duke of Marlboro’s ball—one of the largest and most lavish events of the season. If socializing was now a priority, there was no way Amelia would miss it.
Gideon took great care with his attire that evening. He didn’t go in for the brightly colored waistcoats and jackets that were all the rage at the moment. He chose a dark blue waistcoat, white shirt, and a simply tied cravat.
He was meeting Clarke at ten, a few hours after the ball officially started. Clarke was already there. If Amelia arrived early, his friend would follow her and send word of her movements. So far, no messages had arrived, meaning she hadn’t yet made an appearance.
By the time he arrived, the event was officially a crush. As expected, everyone in the Beau Monde had decided to attend the Marlboro’s ball tonight. He greeted the duke and duchess, spending the better part of a half-hour talking to the old duke about the possibility of a war with France.
Not normally one for socializing, Gideon was nevertheless having a fine time disparaging Napoleon’s prospects with the old hawk when the duchess interrupted.
She took Gideon’s arm and led him away to the refreshments table, chatting politely on the decorations and the many preparations she had made for the evening. All too soon, however, the conversation veered into dangerous territory.
“You simply must dance with Lord Harrow’s daughter,” the duchess instructed, tapping him on the sleeve with her fan. “She’s a lovely girl fresh out of the schoolroom. Then there’s Clarissa Scott, the Earl of Quinnay’s niece. She does the most beautiful watercolors.”
Unsure why he was getting that advice, he nodded. “Err, thank you, Your Grace. I will be sure to ask her about them should I be fortunate enough to dance with her tonight,” he said, looking out of the corner of his eye for Clarke.
His instincts belatedly began to prick him, and they were telling him to retreat.
The fan tapped him again, harder this time. When he looked back at the duchess, her expression was a trifle pinched. “I am only trying to help you, young man,” she chided.
“Thank you,” he said automatically before wondering why she had taken an interest in him. She didn’t keep him in suspense for long.
“Yes, well, one would hate to see such a fine young man making a mistake and tying himself to a woman with…shall we say…a questionable reputation.”
Gideon stiffened. “If you’re referring to Mrs. Montgomery, I should explain she is a family connection.”
He could tell the duchess was trying not to roll her eyes. “No need to take umbrage, my boy. I know Amelia Montgomery is your kin by marriage, and she is charming and well-mannered enough. Truly, I have no issue with her. But I thought you should know your interest in her has been remarked on these last weeks. And I knew the former Earl of Flint for many years. He was a good friend.”
The duchess broke off and sighed. Her mind was no doubt deep in the past. After a beat, she continued. “Yours is an old and venerated title. Make sure you keep that in mind when you are selecting a countess to stand at your side.”
