by Maya Rodale
But they were bejeweled. She was supposed to tolerate this pain because the shoes were pretty and sparkled in the candlelight. Not that anyone even saw them, because her long skirts covered them.
Amelia suspected that said hideously uncomfortable shoes were not purchased at a shop on Bond Street but had actually been stolen from the Tower of London after being used to wring out confessions from prisoners of war. Or perhaps they were part of a massive conspiracy to ensure the lady population of London was so distracted by the pain in their feet that they didn’t think of anything else, such as all the boorish, unappealing gentlemen who had things like “titles” and “estates” that were supposed to make a girl overlook things like personality or respect for women.
Amelia began to debate what would be worse: marriage to one of these dolts or having to wear these shoes for the rest of her life. Honestly, at the moment, it was a vexing decision. She was mulling these things over when the duchess had another introduction to perform.
“Lady Amelia, may I present Lord Eversleigh.”
“I am so delighted to make your acquaintance, my lord,” Amelia said. “It is truly an honor. I considered myself blessed. In fact, my life was lacking in meaning until this moment.”
“Laying it on a bit thick, are you?” Bridget asked. The duchess was in conversation with someone nearby, they had lost Claire in the crowd, and James was dancing and not looking happy about it.
“Oh hush.”
“Otherwise your performance is commendable,” Bridget said. “You almost have the duchess fooled.”
“Do you, perchance, have a knife?”
“I’m not in the habit of carrying weaponry in my reticule, no. Why do you ask?”
“Because I think I need to cut my feet off. These shoes are evil torture devices and I wish to be free of them. If I have to remove limbs, I will do it.”
“I shall not even dignify that with a comment.”
“You’re right. Divesting myself of limbs would be messy business for a ballroom. Removing these shoes, on the other hand . . .”
“No.”
“I’m sure no one will notice. These skirts are long and will cover my feet.”
“No. Amelia, do not do this.”
Amelia ignored her and glanced around her, trying to solve the problem of where to stash her shoes if not on her feet. Her gaze fell on a potted palm nearby and her heart skipped a beat. She could slip off these torture slippers, tucked them there, and return for them before they left.
“Ladies do not remove their shoes and stash them in potted palms,” Bridget lectured, as if Amelia didn’t already know this. As if that wasn’t the most basic common sense.
But she had reached her last nerve, the end of her rope, her wit’s end.
“I am aware,” Amelia said, sighing with delight as she slipped off her right devil shoe.
“Amelia, stop that!”
“Oh no, there is no stopping me now,” Amelia said. The left shoe, a spawn of Satan, was removed and Amelia thought she would die with pleasure.
“You’ll embarrass us if anyone finds out!”
“No one will find out.”
“Yes, they will! Amelia, the ton already says enough horrible things about us without you gallivanting about the ballroom in your stocking feet!”
“At the moment, I couldn’t care less what the ton will think. And admit it, Bridget, you only care what Lady Francesca thinks of you.”
Lady Francesca was the most popular unmarried girl in the haute ton and Bridget had aspirations of friendship with her, though Amelia doubted Francesca felt the same way.
“That’s not true.”
“You’re right. You only care what Loooord Darcy thinks of you.”
Bridget blanched.
“Please stop talking and put your shoes on. I beg of you.”
Bridget’s cheeks were turning pink now. Amelia didn’t mean to taunt or embarrass her sister; this wasn’t about Bridget at all. It was simply a matter of self-preservation.
“I feel as if I am speaking to a toddler,” Bridget lamented in the way that only an older sister could.
“If I were a toddler, I wouldn’t stop at the shoes. This blasted corset . . .”
“Amelia!”
“It’s Lady Amelia.”
And with that she shuffled a few steps closer to the potted palm and “accidentally” dropped her fan, providing an excuse for Amelia to bend over, stash her shoes in the palm fronds, and then pick up the fan and stand, fanning herself, as if nothing were amiss.
Bridget closed her eyes and groaned.
Amelia smiled. Truly smiled.
The duchess seemed to materialize before them, with yet another potential suitor by her side. Amelia took one look at the spotted beanpole of a boy and wondered if he was even old enough to attend Almack’s and court women. Though he had to be at least eighteen, she wouldn’t put him past fourteen or fifteen.
“Ah, there you are. I wanted to introduce Lord Matthew, Brookdale’s heir. This is the special gentleman I was telling you about, Amelia.”
Faced with the prospect of three sisters, Lord Matthew looked like he was dying a slow death of mortification.
Frankly, the feeling was mutual. He was the “special someone” the duchess thought would be an excellent match for her? Amelia supposed he was better than the other Lord Something the duchess had pushed her in path, the one who said, “I have fond memories of attending Eton with your father.”
Not. Suitable. At. All.
“And I, uh, ahem, I was hoping one of you would, uh, ahem, er, favor me with a dance,” Lord Matthew mumbled. He glanced nervously around the three sisters and his gaze settled on Amelia, as the closest in age to himself. “Lady Amelia?”
“You can’t say no,” Bridget said in a horrified whisper. She was right. Not only was it Not Done to refuse a dance, Amelia felt for the boy. He was so young and so awkward that even the slightest embarrassment would probably traumatize him for a lifetime.
“I can’t very well go do a quadrille or reel or whatever in my stocking feet,” Amelia whispered back, slightly panicked.
Amelia’s mind churned at a furious pace. She could not refuse this sweet, awkward boy, because it would be rude and, she sensed, potentially humiliating and damaging to him. But there was no way to hide her stocking feet during a dance—which she hadn’t expected—and if she were seen, it would only fuel the rumors her family was doggedly trying to stifle. Contrary to what she told Bridget, she did care about her family’s reputation.
Lord Matthew started to turn a rather unsettling, mottled shade of red as the seconds ticked by in which Amelia did not reply.
There was only one way out. She gave him a genuine smile, held out her hand and said loudly, “I would be honored to dance with you, Lord Matthew.”
Then she fainted.
Chapter 2
In which our hero has arrived.
White’s Gentleman’s Club
A little after midnight
It’d been six years, five months, and fourteen days since Alistair Finlay-Jones had last set foot on English soil. As far as anyone knew, he’d had a capital time gallivanting around the Continent and living the life of a debauched aristocrat and idle heir to Baron Wrotham. He had done his utmost to live down to the baron’s expectations of him.
“It’s been an age, Alistair,” his old friend Rupert Wright said over a game of cards and brandy. “What brings you home?”
That was the question, was it not?
He paused for a moment, dramatically. Shuffled the cards in his hands, debating which lie to tell. But then he glanced at the faces of his old friends—Darcy, Rupert, Fox—and decided to speak the truth.
“I have been summoned.”
There was no need to say who had summoned him. There was only one possible person who had any reason or motive to take an interest in his whereabouts: his uncle and sole remaining relation, Baron Wrotham. There was also only one possible reason why the baron wou
ld care to have his distasteful nephew back in the same country.
“Any idea why?” Fox asked.
“Come on, Fox. There is only one possible reason,” Rupert said with a laugh. Fox was fast with his fists but a bit slower with his wits.
“Marriage,” Darcy said dryly. “And duty to one’s station.”
“Those are two things,” Fox said, appearing confused.
“They are one and the same,” Darcy said in that Darcy-ish way of his.
“At any rate, we can be certain it’s not for my company,” Alistair said. It was well known that the baron was embarrassed by his nephew, for reasons that could not be helped, and enraged at his nephew for something that was very much Alistair’s fault. “I have an interview with him tomorrow. Bloody early, in fact.”
“Don’t suppose you’ll want to call it a night so that you are well rested?” Rupert asked with a grin.
Alistair’s only reply was to signal to the waiter to refill his glass of brandy. Then he lit another cheroot and settled in. After six years abroad, it was strange to hear English voices around him—wealthy, male, English voices. In his years abroad, he’d heard all kinds of languages—French, German, Italian, Hindi—and he’d learned enough to get by and not be so lonely, but not enough to develop a deep friendship or share his secrets.
Not that he wanted to talk about those. How very English of him.
But he, Darcy, Fox, and Rupert had survived Eton together, then Oxford. They knew his past, and even after six years apart they settled into a comfortable routine of wagers and games—Rupert won frequently, though Alistair did enjoy raking in a small fortune from Darcy, who seemed unusually distracted.
“What have I missed while I was away?” Alistair asked. Then, grinning, he referenced the conversation earlier in the evening. “Besides Darcy in the lake?”
It seemed the relentless proper Lord Darcy had found himself soaking wet in a lake at a garden party. Women had swooned.
“Fox has women troubles,” Rupert remarked.
“Fox is not speaking of his women troubles,” Fox replied sharply.
“So you admit you have them?” Rupert needled.
“What did I say about gossiping like schoolgirls?” Darcy grumbled.
“The only thing anyone is talking about is the new duke of Durham and his sisters,” Rupert said.
“Enough about the Americans,” Fox grumbled. “We’ve discussed them enough this evening.”
The conversation shifted to other gossip and Alistair listened, hoping for a clue as to why.
Why, after all these years, had the baron finally deigned to remember him? Why, after that unflinching fight in which the baron said he never wanted to see his nephew again, did he summon Alistair back to England?
And why did Alistair come running?
He knew why and he didn’t like the reason. But he also didn’t know what to do about it. Other than come running when the baron called.
Alistair loosened his cravat. It’d gotten awfully tight.
“But never mind us,” Darcy said. “What have you been doing these past few years?”
Searching for . . . something.
“You know . . . this. That.” Alistair sipped his drink. Played a card.
“Illuminating,” Darcy replied dryly.
“You should write a book,” Rupert suggested.
“Sell your story to the gossip rags,” Fox added.
The truth was he hadn’t done more than this and that in a variety of foreign locales. This and that being trying to forget the reason he left England in the first place. And, he supposed, waiting for this very moment when the baron called him back.
“I’m afraid there isn’t much to say. At least, nothing of interest to the newspapers,” Alistair said with a shrug. And then, because they were men and not schoolgirls prone to gossip, the conversation turned to the card game at hand.
Long after midnight, they stepped out of the club onto a desolate St. James’s Street. Alistair refused Darcy’s offer for a ride home in his carriage, preferring to walk home through the streets of Mayfair instead.
In which our heroine is . . . distraught.
Half past midnight
The carriage ride from Almack’s, scene of the scandal, back to Durham House was fraught with tension. The duchess, of course, did not do anything so pedestrian as yell or even scold. Oh no, Her Grace had a particular gift for radiating fury that one was helpless to ignore.
Amelia was not accustomed to it. Memories of Amelia’s own mother were dim, having lost her at a young age; Amelia had been raised with Claire’s absentminded scoldings and James’s pleas to just not get into too much trouble.
Without even saying a word, the duchess had Amelia shrinking back against the squabs in the carriage. Beside her, Bridget was sulking terribly, as if Amelia’s little scene was a deliberate affront to her own personal happiness.
Perhaps it hadn’t been a little scene. Despite her best efforts, she hadn’t managed to conceal her stocking feet when she “fainted” and fell to the floor. Lord Matthew, being young, embarrassed, and terribly awkward, turned and ran; in the process of fleeing the scene he barreled into the Dowager Countess of Pelham, who fell into the arms of Lord Babson. As she was not a petite woman and he was the sort of man for whom physical exertion meant pouring his own brandy rather than cross the room to ring for a footman, he was unable to support her and they both tumbled back into a footman with a tray laden with champagne glasses. There was a terrific clatter followed by a horrible hush.
Everyone saw everything: the fleeing suitor, the tangled lord and lady, the shards of broken champagne glasses, and the stocking-footed American girl sprawled on the floor.
No one had caught her when she “fainted.”
“If you think about it, it’s quite humorous,” she said in a small voice, daring to interrupt the silence.
Or not.
It was a long moment before anyone even acknowledged she had spoken.
“Amelia, the last thing we needed is more rumors about our backward, heathen-ish, and savage American manners,” Bridget said, sighing with tremendous despair. Amelia wanted to tell her to stop caring so much what the gossip rags said—she hated seeing how her sister’s happiness had become dependent on it—but for once knew to hold her tongue. “You weren’t wearing shoes! At a ball!”
“They hurt my feet,” Amelia ground out. “And I don’t see why I should suffer.”
When they’d been at home in America, she wore comfortable boots or nothing at all. Never once had she been reprimanded for it. Of course, she understood that the rules were different here in London, amongst the aristocracy. She knew right and wrong (unless it was the order of precedence; she was still a bit shaky on that). She knew she was supposed to smile prettily and actually consider pledging her troth to one of the simple-minded, weak-chinned boys the duchess was forever thrusting in her direction.
The removal of shoes wasn’t merely a matter of comfort.
It was rebellion.
She didn’t feel she could say that. Instead, she mumbled, “I wasn’t expecting an invitation to dance.”
“I don’t wonder why we don’t receive many,” Bridget said darkly. “We are the laughingstock of London.”
“You don’t really want to dance with any of these stuffy old bores, do you?”
Even in the dim light of the carriage, Amelia could see Bridget’s cheeks redden. She did want to dance with at least some of those stuffy old bores. She wanted to impress stick-in-the-mud Lord Darcy and the snobby Lady Francesca DeVere and her vapid minions friends. Amelia knew this because she read Bridget’s diary.
“Amelia, some of us are trying to fit in here.”
Some of us = Bridget. She spent every waking moment trying to be the Perfect English Lady. James spent every free moment down at Tattersall’s or riding in Hyde Park. He may have left their horse farm, but he still managed to find something like it here. And Claire snuck out to meetings of the Royal Soci
ety of Maths or something dull like that. They still got to be themselves, carve out a few hours each day to live like before.
Amelia had been allowed to run free at their farm in Maryland; James hadn’t cared if she wore breeches to ride astride, Claire hadn’t forced her to learn how to keep house and Bridget had been more prone to join her on adventures rather than practice curtsying in the mirror for hours on end.
But here she was always dressed up and perched in the drawing room or paraded around a ballroom. It wasn’t in her nature to be so still, so trussed up, so caged. And she was supposed to do this so some man might decide he’d like to be her lord and master for the rest of her life.
She knew the feeling of wind in her hair and answering to no one; the idea of marrying someone—anyone, just because the duchess said she ought to—made Amelia sad in her soul. And rebellious in the ballroom.
“Some of us do not appreciate the reputation of the Cavendish name being sullied,” the duchess said. “Especially when we have devoted our lives to upholding it.”
Amelia glanced at the duchess in the dim light of the carriage. How did she do it; how did she behave herself for such a long time? Did she ever just long to take her shoes off if they hurt? Her Grace sat with her spine ramrod straight. Everything about her was immaculate, even at this late hour. No, Amelia concluded, she couldn’t possibly have such longings like taking her shoes off or letting her hair down.
Hoping for sympathy, Amelia looked to her beloved brother James, who always came to her rescue. He would call her Scamp and wonder aloud what the devil he was going to do with her. The answer was that he wouldn’t do anything, but love her and urge her to be more mindful next time.
“It could have been worse,” was his meager, pitiful defense. Then he looked away, focusing intently on the darkness outside of the carriage.
It could have been worse. She could have removed her dress and run shrieking through the ballroom or set fire to the drapes.
