by Maya Rodale
It could have been worse. Ha.
The rest of the carriage ride was passed in excruciating silence. In which not one of her siblings came to her defense.
This was a first.
Also a first: not one of her beloved siblings gave her so much as a sympathetic glance and she truly would have loved a little indication that they knew she hadn’t meant to cause a scene and embarrass them all. If only someone would understand that she wasn’t ready for all this social whirling, all these potential future husbands, all this planning to settle into a new life.
Ever since that letter arrived informing James of his new station and summoning them to England, they’d been a strong family unit.
One for all and all for one.
Until tonight. She’d felt abandoned tonight.
Finally, they arrived at Durham House, a monumental and imposing stack of stones in the middle of London.
“Well Amelia, I hope you enjoyed yourself this evening,” the duchess said crisply while she handed her satin cape and gloves to Pendleton, the butler.
“Immensely.” Her voice veritably dripped with sarcasm, which was a disguise for hurt feelings.
“You needn’t take such a tone,” the duchess said sharply.
Amelia felt her heart starting to pump harder and her head started to pound.
Smile more. No, smile less. Suffer through the pain of your footwear. Let this old gentleman look down your bodice. Dance with whomever asks even if you do not wish to dance with him. Simper.
And now her tone wasn’t right.
According to the duchess, she couldn’t do anything right. And according to her siblings too, since they weren’t coming to her defense as they usually did.
She felt lonely, and tired, and wronged. And in such a state, she hardly behaved at her best.
“Of course,” she said wearily. “Sarcasm and taking such a tone are unbecoming of a lady. I’m so bloody bored of being A Lady. And don’t tell me ladies don’t say words like bloody, because I am well aware.”
“Then why must you persist in using such indelicate phrases?”
“Because I must have something to amuse myself.” Then for good measure she added, “When I am so bloody bored. All the bloody time. Sorry, Duchess, but husband hunting is not my preferred sport.”
“Amelia . . .” Claire started, in her let’s-be-reasonable voice.
“Oh, don’t Amelia me,” she said, stomping up the stairs. “Not tonight. I am no mood for more lectures on how exactly to smile, or the precise tone of my voice or whatever other stupid rules I happen to break because I am some ignorant and uncivilized girl. I won’t bend over backwards trying to please people who are determined to laugh at me anyway.”
She looked at Bridget as she said it. And that was just enough over the line.
“They aren’t. . . .” Bridget’s voice trailed off in her halfhearted defense of the ton. Her hands balled into fists, crumpling the satin and silk of her skirt. “You don’t have to make it so easy for them to laugh. Or hard for me to succeed. And you don’t have to be so childish, either, Amelia.”
That got Amelia’s blood boiling.
“Expecting that you not divest yourself of your footwear at a formal ball is not an outlandish request,” the duchess said dryly. And then, echoing the sentiments of the ton, she added, “At least, not in England.”
“You are lucky it was just my shoes, when I’d really like to remove this blasted corset, douse it in brandy and set it afire,” Amelia muttered.
“Just don’t use the good brandy,” James said dryly.
“You’re not helping,” Claire, Bridget, and the duchess said to him in unison.
Amelia was halfway up the stairs, on her way to at last removing the offending garment.
“Between her language and the shoes, everyone will think you were raised in the stables,” the duchess lamented.
“To be fair, we practically were,” James remarked from where he leaned idly against the wall. Not coming to stand beside her, either literally or figuratively.
“And everyone already thinks so,” Bridget muttered.
“Please do not remind me of that fact,” the duchess said, closing her eyes. “I am trying very hard to forget it and very, very hard to ensure that the rest of the ton forgets it as well.”
“You could always send me back if I’m such an embarrassment to you all,” Amelia challenged.
She was very attached to her family. But tonight . . . tonight she felt it might be for the best if she did return home, on the other side of the world, where she couldn’t embarrass them or ruin things.
“Amelia, we agreed . . .” Claire started. Again, with that calm and rational voice that oddly only served to make Amelia more frustrated.
Yes, they had agreed to come to England and see what life was like here. Because opportunities to be dukes did not come along every day. But Amelia had seen enough. This life was not for her. And if she married an Englishman, then she could say goodbye to ever returning home.
“And you did say you wanted to see more of the world,” Claire added. “Think of this as an adventure. A chance to explore.”
“I do want to see the world,” Amelia said. “Not every drawing room and ballroom in London. I mean, honestly, how much damask wallpaper, gold-framed portraits of dead aristocrats, and fancy tea sets does one girl need to see?”
Her voice was rising now, trembling a little. She couldn’t help it. Amelia had a vision of her life as an endless stream of tea parties in damask wallpapered rooms, under the disapproving gaze of dead aristocrats, alone except for some stuffy old English bore.
“I want more,” she said. The word more was ripped from her heart. There had to be more for her than constricting her thoughts, words, and movements so she fit into a place she didn’t even want to be. There had to be more of the world for her to experience than ballrooms and drawing rooms.
The duchess pursed her lips. “Lady Amelia, you are hysterical.”
The three not-hysterical Cavendish siblings winced.
“Hysterical?” Amelia turned and started descending the stairs in a fury.
“Duchess, never tell a hysterical woman that she’s hysterical,” James said. Then, to no one in particular, James added, “It’s the sort of thing a man learns when he’s responsible for three younger sisters.”
“Well, if she would just calm down . . .” the duchess said. Logically. But then again, she hadn’t any experience with children.
“Calm down?”
“Even worse,” Claire said, shaking her head. “Never tell a woman, especially Amelia, to calm down.”
“If you are such experts, then you handle the situation,” she said, throwing her hands up.
“We have found . . .” Claire began as Amelia now muttered about the injustice of a woman being deemed hysterical for wanting more from her life than to marry some inbred Englishman.
“. . . over the years . . .” Bridget added, while Amelia carried on about damask-papered prison walls and the interchangeability of corsets and straitjackets.
“. . . that it is best to simply allow her to exhaust herself,” James said.
Amelia had had enough. She started pulling the hairpins from the elaborate coiffure her maid had done earlier. An hour of her life spent forcing her wild curls into an unnatural arrangement. Well, no more! She flung the hairpins one by one across the foyer. They skittered across the marble floor. They ricocheted off crystal sconces. They plunked against portraits and fell to the floor.
“Well,” the duchess said. “There is only one thing to do, I suppose. I shall send up Miss Green with some laudanum.”
A short while later, Amelia felt much calmer. She’d drunk a cool glass of water that Miss Green had brought to her. Her maid had helped remove her corset, gown, stockings, and stays and dressed her for bed. The others retired, leaving her alone.
But Amelia wasn’t tired. She had a restless energy, always, even now. It was this feeling that there was
always something more out there, just beyond her reach or her vision. The world over, people were having love affairs, conducting business, fighting duels, performing operas, trekking across deserts, making great works of art, or simply cooking dinner. Or kissing.
She longed to experience it. All of it. As a lady she was allowed none of it. Not love affairs and kissing, or fighting duels or simply cooking dinner. To say nothing of trekking across deserts. There was a whole world out there, pulsing with activity.
And Amelia was cut off from all of it.
Like some fairy-tale princess locked in a tower.
She moved to the window and opened it. She looked out at the dark, silent night and looked up at the stars twinkling over the city.
And then she heard a man singing. The sound was too faint for her to make out the words, but there was no mistaking a lovely melody in a man’s baritone ringing through the night.
She leaned forward, resting her weight on her elbows, staring out the window dreamily and hoping to catch a glimpse of him.
How lovely it must be to stroll along the quiet streets at night, singing a song, and not caring who heard. What freedom he possessed!
Why, if she were out on the streets at night, as a lady, which one should never do, she would have to take the utmost care to get right back inside immediately before Danger Befell Her. And it wasn’t clear which kind of danger was worse for a woman: the sort that came from unrepentant and unscrupulous scoundrels devoid of a moral compass but brimming with nefarious intentions?
Or the danger that came from a single glance out the window by a woman prone to gossip about what she saw?
Amelia sighed, thinking how unfair it was that a man could go out at night, singing loudly in the streets, not fearing for his life or his reputation. He could enjoy a leisurely stroll on a beautiful summer night, not a fear or care in the world.
She would add it to her list of things she’d do if she were a boy. Such a list also included visiting a gaming hell, racing at Ascot, embarking on a Grand Tour, or simply getting out of calling hours. Or perhaps Not Getting Married Ever.
Amelia finally started to feel calm. She yawned.
But still she lingered at the open window. His singing was quite lovely. And she longed to know, just for a moment, what it was like to take a quick stroll on a dark summer night while singing a song.
She couldn’t shake her curiosity. The idea swirled around her head, dreamily. And then wicked thoughts crossed her mind.
Everyone had gone to bed.
No one would notice if she slipped out for a moment.
Everyone was already mad at her, what was one more little indiscretion?
His voice was closer now, warm and low and tempting.
She yawned once more and could not, for the life of her, think of why she should not put on a dress and boots and slip outside to meet the man with the wonderful voice and have the freedom to stroll through the streets and sing in the dead of the night.
She did just that, donning the dress, stockings, boots, and a spencer. She slipped out of her bedroom, darted down the corridor and down the servants’ stairs, skipping the creaky one (third from the bottom). And then she stepped outside and into the night.
Chapter 3
In which our hero and heroine should not be meeting like this.
Very late at night
It was a warm summer night in Mayfair and Alistair sang an old drinking song as he walked back to his flat after a night pleasantly spent drinking and wagering with his old friends at White’s.
At this late hour, the streets were empty.
Except for . . . a woman?
He slowed his pace and observed.
She strolled slowly and stumbled slightly. As he drew closer, he heard something like singing, but she was slurring her words and it was hard to discern what she was saying. Or singing. But she did have a lovely voice.
A lovely figure too, from what he could glimpse from behind. Women with lovely figures and voices oughtn’t be strolling the streets of London, not even in Mayfair, at this late hour.
He caught up with her.
“Madam.”
She whirled to face him, nearly falling flat on her face as she did so.
“Good evening sir. Or is it lord? Or mister or right honorable? I do apologize for not knowing.” She tried to curtsy, which was a terrible idea, given her difficulty standing. He propped her up. “I am delighted to make your acquaintance. You must be the man with the song.”
In the moonlight, he could see that she was young. Far too young and far too female to be out on the streets alone, never mind that she was out at night. Never mind that she was clearly three, possibly five sheets to the wind.
Given that this was Mayfair, a neighborhood populated by the marriage-minded mamas, the most dangerous subset of human for the common rake, Alistair had half a mind to rush away from her, in the event that this was some marriage trap.
But then he looked into the dark pools of her eyes fringed with dark lashes and thought, It could be worse.
He put the thought out of his mind.
Madness, that.
“I have been looking for you,” she told him. At least, that’s what it sounded like.
“May I escort you home?” Better him than, oh, anyone else she might encounter. Besides, it’s not as if he needed to be up in a few hours for an interview so important he was summoned from another continent for it.
“No, thank you. But it is so kind of you to offer.”
She tried to dip into another curtsy and thought better of it. She swayed slightly, leaning in toward him.
“May I escort you elsewhere?”
“No, thank you. I prefer to walk.”
“It is not safe for a lady on the streets alone, especially at night.”
“It isn’t safe for a lady anywhere, ever. But now I have you to protect me from the dangers.” She nestled up to him, resting her cheek on his chest. Then she yawned. “You will, won’t you?”
“Yes,” he said softly. Because honestly, what else could he say when a lovely young woman pressed against him like that?
“Let us walk,” she said, quickly stepping away from him and pitching forward. He quickly darted forward and linked arms. She leaned heavily against him and they took a few slow steps. “And do carry on with your song. It tempted me to come out. Like the sires.”
“The sires?”
“You know, from the odessisseusness.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The Greek story.”
“Ah,” he said, comprehension dawning. “The sirens. From the Odyssey.”
“That’s the one! That’s you.”
“I can assure you, I’m not luring you to your death. Quite the contrary, I would like to see you home safely. Where do you live?”
“America.”
Wrong. Impossible. Try again.
“Where do you live?”
“One of these big old drafty houses.” She waved her hand in the general vicinity of the approximately twenty houses lining the street.
If he had stayed in England, he would know who she was, who she belonged to, and which house was hers. She was obviously a person of quality if she was referencing the Odyssey and lived in a drafty old Mayfair house. Or perhaps she was merely a governess. Either way, the last he checked, the young ladies of England of any social class were not encouraged to drink themselves into a stupor and wander the streets alone.
The girl was leaning more and more heavily upon him. Her footsteps were slowing. He probably had precious few moments before she blacked out entirely.
“Miss, where do you live?”
She slumped against him. Yawned loudly. She rested her cheek against the wool of his jacket and her hands slid against his chest.
“Oh bloody hell,” he muttered.
She mumbled something that sounded like, “Ladies mustn’t use such language.”
“Good thing I’m not a lady.”
“Wish
I wasn’t.”
She nestled even closer against him. He could feel that she was very much a lady.
He suddenly, keenly regretted not accepting Darcy’s offer of a ride. At this very moment he could be back in his lodgings, loosening his cravat, removing his boots, and falling into bed to snatch a few precious hours’ sleep before the baron told him why he’d been summoned back after six years abroad.
But no, he was on Bruton Street in the middle of the night, in a hellish predicament. Somehow, he was in possession of a drunk or drugged woman who probably had rich and powerful relatives who would make him pay for his role in this farce.
Alistair considered his options. He could knock on each door and make inquiries: Does this girl belong to you? No? Do you know to whom she belongs?
He couldn’t just leave her on the street.
Perhaps he could leave her on a doorstep of one of these houses, ring the bell and run, thus making her someone else’s problem. A butler would know what to do with her. Butlers always knew what to do.
But that would certainly ruin the girl.
And she seemed like such a sweet girl, with her dark eyes and tumble of curls and mentions of ancient Greek literature. Drunken, unchaperoned, slightly flirtatious antics notwithstanding. He wanted no part in her ruination.
But Alistair didn’t exactly want the responsibility of saving her from such ruination either. He wanted to collapse in his own bed before what promised to be a life-altering interview with the baron. And to do that, he needed to get rid of this girl.
Alistair grabbed her warm, limp shoulders and shook her.
“Where do you live?”
Her head lolled to the side, dark curls tumbled out of her coiffure. She muttered something completely unintelligible. Oh, bloody hell.
Alistair glanced around at the dark night and desolate streets. There was only one possible course of action.
Chapter 4
In which our hero is given a mission, should he choose to accept it.
Early morning—but not early enough
The next morning Alistair woke up with a start. Heart pounding. Panicked. He reached for his timepiece and swore when he saw that it was half past nine. He was due at the baron’s at ten o’clock. He needed time to shave and dress—hopefully Jenkins was up and had tended to the clothes Alistair left on the floor last night.
