by Maya Rodale
The baron laughed again. Alistair just stood there, barely managing the basic functions of survival, like breathing, or having a heartbeat. He wanted to protest, but he could not, for every accusation was true. He was a half-breed wastrel who had spent his adult life traveling from here to there with no purpose or destination. He did not fit into society. He did not know anything about estate management; it had never been in his course of study. And no, he could not make a match with Lady Amelia, he hadn’t been able to muddle through a waltz and he raged at the way the baron spoke of her.
He raged at all of it. The laughter. The smugness. The refusal to recognize they were family for better or for worse. The refusal to recognize that he too was grieving. The refusal to see him as a human, worthy of consideration.
“So yes, Alistair. I need an heir.”
“But you haven’t much to leave to an heir now do you? Just a mess of debts and a tangle of entailed estates. And what will it matter to you, anyway? You’ll be dead.”
The baron paled. It was the first time Alistair had even spoken sharply to him.
And then Alistair understood. Finally, he understood.
“You don’t want an heir,” he said softly. “You want Elliot back.”
The baron, tellingly, looked away.
“You will never forgive me for my role in his death. And I deserve that. I will never forgive myself either.”
The baron said nothing, yet still managed to speak volumes. Alistair wasn’t ordered to stop, or get out. There was no laughter. Finally, Wrotham was listening. Finally, Alistair knew what to say. He kept talking.
“And nothing I can do will ever bring him back, or ease the pain or repay that debt.”
Alistair spoke now for himself more than anything. He hadn’t realized these truths until this moment, when he spoke the words.
Elliot’s death had been a terrible, tragic accident.
Could it have been prevented? Possibly. But if it wasn’t that carriage race, it might have been another. Could Alistair go back and change anything? No. He had to find a way to live with the way things were.
He could continue to blame himself—and take the baron’s blame—but to what end? There was no point in trying to win the baron’s favor. He’d never ever had it. And the baron would never bestow it, for reasons that were simply beyond Alistair’s control.
“I won’t do it anymore. I won’t even try.”
Already he felt lighter. Freer. Sad, but no longer strangled by an impossible task hanging around his neck.
“But we need you to marry. The estate needs the money . . .” Wrotham continued in a hollow voice, as if Alistair had never spoken, as if such truths and revelations had not been revealed, as if nothing had changed. And nothing would ever change if Alistair carried on in the same way; the baroness would still be distraught, the baron would still be fixated on his absent heir, and his increasing debts, and Alistair would still be some traumatized good-for-nothing failure. No, things could not stay the same. They had to change, starting now. This moment. With this choice.
He would no longer live his life, making every effort to earn Wrotham’s favor. Even if it meant he would not marry Lady Amelia.
Chapter 22
In which something changes everything.
Amelia had not seen Alistair in days. Her last glimpse of him had been his back as he walked away, leaving her by herself in the middle of the ballroom, even as she called out to him.
That was awkward, as was returning to her family and explaining that Alistair had simply left her without explanation.
That was embarrassing.
No one knew what to say.
That was humiliating.
Then the days went by without word from him. Not one. He simply vanished.
That was heartbreaking.
Every time she thought of him leaving her in the lurch, she felt sick. In fact, she felt sick and tired more often than not these days. This she attributed to relief; she had nearly fallen in love and wed a scoundrel who had used her, tempted her, and then left her without explanation.
She was lucky to be free of him. Or so she tried to tell herself. In his absence—during which she didn’t receive one letter, or read a mention of him in the gossip columns or see him across a crowded ballroom—she missed him so much that she wondered that maybe it wasn’t the most unforgiveable thing if he had seized an opportunity to spend the day with her.
He was gone. Just as suddenly as he’d arrived in her life, he was gone. He charmed her, seduced her, made her believe and then left.
Scoundrel.
Jackanape. Bounder. Cur. Rogue. Wanker. Amelia muttered all the unladylike swear words she had learned back home, from sailors on the ship during the crossing, and from the stable hands and even James when he was angry. None of them made her feel better.
She knew why Wrotham wanted Alistair to marry her—money was always an easy motive to understand. But what she didn’t know was why Alistair would even try to honor such a request.
Had she been feeling more like herself, she might have plotted ways to find him and compel him to tell her everything. But instead, she languished. And cast up her accounts.
Josephine found her in her room, being sick. When Amelia hadn’t come down to breakfast, the duchess herself came to check on her personally. This was significant. As far as Amelia knew, the duchess was not in the habit of strolling into other people’s bedchambers, uninvited and unannounced. That was something done only by ill-bred people, prone to informal behavior. It was something Amelia did, when she was feeling more like herself.
Amelia warily glanced up, expecting pursed lips or a frown. She had tried to hide and had been caught. Surely, she was in big trouble now.
“Either last night’s supper doesn’t agree with you, or you snuck out for a night of debauchery,” Josephine said. She sat on the bed and smoothed out her crimson skirts.
At the mention of food or debauchery, Amelia heaved again.
“Although,” the duchess said thoughtfully, “no one else is ill.”
Amelia shifted her position. She had her suspicions about what had happened and when and how; she just didn’t know how to say it.
Out loud.
To someone like the Duchess of Durham.
She really missed her mother right now.
“You have been quite subdued lately,” the duchess continued. By subdued she meant too exhausted to cause much trouble.
“I think we both know what is happening,” Amelia said. Thanks to a maid back home who believed that young ladies should be informed, Amelia knew.
“You are with child.”
“I think so,” Amelia mumbled. She bowed her head. Unwed ladies were not supposed to get with child. It was the worst thing that could happen. This would certainly cast the family in shame and ruin them all. She would have a child and bring it up in shame, all because Amelia had fancied a spot of fun one day.
It had been just a lark of a day!
How was she to know it would alter her life permanently, forever? The enormity of the consequences of it made her sick all over again.
“I know I am being punished for running away. And . . .” Well, she couldn’t quite bring herself to say what, though it was clearly apparent what she had done. “I made a mistake. And now I’m paying for it.”
There was a rustle and swish of skirts as the duchess dropped to her knees on the floor beside Amelia. She smoothed Amelia’s hair back and pulled her close.
“It is not a mistake,” she whispered fiercely. “Don’t ever say that.”
That was not what Amelia expected her to say. It might have been the last thing she expected to hear. But it was welcome. So very, very welcome. “Sometimes,” the duchess continued, “a family comes to you when it’s time, not when you planned it. And it may seem like a disaster”—Amelia suspected the duchess was talking about her and her siblings now. “But it isn’t. It’s just . . . right.”
“There will be a scandal.”
“Shh . . .” The duchess—Josie, she could certainly call her Josie now—just held her. She wasn’t the maternal sort, and the hug was a bit stiff and awkward, but she was trying. And that was everything, because Amelia needed some mothering at a moment like this.
“And Alistair left.”
Her voice cracked. She tried to hold back a sob. He left! And she was crying over him!
“You are lucky, Amelia, and don’t you forget it.”
Amelia peered up at the duchess and didn’t see the fearsome Duchess of Durham who terrified half the ton. There was just a woman, on the floor beside her in her hour of need, doing her best to comfort her. Amelia couldn’t entirely see how she was lucky right now—a baby without a wedding ring was an unprecedented level of trouble for her—but there was something in Josie’s eyes and voice that made her believe that this little thing inside of her was a good thing and not just something making her heartsick and just plain sick.
“What am I going to do, Josie?” Amelia asked, leaning against her.
She stiffened a bit, presumably not quite used to moments like these. Then she softened.
“Well, as I see it, there are three options,” she began. “First, you can marry the father.”
“Who has left me. And disappeared. What is the next option?”
“You can quickly bamboozle another man into marriage and hopefully convince him that the babe is his,” Josie said. “It’s done all the time.”
Amelia heaved once more.
“Or you can go live at one of our country estates with your child. You won’t be able to return to society, though. Your brother and sisters and I can come to visit.”
This would be her way out.
No more shoes that pinched, frilly dresses, or late nights spent waltzing. No more calling hours or endless conversations about the weather. She could wear breeches and ride astride and do whatever she pleased. She and the child could have adventures, play games, and enjoy life together away from the judging eyes of society.
But there would also be no more teasing with her siblings or kissing Alistair or the hum of city activity. She wouldn’t have someone to marvel over the child with, except, perhaps a stern old housekeeper and straight-faced butler (it seemed all housekeepers were stern and all butlers were straight-faced). She may not have loved the social whirl, but she was a person who thrived on company and activity.
And family.
“And perhaps, in time, your child will be able to make his or her debut,” Josie said. “We could certainly manage some sort of match.”
Amelia could just imagine what it would be like for the bastard child of the scandalous American hoyden who became a recluse and was known to wear breeches, ride astride, and otherwise buck convention. It would be a mighty challenge for a child who should have every advantage and yet would spend its life at a disadvantage because its mother decided to have a spot of fun one day with a scoundrel.
She already wanted more than “some sort of match” for her child.
She did not want “some sort of match” for herself, either.
What did she want?
“You do not have to decide this now,” Josie said. Indeed, it was not a decision to be made whilst casting up one’s accounts. But it was a decision that would have to be made soon.
But she did not feel old enough to decide people’s fates on her own.
Amelia found herself longing for Alistair.
Who had not come to call in days, after mysteriously leaving her for reasons he did not deign to explain.
Men.
She did not understand them.
Fortunately, she had a brother who did.
In which our heroine questions her brother about men.
Later that afternoon
Amelia found James in the stable, even though he was told time and again that dukes were not to muck about in stables. They were above all that and had Important Ducal Matters (whatever those were) that required their attentions. That was just one of the things about being a duke that James disregarded. He knew what he loved, what he was good at, and he stuck with it. That was one of the things she admired about him.
She found him in a stall, brushing one of the mares, Cassandra. She came with the title. Amelia joined them both.
“I need you to explain men to me,” she said, apropos of nothing.
James looked heavenward and did that thing he did where he muttered about the injustice of having to be responsible for three sisters, one of whom who thought nothing of joining him in a small confined space with a large, powerful animal to ask him the simple question of explaining half of humanity.
“I’m a simple man,” he said, pausing in his work and turning to face her. “I like horses. Women. A good whiskey. And yet I constantly find myself besieged by sisters. And female problems.”
He resumed brushing the mare.
“My heart bleeds for you. But I came to discuss my problems. My problems with men.”
“When I look at you, I see a girl of eight who fell out of a tree trying to rescue a kitten. That she had placed there in the first place.” Ah, Millie. Turns out she was not a climber. “She is too young to have men problems.”
“Be that as it may,” Amelia said, using a lovely, polite way of saying, I hear what you are saying and it is completely irrelevant to my agenda. She had learned it from the duchess. “I am a grown woman of two and twenty years and I have men problems. Well, a man problem.”
“Thank God it’s singular,” James said. Then he set down the brush and sat on an overturned bucket—hardly ducal, that—and asked, “What is it?”
“Alistair has vanished. Without word or explanation. Why?”
She had considered the matter extensively, between sleeping and being sick, and decided that if she knew why he’d disappeared she could determine how to proceed with deciding their collective fates.
But asking Alistair himself was complicated. Because he had vanished without word or explanation.
“Well, as I see it, there are two possible reasons,” James said. “No, three.”
“Do tell.”
“The first is that he is a horrible, irredeemable scoundrel who uses young women and abandons them to dire fates,” James said. “It’s been known to happen.”
“What are the other reasons?”
“Another is that he is dead in a ditch somewhere.” James paused. “It has probably happened, though not as frequently as it has been cited as a reason for a man’s disappearance.”
“And the third?”
“You’ll have to ask him.” James picked up the brush and carried on with tending to the mare.
“That is all!? Dead, scoundrel, or I have to ask him myself? Those are the reasons?”
Outraged. She was Just. Plain. Outraged. She’d half a mind to kick that bucket in frustration, but she didn’t want to startle the horse. James just shrugged and said, “That’s men for you.”
“I am disappointed. Or infuriated. I’m not certain which, but it is one of the two.”
“At least we’re simple. Unlike women . . .”
Pfft. If she weren’t in the throes of a romantic crisis that would determine the fate of her entire life, she would argue that point. Priorities. She had them.
But . . . she couldn’t resist needling her brother.
“Having women troubles, are you James?”
“I thought we were discussing your problems with a man,” he replied. She took that as a yes. “Look, Amelia. You’re young. You have time to let things happen. There is no need to rush.”
“But there is a reason to rush . . .” she whispered.
That got his attention. He looked at her closely.
“Are you saying what I think that you are saying?”
She nodded yes. She could chatter for hours with a brick wall, but this was one hard word to say to her beloved older brother.
“What should I do, James?”
And then he said something that surprised
her. “I have no idea, Amelia.” Then he pulled her into his arms for a hug and said something that was muffled by her hair but that sounded a lot like, “But it should be something that makes you happy.”
Chapter 23
In which our hero finally (and reluctantly) confronts his demons.
White’s
So you see, I cannot marry Amelia because it will just be to repay my debt to Wrotham,” Alistair explained to an audience consisting of Darcy, Fox, and Rupert. They were at White’s, idly playing cards and drinking brandy. He might have been talking for some time now, judging by the bored expressions on his companions’ faces. “It was his idea, his order. And that won’t change anything! What kind of man am I if I just do another man’s bidding and drag an innocent woman into it? Not a man who should marry.”
Fox knit his brow and spoke slowly.
“I know I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, but you’re going to need to explain this once more.”
“No, he doesn’t.” Rupert cut him off. “Because what he’s saying is absolute rubbish. If he actually believes this, then Lady Amelia is better off without him.”
“I don’t think that Lady Amelia is better off without him,” Darcy stated. “In fact, I think Lady Amelia is deserving of a marriage proposal from you, immediately, regardless of what feelings, which you attempt to disguise as logic, that you profess.”
This was punctuated by a pointed look that said: You Compromised Her. Propose. That Is All.
No one at the table disagreed with Darcy.
Alistair blinked once, twice, taking it all in. The brutal honesty was breathtaking and it was a moment before he was even able to form words. Given the lack of air to his brainbox, Alistair didn’t even have a good reply.
“Are you calling me a coward?”
“It would seem so,” Darcy said evenly.
How dare he call him a coward! Scared, foolish, stupid . . . his blood went from a simmer to a boil. He was not a coward. He was a rational man explaining his logical decisions. Darcy was such a know-it-all and it was time someone put him in his place.
