In the ordinary course of things, Verwood should have stood up with Lady Amelia for the first dance, but he begged off on account of his knee.
Her eyes told him she was skeptical, wondering if he was trying once again to embarrass her by pretending his injury was more serious than it was.
“I’m in a certain amount of pain tonight,” he confessed. “Because of darting after that little ruffian this afternoon, you know.”
Immediately her eyes clouded with concern. “Of course. I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t have told Peter you’d escort us.”
“I thought my knee would have recovered by now.”
“Well, as it hasn’t, I think you should take yourself home and give it a rest. Standing about on it isn’t likely to do it much good.”
The perfect opening, and yet he was reluctant to grasp at it. Beneath her politeness and concern there was something more. A stiffness born of hurt feelings? Surely Lady Amelia Cameron didn’t give a fig for his behavior, or for himself. Did she expect him to be like some Bond Street beau, bemoaning his injury but gallantly standing by his promise to escort her for the evening?
Reluctantly he said, “I think you might be right, Lady Amelia. I’d be better off at home, if you will excuse me. Before I leave, I’ll ask someone to escort you and your aunt home after the entertainment.”
“That won’t be necessary,” she assured him, frowning. “I can find someone responsible.”
It was getting perilously close to ten o’clock. His travelling carriage would already be waiting at the Seymour Street corner of Portman Square. Verwood gave a frustrated tap of his cane on the exquisite hardwood of the dance floor and studied her. Yes, he was sure she believed him and that her sympathy was genuine. “Very well. Please make my apologies to your aunt; I’m truly sorry for the inconvenience.”
“That’s quite all right,” she replied, and turned from him to the gentleman (Rollings, Verwood thought) who patiently awaited her attention.
Verwood watched the fellow lead her into the set that was forming. Lady Amelia smiled and batted her eyelashes at Rollings (if it was), and the viscount swung about so fiercely that his cane nearly tripped a matron standing behind him. His apologies were accepted with cold disdain and he stumped from the room in disgust.
Chapter 10
Trudy was nearly apoplectic when she heard of Lord Verwood’s defection. “His leg!” she snorted. “Really, he has the merest limp, and the weather isn’t such that it would cause his injury to act up. I cannot believe it necessary for him to leave.”
Amelia hadn’t disclosed the incident earlier in the day, and she had no intention of doing so now. It would only alarm Trudy unnecessarily. But she did defend Verwood by saying, “Apparently he strained it sometime during the day.”
“Balderdash! He rode with you this morning, and he drove with you this afternoon. What could possibly have happened since then?”
“Any number of things,” Amelia returned stoutly. “He told me he was in pain.”
Trudy refused to be satisfied. “If his leg was falling off, he shouldn’t abandon us when he had promised his escort. And don’t think,” she admonished, waving a finger under Amelia’s nose, “that I will accept Rollings as a substitute on our return home. Far sooner would I make do with the coachman and the footman.”
After Verwood had vanished from sight. Amelia had ceased her flirting with Rollings, since she really had no wish to appear interested in the fortune hunter. When he responded to her flirtatiousness, she felt inordinately cross with him. He was simply too easy to twist around her little finger. Why was it always the gentlemen you were least attracted to who found you enchanting, and the ones you were intrigued by who thought you were a nuisance?
It wasn’t that she didn’t believe Verwood was in pain, but she couldn’t help feeling a little rejected by him. If he had really had some interest in her, he would have stayed despite the discomfort, wouldn’t he? Nonetheless, Amelia was determined to convince her aunt of the necessity of Verwood’s leaving, since it was important to her to believe it had been a logical decision on his part.
“Now, Trudy,” she said sternly, “I haven’t the least desire for Rollings’ escort. And you must understand that I wouldn’t have wished Lord Verwood to stay on my account when he was in such distress. Didn’t you see that he was using his cane this evening? Here the poor man was wounded in his country’s service, and you want him to suffer for a useless point of gallantry.”
“Well, perhaps you’re right,” Trudy conceded, looking slightly mollified. “I dare say he was disguising his discomfort out of respect for us. Now I think of it, there were definitely lines of strain about his eyes. If I had had any reason to suspect, I would have insisted on his leaving, of course. Naturally you did that yourself.”
“Yes, I did.”
“That's just fine, then. He will know what a considerate young woman you are. There are too many flibbertigibbets who would have insisted on his staying. This will show one more instance of your maturity. I’m quite sure that’s what he so appreciates in you, my dear.”
Amelia thought it unlikely that he found anything whatsoever to appreciate in her, but she didn’t say so. In a moment she allowed herself to be led into a country dance by Lord Stratfield, who was one of her admirers, though not a favorite of hers. Long before the end of the evening Amelia felt weary and jaded. It was just one more social event, like all the others, and all the ones to come. Helping Peter had added a little spice to the usual round of entertainments, and now that outlet was denied her. Not that there were all that many suspect people floating through the London ton, but the possibility of encountering one of them had always made her feel on the edge of adventure. She might as well have gone to Bath as Peter had suggested.
“Lady Amelia?” A voice spoke at her elbow and she realized her name had been uttered several times. Mr. Woolbeding stood there nervously rubbing his hands together, looking wretchedly apologetic for interrupting her thoughts.
“Forgive me, Mr. Woolbeding. I’m afraid my mind was a hundred miles away.” Amelia smiled at him, the warmest effort she had made so far that evening. He was such a shy creature, and tremendously self-effacing because his family had made their fortune in trade only three generations previously.
“If you’d rather not dance this set, I’d quite understand,” he said.
“No, no, of course I wish to dance it.” She folded the ivory-and-lace fan she’d been using and placed her hand on his arm. This dance had been promised the day before, when she’d run into Mr. Woolbeding at Gunther’s. Making a mental note of it at the time, she had been careful not to accept the next-to-the-last dance with anyone else. Mr. Woolbeding would never have been so presumptuous as to ask for the last dance. But Amelia hadn’t seen him earlier in the evening, and now smiled and said, “I thought perhaps you hadn’t been able to make it after all.”
“I was a little late,” he explained earnestly. “As I was arriving, I happened to see Lord Verwood standing at the corner by his travelling carriage. One of his team had just thrown a shoe and he was in a bit of a pucker about getting somewhere on time. Of course I offered him my assistance, which he reluctantly accepted. Such a thoughtful gentleman. He was afraid I’d miss all the fun if I took him to the Shorn Sheep before I came here, but I told him it wasn’t perfectly necessary that I be here until almost the end of the evening.” He concluded this speech with a bit of a flush, having revealed that the most important aspect of his evening was his dance with Lady Amelia.
“A travelling carriage?” she asked, astonished. “You mean Lord Verwood was leaving on a trip?”
“He thought almost certainly, but felt he wouldn’t need the carriage right away, if he could just get to the pub by ten. While he conducted his business there they could either have the horse reshod or one brought up to replace it.” Mr. Woolbeding ducked his head in embarrassment as he added, “He said he’d send round an invitation for me to dine with him when he returned to town
.”
“How very kind of him,” she muttered, barely able to repress the rage that filled her bosom.
“If he forgets, I shan’t remind him, of course,” Woolbeding said. “It’s the thought that counts, isn’t it?”
Amelia mumbled something in reply, but it certainly wasn’t “yes.” If her thoughts about Lord Verwood counted, he would be horridly maimed at that moment. The audacity of the man! To tell her he was going home to nurse his knee, when he was in actuality setting off for a strenuous journey. Amelia had been willing to forgive and excuse his duplicity in the past, perhaps, but she was no longer willing to do so. There was something decidedly wrong with the fellow—and she intended to find out what it was.
* * * *
Peter smiled up from his morning cup of coffee. “What? Up at this hour, my love? I felt sure you’d be abed for another two hours at least.”
The sideboard was stacked with plates of cold meats and fruit. Amelia chose a warm muffin and a peach before allowing a footman to hold her chair for her, and watched as he poured cream, tea, and hot water into her cup. “I won’t want anything from the kitchen this morning,” she informed him.
His newspaper discarded, Peter studied his younger sister for a moment in silence, before dismissing the servants. “Is there something wrong, Amelia?”
“Just how much do you know about Lord Verwood?”
He raised his brows in tolerant amusement. “Surely you’re not still convinced he’s a spy. I can’t think what put that idea in your head to begin with.”
“Nobody knows anything about him. He’s just popped up in London out of nowhere.”
“Not exactly,” he assured her. “Look, love, I actually had a letter about him from Sir John Moore, you know. They’re acquainted.”
Amelia pursed her lips, unsatisfied. “Perhaps Sir John Moore knows the real Viscount Verwood. That doesn’t mean the man who poses as him is one and the same.”
Her brother’s amusement had disappeared. “You’re not being logical, Amelia. How in the hell could Verwood live in his town house, with old servants, if he weren’t the real thing?”
“Does he? Have you ever been there?”
“Well, no,” he admitted, “but he’s talked of an aging butler who’s been with the family forever.”
Amelia smirked at this patent deception. “Neither you nor anyone else would know whether an old butler had been with his family forever. Peter, you’ve been entirely too trusting with this man. Absolutely no one knows him at all. That’s hard to account for. The Candovers, Ellis Winchfield, all say they remember him, but they’re so vague. Anyone who looked the least like the real Verwood would pass for him with them. Say the real Verwood was actually killed in Egypt and someone had the clever idea of replacing him with a lookalike. It wouldn’t have been at all difficult to do, would it?”
“It would have been impossible.” Peter was adamant. “Our army doesn’t just lose track of its soldiers, Amelia. Verwood was wounded and took the next ship home. That’s all there is to it, nothing the least mysterious. Is it because I won’t let you help me anymore? Is that why you’re seeing problems where none exist?”
Amelia flung her hair back in a gesture of haughty disdain. “Consider, if you will, my dear brother, just how little you know of Verwood and you won’t be so sure he’s what he seems. Yesterday in the park he offered to escort Aunt Trudy and me to the Bramshaws’.”
“Didn’t he?”
“Why, yes, he did. He arrived here promptly at nine, rode in the carriage with us, refused to stand up with me because of his ‘injured’ knee, and immediately abandoned us.”
“Abandoned you?” There was a quizzical tilt to his brow now, and he shook his head ruefully. “Surely you didn’t quarrel with him, Amy. You’re much too old to be bickering with a fellow just because he won’t dance with you.”
“I didn’t ‘bicker’ with him. He told me his knee was troubling him and he thought he would go home to care for it.”
Peter frowned. “Not particularly gallant, I agree, but not the least suspicious, either.”
“He didn’t go home,” she informed him, triumphant. “Later when I danced with Mr. Woolbeding he told me he’d run into Verwood at the corner—with his travelling carriage. Mr. Woolbeding took him up and delivered him to the Shorn Sheep because one of the horses had thrown a shoe. Now, that has a ring of authenticity to it, don’t you think? That Lord Verwood would be going to a place called the Shorn Sheep?”
“I’m sure there was a reasonable explanation,” Peter replied, ignoring the aspersion cast on Alexander’s character. “It must have been necessary for him to travel rather suddenly.”
“And why wouldn’t he have explained that to me, instead of dredging up the tired excuse of his poor injured knee?”
“Because it may have been... business that he didn’t want you to know about.”
“Your own sister? Ha!” Amelia laid down the knife she’d been using to butter her muffin and eyed him implacably across the length of the table. “There’s something amiss with him, Peter. Until we find out more, I think you should be cautious in what you disclose to him.”
“Until we find out more? Now, Amelia, there’s no need for you to concern yourself about Alexander. He is undoubtedly Viscount Verwood, he’s no more a traitor to his country than I am, and he does have an injured knee.”
Amelia sighed. “I should hate to see all your hard work go for naught because you trusted an impostor. Please, at least consider the possibility.”
“You’re dead wrong, Amelia. Just because he’s not perfectly agreeable, and hasn’t the polished manners to which you’re accustomed, doesn’t mean he’s some sort of impostor. Why, if the French were going to substitute someone for Verwood, you can be sure they’d put a consummately accomplished gentleman in the spot, not someone as gruff and disinterested as Alexander.” He grinned at her. “Is it that your pride is suffering because he hasn’t shown any interest in you?”
“Don’t be ridiculous! I wouldn’t want him to show any interest in me! The man is decidedly peculiar, Peter.”
“You’re too used to receiving adulation. Just because a gentleman doesn’t bow and scrape to you doesn’t make him peculiar.”
“He deliberately sets out to embarrass me at every turn.”
“Not without reason, I imagine.” He cocked his head at her, a smile tugging at his lips. “Do you think only a French spy would try to take you down a peg? You can be insufferably haughty, Amelia, to say nothing of your impulsiveness.”
“So we’ve degenerated to a dissection of my character, have we? You’d rather do that than consider the possibility of Lord Verwood’s duplicity.”
Peter was infinitely patient. “There’s nothing wrong with your character. I never said there was. Occasionally, when you’re annoyed with someone, as you appear to be with Verwood, you have a tendency to act a trifle high-handed. You can’t expect a man of Verwood’s elevated rank to let you get away with that.”
“I expect nothing from Lord Verwood,” she assured him with a sniff. Her tea had grown cool but she managed a sip before she remembered something else that had happened the previous day. “Did he speak with you about Mlle. Chartier?”
Two lines instantly etched themselves between his brows.
“What about Mlle. Chartier?”
“Well, if you think Lord Verwood is aboveboard, I’m sure you will wish to hear his comments on the Chartiers. We have both, independently, formed a grave suspicion of M. Chartier, and if he’s involved in some underhanded activities, it wouldn’t do for you to be spending a great deal of time with his sister. After all, your own sister has been diligent in helping you in your work, and there’s no reason to believe the delightful Mlle. Chartier couldn’t do the same.”
Peter stared at her, his hand gone slack around his coffee cup. “You must be mistaken. Alexander’s never said a word to me about Chartier. On what does he supposedly base his suspicion?”
“
He didn’t confide in me.”
“Well, then, on what do you base yours?”
“None of the other French émigrés know him, for a start. That’s really very suspicious, Peter, if he’s what he says he is. And when I talked to him, he almost came right out and said he has ways of getting into France to get at his fortune. Ways where he’s not in the least danger.”
“When did you talk to him?” her brother demanded.
“Oh, some little while ago. I had intended to find out more, but after that evening he avoided me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you’d talked to him? Was this before or after I told you you weren’t to do any more clandestine investigating?”
“Before. And I didn’t tell you because I hadn’t gotten enough information.”
Peter looked skeptical. “That never stopped you any other time from telling me what you learned. What it is, Amelia, is that you don’t want me involved with a French girl and you’re exaggerating. If Alexander had any suspicions, he would have brought them to me.”
“He certainly should have! All you have to do is ask him!”
“You just said he’s out of town.”
Amelia felt inordinately frustrated in her attempt to warn him. “Well, he’s bound to be back, and when he is, you have only to ask him. In the meantime it would probably be best if you didn’t see Mlle. Chartier.”
“I’m escorting her to a masked ball this evening.”
“Two nights in a row? Oh, Peter, you shouldn’t.”
He regarded her with steady eyes. “I have no choice. And besides,” he said as he rose from the table, “I want to escort her.”
Amelia’s shoulders slumped as she watched him stride from the room.
* * * *
There was no way to tell if he had taken her message to heart. He might have, even though he’d scoffed at it. Perhaps, even while he escorted Mlle. Chartier, or stood up with her at dances to which he hadn’t escorted her, or brought her refreshments at musical evenings, he was only pursuing further information on her and her brother. Amelia didn’t really believe that, of course, but it was painful for her to watch Peter become more and more enamored of the young woman. If only Verwood hadn’t disappeared from town before he spoke to Peter, this might not have happened.
The Ardent Lady Amelia Page 11
