Suspecting that Dorna was overreacting, Amelie turned fully from her conversation with Hannah and saw that instead of the regulation knee-breeches and white stockings, the man standing too close to her was wearing dirty riding boots and a brown coat she had last seen in her Richmond workroom, though now it was shabby and stained with food. His face had suffered too, showing a desperation and hollow-eyed gauntness that the last few weeks in London’s gambling hells had inflicted on him. Ruben Hurst.
In the next moment she was on her feet, desperate to put a distance between them, knowing that his mission would not be a peaceful one after her refusal to communicate. He reeked of danger and spirits, and yet again he had found her unprotected and vulnerable. Knocking his hand away and using her arm as a barrier, she searched the room for Mr King, whose white wig was easy to spot, pushing his way towards them, dodging hand-held plates and ladies’ trains. ‘You!’ she snarled at Hurst. ‘Get out of here … get out!’ Where were Nick and Stephen when she needed them?
But Ruben Hurst had not traipsed all this way only to be thrown out before concluding his business with the woman who obsessed him. This time he did not mean to leave emptyhanded as he had done on two previous occasions. This time, she would go with him.
Nauseated by his heavy sour breath, Amelie grappled with him, doing her best to evade him, but eventually being pinned back to the wall by the table on one side and her chair on the other, and all so fast that no man had realised what was happening until it was too late. Catching at her wrist, he pulled it hard across her throat and held her with her back to him, helplessly off-balance and rasped along her cheek by his disgusting stubble. Twisting her head away, she caught sight of the long cold length of a duelling pistol like an extension of his arm, levelled directly at Mr King’s white head, stopping him in his tracks.
Through the hubbub, Dorna’s hunting-field cry cut like a knife. ‘Nick! Ben! Stephen … Seton!’
Someone screamed. A plate crashed to the floor, and a mist of silence descended as the crowds pressed backwards, the men open-armed to shield their women, herding them away, hovering on the edge of the place where Amelie stood linked to Hurst. Three tall men pushed their way through to stand in front of Mr King: Nick, Seton and Captain Rankin. Stephen was nowhere to be seen.
‘Hurst!’ called Nick. ‘Listen to me. Let Lady Chester go. We can talk … settle this outside. Whatever you prefer. Now … let her go, man, or you get even deeper into trouble.’
For the first time, Hurst spoke, slurring his words and sounding even more like a Manchester man than he had before. ‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘Oh, no, my lord. This business is already settled, in my favour, this time. The lady is with me now, and that’s where she’ll stay. Don’t you think I’ve waited long enough, sweeting?’ His mouth came close to her ear, dripping flecks of foam on to her bare shoulder. ‘Ready to come now, are ye? One shot for you and one for me. You’ll not feel a thing.’
‘Mr Hurst … please,’ Amelie whispered, half-strangled by his arm. ‘Let’s talk about this, sensibly. This is not the way …’ But he was impatient, jerking his arm and holding her head in the crook of his elbow. She caught sight of Dorna’s terrified face, and Hannah with a hand over her mouth, and she said a silent prayer of thanks that Caterina was not in the tea room. She looked along his arm at the gleam of brass with one finger hooked round the trigger ready to squeeze, and she froze in horror as it swung slowly round to point at Nick, swamped with a fear greater than any she had ever known at this appalling threat. She had found real love at last, the fulfilment of her dearest wishes with the man she wanted above all else, his child in her womb. And this half-crazed vindictive creature was about to put an end to all she had ever yearned for, to satisfy his own corrupt infatuation. He had blighted her life once and was now about to do it again, even to end it. ‘Nick,’ she whispered, watching the shaking weapon. ‘Nick … I love you … I love you.’
‘Sweetheart … hold on,’ he called back. ‘We can still talk, Hurst. Come, man. Put the weapon down. You cannot get away with this.’ He held out a hand across the space. ‘Will you—?’
‘No!’ Hurst yelled, almost frantic now. ‘I held on too, thinking she’d come to me. I shot Chester and I’ll shoot you … the lot of you … hypocrites! Then it’ll be just you and me, lady. Just you and me.’
From the other side of the room, a voice called, loud and raw with fury, turning all heads, including Hurst’s. ‘And me!’ he bellowed. ‘Over here, Hurst. Over here, man! It’s me you have to deal with now.’
For an interval between heartbeats, Amelie felt Hurst hesitate as the sound of Stephen’s voice searched for a niche in his memory, and the mean, sleek, shining pistol swung slowly away from Nick’s head towards the voice her captor was struggling to remember, and to find among the throng.
‘Let me go, Ruben,’ Amelie whispered. Using the name she had not spoken for years, she hoped to distract him further. ‘I’ll go with you. We can go away from here … together … just you and me … lower the pistol … please.’ And as she pleaded, Nick watched and understood what she was saying, nodding to her to keep talking, to promise the dreadful man anything while he and Seton could sidle round the wall and out of her line of vision.
‘Who’s that man?’ Hurst stammered. ‘Who called to me?’
‘I don’t know. Let’s just get away from these people, Ruben.’
‘Where? Where is he? Damn you!’ he yelled into the crowd. ‘Show yourself!’
The gun wavered again and Amelie closed her eyes at the pressure across her neck and back, and she said another prayer of thanks that Caterina was not present to hear her father’s challenge. What on earth was Stephen thinking of to goad the man so?
When she opened her eyes, the scene was changing again, for now the crowd had opened up a corridor that widened as she watched, revealing the solitary figure of Stephen Chester with a duelling pistol in his hand, pointing it at the floor. His face was whiter than Amelie had ever seen it, twisted with the effort of control, his usual kindly voice hardly recognisable as he screamed at Ruben Hurst, ‘Here, you bastard! I’m here! And now it’s your turn. Put Amelie aside and face me as you once faced my good brother, if you dare.’
Again, a woman’s scream cut through the horrified silence. ‘Stephen … no!’ It was Hannah. Dorna grabbed her, holding a hand over her mouth.
The pistol in Hurst’s hand swung again, but the ear-splitting explosion synchronised with the brutal grasp of a hand that wrenched his wrist and twisted it upwards towards the ceiling, sending down a shower of white plaster upon the heads below. At the same moment, while Amelie’s ears still buzzed with the retort, she went crashing down backwards to land on top of Hurst with his arm still about her neck until it was prised away, and she found that, beside her on the floor, he was being roughly manhandled by three very competent men, one of whom sat on his shoulders to pull his hands together behind his back.
Undignified that fall may have been, but Amelie had taken worse ones from her horse, and she was prone neither to histrionics nor fainting. Nevertheless, she could not prevent herself from shaking as relief overwhelmed her, not only for her own deliverance from the menace of Ruben Hurst, but for everyone else’s too. The strong arms that lifted her and drew her into their safe haven belonged to Nick, who had risked his life to throw himself at Hurst’s weapon.
‘Nick, darling,’ she whispered. ‘Hold me … just hold me.’
‘Sweetheart, did he hurt you?’
‘No, not really. Bruised a bit, that’s all. Oh, my love. He’s mad. I’m sure he’s mad. Has he gone now, for good?’
‘Mad as a hatter, sweetheart,’ he agreed, kissing her. ‘Very bad form to walk in here looking like that. Deserves to be locked up.’ He looked round at the hasty attempts to right the overturned tables and to collect the heap of plaster, and at Hurst being hauled away by Mr King’s burly stewards. ‘I put a cup of tea down for you somewhere,’ he said, laconically.
Amelie made a
snuffling sound into his waistcoat. ‘I must go to Stephen,’ she said. ‘He was quite wonderful, but he’s very upset.’
In the less crowded octogon, they sat to recover themselves while sipping fresh tea. Emotionally, Stephen was in a worse plight than Amelie, having come so close to fulfilling the ambition he had waited two years for, to revenge himself on his brother’s killer. But for Amelie being in his way, he would certainly have shot him. With Hannah and Caterina beside him, he explained, tearfully, how he came to have a duelling pistol with him at a dress ball.
‘It’s the one Josiah used when he died,’ he said. ‘I kept it, carried in a hidden pocket every single day, and at night under my pillow, waiting for a sight of that … sorry …’he gulped, then whispered ‘… that bastard. He knew Josiah was better with swords, but he was challenged, and he chose pistols. Well, I could have done better than Josiah, but he insisted on doing it himself. I could have got him … him then … instead of …’
‘Hush now, dear one,’ said Hannah, holding his hand. ‘Hush.’
‘Hurst was drunk,’ said Seton. ‘That wouldn’t do, old chap.’
‘I’d still have killed him, drunk or sober. Scum like that deserve—’ and here he broke down again while Caterina and Hannah held him between them and looked sadly at each other over his head.
‘He’ll be dealt with,’ said Nick. ‘It’s best this way, my friend.’
‘But for Stephen,’ Amelie said, ‘I would not be here. I’ve never seen anything so courageous as when you drew his fire towards you. Truly, you’re my hero.’
‘Really?’ said Stephen, brightening a little.
‘Yes, really. It was a remarkable thing to do, wasn’t it, Nick?’
‘Indeed it was. Truly remarkable. I have Chester to thank for my future wife’s life. That lunatic would certainly have done some terrible damage without your prompt action.’
Stephen blew his nose and smoothed his hair. ‘Oh … really, it was nothing,’ he murmured. But Hannah and Caterina, catching each other’s eyes behind his shoulders, had just arrived at a mutual, if unspoken, decision to make Hannah’s presence in Buxton essential. Stephen Chester, they seemed to agree, needed someone more like Hannah than Aunt Amelie, who got herself into situations rather too easily, these days.
Staring wistfully into the tea room where the hum of gossip was warming to its newest subject, Dorna remarked quietly to Amelie that she had done her a favour, if only she knew it.
‘Done you a favour?’ whispered Amelie. ‘Whatever can you mean?’
‘I mean, dear heart, that no one is now going to think anything of my attending the ball with Captain Rankin after that débâcle, are they? And as for you wondering about the scandal, well, why worry? You’ll be halfway home by this time tomorrow, darling. Even Mother could not have timed it better. And when you and Nick return next year, half will have forgotten and the other half will envy you.’
‘Dorna …’ Amelie laughed. ‘You’re impossible.’
‘Maybe, but I know what I’m talking about.’ They finished the evening at the White Hart Inn round a blazing fire, eating a supper that surpassed the one they had missed at the New Assembly Rooms and deciding, among other absurdities, that the ballroom guests should be asked to pay extra for the impromptu entertainment. Until they remembered the damaged ceiling that they themselves would be expected to pay for.
Though traumatic in many respects, the evening marked yet another milestone in Amelie’s relationship with Nick, now that Hurst could do no more damage. From the White Hart, the mood of relief continued into Amelie’s bedroom, for now she had shared the dread secret, and with credentials like that, Nick told her, she was worthy to join the scandalous ranks of his family with her head held high. Being a northerner with trade connections could only add a touch of spice, he said.
That night, their loving was unhurried and very tender, both of them having recognised, in a very dramatic manner, the true depth of their love for each other, after having come close to the prospect of losing everything they lived for. It had scared Nick as much as Amelie, his dive at Hurst being, he admitted, not so much an act of heroism but fear of losing her. It was a vision he never wanted to see again.
Over and again, they assured each other of their everlasting, profound and unconditional love as they had not thought needful before. They had never been guilty of taking it lightly, but now the telling of it held a new significance they were unlikely to forget, and their night in Amelie’s bed was made all the sweeter by the most beauteous words of love either of them had ever used or heard. She told him of his rare ability to listen to a woman, to look at her as if she mattered to him, and he used new words to describe her luscious body, her compassion, courage and independence, her grace and flawless taste, her devotion to her relatives’ needs, which went, he said, well beyond most women’s loyalty.
‘Well, my lord,’ she whispered, nestling closer, ‘you tested that to the limit, did you not? Never has a woman been faced with such a terrible dilemma. It was truly outrageous.’
‘Was it so very wicked of me?’
‘No,’ she said, smiling at his tone of contrition, ‘it wasn’t. It was shocking, but I was not as insulted as all that. I wanted you, you see.’
‘Did you, wench?’ he drawled, sliding his hand into deep places. ‘Is that what made you link your name with mine so easily?’
‘No, you were simply the first name that sprang to mind, my lord.’
‘Really? And all that protesting, then?’
‘Was to slow you down, brute.’ She caught at his hand. ‘You were all for leaping into my bed there and then, and I was determined to make you wait.’
Rolling himself on top of her, he sensed her body’s response to him. ‘And who won, my beauty? Eh? Who was it needed a new experience to add to her growing list? That was a bonus I certainly didn’t expect.’
She could have continued the verbal fencing, but the quest of his hands was already luring her mind away along a different course, and the story of what she had heard in the jeweller’s shop would have to wait for another night, as would her growing certainty of a new Elyot within her.
***
Their sedate and good-humoured progress from Bath in several carriages was a far cry from their individual journeys in the opposite direction which, with the exception of Dorna, had been undertaken with some degree of anxiety. After an overnight stay at Marlborough, which taxed the poor innkeeper’s resources to the limit, they came to Richmond in a kind of convoy that caught the Sunday citizens unawares. Full of curiosity, they lined the roadway on their way to evening church, waving and welcoming, setting the tone for the next bright phase of Amelie’s life.
She discovered a few changes to her house on Paradise Road, the most important being the instalment of the new laundry-woman and her baby Emily from the workhouse. Even better was the attention the two were receiving from her young gardener Fenn, who liked to see nature reproduce itself and who had helped to make the mother and child’s settling-in so comfortable.
Losing not a moment, Nick arrived just after breakfast on Monday morning to take Amelie, Caterina and her father to Sheen Court to meet his parents, an event that no longer filled her with trepidation as it once had. She was able to see how, in his fifties, the handsome Marquess of Sheen resembled his son in manner and speech as well as in looks, controlled, intelligent and unstintingly appreciative, thoughtful, yet quite droll in his attitude to his sons, whom he treated like younger brothers. White-haired and still athletic, he and Stephen Chester put on a display of fencing in the great hall as if they had known each other for years.
Nor was Amelie disappointed with Lady Sheen’s reaction to her, for the chattery Dorna had already regaled her mother with an account of events at the ball and so, by the time they came face to face, Amelie’s reputation had gone before her. To have had men fight over her twice by the age of twenty-four was more than even the Marchioness could boast of, but no wonder when she was such a beauty,
she said, generously.
‘No … oh, no, my lady,’ said Amelie, glancing at Nick to obtain some backing. ‘It was not quite like that.’
In front of the heavy gilded mirror, Nick was tweaking at his cravat with a frown of concentration on his face. ‘Nonsense,’ said his mother. ‘Any other reason would be too sordid and not worth repeating. This is a lovely bit of scandal, my dear. But tell me, having family connections with Manchester, could you be … by any chance … related to the Scales family? Fanny Scales was a friend of mine. Such an unusual beauty. You have her look about you.’
‘Viscountess Winterbourne was related,’ Amelie said, ‘on my mother’s side, I believe.’
‘I thought as much,’ said the Marchioness. ‘They were a lovely family. I was so very fond of her. Dear Fanny. You must allow Lawrence to paint you, you know.’
‘He already has, Mother,’ said Nick, turning away from his reflection with a sigh.
‘Good heavens. Lawrence has a waiting list as long as my arm these days,’ said the Marchioness. ‘Now, about this dinner party on Wednesday. Come and look at the guest list, both of you.’
By the time she left that day, Amelie and Lady Sheen were close friends with more in common than ever she could have imagined, their concern for unfortunate women not the least of it. To her delight, Nick’s father invited her to become a member of Richmond’s Vestry, which she promptly accepted, thinking that, if Nick had mentioned her interest in parish concerns, he must have concentrated on the more positive aspects rather than the unorthodox ones.
As the doyen of Richmond society, the Marchioness was delighted by the prospect of taking a beauty like Miss Chester under her graceful wing and, turning her this way and that, declared that no door would be closed to her by the end of next season. It was all Stephen Chester could have hoped for and all Caterina had dreamed of, though she was never to discover the full story behind the success.
Regency Rumours/A Scandalous Mistress/Dishonour And Desire Page 26
