The Duke’s Daughter - Lady Amelia Atherton: A Regency Romance Novel (Heart of a Gentleman Book 3)

by Isabella Thorne

  “I should like to see you try,” said Percy, tossing the fishing rod at Samuel.

  Samuel caught it and knelt down to rebait the hook. He plucked one worm from their bucket of purchased bait and then cast the line out as far as it would go, well beyond the shadow of the punt. Though he had never fished before, having neither the leisure time nor the inclination, he had a fair understanding of the mechanics.

  “There. Now it is only a matter of time,” said Samuel. He sat down on one of the treads, gave the rod a twitch, and waited.

  Percival leaned back against the till, arms behind his head, and puffed out a breath. “We shall see about that.”

  “Why are we out here, anyway? Not that I am complaining. I enjoy your company, but,” Samuel gestured around with one hand, keeping the fishing rod steady with his knees. “This does not seem like your sort of activity. Are you so sick of Father?”

  “No, but you are,” said Percival. His eyes were closed and the puffs of his breath misted in the spring air. “I could see you were about to pull the cutlass off the wall at breakfast and run him through with it. I thought I was doing a public service by separating you two.”

  It was not unpleasantly cold, but brisk enough that Samuel had packed a blanket for Percy without his brother’s knowledge. If he grew more ill because of this venture on Samuel’s behalf, he would never forgive himself.

  “Are you warm enough? There is a blanket in the basket. Go on and put it on, or I will never hear the end of it when we get home and you look the worse for wear,” Samuel said, giving the line another shake.

  Percy muttered something under his breath and yanked the blanket from the basket, wrapping it around himself before slumping back down against the till. He pulled it up to his chin and glared sulkily over it.

  “Better?” he asked.

  Samuel nodded. “He does not want me home, Percy. You know it as well as I do. If I had not joined the Royal Navy, Father would have found somewhere else to send me. He never wanted a second son. Hell, I think he would have been happier if I had been a girl, then at least he could have married me off and I would have become someone else’s problem.”

  Percival was quiet for some time, until Samuel thought he had fallen asleep.

  “He is proud of you,” Percival said at last. “But I think he does not know how to deal with your moods. Not many people do.”

  “My moods?” Samuel frowned at the end of the line. He could see a fish swimming not ten inches from where the hook sat, baited with a tasty looking worm, but the damn thing swam on by. “I do not have moods.”

  “Right. Any luck with that fishing rod? Will there be fresh pike for dinner?” Percival pulled the blanket up to his nose, but not before Samuel caught the self-satisfied smile on his brother’s face.

  Instead of replying, Samuel reeled in the line, set the fishing rod down on the floor of the punt, and poled them to another section of the river. The grassy banks rippled in the breeze, undulating like a curtain. Almost he could smell salt and sea. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, imagining the whisper of reeds was the sound of the ocean.

  “Want another go?” Samuel asked, offering the rod to Percival.

  He shook his head. “No, I think we can accept that fishing is not one of the Beresford brothers’ innumerable talents.”

  “Speak for yourself,” said Samuel. “I will catch a fish before we head home, mark my words.”

  “Joy, so we will be out here all day, then?”

  “Are you ready to go in? Are you tired?” Samuel asked solicitously.

  “No, no. I am fine.”

  This time Samuel baited the hook with two worms. If the fish were too stupid to take that deal, he did not want them anyway. He tossed the hook back into the water with a plunk and settled back against the side of the boat.

  “I do not know how Father does not bother you, what with his constant nagging that you find a suitable wife. Are you certain you do not want to join the Royal Navy as well? I could put in a good word for you on the Amelia, have you off deck-scrubbing duty in no more than three months,” said Samuel. The mental image of his sizable brother scrubbing the deck beside the scrawny green boys normally given that role was quite entertaining.

  “Tempting,” said Percival. “I will think about it. But Father just wants to ensure the continuation of the line and the title Earl of Blackburn, as all noble fathers do. I think he worries that I am not truly searching for a wife, that I will turn out to be like you: Unmoved by anything but a well-turned schooner.”

  “That is not true,” Samuel argued. He gave the fishing rod an irritated jerk. “But I have goals, brother, and having a wife and a child would only slow me down, hold me back. Maybe one day, when I have achieved what I want to achieve, I will consider it.”

  Percival grimaced. He was pale again.

  “We should turn back and head home,” said Samuel, but Percy held up a hand to stop him.

  “Please do not. I am enjoying myself and am doing the same thing I would be doing at home, lying down, under a warm blanket, accomplishing absolutely nothing productive. What do you hope to achieve, Samuel? What true goals do you have?”

  Samuel kept one eye on Percival, trying to appraise the situation without his brother calling him out for, the other eye on his hopeful hook.

  “I want to be a captain,” said Samuel. He had wanted that since he was five-years-old and his father had given him a model ship. “To make my own fortune, my own life.”

  He still had that model ship, though one of its masts had been broken and the sails had darkened with age and were now a dingy shade of light brown.

  “Why stop there? Why not Commodore Beresford? Or even Admiral?” Percival was teasing him, he knew, but Samuel did not believe his dreams were out of reach if he remained focused.

  “Laugh all you want, Percival, but I will be a captain one day,” said Samuel, letting a little of his annoyance show in his voice.

  “I am not doubting you,” said Percival, before breaking into another bout of coughing. “I hope you will, Samuel. I know you will. Not even the Lady Amelia Atherton could distract you.”

  The beautiful Lady Amelia Atherton had distracted a majority of the available gentlemen at the last ball he had frequented. He thought about how he had wrested her from her pompous suitors and danced with her at that ball before Percival had fell afoul of some enemy. He remembered how she felt in his arms and the faint scent of her perfume.

  “Oh, she distracted me.” Samuel mumbled under his breath

  For all her bravado, she was still soft and impecunious, like any woman. Only she was not like any woman. Samuel sighed. He was not looking for a wife, and Lady Amelia was not the sort of woman for a dalliance.

  “What was that? I could not quite hear you,” said Percy. The coughing fit had brought a dangerous flush to his cheeks. It was time to head home, whether he wished to or no.

  “I did not say a word,” said Samuel. A sudden tug at the end of the line brought him to attention. He gave the pole a quick backward snap. “Percy, I think I have got something!”

  Percy clambered to his feet, wobbling from the weakness or his lack of sea legs. “Liar. You just do not want to tell me what you said.”

  But he lurched his way over to Samuel and peered over the boat’s low wooden side. Samuel leaned back, fighting to pull in the fish.

  “It must be a big one to put up such a fight,” said Percy.

  The water churned. With one final, mighty pull, Samuel yanked a carp the size of his forearm out of the river. It flopped onto the floor of the boat, tan and green scales glinting in the sunlight. Both men looked down at it in shock, and then smiled at each other.

  “What do we do with it now?” Samuel asked.

  Percy shrugged. “You are the great naval commander. You tell me.”

  “I feel rather bad now, seeing it flop about like that,” said Samuel, kneeling down beside the struggling fish. “Shall we throw it back?”

  �
�I think so,” said Percy, but he stepped back with squeamish look on his face.

  “Up to me then, I see.” Samuel grasped the fish with one hand to hold it still and twisted the hook free with the other. Then, scooping it up with both hands he lowered it into the water. The carp wiggled off, disappearing into the murky depths with a few flicks of its powerful tail.

  Samuel brushed his hands off on his trousers and stood, freeing the pole from its rest.

  “Good thing you will be an Earl one day,” said Samuel, getting the punt moving. “No hope for you as a fisherman.”

  Percival wrapped himself in his blanket and slumped down on one of the treads. “You are no better. If they ever run out of food on your precious Amelia, you would starve in a sea full of fish. You wanted to keep him as a pet, I saw it in your eyes.”

  “I just felt bad for the thing. Ripped out of the water and forced onto dry land. I felt a kinship with the creature, you might say,” said Samuel.

  “I am beginning to see Father’s side,” said Percival.

  “If I dump you here in the river and you drown, do I get to be Earl? Why, I believe I do!” Percy snickered. “You would rather drown with me than have that for your fate.”

  “Too true.” Samuel replied and poled them back to shore at double time.

  ~.~

  Chapter Two

  Lady Amelia Atherton paced nervously. She did not wish to play hostess to her Uncle Declan. He was her late father’s younger brother and the new Duke of Ely, but the pain of losing her father was too new. Her father was The Duke, not her uncle…only her father was gone. Her Uncle Declan, never her father’s favorite relative seemed more like a vulture than a welcome guest. She knew her life now depended upon him, and she did not relish the change. The taste of the title, and the need to call him, Your Grace, felt sour in her mouth. She reminded herself she must be civil, even cordial, but she could not bring herself to do so.

  When the time came, the new Duke seemed as glad to be quit of her as she was of him. He arrived, demanded a meal at the odd hour of three o’clock, and then left immediately after. .During the hurried luncheon, he had laid out his terms. She was to marry as soon as possible.

  “Marry?” she said, thinking she was in mourning. Her dear, patient, ever-present father was dead. The pain struck her again.

  “Yes. Marry,” The Duke continued, telling her the allowance allotted to her.

  It was a meager sum, so minute Amelia had asked him to clarify three times that it was the amount he had indeed intended. A dowry would be provided, as inadequate as the allowance. He had made her a pauper with only a word.

  “For the time being,” he said, “until the trouble of your father’s debts has been attended to…

  “Pardon,” she said, drawing herself out of her moroseness and finding some of her nerve. “Debts? To whom? My father was a Duke.”

  “Be silent. This is not a woman’s business. You will stay here in the country and not stir up trouble until I sort out this mess.” He gave her a hard stare, but no explanation. “It is seemly that you retire from Town in your grief.”

  She didn’t argue, because her grief was sharp and she couldn’t imagine ever dancing again anyway. She thought in that moment that the country would be soothing.

  As abruptly as The Duke had arrived, he left. Amelia had sat with, her food untouched, in a sort of shock for an hour after he had gone. She realized that she had curtseyed and gave him the bare minimum of courtesy though she had not once called him Your Grace.

  Then she had cried. She did not know what she was crying for, the grief of her father’s death or the death of her life or both. It did not matter. She felt hollow, burnt out at the end of it. One of the maids had brought her a cup of tea and a tray of biscuits, but Amelia did not recognize her: A new member of the staff probably replaced by her uncle. All she had to look forward to was Aunt Ebba’s visit, and she did not know when that was to happen.

  She was to find a husband, while in mourning, with no funds to purchase new clothes nor even a respectable dowry to offer. Her uncle had made her task, one she did not wish to do anyway, that much more difficult. The scandal of her father’s apparent debts would break out in London, whatever her uncle’s efforts, and no man would want her. Debts? She thought. To whom? This seemed all too strange. Her father had not been upset by monetary problems. No, he feared for his person, not his finances….and now he was dead. She shivered.

  Was it possible that somehow what he feared came to pass? Was it possible that he was truly indebted? Was that the reason for the carriage accident, or was it even an accident? No, she told herself. She was close with her father; even though she was a woman, she was his daughter. He would have told her to curb her spending if there were money problems. He would have told her. And now, because of his supposed debt, no matter neither how beautiful nor how desired Amelia had been just weeks ago, she would be untouchable.

  Even if her uncle had not cloistered her here in the country, she would not have gone back to London. Propriety forbad her from attending any of the larger events just now, and she had no desire to further dishonor her father’s memory.

  Oh, she could just imagine Charity’s gloating if she did return. How she would relish seeing Lady Amelia brought low.

  ~.~

  Amelia was out in the garden on a walk when Aunt Ebba arrived. She had never been inclined toward the activity before; it only dirtied the hem of your dress, but she could not bear to be in the empty house for hours at a time. It echoed every footstep back at her, as if to mock her aloneness, besides dirt did not show so badly on black. Both she and her father spent a large portion of their time in London; the garden was in a sad state, overgrown and clearly untended, brambles and vines running over onto the stone path and trying to latch on to her ankle as she passed. If she had any talent or idea of what to do with plants, she would have tended them just to keep herself busy, but she had to settle for nudging them back behind the decorative garden wall with her slippered foot.

  Aunt Ebba was waiting on the terrace, perched on the edge of her seat with a dainty cup of tea in her black gloved hand. She wore a large bonnet also draped in black gauze crepe; ever elegant even in her mourning garb. Amelia became acutely aware of her besmirched hem, and her slippers in no less of a state.

  “Are you going wild out here in the country, my dear thing?” Aunt Ebba asked, with a pointed glance toward the sullied items. “Next time I visit, will I find you scurrying about on all fours and howling at the moon?”

  “Hardly,” said Amelia, raising her skirts to climb the steps to the terrace. She lowered herself into the chair across from Aunt Ebba and poured herself a cup of tea. “I feel as though I am losing my mind here, Auntie. I never minded it before, though of course I preferred London, but now I feel so… alone. Alone with my thoughts, and I know none of the servants, thanks to Uncle Declan.”

  “He is a right piece of work, is he not? Your father and I spared you from having to deal with him as long as we were able. But there is nothing more I can do. He is The Duke and you are here at his pleasure. If he wished to, he could remove you from this house as well, though he would be considered a rude and awful man by Society, I do not think it would stop him. So behave yourself, and give him no reason to think of you,” Aunt Ebba said, and though she was primly sipping from her teacup there was intensity to her gaze that made her words sink like stones to the bottom of Amelia’s stomach.

  Uncle Declan was every bit as frightening as he seemed. If she were removed from the estate, there would be nowhere to go.

  “I am always well-behaved,” Amelia said, stung. “I have never been anything but the perfect gentlewoman, poised and witty and charming. And yet, here I am, banished with none of my friends and no hope of a suitor.”

  Amelia raised her eyes to the sky, fighting against the threatening tears. This place was clearly unhinging her, making her prone to the hysterics she had mocked in her London friends; Lady Patience and Lady Charity. E
very emotion seemed a hair’s breadth from bubbling over at the slightest provocation. Foolishness. She blinked back the tears.

  “That is precisely what I have come to discuss with you. A suitor,” said Aunt Ebba. She set her tea cup down on the saucer and clasped her hands on the table. “You must find a husband, Amelia, and the sooner the better.”

  They were the words she had expected, but knowing they were coming did not make them any easier to digest. Dread settled over her, a hot blanket despite the brisk spring weather.

  “I know. That is what I had been doing in London, was it not? Attending balls and parties and—“

  “No,” Aunt Ebba cut in. “You have been playing, enjoying yourself, but not hunting for a husband. I did not object to your behaviors at the time. You were in no need to hurry into a marriage and a prize like you deserved to take her pick of the litter. But that leisure time is over, Amelia. Now the clock ticks down, and every second wasted lowers your chances.”

  Amelia dug her nails into the palm of her hand. She would not cry. What would crying do? Accomplish nothing.

  “So I am a Duke’s niece instead of a Duke’s daughter. I am still Lady Amelia Atherton, and I believe it will not be such a great matter to find a husband,” said Amelia.

  The singing of the birds, the scent of the wild flowers, the sunshine, rubbed discordantly against Amelia’s mood. It should be raining, or grey at least. Unbidden, the tune of a melancholy piece played in her mind. Better.

  “I am afraid, you are tarnished by your father’s scandal, even if it is not so. I do not doubt that there will still be men who wish to marry you, who would be overjoyed to do so, but it will not be the same easy time of it you had before. And I know, Amelia that you never wished to marry. Your reluctance to do so showed through in your behaviors. That must change now.”

  “Of course I wished to marry, as every girl does,” Amelia protested automatically, but Aunt Ebba’s raised brow silenced any further arguments.