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

by Isabella Thorne

  Amelia had never felt so short in her life. He was at least two heads taller than she, and with the book at the end of his long arms it might as well have been on the ceiling. She contemplated finding a new target for kicking.

  “Don’t,” he said taking the measure of her.

  She folded her arms across her chest. “It is my book,” she hissed.

  “So it is,” he agreed without relinquishing it. “You say you know nothing at all about this book? How did you come to be in possession of it, then?”

  “I found it,” Amelia replied, wondering how much of the truth to tell. She did not want to implicate her father, but if Samuel knew something she had to find out everything she could. “What do you know about it?”

  “Nothing. Where did you find it?”

  “In my house. It was hidden in one of the desks, as if whoever put it there did not want it to be found.”

  “You do not know whose it was? Your father’s, one of the servants?” Samuel did not lower the book. Perhaps he could see her staring at it covetously.

  “No, and the letter I found along with it was not written in his hand. It could be one of the servants I suppose, but they would have been quite covert to be hiding it where they did. I found it somewhat by chance,” said Amelia.

  “Somewhat?” he repeated.

  “I was sorting my father’s things,” she admitted. “Where did you see the symbol prior to this? Do you have a similar book?”

  “My arm is growing tired. If I lower the book down to your miniature height, will you promise not to go tearing off with it?”

  “Why do you care what I do with it?” she hissed.

  “I’m curious,” he admitted, and continued, his voice dropping an octave. “And chasing you down would cause quite a ruckus… no matter the amusement it might bring.” He lifted his shoulder in a lazy shrug but his eyes held an intensity that made her squirm. “Imagine your aunt’s dismay to find me hurtling after you.” He grinned at her, his face suddenly bright with mischief. “I do not think you wish to wake the entire house in such a manner. Do you?”

  Amelia, feeling mulish, considered aiming a kick at his shin while he was otherwise occupied. Then, remembering she was a guest in his house and that, at one point in her life, she had been the epitome of manners. She decided against it and nodded. He came to stand beside her and brought the book down so they might both look at it. She was immediately brought up short by the heat of him as he stood close. His hands were tanned and strong as he flipped through the pages, and she couldn’t take her eyes off of them. She could not help but think of the muscular arms that she had seen before he folded down his sleeves, and how easily he kept the book from her, holding her off with only one hand and little effort. She thought of that hand in hers when they had danced, before her father’s death. It seemed so long ago.

  “Truly, I know as much as you about this book, or rather about the symbol. I saw it once only, in my own father’s study,” Samuel was saying. She was brought back the present and forced herself to concentrate. “Percival was looking at a book with the same symbol, and he was in a hurry to hide it from me when I entered,” said Samuel. “It was not in as good of condition as this one though,” he said. “It looked to have taken a dip in the drink,” he said.

  “Pardon,” she said.

  “It was severely water damaged,” he explained. “Not so readable as this.” He flipped back to the first page and Amelia watched his confusion mount as he silently read the words.

  They seemed to make as little sense to him as they had to her, for he shook his head and began the page again, and on the third time gave up, saying, “This is nonsense. Why would someone just make a list of words?”

  “I have read it; the book, the papers, and none of it makes any sense. I had hoped you might have known the code for it. It must need a cypher of some sort.”

  Samuel flicked through the rest of the pages of the book, stopping at random to scan a section.

  “There must be a purpose; I am sure of it,” said Amelia.

  “I agree, or no doubt, Percival would not have bothered to hide the thing. He would have said ‘come have a look at this nonsense,’ and we would have had a laugh.”

  “So you did not get a proper look? Could your brother’s papers contain the cypher?” Amelia leaned closer to see the section Samuel had opened.

  Her shoulder brushed against his arm and he looked down at her. She took a sharp breath, as if just realizing how close they were standing. She could smell the scent of him. She took a hasty step back, liquid heat filling her.

  “No,” he said, slowly, holding her gaze in a lazy way that made Amelia’s cheeks flush. The man was shameless and had all the manners of a sailor. Finally he spoke, his voice low and soft. “But we could go and take a look for ourselves.” His voice seemed a physical thing, drifting over her skin with a subtle promise and she shivered.

  “I should…I should…” She stammered as she took yet another step back. What was she doing? She blinked at him, and then took another quick step away. The moment was broken.

  “I’m sorry,” she said attempting to regain her composure. “Break into Lord Blackburn’s study while I am a guest in his home? Invade your brother’s privacy? I should think not.” Her face was aflame. “It wouldn’t be proper.” She finished lamely, as if any part of this situation was appropriate.

  ~.~

  Chapter Two

  Samuel looked at Lady Amelia, as she stuttered, caught by his gaze. Color crept up her neck. Was she really backing out at this point? He wondered. Now, that his morning routine was already interrupted? Was she only now realizing that they were alone? She had been assaulting his senses from the moment he walked into the room. He liked to walk about the house with his tea in serene silence. She had fractured that silence and burned into the morning with the heat of a rising sun. On his ship, the Amelia, he had often been awake in the early hours, when only a handful of other crew had been at work, and he had grown to covet those quiet moments, watching the first rays of the sun reflect of the sea, and marveling at its beauty…at her beauty.

  Samuel cleared his throat nervously. He had momentarily forgotten the papers in his father’s office until he had seen the same symbol on the book in Lady Amelia’s hands Now he was reminded of the pages and his brother Percival’s secretive attitude about them. He was annoyed at himself that he did not have a good answer for her. Even little details were important for a good captain to remember.

  But the only details he could seem to focus on at the moment were part of Lady Amelia Atherton herself. For all her slight size, she managed to fill up the whole of his awareness. The scent of her, light and flowery lingering from the perfume she had worn to dinner the night before; her bottom lip full and pouting as she frowned at him. She was damnedly distracting. Outside of her ballroom finery, with her hair a little tousled and her dress plain, she looked ravishing. It was unfair. He had always prided himself on his self-control. He would not let a woman into his life. He had no time for one.

  “I will get to the bottom of this. You should go back to sleep,” Samuel said. “Don’t all gentle women sleep until noon,” he spat, suddenly annoyed that the course of his peaceful morning had been broken. Perhaps the Lady Amelia’s very nearness was the cause of his frustration, but he chose to blame the interruption.

  “I do not,” she said.

  Samuel did not want to argue with her; at any moment she might renew her attempts to batter his toes and shins.

  “I want to know what this book is about just as much as you do, and it is mine!”

  “Take it, then, I do not need it,” said Samuel, tossing the book to her. She caught it narrowly, before it fell to the floor. “Go on, off to bed with you.”

  “I am not a child,” she hissed, kicking out with her slippered foot.

  This time, Samuel did not dodge her attack and she gasped in pain when her toes connected with his shin bone.

  “Feel better? Now. What was
that you were saying about not being a child?”

  Lady Amelia’s grimace was wiped from her face, replaced by a cold, hard stare that had probably knocked lesser men straight off their feet. However, Samuel had seen that sort of face on his superior officers from the age of twelve, and on his father’s face since the day he was born, and it had no effect on him. Once she realized this, Lady Amelia turned on her heel and stalked away.

  “Where are you going?” Samuel asked, hurrying after her.

  “I am going to your father’s office,” said Amelia, not bothering to slow down or ask for directions. She marched down the hallway, sticking her head into all of the rooms they passed.

  “You do not even know what room it is,” said Samuel, incredulous. “What happened to not being a rude guest?”

  “A child,” she said through clenched teeth, “does not mind a little misbehaving. Ah, here we are, I think.”

  She pushed the door open the rest of the way and stepped into the room. Samuel followed; then shut the door behind them with a soft click. Lord Blackburn’s study was untouched since the last Percival had been in it, and everything was neatly put away. It was very different from Amelia’s own father’s study that had a tumbled appearance though he would have known where everything was. Samuel’s father’s study bespoke of an utter fastidiousness. He would know if something was out of place.

  “Now, where would it be?” she asked, turning toward Samuel.

  If she realized that she was shut in a room alone with a strange man, it did not show on her face.

  “Your guess is as good as mine, I am afraid,” he said, and then paused, remembering. “A moment,” he said raising a finger. “Percival was sitting at the desk with a satchel already opened when I entered.” Samuel crossed the room with a purposeful stride and pulled open a desk drawer. He frowned. “I thought he tossed the whole lot into the drawer. He seems to have moved it. We shall just have to search for it,” Samuel said.

  Lady Amelia surveyed the room. Floor to ceiling bookshelves packed full of leather tomes similar to the one she had in her hands, and only two of them to search.

  “You found the original book in a desk, so perhaps we should start there?” Samuel asked as Lady Amelia peered around at the shelves looking a little daunted before she even started. Samuel stepped closer towards her and when she looked at him again, his heart leapt into his throat. He would have taken her in his arms.

  “The papers,” she said, her voice sounding breathless.

  He paused and decided to play the gentleman. “I will search the drawers and when I am finished with the desk, I will help you.” Samuel said.

  “Check for any hidden latches, that is how I found this.” She replied quickly and began at the shelf to the right side of the door, working from the bottom to the top.

  Samuel watched her for a moment. All of her movements were graceful, purposeful. She might have made a decent rigger, if she had been born a man. That thought drew his gaze to her curves and the slender dip of her waist, the milky white skin exposed at the nape of her neck; no, Lady Amelia Atherton was all woman. What would it feel like to touch that skin? Smooth as butter, he would bet. He should have kissed her.

  “Are you going to begin looking or will you just gawk all morning?” asked Amelia, turning about with one hand on her hip quick enough to catch him staring.

  Samuel tried for a charming smile, but she only scoffed and turned back to the books. A tough nut to crack, that one; not that he wanted to. No, there was nothing but trouble with women like her. He had told Percival exactly that, and yet here he was, losing his head over her.

  He walked over to his father’s desk. Just a few papers were stacked in a neat pile on top, Percival’s work, but they were nothing more than accounts of the land. None were marked with the sigil. Then he checked all of the drawers, keeping in mind Lady Amelia’s advice and searching the sides and bottoms of them for any hidden catches. Nothing. With a sigh, he sat back onto the leather chair and kicked his feet up on the desk, closing his eyes and leaning his head back thinking. Where would Percival have hidden it?

  “You cannot be serious,” said Amelia, her voice startling him awake. “Here you are, falling asleep, while I go over every inch of this office. Some help you are. Do you even want to find the book? Lazy man, no wonder you are not a captain!”

  “I beg your pardon,” said Samuel, rising from the chair. “You will take that back. I have received praise for my work ethic and ability, and everyone believes I will make captain within the year. I will not be talked down to by a woman barely old enough to be called such.”

  “You are all talk, Mister Beresford. If there is one thing I know, it is that men often are.” Lady Amelia slapped her book down on the desk in front of him and went back to searching the shelves. “All talk,” she spat.

  He caught her arm and pulled her down on his lap. Her arms steadied herself against his shoulders, and he tasted those petulant lips with his kiss. Heat seared through him as soon as he touched her and she softened; then stiffened. He realized almost immediately this was a mistake. Her mouth was closed and chaste beneath his, and her hands were balled fists on his chest. She pulled away, and he let her. She stared at him with wide desire-filled eyes. For a moment he expected her to slap him and run from the room.

  Instead she cleared her throat and said, “Are you going to help me find these papers or not, you lazy cad?”

  Samuel rubbed his hand through his hair, stung.

  “I have never met a lady with such a barbed tongue,” he said, trying not to sound petulant.

  “Have you met many ladies?” she asked.

  “I am an Earl’s son.”

  “Hmm,” said Amelia, not so much as glancing at him. “I thought you were more acquainted with a different sort of woman.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, when you pay an incognita for her company, you pay her to say sweet things as well. Perhaps that is why none of them have told you what they truly think.”

  Samuel gasped. “How do you have any friends at all?” Samuel asked, shaking his head. He wished he hadn’t kissed her, he told himself. His body disagreed. He dragged his fingers over the spines of the books as he read them.

  Lady Amelia tensed at his remark and he could see that he had struck a nerve. He had the sudden desire to fix it, to apologize and make her smile return. He fought it down. Nothing could come of his attraction to her. She was too high born for a tumble. No for her it would be marriage…Lud! where had that thought come from?

  “Where would your brother hide something he did not want you to find? Somewhere you would never look?” she asked, and her tone was pure ice, but her hands were shaking.

  Samuel gave a dry laugh. “On these shelves, I assume. I rarely read, apart from the charts.”

  She noticed them then, a stack of scrolls, some open on the desk, all numbers and lines drawn along a map of the sea. There were virtually no words on the maps. “And how long do we have before your brother will rise for the day?” she asked.

  Samuel pulled his watch from his pocket. It was an expensive gold pocket watch, although he was a second son, Amelia thought the watch was worthy of a peer and quite the gem for a sea captain, even more for a commander. “Another thirty minutes perhaps, and then he will take the time to dress properly before coming down. Breakfast is at ten, when it is just the two of us, and I expect it will be the same now.”

  Lady Amelia clucked her tongue and renewed her search, pulling books off the shelf, checking their covers, and then shoving them back in. “We had best hurry then. No more slacking.”

  “I was not slacking,” Samuel protested, but he tried to match her pace. “Worse than my mother,” he muttered but there was no rancor in his voice.

  “I did hear that,” said Amelia.

  No, he thought, watching the lithe movement of the girl as she searched, she did not make him think of his mother. He turned deliberately back to his work. He wondered why he even wanted to f
ind the papers. He had to admit to himself that although he was a little curious; the most pressing reason was simply that she wanted it.

  After that, they said nothing to each other, only worked in silence side by side until the entire room had been inspected. The book was nowhere to be found, and all around them were the sounds of the house waking up. “We need to separate,” Amelia said. “I cannot be found with you here.”

  Samuel could hear Percival’s deep voice from somewhere down the hall; he seemed in conversation with a servant over the particulars of breakfast.

  “Is he coming this way?” Amelia asked, anxious. She tucked her book beneath her arm and looked to Samuel for what to do. “Should we run?”

  “That would look a little suspicious, I think, and you are completely incapable of subterfuge,” said Samuel.

  Amelia blanched. “You said Lord Beresford would not wake until near ten,” she accused. “I am alone with an unwed man, and I have no chaperone. Samuel, we must think of something quickly! Oh, this would ruin me, and I would have no chance of ever marrying. I cannot recover from a mark against my name, especially without father’s influence.” The thought struck her with such pain she thought she would collapse. Her father’s death became very real to her. Never again could she lean on her father’s strong arm. “Oh, Charity would have such sport with this!” She cried dragging her thoughts from her father’s death and back to her own predicament.

  “Charity?” Samuel asked. “I thought your companion’s name was Lady Patience.”

  “No, I mean yes it is. I wasn’t speaking of her. Charity is… was, I suppose, a friend of mine, back in London. She was at the ball where we met, you may have seen her. Do you really not remember?”

  “Oh, the …one with…” Samuel broke off, embarrassed.

  Amelia narrowed her eyes at him thinking of Charity’s curvy form and her penchant for wearing dresses just a bit too low cut. “Yes, her,” she snapped. “Now, focus please. What are we going to do?”