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

by Isabella Thorne

  “Well, lucky for you, my brother will not believe your reputation to be besmirched in the slightest, as he knows that I will have nothing to do with any lady of quality. However, he will think it suspicious that we are in Father’s office, so I suggest we walk together down the hall calmly and you allow me to do the talking if we bump into him. We are out on a tour of the house, having both risen early,” Samuel said, nodding to himself.

  It was a fine plan.

  “I think it is best if I do not inquire as to why your brother believes that about you; I will only be offended,” said Amelia, giving Samuel what he now recognized as her disgusted look. “What if he sees the book?” she hissed. “He will recognize the symbol at once. I don’t have pockets and you don’t have a jacket. If you were wearing a jacket like a gentleman, we could hide it under your coat.”

  “If you had left it in your room instead of wandering around with it, we wouldn’t have to hide it.” Samuel pointed out.

  “I wanted to see it in the sunlight, where I thought…Oh, bother. No one knows what book it is if I hide the symbol, do they? I could say it is a book of poetry.”

  Samuel raised an eyebrow at her. “Very well,” he said. “Come along then.”

  They walked sedately out into the corridor. No one was in sight. Amelia breathed a sigh of relief. “But what about finding your book, Commander Beresford?” She asked. “Where else could your brother have hidden it?”

  “I haven’t the faintest idea, Lady Amelia”

  “He is your brother; you must know his favorite hiding spots.”

  “I have spent most of my life on a ship,” Samuel argued. “His bedroom, maybe. Not in Father’s room; Father would have none of it, and Percy knows I will never go in there.”

  “Then you must,” said Amelia. “That is probably where it is. After all, my book was owned by my father. No doubt your father had one too. The one you saw in Lord Beresford’s possession.” Amelia shifted the book nervously to the other hand. “I have an idea. Patience, Aunt Ebba, and I will ask Lord Beresford for a visit to the gardens, as I have recently developed an interest in gardening. It looks to be a fine day for it. You, being a surly grump of a man, will beg off, stating that you hate flowers and all things of beauty, leaving you alone in the house to search his room and your father’s room at leisure.”

  “I take it back,” Samuel said curling his lip. “You are just fine at subterfuge.”

  Amelia raised her chin, all lofty proper lady once again. “Nothing I said was a lie. I do enjoy gardens and you despise anything lovely.”

  Oh, no, my lovely Lady Amelia, he thought. That was surely a lie.

  Lady Amelia turned and walked ahead of him before he could respond, leaving him to once again chase after her. If only…but what to do with her when he caught her, he wondered.

  ~.~

  Chapter Three

  Percival, as Samuel had said he would, did not so much as blink an eye when he saw Lady Amelia and Samuel together in the hallway. He was still thin from his ordeal of poisoning, but he no longer bore an air of illness about him. The faint purple shadows had disappeared from below his eyes, and he wore a welcoming smile.

  His manners were impeccable, and everything that Samuel’s were not.Aunt Ebba and Patience came down only a quarter hour later, and the group gathered in the dining room for breakfast.

  “What is that tatty old book you are carrying about?” Aunt Ebba asked, reaching across the table to grab it from where sat beside Amelia’s plate. She had not known where else to put it, and decided that trying to hide it again would seem suspicious. She had placed it so that the symbol was facing the table.

  “Just a book of poetry,” said Amelia, sliding it away from Aunt Ebba’s reach. “It was Father’s.”

  “I did not know you enjoyed poetry, Amelia” said Patience. “Are you fond of poetry, Lord Beresford?”

  Percival sat up in his chair. “Speaking most plain the thoughts which do possess, her gentle sprite: peace, and meek quietness, And innocent loves, and maiden purity.”

  Patience gasped in delight. “Charles Lamb? How wonderful. Have you read his dear friend Coleridge?” she asked.

  “Oh yes. Samuel Taylor,” Percival clarified. “Of course, but he is so dour. My brother was named for him.”

  “I was not,” Samuel objected.

  Amelia chuckled. She could not help it, she looked across the table to Samuel and saw him with a piece of toast paused before his mouth, and the bemused expression on his face that matched her own. He caught her eyes on him and flashed a grin. Amelia shivered and slapped marmalade aggressively onto her toast.

  “May we have a tour of the gardens today, Lord Beresford?” Amelia could not wait any longer, she was so anxious to solve this mystery. “It seems such a fine day for a stroll.”

  “It would be my pleasure. Our mother took great pride in the gardens and I believe they are some of the best in the area,” said Percival.

  “I must decline,” said Samuel, when everyone else rose to follow Percival outside. He leaned his chair back on two legs and took a bite out of a pastry. “I will stay here and make sure none of this food goes to waste.”

  “Whatever will we do without you, Samuel? As I said, he cannot resist a decent meal. sailing turns men into dogs,” said Percival.

  Aunt Ebba, Patience, and Amelia followed Percival out of the room. Amelia turned to look over her shoulder at Samuel, aiming a meaningful look at the book she had left on the table. She hung back, letting Patience walk beside Percival.

  “You have been acting strangely,” said Aunt Ebba, as she came up beside Amelia. “Out with it. What is bothering you?”

  Amelia, who had been thinking only of whether or not she could give Samuel enough time to find his brother’s book, struggled to come up with something other than the truth. Aunt Ebba mistook her silence for sorrow. She laid her hand on Amelia’s shoulder.

  “Your father loved you, Amelia, and he would have wanted you to move past the grief and find happiness. With a husband,” said Aunt Ebba. She always had to work an agenda. Amelia sighed.

  “I know, Auntie, and I am trying,” Amelia replied.

  Aunt Ebba nodded toward Patience and Percival. “They are an excellent match. You would do well to find someone. See how happy Lady Patience is?”

  “Patience is a simpler girl than I am, Auntie, and you know it.”

  “But I have seen the way you look at Samuel,” said Aunt Ebba, cutting in. “He is not a proper match for you. I have seen his type before and you cannot afford a scandal.”

  Amelia stopped mid step, looking incredulously at Aunt Ebba. “Then your eyes are failing you. I have no interest in the man.”

  Aunt Ebba pursed her lips. “Say what you will, but I am not blind. I am just warning you to proceed with caution.”

  Amelia feigned sudden interest in a fist-sized peony. What had Aunt Ebba meant by his type? Although Amelia had been introduced to countless gentlemen since her debut, none of them were anything like Samuel Beresford, so she did not believe him part of a type at all. Really, it offended her that Aunt Ebba thought so little of Amelia’s judgement. She may no longer be the jewel of London but that did not mean she had been brought quite that low.

  Aunt Ebba had rejoined Percival and Patience in their slow promenade along the garden path. It was obvious to Amelia that, if both sets of parents were amenable to the match, the courtship between Lord Beresford and Lady Patience would be swift. The two looked at each other as if they had never before met someone so agreeable. She wished them all the best; it was a better match than she had ever dreamed of for Patience and her darling friend deserved every bit of happiness. Charity could live out her days as a spinster, for all Amelia cared. Not a single letter had she received from her so-called friend, Charity. No matter, she was better off without her. It simply stung Amelia’s pride to be so forgotten.

  They had nearly completed their circuit of the garden, which was small but impeccably kept, with every s
pace filled with colorful blooms in complementary colors to the ones beside them. Despite her distracted state, Amelia had picked up a few ideas for her garden back home. Now that they had turned toward the door, however, she was entirely caught up in thoughts of the book, and whether or not she had given Samuel enough time to locate it.

  ~.~

  Samuel had to keep reminding himself that he was being a proper younger brother now, snooping on his elder and digging through his belongings. It was something all younger brothers did, and he had missed out on his chance during his childhood days, a sentiment that only mildly assuaged the guilt Samuel felt while tossing through the bedroom. If someone had ransacked his own cabin in such a manner, he would never have forgiven them, brother or no. He could not even pretend his deception was for a worthy cause— it was nothing more than curiosity that had compelled him to uncover his brother’s secrets. Percival was such an open, trusting man that seeing him trying to hide something had disturbed Samuel deeply. His interest had nothing at all to do with the fact that Lady Amelia shared the same burning desire to uncover the secret of the nonsensical book.

  It was with mixed feelings, then, that his fingers closed around the worn leather cover of a satchel hidden at the bottom of Percival’s closet. Something crinkled as he pulled the book out, and he scrabbled around blindly to grab the array of papers that had been dropped from and scattered beside it. Then, he heard the door open and close downstairs. Samuel climbed to his feet, checking that the room bore no obvious signs of his search. He held the satchel tightly against his chest and fled back to his own bedroom. With luck, Percival would not be looking for the papers while the three women were guests at the house, and Samuel would have plenty of time to look through the assortment and return it before Percival ever noticed it was missing.

  Grateful he had always been an anti-social curmudgeon and would not attract suspicion by his absence; Samuel sequestered himself in his room and laid the damaged book and the papers out across his desk. He turned the key in the lock of the door, poured himself a brandy, and set to work. The first thing he noticed was that the books were indeed identical, inside and out, but Percy’s was nigh on unreadable with water damage. The ink was smeared in many places and the pages had dried crinkled. Faint white dust on the pages told of not just water, but sea water. He brought it to his nose and sniffed. It smelled slightly musty. This book had been immersed in salt water and then inexpertly dried. It had not simply been splashed with sea water, but rather it was sitting in the water for some time, forgotten, he wondered or perhaps unable to be reached during a sea voyage?

  He looked at the pages again. The loose pages from Amelia appeared to be the collection of a third book in the making. The same nonsensical words filled each page and the symbols were drawn on the same spots.

  Several loose pages were poems. How did the poems and the book work together? The only thing he could see was that some of the words in the book were also rhyming words of the poems. He had never been much of a poetry sort of man, so he wasn’t sure where to take this observation.

  He searched for an hour, trying to make sense of the words and the letters. Samuel knew little of codes or cyphers, and his brain ached at trying to piece together a puzzle without a single idea of what the end result should look like. Was it a story? A manual? A manifest? His only breakthrough came when he was shuffling the papers back into a neat pile, and dropped one.

  He took out the page and smoothed it on the desk. It was another poem, but on this one, he noticed something that was not on the others, a list of numbers at the right margin of a poem paper. It seemed to him that those numbers should mean something to him, but he couldn’t think what.

  But he knew the writing. It was Percy’s, and he knew Percy wasn’t having a secret affair. The love of his life was outside in the garden with him, but then, what was Percy doing with the cypher book? A shiver of unease went through him. What if Percival was involved in something untoward? He thought of going to their father with that news, and knew he wouldn’t. He never would betray his brother. Samuel sighed. Who was he fooling? This was Percival, the prim and proper. This business had to be something else entirely. Something he wasn’t seeing.

  The whole thing was impossibly frustrating. Samuel had never enjoyed puzzles, he liked things clear cut and straightforward, like the sea. It was either storm or sun, and one could tell the difference readily. He thrust everything into a pile and dumped into the drawer of his desk, not bothering to hide it. If someone else stumbled upon it, he welcomed their attempts to solve the puzzle for him. The whole affair was giving him a headache.

  As he left his room, he wondered why did Percy have this book in the first place. Samuel realized he should just ask Percival. He would flat out ask him, and if Percy said it was none of his business, Samuel would insist. It occurred to him that Percival’s possession of this secret may have had something to do with his poisoning. It would be just like Percy to stumble on something illegal and not even recognize the danger. He knew he could trust his brother. He just had to figure out a time to have this conversation, when Percival was feeling up to it, and the women were otherwise engaged.

  ~.~

  Samuel straightened his cravat in the mirror and downed the last of his drink. He ran a comb through his dark hair, which had grown a bit long and a little unruly during his time ashore, and rubbed his fingers against the day’s growth of hair on his chin. It was damned itchy, but he did not want the bother of sitting for a shave. It gave him a devilishly rogue look, he thought, and it would probably annoy Lady Amelia which was another plus to the shadow on his face. With a spring in his step borne of brandy and confidence, he headed downstairs to find her.

  He found Percival and Lady Patience in the sitting room. Percy was reading to her, a book of poetry of course, while she embroidered something colorful. It was a disturbingly domestic scene with the two of them sitting rather close, talking in low tones. Lady Patience sat up hastily when he entered, as she nervously explained that Aunt Ebba had only gone to nap a moment ago.

  Percival stood, scowling at him and laid the book of poetry aside.

  “And where is Lady Amelia?” Samuel asked, amused. The girl was so fretful you would have thought he had caught them in an embrace. For the decorous pair, he may as well have, he supposed. “Did she go to lie down as well? I had something I wished to show her.”

  He ignored Percival’s frown. His brother always assumed the worst of him.

  “She went… oh, I do not know,” Lady Patience stuttered, bringing her hands up to her cheeks as they heated. “Did you see, Lord Beresford?”

  Percival’s face was an exact replica of Patience’s. Samuel did his best to stifle a laugh. “I am afraid not. I am sure Lady Amelia went up with her aunt. Yes, I believe that is what she said.”

  Samuel knew his brother well enough to hear the outright lie in his voice. He had been too wrapped up in Patience to pay any mind to the far lovelier Lady Amelia. Patience had a certain charm Samuel supposed, but the mouse of a girl had not half the beauty nor, half the fire of Lady Amelia. That was the trouble with love; it muddled your discernment.

  “No matter. Excuse me,” said Samuel, but the pair had already forgotten him. He left the room and wandered down the hallway while Lady Patience’s worries of propriety, sounded in whispers behind him.

  He knew Lady Amelia would not be taking a nap. The intense woman would be waiting somewhere for him to tell her what he had found out, and would probably shake it out of him the moment she saw him. Samuel did not know why he was so looking forward to it. He trained the smile off of his face.

  Lady Amelia was sitting at the piano, playing so softly it could only be heard just outside the room. Samuel stood a moment in the doorway, unnoticed, and watched her. While she played, her expression was peaceful, almost tender, and her fingers moved precisely over the keys, like a lover’s hands tracing the curve of a familiar body. The song moved through him with all the imagined gentleness of t
he sea. There was a power beneath it that intrigued him. He did not know how long he had stood there watching her when her fingers stuttered on the keys and she turned to look at him. Her expression whipped him out of his reverie. How did she manage to turn that angelic face into one of a cross nanny?

  “Are you going to come in, or just stand there in the doorway watching me?” she asked, turning back to the piano. She started playing again, but it was a different song than the song of longing she had been playing before he entered.

  “What was the song you were playing?” He stepped into the room and shut the door behind him, leaning back against the wood, arms crossed over his chest. “I have never heard it before.”

  “You would not have. I wrote it myself, but it is a work in progress, and not yet ready for an audience,” she said, with a slight shake of her head. Her dark curls fell forward, obscuring her face, but he had seen a shadow creep over her expression.

  “It sounded ready,” Samuel argued. “It is quite beautiful.”

  Amelia stopped playing and shut the lid of the piano with a snap. She swiveled on the bench to face him, crossing one leg elegantly over the other, a motion that revealed a flash of black stocking. Samuel cleared his throat.

  “Do they educate sailors in music theory, now? That must be a new addition to the curriculum,” she said, with that arrogant tilt to her chin that had so amused him on first meeting.

  “I am still the son of an Earl,” Samuel said, pushing away from the door and standing to his full height. “Even if I am the second son.”

  “And that drives you mad, does it not? That you are the second son?”

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  You think you hide your jealousy so well, playing it off with that devil may care attitude and nonchalance, but I can see right through you, Commander Beresford.” Amelia put her elbow on the piano, leaning against it so her hip cocked out to one side. He teetered a moment between anger and desire, and then, Samuel stalked toward her, looming over her, but she did not recoil nor so much as bat an eye.