“I would never wish for my brother’s life,” said Samuel. “It is nothing but boredom and duty and manners. No adventure, no thrill. Percival is the one suited to it.”
“So you say,” said Amelia, tone and expression bored as she pursed her lips, and then wet them. “But you wish you had at least had the option, do you not?”
Samuel did not know what to say; it was too near the truth. It wasn’t that he wanted his brother’s life though. He didn’t. He was entirely unsuited to it. He supposed at one time he wanted his father’s approval though. He had never thought himself transparent before, but this girl had seen right through him. Unnerving. It was no longer important. He was his own man. He fumbled for a way to recover himself.
“You are nothing but a spoiled Duke’s daughter. Once your life of shopping and parties was thrown off course, you realized there was nothing of substance to hold on to. So you decided to throw yourself into investigating a mystery, just to give your bored little mind something to do,” said Samuel.
Lady Amelia got to her feet in a swish of silk. The gesture, which she seemed to have meant as intimidating, was rather endearing as the top of her head came only to his chest and she had to crane her head back to glare at him. Looking down at her, curls askew, eyes shining with emotion, he had the sudden desire to kiss her again. So he did.
Samuel caught her by the waist and pulled her against him, bending to once again capture her lips with his own. They were parted with her gasp of surprise. She did not slap him or pull away, but melted into him, yielding and pliant, her hands up between them, on his chest. His sudden fire mellowed to gentleness. For all her bravado, she was small and soft and he had an intense desire to protect her. Instead he kissed her with all the tenderness he had in him.
~.~
Chapter Four
Amelia had clearly lost her mind. She could not in this precarious stage of her life, lose her wits over a man she hardly knew, and who was certainly no good for her. Her feelings were easy enough to stamp down when he was not there, huge and solid and warm and kissing her so, so thoroughly that fire was exploding in her and her knees were wobbling. He held her so confidently; he surely kept her from falling. It was only when he pulled back and his arm dipped down from her waist that her mind finally decided it could function again. She took a deep cleansing breath.
“Now, enough of that.” she said, shaking her curls back out of her face and stepping out of his reach. His arm slid reluctantly off of her. She willed herself to composure. “Did you find the book?” She asked.
Samuel’s tender expression, something she had not seen before, snapped off his face and turned into a scowl. She was positively infuriating. How could the woman respond to him one minute and be completely unmoved the next? If it were not for the pink shade of her lip he would have believed he had imagined the entire kiss. She pressed her hands together, trying to still their shaking, hoping he didn’t notice how he unnerved her.
“I did,” he said, voice hoarse. He cleared his throat and tried again. “They are identical except that Percival’s copy is in much worse shape than yours. The papers I found with the book were written in the same manner, more nonsense, and poetry”
Amelia’s face fell. She had truly believed finding another book would somehow unlock the secret of her own.
“And there was no cypher? Nothing to help you decode the words?” she asked, already knowing the answer. He would have told her straight away. Still, he could have missed something. She wanted to look herself.
Samuel shook his head. “But there was something. I do not know if it means anything.”
“What was it?” said Amelia, unable to keep the excitement from her voice.
“I’m thinking the book is the cypher,” he said.
She frowned. “So you did find something?”
“Numbers. Only numbers. Written across the right margin of one of the papers,” Samuel said, scratching the unseemly stubble on his face.
“Whatever could that be? It must mean something.” Amelia sat at the piano tapping her foot and thinking. “We must figure this out. No doubt this is the key to the whole mystery.” She just knew it was so.
“It is probably nothing more than a lovers’ meeting spot, you realize,” he said. “Some hidden affair. A spot at some ball…”
“You do not believe that,” Amelia argued. “An affair does not require books of coded language-- Especially not multiple copies!” Amelia frowned at the look on his face.
“You’ve thought of something,” she said.
He didn’t answer.
“This is my mystery,” she argued. “Tell me.”
He still said nothing, but she was quite sure he had deduced some part of the riddle but he was not divulging it. She pursed her lips wondering if she could trust him and finally decided she had no choice.
“There is talk in London,” she said. “Some say my father was involved in something untoward.” She shook her head. “My father would never do something like that. He was somehow taken advantage of. Before he died,” she confided, “He was worried about something one day, and then next day, he was …he was gone. I think…” she hesitated saying the actual words. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I think his death was no accident. I have to follow this to the end. Surely you see that. If this can clear my father’s name…find the truth,” she said. “Or find his murderer.”
“All the more reason for you to stay out of this,” he snapped.
She gaped at him. He believed her. He did not say she was irrational or call her a hysterical woman and try to placate her. No. He said to stay out of this; whatever this was. What had he found out?
“It is too dangerous,” he continued pacing away from her.
“I care not a fig,” she said airily. “If you are frightened, just give me the information you have deduced. I will ferret out the rest of the puzzle.”
“I am not frightened,” Samuel said, with a snort. “And you will not go alone. I forbid it.”
“You forbid it! Are you my protector now?” Amelia’s voice had an edge to it, and she stood to face him, but Samuel grinned at her, his mood changing in a moment.
“You could not pay me to take that job,” He teased, his voice was suddenly jovial again, the scowl of earlier, completely wiped from his face as if it had never been.
Amelia was not fooled. She looked at him and a shiver ran down her spine, but she persevered. She clicked her tongue in annoyance. “What is it?” she asked. “I deserve at least that much. You cannot keep it from me.”
“I just realized what the numbers were, and why they seemed familiar. It is latitude, and I recognized it because it is in London,” said Samuel. “Or at least could be.”
“Where in London? What do you suppose it is?”
“I’m not sure,” Samuel said. “I suppose I can go to London to investigate, although I do not see what good it will do.”
“We can go to London,” she said.
“You are not going,” he said.
“I most certainly am,” she argued. “And immediately. I need to know the truth.”
“You have no idea if these books will help. They may immure your father even more.”
“How dare you say that!” she fumed. “My father was a good man.”
“Even good men make a mull of it from time to time.”
“You should know,” she snapped.
“You don’t know what this is about,” he argued ignoring her jibe. “Until we know more, I cannot involve a lady.”
“That is exactly why I must go!” She realized her voice was raised, and if the family came back, they would be caught. “I must go,” she said again in a furious whisper. “I want to go!”
“I don’t give a tinker’s damn what you want,” he said in the same low whisper.
She stared at him for along moment and then said with ice cordiality, “My aunt and Patience and I have imposed on your hospitality too long. We will be leaving for home in the morning.”<
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“You are going to do harm to the happiness of your friend and my brother, just to satisfy your pride,” he snapped. “You are a cruel woman.”
“Good day, Commander Beresford” she said. She had to find some way to go to London and figure this out on her own. Without his book and without his help, it was going to be doubly difficult, but she would do it. She raised her chin a little. “I will do this myself if I must.”
“Really?” he said smugly. “I’m sure you can discover the location with only the latitude.”
“I can,” she said.
He laughed at her. “No you can’t.”
“I can search just as well as any man,” she said hotly.
“I have no doubt you can, but man or woman, latitude is only half of the equation, not the whole location.”
“Oh,” she said deflated.
“In any case, this has become far too dangerous, Lady Amelia.”
“You don’t know that,” she reasoned.
And he didn’t, but he surely had his suspicions, especially considering that the writing on the letter looked like Percy’s shaky after illness scrawl.
Truly, Percival’s poisoning was just one more reason why he wanted to steer Amelia clear of this whole mess, if she was right about her father’s death then someone had murdered the Duke of Ely just on the heels of ball where Percy was poisoned…He decided he would have to check the poem again.
“I’ll speak to Percival,” he began.
“No!” she cried. “I don’t want anyone else involved.”
“He is already involved,” Samuel said.
“You had no right.” She was fuming. She advanced on him, stomping her foot in anger.
“I had every right,” he said. “These are Percy’s papers we have been rooting through. And I now believe they are the reason why someone attempted to poison him.”
“What?” She sank down in the nearest chair, white as ice. She did not swoon, but this was as close as Samuel had ever seen her to it. He didn’t know if he should have told her, about Percy’s near death from poisoning, and surely he could have been more tactful, but at least he had exonerated himself from her wrath.
She understood now why he needed to tell Percy what they had found, and perhaps she would not be so set on putting herself in danger, once she knew that the danger was not just supposed but a certainty.
“He was to speak with your father on the night of the ball,” Samuel said “They spoke briefly and agreed to meet on some matter of finance. Then Percy began feeling ill and we went home. We had thought it was a bad lamprey at the time, but the doctor agrees now, that it likely was a purposeful poisoning.”
Amelia said nothing. She sat for a moment as if in shock and then got up and sat at the piano. After a few minutes she laid her hands on the keys and began to plunk out a slow dirge. Samuel sat with her for a while, and when he began to think she would rather be alone, he quietly left the room, and allowed her to bury herself in the music.
~.~
The next morning dawned with a torrential downpour, and even if Amelia had still wanted to leave, she knew Aunt Ebba was not going to travel on such a miserable day. Amelia spoke in clipped tones at breakfast, and let Aunt Ebba and Patience carry the conversation. Soon after, Aunt Ebba and Patience settled with their needlepoint in the parlor while Percival read to them. Amelia was much too nervous to sew. She would probably stick herself with the needle, and bleed on the fine silk thread. She didn’t find sewing a bit relaxing at the best of times, now with her nerves on edge, her needlepoint would be a ghastly mess. Her hands were not steady enough to darn a sock.
She had barely slept thinking of what Samuel had told her. She had thought that there was foul play, with her father’s death, but to have that reality confirmed shook her. To think that Lord Beresford, the man Patience so obviously loved, could have been poisoned; it was a shock. She sat looking out at the rain, thinking of all that had happened since her father’s death.
“You are not playing,” Samuel said as he stood at the doorway. He gestured at the piano.
“No,” she answered. “I was thinking of all you told me yesterday. This is all the more reason why we must go to London.”
Samuel walked into the room with a purpose. “You are a woman, a lady besides” he said. “You cannot be involved in such dangerous activities.”
“I must,” she said. “We cannot leave the blackguard loose to prey on some other poor unsuspecting victim.”
“Leave this to me. I will get to the bottom of it,” Samuel suggested gently.
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
Amelia glowered at him. Samuel tried to reason with her, but Amelia was stubbornly insistent that she could do whatever a man could do and if she had to she would get to the truth herself without him. He was quite sure the woman was stubborn enough to try. The heat of their arguing brought the heat of their attraction to mind, but both of them studiously avoided the subject and Amelia returned to the matter at hand.
“Why were they targeted?” She asked, hands on her hips as if she could not see why he did not have a ready answer. She fired another question and another. “Do you have any idea? What did the villains want? Did they get it?”
“I don’t know,” Samuel said.
“I thought you were investigating.”
“Very well,” he had said dumping the entire contents together on the side table. “I’m quite sure Percival is too taken with Lady Patience to notice the books absence. See what sense you can make of it, then.”
“I will,” she said, raising her chin a little. Her hazel eyes flashed fire and Samuel thought she looked remarkably beautiful. He would have attempted to kiss her again but in her present mood, with her hands clenched in fists at her side, he was certain that kissing her would involve risk to his face, so he simply stalked unsatisfied from the music room.
She gathered up the satchel and papers and went to her own room. Samuel thought the rainy day felt especially silent without her piano music drifting through the hall.
~.~
It had been two days now since Samuel had kissed Amelia. He’d kissed her twice and now it was as if it had never happened. But it did happen. Yes, that first kiss they could both deny. It was a mistake. A woman was allowed one mistake was she not? She had not taken him to task for his impertinence because she was so startled. It was a single moment of passion, not to be acknowledged or repeated… only it was repeated, and again she had not protested. If she was honest with herself, she still could not protest. Like some low hoyden, she’d wanted it repeated.
She could not keep from thinking about his kisses and, and even dreaming of them at night, but Samuel treated her no differently than he had before. He had proclaimed no words of love and devotion. He had not asked for her hand in marriage, not that she would marry him had he asked. He was only a commander, but he had said nothing…nothing at all. Was he truly unmoved? Amelia retired early and sat beside her bed looking at the book and the papers and trying to put Samuel out of her mind. She had a good portion of candle, so she thought she could stay up for an hour or two reading and trying to decipher the code. She would put herself to the task at hand. She wasn’t going to sleep anyway but she had trouble keeping her mind on the book.
Her hand went to her lips as she thought of Samuel. How could he kiss her like that …did it mean nothing? What had she been expecting, for him to follow her around like a lovesick puppy? No, but she had hoped he would… Did she? She did not know. She’d once had all manner of puppy dog men, flattering popinjays the lot, and she had rejected all of them. Now she had less choice, and …oh what did she want? Perhaps her heart was just wishing he would kiss her like that again. Her mind however, was wishing she could convince him to take her to London to solve the mystery her father’s death and its connection to the book and papers with the strange symbol. Surely they could find some answers in London. She felt so useless here in the country.
She ran her finger ov
er the symbol and studied the numbers which Samuel had given her. Somehow, those numbers were the key to figuring out what the rest of the message might be. The book was still just a book of words, not sentences. Upon closer inspection she noticed that a great number of the words rhymed with each other, and the papers, had a poems…She felt a sudden wave of excitement. What if the poems were not the key; what if the book was actually the cypher as Samuel thought? On a whim, she looked back at the poem. Samuel had said the numbers were written down the right side of the paper, and the last words on the right of the paper were the rhyming words of the poem. It was nearly impossible with Percy’s smeared and unreadable book, but with her own, the cypher suddenly made sense. The numbers were the pages and lines where the words were in the book.
She wanted to jump and run to Samuel to show him what she discovered, but he was probably in bed by now. The thought sent a shiver through her as she thought of him. She forced her mind back to her work.
She was not an adept with such things, but Samuel seemed to understand it. He seemed to read the numbers like an address. If they had an address she could go to London and confront whoever was at that location. She would find out what they knew about her father’s death. She would not rest until justice was done.
She could barely contain her excitement. She just knew this mystery had something to do with her father’s death. She just knew it! Her father had found the book and unlike her, he knew what it was. He threatened to take the culprit to the authorities and was killed for it. She knew her father was a man of honor, but proving it would have to wait until morning. She blew out the candle and forced herself to lay still in the dark. If she lay still, she would fall asleep, she told her racing mind, but once again her thoughts went to Samuel and sleep would not come.
The Duke’s Daughter - Lady Amelia Atherton: A Regency Romance Novel (Heart of a Gentleman Book 3) Page 12
