The Seduction of Miss Amelia Bell

by Paula Quinn

  “Grendel!” Edmund shouted, elated at his friend’s safe return. “Get yer arse up here!” And annoyed that the beast had worried him.

  “’Tis a dog,” Malcolm murmured as Edmund swept by him heading for the door.

  Amelia hopped in place and stifled what would likely have sounded like a squeal when Edmund hauled back his arm and punched Malcolm in the guts, doubling him over.

  “How many times do I have to tell ye? He’s more than a dog to me.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The next two days were without a doubt the most wonderful in Amelia’s life. She didn’t fear or fight her attraction to Edmund. She knew deep down that she could never marry him, not while he fought against everything her family supported. Sadly, there were too many obstacles. She wouldn’t lie to herself, pretending a happy ending with him. She would enjoy every moment with him before they walked away from each other when the time came.

  She thought caring for him would be easy. But she’d never had genuine feelings for any man before, nor had Sarah, her teacher. She couldn’t possibly know what she was getting herself into.

  Amelia didn’t care. There would be time enough with her mother later. Millicent Bell didn’t understand passion because all she cared about was power and money. In that, she was very much like her brother. She loved her expensive statues, her servants, her jewels, more than she ever cared for her husband. Amelia would trudge through her mother’s complaints about her the same way she did whenever she got caught spending her leisure time with Sarah. She did what she wanted.

  Call her rebellious. She didn’t care about that either.

  The enjoyment she felt from spending time with Edmund was worth risking anything for. The best and most amazing thing of all, though, was that her season of misfortune seemed to have finally ended. In fact, things were beginning to go her way for the first time in her life. Her and Edmund’s dedication to Lucan proved lifesaving. The giant Highlander was growing stronger every day, determined to rise out of bed as quickly as possible. She hadn’t spilled hot water on herself, her patient, her helper, or the dog. Miraculous. The work she started on the garden with Sarah was coming along nicely and without a single prick to either of their bodies. She hadn’t set fire to herself or anyone else, and twice she avoided tripping over her gown and tumbling down the stairs.

  Who would have imagined that it would take her being kidnapped for things to start looking up? She wished Alice, her nursemaid, were here so she could rejoice with her. She could hear Alice’s voice now, I told ye yer season would end, sweeting. Och, she missed Alice.

  “D’ye realize how often ye smile?”

  She looked up from trying to uproot the dead roots of a currant bush and squinted at Edmund. My, but he looked especially good all golden and dripping in sunlight. “Frowning creates deeper lines in the face.”

  He laughed and bent to take hold of the bush. “Ye didn’t strike me as a vain woman.”

  “Ye should have examined me closer before ye took me,” she teased, happy to be here, working under the sun with Sarah, watching him tugging at the root. He was incredibly graceful with supple, sinewy muscle rippling beneath his shirt. “I own at least one hundred gowns.” She fought to master the uneven measure of her breath. Sarah would immediately sense any rapid changes. Passion was hard to conceal. “Isn’t that correct, Sarah?”

  “Aye,” her friend agreed on the other side of a tangle of branches she was pruning. “But ye gave me more than fifty of them, so ye don’t have a hundred anymore.”

  “Well then,” Amelia said, moving on to the next dead root. “Tell Edmund of my terrible tantrums when I don’t have my way. He seems to be convinced that I am some joyful cherub sent to brighten his days.” She glanced up and cast him a fleeting smile she couldn’t resist giving him.

  Sarah thought it over, hacking away at a branch. “I don’t know if stiffenin’ yer spine, stompin’ yer foot, and boldly defyin’ yer mother and uncle could be considered terrible tantrums, but about brightenin’ his day, he’d be the first to think so.”

  “True.” Amelia stopped what she was doing and rested her hands on her lap. “Perhaps I should accept his assessment, since he is the only one who has ever made it.”

  “I’ve many more if ye care to hear them.”

  She turned to him and found him crouched beside her and smiling. “Many more assessments?” When he nodded, she beamed. “Aye, I’d like to hear them.”

  “All right.” He shifted on his haunches and thought about it. “Ye’re the perfect combination of innocence and mischievousness. I haven’t yet concluded if ye’re truly unaware of the effect of yer charms or if ye just use it all to the best of yer advantage.”

  “To what purpose would I use it?” she asked him, wide eyed with surprise that he actually believed such a thing about her. “To persuade a man that I am worth the catastrophes that will befall him once he decides to court me?”

  “No catastrophe has befallen me,” he pointed out.

  She shrugged and returned to her work. “Ye are not courting me.”

  “Och, fer heaven’s sakes!” Sarah threw down her pruning knife and gave them both the same incredulous look. “Amelia, not only is he courtin’ ye, but he kisses ye more than some married people do! And don’t give me that stunned look. Everyone here, including Henrietta and Chester, the steward, knows about the two of ye. Why they—”

  “What do ye mean?” Amelia threw her hands to her chest, sprinkling her bosom with soil. “What does everyone know about us?”

  “That ye’re both fond of each other!” Sarah shook her head with impatience. “Honestly, Amelia, I’m beginnin’ to understand Edmund’s confusion about yer innocence.”

  Amelia’s mouth fell open. This couldn’t be Sarah speaking. Sarah knew her better than anyone.

  “At least,” she retorted, angry in an instant at her best friend’s words, “I’m not running away, hiding in fear, from the one man who treats me kindly. Ye’re so used to being treated like an unimportant servant, even in bed, that ye don’t know what to do or how to act with a man who is interested in ye fer more than just yer—”

  “Amelia!”

  “I’m incorrect, Sarah?” Amelia forged on, happy now to finally get this off her chest. “Edmund and I stayed with Lucan day in and day out until he recovered while ye were nowhere to be found. Ye didn’t so much as ask about him! And now that he’s awake, have ye visited him once? No! All ye do is trudge around here looking miserable. I told ye that Lucan asks fer ye and ye don’t seem to care. And why not? Because he frightens ye. Ye’re so terrified of feeling anything that ye would rather run away and be unhappy.”

  “Are ye quite done?” Sarah demanded. She didn’t wait for Amelia to answer. “Of course I cared if he lived or died. He is a good man. Honestly, Amelia, it pierces my heart that ye would think such a heartless thing about me.”

  Amelia closed her eyes. She’d gone too far. She felt terrible. “Sarah, I—”

  But her friend cut her off with an outstretched palm. “Please, hear what I have to say as I listened to ye. Aye, he frightens me and I don’t care if Edmund knows it.” She glared at him but his gaze on her remained soft. “But I’m not afraid of feelin’, Amelia. I love ye, don’t I? We are sisters. We’ve done almost everything together and shared all our hopes, our dreams, our fears with each other, but my dear, ye are not a servant. I’m quite at ease with my life. I do as I please and answer only to yer family. I’m not fool enough to believe that men like Lucan MacGregor would have anything to do with me outside of his bed. Those dreams are fer children, Amelia. They are not fer me. I would rather never love a man than give him my heart and have it torn to pieces.”

  Amelia swiped the tears from her eyes, repentant that she had brought up such a tender topic. “Lucan would not tear yer heart to pieces, Sarah.”

  “How do ye know that, Amelia? Ye don’t know what he’s capable of doin’. What if he takes hold of my heart and I…” She didn’t fini
sh but turned to leave the garden.

  “Sarah,” Edmund called out after her, halting her steps. “I know what he’s capable of doing. If he wins yer heart, he will treat it with care and compassion.”

  She didn’t turn to him to acknowledge what he said. She picked up her steps after another moment and left the garden.

  Amelia felt awful. She wiped her hands and rose to her feet. Edmund stopped her from following after her friend. “Let her figure out what is best fer her.”

  “What if she doesn’t know? I don’t know what’s best fer me. How can I trust that she knows what’s best fer her?”

  He pulled her into his arms and kissed her teary eyes. “She’ll figure it out, lass. And so will ye.”

  She pushed away from him. “I don’t know if I will, Edmund. I don’t know what to do about Walter.”

  His eyes went a bit darker but he looked away and Amelia couldn’t be certain. “D’ye love him, Amelia?”

  “No,” she admitted softly. “But that never had anything to do with it. Because of my mother’s insistence that we live in Queensberry House, my poor father has had to bite his tongue while he grows deeper and deeper in debt to my uncle. He did his best trying to find good husbands for my sisters and me. Men who would add respect to my father’s name. Is that so terrible?”

  “Well,” Edmund told her, reminding her of his last encounter with Eleanor’s husband, Bedford. “When those men require dutiful wives who never give voice to their own opinions, then I would call it less than ideal. Is that what ye want fer yerself?”

  “No,” she assured him, twisting her skirts. He didn’t understand and she didn’t know how to help him. “But don’t ye see? My father had very little before he wed my mother, and everything we have now, we have because of my uncle’s grace.”

  “So ye’re going to marry the chancellor because it will benefit yer father.”

  He sounded annoyed. But why should he be? Surely he didn’t think they could stay together. They came from different worlds. He was indebted to Scotland and to his kin, giving him cause to hate her family and their allegiance to England. She was beholden to her father, dedicated to easing his life. Marrying the chancellor would replace the shame she brought to her father’s name with status. Marrying a MacGregor would do the opposite. Of course, each day that she spent with Edmund made her realize more and more just how miserable she was going to be with Walter. Oh, but the day had started out so nicely. When had it gone so wrong?

  “Edmund, there is no future fer us. Surely ye know that. There are too many obstacles in the way, like duty and family, and—”

  “Aye, I know,” he answered quietly, halting her words.

  He knew. He didn’t deny it then. Oh, what did she expect him to do? To say? Even if he wanted to fight for her, she couldn’t destroy her father. She simply couldn’t.

  “And let us not forget my misfortune,” she continued, more to convince herself than him. “Walter was the only man willing to overlook it.”

  He gave her comment the scowl it deserved. Then his gaze lowered, as did his voice. “Ye have thought of everything, then. What is there left fer us?”

  What was left? Everything! Why was she saying all the wrong things today? Why were the two people she cared about forbidden? When he moved to turn away and leave her as Sarah had, she stopped him, taking hold of his arm. Forbidden had never stopped her before. She wouldn’t let it now.

  He turned and she looked up into his despairing gaze.

  Did he care for her?

  She reached her hand up to his face and watched his lids close as she touched him. “There is something between us, Edmund. It draws me to ye even when every thought in my head is shouting to keep my distance fer our hearts’ sake. It tempts me to beg God that if this is a dream and I am still asleep at David’s feet in my uncle’s garden, never let me wake. I don’t want to contemplate my life. I want to live it.”

  She spread her thumb over his enticing mouth and inched closer toward it. “And all the pleasures of it. With ye. I know none of them and I want to learn with ye.”

  He pulled her in the rest of the way and covered her mouth with a hot, hungry kiss. She answered, rising up on the tips of her toes and plunging her fingers into his locks, then pulling him down to answer her passion. She felt engulfed in flames. Her nipples burned, as did the crux between her legs. Her lungs, too, so she didn’t waste any breath speaking, except to say, “Take me inside.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  They burst into the castle like a gust of torrid air. Grendel followed them toward the stairs, where they nearly mowed down Malcolm in their race to ascend.

  “Luke was askin’ fer ye both earlier,” he called out on the way down.

  “Thank ye, Malcolm, that’s where we’re heading,” Amelia called back.

  Malcolm paused and turned to look at them, his grin spreading over his handsome face. “Ye’re no’ goin’ anywhere near his room, lass.”

  “Continue on yer way, Cal. We’ll see ye later.”

  “Much later I’m hopin’,” Malcolm murmured, doing what Edmund asked him to do. “Grendel!” He called out over his shoulder when he heard the door to Edmund’s room shut and the mongrel whining on the outside of it. “Come to the Great Hall with me and I’ll share my meal with ye.”

  He smiled as Grendel barreled down the stairs behind him.

  Edmund looked at the woman sitting on his bed waiting for him. What was it that plagued him with the urge to smile like a fool every time he beheld her? Is this what became of a man when a lass began to chip away at his heart? Did he forgive every offense; choose not even to think on them, but rather on the indelible vision of his woman in his bed? He assumed it was by the odes Darach’s father, Finn, sang to his wife.

  “My heart is racing,” she said, bringing her hand to her chest and looking up at him from behind long, thick locks of hair. Innocence and seduction. Her skin was pale, her eyes wide and sparkling in the candlelight.

  “We can go back to the garden,” he managed, moving toward her. He hoped she’d say no. He didn’t want to leave the room…for a month. When she shook her head and shuddered on an anxious breath, he wondered again if she was aware of her power to seduce men just by sitting on a bed.

  “Perhaps we can sit and talk for a little while?”

  Did a man’s heart give in to every request? “Of course,” he granted, joining her on the edge of his bed. “Let me begin by asking ye a question.”

  “All right.” She looped her arm through his and tucked one leg under the other. “What is it?”

  “Why haven’t there been a thousand suitors fer ye at Queensberry’s door?”

  “There were many, at first. But the more incidents I provoked, the fewer the visitors.”

  “But yer dance card was full the night we met.”

  She smiled, then shook her head. “No, ’twasn’t. In fact, ’twas empty.”

  “Ah.” He laughed. “A ruse well played if yer intent was to make me want to keep ye all to myself.”

  “No, ’twasn’t that.” She turned to conceal the scarlet streak spreading high across her cheekbones. “I was mortified by my empty card. Ye were the last person I wanted to tell.”

  He took her hand and kissed it delicately. “How could any man be unwilling to fight any foe, even misfortune, fer ye?”

  “There was only one man, Edmund, ’twas Walter.”

  He doubted Walter would have cared if she had three eyes. Marrying her bound him to the Duke of Queensberry, who was, at the moment, one of the most powerful men in Scotland.

  Edmund thought about the first time he was told of her misfortune by her father, and then again by her very own lips. He hadn’t put much stock into it, not believing in such drivel. But how many times over the last few days had he saved her from catastrophe without her even knowing it? Yesterday when they were in the library, a heavy volume of Hamlet somehow fell from its shelf and set a course directly for her head. He managed to reach out and gra
b it before it struck her. Twice while they strolled Ravenglade’s grounds, he veered her gently out of the path of a hornet’s nest. When she nearly fell down the stairs—twice—he’d asked Henrietta to sew the hems of her gown a bit shorter to keep her from tripping over them, without her knowing, of course.

  And those were only the times when she could have been hurt. He was still trying to forget how he narrowly avoided sitting on the garden mattocks she’d placed directly under him a little while ago.

  “And now,” he told her softly, “there is me.”

  She closed her eyes when he cupped her jaw in one hand and covered her mouth with his. He loved kissing her, taking his time, teasing her, biting her, tasting her, taking his fill.

  “I think ye’ve conquered the misfortune in my life already,” she groaned, drawing in a breath.

  “’Tis what I do.”

  She giggled into his neck, then drew back to shine her smile on him full force. “Edmund, slayer of giants. Will ye stop at nothing and slay me as well?”

  “I’ll stop at nothing to protect ye.”

  Her eyes searched his, looking for something he hoped she found. “And what have I done to earn such a champion?” she whispered on parted lips.

  “’Tis nothing ye’ve done, Amelia, and it can never be undone by ye.” He bent to kiss her again. This time, she fell back on the bed, taking him along with fistfuls of his shirt in her hands.

  Feeling her beneath him made him hard as steel. He wanted her, throbbed for her, and he was tempted to tear away the two flimsy layers of wool between them, spread her wide, and sink deep. The thought of it almost brought him to climax.

  But she was untried and untouched. And though every nerve ending in his body burned for her, ached to be her first, he didn’t want her to regret anything. She wanted to live her life and all the pleasures of it, and she would. He would help her, but that one pleasure would have to wait until he knew she truly wanted it to be with him and not just some memory to warm her while she lay in bed with her future husband.