She turned in his arms and lifted the covers. “Berries and Chantilly. I was disappointed the first time we met at your brother’s house that I had no time to indulge in them.” She stuck her finger in the cream and licked it, unaware of how erotic the little action looked.
“I was more disappointed than you were,” he said. “I had such plans for it.”
“Plans? Other than eating?”
He dipped his finger deeply, then stroked her mouth, and her neck, then the palm of her hand. “Most would be consumed eventually.” He flicked his tongue at the places he had painted.
Her eyes lit with excitement. “I think you should get me out of this dress, Gabriel. Quickly.”
He kissed her cream-smeared lips. He handed her the berries and carried the bowl of cream when he took her to bed.
Chapter Thirty
“Thursday? I had planned to leave town, but of course now I will stay.” Happiness did not drench Harry’s reaction to news of the wedding. If anything, he appeared dismayed.
Another older brother might suspect the spare harbored hopes of inheriting that had just been dealt a blow. Gabriel knew that Harry would never want the title, and would resent finding himself invested with it.
“Am I to meet her then?” Harry asked. “This is sudden in the extreme, if you intend to use the special license within a few days of procuring it, with a woman no one has met.”
“I am so bedazzled I cannot bear to wait. Forgive me if I did not introduce her, and perform the usual social niceties. Our courtship has been unusual. She is not what you may expect.”
He told Harry about Amanda. The description appeased his brother to a surprising degree.
“I have heard of her, this secretary. How odd that you settled on her, of all women.”
“Even odder that she accepted me. There is no explaining love, I suppose. The arrows of Eros shoot where they will.” He rather liked that line. He would have to use it when other men expressed less generous skepticism of this match.
“Of course. Certainly. My best congratulations, Gabe. I never thought to see this, or to see you so happy if it happened. I will be there, and honored to stand up with you.”
“I asked her to join me here today, so that you can meet her before the ceremony, Harry. I hope you do not mind.”
Harry’s brow smoothed. “I am glad for that. I confess that I will accommodate this news better once she and I have met.”
Gabriel realized that Harry worried that some adventuress had worked her wiles on a duke. He never knew his younger brother kept an eye on him, just as he did on Harry. That touched him.
They continued their stroll through Harry’s gardens. Gabriel resisted the urge to tell his brother to hire a better gardener. Rustic and romantic had turned overgrown and unsightly in places.
“I have seen Emilia,” his brother said in a studied, indifferent voice.
“Have you been attending parties?”
“No.” Harry paused. “She came here.”
Gabriel took a few more steps and swallowed the urge to sound like Brentworth. “When was this?”
“Several days ago. In the evening. I was sitting to dinner and someone came to the door and old Gerard came in with her card. She was alone.”
“I hope your dinner was better than what you usually eat, if she joined you at it.”
“It was. However, we ate very little.”
Gabriel discarded several responses to that. First, the warning that Harry be most careful with Emilia’s reputation. Harry would know that without reminder. Then an unkind comment about flirts who only find men attractive when the men refuse to play their games. Finally, the urge to nudge Harry to provide some particulars regarding what was done besides eating.
“She was distraught. A proposal came. She found herself less than excited at the prospect of life with this gentleman. She wanted to talk to me about it.”
“Ah. She needed her good friend.”
“Yes.” Harry paced on, his face serious and thoughtful. Unexpectedly a little smile broke, and suddenly Harry appeared a bit roguish. Even devilish. “However, not merely a good friend when she left.”
Gabriel was about to give a good devil to devil punch to his arm, when Harry’s attention diverted to the house. “Is that Miss Waverly? Coming around the corner?”
Amanda indeed appeared at the back corner of the house, the one that faced Sir Malcolm’s property. She wore a pretty bonnet and the cream dress he had given her.
“She is lovely, Gabe. Quite beautiful.”
Gabriel introduced them. Amanda gave Harry all her attention, and engaged him in conversation about his research. Periodically Harry would narrow his eyes on her, however, and lose his thought before finding it again.
“Forgive me,” he finally said. “You are vaguely familiar to me. Have we met?”
“I think that unlikely,” Amanda said. “We have had very different circles.”
“We have a few calls to make, Harry,” Gabriel hastened to add. “We should take our leave now.”
“I will walk you to your carriage.”
They were closest to the spot where Amanda had emerged and she aimed there again.
“The other side has a better path,” Harry said.
“I enjoyed looking at the odd decoration on the house next door,” Amanda replied, continuing to retrace her steps.
Harry joined her and, once on that tiny path, told her about Sir Malcolm’s house and its history, pointing to the exuberant moldings around the upper windows. Amanda stopped a few feet down the path and turned to examine it all, with Harry’s details flowing in her ear.
Gabriel’s gaze fell from the house to the hedge, remembering a dark blotch there not so long ago. And right where that blotch had laid, something else now caught his eye. It sent little darts of light up through the hedge’s leaves.
He worried that Harry would not notice it, that Amanda had been too subtle. Not that they had agreed to do this. His own plan had been without risk. He thought she had agreed with him.
She asked Harry why the lowest windows showed no arabesques. Harry’s gaze naturally turned down to them. He stopped talking in the middle of a sentence. He narrowed his eyes.
“What is—” He stepped close to the hedge, reached over, and plucked something from the depths of the branches. “I say, Gabe. Look at this.”
Amanda bent her head over the gold buckle. “How odd that such a thing was there. What is it?”
“An ancient buckle,” Harry said. “Sir Malcolm thought it had been stolen.”
“Perhaps it dropped out of the thief’s pocket while he made his descent,” Gabriel said. “Sir Malcolm will be relieved it has turned up, I am sure.”
Harry examined the buckle. He looked at Gabe. He looked at Amanda. Then he slipped the buckle into his coat. “I will bring it to him this afternoon and explain how it was found. Now, you have calls to make and I have a book to write.”
* * *
“We agreed to simply post both items to the owners,” Gabriel said while they walked up the street.
“I agreed to nothing. You issued a ducal decree. If we posted them, they were still stolen. If they are found on the premises, they were not stolen.”
“Small difference.”
“It is a big difference, darling. The authorities do not care about items that never left the premises, even if a theft was attempted.”
In his annoyance, Gabriel had not noticed their path. He dug in his heels now. “Where is the carriage?”
“I sent it ahead to wait for us.” She gestured vaguely to the northeast.
Comprehension dawned. “No. Do you hear me, Amanda? I forbid it.”
“It is the perfect solution. Better to be embarrassed for raising a false alarm than to be known as incompetent and careless. Receiving it back in the post will not absolve those being blamed for its theft in the first place.” She hooked her arm in his and urged him forward. “This way, no one will be looking for any thief at al
l when it comes to that brooch.”
“There is too much risk for you. Unnecessary risk.”
She puckered her lips in a phantom kiss. “I love you for worrying, but please do not. Have some faith, my love.”
Either he accompanied her or she would do it on her own, he knew. If not today, then tomorrow. He could not keep her under watch. She lived on Bedford Square now, so he could not even lock her in for her own good anymore.
Montagu House loomed ahead. He paid the entrance fee and they walked into the museum. Amanda gawked and pointed while they passed the Elgin marbles and the Egyptian artifacts. Without being obvious, she and he made their way to a chamber with early British metalwork.
“It is not empty. There are others here. We will return another time,” he whispered.
“It will never be empty. Nor do we want that,” she whispered back.
“I like that we part. The me of the we thinks you should be tied to my bed until we can send this through the post.”
“Tempting though that sounds, I must disagree.”
She strolled around the chamber, bending to examine some of the small objects in cases. “Oh, look at this. Roman coins, but they do not appear Roman at all. See what has happened to the emperors’ faces.”
He peered down. Unlike typical Roman coins, with their fairly realistic profiles, these faces had been reduced to nothing more than a few lines and a dot for the eye.
As was typical in such places, their fascination with the case brought others over. Soon, several heads peered over his shoulder. He glanced back at them, then over to make sure Amanda was not being so crowded as to be importuned.
She was not there.
He turned his head and saw her standing near another case. Hell, she was going to do it now. Worse, she did not realize she had caught the eye of a young man who trailed her, probably for no good from the look in his eye. Stay away, boy. She is mine.
He broke free of the little crowd and strode to her side. “This is not a good time,” he whispered.
“For what?” she asked innocently. She looked down in the case. “Goodness, there is something missing here. I wonder what happened to it.”
Did he imagine she raised her voice? She certainly attracted attention, including that of the young swain who came up to see what she spoke of.
“Wait, look there. It is not missing. It has fallen behind the velvet for some reason,” the young man said. He pointed to the back of the box where an edge of gold could be seen peeking above the velvet.
“The hell you say,” Gabriel said. “I wonder if the curators know about this.”
“I expect not, or they would have rectified it,” Amanda said. “Someone must have jostled the box, and it came loose of its pins and slipped back there.”
“It would not do for them to think it gone when it is not,” the young man said.
“There was a museum employee two rooms back,” Gabriel said. “I will alert him and suggest he inform someone.”
“That might be wise,” Amanda said.
He gave the young man a threatening glare, then went in search of the employee.
* * *
Amanda dawdled at the case while others came to gawk at the problem. The young man eased away. She eased after him. She sidled close while he peered into a case with tiny ivory carvings.
He was a rather ordinary young man, with typically cropped hair and decent but undistinguished garments. Other than a somewhat prominent nose, she would be hard-pressed to describe him. He was not notable at all.
“Do not do it,” she said while she bent to admire the craftsmanship.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Do not do it. Not today. Not any day. Not here.”
“I am sure I do not know what you are talking about.”
“You know. I repeat, do not do it.” She straightened and faced him. He stared at her. She stared back.
Petulance twisted his mouth. He turned and walked out of the chamber.
Gabriel returned. Another man rushed in from another entrance. Slight and balding with red hair where hair still grew, he pushed his way through the thick circle of the gawkers. “Unbelievable. I could have sworn—” He used a lock and lifted the top of the case. “All of that worry and it was right here the whole time.”
“Let us make ourselves scarce,” Gabriel said, taking her arm. “I don’t want Stillwell noticing me, and deciding to do something stupid like wonder if someone just put that brooch back.” He escorted her outside. He found the carriage and handed her in, then climbed in himself. He faced her with an expression most strict.
“Amanda.”
“Yes, my love.”
“I must demand a promise from you that I should perhaps have demanded before.”
“What promise is that?”
“I want to hear you say that you will never do that again, not for the best reason in the world. Not even to save the realm. No locks, no in and out windows, no scaling walls, no expert penmanship.”
“I need the last for Lady Farnsworth while I help her as she finds a replacement for me. I would be a poor secretary if I wrote illegibly.”
“I am speaking of the special penmanship, and you know it.”
“I understand. However, not even to save the realm? Really?”
His severe expression broke. “I suppose, should it ever arise, which it never will, if the realm is truly in danger and your skills might help, then just that once you could.”
She moved to sit beside him. She pressed his side and looked at his profile. “I promise.”
He appeared satisfied, but another thought must have dawned because he turned his face to her. “Nor are you to teach our daughters any of that.”
“If you insist, I will not. None of our children will learn how to go out a window or work a lock, although I think such skills might prove practical on occasion.”
“I did not say the children. I said the girls. Some of that might be very useful to the males. If a husband is coming up the stairs, for example, and the window is the only escape. That sort of thing.”
“I see. That sort of thing.” She leaned in and placed her hand on his chest. “And if I disobey this command to cease using my special skills, what will happen? Will you have to punish me the way you threatened in Yarnell’s garden?”
His lids lowered. “I would never strike you in anger.”
“Somehow I do not think it would have been about anger, at least not for long.”
“You have shown surprising interest in that particular game, Amanda.”
“The notion is . . . provocative.”
“Is it now? That is, in turn, provocative.”
“We both seem to be getting provoked merely by the thought of it. Tell me, should that ever happen, would you expect me to be naked when I laid over your lap to be spanked?”
His expression turned severe again, but in a different way and for a different reason. “Yes, I think so. Naked, with your pretty, rosy bum waiting for my hand.”
“I suppose it might hurt.”
“Only a bit.”
“Still, I should be sure not to be disobedient if I want to avoid that.”
“That would be wise.”
“Hmmm.” She held up her hand. A chain dangled from her fingers. “Oh, dear. I seem to have relieved you of your pocket watch. How naughty of me.”
He slid the window and commanded the coachman to make all haste in bringing them to his house.
* * *
Mrs. Galbreath worked the clasp to the filigree and diamond necklace. Amanda admired it in the looking glass. “I suppose I am as ready as I will ever be.”
“You look like a princess.” Katherine spoke with awe from where she sat on the bed.
Amanda had not wanted to marry out of that cellar, so she had brought Katherine here for a few days. Her hope had been to talk with Katherine about finding a way of life besides laying down ale, since that had proven bad for her health. A little tendre had started be
tween Katherine and Vincent, however, that might be more meaningful to Katherine than any advice about employment.
Since she also had not wanted to marry from Lady Farnsworth’s house, although the lady all but demanded it, she had come here, to Bedford Square instead and availed herself of the chamber that Mrs. Galbreath had offered at the Parnassus club. When she did not return some nights, Mrs. Galbreath treated it as normal which she doubted Lady Farnsworth would have done.
It would be a small wedding with a handful of close friends. Society had left town now, but of course they all knew that Langford had been true to disreputable form in his choice of a thoroughly inappropriate wife.
If only they knew the whole of it.
“They dare not cut him,” the duchess had explained in a private conversation after Amanda and Gabriel returned to London. “You, however, will not be spared. You should find circles that do not bow to those women.” The duchess’s own circles would be a start, and she had already made it known that Amanda was her friend. The sisterhood of the Parnassus club would be another one.
She did not care about any of that. She had not been raised to worry about which invitations came and whether this or that grand lady favored her. She had never belonged anywhere so she would not cry if she did not now belong at Almack’s. Nor did she appreciate nearly enough that she would be a duchess, even when Katherine screamed with excitement at the news.
All she cared about was having Gabriel in her life, loving him and being loved, and having him by her side through the rest of her life.
“We should go,” Mrs. Galbreath said. “The carriage is below.”
The huge, ornate carriage belonged to the duchess and Stratton. Indeed, the duchess—Clara, she told Amanda to call her now—had taken the entire wedding in hand. Even the beautiful dress she now wore had been the duchess’s doing. Her favorite modiste set five seamstresses on it so it would be completed in two weeks.
Mrs. Galbreath and Katherine put her in that coach, then climbed into another one. They rolled through town to the church.
As soon as Amanda alighted from the coach, she realized that a duke’s small wedding would still be a large one to anyone else. Many carriages lined the street.
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