by Regina Scott
A footman in a powdered wig and gold braid across his shoulders led them down a long corridor lined with alabaster statues and suits of armor to a withdrawing room laid out in shades of jade. The duchess and her daughter were seated on gilded chairs next to a hearth carved from serpentine marble. Each wore frilly muslin gowns that dripped lace, and Lady Prudence had confined her mousy curls inside a white satin turban with a pearl-studded band that seemed too ornate for an afternoon visit.
Both ladies smiled as John introduced his guests, but the duchess positively beamed as she met Caro.
“Ah, the Dowager Lady Hascot,” she declared. “I warrant you have some interesting tales to tell. Come, sit by me.”
“Yes, do,” Lady Prudence insisted with a sniff. “I seem to have come down with distemperate anemia, but I don’t believe it’s contagious.” She blinked rapidly, and Amelia realized she was attempting to flutter her lashes at the major. Though his smile remained charming, he adjusted the stock at his neck as if feeling the noose tightening. Already she could feel a similar tension in John. Surely she could think of some better way to pass the time than sitting around being uncomfortable with each other.
“I wonder,” Amelia said before anyone could position for seating. “It is a lovely day today, and I understand you have beautiful gardens, Your Grace. The turning paths might be quite conducive to conversation.”
Lady Bellington and Major Kensington both looked intrigued by the idea, and soon everyone had followed the duchess out the double doors at the end of the room. Caro linked arms with John and made sure to walk beside him. Amelia shook her head. Would the woman never leave off?
Her frustration made it hard to pay attention to the blooms along the graveled path. Unlike the boxed-in formal garden at her father’s estate in London, the gardens at Bellweather Hall were a riot of colors and shapes, with curving paths wandering past flowering shrubs and into grottos with pools of water.
Amelia was more concerned about their guests. Lady Bellington commandeered Caro, and their heads were soon close together as if they whispered secrets. Major Kensington anchored himself beside John as if requiring reinforcements. Amelia found herself walking beside Lady Prudence and resigned herself to commiserate on a host of complaints.
“You cannot allow her to win,” Lady Prudence said, dabbing at her nose with a lace-edged handkerchief.
Amelia blinked. “Forgive me, but I’m not sure what you mean.”
Lady Prudence nodded toward the front of the column where Caro’s laughter floated on the breeze. “Lady Hascot. She is far too bold.”
Amelia managed a smile. “I’m sure she seems so to many.”
“You will think me quite forward,” Lady Prudence confessed, pausing to blow her nose, “but you have been kind to me, and I would not see you ill used. That woman is attempting to eclipse you.”
Amelia stared at her. “Do you sense the competition, as well?”
“It is not obvious,” Lady Prudence assured her. “You are far too gentle natured and far too well-bred to let your frustration show. But I have been in your position, you know. My brother Bell is widely sought after, and not always with the best of intentions.”
Amelia glanced at her. Though the lady’s face remained pale under the parasol she had brought with her, there was nothing infirm in her step. Indeed, she marched down the path as if intending to claim it for her own.
“And how does your brother deal with such difficulties?” Amelia asked her.
Lady Prudence tucked away her handkerchief. “Bell is generally good about seeing intentions. But he tends to give the ladies the benefit of the doubt. I’m afraid I’m much more cynical. I refuse to smile while danger creeps up on family.”
Amelia stared at Caro, who had paused to admire a rose climbing up the lacework of a trellis. “Do you think Lady Hascot to be dangerous?”
“To you physically? Perhaps not. But to your marriage, definitely. You must use all your wiles to protect your husband. You must show her that you are Lady Hascot.”
Her wiles. Over her two Seasons, she’d only resorted to such measures twice, batting her lashes and murmuring sweet words to convince a gentleman to see things her way. The first time had been to sway a Parliamentarian to support something her father wanted, earning her a rare compliment from him. The second time had been to help Ruby Hollingsford in her campaign to win the earl. Both times Amelia had felt dirty, deceitful afterward. It was one thing to be her best self in a situation. It was another to use her beauty to influence a man’s actions.
“I fear that isn’t in my nature,” she confessed.
Lady Prudence sighed. “A shame. I fear it would be entirely too much in my nature, only I haven’t the arsenal you do.” She sniffed. “Perhaps that was the Lord’s plan. He knew I would be too controlling to be a beauty.”
“I did not consider you controlling,” Amelia assured her.
“Ah, but I am.” She took out her handkerchief again. “I like attention. If you cannot use your beauty, I advise you to find a reliable disease or two. The device has worked wonders for me.” She raised her voice. “Mother, I think all this light is affecting a bilious extrusion upon my chin. Would you come look for me?”
The duchess immediately turned from Caro and trotted back to her daughter with a long-suffering sigh. “Oh, let me see. No, no, dear girl, you are fine. Come up with Lady Hascot and me. She was just relating a most interesting story about the Count of Kurion and a certain Russian princess.”
With an arched look to Amelia, Lady Prudence moved to the front of the cavalcade with her mother.
Amelia shook her head. Pretending to fictitious diseases might serve to win Lady Prudence a moment of attention, but it had helped alienate the pair from the rest of society. It was also manipulative, a fault she quite agreed with John to be abhorrent. And what if one of Lady Prudence’s physicians actually attempted to cure a fancied ill? The treatment might kill the woman!
Yet Amelia could not fault Lady Prudence’s skill. Within short order, the young lady had switched places with John, putting herself at the major’s side. Whatever conversation she initiated soon had Major Kensington’s handsome face turning red. Amelia detoured around a bush to avoid intervention.
Unfortunately, she found herself requiring intervention instead.
John had stopped, Caro and the duchess before him. He positively scowled, hands fisted at his sides, while Caro’s perky smile faded into concern and Lady Bellington glowed with delight.
And Amelia knew something was very wrong, indeed.
*
It had been a miserable morning. First, John had had to endure a quarter hour of Kensington’s egregious flirting with Amelia while John had tried to discourage Caro. Then he’d had to pretend civility with two women who, in his opinion, should be locked in their rooms until they could behave sensibly. The garden was lovely, but he would far have preferred to visit the stables.
Especially now that Lady Bellington knew his secret.
“Well?” the duchess demanded. “What have you to say for yourself, sir? Surely you know that every gentleman owes it to his name to sire an heir.”
“The situation between a wife and husband is not for common conversation, madam,” he managed.
“Indeed.” Amelia glided around a flowering bush to join them. “How kind of you to take an interest in us, Your Grace. And when might we wish your son happy?”
How well she did things like that, turning the conversation from difficulty to pleasantness. He could only admire her skill, for it was one he utterly lacked.
Now Lady Bellington turned her bright eyes on Amelia. “He is to return within the week. You can be sure you’ll be invited to tea, Lady Hascot. And you as well, Lady Hascot,” she said to Caro. “If you are still in the area.”
“I have no plans to leave anytime soon, Your Grace,” Caro said with a smile to John. “I’m enjoying myself far too much.”
“How gratifying,” Amelia said. “Perhaps you sh
ould spread some of that enjoyment to Lady Prudence. She seems to be having trouble with Major Kensington.”
“Oh, perhaps he has trifled with her!” Lady Bellington seized Caro’s arm with a grin that suggested she’d be pleased to have her suspicions confirmed. “We must find out.”
Either Caro was as interested in the answer or she couldn’t protest fast enough, for the duchess bore her off.
Amelia immediately turned to John. “I said nothing, John, I promise you. I don’t know how people keep surmising the issue!”
John thought he knew. Caro was in such a mood to attract attention that she could well have told the duchess her theory. He simply couldn’t understand how Caro had guessed. Oh, he’d seen couples who smelled of April and May, hands clasped, gazes locked so tightly it was a wonder they didn’t trip over each other. However, plenty of lords and ladies wed without such obvious devotion, and they managed an heir within a year. Why didn’t people assume he and Amelia would be among their number?
“Lady Bellington could find scandal in a nursery,” John replied. “Do not encourage her, and it will all blow over.”
She bit her lip a moment before answering. “I wish I could believe that. But I fear the only way to stop the rumors is for me to produce an heir, and we both know that isn’t likely unless something changes.”
Something, she said, as if she was the one at fault. He knew what had to change. It wasn’t Amelia’s temperament or her character. Both, he was committed to believing, were exemplary. Nor were her attempts to fix his clothing or hair a solution. What needed to change was his heart.
The realization had been coming on slowly, but he knew it for the truth. The day his brother had betrayed him, he’d considered violence, and the blackness inside him had disturbed and disgusted him. He never wanted to feel that strongly again. Certainly he didn’t dare expose a child to such feelings. Since then, he had blamed God for abandoning him, but John had been the one to flee, away from the light that showed his inner darkness.
He wasn’t sure he was ready to let another see his true self, even Amelia.
Still, he tried to do his duty the rest of the visit. He stayed at Amelia’s side, nodded when appropriate, answered questions put to him. He escorted his wife to the carriage and sat next to Kensington across from her so she could meet his gaze instead of the major’s. He had as little to do with Caro as his role of host allowed, which seemed to annoy the Dowager Lady Hascot, if her barbed comments were any indication.
He was congratulating himself on getting through another afternoon when they pulled into the stable yard behind the house, and Amelia turned white.
“Oh, look,” Caro said, glancing out the window. “You have more company.”
John twisted to see out the window, as well. A massive travel coach sat on the gravel, with a set of white horses at the front, each exactly fifteen hands high by his estimation. They had good lines and were likely prime goers, but he’d never seen them before. “I don’t recognize the team.”
“I do.” Amelia’s voice was as faint as an echo.
John turned to her in surprise. In the shadows of the coach, her face was a beacon of white, her eyes huge. Caro and Major Kensington were both staring at her, as well.
“It’s my father,” she said.
Chapter Seventeen
Oh, could this day get any worse? First, Lady Bellington had complained about their marriage, and Amelia was fairly certain the comment had grown out of the duchess’s conversation with Caro and would likely feature largely in any future discussions with Amelia. Now her father had come. Who would blame her for refusing to climb from the carriage?
Oh, everyone.
So Amelia allowed John to help her down and walked with him toward the waiting coach, with Major Kensington and Caro behind them. Each step felt as if she was drawing closer to the gallows. John’s arm under her hand was as stiff as a stair rail and as unyielding.
Her father had deigned to alight and stood beside the door of his carriage. Though he had to have traveled far that day, his top hat, dove-gray coat and black pantaloons were crisp, as if giving no quarter even to inconvenience.
“Amelia,” he said with an inclination of his head. “Hascot. I expected to find you home.”
“I would have been waiting,” Amelia assured him, “had I known you were coming.” She glanced inside the carriage, only to find it empty. “Isn’t Mother with you?”
“She insisted on remaining in London,” he said.
She found it difficult to believe her mother preferred the miasma that hugged the capital in August, but she supposed the marchioness might have been hoping for a better invitation than to Hollyoak Farm.
“A shame,” she said. “I believe you know one of our other guests, Lady Hascot.”
Caro and the major stepped forward. “My lord,” she said with a curtsy.
“Lady Hascot,” he greeted her. “Kensington.”
So he knew the major, too. Amelia glanced at the cavalry officer to find that he had paled. Apparently he also had few good memories of her father.
“And what brings you to our door?” John asked her father.
The quirk of his mouth was the closest Amelia had seen of a smile. “Does a father require a reason to visit his daughter?”
Hers did. He had rarely bothered to climb the extra flight of stairs from the chamber story to the schoolroom to check on her progress when she was a girl, had only occasionally accompanied her and her mother on their social rounds after she had been presented. She would have guessed he’d come for his colt, only she knew John had no young ones ready to leave.
“You are welcome in our home, regardless,” John said. “I will leave the arrangements to Amelia. She manages the house exceedingly well.”
Though John meant it as praise, he made it sound as if she was no more than his housekeeper. She could only pray that she would not blush for once and confirm the matter.
“Of course,” Amelia said aloud. “This way, Father.”
She managed to settle him in the withdrawing room with Caro and Major Kensington, then retreated to the corridor for a hurried conversation with Mr. Hennessy.
“There’s only one bedchamber left, your ladyship,” he explained as if she hadn’t taken inventory herself, “and it’s by far the smallest and on the schoolroom story. I’ll have to double up the beds in the attics for all the servants as it is.”
“Give my father my room,” Amelia instructed. “Have Turner move my clothing and personal items to the smaller room.”
“Yes, your ladyship,” the butler said, but the look on his long face told Amelia he wasn’t pleased with the arrangements.
Neither was she, but she knew her duty. She returned to the withdrawing room with a smile for all her guests, only to find that John had disappeared. Indeed, Major Kensington and her father were in close conversation, the major’s face flushed, and Caro was rubbing her hands over each other as she watched. Amelia slipped out before anyone noticed her.
This was the outside of enough! She understood the house was her domain according to the agreement John had proposed. She could sympathize with his discomfort dealing with people. But he’d promised her he’d keep a closer eye on Caro and the major, and she simply couldn’t manage her father and them, too.
As she had expected, she found John in the stable, discussing something with a groom before Magnum’s stall. As usual, the stallion stepped forward at the sight of Amelia, lowering his head and baring his teeth.
Amelia narrowed her eyes at him. “Listen, you. I am in no mood for your posturing. You back up and behave, or I shall move you to a smaller stall!”
Magnum shuffled back and sank his head into his water trough as if she didn’t exist. One look from Amelia, and the groom excused himself, as well.
John raised a brow. “Is something wrong?”
“Wrong?” Amelia put her hands on her hips. “Shall I enumerate? My father, who has never had a kind word for me, has come to visit. Ma
jor Kensington will not leave off pestering me. Dear Caro seems bent on reestablishing herself in your affections, and you run away. I quite understand why, John. I’d like nothing better myself. However, neither of us has the luxury.”
“Why not?” He leaned against the wall of the stall. “I’m ready to pay for rooms at the inn, just to be shed of Caro and her major. If you wish it, I’ll send them all packing.”
Amelia dropped her arms. “Really?”
He straightened. “Say the word.”
Could she be so bold? Major Kensington would be no social loss, and she had no wish to pursue a friendship. Nothing Caro could say would affect Amelia’s true friends in London. But to evict her own father?
“No,” Amelia said. “That isn’t the sort of person I wish to be. Caro is family, and so is my father. I should be pleased he is determined to visit. However, I will need your help to entertain him.”
“Nonsense,” he said, reaching for a pitchfork to add straw to Magnum’s stall, even though he had staff aplenty to see to the work. “You’ll do fine.”
Amelia threw up her hands. “How can I reach you, sir? Shall I leap ditches in the pasture? Beg for a pail of oats? Would you then pay attention to my needs instead of your horses!”
Magnum’s head came up, ears pricking, tail stiffening. In the other stalls, other heads came up, from both horses and grooms.
“Lower your voice,” John said quietly, straightening slowly.
“Why?” Amelia challenged, fighting for calm. “Everyone already knows how little use you have for me.”
John stepped up to her, gaze drilling into hers. “Lower your voice. By your posture and your tone, you are telling the horses there is danger here. And you are putting yourself at risk from their reactions.”
She felt it, as well. It was as if a thundercloud had shadowed the stable, threatening lightning. Heavy bodies shifted, muttered fear. She took a deep breath, forced her shoulders to relax, calmed her face. But though she might no longer look frustrated, she felt it nonetheless. She turned and walked slowly from the building, out toward the pasture, away from the house. As the sun bathed her face, she drew to a stop and closed her eyes.
