Sydney thought he might fall over. He gripped the back of Lex’s chair. Carter announced the elder of the women as Miss Allenby, and it took his mind a moment to catch up with the words. At first he thought there had to be some confusion—perhaps there were two nearly identical women in the neighborhood. Amelia had mentioned having sisters, had she not? But this was indeed his Amelia, standing in his hall, wearing a silk gown and a proper bonnet and bowing her head to him as if they had never met. As if they had not been together in the woods the previous morning. As if none of that had ever happened.
“How do you do?” she asked in a tone so cool and civil it stung more than any repudiation could ever have.
He remained speechless, his mouth dry, his heart racing. They would think him rude, and so be it, because he had nothing to say. The women sat, but Sydney walked over to the window, and then turned back again to look at Amelia, as if his eyes might have been mistaken. Somehow she made herself small, shrinking into the corner of the sofa while still holding herself perfectly erect. From her reticule she removed an embroidery hoop and began stabbing at it with a needle, which she evidently meant as a sign that she did not expect to be included in the conversation.
She had seen him and recognized him; she must have, when she bowed her head in his general direction. The idea that he held her in his arms the day before and now she was pretending they had never met was totally incomprehensible to him. When he tried to catch her eye, she did not so much as flick a glance towards him.
Was this what it was like to have one’s heart broken? It didn’t matter; Sydney would contend with his heart later, or better yet, never. Instead he paid attention to the two women, trying hard not to acknowledge the pounding of his heart or the sense that he was about to be sick. As Miss Russell talked with Lex about Richard the bloody Third, Amelia occasionally leaned over to contribute some murmured remark he could barely hear. As he watched, his eyes narrowed. Amelia was steering the conversation towards more general historical knowledge and away from the particulars of Lex’s obsession. And that would only make sense if Miss Russell were not an expert in that area. Amelia, however, wrote books set in this exact period. With mounting dread, he recalled the letters Miss Russell had written Lex, and the letters Amelia had written him. Both displayed an excessive quantity of loops and adornment that surely he ought to have recognized as the sign of weak character and flighty disposition. There were blots and scratches and other indications of carelessness. He had been a fool not to have seen the similarity straightaway.
He recalled the arch, facetious tone of those letters she wrote Lex. He was gravely disappointed that Amelia would devote a months’ long correspondence to mocking a stranger, and use her friend’s name to do it. That was both careless and cruel. He hadn’t thought Amelia either careless or cruel, but he also couldn’t have anticipated a future in which she pretended he didn’t exist.
He had badly misjudged both her character and the nature of their friendship, if it could even be called that. Whatever he had thought they had been to one another, the truth was that he was so inconsequential to her as to not even merit a greeting.
As soon as the women left, he would tell Lex everything. Lex wouldn’t want to be made a fool of. He probably wouldn’t even want to stay in the neighborhood. That thought calmed him down a bit. All he had to do was endure the rest of this visit, take Leontine to Manchester, and get on with his life. He sat heavily on a bench where he could see Amelia Allenby.
Tea arrived. Amelia put down her yarn and poured out tea for everyone, which was normal enough, and Sydney tried not to read deceit and treachery into her every movement. Each of the ladies took a biscuit. These were likely the same dish of biscuits that had appeared for tea the past several days in a row. As with most of the cook’s creations, they were meant for warfare, not human consumption.
He watched Amelia bring one of the biscuits to her mouth, utterly unaware that it was of a consistency somewhere between hard tack and slate shingles, with the sense of witnessing an acrobat perform an especially ill-advised feat. She placed the biscuit between a set of perfectly straight little white teeth. Then, without batting an eyelash, she delicately removed the biscuit from between her lips and replaced it on her plate. She performed this without a flicker of discomfiture. Indeed, she did it as if that was what she had meant to do all along. Then, with equal finesse, she removed the biscuit from the other woman’s plate and put it on her own. She did this all with utter serenity, as if rescuing her friend from inedible biscuits was a normal and expected part of any morning visit.
This, he realized, was her world: drawing rooms and manners and conversations sprinkled with “Your Grace.” The rest of it—sunshine and laughter and smiles that felt like gut punches—were meaningless diversions. She belonged here. Sydney didn’t, nor did he want to. He had never known the real Amelia, and as he watched her he decided that he didn’t want to.
Chapter Ten
Only years of hard training in the art of self-mastery allowed Amelia to retain control over herself when she walked into Pelham Hall and saw Sydney standing behind the duke’s chair.
She was aware, several layers beneath the veil of icy composure she had summoned for this visit, that she wanted to go to him. She could smile as readily as she had when she saw him waiting for her at the gatepost. She could say his name, and explain truthfully that she hadn’t expected to see him here. She could trust that he’d have some reasonable explanation for his own presence.
But at that moment, she could not set aside her chilly manners, because they were all that stood between her and near panic. If she dropped her armor for even an instant, she might make out traces of some other Amelia, a woman who had felt safe and bold in Sydney’s arms, a woman who wondered why he was standing over there and refusing to come to her. If he came to her, she could be that Amelia for him. But he didn’t. He only glowered. She shaped herself into a nondescript spinster of unimpeachable manners. The woman who might feel things about Sydney didn’t matter; she wasn’t even present. Sydney, for that matter, wasn’t present. He was Mr. Goddard now. The woman who had been with Sydney was not present in this dim gray gown. And the man who had laughed and cupped her cheek was not the same man who glared at her from across the room. She had already known the intensity of his gaze, had known that when he looked at her, he was giving her his full attention and consideration. Now she knew how it felt when he looked at her without fondness, without humor, without anything but enmity.
Amelia brought her teacup to her lips and took a sip, not even tasting it. She absently touched a sore spot on her wrist where it had scraped against the stone wall yesterday. She decided that it didn’t hurt. Later on she would need to pull that scab off with her fingernails, and that would hurt, and it would be such a relief, but for now she was as insensate as a dressmaker’s dummy.
She stabbed her needle again and again into the fabric. She had meant to embroider a blanket for one of her nieces—Gilbert and Louisa were producing children faster than Amelia could produce blankets. A happy thought, and one that took her far away from Pelham Hall and angry glares: she tried to hold onto it. But her stitches were crooked and her thread kept knotting and she was just going to have to pull the whole thing apart and start over when she got home.
She buried all that—everything she felt in body and soul, everything that didn’t have to do with what Georgiana was saying to the duke.
“On the contrary, Your Grace,” Georgiana was saying. She had a gleam in her eye that made Amelia realize that her friend was actually enjoying this. “Despite our many differences, we see quite eye to eye on Richard III’s innocence.”
“Even a stopped clock is right twice a day,” the duke said lightly. “I expect this is where you insist that the princes were killed by their sister as part of her bid for the throne.”
“Oh, I’m quite bored with that theory and have an exciting new one that I expect you can’t wait to hear about.”
�
�I have the direst sense of foreboding that I’m about to be fed the most magnificent pack of lies,” the duke said, crossing one leg over the other, an expectant look on his face. Amelia realized that he was enjoying this as well.
“I would never dare to bore you with a lie that was less than magnificent,” Georgiana said sweetly. The duke transformed a stunned laugh into a coughing fit. Georgiana leaned in close. “It was their mother,” she whispered theatrically.
“Well,” the duke said, “Elizabeth of Woodville has been suspected of a good many things, but if you’re going to accuse her of filicide I do feel that you ought to come up with at least some token of evidence.”
“One might argue,” Amelia murmured, “that the lady retreated to Bermondsey Abbey in repentance of some sin.” This was utter silliness but it was the best she come up with. “Is the hearth in this room original to the house? And is that linenfold paneling I saw by the door?” She could navigate this sort of conversation in her sleep, and she could certainly do it while being glared at from across the room. She had, in fact, done it while being glared at from across the room.
She couldn’t have anticipated receiving such a look from Sydney, and she didn’t know why she was getting one now, but that was something she could settle in the future. Right now she could be polite, she could be invisible, and she could be silently furious. If Sydney had mentioned that he was at Pelham Hall to visit the duke this could have been avoided. Several times Amelia had mentioned Pelham Hall and Sydney had neglected to state that he had a connection with the place. That was suspicious and false. He had said he was a land surveyor. Had that been a lie? How much of what he had told her had been false?
After half an hour of being a milk-bland spinster while being stared at as if she were a felon, Amelia was starting to reach the end of her tether. She rose to her feet.
“My dear,” she murmured to Georgiana in the same low baritone her mother always used when she wanted her voice to carry but seem like it was only intended for the person she stood nearest. “I’m afraid we must be going. We have many other calls to make.”
Georgiana dutifully stood and they both said all the prescribed phrases that ladies had drilled into their skulls before they were allowed out of the schoolroom. But before they reached the hallway, the duke rapped his cane. “You’ll come back.” He did not make it into a question or even an invitation. This was a command. “And next time you’ll bring your research so I can tell you exactly where you went astray and you can choose yet another queen to slander.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” Georgiana said, sinking into a curtsey, bless her. They hadn’t planned it, but the man was in a throne and dressed like some kind of sultan. He hadn’t even bothered to rise to his feet when she and Georgiana had entered the room. Clearly a curtsey would not go amiss.
They proceeded silently to the drive. Amelia said nothing until they were safely in the carriage, the door shut behind them.
“The duke’s friend is the land surveyor,” Amelia said despairingly.
“Oh!” Georgiana said. And then, with dawning comprehension, “Oh, dear. Not a particularly friendly meeting, was it? Why on earth did you not go to him?”
“Why did he not come to me?” Amelia retorted, trying hard not to think about how it would have felt to have had him by her side in that hellish room.
Georgiana pressed her lips together. “He did not strike me a man who is comfortable in company. Common accent, rough clothes, and those whiskers. I can’t imagine how he came to be on intimate terms with a duke.”
“How comfortable do you have to be to cross a room and say good-day?”
“You tell me,” Georgiana said, eyebrow arched meaningfully.
Absently, one hand found the scab on the opposite wrist, and tore it off. She was aware of the brightness of the pain, the warmth of the blood. She shoved a handkerchief into her glove before her gown could be ruined. She wanted to go home and examine her arms for other things that could be torn off, other places that needed to be scratched. Good God, she was actually losing her mind, now. Here, in Derbyshire, over a hundred miles from London, she was finally becoming unhinged.
“Amelia?” Georgiana asked when the carriage stopped in front of the cottage. “Go upstairs and lie down. Janet will bring you tea.”
Amelia went to her bedroom but it didn’t do any good. She tried to shut her eyes with the idea that sleep would at least be a respite from her mind throwing a tantrum; instead, without distraction, her thoughts scattered with disjointed images of her visit with the duke, her life in London, Sydney’s anger. She tried to imagine anything good—letters from home, Nan’s fur, strawberries—but none of it would stick.
She could leave, as Keating had said. She could leave, and Georgiana could either come with her or return to London. That would solve the immediate problem of never seeing Sydney or his horrible friend ever again. But it wouldn’t solve the problem of Amelia not wanting to be alone for the rest of her life. Letters and visits weren’t enough. She wanted to be around people she loved, and who she loved in return. She wanted that to happen more than once every few months. Being around Sydney had reminded her of how much she needed that, and she felt even more unwilling than ever to spend the rest of her life shipwrecked on an island by her own absurd mind.
As Sydney watched the carriage disappear down the drive, his confusion at Amelia’s behavior solidified into a hard ball of anger lodged in the vicinity of his heart.
“Write Miss Russell and Miss Allenby a letter thanking them for coming today and requesting the pleasure of their company for dinner next Thursday,” Lex said as soon as they were alone—well, alone apart from Leontine, who sat before the empty hearth, dismantling a music box she must have found in the attics.
“But—”
“Yes, I know it’s your house, that’s why I’m asking you to write the invitations, please and thank you. Find me a respectable clergyman to invite, preferably one with a wife. That makes six. You’ll need to do something about the dining room. Do you suppose the cook will be satisfied if we get her a few new pans? I wonder if she’ll make jugged hare.”
“But—”
“Dismissed! Send in Carter. I require a haircut.”
“Stop talking about haircuts and listen to me! I cannot invite those women. Amelia Allenby is the woman I’ve been—” He hesitated, and felt his face flush to the tips of his ears. “Walking with.”
“Ha! I knew there was someone. Nobody likes rustic rambles that much. I don’t see why you can’t invite her, however. In fact, even more reason why you ought to do so.”
“Because she pretended not to recognize me.”
“I didn’t hear you correcting her impression.”
“Well, no—”
“So you pretended not to recognize one another. It was a mutual deception.”
Sydney bristled. “I pretended nothing of the sort! After I noticed that she didn’t want to acknowledge our acquaintance—”
“So dreadfully euphemistic,” Lex murmured.
“—I decided not to embarrass her by announcing the truth.”
“In other words you pretended not to recognize one another,” Lex repeated patiently.
“You’re being deliberately obtuse.”
“Probably.” Lex smoothed his lapels. “So. Dinner next Thursday.”
Sydney squeezed his eyes shut. “Fine,” he conceded, knowing Lex would get his way whether he liked it or not. “Buy the cook a new range, and I’ll invite them,” he grit out.
“She will have the finest range in the North,” Lex agreed.
Sydney sat at the desk and wrote the invitations. The letter to the vicar was easy enough, but when writing Amelia’s he gripped the pen so tightly that the paper tore and he had to start again. When he had written her the last time—reckless, foolhardy letters, he now thought them—he couldn’t have imagined it would lead to this. Perhaps he should have, though. People born to wealth and status were accustomed to getting what they wa
nted, and everybody else got used to deferring. That sort of easy command made people careless, entitled, wont to play ducks and drakes with other people’s lives. Lex was just as bad. Even Lady Penelope, with the very best intentions, had taken Andrew’s entire life and blown it off course.
Amelia had written those silly letters to a stranger. She had treated him as if he were invisible despite surely knowing at least some part of how he felt. Perhaps those two things were only connected by the thinnest of threads, or perhaps they weren’t connected at all. He knew his mind wasn’t reasoning particularly well, and that only made him more annoyed.
Delusional fool that he was, he had been daydreaming of marrying her and taking her with him to Manchester. For a moment he let himself mourn that half-imagined future, let himself grieve the loss of a person who hadn’t existed in the first place. He ruthlessly squashed any lingering affection he might have felt.
He tucked the invitations into his pocket. He would hand deliver the letter for the vicar and leave the women’s to be called for at the inn, because under no circumstances was he visiting Crossbrook Cottage today or ever. He walked the entire distance down the hill towards the village in undiminished irritation, when a figure barreled out of a lane and directly into his chest. She was going fast enough that she nearly propelled both of them into the hedge.
“Steady now,” Sydney said, meaning that very literally, as he tried to arrange the woman into a more reliably vertical position. She had red hair, no bonnet, and—damn it—it was Amelia. Of course it was Amelia; every time he stepped foot outside he saw her and nobody else. They were cursed to be forever seeing one another.
“Amelia,” he said flatly.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were staying at Pelham Hall?” she asked. Her fists were clenched at her sides.
“Why didn’t I tell you?” he repeated, stunned. “Why didn’t you tell me you had been corresponding with my friend? Imagine my surprise when I learned that the woman I had . . .” He swallowed. “A woman I had considered a friend was in fact embroiled in a scheme to mock and disparage my friend.”
A Delicate Deception Page 11
