“I know that story,” Sydney added. “The father was worse. He made Rosie stay at home because she looked slovenly with her worn-out shoes. But you haven’t read this version of the story.”
Amelia skimmed ahead, flipping forward to the next page. “‘Rosie’s mother, being a wise and kind woman, showed her a place where the dirty water could be safely disposed of. Then Rosie’s father took Rosie and the empty vase back to the shopkeeper and demanded that he either take back the vase and return Rosie’s sixpence, or refund part of the price as compensation for his dishonesty. The pretty vase was, of course, worldly nonsense, but everyone, especially children, likes a bit of nonsense in moderation, and Rosie’s parents knew that. That night Rosie’s mother apologized to Rosie for making a child of her tender years choose between shoes and a pretty thing, because there are many children who have neither shoes nor pretty things, and it made a mockery of their suffering to force Rosie to go shoeless as well.’”
The next story was entitled “The Calendar,” and turned out not to be a story at all, but several informative pages about menstruation.
“She got in trouble for that bit,” Sydney said. His cheeks were slightly pink. “My mother never met a fight she didn’t want to hurl herself bodily into. I miss her.”
“Oh. Is she—”
“She’s alive and well. She’s in America,” he said. “I haven’t seen her in three years.”
“What is she doing in America?” Amelia asked.
“She’s in and out of prison,” he said fondly.
“What?” she exclaimed, taken aback. Leontine stirred at the sudden noise.
“She went over because there’s been some division between American Friends and those of us in Britain. She couldn’t resist leaping directly into the fray,” he said, smiling. “And then she started hiding enslaved people when they tried to cross into free states. That’s how she wound up imprisoned.”
“That’s very noble of her,” Amelia said, meaning it, but also more than a little stunned that this stern, upright man had a mother who had been to jail.
“Oh, never tell her that. She’ll tell you that helping people who are fleeing bondage is the bare minimum a person can do. She has my father there to bring her good food and clean clothes, so she’s not in danger. She’s not a peaceable woman, my mother. She wrote that book because she didn’t think the world needed another generation of peaceable women, or complacent adults of any gender. I do wish she could see Leontine.”
Amelia swallowed, not certain if she were going to disrupt the fragile peace between them. “Sydney, I know this is a personal question but—”
“You can ask me anything,” he answered, his voice husky.
“Is Leontine your daughter?”
“No,” he said, “she’s my niece. My brother’s child. I thought you knew.”
“I didn’t want to ask because I know too well that these questions are usually unwanted.”
He nodded, thoughtful. “It wouldn’t have bothered you to know I had a natural child?”
“It would bother me to know you had any child who you didn’t take care of. You plainly care a good deal for her.”
Leontine rolled over and murmured something unintelligible, and they fell silent until her breathing resumed the steadiness of sleep. Then Amelia began to rise to her feet, but was checked by Sydney’s hand on her arm.
“Stay, Amelia. We’re having a conversation indoors, for once.” He swallowed, and she watched his throat work. “And I missed you.”
She opened her mouth to tell him that she missed him too, that she was beginning to suspect that she’d spend months and years missing him after this summer had passed. But no words came out.
“You can read the rest of my mother’s book, if you like,” he went on. “I too have a book to read.” He took a book from the bedside table, and she was mortified to see The Wolf and the Huntress. That startled a laugh out of her.
“If you think I can sit here calmly while you read my book—”
“Oh, I’ve already read your book. I’m rereading my favorite passages now.”
“Nooo,” she moaned. But she was smiling, and he smiled back.
“Will you stay, though?” He indicated the window, where rain had begun to patter against the glass. “It’s no weather for a walk. Stay inside with me, warm and dry, and we can read.”
He said it so pleadingly, almost wheedlingly, that she would have laughed if there hadn’t been a sleeping child a few feet away. “Fine,” she said.
Amelia read the rest of the book to herself. There was the tale of two sisters, one of whom always told their parents the good and evil deeds she had done that day, and the other who always lied to avoid punishment. Amelia’s own childhood book of improving tales had contained a similar story, the moral of which had been that dishonest children are reviled and honest ones beloved. But in this book, a wise grandmother scolds the parents for giving the naughty child an incentive to lie. “Why would she tell you the truth,” the grandmother asks, “if the truth isn’t good enough?”
She felt that she had been given the key to understanding Sydney. He was a person who had been raised to listen to his own conscience rather than prevailing notions of right and wrong. And more important than any sterile notion of good and evil was the duty of one person to another. She could see that in how he treated her and how he looked after Leontine and even the duke. He had once told her that he was aware he was large and did not want to impose on her; he seemed to carry that principle into all aspects of his life.
Amelia had been raised to blend in, to behave, to make herself unobjectionable and sometimes invisible. She knew her mother and maybe even her sisters would object to that characterization; her mother would say that she had given her daughters the tools to survive in a cruel world. And so she had: here Amelia was, surviving. And yet—it all felt so small and constrained. She once thought this constraint had to do with her limitations, that of course a person’s world was small if it only consisted of a tiny corner of Derbyshire. But that wasn’t it at all: the constraint came from within, from the voice that told her to hide away her true self, to squash feelings before they even fully formed. If she could stop doing that, she could have an entire universe without even stepping foot outside.
She closed the book and looked at the man beside her. One of his boots was propped up on the edge of the bed frame, and she could see Nan’s tooth marks. As he read, he occasionally stroked his beard. A lock of his dark hair fell in his eyes. She reached out to push it back, and it was silky in between her fingers. He didn’t turn his head, but she could tell that he wasn’t looking at the book anymore. With the back of her hand, she stroked down his cheek, feeling the softness of his beard with her knuckles. He grasped her hand—not stopping her, just holding her hand in place—then kissed her palm.
Chapter Sixteen
Amelia stood obediently still while Janet and Georgiana fussed over her, occasionally taking a step this way or that so they could pin and tuck things into place. It really was an absurd gown. Around the hem were flounces that looked like barnacles, and the waist was defined with a wide ribbon that Amelia’s mother claimed was the latest mode from Paris. The sleeves somehow looked inflated, like tiny hot air balloons.
Amelia was only trying the dress on. That was all. It was an experiment. She just wanted to see what it looked like when she chose not to be invisible.
But when she looked at her reflection, she had to concede that it didn’t look bad. In fact, the overall effect was . . . good. Her mother had always insisted that if one had a good figure, one might as well have as much of it as possible, and Amelia felt almost statuesque in this gown. There was no denying the curve of her breasts or the roundness of her stomach in all these yards of green silk.
“You look very handsome, miss,” Janet said.
That was the word. She had never aspired to prettiness. But at some point in the past few years she had lost all traces of girlishness, and now she
looked handsome. Distinguished, even. Her mother had always counseled her to be confident, or, failing that, to act confident. Amelia couldn’t do it, so she resorted to invisibility: quiet, polite, unobjectionable, utterly and flawlessly composed. But this gown was not the attire of a woman who wound wool and faded into the shadows.
There were times when she didn’t want to fade into the shadows. Of course there were—she wasn’t reserved around Georgiana or her family. She was as bold as she pleased around Sydney. And, if she were honest with herself, it was Sydney who she was thinking of when she took this dress out of the clothes press. Not the ton, not her mother, not the judgment of strangers and the fear that followed her. Only Sydney. She liked when he looked at her, when he gave her one of those dark and hungry glances as if he couldn’t possibly look his fill.
Well, she wanted to give him something to look at.
“All right,” she said to her reflection. “I’ll wear it.”
“I’m torn between wanting to hustle you out of the house before you change your mind, and asking whether you’re certain you want to come in the first place,” Georgiana said.
Tonight they were dining at Pelham Hall, and Amelia was surprised to find that the prospect didn’t fill her with dread. Pelham Hall was becoming a place where she felt safe. She hadn’t known she was capable of expanding her world, but now she had Crossbrook Cottage, her paths along the hills, and Pelham Hall. It was still a small universe, but it was, perhaps, large enough.
“It’s not a real dinner party,” she said. “It’s four people eating a meal in a sad excuse for a house.”
“It’s the exact same assortment of people who were there that first day we went to Pelham Hall,” Georgiana pointed out. “And that was hard for you.”
“But this time it’s among friends,” Amelia said, and the words were out of her mouth before she could reflect on the fact that she had resumed thinking of Sydney as a friend.
“Hmm,” Georgiana said, regarding Amelia thoughtfully.
When they arrived at Pelham Hall, they found the duke alone in the great hall, standing before the fire. “Miss Russell, play vingt-et-un with Miss Allenby while we wait for Sydney to come downstairs,” he ordered by way of greeting.
“I beg your pardon, Hereford, but I’ll do nothing of the sort,” Georgiana said. “She’ll do me out of all my money and make me look a proper fool.” She settled in a chair by the fire and was promptly joined by Francine the dog.
The duke arched an eyebrow. “Am I to understand that you’re some kind of card sharp, Miss Allenby?”
“That, and I cheat,” she said cheerfully. She didn’t really cheat, not in company, but with her sisters and Georgiana the usual rules of most card games had by common consent been cast aside in favor of anarchy and cunning. When Georgiana and Amelia played cards now, they did so with the same lack of principle they had years ago.
Footsteps sounded behind her, and she turned to see Sydney approaching. His hair was combed, it looked like he had trimmed his beard, and he was wearing a black coat. She knew that she had seen him dressed for dinner before, but that last and lonely time they had dined at Pelham Hall, she had done her best to avoid looking at him. She was so used to seeing him dressed in attire more suited to manual labor, with bits and pieces missing as the weather dictated, that the sight of him dressed in a starched collar and a plain but well-cut dinner coat took her breath away. Men with broad shoulders, she decided, should always wear well-tailored coats. Or perhaps they should never wear any coats at all. Really, either option was highly satisfactory.
“Everyone fell silent when Sydney came in,” the duke observed. “Either that means he looks like more of a ragamuffin than usual or he took my advice and dressed presentably for once. If memory serves, he cleans up well. Does he not, Miss Allenby?”
Amelia resisted the urge to glare at the duke, for embarrassing her and for embarrassing Sydney. “He looks well in whatever he chooses to wear,” she said coolly, in the tone her mother was accustomed to use when dressing down fraudulent wine merchants. Only after the words left her mouth did she realize that her response had only opened her to the duke’s scrutiny. What he had doubtless intended as an offhand remark, some reference to a running joke between himself and his friend, she had taken personally, and thereby announced that she admired Sydney Goddard’s looks.
“Is that so?” the duke said. “Sydney, Miss Allenby says you look good in anything you wear. We both know this to be patently false, despite your manifold physical charms, so I’m left to assume—”
“Enough, Lex,” Sydney said with finality. “You aren’t allowed to toy with my friend. Besides, Amelia is well aware that I admire her no matter what she is wearing, so it’s kind of her to return the compliment.”
The duke seemed stunned into speechlessness by this. Speechlessness, but also enormous curiosity, and Amelia very much feared that the next words out of his mouth were going to be even worse.
Georgiana saved the moment by intervening. “You’ll never guess what I heard about the Battle of Bosworth Field.”
Amelia couldn’t pay attention to whatever tales Georgiana had chosen to weave about kings long dead. None of it could matter, because Sydney had come to sit beside her on the sofa. She was very conscious of every inch that separated them.
“Lex is impossible,” he said, too quietly for anyone but Amelia to hear.
“I have two younger sisters,” Amelia said. “I’m familiar with people who express their affection through attempts to embarrass one to death.”
“Perhaps the experience with your younger sisters has rendered your friend equal to dealing with Lex.” They both regarded the duke and Georgiana. Whatever she said had the duke’s shoulders shaking with laughter.
“I’m not certain about that,” Amelia said slowly. “She brought him the last of our strawberries. That’s as good as promising him her firstborn.” Only after the words had left her mouth did she realize that she might have stumbled across the truth. Was Hereford . . . courting Georgiana? More intriguingly, was Georgiana letting him? When she darted a glance at Sydney, she saw that he was flushed to the tips of his ears. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I won’t ask what has you blushing like that.”
He let out a bashful laugh and scrubbed his hand across his beard, and she was almost overcome by the surge of fondness she felt for him. Every time she saw him, the threads of desire and affection that lay between them grew stronger and she felt herself being drawn in by them. Love, or whatever this was, crept past her defenses, and she found that she didn’t want to stop it.
Sydney was alarmed to discover that Amelia wasn’t wearing one of her simple cotton frocks, nor did she have on the plain gray silk. Instead she wore a gown of green, the color of summer grass, the same bright green as the hills they had climbed together. It was trimmed with a profusion of nonsense that Sydney could not begin to understand, let alone describe. He was no connoisseur of women’s fashion, and firmly believed it to all be worldly nonsense, but he found that he was strongly appreciative of this particular piece of worldly nonsense.
She looked beautiful, but that was no surprise. For weeks he had known he liked the looks of her. What mattered was that she was wearing it, that she had chosen to wear it. He knew a person could choose to dress in a certain way for reasons that had nothing to do with how they appeared; he chose his clothing based on comfort and a desire to abide at least somewhat by the principles of plain dressing. Usually Amelia seemed to want to make a camouflage out of her clothes, but tonight she had dressed herself in a way that she must know would draw the eye. His eye, in particular, he hoped.
Then Lex had to go and make everything awkward by insinuating that Amelia fancied him. Of course, there had been more than mere fancying between them, but Lex didn’t know the extent of it. Whatever existed, past or present, had been mutual, and at that moment it seemed important to let Lex know that. If he had the use of his eyes, he’d probably already know from the fact that
Sydney couldn’t stop looking at Amelia, regardless of what she wore. Sydney was done with secrets, with half-truths, with lies of omission. He was foolish fond of Amelia and he didn’t care who knew it.
Mr. and Mrs. Trevelyan had at the last minute sent word that they were unable to attend, so it was only the four of them at the table. Sydney wouldn’t have been able to make conversation with the vicar or his wife anyway. All he could do was watch Amelia and blush furiously every time she caught his eye.
In her hair, she wore three curled ostrich plumes and a banded ribbon of the same shade of green as her gown. Whenever she leaned in to speak to Georgiana, she tipped slightly over the table in a way that caused her ostrich plumes to dip slightly, and made Sydney glance hopefully at the bosom of her gown, despite his best intentions.
When she caught him looking at her, she didn’t glance away in embarrassment. It was as if she accepted his regard as her due, and that thought gladdened him in a way he couldn’t make sense of. She looked like a goddess, like a queen, and he wondered when he started considering either of those to be compliments. She was the kind of person people built monuments to, carved statues of, worshipped from afar and hesitated to approach, and he had held her in his arms.
After dinner, she dealt him into a game of vingt-et-un. Lex and Georgiana discussed historical lunacy, the dog dozed at his feet, and Sydney was glad there was nobody else playing cards with them because the only thing in the room he could pay attention to was Amelia Allenby.
Amelia deftly shuffled the deck and held it out for him to cut.
“I ought to warn you,” Sydney said, “that I’m truly awful at all card games I’ve ever tried, and probably all those I haven’t, so we can skip the game and I’ll just empty my coin purse into yours.”
“But I like playing cards. And I like winning.” She glanced up at him with a predatory smile that went straight to his groin. “We can play for farthings, or perhaps a couple of your shirt studs and a few of my hairpins. Those would do admirably.”
A Delicate Deception Page 16
