“I have?” He looked up, startled.
“You always accept my boundaries and treat them as normal. It’s gotten me in the habit of paying myself the same courtesy.”
“I was under the impression that Georgiana didn’t push you to go beyond your capacity,” he said carefully.
“She doesn’t! But she’d do anything for me because that’s her nature, whereas you—” She broke off, realizing she had no graceful way to end that sentiment.
“Whereas I’m churlish and intolerant?” He arched an eyebrow.
“Not exactly,” she said. To her amazement, her cheeks were hot. She was comfortable enough with this man to stop checking her body’s every reaction. “You’re so matter-of-fact about it. It makes me feel that I’m doing fine.”
He pulled her close for a kiss and she let herself go to him. “You are,” he whispered into her hair.
“I know that this would all be easier if I didn’t have my—predicament, if I could pack my bags and go with you. I know this is burdensome.”
He held her chin steady and looked at her hard. “Nothing about you is burdensome,” he said, his voice rough. “Do you hear me? You are clever and kind and”—he broke off to kiss her, clumsy and fierce—“you’re sunshine. Meeting you is the best thing that’s happened to me, and every time I see you I love you more. I’m going to take you on whatever terms I can get you. Separate houses, separate towns, marriage, no marriage.” His arm tightened around her. “Just so you know.”
She let herself imagine that he was right, and that what they had together—this honesty, this closeness—was strong enough to matter.
Chapter Twenty
Once Sydney discovered a problem, he had never been able to refrain from trying to solve it. This was why he did what he did—he found ways to build things that needed to be created, found ways to work around obstacles that couldn’t be moved.
At the same time, when there was a rule, it was usually there for a reason. Don’t build on quicksand. Don’t store gunpowder in a hayloft. Don’t attempt a lasting relationship with someone who lives fifty miles away. Don’t leave children to be raised by eccentric aristocrats. But sometimes rules, however comforting and secure, stood in the way of something greater. So he refused to believe that there wasn’t a way forward with Amelia. So what if they couldn’t find their way towards anything as conventional as setting up house together, a tidy and easily understood coupling of one man and one woman under one roof. He had never had his heart set on any of that in the first place. Maybe there was some other way, something bigger and broader and messier. He spent his days building things a previous generation hadn’t dared, traversing impassible gorges and working impossible bridges. He could figure out a way to span the distance between him and Amelia, between Crossbrook Cottage and Manchester. He could do that, and he would.
He returned to Pelham Hall in a state of determination. He needed to sit down with Lex and figure out how he and Leontine played into whatever plans Sydney was making. They needed to have this out, once and for all.
But when he walked through the front door he found the house deserted.
“Lex!” he called. There was no answer. “Leontine!” Nothing. Not stopping to drop his satchel, he walked through the house and out the terrace doors. The gate that led from the garden to the stables was ajar, so he went in that direction. As he approached, he heard sounds of confusion. A few lads who looked to be stable boys were running to and fro, and one of the nursemaids was sobbing into her pinafore. Lex stood on his own, one hand braced against a hitching post.
“Will someone tell me what is going on here?” Sydney demanded.
“Leontine fell off her pony,” Lex said. “That’s all I know.”
Sydney’s heart turned over in a way it hadn’t since that day he had received the letter telling him of the fire and Andrew’s death. “Where is she? Is she all right?”
“I don’t know!” Lex said.
“What the devil was she even doing on a pony? She’s six years old.” Sydney’s first, uncharitable thought was that he must have been delusional to think that Lex could make responsible decisions for a child. He nearly said so out loud, but caught the desolate look on Lex’s face, and remembered what Lex had said before Sydney left for Manchester. Lex needed him. “All right,” he said, forcing his voice to sound calm. He put a hand on Lex’s shoulder. “Tell me what you do know.”
“A groom returned with the message that Leontine had fallen. Keating carried her to the nearest house. Miss Russell is with her as well.”
“That’s good,” Sydney said, even though nothing about this was remotely good. “I’m going to have the carriage bring me to wherever Leontine is. Do you want to come with me or stay here?”
“I feel responsible,” Lex said, his hand pressed over Sydney’s. “It was my idea to get her the stupid animal.”
And with that, any inclination Sydney might have had to blame Lex for the accident evaporated. “I know. You’re wrong, but I know.” His inclination was to rush out the door and head immediately for Leontine, but she already had two competent adults with her and didn’t need him urgently. Lex, however, was plainly distraught. Lex, too, was family; Lex was the one who needed him now. The man had lost his entire family in the course of a few years, and God knew Sydney had been useless to him during that time; he could only imagine what nightmare scenarios Lex’s mind was conjuring. “All right,” Sydney said calmly, looping his arm into Lex’s and guiding him towards the house. “I’m going to find out where Leontine is and check on her myself. I’ll send word to you immediately, all right?”
He poured Lex some brandy and rang for Carter. Then, on impulse, he snapped his fingers for Fancy and put the dog onto the sofa beside Lex. He knew from experience that an animal snoring on one’s lap was oddly soothing.
“That dog smells,” Lex said. “Promise you’ll let me know right away, regardless of—”
“Right away,” Sydney said. Lex might think Sydney’s sense of duty was a poor substitute for affection, but sometimes duty was just another word for love and friendship, another way to show people that they mattered to you. He bent to give Lex a quick embrace, then strode out to the stables.
Amelia sat in the wreckage of her writing room, regarding the papers that were strewn across the floor and the stacks of books that were toppled. Instead of trying to restore order, she curled up on the sofa. It still smelled of Sydney. None of what had passed between them was bad, she told herself. There was no reason for her to feel so cast down. She had known from the beginning that their parting was a foregone conclusion, and she thought she had made peace with that. Sydney’s insistence that they could somehow continue despite everything shouldn’t make her miserable. She watched the late afternoon sun stream through the window and tried to convince herself that she wasn’t sad.
Then she sat at her desk and killed off a very annoying courtier, which proved to be a much more satisfactory way to spend an evening. She didn’t know if you truly could kill a man by soaking his shirt in embalming fluid, but it sounded marvelous. This, she could do. She could write about jerkins and coronets and arcane methods of murder; she could describe a court and populate it with people who, she supposed, acted very much like normal people. People who did not need to hide away.
She put her pen down and frowned. Perhaps she had been thinking about this all backward: living this way didn’t cut her off from the world, it let her live more fully than she would if she existed on the edge of panic. This way, she could have friendships and feelings; towards the end of her time in London she had been numb to everything but panic. She looked around her writing room, at the faded wallpaper and the dusty window. This was home. She might not get to see the people she loved as often as she wished, but seldom did a day pass without a letter. She didn’t feel caged here anymore, only safe.
The sun had long since set, and was working by lamplight when she heard the door open downstairs. She glanced at her clock and saw t
hat it was already past ten, so she sprinkled some sand on her last page and went downstairs. There she found Georgiana, her face pale, her riding habit muddy. Before Amelia could open her mouth to ask whether her friend was all right, Georgiana held up her hand to forestall any questions.
“I’m perfectly fine. Leontine fell off her pony and I’ve been with her.” Georgiana proceeded to tell Amelia the rest of the story: she and Keating had been teaching Leontine to ride, the pony had bolted after seeing a hare, and the child had fallen. By then, they were some distance from Pelham Hall, so it made more sense to bring the child to the nearest house than it did to attempt to return her home.
“Who is with her now?” Amelia asked. “And where is she?”
“Mr. Goddard. And they’re at Stanton House.”
Amelia drew in a sharp breath of air, both because Stanton House was over two miles away from Pelham Hall, and because it was a stately home of some renown and the seat of the earls of Stafford. When she heard that Leontine had been taken to the nearest house, she had assumed that meant a tenant farmer’s cottage or perhaps the vicarage.
“It turned out to be the best possible place for her, because Lord and Lady Stafford are having a house party and a physician was in attendance. He set the child’s leg and now all that’s left is waiting to see whether she wakes up.”
Sydney had to be beside himself with worry. “I need to go to him.”
“The house is crawling with people, some of whom you’ll have met in London,” Georgiana cautioned. “And, well, Mr. Goddard is not in the best of moods.”
“I should think he wasn’t,” Amelia said, already stepping into her walking boots. “As for whoever is at Stanton House, that will be very bad, and I’m certain I’ll feel terrible the entire time, but I’m not letting Sydney stay there by himself, uncertain of whether or not his niece will survive.” And it would be bad—there was no question on that count. But this was her choice. Maybe part of her making peace with her constrained life was the knowledge that she could leave, and that it might be terrible, but it would also be temporary.
“Amelia. Wait. It’s past ten. Keating can’t bring you in the carriage, because he’s at Pelham Hall. He feels terribly responsible for what happened, as he was the one who was teaching Leontine to ride. If you wait until the morning, I’ll go with you.”
“Fine,” Amelia said, calculating how long it would take to get to Stanton House on foot. An hour? Two at the utmost.
“There’s something else,” Georgiana said. “There’s been a development I ought to tell you about.”
“Oh?”
“Hereford—Lex—asked me to marry him.”
Amelia could not say she was surprised. Georgiana was spending increasingly long hours at Pelham Hall, and it had occurred to Amelia that they might be developing an attachment to one another. Perhaps not a romantic one, but an attachment nonetheless. “And what did you tell him?”
“That I had no interest in going to bed with anybody. He said that he doesn’t have any interest in going to bed with women and wouldn’t think to trouble me in that capacity, unless we agree to endure one another’s company in that regard in order to beget a child.”
“I assume he’s proposing a marriage of convenience?” Amelia asked carefully.
“Not exactly,” Georgiana said. “I don’t think I could love anyone, not in the way most people mean when they talk about love matches. But we’ve become friends. I’m really frightfully fond of him. He wants to stay in the country for the most part, which suits me fine.” She cast an arch look at Amelia. “And I’d make a very good duchess,” she added.
“You’d make the best duchess,” Amelia agreed.
Georgiana’s cheeks were pink, not with embarrassment, Amelia guessed, but with happiness. Georgiana had found somebody she wanted to spend her life with. Amelia firmly tamped down an ugly swell of jealousy, and kissed her friend on the cheek. “You look very tired, Georgiana. Try to rest.”
She waited until she no longer heard footsteps from Georgiana’s bedroom above, and then slipped out the door towards Stanton House.
Chapter Twenty-One
Amelia knew exactly where Stanton House was, of course. For over a year, she had carefully avoided going anywhere near it or any of the other large homes in the area. Getting there wasn’t the trouble. Making herself walk through the gate was where her mind kept snagging.
She had expected to find Stanton House closed up for the night. House party or no, it was past midnight. But carriages were lined up along the drive leading to the house’s portico, and every window on the ground floor was bright with flickering candlelight.
A carriage passed them, its wheels crunching loudly on the gravel lane. Nan growled.
“My sentiments exactly,” Amelia said. “They’re having a ball.” She counted the carriages. Where on earth had Lord and Lady Stafford even found ten families near enough to invite? And that wasn’t even counting whoever was staying at the house. She straightened her spine. She had not come all this distance to quake in fear at the prospect of crashing a ball.
She stepped towards the front door, then thought better of it. The servants’ entrance would be much more sensible. It was easy enough to find, with servants walking in and out, even at this hour. The door was propped open to let out some of the heat of the kitchens, so Amelia walked in.
“Excuse me,” she said, approaching a woman who looked like a lady’s maid. “An injured little girl was brought here earlier today. Her family sent for me to help nurse her, so would you please show me the way?” It wasn’t the truth, but Amelia had always been a good liar.
“Oh ma’am,” the maid said, getting to her feet. “I don’t even work here. Bess!” she called. “This lady says there’s a sick girl here?”
Bess cast a discerning eye over Amelia. Amelia followed the path of her gaze. By the light of the kitchen lamps, Amelia could see what she had not noticed outdoors in the dark: her skirts were muddy and covered up to the knee in nettles. Nan, not a prepossessing animal on the best of days, was in much the same condition as Amelia’s skirts. Amelia did not even want to consider the state of her hair. Bess pursed her lips. “I’ll have to ask Mrs. Powers,” she said, then disappeared down a corridor.
If this Mrs. Powers was the housekeeper, there was no chance of her appearing in the kitchen on the night of a ball. She would have work to do upstairs, and a lot of it. And no lower servant would give Amelia, in her current bedraggled state, permission to venture further into the house. So Amelia had a choice: she could sit and wait and trust that eventually someone would get around to showing her the way to Sydney and Leontine, she could sneak upstairs when the servants weren’t looking and prowl about until she found the way, or she could go to the front of the house, announce who she was, and demand to be helped.
Amelia sighed. “Come on, Nan. We have work to do.” They retraced their steps back to the front of the house, past the line of carriages, directly to the front door. The night was fine, so the door stood open. Through it wafted a familiar scent: floor polish, lemon oil, beeswax candles, several varieties of perfume and eau de cologne, a faint undertone of sweat. It was the smell of a ballroom. Something deep within her filled with that old dread. She rubbed her arms. No matter what happened, it would be over soon, and she would never have to do it again. She scooped Nan up in her arms, both because acting like the animal was one of those tiny dogs ladies carried everywhere was the only way she could think of for getting Nan into the house, and because holding the dog close was at least slightly soothing.
She sailed through the door as if disheveled and mud-covered women bearing filthy dogs routinely presented themselves at all the best parties. “Good evening,” she said to a man she assumed to be the butler. “I’m here to see the little girl who was injured earlier today.”
“Who shall I tell Lady Stafford has called?”
“That won’t be necessary,” Amelia said, using her most clipped and polished accent. “Ther
e’s no need to bother her in the middle of a ball. And as you see I met with some misadventures on my way. If you could whisk me away before one of your guests catches sight of me in this state, I’d be forever grateful.”
Amelia would never know what finally convinced the butler—whether it was the dread of being discovered in conversation with a woman who looked like one of Macbeth’s witches, or whether it was the prospect of rendering aid to a lady who might have deep pockets. But in any event, he ushered her to the servants’ stairs and through a series of corridors until halting before a closed door. He tapped on the door and opened it without waiting for a response, then gestured for Amelia to enter.
“I told you, we don’t need—” Sydney said, looking up from the bed where Leontine slept. “What the devil are you doing here?”
Amelia heard the door snick shut behind her. “You really are a bear when you’re anxious.” She put Nan down and stepped closer to the bed. “How is she?”
“She woke up an hour ago, asked about the pony, complained about her leg, and then went back to sleep. So her head is probably fine. I’ve already sent word to Lex. How the hell did you get here?” He looked at her dress. “Please tell me you didn’t walk three miles in the middle of the night.”
“All right. I flew. I tunneled beneath the hills.”
“Amelia—”
“I turned myself into bats and—”
“Sit down,” he growled. “Why are you here?”
Sitting in the chair beside his, Amelia cast him a doleful glance. “Oh, just happened to be in the neighborhood.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Almost everybody alive prefers to be worried with a friend by their side. So, here I am.”
A Delicate Deception Page 20
