One Dance with a Duke (6 page)

“
No
. Er, yes.” Bellamy growled with frustration. “I mean, I do not want it. I wish to God there were someone—
anyone
—else. But there isn’t.”

Lady Amelia made a strange, inarticulate noise. Did it convey dismay? Frustration? Amusement? At least she wasn’t weeping any longer.

Clearly, Bellamy could not translate her outburst any better than Spencer could. Cocking his head, he eyed the two of them carefully. “That is, unless you are already engaged. Did we interrupt something on the terrace back there?”

“Oh, no,” she said quickly, laughing as she did. “Whatever you interrupted, it was not
that.”

“Then, Your Grace, honor compels you to make an offer to Lily.”

“Excuse me,” said Lady Amelia, “but precisely what is honorable about deciding a woman’s future without so much as soliciting her opinion? If Lily wanted to marry, she might have done so years ago. We are not living in the Dark Ages, sirs. A lady’s consent is generally considered a prerequisite before any wedding plans are made.”

“Yes, but even in these modern times, sometimes circumstances—such as a death or impending poverty—make a lady’s decision for her.”

“I cannot speak for Lily, Mr. Bellamy. But I can tell you, I have faced such circumstances. And they have never made the decisions for me.”

So, Spencer thought to himself, Lady Amelia had received offers of marriage. And refused them. He had been wondering whether her spinsterhood was a condition arrived at by choice, or merely from a lack of alternatives.

Damn it, why was he wondering about her? Why did he feel this need to know everything about an impertinent, managing, none-too-pretty female? But he did. Oh, he did not want to engage in anything so gauche or peril-fraught as inquiry. He merely wanted a reference—the comprehensive codex of all things Amelia Claire d’Orsay. A chart of her ancestry back to the Norman invaders. The catalogue listing every book she’d ever read. A topographical map indicating the precise location of every freckle on her skin.

Ashworth spoke. “We’ve arrived.”

The carriage rolled to a quiet halt before Harcliffe Manor. As they waited for the footman to open the door, Bellamy leaned forward and spoke directly to Spencer.

“Lily may be deaf, but she is not stupid. She reads lips, and she speaks with diction every bit as aristocratic as yours. Look at her when you speak; that’s all that is required. Do not raise your voice or speak in simplistic
terms, as if she were your senile great-aunt. Do not talk about her as if she isn’t in the room. Do not treat her as anything less than your social and intellectual equal.”

Spencer bristled. “Why are you directing all this admonishment at me?”

“Because before this night’s through, you will have a private audience with her. You will make Lily an offer, Morland. You will. Or by God, I’ll call you out.”

“A duel?” Amelia cried. “Whatever for? So we will have two deaths tonight, instead of one?”

Ignoring her, the duke said icily, “Just try it, Bellamy. I will take pleasure in prying that token from your cold, dead hands.”

Really, these men were impossible.

When the carriage door swung open, Amelia rose from her seat and bustled between Bellamy and Morland, who sat trading murderous glares. As she exited the coach, the men followed her.

Rushing up to claim the front stoop, she stood blocking the door and addressed them firmly, in the tone her mother had used to address her quarreling brothers. If these grown men were going to behave like boys squabbling over marbles, someone with sense had to take charge. For Lily’s sake.

“Hold a moment, if you please. Before we go in, I will have my say.”

The three men stared up at her, and Amelia’s resolve began to waver. They may have been behaving like children, but they were, all three of them, quite large, powerful, and intimidating men. A duke, a warrior, a scoundrel. She was unused to commanding the attention of such men. La, she was unused to commanding
the attention of
any
men, aside from her own brothers. Her navel was still turning cartwheels whenever she so much as
thought
of glancing in the duke’s direction. And thanks to the smoky, amber glow of the carriage lamp, she was getting her first clear look at Lord Ashworth and Mr. Bellamy.

What she saw did not put her at ease.

Ashworth was enormous, in every respect—tall, broad, imposing. A dramatic scar sliced from his temple to his cheekbone. The blow that caused it must have narrowly missed his eye. But for all Ashworth had the look of a marauding pirate, she felt safer with him than with Bellamy. Despite his rakishly mussed hair, Mr. Bellamy’s clothing and manner were polished—so polished, they gave the impression of slickness. There was such a thing as a man too handsome to be trusted.

She drew a deep, steadying breath. “Here is what will occur. We will alert the house staff to awaken Lily and ask her to dress. By the time she comes down, I promise you, she will be prepared for the worst.”

Any woman, when awakened in the dead of night, prepared herself for the worst. How many times had Amelia stumbled downstairs, tripping over feet numb with dread, certain that disaster had befallen another of her loved ones? Only to discover it was Jack, staggering in from an evening spent carousing with his “friends.”

“When she comes down,” she continued, “I will speak with her alone. You gentlemen wait in Lord Harcliffe’s study, and I will inform Lily of her brother’s death.”

“Lady Amelia—”

She silenced Bellamy by raising an open palm. “It is not a task I relish, sir. But I will not leave it to the three of you. Forgive me for speaking frankly, but after the past quarter-hour’s conversation, I am unconvinced that
any of you possess the sense or sensitivity to impart the news in any respectful fashion.”

“My lady, I must insist—”

“No, you must listen!” Her voice squeaked, and she pressed a hand to her belly. “You must understand, I have lived through the very experience that Lily is about to endure. And the three of you together, you’re a fearsome group. I’m not even certain how I’m able to stand before you without melting into the mist … except that this has been a most unconventional evening, and I’m no longer certain of much at all.”

Dear Lord, now she was babbling, and they were looking at her with that strange combination of pity and panic with which men regard a woman on the verge of hysterics.

Pull yourself together, Amelia
.

“Please,” she said. “What I’m trying to say is, allow me to break the news delicately. If Lily gets one look at you, she’s going to instantly know—”

With a gentle creak, the door swung open behind her.

Amelia pivoted, meeting face-to-face not with a servant, as she’d anticipated, but with Lily Chatwick herself. For the first time in … oh, it must have been two years. Since Hugh’s funeral, perhaps. They’d been friends as girls—not the closest of friends, as Lily was a few years older. But after the fever that left Lily without hearing, they’d seen one another less and less. She did not come out in society often.

“Amelia?” Lily swept a lock of dark hair from her face. With her other hand, she clutched the neck of her dressing gown closed. “Why, Amelia d’Orsay, whatever are you doing here at this—” Her sleepy, dark-fringed eyes went to the men.

Amelia squeezed her hands into fists. Lily couldn’t have heard her remarks, she reminded herself. Perhaps it wasn’t too late to break the news gently.

“Oh, dear God.” Lily’s hand went to her throat. “Leo’s dead.”

“I knew it,” Lily said some time later, staring blankly at her folded hands. They sat in the parlor. A cup of brandy-laced tea rested on the table, untouched and long gone cold. “Somehow I just knew it, even before you arrived. I’d retired early. I was so very tired last night. But then I woke with a start not an hour later and haven’t been able to sleep since. I just knew he was gone.”

Amelia moved her chair closer to her friend’s. “I’m so sorry.” Such worthless, feeble words. But really, in such a situation, there was nothing helpful to be said.

“I wouldn’t have been able to believe it, had I not felt it in my own heart. As it is, I’ve been growing accustomed to the idea for several hours now. We’ve always known when the other was in danger. Because we are twins, I suspect. Our bond has always been close. During my illness, he took the mail coach all the way home from Oxford, even though no one had written him. I don’t know how I’ll—” Lily bent her head to her folded hands. “It’s just so hard to imagine existing without him, when I never have.”

Her slight shoulders shook as she cried, and Amelia smoothed the black plait of hair running down the grieving woman’s back. The casual observer would never have guessed that she and Leo were twins. Their appearances could not have been more different. Leo had golden-brown hair, bronzed skin—an aura of health and energy radiated from him. By contrast, Lily was fair and dark-haired, of serene and contemplative disposition. The moon to her brother’s sun. Amelia had heard it suggested, in gossipy settings, that the twin birth was a fortunate thing for their mother’s reputation—for no one would believe Leo and Lily to be children of
the same father, had they not emerged from the womb within minutes of one another.

Amelia squeezed her friend’s shoulder lightly until Lily lifted her gaze. “It’s hard to imagine Leo gone, even for me. More than anyone in my acquaintance, he always seemed so … so alive. He will be greatly missed.” She gentled her touch, stroking reassuringly. “But you needn’t be anxious. For as many people as there were who loved Leo, there will be equally many eager to assist you, in any way.” She threw a sideways glance toward the doors that connected this parlor with the library. “Just in the other room, you have three of England’s most powerful men, each of them prepared to swim the Channel, if you asked it.”

The corner of Lily’s mouth curved. “Mr. Bellamy is responsible for the presence of the other two, I am sure. Sometimes I think that man will smother me under his good intentions.”

She must have caught Amelia’s fleeting look of skepticism.

“Oh, do not mistake him,” Lily said. “Julian is a gifted performer. His favorite, and most successful, role is that of the incorrigible roué. But he has been a steadfast friend to Leo and no doubt views it his duty to assume brotherly guardianship of me now.”

“Are you certain his interest is entirely brotherly?” Amelia recalled Mr. Bellamy’s behavior in the coach, and his impassioned defense to any remark that might be construed as even mildly disparaging to Lily.

“Oh, yes,” Lily said. “On that point, I am quite certain.”

“I feel I should tell you, on our way here the three of them were arguing over … over who among them should be the fortunate one to marry you.”

“Marry
me? I never thought to marry at all.”

“I told them that you would need time to absorb this
news, time to grieve. I tried to persuade them against presenting you with such decisions tonight, but I do not know if I was successful.”

More accurately, she did not know if Mr. Bellamy’s threats had been successful in removing Morland’s reluctance. She hoped not. And not because she would be jealous. No, envy had nothing to do with this. Whatever her own physical attraction to the duke, Amelia was wise enough not to confuse it with esteem for his character. This evening alone, she’d witnessed more than enough evidence of that gentleman’s callous attitudes toward debt, death, society, friendship, and marriage to know she would not wish such a husband on any woman she called friend.

“Oh dear,” Lily said weakly. Her head sank to the table again. “Don’t tell me. This has to do with that absurd club Leo started, with the horse.”

“Yes.”

“What a ridiculous name he gave it. The Stud Club. I told him, he should have asked me for ideas. I could think of a dozen better things to call it. What’s wrong with the Stallion Society?”

Amelia bit back a laugh, then dipped her head to catch Lily’s attention. “If you like, I’ll send them away. I’ve stood up to them all once already tonight, and I’m not afraid to do it again.”

Pride strengthened her voice as she said this. And why should it not? At some point this evening, between surrendering her last few coins to Jack and claiming the Duke of Morland’s hand, Amelia had stepped outside herself, somehow. Or stepped outside that quiet, unassuming, plain, and proper shell she’d been inhabiting all her life. Scolding a trio of intimidating men was only part of it. She’d confronted a duke, even flirted with him during a sensual waltz. With no success, but still—it went beyond anything she’d dared before. Add to all
this, she’d departed the ball under mysterious circumstances, and right now the gossips were probably debating precisely when that well-bred d’Orsay girl had become such a brazen adventuress.

Why, at the stroke of midnight, of course. That was the moment Amelia had ceased to be a pumpkin. And no matter what tomorrow brought, she was proud of herself for that.

“I’ll go chase them off now,” she said, pushing back from the table.

“No,” Lily said. “I’ll speak with them. I know they are grieving, too, and they mean well. Men do have that incurable need to try their hand at fixing things. Even things that can never be mended.”