Regency Rumours/A Scandalous Mistress/Dishonour And Desire (13 page)

They visited every mother and her infant, of whom at least six could have been the one she had attempted to rescue on that rainy night a week ago. And by the time Amelie had held the last soft helpless bundle against her shoulder, nuzzled its downy head and breathed in the sweet milky aroma, the tears she had been fighting were running freely down her face and dripping off her chin, and the mothers to whom she had come to offer pity were, without exception, pitying her.

The last sleepy little mite was prised gently out of her arms and put to her mother’s breast. ‘Her name?’ Amelie asked, still weeping.

‘She ain’t named yet, m’lady. What’s yours?’

‘Amelie.’

‘Then that’s what I’ll call her. Emily. She’ll be called Emily.’

‘Thank you. It’s a lovely gown she wears.’

The mother smiled while the matron explained, ‘The Marchioness and her daughter run sewing groups,’ she said. ‘They make most of the baby gowns, and very nice they are too. Lord Elyot and Lord Rayne brought a bundle of them up only a day or two ago. They’re very caring, that family.’ She opened the door and waited for her guests to pass. ‘Always have been. Very involved they are, bless ‘em. People come here from all over the country, you know, to see how we manage things, and there’s never a month goes by without Lord Elyot coming to see us, never emptyhanded.’

The full significance of the matron’s revelation made less than its full impact upon Amelie then, although she recalled feelings of both confusion and contradiction. But outside the door, Caterina took her aunt into her arms, holding her until
she could collect herself while Lord Elyot waited a little way off, aware of the crisis, but keeping the farm manager and bailiff in conversation. There was nothing Amelie could do to conceal the effects of her distress from him, in spite of Caterina’s mopping, the kindly matron’s understanding and her soothing cordial. She could see at a glance where the problem lay.

Lord Rayne had been visiting the stables, coming to meet them as they emerged from the large stone porch on to the cobbled courtyard where their horses were waiting. With unmistakable authority, he took charge of Caterina’s attempts to arrange her long skirts over her legs, brusquely changed her riding crop from her left to her right hand and told her to face forward properly in the saddle, which she thought she was doing. From his own saddle, he saw her attempt to move away and, reaching for her horse’s bridle, clipped a leading-rein to it. Then he sat back, grim-faced.

‘I can
manage
,’ said Caterina, crossly.

‘You need to concentrate.’

‘On you, or the horse?’ she muttered.

‘On your
riding
. Walk on.’

Not another word was spoken by either of them on the way home, but a glance that passed between Caterina and her red-nosed aunt assured her that silence was no bad thing.

For that matter, there was no actual conversation between Amelie and Lord Elyot either, and what did pass between them was mostly monosyllabic.

To an outsider, one tear-stained face and a lack of communication between four people might have appeared disastrous, but to Lord Nicholas Elyot it was far from that. For one
thing, his brother seemed to have accepted his advice about what young Miss Chester
really
needed and, for another, he himself had discovered what her aunt needed, if that little scene was anything to go by. Through the pane of glass in the ward door, he had seen how reluctantly she’d handed back the warm bundle to its mother as if it broke her heart to do so, and he had wanted to take her in his arms there and then to give her the comfort she craved so desperately. But the episode had, for him, answered the question about her zeal for the plight of fallen women, a discovery that did not unsettle him as it once might have done. With previous mistresses, the problem of raising bastards had been enough to cool his initial ardour. This woman disturbed him in quite a different way.

Back in the stable courtyard at Paradise Road, he lifted her down from the saddle, knowing that she would attempt to escape him as quickly as Miss Chester had dismissed herself from his brother’s uncongenial presence. ‘No,’ he said, gently hooking a hand beneath the velvet-covered arm. ‘We need to speak, in private, if you please.’

Lord Rayne was remounting, preparing to leave.

‘Seton,’ Lord Elyot called to him, ‘go on up to the Roebuck and I’ll join you in a few moments.’ The sound of a door being slammed in the house made him smile and throw a wink in his brother’s direction.

On the ground floor, the saloon and the dining room were connected by a pair of large doors, leaving Lord Elyot in no doubt that both rooms would compliment each other in similar tones of soft blue, white and gold, warmed by the honeyed oak floor and a huge vase of red and gold foliage. This woman certainly had style and a liking for Mr Wedgwood.

In the saloon, she stood rather like a deer at bay, prepared to defend herself without knowing where the first attack would come from. ‘Don’t ask me,’ she said, in a voice torn with emotion. She put out a hand as if to ward him off. ‘I can’t explain. You would not understand. It would be best if you were to leave me, my lord. I’m not company for anyone.’ She turned away from him to hide her face.

Slowly, he peeled off his leather gloves and laid them upon a small side table, watching the graceful curve of her back and the irritable stacatto pulls at the finger-ends of her gloves which, in the next moment, went flying across the room like angry bats, followed by her veiled hat, narrowly missing a blue Wedgwood urn.

‘I will leave you, my lady but, before I go, allow me to tell you that my only reason for taking you up there was to put your mind at rest about the welfare of the mothers and infants, not to upset you. I wanted you to see how seriously the Vestry treat the problem. I can see where your pain is.’

‘You cannot possibly know,’ she retorted, angrily, still with her back to him.

‘I
do
know,’ he said, harshly. ‘I’d have to be blind not to know.’

‘It’s none of your business,’ she whispered.

‘It is, Amelie. It’s very much my business, and so are you.’ He waited, but she did not contradict him, nor did she remark on his familiar use of her name. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘so far you have avoided asking me about the two invitations. Well, one is to my sister’s birthday dinner party at Mortlake.’

‘When?’ She turned at that, suddenly apprehensive.

‘Tomorrow evening.’

‘I cannot go … no, I cannot! Your parents will be there.’

‘They won’t. They’re attending a court function in London. Only my sister’s family and friends will be there, and Miss Chester will be among people of her own age. My sister would particularly like to meet you after Miss Chester told her about you.’

For the first time since leaving the workhouse, Amelie’s eyes met his, holding them steadily, and Nick knew she was saying what she could not bring herself to speak, that she would be on show as his newest conquest, paraded, compared, discussed and judged, that this was a role she had no idea how to fulfil, nor did she have the aptitude for it.

‘We shall be among friends. They will congratulate us, that’s all.’

‘Your sister is not like the Marchioness, then?’ She had mused, on the way home, about the sewing group run by the mother and daughter who made clothes for those unfortunates so heartily disapproved of by at least one of them. There was nothing so strange, she had told herself, as folk.

‘Not at all. You will like each other, I know it. They all will.’

‘And the other invitation?’

‘Equally pleasant. A soirée at Ham House. Professional musicians. I think you’ll enjoy it. Interesting people, artists, poets, writers too.’

‘When?’

‘The day after tomorrow,’

‘And Caterina?’

‘Of course, that’s why I shall accept, so that she can meet the best people. She’ll be a sensation.’

Again, there was a long silent exchange of messages behind the eyes that said it was more likely to be she who would be the sensation, that she was the one he wanted to
flaunt like a trophy. He sensed the struggle in her, the excitement of being desired by a man, the conflict of needs, her reluctance to adapt to her new role and her fear of passing control of her life to a complete stranger. To him.

‘I don’t understand you,’ she said at last. ‘Why are you doing this? There must be easier ways of getting a woman to partner you.’

‘A woman like you, my lady? I think not. Perhaps I’ve had it all my own way till now. Perhaps I need to work harder at it. Perhaps my other relationships were so brief because there was no incentive to make them last. I’ve certainly never offered to take a seventeen-year-old in tow before.’

‘Then I should be flattered, my lord, as well as grateful.’

‘I don’t know about that. But I do know one thing—that no man who sees you with me will be surprised by my haste and, although they may wonder how I managed it, I shall be the envy of them all. If that comes near to answering my question about why I’m keeping a hold on you, then so be it. Call it pride, if you will. A search for the best and pride in having found a way to hold it.’

She had stood with head bowed and cheeks flushed as his somehow left-handed tributes were delivered quietly across the elegant saloon, their sincerity all the more believable for their unexpectedness.

‘Captured, or bought?’ she whispered, testing him. ‘It doesn’t seem to me that you have had too exhausting a time of it in this search and capture. I seem to think it all fell into your lap rather easily, my lord.’

His stroll towards her was deceptively languid, but his hands caught her in a grip that bit through her sleeves. ‘I was not referring to the pursuit, my lady, as you well know, but to
the holding of the prize. And I intend to keep you by my side for the foreseeable future. Make no mistake about it.’

‘Until all the skeletons in my cupboard are let loose upon the world. That’s what you mean, of course.’

His eyes searched lazily over her features. ‘You are telling me something, I believe.
More
skeletons? Hurst?
Was
he your lover?’

In a sudden blaze of anger barely hidden beneath the surface, she squirmed in his hold. ‘I might have known you’d not believe me,’ she said angrily. ‘Let me spell it out for you.
I have never had a lover.
There, now take it or leave it.’

‘Very well. So since we’re spelling things out, hear this. With or without skeletons, I want you in my bed and at my board, and the sooner we put that to the test the better it will be for both of us. And if you had it in mind to delay the pleasure, think again. I agreed to take it slowly, but I am not inclined to wait for the first frosts of winter.’

The words and the cynical use of the term ‘pleasure’ seemed to find no warm response in her eyes, for his expression was anything but lover-like. ‘You’re squeezing my arms,’ she whispered.

‘Forgive me.’ Taking one of the hands that moved up to comfort the crushed velvet, he raised it to his lips, palm upwards, to place there the lightest of kisses and to close her fingers over it. ‘I do not mean to shock you, Amelie. Are you shocked?’

‘Today,’ she said, ‘you have dispelled a trouble from my mind that has been with me since I arrived here. That is a great relief to me, my lord. If only my other concerns could be dealt with so efficiently. What is the hearing of a few down-to-earth manly intentions compared to that? No, I am not shocked, but nor am I prepared to gallop up to your bed so that you can
notch up the score on your side of the board. I never wanted to be in your debt, I did not choose the stakes, and I won’t pay out what is still mine just because you are not inclined to wait. I’m sorry, my lord, but you may as well know how it is.’

‘
Brava
, my beauty,’ he said, smiling. ‘I would have thought you in very queer stirrups if you’d not fought back on that one. Well done.’

‘Tomorrow,’ she said, moving away from his laughing eyes, ‘it will be evening dress, I take it?’ Unthinking, she placed a cool hand to her cheeks.

‘Yes, but not too grand. We shall bring the coach round at five. My sister dines quite late these days.’

Amelie nodded, all replies used up.

Taking his gloves from the table, he came back to her and lifted her chin with one finger, touching her lips with his in a soft salute. ‘Go up and take a rest, my lady,’ he said. ‘You’ve had a rough day.’

She did not, of course, take a rest and, even if she had, she would not have been able to prevent so many conflicting thoughts from tangling into the most complex of knots. Apart from that, those heartrending moments of melting bliss when she had held the infant in her arms had left such a deep and aching void inside her that she felt drained and quite unable to pull herself back into shape. Lord Elyot had said he understood, but no one could share that all-consuming blinding passion to bear a child except those women like her whose need had never been satisfied. Was it not ironic, she asked herself, that the circumstance in which that need might now be filled was the very problem she had striven so hard to rectify? She would never find herself in the workhouse, but
nor had he put her mind to rest about his share in the responsibility, should there be one, of accepting a fatherless child. Throughout the mantua-maker’s visit, the enormity of what she had agreed continued to disturb her, and it was Caterina who conducted the dress fitting with confidence, despite the woman’s grumbling apologies for the continued absence of her young assistant and the inevitable lateness of the new gowns. When questioned about Millie’s illness, the mantua-maker had to admit that she had not had time to make enquires about her.

Later that afternoon, the appearance of the recovered but pale Millie disturbed Amelie’s conscience less than it might have done, her newest act of charity far outweighing the furtive transfer from the girl’s former employer to a bedroom of her own, warm clothes, good food and sensible hours of work. The grateful lass was speechless at the offer of six guineas a year, and the unfamiliar smiles she received from Mrs Braithwaite quite overcame her. In lieu of words, she kissed Amelie’s hands.