Shall We Dance? (31 page)

If that could be proved, Amelia was lost to him forever…and quite possibly in mortal danger.

 

E
STHER
P
IDGEON SAT
in her small attic room, sipping from the wine bottle she'd hidden beneath her apron as she'd made her way to the top of the house. As usual, she'd detoured down the long hallway that ran past the queen's chambers, daily building her courage for that ultimate moment when she would destroy, once and for all, the albatross that hung so heavily about her Florizel's neck.

She'd nearly been caught out with the bottle, but that Clive Rambert and that ridiculous Mr. Nestor had been
too busy talking to each other to notice her as she'd stopped, readjusted her apron.

And heard Bernard Nestor refer to Miss Fredericks as Princess Amelia!

They were wrong, of course. They had to be wrong. Princess Charlotte had been the sole royal issue, and to debase that dear girl's memory by flaunting anyone as
ordinary
as Amelia Fredericks as the new Princess of Wales? It was sacrilege! Florizel would be devastated to hear such dreadful news, to know that his hated wife had formed the mind of a child of his. No, no, it was not to be borne. He couldn't want her, not a woman grown, and so wholly corrupted by her obscene, fornicating mother.

Not that it was true.

Esther frowned at the bottle, seeing it nearly empty, and reached under her bed for the decanter of brandy she'd filched from the drawing room yesterday morning.

But if it was true?

“Like mother like daughter,” Esther said, pulling the crystal stopper out of the decanter, punching at the air twice, as if marking some invisible playing board. “Dead One and Dead Two.”

 

I
T WAS AFTER TWO
when Amelia was finally free to return to her own chambers, so weary she knew she would not call for her maid but merely strip to her shift and fall onto the bed to sleep like the dead until morning. And then, suddenly, she was very much awake.

“Perry?”

He quickly got to his feet as Amelia walked toward him across the dimly lit chamber.

He held out his arms to her, but she stopped short, shook her head. “You shouldn't be here, and I shouldn't be pleased to see you.” Her gaze shifted to the bedside table, then back to him. “Did you find what you came for, Perry?”

“Honesty in the midst of intrigue could be dangerous,” Perry said quietly, “but I'm done with intrigue, done with secrets. So, Amelia, if you're asking if I opened the queen's chest of treasures, yes, I looked. An old woman's sentimental trifles, Amelia, and no more, except a letter addressed to you.”

Amelia kept her expression neutral, but not without effort. “And you read it?”

He shook his head. “It's not mine to read. The queen's secrets are not mine to know. I've been crashing about for weeks, Amelia, being about as cow handed and selfish—yes, selfish—as a man can be. But I realized you'd never forgive me if I didn't give up the hunt. Besides, I've already found
my
treasure. I found you, Amelia.”

She put a hand to her mouth as a small sob escaped her. “Always so smooth, Perry, always so glib and so convincing. I don't know when to believe you.”

“I deserved that,” he said, and she was grateful he didn't try to reach for her again, because she was close to throwing herself into his arms, willing to forgive him anything, as long as he held her, as long as his lies pleased her. Lord knew the truth had not been kind to her tonight.

She lifted her chin, trying for defiance. “Yes, you did deserve that, Perry. And I suppose I deserve the truth. Did you kill Jarrett Rolin? No more lies, Perry. Please.”

“The man chose suicide. Unfortunately, he also chose me as the instrument of that suicide.”

Amelia walked over to one of the pair of wing chairs, sat down before her weakened knees could collapse. “I said the truth, Perry.”

He sat down in the facing chair. “It is the truth, Amelia. In the end it was Rolin's decision to die. I'm not happy about that. I found him because he wanted me to find him. He'd seen you and decided to end the game he was playing, not by destroying anyone I cared for, but by offering to go away, to never return to England if I agreed to set up an allowance for him.”

“But…but that would just mean that he'd line his pockets. It doesn't mean that you could trust him to keep his word.”

Perry smiled, and Amelia felt a pleasing warmth spread through her. “Many wouldn't see that. I adore you, pet. Yes, I couldn't trust him to keep his word, and Rolin had to know I couldn't take that chance, not with you. Still, he deluded himself that I wouldn't realize that in time for me to turn my back on him. It's me he's wanted all along. I'll admit that surprised me, knowing the man, but I think he went rather mad with the anger he felt when I destroyed him in front of half of Mayfair. He actually thought he could kill me.”

“If your back was turned, as you said,” Amelia threaded her fingers together in her lap. How clearly she
was thinking! She felt this
calm
that had settled over her as the queen had bidden her move closer once more, Her Majesty's eyes tightly closed as she whispered truths into Amelia's ear. “Am I correct in deducing that you obliged him by deliberately turning your back?”

Perry's smile was rather embarrassed. “I believe I can be very glad you're not my enemy, Amelia. You see through me as if I was a pane of glass. Yes, I turned my back on him, and on the knife I knew he always carried in a special sleeve fitted into all his coats.”

“And yet you're here, and he's—?”

“Enjoying his eternal rest in the Rolin family mausoleum, duly prayed over by the local vicar. I was the only mourner present. The vicar is writing his condolences to Rolin's aunt in Wimbledon, informing her of her nephew's unfortunate curricle accident. Although I doubt she'll grieve overlong, as I discovered several pieces of rather fine jewelry in Rolin's belongings, and those are also being returned to the lady.”

Amelia's mind was whirling. “But he came at you with his knife, correct? How did you explain his wounds to the vicar?”

Perry got up from the chair, leaving the revealing light of the fire. “He had no wounds, Amelia. It was an accident with the curricle, remember? He was thrown clear but, unfortunately, the fall snapped his neck.”

“But—”

She jumped slightly in her chair when Perry turned to her, his jaw tight, his eyes glittering dangerously. “Enough, Amelia, it's finished. You know what I had to
do, and I've done it. I'm not proud of what I've done, but it was necessary. The man made his choices. We all make our choices, and then have to live with them.”

Amelia's first thought was of the queen, and that woman's choices. She bit her lips together, nodded. She'd seen Jarrett Rolin, and had immediately sensed that the man was capable of any villainry. There may have been some other way of rendering him harmless, if he had been another man. This man had chosen his own fate, and the pity of it was that Perry was left to be the instrument.

“You're right, Perry,” she said at last. “You defended yourself, you defended all of us. I think I'm very cold-hearted, because I can understand that you had no choice.”

She stood up, held out her hands to him. “But if you ever frighten me like that again—”

“Never,” he said, taking her hands in his, raising them, in turn, to his lips. “I wish there had been some other way, but there wasn't. We both knew it. Amelia, I—oh, damn.” He was looking at his hand, and so she looked, too, and saw the blood that had trickled out beneath his shirt cuff.

“Perry! Why didn't you say anything? Come here, come over here, sit down!”

“It's nothing. I…misjudged slightly when Rolin first came at me. I'd intended to throw my greatcoat at him but he moved faster than I had imagined.”

“Yes, yes, not now. Let me help you with your coat.”

Amelia winced when Perry winced, the two of them
easing him out of his jacket, and she saw the spreading red stain on the sleeve of his shirt. “Didn't you have someone bandage this?” she asked as she ripped at his neck cloth and began unbuttoning his waistcoat and shirt, with not a thought to the proprieties.

Perry sat back in the wing chair, his smile amused and maddening. “I fear you have the advantage over me, madam,” he said teasingly, then laughed when she smacked him on the shoulder and ordered him out of his shirt.

“Happy now?” he asked, once he was bare to the waist and the bandage his valet had applied earlier was exposed, completely saturated now. “Look like a stuck pig, don't I? I suppose I can't fob you off by telling you it's only a scratch?”

But Amelia was gone, racing to her dressing table, to pour water into the ewer. She dipped a small towel in the water, grabbed several other dry towels, and hurried back to Perry, kneeling in front of the chair.

“Oh, good, you've unwrapped it,” she said, doing her best not to show her alarm at the at-least-five-inch-long gash on his forearm. “You need that sewn, you know.”

“So my man told me,” Perry said as Amelia spread one towel under his forearm, then cleansed away the blood on his skin. The wound was oozing, not all that badly, but definitely enough for blood to have worked its way through the bandage on his ride to Hammersmith.

“I'll fetch Mrs. Fitzhugh and Clive. He's told me she's a wonder with a needle.”

“Ah, pet, do you really think that necessary? We could simply wrap it again, couldn't we?”

Amelia removed the wet towel and pressed a dry one against the wound, and Perry gave out a small yelp. “Why, you baby. You're afraid of Mrs. Fitzhugh's needle?”

“I most certain am not afraid of—no, no more lies. I most certainly am. I'm terrified, scared spitless of Mrs. Fitzhugh's needle. And I must tell you, I had no idea you were such a staunch little soldier. Most females would be fainting by now.”

“Most females haven't ridden into Jerusalem on a donkey, My Lord,” she said archly. “I've seen quite a lot of the world, and more than one injury. Now you sit here, while I fetch help. I don't want to use the bellpull, not knowing who would answer it at this time of night.”

 

“I
T'S LATE
,” Sir Nathaniel said, leaning over to kiss Georgiana Penrose on her still-rather-flushed cheek. “I have to take you home now, you know. Not saying I want to, but there's no sense putting it off.”

Georgiana turned onto her side, mattress springs creaking, and stroked the back of her hand down his face. “I know. But I feel so decadent, Nate, and it's a lovely inn. Must we leave already?”

“We shouldn't be here at all. Your mother would have my liver on a spit if she knew, no matter that we'll soon be spliced,” Nate said, reaching toward the bottom of the bed to retrieve his trousers.

“Yes, you're a bad, bad man, seducing your very own fiancée this way, night after night. For shame, Nate.
Oh, and would you see if you can find my shift? I last remember seeing it as it went flying across the room.”

“Wanton,” Nate said, giving her a playful tap on the buttocks before he climbed from the bed. “And I think it was you seducing me tonight, stap me if I don't.”

“How very ungentlemanly of you, Nate. Where are my spectacles? Oh, drat. Do you have any idea how maddening it is to have to search for one's spectacles when one can't see to search? Oh, thank you,” Georgiana said, taking the spectacles from Nate and putting them on. “Ah, much better. Nate! Look at your back! Did I do that?”

Nate attempted to look at his own back, a fruitless exercise at best. “Probably. Unless it was someone else sneaked in here, grabbing at me and moaning, ‘Nate! Nate! Oh,
yes!'
”

He laughed, ducking when Georgiana launched a pillow at him, then dove onto the bed once more.

“I thought you said we should leave,” Georgiana said when he pushed her down onto the mattress.

“Just what I don't want, puss. A wife who listens to everything I say. Especially when I've been known to say some dashed stupid things.”

“Such as?” Georgiana asked, reaching for the buttons of his trousers.

“Such as before Perry went haring off after Rolin…telling him, certainly, Perry, I'll meet you just outside the Hammersmith house two days hence at ten in the bloody morning.” Nate grinned as Georgiana rubbed herself against him. “Can you imagine? Why, I should already be home in bed.”

“Morning will come when it comes, Nate. And besides, you're already in bed,” Georgiana reminded him.

 

“I
DON'T WANT
to hear it,” Amelia warned Perry as he grumbled that it was time he was up and gone. Mrs. Fitzhugh had insisted he lie on Amelia's bed while she sewed up his wound—men being so apt to faint at the sight of a simple embroidery needle—and Amelia was determined that he would stay there, at least until he regained some of his color.

“Amelia, be sensible. If anyone were to find me here—”

“They'd have to explain to me what they were doing in my bedchamber,” Amelia finished for him. Goodness, but she was being forceful—and she very much liked the feeling. “No one will see you, Perry. Just rest for another hour, and then you can leave.”

She sat down on the edge of the mattress. “Did it hurt?”

Perry grinned at her. “Oh, nothing of the sort, dear lady. Why I don't offer myself up to a daily slicing and sewing, I shall never know. Of course it hurt. It hurts.”

Amelia bit her bottom lip in her effort not to smile. “I think perhaps Clive fed you a little too much brandy,” she said, smoothing back his hair from his forehead.

He looked so dear, so vulnerable, so very much in need of a woman's soothing touch. And yet, not twenty-four hours earlier, he had killed a man with his own hands; snapped the man's neck, wrapped the body in a rug, sneaked it out of London, seen it interred and come here to see her. All with that gaping gash in his arm.