The Ardent Lady Amelia (26 page)

Amelia stepped away from his hand, which fell to his side. “You fail to understand the gravity of the situation, sir. It turns out you haven’t proved your identity after all, in addition to which you lied to make me believe you had. That’s not something I can simply overlook, you know.”

“Certainly it is,” he assured her, trying with a hearty tone to cajole her out of her absurd stance. “You know very well that I’m Verwood. For God’s sake, Amelia, I’m in this room right now to ask you to marry me! How would that set with your idea that I’m not actually Verwood at all?”

“Not at all well,” she said, gathering up the three sheets of the letter and stuffing them in her pocket. “Which is why I have no intention of accepting your offer. Since you lied to me, I have no compunction about refusing you. I can’t imagine I would go on at all well with a man who would lie to me. Which is quite apart from whether you are indeed Lord Verwood or not. I shall be forced to mention this to Peter, of course, since your involvement in the Chartier affair has now compromised our chances of finding out the truth about him. For all I know, you may be associated with him in some way.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” he snapped. The muscle in his jaw twitched, his eyes had become fiercely black again. “Peter knows who I am and you’ll only make a fool of yourself by trying to convince him he doesn’t. He’s not going to listen to you.”

“Then I may have to take matters into my own hands.”

Verwood felt the most ominous foreboding. His own position with her was so weak now that he knew it would be completely useless for him to argue with her. The possibility of shaking some sense into her did briefly occur to him, but he immediately discarded it. What he really wanted to do was simply take her into his arms and profess his love, and have all this other ludicrous baggage disappear.

She stood rigid before him, one hand clenched at her side, the other stuck in her pocket with the letter. Despite her anger, her face was pale, the violet eyes enormous and moist. He had expected her to run from the room when she finished speaking, but she seemed incapable of movement. Verwood willed himself to a calmness he was far from feeling, forcing his hands not to reach out for her.

“Amy,” he said softly, “I love you. That’s not something I offer lightly. For years I’ve thought there was no woman I could possibly spend my life with, who would tolerate my sardonic tongue and my lack of interest in the ton. I believed there was no one who could be a companion and a lover and a helpmate to such a perverse man as myself. But then, I hadn’t envisioned such a perverse lady as you.”

His tone was rueful, his dark eyes earnest. “Not that I would have you change the least thing about yourself, except your refusal to marry me. I didn’t lie to deceive you, my dear, but to allow you to accept the truth.”

Now she turned away from him, before the moisture could spill out of her eyes. In a strangled voice she said “I couldn’t trust you. Whenever it was expedient for you to lie to me, you would. Whenever it was easier for you to get your way by fabricating some tale, you’d do it. You wouldn’t feel it necessary to deal honestly with me, and I won’t have someone who doesn’t.”

“That simply isn’t true, Amelia.” He moved to stand behind her, carefully resisting the impulse to put his hands on her slumped shoulders. “There are times when absolute honesty doesn’t serve to anyone’s advantage. I apologize for that little deception; it wasn’t, as it turns out, a wise move on my part, but it seemed harmless enough at the time. If I
had
seen Lovell, he would have confirmed my identity. Would it help if I sent for him now?”

“No,” she whispered. “Nothing will help now but your going back to London.”

“You told me you weren’t stubborn.”

Amelia refused to respond to this taunt.

The breath from his pent-up sigh ruffled her hair. He felt certain that if he took her in his arms, she would respond to him, would be won over by her physical attraction, but it seemed an underhanded way of going about convincing her. Did she really still believe it possible he wasn’t legitimate? Or was she more hurt than suspicious? One thing alone was paramount, and he found himself asking, “Do you love me, Amelia?”

With a muffled sob, she fled the room.

Verwood made no attempt to follow her. There was no sense in creating a scene in front of the whole household. She would need time to straighten out the confusion he had inadvertently caused in her mind and her emotions. And he, too, was disturbed with a nagging sense of guilt at having created her dilemma. Though love was imperative, the element of trust was surely as necessary. He could understand her anguished feeling of betrayal, but he hadn’t meant to cause it, and he had every intention of eradicating it… if she would give him the opportunity.

He had the most awful feeling that she might not.

After standing in the Summer Parlor for some time, ignoring the midday heat of the sun through the windows and debating his next move, he shook off the feeling of hopelessness and went to explain the situation to Peter.

* * * *

Amelia was unfortunate enough to run into Trudy on the way to her room. Her aunt was gloriously attired in a purple cotton walking dress, a fall of blond lace scattered over her ample bosom. They met at the head of the stone staircase, Amelia hurrying upward as fast as her feet could carry her and Trudy padding slowly toward some unknown but unurgent mission on the ground floor.

“Wherever are you going in such a rush?” Trudy demanded. “It’s not becoming to be seen in such haste. One loses one’s dignity and grace of carriage, you know. You must always tread lightly, acting as though everything is under strict control, even if the house is afire. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before.”

“Yes, indeed you have. But there’s no one about to see me except you, my dear aunt. I was on my way to my room.”

“And where, pray tell, is Lord Verwood?” Trudy lifted one coy brow at her. “I believe the two of you went walking this morning.”

“Yes. He’s below, in the Summer Parlor.”

“You mustn’t be discouraged with him, just because he’s a little slow to come up to scratch,” Trudy said, sympathetic when she noticed the damp eyelashes. “He’s not just your ordinary suitor, Amelia. One must make allowances for all that time he spent in the most amazingly uncivilized countries when he was in the army. Not that I hold with the aristocracy engaging in such dangerous pursuits. Where would we be if all our young lords went off to get themselves killed? But that’s beside the point. Lord Verwood has managed to return with only an injured knee and I’m sure it would serve your purpose better to be a little more concerned about that. You shouldn’t make him overextend himself by taking him on long walks. I noticed you were gone above two hours.”

“He didn’t complain of any pain.”

“Well, he wouldn’t, would he? It’s for you to be aware of when he has tired, and suggest a brief respite.”

“Oh, I gave him quite a long… respite,” Amelia assured her, experiencing a most unnerving wave of remembered heat through her body. This might be the best time to inform her aunt that there was no longer any possibility of a marriage between her and Verwood, she decided stubbornly. “Aunt Trudy, I think I must tell you—”

A loud knock at the front door electrified the phlegmatic Trudy into action. “We’ll speak later, my dear,” she said, tripping down the stairs. “That will be Mr. Upham come to call on me.” And she disappeared around the bend in the steps before Amelia could utter another word.

All to the good, Amelia decided as she made her way to her room. Trudy would have nothing but disapproval for her rejection of Verwood’s offer, and wasn’t likely to understand the reason for it, since she was convinced that Amelia held an affection for the viscount. And that was indisputably true. Amelia had been almost too impatient, waiting for Verwood to join her in the Summer Parlor, to open her friend’s letter at first. But as the time lengthened, she used it as a distraction, assuming her brother was delaying the viscount with his good wishes. She had been unable to believe her eyes when she came upon the incriminating sentence, and read it over and over until it was engraved on her mind.

Her room felt stuffy from the heat and she crossed to throw open a window, letting the cool breeze waft against her now-flushed cheeks. From feeling drained and cold, she noticed she had become slightly feverish. How could he have so callously lied to her, allowed her to base her trust in him on an acknowledged untruth? She had wanted so badly to believe him, had prayed he would make the right answer. Her relief had been like a weight lifted from her heart.

A sham, all of it. Oh, he probably
was
Lord Verwood, Amelia couldn’t seem to think straight enough to decide if this was unlikely. She crossed the room to pour water from the pitcher into the basin and dipped her handkerchief in it and bathed her wrists. Then she lay down on her bed and put the cloth on her forehead, which had started to ache abominably. This brought very little comfort, though, since she was unable to stop the thoughts that raged through her mind. Eventually, out of sheer exhaustion from the emotional swings of the day, she fell asleep.

It was late afternoon by the time she woke. Cooler air was creeping through the open window, chilling her where she lay uncovered on the bed. Her stomach was also rumbling in protest against not being fed for so long, and she grimaced as she sat up and the clammy handkerchief dropped into her lap. The case clock on her mantel indicated it was still an hour until dinner, but she decided to dress now and go down to the drawing room ahead of time. Bridget came immediately when she rang, looking concerned.

“They sent me to look in on you when you didn’t come for luncheon,” she said. “We were all that worried. But you were sleeping peaceful as a babe. Are you feeling all right?”

“Fine. I’ll dress now for dinner. When we’re finished, have the kitchen send a bowl of fruit to the drawing room, please.” As Bridget helped her out of her walking dress, Amelia tried not to think of Verwood’s hands ranging over her bosom that morning. She was reminded, however, that she’d lost quite a few hours, which might have been important ones. “Has anyone left or come?” she asked.

“Mr. Upham called. That’s all I know of.”

“No one came for Lord Verwood? A servant, perhaps?” Bridget shrugged her gaunt shoulders. “If one did, I never heard of it.”

“Did his lordship go out riding?”

“Mercy, Lady Amelia, I can’t be watching what all the guests do. If you’d told me you wanted me to, I’d have made it my business, of course. Far as I know, he stayed in the house all afternoon, but he could just as easy have gone out. I was mending with Mrs. Lawson in the sewing room, and pressing your dress for this evening. Shall I ask round?”

“Heavens, no! It was just idle curiosity. Ordinarily I would have seen to his entertainment. That will be fine, Bridget. If you’d just see to the bowl of fruit…”

Amelia walked rather nervously into the drawing room a few minutes later, assuming (hoping) that Verwood would not yet be there, or that if he were, there would also be someone else. Again she was out in her luck. He was there, alone, and he looked as though he’d been waiting for her. He was already in evening dress, his black locks still damp, either from a bath or from an attempt to coax them into some manageable style. His hair looked ridiculous to her, she was so used to its endearing disarray. If it had been any other time, she might have teased him about it.

“Are you well?” he asked, not moving toward her.

“Quite well,” she said, though actually she did continue to feel a little weak and feverish.

“And are you still determined against me?”

The pain in his expression she found unbearable. But he had caused her a great deal of pain, too. The best she could manage, in all fairness, was, “I haven’t found any reason to change my mind.”

Bighton entered the drawing room bearing an enormous silver bowl filled with fruit, which he set on the spider-leg table nearest her. “I trust you’re feeling better, Lady Amelia,” he said.

“Yes, thank you, Bighton. Starved, though. I appreciate your bringing the fruit.” She helped herself to an apple as he left. When the door had closed again, she turned to Verwood. “Has your man returned from following Chartier?”

“Not yet.” He raked fingers through his hair until it looked quite normal again. “I thought about what you said, Amelia, and I can understand your disappointment and annoyance, your feeling of betrayal. And I realize it’s asking a great deal of you to put your trust in me again, but I wish you could. Isn’t there some way I can persuade you?”

Amelia was silent for what seemed a long time. When she finally spoke, it was to ask, “When your man returns and tells you where Chartier is, what do you intend to do?”

Verwood sighed, frustrated that she wouldn’t respond to him. “If he’s back in this area, I suppose I will go to him, try to catch him in the act of climbing into a boat. That would be evidence enough to press him for some explanation. Perhaps Peter could bring a little pressure to bear on Mlle. Chartier.”

“Would you let me come with you?” It was not an idle question, nor one to which she expected an immediate negative. This was her answer to his question “Isn’t there some way I can persuade you?” She made this perfectly clear by the steady way she returned his gaze, the defiant tilt to her chin.

“Dammit, Amelia, it could be dangerous. If he’s planning to use one of the smuggling boats to get to France, there are going to be men there who don’t want to be seen by someone like me... or you. You can’t really expect me to take the woman I love into a situation like that! It will be dark in all likelihood and we’ll have to be careful to catch them off guard. Be reasonable.”

Amelia was not feeling much like being reasonable. She took a hard bite out of the apple, chewed it thoughtfully and said, “I want to come with you.”

“I can’t allow it.” He made a helpless gesture with one long hand. “Not even to earn your trust. Can’t you see that? What kind of man would I be to endanger your life just so I could win you? It’s not a reasonable request. How would I ever forgive myself if something happened to you?”