The Ardent Lady Amelia (3 page)

“But he can’t do that!” she had insisted, her cheeks flushed, tears welling in her eyes. “What will become of them?”

“They’ll be all right,” he replied, squeezing her cold hands. “He wouldn’t dare treat them badly, Amelia. It’s just a gesture of revenge. The government will have them released within a few days. You can be sure of it.”

Peter was wrong — not about the treatment, but about the release of their parents. The interned British travelers were still in France now, four years later. Most of them. Peter had worked diligently to have his parents freed, and had finally managed, because of their aristocratic standing, to purchase their freedom.

But the actual exchange had come too late. Unaccustomed to the straitened living conditions, Lady Welsford had contracted an illness which had eventually killed her, with her husband, weakened from his grief and the long hours of caring for her, soon following. Their bodies were returned to England and buried in the family crypt at Margrave in the spring of 1804 on the day Amelia turned eighteen, almost nine months after her last sight of them.

It had been possible for some of the interned British to escape, but at great struggling with their souls, for the French had exacted a vow from them not to escape, in return for decent living conditions. The earl had felt bound by his word, refusing the assistance Peter sent clandestinely before he arranged for a legal freedom. Amelia frequently wondered how her father must have felt when his wife died, the agony of knowing they might have been safely in England by then. Not that she blamed him. If he had given his word, he would keep it. She blamed Napoleon and the French for the whole tragic situation. And she went on blaming them, year after year, doing the only thing she could to help bring about the downfall of the savage who ruled that country.

Her rage had calmed into a more manageable anger. When her worst fears were realized, she found a new strength in herself to cope with the grief, a new outlet through Peter’s work with the War Department for her burning desire to have some part in the effort to displace Napoleon. Her exasperation with her own government’s lack of wisdom in prosecuting the war was frequently as strong as her indignation with the French.

But Peter, for all his elegance and sophistication, had learned a great deal during his attempts to secure his parents’ release, and he used his knowledge now to best effect. There was little chance, at this point, of an invasion. Those fears were gradually dying, but there were other rumors abroad which could prove beneficial to the cause, and Amelia had no intention of letting them pass her by without some effort to latch on to them.

So this new attitude of Peter’s was upsetting. Not only was he trying to exclude her from some chance to be useful, he was threatening to banish her from life in London. Since their parents’ deaths, they had spent most of their time in the city, unable to tolerate for long the unhappy associations at Margrave. Two months in the summer and two in the winter were ordinarily the total of their year’s stay in Sussex.

Amelia was ready to spend more time there, but not now, when the season was in progress, bringing with it the best possible time for uncovering something of interest. If Peter had planned to go there himself, she would have been willing to go along as his hostess, she supposed, but he had no intention of going anywhere with her. His aim was apparently her exile.

Amelia couldn’t conceive why her brother had so suddenly taken the perverse notion into his head that she was in some danger. She made a face at herself in the mirror and set the silver-backed hairbrush carefully on the mahogany dressing table. Lord Verwood certainly had not evinced the slightest interest in her honey-colored hair or her violet eyes or her aristocratic nose! Her brow puckered in thought. But he had shown some interest in the fact that she and her aunt weren’t going to be out of town. Now, why would he even think of such a thing? Peter had only brought it up this evening, for heaven’s sake. It was possible, barely, that Peter had mentioned his intention of sending his sister out of town to Lord Verwood on some previous occasion — but why? So far as Amelia knew, Peter was only recently acquainted with his lordship, who had not even been introduced to her until this evening. It seemed unlikely her name would have arisen in a discussion between the two men at all.

The more Amelia thought about the matter, the more convinced she became that it was quite the other way around. For some reason which she could not begin to imagine, Lord Verwood had been the one to suggest to Peter that she be sent out of town. The concept held a ring of truth to her, though she couldn’t put her finger on any reason why it should. Verwood was an army man — she would have sworn to it. One became familiar with the mannerisms, with the stiff bearing, with the preoccupation such gentlemen exhibited.

Amelia stood up and began to pace around the room again, taking no notice of anything but her thoughts.

Several possibilities occurred to her. The first was that Lord Verwood was not what he proclaimed himself. That he was a villain intent on duping her brother in some way. Though this seemed unlikely, it had a certain appeal to her, since she felt decidedly offended with the gentleman. If he were the cause of this breach between her brother and herself, he might very well be up to no good.

On the other hand, Peter was rather a shrewd judge of character, constantly on the lookout for imposters. Which didn’t necessarily make Lord Verwood an acceptable acquaintance. Peter might be using him for his own purposes.

What seemed more likely was that the two of them were working together. That wouldn’t have surprised Amelia in the least. Peter never gave her much of a clue as to what he was up to. If there were some danger involved in his current work, he might want her out of town to be on the safe side. Well, it wasn’t likely she would leave town if Peter was in some kind of predicament! But knowing that, he might very well have schemed to get her to leave on her own account.

Amelia’s head was beginning to whirl with the possibilities. The fire in the grate had burned low, casting a reddish glow in the dimly lit roam. From a distance she heard the closing of a door and guessed, from the dull thud, that it was the heavy oak front entry. She padded across to the window that overlooked the street and twitched back the draperies a few inches.

A man stood on the stoop, carelessly adjusting the curly-brimmed beaver to an unfashionable angle before stuffing his hands in his pockets. Certainly not Peter! No gentleman with any pretensions to distinction distorted his coat with balled hands in his pockets, even when it was cold out and he didn’t have a pair of gloves with him.

Surely Lord Verwood had worn a pair of gloves, even for a casual evening call on Peter. Actually, Amelia could see them hanging precariously from his pocket as he stepped down onto the pavement and stomped along Grosvenor Square, his limp less apparent from this height. What an odd sort of man he was! Not even a carriage waiting for him. Though South Street wasn’t that far away, it was a particularly chilly evening. with the constant threat of rain clearly proclaimed in the heavy skies.

Amelia dropped the draperies back into place when he had disappeared from sight. There seemed no time like the present, since she was fully awake and still fully clothed, to approach Peter with the mystery Lord Verwood presented. She could hear his familiar tread on the stairs and hastened to open her door. “Peter? I’d like to have a word with you before you go to bed,” she whispered across the echoing hall.

Her voice had startled him, and the candleholder in his hand jerked slightly, illuminating a worried frown on his handsome features which he immediately dispersed with a brief smile. “Still up, Amelia? I thought you’d have been asleep hours ago.

Leaving the door open, Amelia retreated into her room, waiting for him to follow. She took a seat in one of the two chairs at the far end used as a sitting area. Peter followed more slowly, lowering himself almost reluctantly onto the seat and placing the brass candleholder on the small oval table between them. The light it cast did not greatly brighten the large room which ran across half the house front. Peter looked tired in its feeble light.

“Are you exhausted?” Amelia asked, concerned. “Did that ridiculous man upset you?”

His head came up abruptly. “Ridiculous man? Do you mean Verwood?”

“Who else? I’d have a care of him if I were you, Peter.”

“I haven’t the first idea what you’re talking about. There’s nothing even faintly ridiculous about Verwood, for God’s sakes. Where did you get that idea?”

Amelia smiled and shook her head. “Oh, you wouldn’t notice, Peter. He looks as though he raided someone’s wardrobe from ten years ago, and his manners could stand a great deal of improvement. Most of your friends are more amiable.”

His shoulders lifted in an elaborate shrug. “He’s not much concerned with making an impression, I suppose, but there’s nothing about him to cause concern.”

“Tell me about him,” Amelia urged, tucking her feet up under her. “Where did you meet him?”

Peter made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “At one of the clubs, I imagine. There’s nothing of importance to know about him. What we really ought to talk about, my dear, is you. I can see I’m not going to get Trudy to leave town during the season, but at the very least I want you to stop doing anything other than being the charming young society belle. It wasn’t wise of me to let you get involved in this cloak-and-dagger stuff, and I want you to accept my decree on the matter. With the change in government last month, things are a little tricky at best. Anything you did might be misconstrued, and I can’t take a chance of that happening.”

“He put you up to this, didn’t he?” Amelia demanded, her voice bitter. “There’s so little I can do, and your mysterious Lord Verwood wants to have me out of the picture entirely, doesn’t he?”

“Who said Verwood had anything to do with this? Don’t be a gudgeon, Amelia. I’m only thinking of our own good. Enjoy yourself. It’s time you started thinking about marriage, though I hate to sound like Trudy on the subject. You’ve been too wrought-up about the French threat and French injustices to give much consideration to your own life. Mother would have expected me to help you find some sort of respectable match. No, don’t glare at me that way. I haven’t any intention of pushing you into something you don’t want, but if you don’t consider the possibility soon, you’re going to find yourself left behind, my girl. Haven’t you formed the slightest tendre for one of those exquisite gallants who are forever squiring you and Trudy about?”

“Certainly not! Do you take me for an idiot? There’s not a one of them who understands the first thing about politics or the war. You could put their brains in a peapod and they’d rattle around. Do you think I’d be content with some fop who only knows how to steal polite conversation from last night’s dinner party? You wouldn’t believe how inane some of them are, Peter. On Friday you get a rehash of the more brilliant gems dropped by their friends on Thursday, and sometimes you wonder if they even understand them. Or they talk about wagers on sporting events, or their rotten luck at the gaming tables.”

“They can’t all be that bad.” Peter laughed and then leaned toward her with an earnest expression. “You’re not really looking, Amy. And that’s because you’ve been so caught up in this little game of ours. I don’t want to see you waste your life. Heaven knows how long this painful war will last, and if you wait until it’s resolved to find yourself a husband, you could be an old lady. Mother would have wanted you to marry and have a family of your own. That’s not such a bad prospect, is it? There’s very little you can’t do when you’re married that you can when you aren’t. In fact, I should think there were quite a few more things you
could
do.”

“Oh, I intend to marry one day,” she replied wearily, “though I think it’s a great pity that’s all one gets to do with one’s life.”

He raised a quizzical brow at her. “What sort of thing do you have in mind?”

“I’d like to run the government, I think. Something on that order. Being a soldier is too brutal, and being in trade would be too tame. But running the country would be just the thing to satisfy my impulses to see that things are done right, don’t you think?” she asked, grinning at him.

“Just so. Well, we’ll look for a gentleman of a political disposition for you, then. You can influence him in your own inimitable way.”

“Hardly the same thing as running the government myself,” Amelia retorted with a sniff.

Peter smiled and rose from his chair, giving her shoulder a pat before he picked up the candleholder. “I wouldn’t put that past you either, my dear,” he murmured. “Sleep well.”

Only when he had gone did Amelia realize how little information he’d given her on Lord Verwood. Well, she was perfectly capable of finding out a few things herself. And Peter had undoubtedly overlooked the fact that she hadn’t
promised
not to continue her former activities. There was so
little she could actually do. Peter could ride off on the spur of the moment, accountable to no one but himself, while she was forced to sit at home drinking tea and making polite conversation with the most incredible dullards.

As she undressed for the night, she wished she hadn’t sent Bridget to bed already, and then grimaced at her own readiness to rely on all the trappings of luxury she encountered every day. When Peter went off on one of his missions, he didn’t take his valet and a portmanteau full of starched cravats. He was apparently as at home in a fisherman’s hovel on the coast as he was in the house in Grosvenor Square, when the situation required it.

Amelia doubted her own ability to be so
flexible and crawled into bed without using the warming pan, just to toughen herself. But the sheets were frightfully cold and she bounced back out of the four-poster bed to retrieve the warming pan. So much for her noble experiment, she thought ruefully as she finally lay down in the warm bed. She fell asleep only slightly chastened.

Chapter 3