The Belligerent Miss Boynton AND The Lurid Lady Lockport (Two Companion Full-Length Regency Novels) (13 page)

Amanda sat bolt upright, every nerve end tingling and her heart beating wildly in her chest as she tried to gain control of her sleep-muddled mind. She shook her head to clear it and turned to see Lady Chezwick in the process of throwing back the draperies so that the last rays of the setting sun hit Amanda squarely in the face.

"Come, come, my dear, rise and shine. There will be plenty of time for lying abed after the ceremony. Oh, dear, wasn't that naughty of me! Never mind the risque prattlings of an old woman. You must help me go through these boxes now, to choose a suitable gown. Pray heaven you chose your own ensembles, for if that fool Denton had a hand in the business they will all have to be discarded. Never did care a rap for that odious man." She stopped in the center of the room and tapped her small foot in exasperation. "Well? Didn't you hear me, child? You must get up!"

Ceremony? Gowns? What ceremony? Whose gowns? Surely this was no more than a dream. Amanda pinched her upper arm, just to prove that she was really asleep. "Ouch! That hurt!" So much for that hopeful thought. She wasn't dreaming at all—she was very much awake. She heard a knock at the door and turned to see a footman bringing some battered portmanteaus into the room. Amanda blinked twice, then rubbed at her eyes before recognizing the bits of baggage. They were
hers
! How on earth had they come to be here?

Amanda was not to be given time to solve that particular puzzle, for Lady Chezwick had had already opened one trunk and was ruthlessly judging and discarding gowns. She dove into one box until it seemed she might disappear entirely before a triumphant "Aha!" issued from its depths as she surfaced once more, flushed and smiling, holding a white silk gown expressly purchased for Amanda's appearance at Almacks.

It was also far and away Amanda's favorite gown, a deceptively simple creation that molded to her figure and whispered when she walked. A further dive into the box produced a pair of white satin slippers and a soft white lace shawl that Lady Chezwick held up, and then eyed with a speculative gleam.

"These will do nicely. Obviously Denton had the good sense to allow you to choose your own ensembles—although he must have played a part in that horror you wore to Almacks. Brick stupid, that's Peregrine Denton, and so I have always said. But you have exceptionally fine taste, my dear. All the gowns are quite pretty, but this one is perfect for the ceremony."

Amanda ripped back her covers and placed her bare feet on the floor. As she felt the cold on her soles she shivered in reaction, convinced she was definitely awake. "If you please, Lady Chezwick, I would ask that —"

"Aunt Agatha, my dear, please. I see no sense in standing on formalities now that we are all going to be family, do you? And just when I had about abandoned all hope. We'll have to get Higgins to do something with your hair—you do have quite a prodigious amount of it, don't you? But never mind, we will contrive. Higgins is monstrously talented, you know."

Amanda held up her hands in the vain hope of applying the brakes to Lady Agatha Chezwick's runaway tongue. "Please! Lady Chez—er, Aunt Agatha—would you be so kind as to tell me what's going on? I am all at sea."

Lady Chezwick looked at her quite blankly for a moment and then smiled. "Oh, my—I've been so caught up in the preparations for the wedding—Jared is such an impatient groom—I quite forgot the bride still doesn't know she is indeed to be a bride. Oh, I'm sorry, Amanda—and I will call you Amanda, it's such a lovely name—but then you are a lovely girl. Ah, my sister would have been so happy. In fact I'm certain she knows and is looking down right now and smiling at us. Not Carlton though. No, Carlton will be looking down and frowning, or should I say looking
up
, for I'm quite convinced he's not—"

"Lady Chezwick!
Please
!"

"What? Oh, I'm sorry again, my dear. You must stop me, as I do get carried off on waves of enthusiasm sometimes. Besides which, Jared vows I'm an incurable chatterbox. Why only the other day at Lady Flemington's—"

Amanda was caught between an urge to laugh at this adorable old woman and an equally strong impulse to shake her until her teeth rattled. "Aunt Agatha! I warn you, I'm going to have a fit of the vapors—I've never had one before, but I'm quite sure I'm teetering on the verge right now—if you don't tell me this minute just why my boxes are here and what
ceremony
you're talking about."

"Very well, no need to shout, my dear," Lady Chezwick scolded. "Why, I mean your marriage to my nephew, of course. Didn't you know that? I should have felt sure you'd guessed by now. He has compromised you—the naughty boy—so of course you two must marry. We have less than an hour to prepare. I had thought we could easily wait until tomorrow, but—why, my dear, you look positively
dreadful
! Here, sit down while I call Higgins. You
are
going to have the vapors," she cried accusingly, "and you promised you wouldn't if I told you about the ceremony."

Lady Chezwick helped the stunned girl to the bed, and as Amanda collapsed on it in a daze, Lady Chezwick ran to the doorway and called loudly for Higgins. As her maid was waiting directly outside, hoping to hear every bit of delicious gossip she could in anticipation of becoming the center of all attention at the servant's dining table that night, the woman's ears were ringing slightly as she listened to Lady Chezwick's instructions concerning the smelling salts deemed necessary to revive the swooning girl.

Amanda had not fainted, however. Only to herself did she admit that she had certainly come close but, although the desire to sink into oblivion was enticing, she knew she had to keep her wits about her.

While the frenzied search for smelling salts continued, Amanda sat up and announced her recovery. Inwardly shaking with rage, or relief—she wasn't sure which—she asked for an explanation of Jared's decision to have an immediate marriage ceremony.

"It's really quite simple, my dear girl, and just as I've already said. My nephew has compromised you. Not only did he travel with you unaccompanied across half of England, but you were seen in his company by no less than twenty members of the
ton
at that horrid inn. There is no question, then, that you should marry as quickly as possible. Jared has procured a Special License, and the clergy will be arriving at any moment. Now, no more dawdling."

Amanda had no idea what a Special License was, or that Jared would have had to purchase one before leaving London. All she knew was that Jared was somehow being forced to marry her.

The fact that he had sent for her gowns didn't surprise her, once she'd considered the thing. Obviously he had planned from the outset to bring her eventually to Storm Haven. After all, even a mistress must have clothes. That Denton would have agreed to send them along just proved his threat that he would sell her to the highest bidder.

But nowhere in her mind could she explain Aunt Agatha. It was obviously she who had insisted upon the wedding, so why had Jared sent for her? Amanda decided to ask the woman in question.

"I'm here at Jared's request, as you know," she answered honestly. "My nephew told me you had to go into the country to rescue a horse or some such thing. I must admit I didn't devote too much attention to that part of his story—something to do with tempests in a teapot or something—and old men and a beggar, I believe. I did like the part about the knife, though. That was very good." Lady Chezwick saw Amanda's face coloring and hastened to tell her all that she knew.

"My nephew told me as we drove home from Almacks that he planned to marry you. He just wanted a little frolic first, I suppose. I imagine he has me here to stop the wagging tongues that would say you had eloped. As far as London knows, so Jared tells me, we three left London together and came directly to Storm Haven for the ceremony. The night at the inn will soon be forgotten, as not too many people saw you and none knew your name. Why, my dear girl, whatever did I say to upset you so? You look positively incensed!"

Amanda was pacing the floor furiously. "I see it all now! The rotter! He planned to marry me from the very first! He let me go through the past days in constant fear, threatening me with Harrow and Tom, compromising me at a public inn, frightening me out of my wits by suggesting that I would become a scarlet woman. And all of it to
amuse
himself at my expense. He has been laughing up his sleeve at me all along! I ran away in all seriousness, but to him it was all just a joke—an excuse for a...
a little frolic
! And
then
he tells his aunt what happened with the knife? Oh, how foul. Am I to have no privacy?"

She wheeled about to point a finger at Lady Chezwick. "Did he delight in telling you how he almost ravished me last night at a public inn? Of course he did, for how else would you know about the knife? And now he wants to
marry
me? Ha! The devil he will!" she ended, starting in to pace once more. "Isn't it a bit late for him to be thinking of the proprieties?"

Lady Chezwick rubbed her aching neck, for the girl moved so fast it was becoming increasingly hard to follow her—either in her pacing or in understanding what the girl was talking about. Jared had very romantically rescued her from her stepfather and was prepared to marry her. What could possibly be wrong in that?
Ravish
her? Jared had made no mention of any ravishment. The poor girl was plainly hysterical.

"Marry him! Never!" Amanda lunged at the lovely white gown and, bundling it into a ball, hurled it to the floor and ground her bare heel on it. "I wouldn't marry Jared Delaney if he were Prinney himself!"

Now it was Lady Chezwick's turn to swoon, and she accomplished her graceful collapse with the ease of long practice. When she roused, it was to the smell of burnt feathers Higgins was waving beneath her nose and the sight of Amanda hurriedly dressing in a dark green riding habit that had been pulled from one of the cases. Higgins helped support the old woman into a sitting position as she gasped out, "Where—where are you going?"

Amanda jammed a green feathered riding hat down on her dark curls. "Anywhere!" she shrieked. "Nowhere! Just as long as it's away from here! You're all quite mad, you know."

Lady Chezwick struggled to her feet. "Wait, Amanda! You don't understand. Jared wants to marry you. He has
always
wanted to marry you! He just wanted to have a little lark in the country for a few days, that's all. And you were about to run away from your stepfather, weren't you—that very night? He had no time to approach Denton to ask for your hand. Jared was smitten with you as soon as he met you, I swear he was."

Amanda stopped in her tracks. Lady Chezwick had twice said that Jared had planned to marry her all along. Her lips curled into a slight smile as she remembered some of the lighter moments of their journey, and his kindnesses to Harrow and Tom. His intention to wed her would even explain Harrow's indifference to her plight, as Jared had doubtless confided in her old friend.

She walked to the mirror and adjusted the tilt of her hat. She studied her reflection and watched her color rise as she remembered Jared's kisses and his muttered, "Not here. Not now." Was he waiting for their vows to be exchanged before he possessed her, made her his own? She admitted to herself that, while part of her recoiled from becoming Lord Storm's mistress, another alien part of her trembled in heady anticipation of that possession.

But marriage? That was beyond her expectations. She could be Lady Storm, wife of one of the wealthiest, most handsome—and, at the bottom of it,
sweetest
men in all of England. Her mind whirled as she pictured Jared by her side and small children gathered around her feet. Jared's children.

Would it really be so terrible, being bracketed to this man who upset her so—excited her so? After all, Jared had never intended to ravish her. He had assumed all along that they would marry. She brought herself up short in the midst of forgiving him.
Assumed
? That was it. That's what rankled. He had been playing with her all along, amusing himself at her expense, and then he hadn't even bothered to ask her for her hand—he had only sent his aunt upstairs to dress her and inform her of the time of the ceremony.

The
arrogance
of the man! He was insufferable! Her chest rose and fell rapidly in her agitation as she considered the character of the man who had picked her for his bride. It was as if he had looked over all the nags at Tattersall's, and when a filly had taken his fancy he had taken her for a run in the country to see if she were saddle worthy. Well, she was no sweet-going filly, and she'd be damned if she'd be a brood mare either! How dare he assume all he had to do was crook his finger and she'd fall on his neck in gratitude, thankful that he was saving her reputation. She was right to leave—and had no other choice. Not really.

Amanda snatched up her riding gloves from the vanity and left the room—to have Lady Chezwick call out frantically: "Summon my nephew at once, Higgins. If she gets away Jared will have both our skins!"

Amanda tore down the hallway, hesitating for only a moment to get her bearings, then headed for the staircase, and freedom. Halfway down the stairs she slowed her steps and cast a quick look over her shoulder to see if anyone was in pursuit. There was nobody in the hallway. Poor Lady Chezwick must have taken refuge in another faint, and Higgins was fully occupied taking care of her.

She felt sorry for the old woman, and even for Higgins, but she had to get away. She descended the remainder of the stairs on tiptoe, just as she had the night she'd fled her stepfather's house, and crept stealthily toward the door, and escape.

Her hand was on the latch when Jared spoke from somewhere behind her. "That's a devilishly fetching riding habit, Amanda, but I fear you've no time for a ride before dinner." As he spoke, Jared approached her and placed a hand under her elbow. "I'm sure you'd rather return to your rooms and dress for the evening meal, as I am assured it will be delicious."