Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

“ I come bearing refreshment!” a merry voice called above the din of the Assembly Rooms. “Amelia? Amelia, where are you? I could have sworn this was where I saw her. Amelia?”

Realizing that it was safe, Amelia emerged from behind the marble pillar where she had been attempting to read her book, Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe. Indeed, she had been trying to read it for months, but every time her brother caught her, he snatched the book away, hid it somewhere, and informed her that she should be engaging in more ladylike pursuits.

She had only just found the book again after Martin’s last confiscation, and she had supposed that the ball would be the ideal place to finally luxuriate in some uninterrupted reading.

“There you are! I knew I had not imagined you standing here,” Valery, one of Amelia’s dearest friends, said with a smile. “Oh… goodness, I have disrupted your library time.”

“Not at all. I had just finished a chapter.” Amelia smiled back shyly, stuffing the book into the large, deep pocket that she had sewn into the skirt of her gown.

She did the same with all of her dresses and gowns, having learned over the years that she could not be too careful when it came to needing somewhere immediate to hide things. And also somewhere to conceal embroidery and needles, so she could pretend she had been undertaking more ‘acceptable’ pursuits.

“I could stand guard, if you like?” Valery offered, handing a glass of lemonade to Amelia. “I shall behave like a loyal hound, barking at anyone who dares to enter your private reading domain. Although… how do you concentrate with so much noise?”

Amelia hid a laugh behind her hand. “I have grown accustomed to it, I suppose. I can… make all other sounds fade away. I cannot explain it.”

“Well, it would send me into lunacy.” Valery raised her glass to her friend. “Let us toast to you finally finishing Moll Flanders .”

Amelia blushed and clinked her glass against Valery’s. “I fear it shall be a long time until I do, but I thank you anyway.”

She paused, looking out across the throng of beautiful ladies and handsome gentlemen, their mothers and fathers, brimming with anxiety at the mere sight of them all conversing and mingling with such ease. “Is Isolde coming tonight?”

“I saw her yesterday,” Valery replied, offering a look of apology. “I very much doubt she will be making an appearance. She is still rather poorly.”

Amelia took a sip of her drink. “I shall have to go and see her, but my brother… He is…”

“A mean old weasel who barely allows you to breathe without his say-so?” Valery offered.

Amelia dropped her chin to her chest, frowning into the cloudy liquid of her drink. “He does it to protect me. He is always so worried about my reputation, and I am sure that, one day, I will be grateful that he took such care to ensure nothing damaged it.”

“You do not believe that for a moment,” Valery replied, eyebrow raised. “He stifles you, Amelia. He?—”

Two figures approached, flashing white smiles, finely attired in tailcoats of dark green and claret red, respectively. They wore waistcoats and cravats in complementary shades, their hair neatly combed and oiled, and might have been handsome if it were not for the fact that all young gentlemen struck fear into the heart of Amelia.

“Ladies, what a pleasure it is to finally make your acquaintance,” the first gentleman said. “My friend and I noticed the pair of you from across the room, and could not rest until we learned your names and asked if there might be a place on your dance cards for us.”

Valery stepped out in front of Amelia. “Then you should have summoned the Master of Ceremonies to inform you of our names, instead of coming over here in such a mannerless fashion. How were you raised, I wonder, to believe that you can simply approach two ladies like this? By brutes and barbarians, perchance?”

The two gentlemen balked, staring at Valery as if she were some bizarre creature that they had accidentally happened upon.

“Yes, please do run along,” Valery said, wafting a hand. “You are interrupting our far superior conversation.”

The gentlemen turned and left in something of a hurry, while Valery smiled after them victoriously. It had become her purpose to chase off as many suitors as possible, in the hopes that her mother and father would eventually realize that she had no intention of marrying. Ever.

“You did not want to dance with either of them, did you?” Valery asked suddenly, her brow knitted in consternation, as if she had forgotten that others might want to entertain the idea of suitors.

Amelia shook her head effusively. “Heavens, no. I can think of nothing worse than having to dance in front of so many people. It is bad enough at smaller gatherings.”

“But you are a lovely dancer.”

“And you are a lovely fibber,” Amelia replied, taking a longer sip of the refreshing lemonade.

“Nonsense. You know I do not lie, least of all to my friends.” Valery bent her head, resting it on top of Amelia’s as they both gazed out at the crowd together.

It was the first true ball of the Season, with countless debutantes relishing in the excitement of the occasion, lapping up the attention of eager gentlemen. Amelia could not recall ever feeling excited on the night of her debut. In truth, it remained the most nerve-wracking, awful evening of her life.

“Oh, did you hear about the Earl of Westyork?” Valery asked abruptly, nudging Amelia in the ribs. “It is all anyone is talking about, but I do not imagine you heard any of it from behind that pillar.”

Amelia frowned, the name familiar. “Edmund’s friend?”

“The very same!” Valery nodded.

“What has he done? Is it something awful? Was it in the scandal sheets this morning? I did try to get hold of them before Martin burned them, but I was not swift enough.”

Valery laughed, waving her glass of lemonade toward the far side of the main ballroom, where a large group of gentlemen seemed to have gathered.

“Mercy, no—he has not done anything awful, although I suppose that depends on what you think about the institution of marriage.” She flashed a grin. “Honestly, I am surprised that any of these debutantes are bothering with anyone else tonight. If I were them, and I were inclined to marry, I would concentrate all my efforts upon him.”

Squinting in vague understanding, Amelia peered up at her friend. “I take it he is in want of a wife, then?”

“He is unashamedly in pursuit of a bride of convenience,” Valery whispered back. “It is supposed to be a secret, but it is more of an open one. Not that the mothers of society care about that; they will be in a rush to hurl their daughters into his path, whether he is capable of loving them or not.”

Tapping her foot on the sleek marble floor to aid her concentration, Amelia searched her mind for that title, the ‘Earl of Westyork.’ If memory served, he had been heralded in the papers as a war hero, some years ago, and had not left his pursuit of victory on the battlefields of the Continent. In the almost two years since those news stories, he had made a new name for himself as the wealthiest gentleman in the ton .

“But… is he not the hermit?” Amelia asked quietly, certain that her memory was not mistaken. “I thought he had not been seen by society in two years, accepting visits from only his friends. I am certain that is what Edmund alluded to.”

Valery shrugged. “When a gentleman is in want of a wife, he must crawl out of the rock beneath which he has been hiding. I am not interested, of course, but I am curious to see what the fellow looks like. These obscenely wealthy gentlemen are often compensating for their appearance, or so I have found.”

“Valery!” Amelia elbowed her friend lightly in the ribs. “You are wicked, sometimes.”

Valery laughed, gesturing again to the group of gentlemen. “But am I mistaken? We shall have to find out. My research into the courting habits of the male of the species demands it.”

She took hold of Amelia’s hand and, with a wink, pulled her away from her favored spot by the wall and led her through the tide of guests. Amelia kept her head down, staring mostly at her shoes, not wanting to draw any attention to herself. She would have attempted to protest against the entire thing, and tugged back on Valery’s hand, but she did not want to disappoint her friend.

“Do you see him?” a young lady whispered to someone.

“I think that must be him over there,” a different woman said.

“Why has he not been announced? What if he is not here at all?” muttered another.

Valery skirted them both around the dance floor and closer to the group of gentlemen—wallflowers in their own way, perhaps—who crowded the far side of the hall. There was an empty table, fortuitously placed, and Valery wasted no time nudging Amelia into one of the chairs while she took the other.

An irate older woman cast them a few nasty looks that brought a sudden heat to Amelia’s cheeks. She bowed her head and fidgeted with a teaspoon, mortified to have taken a seat from someone who might need it more than her.

“So, which one do you think he is?” Valery asked, peering at the group.

Amelia gave a small shrug. “I have not the faintest notion.”

“Amelia, you have to actually look ,” Valery urged.

Swallowing uncomfortably, her entire face now ablaze, Amelia discreetly glanced back over her shoulder. She skimmed her gaze across the congregation of gentlemen, but none stood out as Earls of exceptional wealth. In truth, she would have expected such a man to be crowing about his fortune, which would have made him easier to spot.

“I do not know, Valery,” she whispered, turning back.

“Well, I shall figure this out. I know I shall.” Valery made no attempt to hide what she was doing, staring outright at the gentlemen as if she were observing art at the London gallery.

Meanwhile, Amelia thought it wise to stare in the very opposite direction, but as she raised her gaze to that spot—choosing the corner of the room—she jumped a little.

A gentleman stood there in the shadow of a pillar, much like the one that Amelia had hidden behind earlier. He stood alone as if he had been tasked with guarding that particular corner, his arms behind his back, highlighting broad shoulders and excellent posture. His hair was dark and cut somewhat shorter than the fashion, while eyes of an indiscernible color squinted outward with something akin to judgment, creased like he was looking into the sun.

And those eyes, for a moment, fixed on Amelia. A cold stare that poured embarrassed fuel onto the fire of her already flushed cheeks, to the point where they were probably bright purple.

You gooseberry, Amelia! she scolded herself, for she knew better than to raise her gaze to anyone, accidentally or otherwise. She would not make the same mistake again, keeping her head bowed until Valery was finished trying to find an Earl in a stack of gentlemen.

But it was a different voice that brought her out of her quietude, a shadow falling across the table.

“ What are you doing, Sister?” Martin rasped out of the corner of his mouth, putting on the expression of someone who was just having a cordial conversation. “Why are you sitting down instead of dancing? You do not sit at a table with friends, Amelia. You sit at a table with family or not at all.”

Valery cast a sour smile in Martin’s direction. “A good evening to you too. It is my fault we are sitting—I have a sore ankle and needed to perch for a while.”

“Yes, well, you do often seem to be the cause of the problem,” Martin muttered, returning his cold attention to his sister. “I saw Lord Jesmond approach you. Did you put his name on your dance card?”

Amelia grimaced, shaking her head. “I did not.”

“Again, my fault,” Valery interjected. “I told that pair of halfwits that it was unseemly for them to bother your sister without the proper introductions. Perhaps, if you wanted her to dance with one of them, you should have been with her.”

Martin’s eyes flared with anger, and Amelia shrank beneath the ferocity of his glare, both grateful for her friend defending her and wishing she had not said anything. Martin did not like his own shortcomings to be exposed, and he liked Valery about as much as she liked him—which was to say, not at all.

He put his hand on the back of Amelia’s chair and bent closer. “I knew you would do this, Sister. I knew you would not be able to help bringing some manner of shame upon our family. Lord Jesmond had every right to ask you to dance, and now he will think you are haughty and disrespectful. That sort of rumor about your character will spread, you mark my words.” He sniffed. “But no matter.”

“Pardon?” Amelia blinked, confused by those three small words. Martin had never let her various ‘offenses’ go so easily before.

“It does not matter,” he repeated harshly, standing back to his full height, “because I have already found you a husband. Let us hope word of your rudeness has not yet reached him .”