Amelia reached absently to touch the silky tresses, but her fingers felt nerveless and she couldn’t seem to find the pins. She gave a helpless shrug and stood expectantly before him. Verwood searched through the shimmering locks, discovering only two pins. “Perhaps some of them have fallen out,” he suggested, crouching to look about them on the stone pavement.
The sunlight gleamed back from one of them and Amelia crouched down beside him to pick it up. But his face was so close, his lips looking so very inviting, that she bent forward to kiss him, and the next thing she knew, they were both sitting on the sun-baked stone, their arms once more around each other. His face was lost in her hair, the whisper of his breath against her forehead. Amelia found her hands were under this jacket, massaging his back through the crisp linen of his shirt. So easily did the simple touch rekindle heat in her body. His hand came to remove the shawl she wore and to caress the bare skin at her throat, sending a tremor down the length of her.
Don’t stop now, she pleaded silently. Don’t let this thrilling sense of imminent ecstasy fade out to nothing. She bent her head to kiss his wrist, and his thumb played softly over the rapid pulse in her throat. There was a handbreadth of bare skin from her throat to the sleeves of her walking dress and he brought his fingers to either side to gently knead the exposed flesh. The repetitious stroking made her breasts so close below ache for the same touch. They felt swollen to the point they would burst from her gown, straining against the material, too tightly enclosed to allow for their expansion.
He raised his head from her hair and stared directly into her hazy eyes, as though asking a question. Amelia smiled tremulously and nodded. He shifted her slightly in his arms until she was half-leaning against his chest and could feel the steady thumping of his heart, less erratic than her own. His lips touched hers, brushed against them, butterfly-soft, and his hands... They cupped her full, aching breasts with warm reassurance, remaining motionless there for several minutes as their lips merged in a sultry dance of heightening pleasure.
Then, slowly, slowly his thumbs began to move, almost as though he didn’t even will them to. Through the thin cotton material she could feel them circling, swirling, confidently closing in toward the very tips of her breasts. Even under the cloth her nipples tingled to the pressure, stiffened to a solid knot of desire. Now every devouring flame seemed to be concentrated at three amazing points on her body, two of them in direct touch with him.
She opened her eyes to regain some sense of where she was, to place herself in his strong arms, to see the expression on his face. He was looking at her, his lips slightly parted, about to kiss her again. The unruly black hair and the bristling black brows over the enraptured dark eyes made her heart hammer with love. How very tender he was, this ordinarily brusque man.
“Should I be ashamed of myself?” she asked timidly.
“Ashamed?” His eyes snapped. “Of course not! We’ve both exceeded some typical bounds of propriety, but I can’t see that will do the least harm. I don’t think either of us knew quite how... ardent you would be, Amelia, but I for one,” he said, smiling wryly at her, “am delighted.”
“Well, I had no idea how... nice you could be.” She rose to her feet and began to dust off her dress, not looking at him. “You’ve always been so gruff with me, or slightly mocking. You don’t suppose the kindness could be a lasting thing, do you?” she asked, hopeful.
He considered her dolefully. “I very much fear it may be, where you’re concerned, my dear.” After shaking out her shawl, he handed it to her, along with two pins for her hair. “Can you pin it up yourself? It’s not the sort of thing I’ve had any practice at.”
Obviously there were other things at which he’d had plenty of practice, Amelia reminded herself. But that was only to be expected, and was undoubtedly to her benefit. She poked the pins casually into her curls and allowed him to settle the bonnet carefully on her head. When he had tied the ribbons at a jaunty angle under her chin, he kissed the tip of her nose and asked, “Shall we do things in a more orderly fashion from now on, my love? Why don’t I speak to Peter first thing when we get back to Margrave?”
Amelia’s heart leapt in her bosom. He had called her “my love.” He really was going to offer for her! Her eyes shone with delight, but she lowered them demurely and said, “I’m sure I would wish you to do everything that’s proper.
He laughed, and squeezed her hand. “Just as you would,” he teased her as they wandered out of the castle ruins and back toward the house.
* * * *
Peter regarded Verwood with some anxiety. “You’re sure you’re not feeling pressured into this, Alexander? I told you the other night I didn’t regard your being here as in the light of a suitor.”
They were sitting in Peter’s study, in handsome leather chairs, with the window out onto the garden thrown open. Verwood stretched out his long legs, and when he spoke there was a trace of amusement in his voice. “The only thing that could pressure me into offering for your sister is my great affection for her, Peter. She’s taken me completely by storm. I’ve never met such a delightful, intelligent, exasperating young woman in my life. I don’t think I can live without her.”
“I see.” Peter leaned back in his chair, crossing his hands over his stomach. “Well, if you know she can be exasperating, you won’t be much surprised in her, I dare say. It isn’t everyone who would suit her, but I have a feeling the two of you will get on admirably... between your rows. Which is just as Amelia would have it, I think. She’s a darling most of the time, headstrong occasionally, and downright feisty when pushed. Do you think she shares your affection? She swears she won’t marry without it.”
“Oh, I believe she shares it. We haven’t actually come straight out and discussed that, you understand. But I did tell her I was going to speak with you.” The viscount tapped one restless finger against the arm of his chair. “I suppose she will want to be married here, quietly, but if she prefers London, I’m not averse to that. If I can convince her, I’d prefer it be within the month. Once these things are decided, I can’t see any reason for delay.” He frowned across at his host. “You haven’t made an offer yet to Mlle. Chartier, have you?”
“No, I’m not as precipitate as you.” Peter laughed. But he grew instantly serious. “Actually, it’s a matter of letting her get to know me a little better. I can’t say your concern about her brother has made me one jot less determined to marry her, though. She’s too young and too artless to be involved with spying, I’d stake my life on it. I know Amelia has helped me in the past; that doesn’t mean Veronique is at all suited to the same sort of endeavor.”
He shrugged. “I can’t say I’d like having a French spy for a brother-in-law, but I wouldn’t be able to hold that against his sister. If you can possibly find out the truth about him, I’d appreciate your doing it soon. Exposing him as a spy should come before, rather than after, I ask Veronique to marry me.”
Verwood nodded his sympathy. If indeed Chartier was a spy, and they were able to prove it, Veronique could well hold a lasting aversion to the earl, which had nothing to do with her obvious affection for him. There was no saying that she would marry him under those circumstances; indeed, it seemed unlikely. “Your man hasn’t returned yet. I promise I’ll let you know as soon as he does. Even then all we may know is that Chartier’s gone to France on a smuggler’s boat.”
“I realize that.”
The two men sat in silence for a while. Verwood finally rose and placed an encouraging hand on Peter’s shoulder.
“Things most often work out for the best.”
“Thanks. Good luck with Amelia.”
It was Verwood’s natural assumption that there would be no question of luck about it. He felt certain Amelia shared his feelings and that she would be as eager as he to set a date for their marriage in the near future. When he and Amelia had gotten back to Margrave, she had been handed a letter, which she took absently, then noted that it was from a friend. “Oh, goo
d, it’s from Clarissa. I shall take it to the Summer Parlor to read.”
Now there was little trace of Verwood’s limp as he strolled confidently through the Blue Drawing Room to the door at its farthest end. If he wouldn’t for a moment have believed two months ago that he would now be about to propose marriage to this intriguing young lady, well, any number of things happened in one’s life that surprised one. He hadn’t as yet given a great deal of thought to his future with Amelia—where they would spend their wedding trip, whether they would live in London or at his seat in Derbyshire. Those were questions for the two of them to decide together, after all. But he was impatient to discuss them, to know that they really would be planning how they would spend their lives together.
The door to the Summer Parlor stood partially open and he pushed it the rest of the way with an eager hand. She sat at a small table, her friend’s letter open in front of her, but she was not looking at it. Instead she was staring off at nothing in particular, a strange expression on her pale face.
“Amelia? Is there something wrong?” he demanded, hastening to her side. “Have you had bad news?”
She refused to allow him to take her hand, but stared stonily up at him. “You lied to me,” she said.
Chapter 19
Verwood searched through his love-clouded brain for a time when he had lied to her. Somewhere the nagging thought came to him that he had, about something a little more serious than the limp, but he was at a loss to put his finger on it. “It was probably just an exaggeration,” he suggested, trying once again to take her hand.
This she would not allow, clenching her hands tightly on the table on top of her friend’s letter. “It was not an exaggeration,” she insisted.
“Perhaps you will refresh my memory of the occasion. I certainly wouldn’t lie to you without provocation.”
“Yes, the greatest possible provocation, I’m sure.” Amelia drew forth the letter and read, “Colonel Lovell was much disappointed to hear that Lord Verwood had gone to Margrave without stopping in town to see him. He is much afraid he’ll be posted before his lordship returns, and won’t have any opportunity of discussing their army days together.” She slapped the letter down on the table and regarded him coldly. “You told me you had seen Colonel Lovell in London. You even professed to know of his new assignment with Sir John Moore.”
“Well, I did know of his assignment with Moore. I helped to arrange it for him through the War Department.”
“But you didn’t see him in town, or anywhere else.”
“No,” he admitted, running a hand through his disordered black locks.
“Then why did you tell me you had?”
“Because, my dear Amelia, it was your way of testing me. I could tell from the way you asked. God knows why anyone should ever have let the least bit of information slip to you; you were so utterly transparent. I knew if I said I had seen him, you would be satisfied that I was myself. Otherwise you were likely to continue your misguided cloak-and-dagger presumption that I wasn’t. It was the simplest way to prove myself; anything else would have taken an inordinate amount of time.”
He smiled confidently and reached out to place a hand on her stiffened shoulder. “I didn’t want to waste any more time, my love. Given the circumstances, I’m sure you would have done the same.”
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.”
The Ardent Lady Amelia Page 20