The door to the drawing room crashed open and her dashing duke strode in, closely followed by his loyal butler, and grinned at the assembled crowd. ‘I am so glad that you could all make it tonight at such short notice.’ He looked devilishly handsome with his hair windswept and still wearing his greatcoat. ‘If I am not interrupting, I should be honoured to read something for once.’
‘Please do!’ shouted Sir George, even though the Potential was mid-poem. The poor girl simply closed her book and meekly sat down while Bennett produced a piece of crumpled paper and stood in the middle of the room. He had not even glanced at Amelia and the snub wounded.
‘Ladies and gentlemen—a year ago I wrote a book. It was intended as advice to titled gentlemen like myself on selecting their perfect bride.’
Next to him, Lovett raised a copy of The Discerning Gentleman’s Guide aloft so that everyone could see it and the Duke paused for effect. ‘I should like to extend my humblest apologies to you all for having foisted such a load of patronising drivel on the world. They were not my words. If you bought a copy, I will gladly give you your money back, and if you have a copy this is what I want you to do with it.’
The Duke nodded to the butler and the crowd watched in fascination as Lovett ceremoniously placed it onto a silver tray and then carried it sedately to the fireplace. Almost as if it were something quite offensive, Lovett picked up the book with the tips of his fingers and tossed it onto the flames. Amelia heard an anguished whimper come from Lady Priscilla as those hallowed, sacred pages began to curl and blacken.
‘You see, from my perspective, I was wrong about everything,’ the Duke continued, smiling and slowly scanning the rapt faces in the room, ‘It turns out that the perfect bride for me is not delicate or even-tempered. She does not only embroider or read poetry.’ His eyes finally settled hotly on Amelia. The intense gaze made her pulse flutter as she remembered the last time he had looked at her so possessively, and she hoped that she would not blush. It was clear to everyone present that his next words were solely meant for her, and she felt her cheeks heat despite her best efforts to stop them. ‘The perfect woman for any man is the one that his heart yearns for. In my case, she is fierce and impertinent, kind-hearted and loyal, obstinate and selfless, brave and beautiful.’
Amelia felt the weight of every pair of eyes in the room bore into her but could not seem to unlock her own gaze from Bennett’s. Breathing was now apparently quite impossible. Was he truly about to talk about his feelings in public? That was such an un-Bennett-like thing to do.
‘My darling Amelia, I am not sure if you are aware, but I am a rich and powerful duke. And, as a rich and powerful duke, I realised that Parliament was holding me back. Your soup kitchen did more good in one single day than Parliament had achieved in a whole year. Then it dawned on me. I am so rich and so powerful that I really do not have to wait for the cogs of government to slowly creak into action. I can change things myself. Instantly. As soon as I realised that, I resigned from the Cabinet.’
A collective gasp cut through the silence of the room. Amelia began to feel decidedly queasy—yet, underneath that, she experienced the first blossoming of something else. Hope. Bennett did not appear to have the slightest drop of remorse. In fact, he appeared more relaxed and comfortable in his own skin, in a public forum, than she had ever seen him. Almost as if a great weight had been lifted from his splendid shoulders. ‘You resigned from the Cabinet? For me?’
‘Not for you entirely, my love. For me. For us.’ Then he shrugged those magnificent shoulders as if it was of little consequence. ‘As soon as I left Westminster, I took all of my money to Seven Dials. It is amazing what you can achieve in such a small period of time, if money really is no object. I am quite disappointed in myself that I did not think of it sooner. I have had the streets cleaned! Imagine that. And already I am the proud owner of seven doss houses, five gin palaces and the soup kitchen. At the moment, they are offering free shelter to anyone who needs it, but I fully intend to knock them all down and build something new and purposeful in their place. I thought perhaps a school and a hospital, but I shall need your help to do it properly. And then I thought I might buy up the rest of the slum, because if Parliament is not going to do anything about it, then I thought we might tear it all down and build a better place from scratch. Revolutionise the place. And who better to do that with than the granddaughter of a Revolutionary who has lived in that slum?’
He walked slowly towards her and bent down on one knee. ‘Amelia Mansfield, you are the woman I want to marry.’ The Potentials began to mewl their distress, but Bennett appeared totally oblivious. His hypnotic gaze was fixed on Amelia. He actually wanted to marry her? Despite everything? When he took her hand gently and pressed a soft kiss into her palm, she melted. ‘I know that you have every reason to distrust men with titles and I know that the idea of being controlled by one terrifies you. But you really mustn’t worry. What makes you think that I could enforce my will on you, my darling, when I cannot even get my own butler to stop drinking my port?’
‘He’s right, miss,’ Lovett said from his position by the fireplace. ‘I drink gallons of the stuff. I have done for years and I fully intend to continue.’
Amelia tried to swallow past the enormous lump that suddenly manifested in her throat. Bennett made a valid point. Lovett was still Lovett. And Bennett was not her father. The remaining walls around her heart began to crumble until almost all of her reservations were gone.
Almost—but not quite.
Everyone was staring at them. In a tiny voice she tried to get him to see reason before all of her resolve collapsed. ‘You cannot become Prime Minister if you marry me, Ben.’
A knowing smile spread over his features. ‘Oh, I am not altogether sure that I want to be. That was my father’s dream. Not mine. I was so busy trying to do what he wanted me to do that I never really considered if I wanted to do it. He had his chance. I am tired of walking his path because I am quite certain that it does not take me where I want to go. A wise woman once told me that she believed most people had the good sense to judge men by their deeds rather than their choice of wife. If Parliament has a problem with my marriage to a half-American, illegitimate former guttersnipe, then I do not give two figs. I am a duke, after all. I have no intention of sitting around and waiting for them to actually do something. Not when so much is left undone. Besides, as soon as we are married you will become a rich and powerful duchess. Together we will be unstoppable.’
Like a dolt, she started to sniffle and swiped the tears away. That he would do all this for her was overwhelming. It was a good job that she was seated because her legs had turned to jelly. Her heart was racing. Her pulse fluttered and, for want of a better word, she was gloriously all aquiver again. ‘I just don’t want you doing something that you will live to regret.’
‘The only regret I have is that I never saw it sooner.’ He stood then, pulled Amelia to her feet and looped his arms around her waist, oblivious to the shocked faces all around them. ‘I could never regret choosing you, Amelia. I love you.’
‘And I love you too, Ben, but...’
He hushed her by placing his finger over her lips. ‘For thirty years I have listened to my father’s voice in my head. I have tried to live my life as he wanted me to and it has made me miserable. And stodgy. The last few weeks have been the happiest of my life. A revelation. You drive me to distraction and challenge me, but with you I am a better man. I am not my father. And I am certainly nothing like your father. I am just Ben. So marry me, Amelia, and let’s change the world together.’
Too overcome, she nodded and found herself dragged into his embrace and kissed until she was breathless, by a duke who was neither pompous nor stodgy. But he was hers, just as she was his, so nothing else really mattered. It was Lovett’s polite cough that interrupted them.
‘I am sorry to intrude, Your Grace, but an urgent me
ssage has just arrived.’
A magical note that must have blown down the chimney. But Bennett snatched it and scanned its lying contents with concerned gravitas.
‘We are needed urgently in Seven Dials, my darling.’ He winked at her saucily and then whispered close to her ear, ‘I have an empty castle, just over an hour away. Would you like to run away with me?’
Bennett was not the only one who could act. Amelia clasped her hands together and frowned. ‘Oh, Ben, that is a dire emergency indeed. We should probably leave right away.’ And she couldn’t wait. Not just to be alone with him again, but to start a new chapter in her life with this man who meant the world to her. He was right. He was not his father, or hers. And she was not her mother. All that was in the past.
Bennett grabbed her hand and dragged her with him to the door. Almost as an afterthought, he turned around. ‘Uncle George, you were right. Love should never be ignored. I think it is high time you married my mother. Don’t you?’ His stunned uncle merely nodded and reached for the Dowager’s hand. That task done, Bennett waved cheerfully at the crowd.
‘If you will excuse us, ladies and gentlemen, we are off to change the world.’
And that, as it turned out, was exactly what they did.
* * * * *
If you enjoyed this story, you won’t want to miss these other great reads from
Virginia Heath:
THAT DESPICABLE ROGUE
HER ENEMY AT THE ALTAR
Keep reading for an excerpt from ON A WINTER’S EVE by Louise Allen
Book One of ONCE UPON A REGENCY CHRISTMAS.
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On a Winter’s Eve
by Louise Allen
Book One of Once Upon a Regency Christmas
Chapter One
When had she last seen snow? It must have been at least nine years ago, before she had left England. Remembered in the heat of a Bengal summer, it had been pretty and fluffy. Not like this, heavy with a subtle, beautiful threat. The great billowing drifts, like ocean waves, were poised to swallow the coach whole. Oh, this was such a bad idea.
There was a convulsive movement beside her, a blurred reflection in the breath-misted glass, but when Julia turned her stepdaughter was smiling, even as she shivered.
‘Miri, darling, I am sorry it is so cold. I didn’t think, I just wanted to be away from that dreadful woman.’
‘Aunt is strange, isn’t she? I suppose she was angry that Father didn’t leave her anything in his will.’ Miri shrugged, slender shoulders struggling to lift the layers of rugs. ‘And I didn’t expect her to like me, but she did offer us a home while you arranged your affairs in England.’
Of course Grace—parental optimism in the naming of her had been severely misplaced—Watson did not like her niece. Miriam was illegitimate, half-Indian and beautiful. What was there not to hate for a bigoted woman with a plain daughter of her own to launch?
‘Did you not realise? My sainted sister-in-law was selling introductions to me, the indecently rich nabob’s widow who must, of course, be in need of a man to relieve her of her wealth.’
‘No! You mean those parties and receptions were to set you out like goods on a stall? No wonder you are so angry.’
‘Too angry to explain properly to you. I am sorry, you must have thought I had lost my mind, dragging you out of there at five o’clock yesterday morning.’ Julia did not often lose her temper, it was not a profitable thing to do, but when she did she was well aware that it was like wildfire over the grass plains of the Deccan, sweeping everything before it.
Miri had meekly held her tongue and left Julia to a fuming silence broken only by curt orders to servants, coachmen and innkeepers. ‘I must have been a perfectly horrid companion yesterday, I should have explained. I overheard your aunt agreeing terms with Sir James Walcott on what he would pay her if I were to wed him.’ She took a steadying breath. ‘I lay awake all night brooding and the thought of seeing her sour face over breakfast was too much.’
‘I rather liked Sir James.’
‘So did I,’ Julia agreed grimly.
‘You are very rich.’ Miri sounded as though her teeth were clenched to stop them chattering. There was only so much that fur rugs and pewter hot water bottles could do against the Norfolk weather on a late December day.
‘Oh, indecently so.’ Julia’s own teeth were gritted, but not because of the cold. ‘And it is a well-known fact of life that indecently rich widows are fair game for any impoverished gentleman who fancies lining his pockets. After all, marrying money is not the same as lowering oneself to engage in trade and actually earn it.’
There was silence as the coach lurched through another drift. It gave Julia ample time to rue allowing her temper to land them here.
‘So what will you do now?’
‘See what this house your father left me is like. I have no hopes of it, but, if it at least has a roof, then we shall stay there for Christmas and by the New Year I will have a plan.’ She always had a plan and usually they were rather more successful than her bright idea of leaving India and returning to England with her stepdaughter and a fortune, expecting to find it easy to make a new life.
She had wanted to give Miri everything a restricted upbringing had denied her stepdaughter, find her a husband to love her. Now she suspected that Miri would have been much happier in India with a dowry, making her own choices. Had she dragged her along because of her own desire for companionship? She had been so lonely throughout her marriage that if it had not been for Miri’s warm affection when her father brought home his young bride she would have gone mad, she thought.
Nothing is easy. Nothing. In England money seems to be a curse for an independent woman. Or perhaps expecting to be independent is the curse in itself.
‘It will be very pleasant to have a real English country Christmas.’ There was that at least to look forward to. ‘Plum pudding, mulled wine, decorating the house with evergreens, sitting around roaring log fires. We will give the staff Christmas Day off and listen to them singing carols. You’ll love it, Miri. I remember it all so well from my childhood. Christmas is wonderful for children.’ She trod firmly on that image and imagined instead a fatherly old butler, a rosy-cheeked cook, cheerful
, willing maids and footmen... ‘But whatever else we do, remember that we are two ladies of modest means.’
‘Very well.’ Miri gave a determined nod. ‘We will dress simply and warmly and leave our jewels in their cases. After all, I am not looking for a husband and you do not want one who desires you only for your money.’
That ruled out all the gentlemen of England. Who would want a sallow-faced widow of twenty-five with no connections for any reason other than her money? It was a good thing that seven years of marriage had removed any romantic delusions she might ever have nurtured about the institution. As for Miri, if and when she found a man she wanted, Julia would do everything in her power to make her dreams come true. If this mythical lover deserved such a pearl. And if that meant losing her, seeing her go back to India, then of course she must go. She could not be selfish and hold on to her.
But meanwhile they were shivering in a wasteland. ‘How much longer is this going to take?’ Julia jerked on the check string and dropped the window glass, letting in a blast of dry, frigid air and a dusting of snowflakes. ‘Thomas?’
‘My lady?’ The coachman leaned round and down to face her, his face red with cold.
‘How much further?’
‘A mile or so, I reckon. The snow makes it difficult to judge distance at this pace.’
‘We will stop at the next inn. Miss Chalcott is becoming very cold.’
‘There’s nothing ahead of us now but Chalcott Manor, my lady. It’s a dead end.’
‘It most certainly is.’ She sighed as he straightened up on to his seat, then leaned back down before she could raise the glass again.
‘My lady, there’s someone on the road in front of us. A man on foot.’
‘In this weather? We had best take him up.’
DISCERNING GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE, THE Page 23