Despite what he was trying to do to the man she had vowed to marry.
Chapter Five
As Hugh watched Amelia stomp off into the house, leaving him alone with her father, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to chase after her to shake her…or kiss her. Right now he wanted to do both. Especially when she’d conjured that image of her on her knees before him.
Now his body was as on edge as his mind, and he hated himself for how poorly he’d handled the whole night.
“You have violated my suggestion on how to handle this situation, and now look what you have done,” Lord Quinton snapped as he strode past Hugh with a look of contempt.
Hugh pivoted to glare at him. “Mind your tone, my lord. You’d do well to remember to whom you are speaking.”
Quinton cast a quick, nervous glance at him and then inclined his head. “My apologies, Your Grace. I overstepped. You must understand my frustration, though. I said you should not meet Amelia and then you did just that by arranging an invitation for her to the house of your friends.”
Hugh pressed his lips together. “It is ludicrous to think that you would wish me to offer for her without speaking to her.”
“Well, you’ve spoken to her twice now, and where did it get you? I came out too late to hear the entire scope of your conversation, but it was evident it was not going well. My daughter is in a huff.”
“I thought I owed her the courtesy of allowing her to know the truth about her fiancé,” he admitted, thrusting his shoulders back when Quinton gasped in horror. He was not going to be pushed around by this man who seemed to not even care about his daughter’s well-being.
Quinton’s expression calmed slightly. “If you were as vague in that explanation as you were with me, I assume she did not believe you and that is why you two quarreled.”
“She is loyal. That is a fine quality under every circumstance but this one, when I need to shake her faith in Walters and force her to protect herself. I question why you would not be just as concerned about her future as I am.”
“I am concerned,” Quinton said, his frown deepening. “Although I do see her connection to him, there is no doubt that Walters has an interest in her dowry. But there are many men who marry with money in mind. It’s the way of our world. He brings certain advantages to the match, himself.”
“And what are those?” Hugh asked, unable to mask his disgust with either man.
“Connections,” Quinton said softly.
Hugh stared at him. “I have made quite a study of Aaron Walters in the past year or so. He has no good connections, that is certain. Do you truly want to involve yourself in the kind of men he could bring to you?”
“Money is money, Your Grace,” Quinton said. “Amelia’s dowry was provided by her mother’s family, in a way that I cannot touch.”
Money. It was all about money.
Quinton let out his breath in a deep sigh before he continued, “But now that you’ve stirred her up, Amelia could very well run off to Gretna Green with the man, and then neither of us get what we want. I will have no promises and you no revenge for whatever wrong you accuse him of.”
Hugh pushed his disgust about Quinton away at that thought. The viscount was right. After all, Lizzie had run with Walters when the man felt his future threatened. Why wouldn’t Amelia do the same? And the pain that would follow would also be similar. He knew what it would be like. He certainly didn’t wish it on the bright light that Amelia seemed to carry within her.
“You want me to offer for her,” he said softly as his options faded down, whittled away to only one.
“Yes. If we could come to terms about money and connection, I would much rather see my daughter so elevated to your title.” Quinton shrugged.
Hugh let out his breath slowly. “Fine. I will offer. But she despises me and she is engaged to another man. There is no way she won’t spit in my face if I try to persuade her.”
Quinton chuckled. “She would likely do that. She has fire in her that will have to be extinguished by whatever man takes her hand. And yet she can be manipulated, if the pressure points you apply are correct.”
“What pressure points?” Hugh asked.
Once again, Quinton smiled, almost a look of pride on his thin face. “You’ll see. Give her a night to settle down and come call on me tomorrow after lunch. Follow my lead and I assure you, you will have your prize.” He turned toward the house. “For now, I shall escort her home and do what I can to smooth her ruffled feathers.”
Hugh watched him go and bit back a curse. He did not like this, not one bit. But right now there seemed little choice. Not for him.
Not for her.
Amelia clenched her hands as she made her way through the ballroom and into the retiring room that was attached to the larger space. Inside, ladies could find smelling salts, cool water and a place to gather one’s thoughts in the midst of the chaos of a ball.
Tonight she needed the latter. Desperately. And she was pleased when she found the small room devoid of other guests who might insist on chatting with her. She threw herself onto a fainting couch that was pressed against one wall and folded her arms. Her mind buzzed with everything that had happened between herself and the Duke of Brighthollow since he had asked her to dance.
And not just the horrible things he’d said about Aaron. No, she was just as turned upside down by the way his hands had held her so tightly as they danced, by the way he looked at her when he spoke to her on the terrace…by the way her own heart quickened when he did both.
She hated him. And she hated herself when she was with him. For making her forget Aaron. For making her…well, for a moment she had doubted her fiancé. What did that make her?
The door to the retiring room opened and Emma—the Duchess of Abernathe—entered, her cheeks flushed and a wide smile on her pretty face. When she saw Amelia sitting on the settee, that smile fell. “Oh, Amelia, is everything well?”
Amelia tried to force a smile of reassurance but could not muster it. She shook her head. “I’m sorry to be rude, Your Grace, but I must say that your friend is a terrible, horrible man.”
Emma blinked, clearly in confusion and then gingerly sat on the opposite end of the fainting couch. “My friend? You’ll have to be more specific.”
“The Duke of Brighthollow,” Amelia huffed.
Emma’s expression softened slightly. “I noticed you two were dancing earlier. You do not like him?”
“I do not.”
Emma let out her breath gently. “Hugh can be…hard. Though I think his history has earned him that. He did not have a happy relationship with his father, and when his parents died, he was forced into his title at a very young age, as well as guardianship of his much younger sister. A great deal of weight settled on those shoulders.”
Amelia shifted. She did not know those things about the man. Heavens, a week ago she had never spent time with any dukes or duchesses. She knew her place in the world. It was on the periphery of those at the very top levels of the ton.
And now Emma said a handful of words, and suddenly some of Amelia’s anger toward Brighthollow faded. “How old was he?”
Emma tilted her head. “Seventeen, I think? Eighteen? Just barely old enough to stake his claim at all. He leaned heavily on his friends, on their group.” She smiled. “Their brotherhood has seen all of them through difficult times.”
Amelia stared at her clenched hands. She did feel a little for Brighthollow now, but did that really change what he’d said about Aaron? Those vague accusations that the man she planned to marry was unworthy?
“Well, perhaps he has been elevated for so long that he does not remember humility,” she muttered. “For he judges those beneath him quite harshly.”
Emma looked truly surprised. “Really? I must say that shocks me. Rank has never seemed to matter as much to him as a goodness of character.”
Amelia pushed to her feet. She liked Emma. Although they had only talked fo
r a few moments in the ballroom, the duchess was kind, welcoming, intelligent. She was everything Amelia looked for in a friend.
But perhaps her sweetness made her blind to character flaws. Amelia had to believe that was it, because the alternative was that Brighthollow was talking to her about Aaron because he truly believed her fiancé to be untrue.
And that was not something Amelia wanted to face. Couldn’t.
“I’m sure I was just overly warm,” she lied. “And reacted badly to something that was not cruelly meant.”
“Yes,” Emma said, and got up to pour her a glass of water. “These events can be so very overwhelming! Hugh’s gruffness can be easily mistaken by those who don’t know him.”
“At any rate, it isn’t as though I really have to talk to the man again,” Amelia reasoned, more to herself than to Emma. “We’re only in the same circles by accident tonight. We do not click and we don’t have to.”
Emma shrugged. “You are correct. Though I hope we’ll see you in our circles more often. All the duchesses like you a great deal.”
Amelia smiled as the topic shifted to more benign ones. What Emma didn’t know was that soon Amelia’s engagement would be announced. And Aaron was not the kind of gentleman who would open doors to her to the Society Emma regularly kept.
So all this consternation about the handsome, horrible Duke of Brighthollow didn’t matter one whit.
Hugh stood in the corner of Simon and Meg’s ballroom, watching as the last of the guests staggered their way to the door. All that was left now were his friends. Members of their club. Only it had ceased to be a club and become a family.
And his family was giving him odd looks at present. As Simon and Meg returned from saying farewell to the last of their guests, it was Emma, James’s wife, who approached him. Hugh was a little surprised by that. She was so soft and quiet, as bookish as she was beautiful. Normally she didn’t start anything. In fact, she was the calming influence that often stopped any loud argument.
But at that moment she had an expression of concern on her face. One that was matched as the rest of their friends joined her.
“I spoke to Amelia Quinton tonight,” Emma said softly.
He arched a brow. “I saw her with the duchesses. It seemed you all got along very well.”
Meg glanced at the other ladies and nodded. “We all like her very much.”
“Good,” he said with relief. “That will make it easier.”
When he said that, Lucas straightened, and Hugh saw Diana’s fingers tighten on her husband’s forearm. They were the only two who knew the truth.
“What are you saying?” Lucas asked, his voice tense. “What are you doing?”
“I’m offering for her tomorrow,” he admitted, for there was no reason for him to keep that a secret. They’d all know soon enough.
That simple sentence set off a cacophony of reaction. Every face around him looked utterly shocked, some horrified, everyone confused. Except for Lucas and Diana. They just stared at him. Knowing. Pitying.
He hated it all to the pit of his soul.
“Why?” Graham finally asked, pushing his way to the front. “It’s not that she isn’t lovely. The duchesses all like her, which is a hearty recommendation, indeed. But you’ve barely spoken of the girl—I’ve never seen you interact with her at all until tonight.”
“And she told me that interaction did not go well,” Emma chimed in.
Hugh jerked his face to her, trying to determine how much she knew. “Did she?”
Emma nodded. “She was vague, but she seems to find you terribly heavy-handed and…unpleasant.”
He pressed his lips together. That was a poor start, indeed, but what could he expect? He had made a bad attempt to crush every dream the young lady had. Why would she not despise him? And after tomorrow, she would hate him even more.
“Not everyone marries for the same reasons,” he said, not meeting the eyes of all those happy couples. Not looking at what he would throw away because he had protected his sister’s virtue and his own bloody pride.
“And what are yours?” Simon pressed, using that gentle tone that had come so naturally to him over the years. He was the peacekeeper of their group. The coaxer. The tamer of wild beasts.
Hugh let out his breath slowly. “There are advantages to the match for me. For her. She is very beautiful, of course. Intelligent. It’s a good match. And I’d be able to protect—”
Graham lifted his brows as Hugh cut that sentence off. “Protect her?” he repeated. “Is that what you were going to say?”
Hugh turned and walked away from them. Not far, but far enough that they couldn’t see his face. He didn’t want any of them to see his face.
“I know a great deal about protection,” Graham said, crossing the distance Hugh had placed between them. “What do you need? How can we help so that you don’t make some kind of well-intentioned mistake?”
Hugh shut his eyes. Held them there, like the dark could block out the truth. Block out the questions. Block out the future.
Then he opened them and speared first Graham and then the others with a stern look. “Just support me. And her.”
He could see the arguments on the lips of all the others. See that the remainder of the night would consist of them wearing him down and demanding the truth and perhaps eventually prying it from him.
And then Diana stepped forward. She crossed to him and took his hand, her bright eyes holding his for a long moment. Then she leaned up and bussed his cheek. “Congratulations, Hugh. You have our support.”
That silenced the murmurs. Quieted the questions. And his reluctant friends approached and gave him the same felicitations she had done. But it felt like a funeral rather than a celebration of his pending engagement.
And perhaps that was fitting, after all.
Chapter Six
Hugh stood in the same parlor where he had first met Lord Quinton less than a week before. Today he faced the door, feet widely spread, hands clenched behind him. He was waiting for an executioner. Waiting for the inevitable.
It had been a sleepless night of pondering this decision. Trying to see if there was a way out of it. Only there was none. That became clearer by the moment. If he did not marry this young woman, she would be caught up in the snare set for her by Aaron Walters. He would take her dowry, he would turn away from whatever false costume he put on himself for her, and she would suffer.
Hugh would watch it. He would not be able to look away. And he would know it was his fault. He would know he had not done the right thing. The good thing.
Perhaps, given time, he could have convinced Amelia of the truth of the man she believed she loved. She was bright—she would see it. Only he was not being given that time. Her father had a purpose in mind: marry her off. And whether he received Hugh’s good connections and money or Walters’ poor connections didn’t matter to him. He would have his announcement and his wedding, the good of his daughter be damned.
Now Hugh was left with this. Destroy her hopes. Kill her dreams. Steal her future. Marry himself to a lady he didn’t know, one who apparently thought very little of him.
But it would save her. In the end, perhaps she would come to appreciate that.
The door to the parlor opened and Quinton stepped in. As Hugh moved forward, the viscount stepped aside and revealed his daughter. Hugh caught his breath. She wore a blue gown that matched the cornflower of her eyes to perfection. She lifted those eyes to him, and for a moment he saw a flare of heat. Of interest.
Then it was replaced by contempt and she folded her arms in frustration. But he had seen the first. Her fleeting desire called to his own. If he married her, he could slake that. Drown in it.
And introduce her to pleasures untold.
“Your Grace,” Quinton said, his tone smug. “You’ve come. Very good. We can resolve this issue swiftly and move forward.”
Hugh shook his head slightly. God’s teeth, th
is man. He’d said Hugh was to follow his lead in convincing Amelia to wed him. He had no choice, but he hated it, for he didn’t trust the viscount in any way.
“Yes, I look forward to handling this matter,” he said. “Miss Quinton.”
She met his eyes briefly. “Your Grace. I shall leave you and my father to whatever business you have to attend to.”
She moved to go, but her father caught her elbow and kept her from exiting the room. Hugh looked at how his fingers dug into her forearm, and his heart lurched a little.
“Amelia, you shall stay,” the viscount said. “This concerns you.”
Her lips parted in surprise, and then she pivoted toward Hugh again. “Did you dare speak to my father about my engagement? You are a most impertinent man. You have no right to interfere in my life, especially since you hardly know me!”
A dozen retorts rose up in Hugh’s body, threatened to spill out, but he held them back as Quinton said, “It is you who is being impertinent, child.”
She faced him. “Unless he gave you a good reason, a real reason, for me not to marry Aaron Walters, I have no idea how I am not allowed to defend myself against his—”
“He did,” Quinton interrupted, lifting his voice so it was louder than hers.
Hugh watched as a look of pure horror rolled over her face. The blood left her cheeks and her mouth dropped open in shock. “Wh-what?”
The viscount nodded, suddenly solemn. “Yes, my dear. The duke has given me a very compelling reason to keep your engagement to Mr. Walters from advancing.”
“What could that be?” she burst out, her gaze darting from her father to Hugh and back again.
She was hurt. Brokenhearted. Hugh hated himself more than he ever had that he was a part of it. That he hadn’t pushed aside his pride and found a way to turn Society against Walters before his duplicity went this far and involved another innocent young woman in his schemes.
The Duke Who Lied Page 6