by Paula Quinn
Stepping into the arcade, he glanced first at the statue, and then at her. His breath stalled in his chest. The sun’s gentle amber glow lent its radiance to her startling beauty. Lush, long lashes smudged cheeks of smooth velvet. Plump, rosy lips parted on a transient breath, as if she were waiting to be kissed in her dreams. Thick sable hair tumbled loose about her shoulders. One lock caressed the curve of her jaw, tempting him to touch her before she vanished with the night. He let his eyes linger over the delicate symmetry of her features, unable to steal himself away. She was slim of form, with breasts fashioned perfectly in size to fit into his palms. Her hands were small, as were her bare feet. The last brought a smile to his lips.
The full sight of her aroused him, sparked a desire he hadn’t felt before.
Like one of God’s divine, serenity emanated from her slumbering features. Who was she dreaming about? He turned, severing his gaze from her to look at Michelangelo’s David, and then toward the various kings and gods lining the wall, all bulbous muscle and fearsome scowls, evidence of their might. But it was this lissome warrior garbed in naught but a flimsy sling and a knit brow that had earned this lass’s worshipful appreciation.
He returned his attention to her, unable to keep his eyes off her. Was she a servant stealing a few moments before her daily duties to feed her dreams? He stepped closer, bending to her to inhale her scent, to bask for but another moment of his own, mayhap to nourish something lacking in his dreams as well. Something that until this moment, he didn’t think he needed. He wondered what color her eyes were beneath the spray of her heavy lashes, and if they would recognize the power of his purpose, as she recognized David’s. He was tempted to kiss her brow, her lips, so close now that her breath warmed his chin. But she would wake and scream, seeing a stranger poised above her. Pity, for he wanted but one taste of her, to imprint on his mind the memory of something sweet, something passionate, before going into battle.
“What in blazes is keepin’ ye?” Malcolm’s hushed voice echoed throughout the canopied arcade. “Edmund?”
Angling his head, Edmund glared at the head poking out of the open door. A strangled gasp pulled his attention back to the lass before he could move away.
She did not scream as his eyes fell upon her again. She remained motionless, save for her bosom rising and falling hard beneath his hovering shadow. Her eyes were deep, rich mahogany—the color of warmth and gloriously huge and sparked with terror.
He brought his finger to his lips, begging her for silence before he moved away and disappeared into the castle.
Amelia bolted to her feet. Her heart beat a riotous litany in her breast. Clutching her chest, she counted out nine breaths in an effort to get a hold of herself. On the tenth, her eyes darted to David. “I was dreaming,” she said, more to herself than to it. She had to have been, for no mortal man could scorch a soul with the heat of his gaze alone. Like sapphires caught between light and shadow, his eyes had glittered as they moved over her, scalding her nerve endings, robbing her senses. A dream.
But his scent still lingered all about her. She inhaled, filling her senses with the fragrance of dew and leather. She pulled in a deeper breath, closing her eyes this time. Who was he? A guest who had arrived early, mayhap? A very bold guest, carved from the gold God used to pave heaven’s streets.
Her heavy lids flew open. Guests! Dear God, she had fallen asleep!
Hiking up her skirts, she dashed for the doors, giving no more thought to the man whose whispered name had awakened her from her dreams of David. Edmund.
She reached her room, taking three steps at a time, and leaped into her bed. No sooner did she close her eyes than her father entered, toting Amelia’s breakfast on a tray.
“Good morning, love,” John Bell greeted her. “Alice is busy so I thought I would bring ye yer…” He looked up and stopped, looking at her. “Ye’re deathly pale!” He laid the tray on a nearby table and went to the bed. “Are ye ill, Mellie?” He covered Amelia’s face with his fingers. “Ye’re clammy and short of breath. I’ll get one of yer mother’s physicians.”
“No, Papa!” Amelia clamped his wrist as her father moved to leave. Lord, she hadn’t expected to see him so early. “I’m not ill. I am…anxious about my future, that is all.” She concentrated on slowing her heart rate. When her father’s expression turned sympathetic, Amelia knew she had taken the right path. The last thing she wanted was a dozen of her mother’s physicians crowding her bed. Lady Selkirk had a different physician for every ailment, which was a good thing for her, since she suffered with most of them.
“Are ye certain that’s all it is?” he asked, resting on the edge of the bed and running the backs of his knuckles across Amelia’s forehead.
“Aye, I barely slept.” It was the truth and she truly was anxious about her future.
“Don’t fret over yer marriage,” her father said, scooping up Amelia’s hand and bringing it to his lips. “Ye will be happy.”
She thought about her conversation with Sarah. She could never ask her father to go back on his consent and try to find her a different husband. Even though the betrothal wasn’t officially announced, everyone knew. Her father would be shamed if they backed out now. She didn’t love Walter at all. Oh, she knew love was irrelevant but damnation it would have been nice to have some feelings for the man who would be her husband. She knew little about the chancellor save that he turned up his haughty nose to Sarah. “Will I, Papa? Will I be happy?”
“Why do ye ask?” He searched her gaze. “Has the chancellor offended ye in some way?”
She wished Walter had offended her so she could answer truthfully. But accusing her betrothed of something he didn’t do was not only wrong, but quite dangerous to her father. “Nae, Papa, he has been kind.”
He relaxed his shoulders and allowed an indulgent smile to spread across his lips. “What ye’re feeling happens to most new brides…and grooms.” He winked at her. “But ye’ve no reason to fear.”
“Did it happen to ye, Papa?”
He nodded and smiled, remembering. “It did. I didn’t know yer mother. I didn’t know if she was comely or had two eyes or one.”
Amelia smiled into his rich, mahogany eyes, loving him more than any man alive. “Did yer heart belong to one already, Papa?”
He shrugged his shoulders, still broad even in middle age. “My heart belonged to many. But that’s of no concern. Yer mother turned out to be one of the bonniest women I’d ever seen. We wed and had ye girls and we remain together to this day.”
But did he love her? Amelia didn’t have the courage to ask him.
“Ye do care fer Walter, do ye not, Mellie?”
She blinked at him. He’d never asked her that question before. Would her answer make a difference? She didn’t get a chance to find out, since her bedroom door opened and her nurse plunged into the room. When she saw Amelia’s father, she apologized for her interruption and backed out.
“Alice,” her father called, stopping her departure. “Come back. I was just leaving.” He stood up and brushed off his coat. “I will see ye tonight at the celebration, love.” He bent to kiss the top of Amelia’s head, then turned and smiled at Alice before he left the room.
“We have a lot to see to today, sweeting.” Alice came in and went straight for the windows to pull open the curtains. “Finish yer breakfast and let’s get on with the rest of this miserable day.”
Amelia sighed and snuggled deeper into her pillow. She didn’t want to get on with it as much as Alice didn’t want to.
“I know, gel,” her nursemaid agreed after hearing Amelia sigh in her bed. “But at least yer husband will die someday and ye’ll be freed from the subjugation of his will. This treaty will stay in effect forever, and England will always come out on top.”
“I know ye’re unhappy about the treaty with England, Alice. But I’m sure everything will be well with ye.”
“Of course, ’twill, my joy,” her nursemaid agreed, turning to smile at her.
“I thank God each night for ye, Alice,” Amelia told her, loving her like a mother, “and fer Sarah, too.” She yawned. “Fer had I been raised by my mother, I fear ’twould have been her that I took after. I would not care about the consequences of my own actions…or words…and Walter would be enough fer me.”
Alice appeared before her and pulled the coverings off. “I love ye like my own, but there’s no time to ponder such things.”
“But there must be time,” Amelia pressed. “I don’t want to leave my bed yet. Please Alice, just a few moments. Sit and chat with me.”
Her nurse scowled at her but gave in easily. “Ye look worn out and exhausted,” Alice said upon closer inspection. “Were ye awake all night with Sarah again?”
“Well, aye, I was. The time escaped me. Truly.”
“Gel, if yer mother discovers ye…”
“I know.” Amelia buried her face in her pillow, hating that her friendship with Sarah was forbidden. Amelia knew that if her mother discovered them together, Sarah might get sent away for it. So Amelia did her best to make certain that her mother didn’t discover her. Until early this morning, when she fell asleep in the garden. Today, someone had seen her.
“Alice.” She sat up in the bed. “Have any of the guests arrived early?” Mayhap if her nursemaid knew him…
“Only Lord Lamont and two of his men.”
Lord Lamont! Of course! The man in the garden was one of Lord Lamont’s men! Chewing her lip, Amelia picked at a speck of dirt on her nightdress. Dare she speak his name and rouse Alice’s curiosity as to how she knew it? She had to. She had to know who he was. “Of Lord Lamont’s men, are any of them called Edmund?”
“I don’t believe so.” Alice threw her a probing look. “Why do ye ask?”
Indeed, why did she ask? She couldn’t tell Alice that she’d been careless and fell asleep in the garden and that when she woke up there was a beautiful man watching her sleep.
“Sarah mentioned him.”
Alice thought about it for a moment. “There’s the baker yer mother hired from Ayr. He arrived yesterday and has been preparing his cakes all night.”
Was the man in the arcade the new baker? No, Amelia shook her head. Bakers were rotund little men with flour staining their noses. Weren’t they? They weren’t tall and broad shouldered, with jaws dusted gold and chiseled by a master sculptor, or golden hair that curled at their napes and seemed to absorb all the light in the garden. Oh, she would never forget waking and looking into his eyes, of feeling terrified and enthralled at the same time, so thrillingly aware of a man’s potent power.
Alice spotted Amelia’s gown hanging over a chair and left the bed to get it. She held up the gown for inspection. The pale lilac fabric shimmered against a beam of sunlight spilling in from the window. The gown was lovely, boasting a long, pointed bodice and satin petticoat, and, in keeping with the fashion as her mother insisted, voluminous three-quarter-length sleeves, pleated at the dropped shoulder and cuffs.
“Oh, look at these wrinkles! I’ll have to have them smoothed out. Oh, and your sisters have already arrived with their husbands and insist upon working on yer hair. I bid them time to wake ye first.”
“That was thoughtful of ye,” Amelia thanked her. “I’m not certain I could bear listening to how difficult their journey was to get here, or how the weather just doesn’t suit their delicate constitutions. Lord, and if I have to sit through one more tale of how disagreeable Eleanor’s unborn babe is in her belly, I will scream.”
“I know, love,” her nursemaid replied, folding the gown carefully over her arm. “That’s why I didn’t let them come up. Now, let’s go. Chatting’s over. We have too much to do to get ye ready fer tonight.”
“Alice?” Amelia asked while she dressed. “When will my ill fortune end?”
“Everyone has a season, gel.”
“But seasons are supposed to end.”
“As will yours,” Alice promised.
Amelia smiled at her. “Aye, it will. I think I would prefer it if Sarah worked on my hair today. She knows better than anyone how to get the tangles out.” She was in no hurry to see her sisters and have to endure Elizabeth’s clicking tongue every time she put a question to her, or one of Anne’s disapproving glances if Amelia dared laugh too loudly.
She wondered if Edmund had arrived with one of her sisters’ groups. Edmund. The thought of seeing him again today at the ceremony made her heart accelerate just a little and she chastised herself for it. She belonged to someone else, a man who had agreed to take her despite all her shortcomings. Mayhap she would tell her father’s bold guest what she thought of him for frightening her senseless while she slept. Then again, mayhap it would be more prudent not to speak to him at all, to simply forget him, put him out of her thoughts and occupy her mind with Walter instead. Lord, if she did that, she just might fall asleep again. It wasn’t that Walter was dull…Well, in truth, he was. Did he care for her? She doubted it, since he had never professed it to her.
“I’ll send for Sarah and see what I can discover about a guest called Edmund,” Alice said, heading for the door with Amelia’s gown in her hand.
Prudence, Amelia, she warned herself as her mother had on countless occasions. Get your head out of the clouds and cease being so troublesome to yer poor father.
“Nae, Alice. Ferget I mentioned him. I’m to be married soon. It’s time to get my head out of the clouds.”
Chapter Four
The celebration was in its second hour, and there was still no sign of Amelia’s living statue. There was no sign of her betrothed either. It was announced to Amelia’s father that the roof in her soon-to-be new bedchamber in Banffshire had fallen in. The betrothal would have to be postponed along with the announcement.
Amelia shifted in her chair at the high table and groaned softly. The sound drew a critical glance from her sister Anne, but Amelia didn’t care. Her arse was bloody killing her. She had a terrible ache in her temples from the pearl-encrusted pins Sarah had woven throughout the thick knot at the back of her head. She could barely keep her eyelids up but was too afraid of snoring to let them close, even for an instant. Falling asleep in her chair, in front of her uncle’s noble guests, would surely send her mother into fits. And what would the mysterious Edmund think of her if he found her slumbering yet again, and during her postponed betrothal feast, no less?
She’d put no queries about him to her father, but she had spoken with Sarah about him, and commissioned her friend to discover who the stranger was. Sarah was more than happy to oblige, but so far, she had found out nothing. Edmund had not arrived with Lord Lamont, or any guests who’d arrived thereafter.
He had to be someone! she told herself, sweeping her eyes over the myriad of faces below. She found Sarah standing over the table of a French count visiting from Anjou. Arching an elegant brow, Amelia shook her head playfully when Sarah shot her a whimsical smile over her shoulder. How was it that her friend looked so alert and vivacious after staying awake all night?
Dear Sarah, born a servant, with the freedom to behave as she chose. No one cared how the daughter of the smith spent her days—or her nights. Amelia sighed, bringing her cup to her lips. She envied Sarah, though had she been born to a serf, she still would not toss herself into the bed of any man who smiled at her. Edmund’s sun-gilt face flashed before her. No matter how decadently carved his lips were.
“John.” Her mother leaned forward over the empty chair at Amelia’s left. “You did tell the chancellor to make haste at Banffshire, did you not?”
“Of course I did, Millicent.” The clip of annoyance in his voice did not deter her mother from expelling a long-suffering sigh. And why should it? Her father scowled more often than he smiled. Save when he caught Amelia’s eyes. Of his daughters, she was favored. And she knew it.
“Of all the dreadful days for the roof to collapse!” Millicent huffed and sent her husband a heated look. “I hope you’re happy, Amelia.”
“She
had nothing to do with it, Millicent. Ye sound as mad as yer nephew shackled below stairs.”
Amelia closed her eyes, wishing the night would end.
“That’s a horrible thing to say, John. Especially tonight! How could my brother allow the chancellor to go and leave our daughter to sit here alone like a forgotten waif at her own celebration?”
“Yer brother is not here either,” John reminded his wife. “This celebration is for his accomplishments as well as our daughter’s betrothal. Ye would think he would have postponed his trip to Roxburgh fer a few days at least.”
Amelia caught Sarah’s attention below and rolled her eyes, signaling that it was going to be a torturously long evening. Her parents argued often. Amelia wondered if they were happy together. She didn’t think so. She barely, if ever, saw them share affection. The story her father told her this morning was only a small part of their life. Millicent often complained about marrying beneath her station. The marriage, much like Amelia’s, was a forced one thanks to the affection of Millicent’s father, the first Duke of Queensberry, for the Bell family. After Robert Bell, Amelia’s grandfather and a soldier in the Royal Army, saved the duke’s life on a hunting excursion, the duke promised his daughter to Robert’s son. Millicent never forgave him.
“My brother is securing the last of his support of the union. He has every reason not to be here.”
“And Seafield thought it necessary to see to the repairs himself, Millicent. The ceiling did fall in their future bedchamber, after all.”
Amelia’s cheeks flared as red as the claret swirling around in her cup. Please don’t let them begin a discussion of my bedchamber, she prayed silently. Veiling her eyes beneath her dark lashes, she brushed her gaze across the hall. No burnished-haired masterpiece come to life was in attendance.
God help her troublesome soul, she rebuked herself. How could she be so curious about another man when her considerate husband-to-be had dashed off to prepare a safe new home for her? And worse, why had the mention of her bedchamber instigated her curiosity? She was reprehensible. Walter Hamilton, Earl of Seafield, Lord Chancellor of Scotland, wasn’t so bad, really. With his raven mane and intense cobalt blue eyes, he turned many ladies’ heads at court, just not hers. He worked hard at pleasing her uncle, and he did so because he cared for her. He must. So what if he was dull and tedious, not to mention sickeningly snobbish. Lord, she didn’t want to marry him. Sobbing into her supper wouldn’t help, especially after her father had gone to so much trouble making certain the food was all fresh and prepared by master cooks. She couldn’t run away and she couldn’t refuse. But oh, how she wished she could.