by Paula Quinn
“It could have waited a few days, John.” Her mother slapped her palm softly against the table. “I don’t care what room it was.”
Thank God. Amelia yawned.
“Millicent, fer the love of God, do not vex me about this any longer. I have enough to keep my mind occupied wondering how much this celebration is going to drain what is left in the coffers.”
“’Tis my brother’s coin. Why should the cost of all this concern ye?”
Amelia slipped her hand over her father’s and gave him a sympathetic pat.
“Everyone here thinks the chancellor changed his mind,” her mother continued, lowering her voice to a whisper when Lady Josephine Hartington glanced at the table. “They whisper that perhaps he has decided to wait for a more sensible wife. They all know what she’s like since that unfortunate incident at the Earl of Clare’s wedding last spring.”
John’s crimson face proved that that particular event was scored forever in his brain.
Dear God, if Amelia hadn’t had Sarah to laugh with her about the incident when she returned home, she would have wept for a month. Alice tried to convince her that it wasn’t her fault, but even so, Amelia was sorry for ruining the earl’s second wedding.
It happened on the morn of the ceremony. The earl’s dashing young son, Lord Albert, had invited her to go riding. Of course, she’d accepted, which, according to her mother, was her first error in good judgment. The ride across the English countryside was invigorating, innocent, and quite safe. She was an excellent rider, and Lord Albert had been a perfect gentleman. They’d even made it back just before the wedding. But, as circumstances often went in Amelia’s case, catastrophe was lurking somewhere just inches from her horse’s hooves. To this day, she had no idea what had startled her mount into a full gallop, or why the beast had refused to slow down, despite her best efforts. She was almost thrown, and would have broken her neck if she hadn’t been holding on for dear life, when the mad stallion vaulted over a row of slack-jawed guests. Amelia had given the reins one more desperate yank as her wide eyes met the earl’s horrified ones. The only thing left to do was squeeze hers shut and pray that the earl, his bride, and their priest moved the hell out of the way.
They had. No one was injured, save for her father’s name. Thanks to her, the name Bell had become synonymous with disaster. Amelia was sorry for it, for her father’s sake. She was sorry for it all.
“Enough.” John’s dark gaze over Amelia’s head warned his wife that she had finally succeeded in exhausting his patience. “Any man would count himself among the fortunate to be given our daughter, sensible or not.”
Her dear father. He loved her despite her faults. Amelia turned to him and smiled softly, bringing happiness to his face for the first time that evening. Whatever would she have done without him in her life? When he leaned in and kissed her forehead, her eyes welled up with tears. “I love ye, Papa,” she whispered softly enough for her mother not to hear.
“And I ye, dear one.”
Content, Amelia rested her elbow on the table and dropped her chin into her palm, oblivious to one of the pinned curls dangling from her temples plopping into her soup. Heavens, she was beginning to lose feeling in her legs. How much longer was this celebration going to go on? She closed her eyes. Just for a moment.
“What if the chancellor doesn’t return for her?”
John Bell swore to himself that if his wife went on about this for one more instant he would get up and leave her sitting here alone. “The chancellor will return by morning,” he muttered. “The guests aren’t going anywhere.”
“It is not the morning that concerns me, but tonight,” Millicent said out of the corner of her mouth. “Tonight the betrothal was to be announced.”
“By the saints, woman! Have ye no bloody…?” His half whispered oath was cut off when his son-in-law the Earl of Bedford stepped up to his chair and tugged his sleeve.
“What?” John asked and lifted his ear from Bedford’s lips. “Where?”
His son-in-law pointed and Amelia’s father rose to his feet to peer at a man standing at the far end of the hall engaged in quiet conversation with another man he’d never seen before. “Ye are certain he was introduced as Lord Huntley?”
“I heard the introduction myself. Malcolm Gordon, Earl of Huntley.”
“And the man with him?”
“Edmund Dearly, Viscount of Essex. They travel with a Campbell and a Drummond, as well.”
John cast a glance at his wife. He didn’t recall seeing their names on the invitation list. Lord, he hoped no one had insulted them by forgetting to add them.
“They are coming this way.” John straightened his shoulders and smoothed his coat, readying himself for an introduction.
“Ye do know that Huntley’s family is distantly related to the queen, do ye not?” Millicent asked, fixing her hair.
Adjusting his wig, John offered his guests an amiable smile, but the Viscount of Essex flicked his eyes to the only person still seated in her chair at the dais.
Suddenly, sickeningly, John peered down at the top of Amelia’s head. He visibly cringed when a small snore escaped her lips. Struggling to retain his pleasant demeanor while his guests stared at her, he yanked her to her feet.
Amelia came awake rather sharply, but it took a moment for her head to clear completely, and for her to realize she’d been asleep in her chair. But even that mortification was nothing compared to what she felt when she looked at the men standing before her.
“Lord Huntley, Lord Essex,” her father’s voice cracked when he called out. “Welcome to Queensberry House. We were not expecting ye.”
Forgetting her drooping curl, Amelia’s eyes opened wider. Her Edmund was Lord Essex? His friend was Lord Huntley? And she’d fallen asleep in her supper? She ached to peek up at her father, to somehow beg his forgiveness.
“Perhaps if we had been invited…” Edmund’s…Lord Essex’s voice was a deep, sensual blend belonging to both England and Scotland. The smooth and steady sound of it danced across her ears, invading her thoughts.
“An oversight fer which I would beg fergiveness.” Her father bowed.
Amelia flicked her gaze to Edmund as he strode forward. This was twice now she’d awakened from her dreams to find him in her world.
He was real. But whatever she had found enticing about him before had vanished with the dawn. He stood now, with full authority squaring his shoulders, and cool unyielding indifference hardening his features. Was he just another power-hungry nobleman then? Would he punish her father for his error?
He lifted his palm to her father. “No need fer apologies. Lord Huntley and I prefer to remain discreet. Isn’t that correct, Huntley?”
“’Tis,” his friend agreed, smiling at Sarah when she appeared with a tray of wine. Heavens but he was so roguishly handsome Sarah almost dropped her tray. With eyes dipped in fathomless shades of blue and green and a dimpled grin that could make an angel fall from heaven, he was temptation incarnate. Like a wolf on the hunt, his eyes followed Sarah’s departure, forgetting, or not caring about, the conversation going on in front of him.
Remembering that Sarah was no angel, Amelia returned her attention to Edmund.
He’d been discreet all right—a shadow skulking about the garden between night and day. Amelia’s eyes widened with alarm. The garden! She swallowed suddenly. Her gaze darted to her father. Would the viscount tell her father that he’d found his willful daughter sleeping outdoors alone while the sun rose?
“Is the duke in attendance?” Essex asked, barely looking at her. “We had hoped to offer him our well wishes on his success with the union.”
“Alas,” her father said, turning a miserable glance at his wife, “he has been called away to Roxburgh.”
“Unfortunate,” Essex said. The frost in his eyes hardened his quick smile. “I would give my accolades to the Earl of Seafield then, as he is the duke’s right hand.”
“Again—” Her father cringed to
his bones at the sound of her mother’s slight groan. Poor man, Amelia thought. Her mother was never going to stop complaining about this later. “I regret that he has been called back to Banffshire to repair the roof of his wedding chamber.”
Essex raised a golden brow. “Ah yes, I had heard rumor that the earl was to be betrothed.”
“That he is,” her father informed him. “To the most beautiful lady here, in fact.”
Lord Essex slanted his gaze to her before her father identified her as the bride and set Amelia’s heart to racing. She could barely breathe watching those diamond-hard eyes grow warm on her. Tonight he wore a powdered periwig that gave him a more noble appearance than an ethereal one. Shadows danced across the chiseled angles of his sun-bronzed face and his heavy brow, adding depth to his smoky blue eyes.
His clothes were even finer than Amelia had first thought in the garden. He wore a scarlet embroidered justacorps with a matching bow tied beneath his aristocratic chin. The cuffs of his poet’s shirt beneath were crisp and white as if rarely worn. He wore hose over his breeches, boasting strong, muscular calves. His shoes were polished and bowed, as was the fashion.
He moved more like a panther than a peacock, though; agile, quiet, and dangerous. Yet he’d walked among them all day, unnoticed. Discreet.
He came to stand directly in front of her table and angled his face to her. After an endless moment of silence and a frantic prayer from Amelia that he wasn’t deciding how best to tell her father of her nightly romp, the husky dip of his voice fell across the hall. “Am I to assume this is the prize the earl has won?”
Amelia didn’t know whether to feel flattered or insulted at being called such a thing. While she was trying to decide, something cool and wet slithered down her bodice. She looked down to find her soup-soaked curl dripping over her breast, staining the fine fabric of her gown.
Oh, damnation, could this evening get any worse?
Chapter Five
Could his fortune get any better? Edmund’s gaze lingered over the lass rubbing her palm over her bosom. This was the lass for whom they’d come. The slumbering angel from the garden who’d lingered in his thoughts all day was the duke’s niece, and with both her uncle and her future husband gone—the duke no doubt procuring the third signature—she was free for the taking.
Almost free.
“Ye assume correctly, Lord Essex,” Baron Selkirk said, moving closer to his daughter. “May I present my wife, Lady Selkirk, and my daughter Lady Amelia Bell.”
Amelia. Edmund said her name over and over in his head. Beautiful, just like her.
Thankfully, he wasn’t moved by pretty faces. He was here for a purpose. Nothing had changed. Nothing would sway him from his plans, not when it came to Scotland, not for the land that had breathed new life into him as a boy. Miss Bell was the loveliest lass he’d ever beheld, but Scotland held ownership of his heart.
Still, that didn’t mean he couldn’t charm her witless tonight. Since the duke and the chancellor were both absent, Edmund could take his time with the plan, enjoy it…her, a little. If he played this right, he wouldn’t have to force her to go with him and she might not hate him so much in the morning. She piqued his interest by sleeping in the open in her nightdress, barefoot and vulnerable beneath the permanent gaze of the greatest warrior who’d ever lived. Asleep again at the foot of her father’s chair, at her own celebration. He’d expected the duke’s niece to be more elegant and proper; what he got was a peculiar soul arrayed in mystery and mischief. Getting her to trust him tonight shouldn’t be difficult, but it would be pleasant.
“An honor to meet ye, Lady Selkirk.” Edmund bowed to Amelia’s mother first, then to her. “Miss Bell, yer beauty is honored in song by traveling troubadours, but the splendor of yer countenance was grossly underexaggerated.” His eyes smoldered beneath their glacial veneer as she raised her eyes to his. “Ye are lovelier than anything I have ever dreamed.”
Miss Amelia Bell could make a man happy, Edmund thought, basking in the delicate smile she cast upon him, in the sensual sway of her hooded gaze—like horses racing on the moors. Seafield, traitor to Scotland that he was, did not deserve her. Edmund knew seducing her out of Queensberry House would be an easy task when her lips parted on a suspended breath before she addressed him.
He vowed that before the night was over, he would kiss that mouth.
“Do ye speak such painted words to all the ladies ye meet, my lord?”
He smiled, delighted by her boldness and the glint of humor in her eyes. “None have heard me speak so.”
She graced him with another, more genuine smile that brought a soft groan to Malcolm’s throat. Edmund shared the sentiment but remained silent about it.
“Well then,” she continued, oblivious to her mother’s horror above her, “as far as dreaming goes, I share yer sentiment.”
“Amelia!” Clutching one hand to her chest and the other to her chair, the Baroness of Selkirk gaped, appalled at her daughter. Her husband downed his wine and glanced heavenward before he stepped to his wife’s side and held her upright. But it was Amelia who needed rescuing, Edmund thought as a flurry of whispers arose from the crowd behind him. Her smile vanished and she looked away from him.
“My lord.” Lady Selkirk pulled his attention away from her daughter. “You must excuse her. She is…”
“Delightful,” Edmund finished for her, and caught the slight inhalation of breath that lifted Amelia’s bosom beneath her chin.
“If ye would excuse me,” she said in a low voice to her parents. “I need to use the…” She darted another mortified look to Edmund, then to her mother’s scandalized expression. “I would like to freshen up.”
“Go,” her father allowed, sounding as disparaged as his daughter.
Edmund’s gaze followed her lithe figure as she made her way from the table and disappeared through a doorway to his right. A moment later, a serving lass with hair the color of sunset followed her. She was the same lass Malcolm had eyed earlier. He moved after her now, sharing a nod with Edmund and no words to the baron.
“Lord Essex.” Selkirk’s gravelly voice pulled Edmund’s attention away from the exit. He turned to find the baron had also left his seat and had come to stand at his side.
“I will have our finest chamber prepared for ye and yer men. With so many guests attending, I’m afraid we have no rooms to spare for yer privacy. In the meanwhile”—he reached up and rested his hand on Edmund’s shoulder—“please share in our feast, if not yet a celebration, and tell me some news of England.” He motioned for a server to bring him two cups of fresh wine. “We are all delighted about the treaty. ’Twill help us recover from financial disaster.”
“Ah, ye stand on the English side then,” Edmund replied vaguely. No revelation there. Scottish barons kissed the same English arse as the dukes and earls did. They sold their country and their daughters for the highest offer.
Traitors to so much.
“Do yer daughter and the chancellor share affection?”
“Pardon me?”
Edmund spared him an impatient glance. “Are they in love?” In his line of duty he asked questions. He needed to know how the chancellor felt about Miss Bell. If he would keep his name from the treaty for her.
“I…I believe so,” her father said. “The reason he isn’t here has nothing to do with my daughter, but with his desire to see his holding fit fer his bride.”
“Of course,” Edmund replied with an easy smile that did not reach his eyes. “So then, she is pleased about the marriage.”
“Most certainly.”
Helpful to know that she agreed with the rest of her family, Edmund thought, while his eye caught the return of the auburn-haired servant at the doorway. She looked toward the table at Lady Selkirk, who was sharing a word with a lass who resembled Amelia, save for her pinched lips and swollen belly, then hurried back in the direction from which she came. This time it was Lucan who’d caught sight of her and took up his steps to f
ollow her. Malcolm was nowhere to be seen, likely catching the eye of some other lass who wasn’t busy spying for her mistress.
When Amelia finally reappeared, she, too, looked toward the table, then decided against returning to it. She headed off in the opposite direction.
“He loves her.”
“What?” Edmund turned to her father.
“The lord chancellor,” Lord Selkirk repeated. “He loves my daughter. He’s assured me of it.”
“I’m pleased to hear it,” Edmund told him. Loving her meant that the chancellor would do as they ordered while she was in Edmund’s custody and not sign.
“Even her accursed ill fortune has not deterred him from seeking to win her favor. Alas, she has driven off more suitors than I can count.” He sighed, catching sight of her across the hall. “But they were fools. All but Lord Seafield. He has…”
Edmund stopped listening when Amelia’s path was intercepted by a stern-faced lord who looked older than her father, but was still fit enough to pose a threat. “Who is that man speaking with yer daughter?”
Her father peered around Edmund’s arm to have a look. “That is Lord Bedford, my Eleanor’s husband. She is expecting their first child within the next…”
When Bedford clutched Amelia’s arm, Edmund left her father’s side without hearing the rest.