The Seduction of Miss Amelia Bell

by Paula Quinn

  He didn’t rush to her side, but advanced quietly, seeking to catch a bit of their conversation, which seemed to be growing more heated each moment.

  “I will return to my mother in a moment, Bedford,” Amelia insisted, pulling on her arm for him to let go.

  “She insists that you return now.” He yanked her forward. “Before you crash into a candle stand and set the house aflame.”

  Amelia dug her heels into the floor, and with a flick of her lashes, her dark eyes scored his flesh. “Do ye manhandle my sister, as well?”

  “There is no need.” He leaned toward her and practically growled in her face. “She is not undisciplined as you are, and does as she’s told.”

  “What a pity for ye then,” she said, somehow regaining her complete composure, or seeming to. The fire in her eyes still burned, igniting Edmund’s blood.

  Her brother-in-law laughed, a haughty, lordly sound. “Where is the pity in having a dutiful wife?”

  “She ends up with a terribly bored husband,” Edmund said, reaching them.

  Bedford turned, startled by his sudden appearance. “Lord Essex.”

  Edmund clasped his hands at his back and tipped his head. “Lord Bedford,” he greeted pleasantly. “I’m certain that as tempting the prospect of being dragged across the length of this hall is fer Miss Bell, she would not be averse to me escorting her back to her mother.”

  “Of course, my lord.” Bedford released her with a smile and scurried off.

  Edmund could feel her eyes on him. He’d felt them surveying him from the moment he’d spoken, driving him mad with the desire to look at her. When they were alone, he finally did. He kept his breath from falling short.

  “Ye robbed these good people of at least a se’nnight of gossip.” Her voice was a light, teasing caress that made him doubt it was her beauty alone that provoked his thoughts of kissing her senseless.

  “How thoughtless of me,” he said and crooked his arm, offering it to her. When she accepted, looping her arm through his, he cut her a smirk that twinkled in her eyes and escorted her to the opposite end of the hall, away from the table.

  “I really must apologize for what I said earlier,” she told him while they walked.

  “So there have been men more comely than me in yer dreams then?”

  She glanced up at him and her smile was made all the more stunning by its lack of guile. “Well, I do sleep quite frequently.”

  “And in odd places,” Edmund agreed, surprised at the ease with which she spoke with him, smiled at him. There was nothing coy or calculating about her, and Edmund found himself wanting to trace his fingers, his mouth, over the soft blush that spread across her cheeks. Once he took her prisoner she wouldn’t want to kiss him, and he wasn’t the kind of man who forced himself on a lass. If he was going to taste the sweet honeyed nectar of her lips, it would have to be tonight.

  “I’m terribly sorry for being asleep during yer arrival.” Her blush passed as quickly as her repentance. “I barely had a chance to shut my eyes since meeting ye in the garden this morn.”

  “Ye’re not sleepy now, are ye?”

  “Nae.” She giggled. “Why?”

  “Because I intend to spend the night dancing with ye.”

  She cut him a look from beneath the sooty sweep of her lashes. “That would be lovely but my card is already full. ’Tis my mother’s doing. A ruse to make the other hens believe I am sorely desired.”

  She didn’t need a ruse, Edmund thought to himself when she leaned a bit closer into his side and tilted her lips to his ear. He bent his head to hear her. “In truth, I was hoping to steal a moment alone with ye to discuss our early meeting, and then there ye were, and here we are now. I would call that a fortunate thing, wouldn’t ye?”

  “I would.” His gaze moved over the beguiling curves of her profile.

  “What I wanted to ask ye was not to mention finding me in the arcade to my parents. It would vex my mother terribly to know that I was”—she paused, and veiled her gaze from his—“wandering about the garden at such an ungodly hour.”

  Edmund was surprised to find that he was curious about what she had been doing there. He didn’t ask though. It wasn’t pertinent to his cause, so why bother wasting thought on it? In the morning she would hate him for taking her from everyone she loved, including her betrothed. Tonight, he intended on winning her favor and perhaps something more. After they had her, he wouldn’t have to speak with her again.

  “Why do ye sleep in the garden when ye know yer mother disapproves?” He crooked his mouth at her. “Are ye rebellious then, Miss Bell?”

  “Not particularly, my lord,” she answered. “I simply don’t agree with her reasons why I shouldn’t.”

  Edmund smiled at the limp lock of glossy chestnut hair dangling off her shoulder, reminding him of Selkirk’s comical expression when he saw his daughter asleep in the soup.

  She cast him a worried look and he winked at her to let her know he saw nothing wrong with her way of thinking.

  “So ye will say nothing?”

  “Upon pain of death, ye have my word.”

  She gifted him with a grateful grin and then turned to leave him almost before he could stop her. She paused and turned back to him.

  “Did a troubadour truly mention me in song?”

  He gazed down at her and thought how many ways his uncle Finn could describe her. “He did.”

  “And what did he say?”

  If anything else were at stake besides everything he believed in and loved, he would have had a hard time keeping his hands off her once he got her out of here. She was close enough to kiss right now, if he just dipped his head to the right angle.

  “He said ye were lovelier than a rose in winter, more radiant than one of God’s own angels dreaming at dawn.”

  The soft blush across her nose accentuated the shimmer in her large sable eyes when they looked up at him. “Are ye sure ’twas me he sang about?”

  He smiled, caught completely off guard by her candor. He was tempted to brush his thumb over her jaw, her lips, to tilt her face to accept his mouth.

  A moment passed between them when Edmund ceased to see or hear anyone else but her. She smiled as if sharing his thoughts.

  “How did ye know what I was thinking earlier?” When he didn’t answer right away, she clarified. “With Bedford, about being bored with his dull wife?”

  “Because ’twould be dull and tiresome fer me.”

  Their eyes met again and so much passed between them in the space of that breath that Edmund felt exposed and open more than ever before. He looked away first, afraid that if she looked hard enough, she would see his secrets, his true purpose for being here. But everyone had secrets, didn’t they? Even this tantalizing angel. He could see them plainly in the shrouded slant of her gaze, the mischievous tilt in the curl of her lips. What were they? He wanted to discover them all but he would discover nothing if she was dancing with everyone else.

  “What is it about Michelangelo’s David that captivates ye so?”

  This time, she remained by his side, her dance card forgotten. Tempting her to disobey her mother and using King David to do it was likely a sin, but Edmund would repent of it later.

  “He was the perfect man.”

  “Ye know much about him.”

  “I read the scriptures,” she told him, picking up her steps again and following him toward the garden doors. “He was fearless and faithful, and…” Her voice trailed off and she blushed again. “Tonight I dreamed that he came to life.”

  He laughed and shook his head. “I am nothing like him.”

  “Oh?” Leaning her back against the wall, she tossed him a look filled with whimsy. “Ye don’t go about slaying giants then?”

  “As a matter of fact”—he leaned in closer, tempted to kiss the smile from her lips—“I’m hunting a giant right now.”

  When she giggled, he decided not to let her go tonight. To hell with her dance card. Wanting to be alone with h
er, he swept her out of the hall and into the garden. Concern marred her brow for only an instant before it was replaced by moonlight.

  “We should not be alone.”

  “We’re not alone, my lady. Yer champion is but a few mere feet away.”

  She looked over her shoulder at the statue of David, then turned to him when he took her in his arms. He didn’t try to kiss her, though the battle was not easily won. Music from inside wafted through the windows and blended with the song of the crickets and Edmund wanted to dance with her. He held her gently, indecently according to the day’s standard way of dancing. He didn’t learn these steps in any nobleman’s hall, but in the brothels spanning Scotland. She didn’t object, but breathed rapidly against him when he swayed with the melody.

  “What form of dancing is this? ’Tis scandalous.” She didn’t sound offended.

  He grinned, loosening his hold to look at her. “’Tis the new dance of Spain.”

  She gave him a doubtful smile. “Heads would roll if people danced like this in Spain.”

  “France, then.” He laughed when she gave him a playful shove.

  “I should scream.”

  “Why?” He leaned down, smiling. “Does what we’re doing feel dangerous?”

  She laughed softly against him. “Aye, it does. With me, every day is dangerous. Tempting fate by stealing these moments with ye will likely end in some kind of catastrophe.”

  “Then why do ye do it?”

  “Do ye truly wish to know?”

  He did and he nodded.

  “Because these moments are fanciful and fleeting. Ye remind me of the dreams I had as a child, the ones that sometimes still haunt me. I would risk stealing them, but nothing more. I am no longer a child.”

  “So fancy is only fer children then?”

  She shrugged her delicate shoulders and then laughed with him.

  Edmund accomplished his goal of keeping her to himself for the night. They danced long into the hours and with each moment he spent with Miss Amelia Bell, he knew that if she wasn’t the duke’s niece, the chancellor’s future wife, and a treaty supporter, she could be something meaningful in his life. He had to be extremely careful with her and not let her anywhere near his heart.

  Chapter Six

  What did I tell ye about the Scots? They’re a virile lot.”

  Amelia felt the blood rush to her cheeks at what else Sarah had told her about them.

  They sat on Sarah’s bed, careless of the lumps in the thin mattress poking into their backsides, or the dim light of the single candle obscuring their vision. They had eagerly awaited the end of the night, when they could shed their positions in society, be themselves, and share their secrets, although Sarah’s were far more titillating.

  “But Edmund is not Scottish.”

  “Accordin’ to his friend Lord Huntley, yer Edmund was raised in Scotland. So he might as well be a Scot.”

  Whatever he was, he was the most divine man Amelia had ever laid eyes on. She closed her eyes, wanting to shout and dance and twirl with joy atop Sarah’s rickety bed. She wasn’t sleepy or weary, though she’d spent most of the night dancing with Edmund alone in the garden. She’d told him that her dance card was full, but it wasn’t. In fact, there were no names on it at all. At first, she hadn’t cared that no one wanted to dance with her, but she felt mortified to let Edmund know that. That, and she hadn’t thought it the best idea to spend the entire night dancing with him when he suggested it. A full dance card should have chased him off, but it hadn’t.

  In the end, she was glad it hadn’t. She was grateful to him for stealing her away so cleverly, for being a gentleman and keeping his word. One of them, at least. He hadn’t tried to kiss her. She wished he had, but was glad he hadn’t. She wasn’t under any illusions that there could ever be something with Edmund Dearly of Essex. She was to wed Walter. She hadn’t forgotten her duty. Nothing had changed. She wasn’t free to marry whom she wanted, but she could think about it. She could pretend for just one night that things were different, that they could be different. And what a magical night it had been. Edmund made her laugh and he asked her questions that made her think instead of constantly trying to make her blush with flowery words he might or might not mean. Heavens, but he didn’t need words. Not when he looked at her like he was hungry for more of her. Not something his eyes could behold, but something deeper. No other man had ever looked at her like that.

  She’d wanted to kiss him. Oh, but she ached with a desire to be held in his arms, kissed until she lost her breath, and her logic. She’d been spending a lot of time contemplating her wedding night with Walter. Now those images were replaced with Edmund. And they came alive and heated her belly. So, she was fanciful. The only one who disapproved was her mother, and tonight, just tonight, Amelia didn’t care what her mother thought of her.

  Her dreamy smile vanished and she opened her eyes.

  “Ye didn’t take Lord Huntley to bed, did ye?”

  Sarah rolled her eyes at her. “Honestly, Amelia, I just met him this night.”

  “Did ye?”

  “Nae.” Sarah shook her head. “He chased Lizbeth Cameron and her gigantic bosoms around most of the night. I think I even saw him flirtin’ with the duke’s wife. When he did speak to me, his friend Mr. Lucan Campbell kept appearin’ at our sides to discuss some piece of artwork, which, of course, I knew nothin’ about. I confess that one frightens me a bit with those piercin’ wolf-colored eyes. I found them on me fer most of the night. He has a look about him like he’s eager and able to spill blood, and a lot of it. But enough about the others. Tell me of yer Edmund! Och, Amelia, he is handsome. Ye were certainly correct about that. Was he terribly upset about findin’ ye unchaperoned in the garden at dawn? I thought he might have pulled ye away to admonish ye.”

  Amelia shook her head. “He was quite wonderful about it.” Her breathlessness did not escape Sarah’s notice. “He isn’t stuffy at all. He vowed never to speak of it.”

  “My, but I like him better fer ye already. D’ye think yer father would—”

  “Sarah.” Amelia stopped her before she went any further. “My fate is sealed. Please don’t make it any more difficult. Besides, Lord Essex isn’t interested in me as a wife. And after all he’s likely heard tonight about my ‘incidents,’ I’m certain he cannot wait to leave Queensberry House.”

  “Oh, what a bucket of nonsense!” Sarah exclaimed, pounding her thigh. “Every man in the Great Hall wished he was sittin’ at yer side at that table tonight, includin’ Lord Essex! Ye are the loveliest woman that ever graced this house.”

  “Sarah, don’t be ridiculous. Did ye see my hair? I fell asleep in my soup!”

  Sarah’s mouth curled into a smile. “Aye, and he called ye delightful. I heard him.”

  “Aye, he didn’t flinch when my mother made apologies fer me.”

  “Ye like him then.”

  “Of course I do. Who wouldn’t? But he is leaving in the morning and I am going to be the wife of one of the most powerful men in Scotland.”

  “But Amelia, think of what Lord Essex has hidden in those snug hose!”

  Amelia’s cheeks went up in flames before both women burst into laughter.

  Later, when they lay on the bed staring at the flickering shadows along the ceiling, arms flung over their heads, Amelia’s thoughts were filled with Edmund. “Sarah?”

  “Aye?”

  “What is it like to kiss a Scot, well, an Englishman who was raised in Scotland?”

  “’Tis verra’ nice, and verra’…indecent,” Sarah answered in a voice deep and drowsy.

  The thought of Edmund kissing her indecently stirred Amelia’s blood. “Tell me how they kiss, won’t ye?”

  And Sarah did, leaving little to Amelia’s imagination.

  “Walter has never put his tongue into my mouth,” Amelia confided when her friend was done.

  “Of course he hasn’t. He’s as dull as wet grass.”

  Amelia smiled at the ceiling. W
hen Sarah’s breath grew slow and even a few moments later, Amelia pressed a kiss to her dearest friend’s forehead and left her bed.

  Edmund sat in the shadows of the Duke of Queensberry’s garden and waited for Amelia to return from wherever she had gone. To meet her lover? The thought didn’t sit well with him, but he told himself it was because it meant that things weren’t so good between her and the chancellor, and if the chancellor didn’t care if she was kidnapped, he’d sign the treaty and all this would be for naught.

  That’s what Edmund told himself.

  He waited for her like a thief in the night, ready to steal her away from the people she loved, eager to begin the process of winning this battle for Scotland.

  Eager to see her, to speak to her again. He’d sincerely enjoyed the night he spent with her and the more times she smiled at him, laughed with him, opened up to him, the more he hated the idea of using her as a pawn. She was nothing like some of the other noblemen’s daughters he’d met in the past. He wished she were haughty, like her mother and her sisters. It would make what he meant to do easier. But she seemed to genuinely care about her uncle’s servants and her father’s well-being.

  He hadn’t kissed her. He’d promised himself that he would. But now, feeling drawn to her like he did, he decided it was best that he kept his mouth and his hands off her.

  He’d been untruthful to women before in his quest for information, but he’d never gone out of his way to make them trust him, believe that he was someone he wasn’t. He was no courtly, pure-hearted warrior sent from heaven to battle giants with a sling. No, he used innocent women to win his war.

  But there was no time for regrets. He must carry out his and his cousins’ plan and save his kin, his clan, his countrymen from suppression. Nothing would stop him. Not even the slight flip of his heart when he saw her entering the garden in her nightdress, humming to the stars.

  Amelia glanced up at the stars strewn across the warm violet sky. She was late again—or early, depending on how one looked at it. She didn’t care. No one would miss her if she slept a few extra hours. As she made her way across the arcade, she cursed her ill fortune that a man like Edmund came into her life merely to remind her how dull her days were going to be with Walter. Edmund, who thought an obedient, ever-dutiful wife was tiresome. Stop it, Amelia, she chided herself. Ye’re going to be wed in a month.