by Baird Wells
She crossed the room when Amelia was out of sight, seeing red by the time she reached the others. “Every one of you,” she hissed, jabbing at even Paulina's tight-lipped expression, “owns some blame for what just transpired here, by your words or by your silence, but you,” she sliced a finger across Caroline, Paulina and Elizabeth, “ought to burn from the inside with shame that only the hand of God himself can relieve.” She bit off the words, choking down more, and turned on her heel toward the door.
A word was spoken behind her, a desperate command, but her feet pounded in her ears as much as her thundering heart and Alix couldn't make it out. Amelia was her sole focus now, hunched in the hall, dwarfed by its high columns like an imprisoned miniature, eyes wide and red rimmed. “Mrs. Rowan,” she whispered, “please tell me what is happening.”
Alix's heart clenched, choking off her words until she could gather herself. Then she wrapped an arm around Amelia's narrow shoulders, sweeping her toward the door. “On the way home, when we can speak more freely.” They shuffled out together under a sun that was hateful in its brilliance, callous to poor Lady Grey's impending heartbreak.
“Settle in. I'll get my hat.” She passed Amelia off to a footman, who handed her up into the carriage.
Only when she turned back to find Spencer waiting on the top step did it register that what she'd heard in the hallway was her name on his lips. He grabbed her wrist with long fingers as she passed by, forcing her to turn around. She wasn't angry with him, just angry, and she didn't want to talk. “I'm getting my hat,” she repeated.
Nodding, Spencer brought an arm from behind his back and held out her bonnet.
* * *
Spencer settled the hat on Alexandra's head, certain she would pull away before he could find his voice. He swallowed twice before managing out the words. “What you said inside was brave, Alexandra.”
She raised her chin a fraction. “And could have, should have been said by any one of the others. Someone less apt to face Paulina’s wrath.”
“But it was you.” The words tumbled out unchecked. “You have my thanks, my admiration. And someday when Amelia is able to look back on these days, I expect it will be you she thinks of with gratitude. Her father is a friend to me; he'll appreciate what you've done.”
Softening, Alix pressed his fingers with her other hand, glancing back at Amelia's gaunt face peering through the carriage window. “Those days are very, very far away.”
Gripping her wrist tighter, he tugged her down one step at a time. “Come.”
“Come where? What are you doing?”
“Going with you. Now stop dragging feet and come along.”
Full lips pursed, leaving no question of her disapproval, but Alix followed along. He wasn't eager to join her, but suspected she might need him more than she was letting on. He certainly wouldn’t allow her to face this task alone.
Lord Jersey had broken the news to them that morning, just as they passed the first clearing out of Broadmoore's view. No one believed Grey's dalliance with Julia Fields had ended with his marriage to Amelia. He behaved more as a parent to her than as a husband. As John had pointed out on their ride, it was assumed that Grey might seek out his mistress from time to time, while remaining discreet.
Jersey's quick synopsis of the daily papers proved Grey had been anything but, and the printing had not spared his words to Julia. That he had groaned over her, passed days in agitation at the thought of her, taken her in his carriage, the very one they were alighting now, one afternoon when parliament had let out early. Julia had shared every red-tinted detail, recalled in her lover’s hand.
They hadn't comprehended the real danger in an immediate sense until Jersey spotted three ladies coming down a far hill and John identified the dangerous mix of Ralls, Conyngham and Mrs. Paton. Their horses couldn't draw up or wheel about fast enough. Jersey had made it readily apparent that racing was indeed in his thoroughbred's future, but not at the promise of any coin. Still they were too late; they'd arrived at the house to find a fuse already lit among the women. Alexandra's face had dashed the last of his hopes, saying as plain as any words that Amelia’s fate had been decided.
He took the carriage’s empty seat. Alix settled opposite, beside Amelia, who burrowed into the crook of her arm without invitation.
The carriage lurched forward, more jarring than it should have been, and Spencer realized he was stiff with nerves head to toe.
Alexandra held his gaze in silence until they had passed under the front gate turning out onto the main road. He was out of his depth, never the unfaithful one and never jilted, and by Alexandra’s expression, her frame of reference was not any broader.
In the end, Amelia took the matter out of their hands. “Is it Grey?” she whispered.
“What makes you think so?” Alexandra's voice brimmed with compassion, so much that he also felt comforted by her words.
“I didn't until this moment. A letter came last week. I went to his desk to borrow a nib for my quill. Flowers, roses I think. An envelope was perfumed with them. I wondered but I didn’t...I would never think so of him.”
No doubt the envelope had been Julia's plea for more money, her demand for his unflagging attentions. He wondered if Grey now regretted his moment of conscience.
Alix squeezed Amelia tighter; Spencer recognized it as a warning to brace for what came next. “Amelia, did you know that your husband has a mistress in town?”
A piercing animal wail magnified by their close quarters said plainly that she did not know. Amelia's shoulders heaved, but no more sound came out, not even breath, and he feared she was having some sort of fit. Then one ragged sob opened a gate for others; face buried in Alexandra's shoulder, Amelia muffled the sounds of her innocence dying. Alix closed her eyes and bounced Amelia out of time with the carriage's haphazard rattling, shushing softly against the girl’s ear.
She was stronger than he; Spencer appreciated it in that moment. He could hold an infantryman's guts in both hands, pull shrapnel from an eye, or bayonet his enemy with countless blows until he fell and didn't get up. He could never do what Alix was doing now, holding together pieces of Amelia's heart. That was true bravery.
Lost in the thought, it took several moments before he comprehended Alix's fingers raking at him, beckoning for something. He glanced from his hand to his watch fob, finally grasping what she was asking of him. Feeling like a slow-witted idiot, he tore his handkerchief free, shoving it into her waiting palm.
One hand cradling Amelia's head, Alix unfolded his cloth with the other, frowning at how tiny and inadequate it must seem compared with a growing dark spot on her brown silk bodice. “Amelia,” she instructed, “We're nearly home. Sit up and get hold of yourself a moment.”
Her words met with only partial success. Amelia pulled herself away, still hunched and face to the foot well no matter Alexandra's efforts to raise her chin. A few passes of his handkerchief got a top layer of tears and snot cleaned before Amelia fell apart again.
“I want...” she gasped between sobs, “I want to go to my father in London.”
“Your father is coming here,” he offered, glad to be of use and thankful he had gleaned something of value from Jersey’s recounting of the London scandalbroth surrounding Grey.
“I don’t understand! I don’t understand.” Amelia gasped the phrase between sobs, head shaking and her eyes pressed closed.
Another person might have drawn things out, tried to soften the blow. Alexandra by some intuition seemed to appreciate that it was kindest to get things over with. “This woman has printed your husband’s letters, Amelia. In the papers. So your father will come here, and you will stay in the country and spare yourself from idle tongues.”
“What do I do?” Tears stretched into panic, Amelia comprehending that her husband had not only shamed himself, but her as well. Spencer tucked a hand beneath his thigh to keep from making a fist. “What shall I do?” she cried again, sitting up, eyes darting from Alix to him and
back.
“You're going to go home, go inside, and that is all you're going to worry about just now,” instructed Alix.
Amelia clawed at Alix's sleeve. “He's there! He's going to be there when we arrive. I can't look at him; what will I say?”
Alix’s eyes went to his, an unspoken question in them. He nodded. “Leave Grey to Lord Spencer. The men can sort that out; you and I will start by going in.”
“I can’t see him; I can’t! I don’t want him to touch –” Hysterics erupted in earnest, Amelia tottering wildly between crying, shrieking, and choking out unintelligible parts of words. Alix looked stricken, and he felt useless. He'd once knocked a hysterical corporal out cold mid-battle, but the application of such a tactic now was useless, and that was the extent of his knowledge.
It took Alexandra and two of Amelia's aunts, summoned by her father he guessed, to drag her limp-legged and wailing from the carriage and into the house. A sound over his shoulder as Spencer followed them in revealed a dust plume far down the lane, a tiny black carriage growing larger at break-neck speed. Lord Darby, he'd put money on it. Spencer picked up his pace; Amelia's father was not a man regarded for moderate temper.
The sobbing drifted farther away upstairs, and Spencer put more distance between himself and the gut-wrenching sound. Staring at the floor as he stalked toward the study, he counted black and white marble tiles; ten of each to the study door. Somehow it helped cage his anger.
George started at his intrusion, arms and legs spread akimbo as though pinning his red leather arm chair to the floor. Green drapes pulled tight cast a sickly light between the room's shadows and over George's blandly handsome face. It didn't help that he was already haggard by a night of hard drinking, guessing by a stale, rummy odor hanging on the air. Creases in George's coat, from knee to thigh on his trousers, announced that he still wore yesterday's clothes.
Identifying his intruder, George raked fingers through wild blond hair and slumped back in his seat. “Reed. I'm in no mood for company.”
“I couldn't give a damn, Grey.” He paced a few steps in. “And you're bloody well about to have it in spades, so prepare yourself.”
The news brought George up in his chair. “What the hell does that mean?”
“That if I don't wring your sodding yellow neck, Darby behind me will.”
“Oh God.” Burying his face, George scrubbed at swollen eyes. “He knows.” Spencer was pinned by an accusing glare. “How do you know?”
“Everyone has seen your bare arse, clear to Gretna Green. Everyone knows.”
“Oh God, Amelia!”
Spencer miscalculated how quickly he could cover the room and how forcefully George had bounded from his seat, his arm driving the man back down and cracking something in the chair's frame before nearly toppling it backwards. “You either have excuses or apologies, and Lady Grey wants neither one. Save them for her father.”
His words summoned Darby, bellowing down the hall under a cloud of Scottish vulgarity. “...do not require an introduction! He will damn well ken who I am with my boot in his arsehole!”
A face as cragged as the hills of his homeland coupled with a silver sheen to his once fiery sweep of hair was camouflage; Spencer knew better than to believe Darby was decrepit or tame. Anxiously plucked sideburns stood from his weathered face like gills, mute testimony to his anger and worry. Darby’s glacier blue eyes pinned Grey as he stormed in, set to freeze the man where he sat. He was absent his hat but not, Spencer noted, his thick oak walking stick.
“Grey, you unaccountable whoreson.” It rolled from Darby's tongue with the same factual monotone as a comment on the weather. “Where is my daughter?”
Spencer pointed. “She's been taken upstairs by Mrs. Rowan and her aunts.”
“Mrs. what!”
“A friend,” Spencer placated.
“It sickens me,” he ground out, gathering a few menacing steps towards Grey, “to think of her breathing the same air as what flows from your pox ridden mouth!” The walking stick slammed to the desk for emphasis, and Grey did not help his cause by flinching. Any sign of weakness was blood in the water for Darby. “Unthinkable, that she should be shamed by a muslin-lifter such as you.”
Grey found his feet now, pinning them both with a trembling finger. “No whores for you, I presume! Pure white robes of a saint. And you, Reed? Not a dalliance once in your past?”
Spencer straightened and rolled a shoulder. “Plenty of them Grey, but I never took a wife to bed with my mistress.”
“Hypocrisy abounds!”
“Doesn't it?” Spencer stepped ahead of Darby. “Plenty of gentlemen keep comfort on the side with their lady's knowledge.” Jersey came immediately to mind. “Why didn't you tell Amelia?”
“Are you daft? Because it would gut her!”
“And now she is gutted. Lo, the irony.” Crossing his arms, Spencer kept quiet and let his point stand between them.
Darby was less content. “I'm calling you out, Grey! Battersea fields, day after tomorrow. Be sure to bring a second so I can shoot him too, for his poor judgment in calling you friend.”
“You cannot.” Spencer raised a hand. “I've already demanded satisfaction from Lord Grey.”
Grey crossed his arms. “You've done no such thing!”
“It was my purpose in coming here; my claim takes precedence.” Grey was probably not clear which end of a pistol lobbed a bullet, but Darby had the aim of a blind man. Spencer was nearly certain the wrong person would be struck, to say nothing of substantial danger to anyone within fifty yards.
Grey swallowed and his ruddy cheeks blanched. “You're accounted as a dead shot, Reed.”
“I fail to see how that is a problem.”
Silence stretched between them, tight enough to fray, and Spencer wondered by George's renewed airs if he thought the challenge a bluff. He determined to set the matter straight. “Darby stands as my second. Battersea fields, dawn after next. Or I shred what remains of your manhood.”
“Reed.” Alexandra's voice was a cool breeze, slaking some of his rage. He realized, turning to find her wide-eyed and hovering in the doorway, that she must have heard his ultimatum to Grey. “It's time we were on our way.”
He caught a weight to her words and nodded.
Grey stepped in, red-faced and humiliated. “Is half of London in my house! Get out! I would speak with my wife.”
“Don't force yourself on her, Lord Grey. Preserve what's left of your dignity. And hers.” Alexandra's sigh was tired and thin. “Learn to practice some unselfishness. Sir.”
George lunged at her insult, and Darby grabbed a fistful of his shirt, hauling for the door on stout legs. “At present, this is Amelia's home. You'll bunk elsewhere.”
Grey kicked against Darby's efforts. “You wanted this! I have never been good enough!”
“Well, you’ve proved that point, lad!”
Grey went on twisting and flailing against Darby’s iron grip. “You’re high on your oats, driving a wedge at last. You whoreson!”
Their exchange escalated quickly to a rough embrace, Darby's arm a vice around his son-in-law's neck while they grunted and strained down the hall.
Each time Spencer believed shame and humiliation had reached their peak today, he’d been proved wrong.
He pressed a hand to Alexandra's shoulder, telling her to stay put, and followed Darby’s commotion to the door. A meaty arm tossed Grey outside, and skidding gravel and a mouthful of swears echoed back. He came up behind Darby just in time to see Grey dusting off, drawing back for a charge. Spencer snatched the walking stick and positioned himself on the steps between the men. “Try it Grey, and I'll break your goddamn ankles. And I'll still put a ball in you and not lose sleep.”
George backed away, arms wide. His lips parted in a sneer and then he froze, eyes fixed to windows high up on the house. His hand shot up, grasping. “Amelia, wait! Wait...”
He couldn’t see Amelia in the window, couldn’t hear the curtain
fall, but Spencer knew the moment both had happened.
Head hanging, Grey’s arm fell limp, and for the first time there was something like contrition on his face. He turned and crossed the yard toward the stables without another word.
“I'll be here tonight, if he shows his face again,” barked Darby, loud enough for his son-in-law’s ears.
Spencer took in the slump of Grey's shoulders, the shuffling gait of his retreat. “He won't.”
Slender fingers pressed at his back. He closed his eyes and let Alexandra's nearness sooth him.
“Mrs. Rowan, I take it?” growled Darby, shifting his not inconsiderable attentions to her.
To her credit, Alexandra stood tall at his scrutiny. “Lordship.”
“A Yank lass. Hmph. Reed says you did Amelia a kindness.”
“I imagine she feels otherwise.”
“You have my thanks, just the same,” Darby muttered, high praise from a proud man.
Alix stepped between them and laid her hand on Darby’s arm. “Lord Darby, plenty of people will call to offer Amelia sympathy. There isn't much you can do to ease her suffering, but turning away Ladies Ralls and Conyngham might prevent more.”
Caterpillar brows twitched at the information, weighing it, and Darby's broad shoulders slouched. He gestured upstairs. “Into the trenches, then. Reed, if you change your tune about the Fields, no one will think the lesser of you. You can act as my second just as well.”
“I won't, but thank you.” He took Darby's hand and shook it, waiting until the door had closed in the man's wake to claim Alexandra's trembling arm. “How are you?”
“Don't ask me now.” She tried sweeping loose strands back into her disheveled bun. “I'm biased and outraged beyond rational conversation. Disagreeable at being hungry.” She scrubbed a sleeve over her eyes. “Don't ask me now,” she pleaded again.
He led her across the dooryard in silence, wondering at how she was now a fixture in his days, as though she had always existed. Alexandra's warm evenness created a sort of amnesia, so that he nearly forgot what life had been like before. Friends, she had said, but they had tangled somehow into confidantes, into more.