The Perks of Being a Beauty

by Manda Collins

  “I’m sorry,” he said, not letting her go despite her trembling. “Don’t run.”

  And before he knew it they had drawn to a halt and he was drawing Amelia into the circle of his arms. And to his astonishment, she was weeping as if her heart would break.

  “Shh,” he whispered into her hair, rubbing her back and rocking her back and forth as if she were a small child. It was the first time in his experience with her that she’d allowed him to soothe her. Well, excepting that evening the greenhouse, but that was something else altogether. This was different. More tender somehow.

  And in that moment he knew. He would do anything for this woman. Slay any dragon. Vanquish all enemies. Fight any battle to protect her.

  Holding her as she wept, he knew that he loved her—had probably done so since they’d first met all those years ago.

  And this time, he would not let her get away.

  Chapter Seven

  When Amelia’s tears finally stopped she became aware of several things at once. First of all, that she was pressed indecently close against Quentin’s strong, solid body. Next, that they were somewhere in the middle of a rather secluded wood with no bluebells to be found. And third, and perhaps most importantly, it had begun to rain.

  “Damn it,” Quentin said, pulling his hat down to shield his face. “I might have known the weather would change in an instant. Good old England.”

  He pulled back from her and began to remove his greatcoat. When he’d shrugged out of it, he wrapped it around Amelia, who had begun to shiver.

  “We need to find some shelter or we’ll be drenched,” Amelia said, her teeth chattering. She scanned the area around them and spied a thatched roof up ahead. “Look, Quentin, there’s a cottage of some sort. Let’s see if they’ll allow us to stop there for a bit.”

  Thankfully he didn’t argue, and as if by prearrangement, they hurried down the path toward what turned out to be a crofter’s cottage. Such small shelters were dotted about the countryside for the men who followed their flocks overland. The little yard surrounding the house was spare and showed no sign of occupation, but when Quentin tried the door it was unlocked and Amelia allowed herself to be hurried indoors just as the rain began to fall in earnest.

  Grateful to be out of the damp—which as spring in England often did, had turned quite chilly—Amelia scanned the single room and spied a chest at the end of the narrow bed in the corner. Opening it, she found several blankets which were stale smelling but were fortunately clean enough.

  “Here,” she called over her shoulder. “Our host has provided some quilts.”

  “And a stack of firewood,” Quentin responded from where he knelt beside the small woodstove on the other side of the chamber. “I’ll just get a fire going while you get out of those damp things.”

  Amelia balked. “I can hardly remove my gown with you here,” she said, sounding to her own ears like a stuffy matron.

  “I won’t look,” he said, reasonably, still not turning to look at her. “It would be foolish for you to remain in those soaked things when you have a chance to warm up. You can take it off and get beneath the blanket. I daresay it will be more modest than some of the evening gowns I’ve seen you in.”

  She could hardly argue with that, Amelia acknowledged. And she was shivering in her damp muslin gown. “All right,” she said finally. “But you may not turn around until I say you might.”

  “You have my word,” Quentin said, seeming to be completely absorbed by the task of lighting tinder in the stove.

  Assured that he wouldn’t peek, Amelia divested herself of her gown, and huddled beneath one of the sturdy quilts from the chest. Then, after a short debate with herself she removed her boots and stockings as well. Much more comfortable, she hung the damp things on the end of the bed so that they might dry in the warmth of the fire. “All right,” she said, finally. “I am decent enough.”

  Brushing his hands off on his breeches, Quentin stood and turned around. Amelia noticed at once that his coat was just as damp as her gown had been.

  “You’d better get out of your wet things as well,” she said in a tone she hoped would brook no argument. To her relief he shrugged out of his coat and spread it over the back of a chair near the stove. Next, he unknotted his cravat, which was now sadly dropping with damp, and began to unwind it from about his neck.

  Amelia was unable to keep her eyes off him, despite the knowledge that it was quite unseemly for her to stare at him as she was doing. The entire scene was disarmingly domestic and she could not stop a pang of homesickness for the life they might have had together if she’d not been so foolish as to reject him all those years ago.

  As if he suddenly realized that he was being watched, Quentin paused while unwinding his neck cloth. “What?” he demanded. “Is something wrong?”

  “Not at all,” she said primly. On the contrary, she thought. He was the very opposite of wrong. She swallowed as he continued with his task, finally removing the cravat to reveal a V of naked skin at the top of his chest. “I was merely…” She searched for a word that would not make her sound like an utter scandal. “That is to say, I was watching you remove your cravat. I had no notion it was so complicated.”

  He gave her a wry look. “Indeed?” he asked, his waistcoat hanging open, his shirtsleeves bright white in the dimness of the little cottage. “Have you never seen a gentleman remove his cravat before, Amelia?”

  She blinked. “Of course I haven’t. It’s hardly the sort of thing one witnesses in the course of polite society.”

  Prowling toward the bed, where she had tucked up her legs beneath the blanket, he surveyed her with a lazy look that seemed to see right through the blanket that preserved her modesty. “I suppose it isn’t,” he said thoughtfully. “Is there any other aspect of male dressing or undressing you’d like to see?”

  He took a seat beside her on the narrow bed, and Amelia felt both crowded and enthralled at once. Lifting her chin, she tried to remember his question, and when she did, she pursed her lips. “I should like to see a good many things, my lord, but I fear it would not be seemly.”

  He laughed, and she had to dig her fingers into her palms to prevent herself from laughing with him.

  “My dear Miss Snowe,” he said with a smile, “we have moved far beyond seemly. Which you know full well.”

  It was true enough, though Amelia had rather hoped to prevent him from noticing. For she greatly feared that they were on their way toward the thing that she both desperately wanted and feared above all things.

  Still, she refused to give in. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean. I am perfectly modest here in my blanket. And though it is perhaps irregular for me to see you in your shirtsleeves without a cravat, it is hardly something that compromises my reputation.”

  “No,” he agreed. “But my reputation has already been compromised by our very presence here. And then there was our little interlude in the Smithsons’ greenhouse. I fear, Miss Snowe, that you have right and properly compromised me and there will be nothing for it but for you to make an honest man of me.”

  As he continued speaking, Amelia’s jaw slackened more and more, until she was sitting there, huddled beneath her quilt with her jaw agape.

  “You are compromised?” she finally demanded. “I have compromised your reputation? Really? You are going with that line of reasoning?”

  Quentin smiled like the cat who’d been in the cream. “I certainly am. Why, I arrived at the Smithson home with my reputation as a gentleman firmly intact and any young lady in the realm might have had me for the taking. Now, I am unfit for anyone but you. To put it simply, Amelia,” he said with a grin, as he began to pull away the blanket from where it was tucked up under her neck, “you’ve ruined me for other women.”

  Pulling the blanket away from her to reveal her chemise and corset beneath, Quentin continued. “You see, Amelia, I’m afraid that I’m in love with you. I have been for any number of years. At the very least since you left
me with my heart splattered all over the countryside all those years ago. And now that I’ve fallen under your spell again, I refuse to let you get rid of me again. What have you to say to that, my dear? Will you put me out of my misery and do the right thing by me?”

  As he spoke each word he continued to unwrap the blanket from around her, and to replace the blanket with himself. Until, finally, he had her in his lap with his arms wrapped firmly about her.

  “I suppose I have no choice,” she said, snuggling her face into his neck. “I couldn’t live with myself if I were the cause of ruining a man like you again. It was hard enough the first time.”

  “Was it?” he asked, pulling back to look into her face. And Amelia had the sense that he really didn’t know what to believe.

  “Quentin, refusing your proposal was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I knew I was hurting you but I had little choice but to do what my mother said. I thought I owed her that because I’d ruined her chances with Sir Jacob. I know now of course that I was foolish to do it, but I thought I had no choice. And there hasn’t been a day since that I haven’t regretted it.”

  What she saw in his expression was a mixture of love, affection, and most important to her own well-being, forgiveness.

  “I love you,” she said softly, almost fearing that by saying the words out loud she was risking their happiness. She’d lived for so long without hope that even now in the face of his love she couldn’t help but question it a bit.

  His response, however, was enough to quell any bit of lingering doubt.

  “Huzzah!” he cheered, kissing her with a thoroughness that left her breathless. “That is what I’ve waited years to hear from you, Miss Amelia Snowe,” he said, finally. “And do not think that I will allow you to take it back in this lifetime.”

  “I won’t,” Amelia said, astonished at the lightness in her heart. If this was what love and being loved felt like then she had been foolish indeed to reject it. This sensation made her feel invincible. “You are stuck with me now, my lord,” she said with a laugh.

  “If that is the case,” he said, sliding his hands over her back to feel for her corset strings, “then I had best inspect what it is you’ve got lurking beneath all these clothes.”

  He turned out to be quite efficient at removing ladies’ undergarments and in a shorter time than Amelia could have imagined she was naked, on her back, with a very large and very aroused Quentin pressed against her. “I do apologize for neglecting your education when it comes to removing my own clothing,” he said between kisses, “but I am afraid if I don’t have you soon I’ll expire from desire.”

  As he was quite effectively stroking one hand over her breast and the other down over her bare stomach and between her legs, Amelia was in no position to argue, and when he finally pulled her right leg over his hip and thrust into her, she was beyond speech. At last, she was right where she wanted to be, in Quentin’s arms. No longer was she struggling to find her own way alone, but with each touch, each sensation, she became what she was destined to be: his. And he was closer and closer to being hers.

  When at last they exploded in a frenzy of senseless bliss, Amelia knew that she was finally where she’d longed all her life to be.

  Home.

  Chapter Eight

  After an hour or so more in the seclusion of the crofter’s hut, Quentin and Amelia dressed and walked hand in hand back down the path to the village toward the Smithsons’ house. They had hoped to slip back in through the French doors of the drawing room without being seen, but that hope was dashed as soon as they realized that the entire party was gathered there.

  “There you are!” Harriet hurried toward them as soon as they stepped inside, her bright eyes not missing their linked hands, which they reluctantly dropped when they realized they’d been found out. “I was so worried about the two of you. Especially when the rain turned nasty. I hope you weren’t wet through.”

  She pulled Amelia into a hug and whispered into her ear, “Mama has been on the warpath. She’s giving Papa a piece of her mind in the library now. I suggest you let Lord Quentin go explain himself to them first.”

  “Indeed we were,” Amelia answered aloud. “But thankfully we found shelter for the worst of it. I think we should both go get changed.”

  “Your clothes don’t look too wet now,” Miss Fotheringham said suspiciously. “That shelter you found must have been quite … accommodating.”

  “It was,” Quentin told the girl with all the hauteur the son of a duke could muster. “In fact, it kept us from the rain completely. Which is doubtless why we seem none the worse for wear. I hope you will all excuse us.”

  With that, he took Amelia’s arm and escorted her from the room. As soon as they crossed the threshold, Amelia heard the other guests burst into conversation.

  “That certainly put the cat among the pigeons,” she said to him as they followed Harriet down the hall toward Mr. Smithson’s study. “I doubt that they believed us.”

  “I couldn’t care less what they think,” Quentin said with a grin. “It’s none of their business. So long as we marry as quickly as possible, any scandal we might have caused will be a nine days’ wonder.”

  Amelia knew he was right, but she still couldn’t help but worry. She’d spent so long fearful of ruining her reputation and therefore her chances of making an eligible match, that now she’d secured one she felt as if she needed to wake up from some fabulous dream.

  At the door to Mr. Smithson’s study, Harriet stopped and turned to look at them.

  “I am so happy for you!” she gushed to Amelia before hugging her one last time. “Don’t let Mama and Papa bully you. They’re just disappointed to lose you as my companion. They can’t say yes or no about your betrothal because they are only your employers.”

  “Harriet,” Amelia said, her eyes wide. “How do you even know that’s what this is about?”

  Her charge all but rolled her eyes. “Do acquit me of having some sense, Miss Snowe,” she said with a laugh. “I knew the two of you had a history from the moment Lord Quentin introduced himself. And when you walked in just now you were both grinning. It hardly took any great powers of deduction on my part to guess what had happened.” She hugged Amelia again, then Quentin. “I’m so happy for you both I can hardly stand it!” she said with her own grin.

  “Thank you, Miss Smithson,” Quentin said with a slight bow. “Now, wish us luck.”

  “You’ve got it,” Harriet said before shooing them through the doorway and shutting the door behind them.

  When the door opened, Mrs. Smithson, who had been in mid-tirade, stopped speaking and stared. “Well, it’s about time,” she said, crossing her arms over her ample bosom. “What do you have to say for yourself, Miss Snowe?” she demanded. “Because I hope you know that I won’t keep a light-skirt in my employ no matter how much town bronze she might be able to promise my daughter.”

  “Now, Kitty,” Mr. Smithson said with a wince, “there’s no need for that.”

  “Mrs. Smithson,” Quentin said before Amelia could even respond, “I’m afraid I must ask you to apologize to my fiancée. She really does not deserve that sort of disrespect from you. Especially given how hard she’s worked to see to Harriet’s future.”

  “Fiancée?” the older woman demanded.

  “Congratulations, the both of you,” Mr. Smithson said, breaking out into a huge grin. “This is wonderful news, make no mistake.”

  “But,” Mrs. Smithson began. “How could you? After all we’ve done for you! You ungrateful girl!”

  She raised her hand as if she was going to slap Amelia, but Mr. Smithson was there first. He grabbed her hand in midair and held her fast. “No, Kitty. That’s not the way. If you wish to blame anyone, blame me. I’m the one who invited Lord Quentin. We were working on a business deal and I thought he might enjoy the party seeing as how he knew Miss Snowe from before.”

  Mrs. Smithson’s eyes grew round. “A business deal?” she demanded.
“He is a duke’s son! A duke’s son I wished to pair with our Harriet! He’s been tempted away by this hussy and our Harriet will be an old maid.”

  “Mrs. Smithson, really,” Quentin said with a frown. “If you continue to speak of Miss Snowe in those terms I will be forced to take action against you.”

  No longer frightened of losing her position, Amelia allowed herself to ask the question that had plagued her since she’d first been hired by the Smithsons. “Mrs. Smithson, why do you despise me so? I thought it might have been because you wished to ensure that I knew my place, but it seems to be more than that. Isn’t it?”

  The other woman’s lips were pursed so tightly they must have pained her. Still, she glared at Amelia and said, “Because you’re just the sort of girl who made my life miserable when I made my come-out years ago. I know your type, Miss Snowe. You taunt and belittle and demean until the object of your scorn is utterly devastated.”

  “Kitty,” Mr. Smithson said, slipping an arm around his wife’s shoulders, “you never told me this. I thought you enjoyed your time in London. You certainly seemed to be enjoying it when we met.”

  Mrs. Smithson shook her head. “By that time I’d learned to stand up for myself, but I never forgot what those girls did to me. I thought by hiring Miss Snowe, I’d finally turned the tables,” she continued, her eyes bright with unshed tears, “but she’s behaved true to type and has stolen the handsomest man here for herself instead of leaving him to Harriet as she should have done.”

  “I am sorry for your bad experiences in the ton, Mrs. Smithson,” Quentin said with a troubled expression, “but Amelia wasn’t even out of the nursery when that happened. She can’t be expected to pay the price for the girls who shunned you in your youth.” Amelia would have thrown her arms around his neck, but she didn’t want to give her erstwhile employer any more ammunition.