by Sandy Raven
Dread swept up Amelia’s spine just as her aunt asked, “Your Grace? I thought I saw you come this way.”
Sir groaned and took it upon himself to push Amelia back into the gap where’d she been hiding behind the armor. He followed, hiding her behind his masculine bulk.
His broad, hard body shielded her from view, and his scent—a faint bergamot and spice—caused her to weaken in his embrace. And it was a firm hold, unlike how she’d ever been held before. She opened her mouth to warn him that her aunt was in the room, in case he hadn’t heard. The witch was sure to sniff them out, and when Aunt Katherine realized where she was and that she was with a man, her temper was sure to send Amelia straight to a women’s work house.
Then he kissed her.
His body pressed against hers, his lips firm yet soft. He dominated her with them, keeping her from crying out in surprise or fear. One hand braced against the dark paneling to support them, while the other held her close unwilling to let her flee. Of course he could not know it, but running from him right then was the furthest thing from her mind. And when his tongue touched her lips she sighed, then parted and allowed him entrance. This was her first kiss and she was melting beneath the sweet heat of it.
She had no idea who the man was, other than Sir. And her aunt was on the verge of finding them, which would ruin her. But Amelia gave herself up to the man with the expert lips and manly scent for he certainly knew how to keep a woman quiet. After a while he abandoned her lips, kissing his way over her jawline toward her ear.
Amelia wanted nothing more than to continue what they were doing, but Aunt Katherine’s footsteps grew closer as she came back toward them. She called out for the duke she’d been looking for and Amelia wanted to tell her the man was not in here. It was just she and her Sir from the garden. A bare finger pressed against her lips as he shushed her then whispered, “I will protect you.” His fingers twined into the fallen curls at the nape of her neck and his thumb ran along her neck. He had to feel her pulse there, racing wildly. She had lost all her senses. Amelia had never behaved like this before.
Then Aunt Katherine saw them. Or rather, she saw Sir, for Amelia was hidden behind his massive breadth of chest. His hips pushed her into the wall as his head came down and kissed her again. This time there was something rigid pressing into her that hadn’t been there before, and it continued to rise. Having read some of the books on anatomy that her father had bound for a physician client, Amelia remembered the drawings. This, she felt certain, was the man’s rigid manhood pressing into her lower belly causing her entire body to tremble. She melted further into him, as her hands rose up the smooth fabric of his waistcoat, under the open jacket.
“Your Grace? I didn’t want our evening to end and I thought to….” Aunt Katherine’s voice sounded almost hurt as she took in the scene before her, and Amelia felt a twinge of pity for her.
She pushed at his immovable shoulders with all her might. Oh dear heaven! Aunt Katherine could not find her here, like this, and with Sir!
He lifted his head and pressed a kiss on her temple before turning from her, using his great mass to hide her. Doom. Amelia was doomed. She was surely going to that workhouse now. Those threats were going to be her reality.
“All you had to do, Your Grace, was say you had plans. Though with whom, I cannot venture a guess as you were with us the entire evening.” Aunt Katherine’s voice grated on Amelia’s nerves. “Your actions led me to believe….”
He lifted his head, and replied while looking into Amelia’s eyes. “Nothing, Lady Rawdon I led you to believe nothing. You made an assumption and you were wrong.”
Lady Rawdon? Her aunt? Sir knew her aunt? Not Sir… He’d responded to… Your Grace? Amelia’s mind reeled. This man was the duke her aunt had been stalking all season?
A rage rose inside her. Amelia had begun to think of her Sir from the maze as someone within reach of her reduced status. But he’d been using her all along. From where she stood with her back against the wall, Sir’s massive breadth hiding her from her relative, Amelia reached up and slapped him. He backed away a few steps, his hand to his face. She stepped out of the shadowed corner, feeling lower than a Covington Garden strumpet. She advanced on him, jamming her finger into his chest as she hissed at him. “How dare you use me in such a manner? You were hiding from my aunt, so you think to play me for a fool?”
Neither of them saw her aunt close in on them, and just as Amelia raised her hand to slap the man again, her arm was yanked back. The face of her enraged aunt was all she saw as the woman’s palm cracked across Amelia’s cheek. She put the back of her hand to her face to cool the sting.
“You foolish child,” Aunt Katherine hissed. “Do you know who this is? You aren’t fit to wipe the dust from his boots. What have you done to lure him to one as wicked as yourself?”
She turned to Caversham and curtsied deeply. “I apologize for the inappropriate and vulgar behavior of my niece, Your Grace. I have tried to be a model of propriety for her and guide her in learning to behave in a ladylike fashion, but she doesn’t wish to learn. Will never learn.”
She whirled on Amelia, her eyes glaring and her voice so filled with venom she couldn’t help but flinch. “Go to your room and pack. I will have a driver take you to Mrs. Wallace’s Workhouse for Women at first light. You have been nothing but a great disappointment to me since I allowed you under my roof. I warned you.”
Amelia burst out with a cut-off laugh. “How do you do it? Lie so readily? Every word out of your mouth is a lie, so of course you assume everyone else lies like you. I’ll have you know I had nothing to do with what you just witnessed. This beast accosted me.” She threw an angry stare at the duke. “Tell her I speak the truth, you…you…fiend!”
Insanity must run in the family Amelia thought. First Aunt Katherine and now her. Dear Lord, could she sound any more like a victim from one of those horrid Gothic novels? She’d never used the word fiend before, and here she was calling the most handsome man she’d ever had the good fortune to meet, much less kiss, a fiend! And to top it all off, the man was a duke.
“She does speak the truth, Lady Rawdon. And she’ll not be going to a workhouse, but to my house.”
Amelia gaped at him. “You’re no longer in command of your senses. It must be your age, Your Grace.” Amelia pushed past Aunt Katherine and the duke, intending to leave. “I’ll go nowhere with you!”
“My niece is not marriage material, Your Grace,” Aunt Katherine’s voice became unusually sweet and she spoke of Amelia as though she were not in the room. “She is not gently born, you see. Her father was in trade and she comes with no dowry. She can be of no use to you.”
“Not marriage material?” Amelia turned back around and bore down on her aunt, and wagged her finger in the other woman’s face. “I’m more of a lady than you were when you married your first husband. I’m more of a lady than you are to this day! And I have no intention of marrying, or doing anything else with this…”
She waved a hand back in the duke’s direction, just now noting the jeweled stickpin in his expertly tied cravat and the burgundy coat over the silver waistcoat and blue trousers. “This overly-garnished peacock. I’ve told you I have no desire to marry.”
“I wasn’t going to—” Amelia swung back and slapped him again, quite effectively silencing him.
“Do not even insult me by thinking I’d consider anything less than a respectable position as a wife.” She wagged her finger in his face. “Of course it will never be with the likes of you!”
Spinning on her heel, she strode from the room, leaving behind both her aunt and that handsome devil who had kissed her. Curses be heaped on both their heads, she thought. They deserve each other.
CHAPTER THREE
He was going to be a bridegroom again. After all these years. And all because he couldn’t keep his lips off his Miss from the maze.
In all fairness, those lips were full and sweet, and her kiss was filled with innocent promise�
�at least until her aunt spoke. Cav had felt the precise moment her body went rigid in his arm. It had been when her aunt called out his name and he’d replied.
“Your Grace, you needn’t think you must make an offer for the girl,” Lady Rawdon said. “I will see she is gone quietly by morning. No one need know of this.”
He wondered why she kept repeating that her niece wasn’t worthy of an offer from him? Unless the lady he’d kissed lied about her connections, why would the aunt say this? What did the conniving woman have up her sleeve? Or was the plot played out by both women, and he was the fool?
No. The woman he’d met in the maze, and again tonight, was not the scheming type. He would have sensed something disingenuous in her. If this had been a trap, there would have been screams from both women, with the aunt insisting he marry the girl. This wasn’t happening.
“She’s related to a peer and I knew this before I kissed her. Who is her family?”
“Manners-Sutton. Her uncle is the Archbishop of Canterbury. Her great-grandfather was the third duke of Rutland.”
Bloody hell. One of the worst complications. Besides being related to the archbishop, another of her uncles, Thomas, was one of Cav’s best friends. “And she is living as a pauper? With no income, no dowry?”
“Her father was the youngest of the sons and the scholarly type. He married my older sister and had two children. My sister died a few years back, and my brother-in-law died this past January. He was in trade—had a book bindery, and no wealth.”
“How old is she and has she been presented?”
“Never, Your Grace, and I believe she is twenty-eight years.”
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Someone related to a family such as the one she was from should have had at least one season to find a husband. Dowry or not, her connections were impeccable. Many a man would want a connection to a family such as hers.
“We will be leaving tomorrow. You and your niece return to Town immediately. I have a stop to make before returning there myself. She and I will be married in one month’s time. Get her trousseau and a gown fit for a duchess to be married in. Understood?”
He turned his face upward and smiled in the dim library. A bride. After all these years, he would take another bride. Lizzie must be laughing up there in heaven after causing this mischief for him. His wife had never wanted him to remain alone, and on her death bed had begged him to remarry for their children’s sake. But he’d never cared to, and frankly the children had done well enough with just him and the legion of tutors, nurses, and governesses he’d provided. Not that he’d been looking, but in the years since Lizzie’s death Cav had never found a woman who intrigued him enough to consider spending the remainder of this life with her.
Until he’d met his Miss in the maze.
“Yes, Your Grace, but truly, it is not necessary. She is not worthy of a man of your stature and…” Lady Rawdon was beginning to sound desperate and Cav couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
Was the woman truly so shallow, or just stupid? He wanted nothing more than to wring her neck for the treatment of her niece. When she opened her mouth to say something more, he cut her off. “If you say one more word, I will….”
“She is a mere Miss. A nobody!” Lady Rawdon must have had a few glasses of wine too many, for she appeared emboldened enough to act and speak foolishly. She took a step closer to him and raised her hand to touch his lapel. Cav frowned at her audacity.
“I would make a more appropriate match for you.” Her voice sounded as smooth as a glass of fine port. “In experience, temperament, and class. She has nothing to offer a man such as yourself. I would run your homes as efficiently as if they were my own.”
He could stomach no more. He’d never led this woman to believe he had even a bit of interest in her. However, he thought that if she felt humiliated, or even merely rebuffed—which he was definitely now doing—she might influence her niece against him. The best option for him was to get this woman out of the picture entirely.
“I have heard enough. Consider yourself relieved of any duty or obligation to the young lady. She is now, and will forever after, be my responsibility. If you speak one derogatory word about your niece, now or in the future, and I learn of it, I will ruin you. Understood? There isn’t a door in all Britain that would open for you.”
That said, he strode from the room and went to his own suite. He wrote several notes, the first to Lady Merivale asking her assistance with the hiring of an experienced maid for the young lady who had arrived as Lady Katherine’s companion. The second letter was to his secretary, telling him to make preparations for a wedding at Haldenwood in exactly one month. But as he drew out the next sheet to compose the third letter to his friend Thomas, Cav realized something of great importance.
He had no idea what the young lady’s name was, other than Miss Manners-Sutton. Being as familiar with the family as he was, Cav knew Thomas had several nieces who went by that appellation. How was he to identify this one when he didn’t know her name?
Amelia woke to a soft knock on her door in the gray light of dawn.
She had no idea who would be coming for her so early, except…. After last night’s fiasco in the library, she was now likely evicted from the property and to be escorted from the house. And after all the planning she’d done to get her group out to Stonehenge and back today!
Wrapping her robe around herself and tying the belt, she padded to the door with bare feet, the floor cold and bare up here in the nursery. She turned the lock and peeked into the hallway to see a maid standing on the other side.
The young woman bobbed a curtsy. “Miss? My name is Gertie. I’m to be your maid, and we’re leaving in an hour for London, per His Grace’s order.”
Amelia struggled to clear the fog from her brain. The lack of sleep and the early hour weren’t the only cause for her muddled state. She wondered why the duke was ordering her to London, especially after how horribly things went the night before. “What?” She opened the door, wide enough for the girl to enter.
As she breezed cheerfully in, she said, “We haven’t long to get you dressed and packed.”
Amelia rubbed her eyes, thinking surely the girl had the wrong room. “You must be mistaken. I’m not going to London. I’m going to see the stone circle today with the other women companions. We planned this yesterday.”
“No. I’ve got the right room. Mrs. Lane sent me. Have you met her? She’s the housekeeper. Anyway, she said to go to the top of the steps, first door on the right. You’re the one what’s going to marry His Grace. I’ll be with ye until ye hire your own maid.”
“I’m not marrying that man. You can go down and tell that to His High-and-Mightiness. My aunt too, for that matter.”
She was marrying no one. The least of all the man who lied to her—albeit by omission—about who he was, stole a kiss from her in a dark corner of a library, then said he wasn’t offering marriage.
Amelia wondered what happened to change his mind. Her best guess was either an attack of consciousness, or threats from her aunt. No man who says he’s not getting married suddenly becomes marriage-minded. And even if he was, she wasn’t! It didn’t matter that she’d enjoyed his kiss. And the way he smelled. And the way he felt against her—all masculine and strong. She wasn’t a small woman and he towered over her and his breadth enveloped her. Being held in his embrace was like being protected and cherished at the same time.
But that didn’t matter…she was not marrying him.
The woman began opening drawers and cabinets, likely taking stock of what she needed to pack. Amelia stopped her. “No. Pack nothing, Gertie. Please go tell my aunt that I go nowhere with that man. I don’t even know him!”
“Oh, you’ll have the rest of your lives to get to know each other,” she said as she found Amelia’s one valise and lifted it. “I believe His Grace wanted to get to town today and….”
She was getting nowhere with the maid. Amelia couldn’t fault the gir
l. She was just doing what she was instructed to do by the housekeeper and those above her—Lady Merivale, Aunt Katherine, and even the duke. Amelia had to put a stop to this nonsense. She was not going anywhere with a complete stranger. Even if his kiss made her forget her singular life for a while. Because it did. For that moment, she felt desired.
But she still didn’t know him. Amelia reached out a hand to stop the maid from her task. “Gertie, please help me dress.”
In minutes, Amelia was dressed in her best gray dress and descending the steps to the third level where she intended to wake her aunt and find out what was going on. If she knew her Aunt Katherine, there was likely something in it for her if she was forcing her into marrying this…lofty-titled stranger. There had to be a reason for her to back off her own idea of having an affair with the duke. Perhaps she thought if Amelia married the duke it would give her better access to him.
“Sir!” Amelia whispered to herself. “Ha!”
As she strode down the hallway, her mind worrying over how exactly she was going to get out of this mess, she met His High-and-Mightiness on his way to…wherever High and Mighty ones go at this hour of the morning. The man looked as though he were prepared to ride with his coat, jodhpurs and tall boots that fit his muscled calves to perfection. From this distance, his gray eyes sparkled like diamonds in his handsome face and his mostly black hair was smoothed back as though he was fresh from his morning ablutions.
If it weren’t for the high-handed manner in which he was dictating her removal to London with him, Amelia would think him a handsome specimen, even with his advanced years. The kiss they’d shared last night was spectacular, even catching her off-guard as he had. Both his hard body pressed against hers, and his enthusiasm, had engaged her senses. In the dark of her room last night, she fantasized that it was what he’d intended to do, rather than something to keep her from calling out or replying to her aunt.