by Sandy Raven
This man and his kiss was the sole reason she hadn’t fallen asleep until the wee hours of the morning.
He was an experienced kisser. And a master manipulator, for he’d made her agree to keep silent that moment just before his mouth came down on hers. She relived those incredible minutes as his lips moved over hers so expertly. Right up until they’d heard her aunt’s voice call for him while they attempted to hide from her.
But none of that mattered. Whatever possessed this man to think she was now leaving with him was madness. His madness. The maid Gertie had mentioned Amelia was to marry him. She certainly was not, and Amelia was determined to find the source of the rumors. Whomever was spreading them had to stop. In addition to the fact that she did not know the man, she didn’t want to leave the district in case Harry returned and looked for her—something she prayed for daily. If heaven answered her impassioned pleas, her brother might be at Aunt Katherine’s home that very minute, asking her aunt’s cook for a biscuit or sweet. Her aunt was not about to hand her off to a complete stranger, not if Amelia had anything to say about it. Even if no one seemed inclined to listen to her.
The duke could never understand her reasons for refusing him, but refuse him she must. They came from different worlds. He would never know her fears. He had never had to worry about his family, or how the butcher’s bill was going to get paid, not one bit. He had servants and likely more than one roof over his head. She was living on the good graces of her self-centered aunt who would use anyone if it gained her what she wanted.
When they were close enough to speak, His Grace stopped to greet her in the carpeted hallway, but Amelia walked past him toward her aunt’s room. She wasn’t speaking to him yet.
“Your aunt is unable to help you avoid your future, Miss Amelia. You are no longer in her employ and she has no say in what you do from now on.”
His voice halted her in her tracks. She spun around and stomped over to him. His tall frame, broad shoulders and regal bearing made her want to cower, but she refused, despite the fact that he was far too imposing for the likes of her. And handsome too. He was only doing this because he’d been caught kissing her. If she could make him think it meant nothing to her, perhaps she could still return to Surrey with Aunt Katherine.
“You know nothing about me. Why in heaven’s name would you want to marry me?” Nor did she know anything of him, except his tendency toward high-handed behavior. And that his kiss aroused her senses. Still, there was no friendship, no intimacy between them. They’d encountered each other in the maze and in the library. That was all. “I have no desire to leave my aunt’s home. I wish to remain in my situation.”
“Your aunt has given her permission for us to wed.”
“I do not need her permission. She has no say whatsoever in whether I do or do not wed,” Amelia hissed, afraid to waken the other guests. “I am several years into my majority. You could have asked me directly.” She lowered her gaze as her face burned with embarrassment as she remembered the night before and how she’d fantasized about him after she’d gone to bed.
“Since you have not, I do not consider us in any way betrothed. Now, please excuse me.” She turned to walk away but his voice stopped her. She looked back at him.
“Regardless. Lady Rawdon will soon be on her way back to her home. I warned her against spreading gossip as to what happened last night. So your modesty is protected.” The look in his eye softened and the tension around his lips relaxed as well. It made him look less imposing, and more likable. “We shall be leaving for Town as soon as you get packed. There is much to do before our wedding in one month.”
“I cannot marry you, Sir.” Amelia reinforced the title he’d asked her to use. “I will not.”
“After you speak with your aunt, you will find me in Lord Merivale’s study, waiting.”
The man was infuriating. Did no one ever refuse him? Did he ever listen to anyone other than himself? Amelia nodded, bobbed a quick curtsy, and went to her aunt’s rooms.
Aunt Katherine’s maid let her in. Her aunt’s trunks were open and the maid went back to packing. Her aunt was seated at a small table buttering her toast.
“Is it true? Are you leaving?” Her aunt seemed to ignore her as she continued spreading the butter. Frustrated at her aunt’s lack of response, she began to pace the area near the table. Amelia firmed her voice, hoping her fear did not come through with her words. “I am not going anywhere with that man,” she stated. “I do not know him, and I refuse to marry him.”
Her aunt turned tired eyes up to her, and she began to speak. “I have admired and desired Caversham since I met him several years ago.” Her voice sounded hollow, defeated, and sad, and Amelia knew she was truly in pain. “I knew eventually Rawdon would die, drunken pig that he was, and as soon as I was out of mourning I would make myself known to His Grace. All season long, I have watched and waited for the opportunity to have an introduction. I have finagled, bribed, and lied my way into this party. And now you have ruined all my chances with one stupid meeting in a library.”
At one time she might have had some sympathy for her aunt, but her actions since arriving here at Somerhill were so shameless and repugnant that any compassion she had for the woman was long gone.
Amelia straightened her spine. She recognized it as a defensive action as she readied herself for an argument with her kin. She didn’t want to think she had to defend herself against her own aunt. She spoke softly, wanting to explain, but not willing to be cowed into this scheme of theirs. “We actually met while I was out walking the day we arrived. I had no idea who he was. We spoke but a few….”
“Shut up!” Aunt Katherine’s eyes—no, her entire being—radiated hatred. Derision laced her acid voice. “You are so very unprepared for the role you have been offered, you will be a laughingstock.” She lowered her gaze back to her bread and methodically continued spreading butter on a piece that had already had a generous amount on it.
Amelia had never seen her aunt in such a state. Controlled fury simmered behind her outwardly cold mien. Amelia realized right then, she didn’t fear her aunt. She pitied her.
“It is completely outside of my comprehension that someone of his breeding and ton would select someone as pitiable as you to be his bride.”
A strange feeling, disbelief mixed with a numbing fear, coursed through Amelia. Not only was the man she was commanded to marry a complete stranger to her, so was the woman to whom she was related to by blood. “I have told you that I did nothing, absolutely nothing at all, to encourage the man’s attention. In fact, I want none of it. And you treat me as though I stole him from you!”
Aunt Katherine paid no attention to her, or her words. It was as if Amelia had never spoken. And when her aunt turned to look at her, her eyes glittered with an uncanny rage. “If you marry the duke, you will be dead to me. As though you’d never been born. You are my goddaughter. My sister’s only daughter. I took you in when your father’s family wanted nothing to do with you, and this is how you repay me? By playing the little harlot and stealing the man you knew I wanted for myself?” Her aunt’s voice grew louder in volume, until she was nearly screeching at Amelia, but Aunt Katherine caught herself before she drew attention to their argument and staff came running to her defense. Amelia knew the woman didn’t want or need any negative gossip about her floating through society, else how would she catch herself another husband?
“If I remember correctly, you invited me to come stay with you, so do not play the charitable relative. I may have had nothing, but I am quite competent and willing to work. My friend and her mother are two perfectly respectable widows in our village. Together, we would have muddled through.”
“I could not allow you—my sister’s only surviving child—to live on the edge of destitution, Amelia! My good Christian heart would not rest knowing you had nothing.”
“Good Christian heart?” Amelia mumbled. What was wrong with her aunt? Her behavior was startling and becoming more bizarre
by the minute.
“I should go speak to the duke. He is waiting for me below.” Amelia noticed her own voice was starting to quiver just a bit. It would only make sense that the circumstances frighten her. They would scare even the most strong-minded of women. It seemed that the only relative she had at the moment—not that she was giving up on her brother’s return—was going mad.
But she also didn’t want to leave with a total stranger. Even if his kiss made her insides turn to marmalade. She didn’t know him. What if he turned out to be a cruel husband? She had friends with husbands who were less than kind. That was something she could learn about him if they could have a proper courtship.
“Perhaps this is just a big misunderstanding. I will speak to him, get him to see reason. Then I can return home. I must be there if Harry….”
Her aunt looked up at her and Amelia could see her think as a slow smile began to spread on her face. Her eyes widened, almost appearing maniacal, the whites showing completely around her brown orbs. “No, Amelia. Do not speak to the duke ever again. Leave now and never darken my doorstep again, you disrespectful wretch of a girl.” Her aunt continued to make plans in her head, and Amelia felt the ground beneath her start to give way.
“I will tell him you were uninterested in his offer and I will console him as best I can,” her aunt continued. “Perhaps I can still salvage a relationship with him after all.”
Amelia stood there, shock registering in her brain as she listened. Aunt Katherine first told Amelia her plan to marry the duke, then she went on to say that Amelia could not be invited to stay with them because she feared Amelia luring the duke to her bed.
Every word from the woman’s mouth was madness. Madness rooted in jealousy, anger and fear. Amelia had done nothing at all to encourage her aunt’s wrath except call her out on her behavior for lying about the invitation to this house party. Before this, their relationship had been tolerable. Not amiable, but not unbearable either. She never suspected these depths.
“Leave here,” her aunt screeched. “Leave now, you wretched and morally corrupt temptress! Never, ever show your face at Greenwood Manor again. Do you hear me?”
She never replied to her aunt. Turning, she stomped out of the room, her own anger and fear at the situation she found herself in forcing a few tears from her eyes. Once in the hallway, she ran for the stairwell and her own rooms where she asked Gertie to please give her some privacy while she collected herself. When the maid left the room, she threw herself on the bed and gave in to the torrent bursting from her soul.
She had no place to go. No home. She couldn’t go back to Greenwood, her aunt didn’t want her there. Her father’s bindery didn’t exist any longer that she could beg for a job from the new owner. If she returned to her friend Carolyn’s home and asked to take shelter there until she found employment, would her mother, Mrs. Goddard, allow her?
And who would employ her? She had no recommendations. None. Not even her father’s family acknowledged her enough to write a recommendation for a position as a maid or companion. She would be truly destitute.
Unless…
Amelia thought about the man waiting below. She didn’t wish to marry because she’d have to leave her county, it wasn’t that she had an opposition to the bonds of matrimony. Over the years, she’d rather grown to cherish her independence, and that would go away. She wasn’t certain what the man’s temperament was. Was he heavy drinker, as her aunt’s last husband, Lord Rawdon? Or cruel, as Carolyn’s father, Mrs. Goddard’s husband, had been?
The duke showed no partiality for her aunt, so she wasn’t going to upset any affections on that front. And for all intents and purposes her aunt wanted nothing more to do with her, so whomever she married was her own choice. Her own decision.
Amelia turned over, sat up, and called for Gertie. If she was going to meet the duke below and ascertain whether he was serious about the offer, she would need to look her best.
CHAPTER FOUR
Cav waited in Merivale’s study for Amelia to arrive. He stared out over his friend’s private garden and tried to pinpoint what it was exactly about her that drew him to her. Made him want to take her to his bed and love her until neither could move any longer. Until they were both sweaty and sated from their sexual play.
While Amelia looked nothing like his Lizzie, they had many things in common. Both had a strong independent streak, as neither woman enjoyed being told what to do. Neither was afraid to remind him when he was being a boor. And neither feared him, or groveled before him.
He prayed her aunt was minding that waspish tongue of hers. Lady Rawdon, as the young woman’s aunt, had failed miserably in her responsibility to her niece, and Cav had told her so. She should have seen the younger lady presented at court and given a season or two to allow her an opportunity to marry within her station. He knew the young lady’s family well, and even if her father was a lesser son who married a country vicar’s daughter, the girl was still descended from one of the oldest bloodlines in all England. She had a right to be more than that harridan’s paid companion.
He was angry, both with Lady Rawdon and himself. She’d told him she had noble connections when they met in the maze, but he’d still let the baser side of his personality take over and he kissed her. He hoped it had been as momentous for her as it had been for him. It wasn’t until he’d pressed his lips on hers that he realized he couldn’t allow her to return to home of her unstable and abusive aunt.
Now he was about to enter into the bonds of matrimony—something he hadn’t thought to ever do again. All because he couldn’t keep his hands from touching her or his lips from ravishing hers.
While many men his age did remarry, it was usually for children to carry on the bloodline. Cav had his heir and his daughter. He didn’t need others. Yet he wanted this young woman in an elemental, almost carnal, way. Since meeting her he’d thought of nothing else but taking her to his bed. And from the moment he discovered who she was, his fate was sealed—not because he feared any retribution from Thomas, after all he was willingly offering the lady marriage—but because he didn’t know how much longer he could control this desire to make love to her.
There was still Lady Rawdon and her gossipy ways to monitor. The woman had much to lose if she so much as spoke a cross word about her niece in public. One such as she thrived on the quality of invitations received and would only accept those that would better her station. Cav had the ability with a few well-placed words in the right ears to cut Lady Rawdon from society altogether, and he’d made her aware of it last night.
Granted he’d not known who Amelia was when he kissed her, but the fact that he had kissed her sealed their fate when he discovered her connections. And for some inexplicable reason, he found that he was pleased.
When he’d kissed her it stirred something—a sense of protectiveness maybe—in him he’d not felt in years. When Cav leaned in to press his lips to hers, he felt her breathing quicken. Her pulse raced beneath his fingers when he touched her neck where the vein rested beneath her skin.
He was a man of more than fifty years and this untried girl had him hard as a blacksmith’s anvil with just two innocent kisses. That had happened only once in his life. He was sure that if her aunt hadn’t intruded, he would have had her on the couch within minutes—especially after she opened for him like a flower when he coaxed her lips apart.
The succession of mistresses he’d kept in the years since his Lizzie’s death had all served his needs, but they’d never stirred his emotions. Amelia had, and Cav smiled at the thought of never needing to search for a mistress again.
He heard the door open and directed the maid to place the tea cart near the windows. As the servant poured for him Miss Amelia Manners-Sutton, his future wife as of last night, entered. She appeared defeated, and he’d hoped that her aunt’s news would have had her smiling. It wasn’t every day a lady was asked to become a duchess.
She was an attractive young lady. Very attractive. When he�
��d first spied her coming toward him in the hallway earlier, with her hair hastily brushed off her face, fresh from bed, he’d thought her a beautiful vixen. Evidently, she’d gone to her room before coming down to see him, for her hair was properly arranged and she had a shawl draped over her arms.
“Miss Manners-Sutton.” Cav motioned to the tea tray. “Would you like a cup?”
“No, thank you, Your Grace.”
Cav could tell she’d been crying and felt completely responsible for the events of last night. She had no part in what was happening to her. If he didn’t think she had at least a small chance of happiness with him, he would never have considered pursuing this. There was still the off chance he might be wrong, but he didn’t think he was mistaken. He truly believed the attraction between them was not one-sided.
“Was Lady Rawdon at least kind?” He wanted to know if her aunt was staying true to their agreement.
“As kind as my aunt can be when….” His bride-to-be cleared her throat of the emotion building in her. “She feels as though she lost in a competition that I was not aware of. And now I am back in the same situation I was in when papa died. No home. No family.”
“You will never have to worry over that again.”
“No, you don’t understand. When no one would have me or even give me a reference, Aunt Katherine took me in. While she was never an easy person to live with, she was my family. And you….”
Amelia’s voice cracked, as though she was fighting to keep herself together. Her strength under the circumstances was notable.
“You treat me as though I am a lost puppy in need of rescuing. I do not, Your Grace, need rescuing. I do not want it.”
Cav stared at her, wondering how he could explain his actions without sounding ill-mannered. He didn’t think she needed to hear the truth, so he said what he thought every woman wanted to hear. That she was desirable and he didn’t think he’d be happy living without her for the rest of his life.