Page 55 of His Spirited Lady
Ever.
Chapter Fourteen
The manor wasquiet again. Amelia paused at the top of the stairs, soaking in the morning light made that much warmer and brighter after yesterday. No more croquet or shooting, no more wondering what to wear. She didn’t have to worry about entering a room and coming face-to-face with someone she wished would disappear.
Fiona Allen sprung to mind, and Amelia’s cheeks heated. After the way Ethan had treated Fiona, perhaps she deserved some mercy.
The sun shifted just enough to gild the oak rails and spark off the highly polished baluster. As a child, she’d pretended the wood was gold and pillars of diamonds, and that she was leading her comrades in storming the castle to claim its treasure.
Her friends then had been as imaginary as the treasure. Now she knew the pleasure of having had real friends here. She wouldn’t miss the fuss of hosting a house party, but she’d miss chatting with Annabel over breakfast or helping Margaret with her hair. She’d even miss Jasper and his odd sense of humor.
And Richard.
“Good morning, miss.” Simms was at the bottom of the stairs, bearing a tray with Mother’s favorite tea service. Father had found it in Austria for their anniversary. “Your parents are breakfasting in the conservatory. Miss Graves is with them.”
“Thank you, Simms.” She finished her descent and joined him on his walk through the house. “And thank you for taking fine care of our guests over the last few days. They were a handful.”
“Thank you, miss. I’ll pass that to the others as well.” The old butler tilted his head toward her. “We’re glad to have things return to normal, though the younger staff were looking forward to the farewell ball.”
Amelia had to admit she’d been looking forward to it as well. She enjoyed everything about a ball—the colors, the music, the refreshments. Mostly she enjoyed dancing. She’d been looking forward to doing it with Richard.
The conservatory was Mother’s space in the house, just as it had been her first mother’s. Amelia always wondered if it was Marian’s love of flowers that had first attracted her father, who hadn’t been able to walk in the garden for months after his first wife’s death. Now he sat surrounded by plants collected over years of travel, some of them too delicate for English weather and others recently brought inside for the winter. Those still smelled of wet earth. There were likely some very confused worms in the soil.
The row of windows looked out over a terrace of chrysanthemums and lilies, ringed by roses and lilacs with rain-heavy heads. The space had been her mother’s last addition to the garden before her death. Amelia had helped plant everything except the roses because her mother was worried over the thorns, but they’d sung nursery rhymes while the prickly shrubs had gone into the ground.
Her stepmother had won Amelia’s undying affection for her care of a garden she hadn’t planted. That affection had influenced almost every choice Amelia had made since she’d come of age, and it now sparked her guilt over the ruined house party. “Mother—”
“Amelia, I really must apologize,” Mother said. “Had I known what Mr. Raymond was capable of, I never would have encouraged you.”
“I don’t believe any of us suspected,” Amelia said. “He certainly displayed none of those traits in London.”
“Nor when he visited,” agreed Mother. “Perhaps he was simply disappointed.”
“That may be,” Father said as he buttered a scone, “but life is full of disappointments. Earl or not, I’d prefer not to saddle Amelia with a childish husband, nor settle her funds on a drunkard.”
Mother nodded as she sipped her tea. “I must say, I was quite impressed with how well Jasper and Richard managed the situation.”
Amelia had been as well. They and Simms had worked efficiently to have all the guests in their carriages with hampers of food for the drive back to London. Except for Charles Grayson, who had escorted Margaret to her father’s estate.
“Is your heart still set on Richard, my girl?” Father asked, smiling.
A thrill went through her, a delicious sensation reminiscent of their kisses. The memory of Richard’s fresh, clean scent overpowered the transplanted bougainvillea hulking in the corner, and his sweet, sinful taste replaced the bite from her tea. She didn’t need to close her eyes to recall his face. His dazed, hungry gaze wasn’t her favorite, though. It was his determined stare from yesterday as he lectured her to keep to her mission.
And if you give up your goals because of him…
The taste of tea returned a moment before the smell of mud. Amelia set her cup in her saucer before sliding her fork under a bite of eggs. “I am.” She curved her lips in a smile. “Even more so.”
He was the perfect partner for her. Not husband. Partner.
Just as she was for him. Even Ethan had taken a case of wine back to London, though he might have been influenced more by keeping up with Jasper, and he just might drink it all himself. Perhaps Richard could take her whiskey to Quebec. That would be a good consolation prize. It would be lovely to think of him drinking it when he was at home, and maybe he would write and ask for more, or come visit and restock. He would have to return to France at some point, wouldn’t he?
And perhaps, Amelia, he’ll find a nice French girl and bring his wife and their dozen children to play with their cousins. You’ll be the old maid dinner guest.And she would not feel bad about that. At all.
“I’ll go over today and talk with him,” Father said. “And your mother and I were discussing a party to celebrate.”
Not another one. And not one to celebrate something that wasn’t intended to be real in the first place. It was already difficult to stay unattached. “Are you certain that’s wise after yesterday?”
“Just a dinner with his family and a few of our neighbors,” Mother said. “We aren’t embarrassed by him, and we want our neighbors to know that. We especially want the duke and duchess to know that we are happy to be connecting our families.”
