Page 30 of A Delicate Deception
“You’re in a fine mood,” Sydney observed.
“I really am. I forgot that I knew how to do that.”
“Do what?”
“Be happy. I’m not sure if it’s hearing Leontine’s English come along, or if it’s being back here, or if it’s a chance to scold people for being wrong about Richard III.”
“You told me you enjoyed that woman’s company,” Sydney protested. He had compunctions about inviting people to dinner if Lex planned to torture them.
“I just told you that I did.”
“No, you told me that you enjoyed scolding other people for being wrong.”
“Precisely. Good God, Sydney, it’s as if you don’t know me at all.”
“Are you going to be rude to them?” Sydney asked. He struggled for a way to explain that Amelia Allenby found social intercourse difficult in some way he did not quite understand. He cleared his throat and adopted a stern tone. “I’d hate to think I’m complicit at a bear baiting.”
Lex visibly bristled. “My, how you’ve changed your tune. A few days ago you wanted me to bar the door to these women. I don’t need you to tell me how to act. I may be abrupt and difficult, but I don’t make sport of people.”
“I know that,” Sydney said, chastened.
“And since we’re giving one another advice, I’ll suggest that you not hold a bit of carefree levity against Miss Allenby. Evidently you’ve spent the past two years deliberately forgetting that we aren’t all saints. Andrew was no saint, neither am I, and neither are you. So get off your high horse, Sydney. We’re all fallen, and all we have is one another. So kindly bugger off. Carter!”
Sydney’s cheeks heated with shame, because he knew his friend was right. He had misjudged Amelia. Feeling the full weight of his wrongdoing, Sydney went to the dining room to make sure everything was in order for dinner.
Amelia was stepping into her dinner dress when Georgiana burst into her bedroom wearing a dressing gown and wielding a pair of sewing shears.
“I knew it!” she cried. “I knew you’d mean to wear that gray watered silk.”
“It suits me!” Amelia protested, holding the dress behind her back, away from the scissors.
“Ha!” Georgiana exclaimed. “It’s so boring I could weep.”
Amelia cast a concerned glance at the scissors her friend continued to brandish. “Did you mean to cut me out of it? Or to threaten me with violence?”
“What? No, I need to trim your ribbons to the proper length. Where’s that emerald green dinner gown your mother sent last month?” But even as she spoke, she dug through Amelia’s clothes press.
Amelia sighed. She had not wanted to accept the duke’s dinner invitation. She could compile a list as long as her arm of things she would rather do: weed the garden, finish the mending, walk directly into the woods and never return. But what Sydney had said about the duke being stranded, bored, and alone had needled her. She, too, was stranded, bored, and alone, and she didn’t wish that on anyone. To soothe herself, she had begun reading advertisements for houses to let in even more isolated places.
Georgiana thrust the emerald silk gown at Amelia. “You cannot expect me to wear this,” Amelia said, regarding her friend.
“Of course you won’t wear it,” Georgiana scoffed. “I only wanted you to look at yourself. Here. Hold it up in front of you, and look at yourself.” She spun Amelia to face the mirror.
Amelia instinctively opened her mouth to protest. Even in London, she had preferred her various white muslin frocks, a sedate nut-brown pelisse, and an evening gown of dove gray. All were perfectly ordinary, unobjectionable, a sort of social camouflage. Amelia had been delighted to discover that she could, with the proper attire, blend in with the other young ladies. Her nondescript frocks made her feel unremarkable, as if all her efforts not to stick out like a sore thumb had finally been successful.
However, during her years in London, her mother and sisters insisted that with every safe, boring dress she ordered, she also purchase something special. Something that will make you look as special on the outside as you are on the inside, was what her mother always said. Amelia found that a nightmarish prospect, and therefore had never worn any of these special dresses out of the house.
Amelia did as she was asked and regarded her reflection. Her first impulse was to hastily look away. Red hair and a green dress were... striking. Amelia did not enjoy being striking. There would be no fading into the background in this gown.
“Do you see?” Georgiana asked. “You look impressive. You’re very good at making yourself invisible when you want to, which is all well and good. But this is who you are when I look at you. You look beautiful, but that isn’t the point. You also look powerful. The woman in this looking glass could be terrifying if she wanted to. Nobody else would stand a chance.”
Poor Georgiana, she really was deluded if she thought Amelia was powerful. Amelia could hardly walk out of her house without hysterics. A week ago she had been strong enough to go to Pelham Hall and think she could emerge unscathed; not only that, but she thought she’d be so undamaged by the experience that she might be able to return to living a normal life. Now she didn’t even have that hope. The best she could hope for was a return to numbness.
She folded the gown and returned it to the clothes press.
Chapter Thirteen
Pelham Hall was the sort of house that was pretty rather than grand. The part of the structure that survived the fire looked to Amelia to have been built in the sixteenth century as a small manor house. Certainly it had been built before the fashion for overgrown baroque rectangles like Chatsworth, or the nearby Stanton House. It was quaint, with its tiny windows and its profusion of ivy. If she had been visiting under any other circumstances, she would have been eager to explore. As it was, she felt almost rigid with anxiety. She hardly felt the stones beneath her feet as she climbed the steps into the house.
