Page 35 of A Delicate Deception
“If you look,” he said, gesturing around the corner of a dilapidated trellis, “you can see where your friend and the duke are on the terrace. You had mentioned once that you wished to explore the ruins here. If you still wish to do so, I can assure you that they’re all very safe, as far as ruins go. Leontine has clambered across the lot of them,” he said dryly. “Otherwise, you’re free to treat the gardens or the house as your own. I know it’s not your ordinary time for a walk, but I thought that would be more agreeable for you than sitting.”
They had reoriented themselves so instead of standing side by side, they faced one another. He was suddenly very conscious of how close they stood, and how her hand still rested on his forearm. Her skirts touched his trousers and he could feel the heat from her hand on his arm. He tried very hard not to think of the last time they had been this close, the last time he had felt the warmth of her body and the heat of the sun. But the harder he tried, the more insistently his mind provided flashes of memory: her parted lips, her roving hands, the sounds she made. He ought to leave her to her walk; that was the only answer. Surely one of them ought to step away.
Neither of them were stepping away.
Before he could quite work out how to extricate himself—or, more pressingly, why he wasn’t extricating himself—the blasted dog flopped onto the ground between them.
“What on earth,” Amelia asked.
He sighed. “That’s Francine. All she does is find new and ingenious places to lounge. Devil take you, dog. Beg your pardon, Amelia. She ought to be with Leontine but she seems not to understand the first thing about responsibility. Be off with you, you shiftless reprobate.”
They stood perfectly still, utterly silent, as if they were both uncomfortably conscious of the fact that he had in that moment spoken to her as if she were his friend, as if she were the same person who had walked with him, the same person who had kissed him and touched him and laughed with him. They stared at one another, eyes wide.
Amelia cleared her throat and looked away. “I believe she’s snoring,” she said in some amazement. “She spent yesterday evening asleep in my lap. Imagine being able to sleep so easily.”
“That’s all she does. It’s her one talent. She finds the least likely spot in the room and lapses into unconsciousness. I’ve almost tripped over the beast a dozen times now. I’d like to know how you trained Nan to attack interlopers, because I’ve had no luck at all.”
Amelia pulled her skirt aside and regarded the dog, who was in fact asleep on her boots. They were a perfectly ordinary pair of boots, the same ones she wore when rambling through the hills. And above them her calves were covered in a perfectly ordinary pair of white stockings. He could only see about an inch of stocking, but he remembered how they had felt under his fingertips as he slid his hand up her leg. After everything they had done together, surely he should not be completely incapacitated by an inch of stocking. He dragged his gaze up to her face, and saw she was regarding him curiously.
“She’s exactly the color of the dirt,” she said, evidently striving for a normal tone. “What a cunning disguise. Well, I suppose I’m here for the duration. That’s the law. The custom of my people, rather. If an animal sleeps on you, you can’t move.”
With a pang, he realized she was making a joke, the sort of idle silliness he had once found so baffling but endearing. Vows of chastity, and now dog laws. She was peering carefully at his face, as if waiting for his verdict on her jest. So he tried to smile, to show her that he liked it, but what he achieved must have been more of a baring of teeth, because she nearly flinched. Damn it. He was bollixing this up. There was only one thing to do.
He dropped to his knees, shoved her skirt to the side, and lifted the dog off her boots. “Never say I won’t rescue a fair maiden,” he said, his voice perilously low. “That, Amelia Allenby, is the custom of my people.” There. He had shown her that he was still capable of entering into her silliness, and also, judging by the direction of her gaze, that he had arm muscles she found attractive. He felt absurdly satisfied by the dazed intensity with which she regarded him.
Hefting the dog under one arm, he made a gesture as if to tip his hat, had he been wearing one, and left her in the middle of the garden.
Amelia almost wanted to call him back, ask him to join her on her explorations, ask him if they could put bygones behind them and go back to when they had made easy conversation. They had been friends, at least, and that had to count for something. A braver woman might have called him back, but Amelia didn’t have any reserves of courage left. Instead she watched him go, his shirt straining across his broad shoulders.
Both last night and today he had tried to make her comfortable. Today he had gracefully found an excuse for her to be alone and had not even tried to burden her with his company. He had even pointed out that Georgiana would be in her sight at all times. That had been kind. The fact that Sydney did not think she was difficult or eccentric was not, she knew, a feather in his cap. It only meant he had achieved a minimum level of humanity. And yet, when so many people failed to do so, she could not help but feel grateful that he had casually observed her limitations and done his best to accommodate them.
She walked the circumference of the knot garden, wondering how long it had been since anyone had trimmed the hedges. She climbed up onto the remnants of a bird bath and tried to see what was at the center. Usually there was a statue or a fountain. But the greenery was too overgrown for her to see anything, so she left it behind and headed towards the ruined wing of the house. There were still blackened timbers visible among the rubble.
The child had referred to the duke as her uncle. The duke’s sister had owned Pelham Hall, Sydney’s brother had died, and now Sydney owned the house. Amelia didn’t have a copy ofDebrett’sbut she suspected that if she did, she would find that the Duke of Hereford’s sister had married Sydney’s brother. If the house hadn’t been properly settled on Hereford’s sister, then upon her marriage it would have passed on to her husband. Sydney, then, might have inherited the house after his brother’s death.
He had said that he didn’t care for the manner in which he had come into possession of the house, and now she could see why: he was saddled with a half-destroyed home that held nothing but guilt and bad memories.
There were details she couldn’t quite figure out. Why, after leaving the house empty and deteriorating for two years, had Sydney chosen to come to Pelham Hall with his brother-in-law and begin restoring the place? And why had he brought the child? There were other oddities, too. Most of the servants had been hired locally. According to Janet, the duke had arrived with a valet and a groom. In Amelia’s experience, rich men traveled with a small army of retainers. And Janet had also mentioned that the servants and laborers were hired and the furnishings were purchased after the duke arrived, rather than earlier, so as to make the house ready for his stay. That was very odd indeed.
As she let her path take her closer to the terrace, she could hear the duke laughing at something Georgiana had said.
“I tell you,” Georgiana said in tones of high delight. “She carried a vial of cyanide—”
“They didn’t even have cyanide in England in 1480—” the duke interrupted. Amelia nearly opened her mouth to protest that they certainly did, but Georgiana got there first.
“She had it anyway. Vats of the stuff. And she went about putting it in everybody’s tea—”
“They didn’t have tea either,” the duke said.
“In their chocolate, then,” she said blithely. The duke cackled. Amelia smiled broadly. Georgiana knew enough about history—she had been a governess for ten years, for heaven’s sake—to know the Plantagenets hadn’t been drinking chocolate either. “Here, have this. I took the stem out,” Georgiana said, handing the duke a strawberry.
“It’s probably poisoned.”
“You say the nicest things.”
Amelia climbed up the steps to the terrace, making her footsteps loud enough that the duke would hear.
“There you are, Amelia,” Georgiana said. “Tell His Grace about your murder queens. He’s very much enjoying your book.”
