Page 38 of A Delicate Deception
“Will you stay, though?” He indicated the window, where rain had begun to patter against the glass. “It’s no weather for a walk. Stay inside with me, warm and dry, and we can read.”
He said it so pleadingly, almost wheedlingly, that she would have laughed if there hadn’t been a sleeping child a few feet away. “Fine,” she said.
Amelia read the rest of the book to herself. There was the tale of two sisters, one of whom always told their parents the good and evil deeds she had done that day, and the other who always lied to avoid punishment. Amelia’s own childhood book of improving tales had contained a similar story, the moral of which had been that dishonest children are reviled and honest ones beloved. But in this book, a wise grandmother scolds the parents for giving the naughty child an incentive to lie. “Why would she tell you the truth,” the grandmother asks, “if the truth isn’t good enough?”
She felt that she had been given the key to understanding Sydney. He was a person who had been raised to listen to his own conscience rather than prevailing notions of right and wrong. And more important than any sterile notion of good and evil was the duty of one person to another. She could see that in how he treated her and how he looked after Leontine and even the duke. He had once told her that he was aware he was large and did not want to impose on her; he seemed to carry that principle into all aspects of his life.
Amelia had been raised to blend in, to behave, to make herself unobjectionable and sometimes invisible. She knew her mother and maybe even her sisters would object to that characterization; her mother would say that she had given her daughters the tools to survive in a cruel world. And so she had: here Amelia was, surviving. And yet—it all felt so small and constrained. She once thought this constraint had to do with her limitations, that of course a person’s world was small if it only consisted of a tiny corner of Derbyshire. But that wasn’t it at all: the constraint came from within, from the voice that told her to hide away her true self, to squash feelings before they even fully formed. If she could stop doing that, she could have an entire universe without even stepping foot outside.
She closed the book and looked at the man beside her. One of his boots was propped up on the edge of the bed frame, and she could see Nan’s tooth marks. As he read, he occasionally stroked his beard. A lock of his dark hair fell in his eyes. She reached out to push it back, and it was silky in between her fingers. He didn’t turn his head, but she could tell that he wasn’t looking at the book anymore. With the back of her hand, she stroked down his cheek, feeling the softness of his beard with her knuckles. He grasped her hand—not stopping her, just holding her hand in place—then kissed her palm.
Chapter Sixteen
Amelia stood obediently still while Janet and Georgiana fussed over her, occasionally taking a step this way or that so they could pin and tuck things into place. It really was an absurd gown. Around the hem were flounces that looked like barnacles, and the waist was defined with a wide ribbon that Amelia’s mother claimed was the latest mode from Paris. The sleeves somehow looked inflated, like tiny hot air balloons.
Amelia was only trying the dress on. That was all. It was an experiment. She just wanted to see what it looked like when she chose not to be invisible.
But when she looked at her reflection, she had to concede that it didn’t look bad. In fact, the overall effect was... good. Her mother had always insisted that if one had a good figure, one might as well have as much of it as possible, and Amelia felt almost statuesque in this gown. There was no denying the curve of her breasts or the roundness of her stomach in all these yards of green silk.
“You look very handsome, miss,” Janet said.
That was the word. She had never aspired to prettiness. But at some point in the past few years she had lost all traces of girlishness, and now she looked handsome. Distinguished, even. Her mother had always counseled her to be confident, or, failing that, to act confident. Amelia couldn’t do it, so she resorted to invisibility: quiet, polite, unobjectionable, utterly and flawlessly composed. But this gown was not the attire of a woman who wound wool and faded into the shadows.
There were times when she didn’t want to fade into the shadows. Of course there were—she wasn’t reserved around Georgiana or her family. She was as bold as she pleased around Sydney. And, if she were honest with herself, it was Sydney who she was thinking of when she took this dress out of the clothes press. Not the ton, not her mother, not the judgment of strangers and the fear that followed her. Only Sydney. She liked when he looked at her, when he gave her one of those dark and hungry glances as if he couldn’t possibly look his fill.
Well, she wanted to give him something to look at.
“All right,” she said to her reflection. “I’ll wear it.”
“I’m torn between wanting to hustle you out of the house before you change your mind, and asking whether you’re certain you want to come in the first place,” Georgiana said.
Tonight they were dining at Pelham Hall, and Amelia was surprised to find that the prospect didn’t fill her with dread. Pelham Hall was becoming a place where she felt safe. She hadn’t known she was capable of expanding her world, but now she had Crossbrook Cottage, her paths along the hills, and Pelham Hall. It was still a small universe, but it was, perhaps, large enough.
“It’s not a real dinner party,” she said. “It’s four people eating a meal in a sad excuse for a house.”
“It’s the exact same assortment of people who were there that first day we went to Pelham Hall,” Georgiana pointed out. “And that was hard for you.”
“But this time it’s among friends,” Amelia said, and the words were out of her mouth before she could reflect on the fact that she had resumed thinking of Sydney as a friend.
“Hmm,” Georgiana said, regarding Amelia thoughtfully.
When they arrived at Pelham Hall, they found the duke alone in the great hall, standing before the fire. “Miss Russell, playvingt-et-unwith Miss Allenby while we wait for Sydney to come downstairs,” he ordered by way of greeting.
“I beg your pardon, Hereford, but I’ll do nothing of the sort,” Georgiana said. “She’ll do me out of all my money and make me look a proper fool.” She settled in a chair by the fire and was promptly joined by Francine the dog.
The duke arched an eyebrow. “Am I to understand that you’re some kind of card sharp, Miss Allenby?”
“That, and I cheat,” she said cheerfully. She didn’t really cheat, not in company, but with her sisters and Georgiana the usual rules of most card games had by common consent been cast aside in favor of anarchy and cunning. When Georgiana and Amelia played cards now, they did so with the same lack of principle they had years ago.
Footsteps sounded behind her, and she turned to see Sydney approaching. His hair was combed, it looked like he had trimmed his beard, and he was wearing a black coat. She knew that she had seen him dressed for dinner before, but that last and lonely time they had dined at Pelham Hall, she had done her best to avoid looking at him. She was so used to seeing him dressed in attire more suited to manual labor, with bits and pieces missing as the weather dictated, that the sight of him dressed in a starched collar and a plain but well-cut dinner coat took her breath away. Men with broad shoulders, she decided, should always wear well-tailored coats. Or perhaps they should never wear any coats at all. Really, either option was highly satisfactory.
“Everyone fell silent when Sydney came in,” the duke observed. “Either that means he looks like more of a ragamuffin than usual or he took my advice and dressed presentably for once. If memory serves, he cleans up well. Does he not, Miss Allenby?”
Amelia resisted the urge to glare at the duke, for embarrassing her and for embarrassing Sydney. “He looks well in whatever he chooses to wear,” she said coolly, in the tone her mother was accustomed to use when dressing down fraudulent wine merchants. Only after the words left her mouth did she realize that her response had only opened her to the duke’s scrutiny. What he had doubtless intended as an offhand remark, some reference to a running joke between himself and his friend, she had taken personally, and thereby announced that she admired Sydney Goddard’s looks.
“Is that so?” the duke said. “Sydney, Miss Allenby says you look good in anything you wear. We both know this to be patently false, despite your manifold physical charms, so I’m left to assume—”
“Enough, Lex,” Sydney said with finality. “You aren’t allowed to toy with my friend. Besides, Amelia is well aware that I admire her no matter what she is wearing, so it’s kind of her to return the compliment.”
