Page 25 of A Delicate Deception
This, he realized, was her world: drawing rooms and manners and conversations sprinkled with “Your Grace.” The rest of it—sunshine and laughter and smiles that felt like gut punches—were meaningless diversions. She belonged here. Sydney didn’t, nor did he want to. He had never known the real Amelia, and as he watched her he decided that he didn’t want to.
Chapter Ten
Only years of hard training in the art of self-mastery allowed Amelia to retain control over herself when she walked into Pelham Hall and saw Sydney standing behind the duke’s chair.
She was aware, several layers beneath the veil of icy composure she had summoned for this visit, that she wanted to go to him. She could smile as readily as she had when she saw him waiting for her at the gatepost. She could say his name, and explain truthfully that she hadn’t expected to see him here. She could trust that he’d have some reasonable explanation for his own presence.
But at that moment, she could not set aside her chilly manners, because they were all that stood between her and near panic. If she dropped her armor for even an instant, she might make out traces of some other Amelia, a woman who had felt safe and bold in Sydney’s arms, a woman who wondered why he was standing over there and refusing to come to her. If he came to her, she could be that Amelia for him. But he didn’t. He only glowered. She shaped herself into a nondescript spinster of unimpeachable manners. The woman who might feel things about Sydney didn’t matter; she wasn’t even present. Sydney, for that matter, wasn’t present. He was Mr. Goddard now. The woman who had been with Sydney was not present in this dim gray gown. And the man who had laughed and cupped her cheek was not the same man who glared at her from across the room. She had already known the intensity of his gaze, had known that when he looked at her, he was giving her his full attention and consideration. Now she knew how it felt when he looked at her without fondness, without humor, without anything but enmity.
Amelia brought her teacup to her lips and took a sip, not even tasting it. She absently touched a sore spot on her wrist where it had scraped against the stone wall yesterday. She decided that it didn’t hurt. Later on she would need to pull that scab off with her fingernails, and that would hurt, and it would be such a relief, but for now she was as insensate as a dressmaker’s dummy.
She stabbed her needle again and again into the fabric. She had meant to embroider a blanket for one of her nieces—Gilbert and Louisa were producing children faster than Amelia could produce blankets. A happy thought, and one that took her far away from Pelham Hall and angry glares: she tried to hold onto it. But her stitches were crooked and her thread kept knotting and she was just going to have to pull the whole thing apart and start over when she got home.
She buried all that—everything she felt in body and soul, everything that didn’t have to do with what Georgiana was saying to the duke.
“On the contrary, Your Grace,” Georgiana was saying. She had a gleam in her eye that made Amelia realize that her friend was actually enjoying this. “Despite our many differences, we see quite eye to eye on Richard III’s innocence.”
“Even a stopped clock is right twice a day,” the duke said lightly. “I expect this is where you insist that the princes were killed by their sister as part of her bid for the throne.”
“Oh, I’m quite bored with that theory and have an exciting new one that I expect you can’t wait to hear about.”
“I have the direst sense of foreboding that I’m about to be fed the most magnificent pack of lies,” the duke said, crossing one leg over the other, an expectant look on his face. Amelia realized that he was enjoying this as well.
“I would never dare to bore you with a lie that was less than magnificent,” Georgiana said sweetly. The duke transformed a stunned laugh into a coughing fit. Georgiana leaned in close. “It was their mother,” she whispered theatrically.
“Well,” the duke said, “Elizabeth of Woodville has been suspected of a good many things, but if you’re going to accuse her of filicide I do feel that you ought to come up with at least some token of evidence.”
“One might argue,” Amelia murmured, “that the lady retreated to Bermondsey Abbey in repentance of some sin.” This was utter silliness but it was the best she come up with. “Is the hearth in this room original to the house? And is that linenfold paneling I saw by the door?” She could navigate this sort of conversation in her sleep, and she could certainly do it while being glared at from across the room. She had, in fact, done it while being glared at from across the room.
She couldn’t have anticipated receiving such a look from Sydney, and she didn’t know why she was getting one now, but that was something she could settle in the future. Right now she could be polite, she could be invisible, and she could be silently furious. If Sydney had mentioned that he was at Pelham Hall to visit the duke this could have been avoided. Several times Amelia had mentioned Pelham Hall and Sydney had neglected to state that he had a connection with the place. That was suspicious and false. He had said he was a land surveyor. Had that been a lie? How much of what he had told her had been false?
After half an hour of being a milk-bland spinster while being stared at as if she were a felon, Amelia was starting to reach the end of her tether. She rose to her feet.
“My dear,” she murmured to Georgiana in the same low baritone her mother always used when she wanted her voice to carry but seem like it was only intended for the person she stood nearest. “I’m afraid we must be going. We have many other calls to make.”
Georgiana dutifully stood and they both said all the prescribed phrases that ladies had drilled into their skulls before they were allowed out of the schoolroom. But before they reached the hallway, the duke rapped his cane. “You’ll come back.” He did not make it into a question or even an invitation. This was a command. “And next time you’ll bring your research so I can tell you exactly where you went astray and you can choose yet another queen to slander.”
“Yes, Your Grace,” Georgiana said, sinking into a curtsey, bless her. They hadn’t planned it, but the man was in a throne and dressed like some kind of sultan. He hadn’t even bothered to rise to his feet when she and Georgiana had entered the room. Clearly a curtsey would not go amiss.
They proceeded silently to the drive. Amelia said nothing until they were safely in the carriage, the door shut behind them.
“The duke’s friend is the land surveyor,” Amelia said despairingly.
“Oh!” Georgiana said. And then, with dawning comprehension, “Oh, dear. Not a particularly friendly meeting, was it? Why on earth did you not go to him?”
“Why did he not come to me?” Amelia retorted, trying hard not to think about how it would have felt to have had him by her side in that hellish room.
Georgiana pressed her lips together. “He did not strike me a man who is comfortable in company. Common accent, rough clothes, and those whiskers. I can’t imagine how he came to be on intimate terms with a duke.”
“How comfortable do you have to be to cross a room and say good-day?”
“You tell me,” Georgiana said, eyebrow arched meaningfully.
Absently, one hand found the scab on the opposite wrist, and tore it off. She was aware of the brightness of the pain, the warmth of the blood. She shoved a handkerchief into her glove before her gown could be ruined. She wanted to go home and examine her arms for other things that could be torn off, other places that needed to be scratched. Good God, she was actually losing her mind, now. Here, in Derbyshire, over a hundred miles from London, she was finally becoming unhinged.
“Amelia?” Georgiana asked when the carriage stopped in front of the cottage. “Go upstairs and lie down. Janet will bring you tea.”
Amelia went to her bedroom but it didn’t do any good. She tried to shut her eyes with the idea that sleep would at least be a respite from her mind throwing a tantrum; instead, without distraction, her thoughts scattered with disjointed images of her visit with the duke, her life in London, Sydney’s anger. She tried to imagine anything good—letters from home, Nan’s fur, strawberries—but none of it would stick.
