Page 29 of A Delicate Deception
“No,” Amelia said, already moving to shut the door. “There’s nothing left for you to say. Take yourself off. Certainly not.”
“I came to apologize for misjudging your motives in writing to my friend,” Mr. Goddard said. “I can do that by shouting at you through a closed door or at a normal volume like a civilized person. The choice is yours.”
“I don’t want your apology, whether it be shouted, whispered, or delivered in semaphore. You can take your apology and”—no, she was not going to be vulgar, this man did not deserve the satisfaction—“put it in your pipe and smoke it.”
“I see,” Mr. Goddard said through clenched teeth, then let out a breath.
“No you don’t. What I’m saying is that your apology does me no good. It doesn’t undo what you said. If you think yesterday was the first time anyone has thought the worst of me, you’re as innocent as a baby. You’re probably only here to make yourself feel better, and I don’t care in the least how you feel. I can’t think of anything I care about less.” As she delivered this speech, she watched a flush rise in Mr. Goddard’s cheeks. He passed his hand over his beard in a gesture of frustration so familiar she was outraged: how dare he resemble that man she had cared about. This unfeeling, unthinking, insensitive brute was a stranger.
“I have an invitation from the duke,” he said, very much in the tone of a man striving for patience. “It’s for dinner Thursday night.” From his coat pocket, he produced a folded rectangle of ivory paper and held it out to her.
“I don’t want that either,” she said, shaking her head in wonder thatthiswas the man she had thought she might be falling in love with. “Give the duke our regrets, if you please.”
He opened his mouth to speak and snapped it shut again, as if thinking better of what he planned to say. As she watched, his chest rose and fell for the count of four breaths. It was a pity that she knew how his shoulders and chest felt against her palms, how up close he was somehow even broader and larger than he seemed halfway across a room. He passed one of his absurdly large hands across the scruff of his beard.
“Did you tell the duke that you suspected us of making sport of him?” she asked. She still had a hand on the door, ready to shut it in his face.
“Of course I did,” he said, plainly affronted. “I’m not in the habit of keeping secrets from friends.”
Well, that certainly put her in her place. She supposed she had never been his friend, then. Some of her thoughts must have shown on her face, because he winced. “I didn’t deliberately—”
“I’m not interested,” she said crisply. “I am surprised that you invite us despite your poor estimate of our characters.”
“The duke invited you because he enjoys discussing history. He doesn’t get much of an opportunity for it. I advised him not to invite you, considering what passed between us, but he disagreed, and I’m doing him the favor of delivering his invitations.”
“You keep making it worse. It’s really incredible.” She half wanted him to keep going; maybe after a few more idiotic sentences she’d forget why she ever liked him in the first place.
He took a deep breath, as if gathering up his courage to make a distasteful admission. “He is effectively stranded in my house. He’s blind and he recently injured his leg. Conversing with your friend is one of the few things that has brought him interest in a long while. Perhaps you could put aside your objections to me, however justifiable, and do a kindness to your neighbor.”
For the first time since he knocked on her door, Amelia really paid attention to what Mr. Goddard was saying. He clearly swallowed a great deal of pride in apologizing. But that didn’t move her—she had spent her entire life being aware that people had to swallow their pride to acknowledge her, and she didn’t want any part of it. What she noticed was that he was doing it for a friend. And someone who made sacrifices for a friend was not entirely bad. He had to be at least one percent not-horrible, and she didn’t like having to admit it. She much preferred to think that he was a villain, and that she had been naïve and stupid to think otherwise.
She coolly extended her hand for the invitation. Whatever her feelings for Mr. Goddard, she would not let anyone say she would ignore a neighbor in need. “Dare I hope you’ll have the courtesy to refuse to attend this dinner?”
He grimaced. “I’m afraid I have no choice but to attend, because it’s my house.”
“Your house,” she repeated. “Pelham Hall belongs to you? I spoke of Pelham Hall many times to you and you never alluded to the fact that you own it. And if you own Pelham Hall, you must own this cottage. You knew I live here.” She thought back to the letters they had exchanged. “I believe you deliberately rendered your signature illegible. If I had known you were named Goddard I might have connected you with the Mr. Goddard who owns Pelham Hall.” He looked momentarily guilty and she knew she had been right. “I trusted you,” she said. She had trusted him with her feelings and with her body, and based on his blush she knew he understood her meaning. “Not only have you proven my trust unfounded, but you have met my trust with nothing but distrust.” She felt her chest tighten but recovered her composure. “It’s time for you to leave my house,” she said coolly.
He solemnly nodded at her and left without saying another word, as if glad to remove himself from her presence. She shut the door before she could watch him retreat down the lane. Her heart racing, she ran her hands up and down her forearms and tried not to remember the expression of stricken shame that crossed Mr. Goddard’s face when she had accused him of dishonesty. At that moment she had watched him realize that he had done wrong, and the look on his face had been that of a man who had known himself to have made the gravest error, a man who had, through his own folly, lost something he had once held dear.
“What the devil is that smell?” asked Lex as Carter buttoned him into his evening coat. “Don’t tell me the hedgehogs got back in.”
“It’s a dog,” Sydney explained. Leontine had escaped the nursemaid’s clutches several times over the past few days, causing great consternation in the household. Sydney had determined that something had to be done. Remembering how Nan followed Amelia about the countryside, keeping her safe and alerting her to danger, he thought a dog would be just the thing. He had gone to the nearest farm and acquired a pup from a rat terrier’s litter, an animal apparently unsuited to farm life but otherwise healthy. He soon found out why exactly the dog was useless to the farmer: this was a dog without ambition. He had not thought it possible for an animal to sleep twenty-three hours a day, only rousing herself to trot alongside him with her tongue lolling and one ear flopping in a way that did nothing to increase Sydney’s estimation of her intelligence. He could not seem to impress upon the creature that her sole function in life was to protect Leontine. Something had to be wrong with it. Well, at least she would be easy to transport back to Manchester.
“Has the dog taken a moral stance against bathing?” Lex asked. “Because otherwise it needs to be put under the pump. Carter,” he said, as the valet arranged his cravat, “will you wash the dog?”
The servant cleared his throat, which Lex evidently took as a signal to begin negotiations. “Three bob?”
“Make it four, Your Grace, and we have a deal.”
“Excellent. What’s its name?” Lex asked Sydney.
“She doesn’t have a name. And even if she did, she sleeps too much to answer to anything.”
“Francine,” Lex declared, promptly. “Had an aunt Francine who smelled just like that and slept all day too.”
Carter wrapped Francine in a blanket and took her off for her ablutions.
“You see what’s happened since I purchased that range for the cook? All the staff believe they can negotiate with me.” Lex sounded cheerful, however.
