Page 49 of A Delicate Deception
“Lex!” he called. There was no answer. “Leontine!” Nothing. Not stopping to drop his satchel, he walked through the house and out the terrace doors. The gate that led from the garden to the stables was ajar, so he went in that direction. As he approached, he heard sounds of confusion. A few lads who looked to be stable boys were running to and fro, and one of the nursemaids was sobbing into her pinafore. Lex stood on his own, one hand braced against a hitching post.
“Will someone tell me what is going on here?” Sydney demanded.
“Leontine fell off her pony,” Lex said. “That’s all I know.”
Sydney’s heart turned over in a way it hadn’t since that day he had received the letter telling him of the fire and Andrew’s death. “Where is she? Is she all right?”
“I don’t know!” Lex said.
“What the devil was she even doing on a pony? She’s six years old.” Sydney’s first, uncharitable thought was that he must have been delusional to think that Lex could make responsible decisions for a child. He nearly said so out loud, but caught the desolate look on Lex’s face, and remembered what Lex had said before Sydney left for Manchester. Lex needed him. “All right,” he said, forcing his voice to sound calm. He put a hand on Lex’s shoulder. “Tell me what you do know.”
“A groom returned with the message that Leontine had fallen. Keating carried her to the nearest house. Miss Russell is with her as well.”
“That’s good,” Sydney said, even though nothing about this was remotely good. “I’m going to have the carriage bring me to wherever Leontine is. Do you want to come with me or stay here?”
“I feel responsible,” Lex said, his hand pressed over Sydney’s. “It was my idea to get her the stupid animal.”
And with that, any inclination Sydney might have had to blame Lex for the accident evaporated. “I know. You’re wrong, but I know.” His inclination was to rush out the door and head immediately for Leontine, but she already had two competent adults with her and didn’t need him urgently. Lex, however, was plainly distraught. Lex, too, was family; Lex was the one who needed him now. The man had lost his entire family in the course of a few years, and God knew Sydney had been useless to him during that time; he could only imagine what nightmare scenarios Lex’s mind was conjuring. “All right,” Sydney said calmly, looping his arm into Lex’s and guiding him towards the house. “I’m going to find out where Leontine is and check on her myself. I’ll send word to you immediately, all right?”
He poured Lex some brandy and rang for Carter. Then, on impulse, he snapped his fingers for Fancy and put the dog onto the sofa beside Lex. He knew from experience that an animal snoring on one’s lap was oddly soothing.
“That dog smells,” Lex said. “Promise you’ll let me know right away, regardless of—”
“Right away,” Sydney said. Lex might think Sydney’s sense of duty was a poor substitute for affection, but sometimes duty was just another word for love and friendship, another way to show people that they mattered to you. He bent to give Lex a quick embrace, then strode out to the stables.
Amelia sat in the wreckage of her writing room, regarding the papers that were strewn across the floor and the stacks of books that were toppled. Instead of trying to restore order, she curled up on the sofa. It still smelled of Sydney. None of what had passed between them was bad, she told herself. There was no reason for her to feel so cast down. She had known from the beginning that their parting was a foregone conclusion, and she thought she had made peace with that. Sydney’s insistence that they could somehow continue despite everything shouldn’t make her miserable. She watched the late afternoon sun stream through the window and tried to convince herself that she wasn’t sad.
Then she sat at her desk and killed off a very annoying courtier, which proved to be a much more satisfactory way to spend an evening. She didn’t know if you truly could kill a man by soaking his shirt in embalming fluid, but it sounded marvelous. This, she could do. She could write about jerkins and coronets and arcane methods of murder; she could describe a court and populate it with people who, she supposed, acted very much like normal people. People who did not need to hide away.
She put her pen down and frowned. Perhaps she had been thinking about this all backward: living this way didn’t cut her off from the world, it let her live more fully than she would if she existed on the edge of panic. This way, she could have friendships and feelings; towards the end of her time in London she had been numb to everything but panic. She looked around her writing room, at the faded wallpaper and the dusty window. This was home. She might not get to see the people she loved as often as she wished, but seldom did a day pass without a letter. She didn’t feel caged here anymore, only safe.
The sun had long since set, and was working by lamplight when she heard the door open downstairs. She glanced at her clock and saw that it was already past ten, so she sprinkled some sand on her last page and went downstairs. There she found Georgiana, her face pale, her riding habit muddy. Before Amelia could open her mouth to ask whether her friend was all right, Georgiana held up her hand to forestall any questions.
“I’m perfectly fine. Leontine fell off her pony and I’ve been with her.” Georgiana proceeded to tell Amelia the rest of the story: she and Keating had been teaching Leontine to ride, the pony had bolted after seeing a hare, and the child had fallen. By then, they were some distance from Pelham Hall, so it made more sense to bring the child to the nearest house than it did to attempt to return her home.
“Who is with her now?” Amelia asked. “And where is she?”
“Mr. Goddard. And they’re at Stanton House.”
Amelia drew in a sharp breath of air, both because Stanton House was over two miles away from Pelham Hall, and because it was a stately home of some renown and the seat of the earls of Stafford. When she heard that Leontine had been taken to the nearest house, she had assumed that meant a tenant farmer’s cottage or perhaps the vicarage.
“It turned out to be the best possible place for her, because Lord and Lady Stafford are having a house party and a physician was in attendance. He set the child’s leg and now all that’s left is waiting to see whether she wakes up.”
Sydney had to be beside himself with worry. “I need to go to him.”
“The house is crawling with people, some of whom you’ll have met in London,” Georgiana cautioned. “And, well, Mr. Goddard is not in the best of moods.”
“I should think he wasn’t,” Amelia said, already stepping into her walking boots. “As for whoever is at Stanton House, that will be very bad, and I’m certain I’ll feel terrible the entire time, but I’m not letting Sydney stay there by himself, uncertain of whether or not his niece will survive.” And it would be bad—there was no question on that count. But this was her choice. Maybe part of her making peace with her constrained life was the knowledge that she could leave, and that it might be terrible, but it would also be temporary.
“Amelia. Wait. It’s past ten. Keating can’t bring you in the carriage, because he’s at Pelham Hall. He feels terribly responsible for what happened, as he was the one who was teaching Leontine to ride. If you wait until the morning, I’ll go with you.”
“Fine,” Amelia said, calculating how long it would take to get to Stanton House on foot. An hour? Two at the utmost.
“There’s something else,” Georgiana said. “There’s been a development I ought to tell you about.”
“Oh?”
“Hereford—Lex—asked me to marry him.”
