Page 15

“Speaking from experience?” Reggie snapped. He didn’t mean for his voice to crack like a whip – or like something broken, more like. But it did. And it led Connor to grip his upper arm.

He halted, and twisted out of Connor’s grasp; squared off from him with a snarl ready on his lips.

Connor looked disbelieving, brows lifted, forehead creased with sun lines. “You’re not….you’re not actually jealous, are you?”

“No, I–”

“Because if you’ll recall, I propositioned you. And you told me no.”

With a tiny littlesnap, something broke in Reggie’s mind. It all clicked into place, then: his reaction, internal and external, the strong surge of emotion that had left him off-balance and fighting for breath.

Jealousy. It had been jealousy.

And that was the most intolerable thing of all.

“The answer’s still no,” he growled, and stalked past, before the awful, cold shakes that had begun in the pit of his stomach could spread outward. He knocked their shoulders together as he went, and behind him, as he strode away, heard Connor mutter something that sounded like, “It’s not bloody worth it, honestly.”

~*~

A scrape of boots across the flags drew Amelia’s glance over her shoulder. The footman was following – and had been joined by four of his fellows. Though dressed in fine livery, all had the shoulders of warriors, and rather than showy rapiers wore serviceable swords at their hips. Not merely helping hands, then, but bodyguards.

She approved.

Then, with something of a start, she realized she hadn’t had occasion to draw upon anything like ladylike manners in weeks. She hadn’t been very good at that sort of thing to begin with. She faced forward, toward the manor house’s yawning door flanked by her own Drakewell guardsmen.

“Not that it isn’t lovely to see you, as always,” she said, carefully, “but we weren’t looking to the Primroses for manpower.”

Lady Leda had a low, throaty chuckle that must have been completely out of place among the restrained titters of fashionable drawing rooms. She patted the back of Amelia’s hand where it lay along her arm. “Oh, my dear. There’s no need to mince words with me of all people. We haven’t got the numbers.”

Amelia glanced over at her, startled.

Leda looked ahead, and nodded toward the doors. “I don’t suppose you have anything in the way of wine in this heap, do you?”

“Quite a lot, actually. There were hidden wine cellars behind the one the Sels raided.”

She snorted. “Wonderful. Leave it to the Dales to protect the alcohol.” She said no more, and so they went inside – where things were slightly cleaner and warmer and less revolting than they’d been at first – and Amelia led her to the library, and the bottles lined up on the table there.

Amelia trulywasn’tunhappy to see Leda. She’d sat on the sidelines at parties in which the matrons gossiped disapprovingly behind their fans about the woman, scandalized by her nocturnal activities and the brazen way she winked at the single young men over the punch bowl.Shamelesswas a word tossed frequently about.Inappropriate. Unbecoming. Disgraceful. Never mind the fact that she was widowed, and free to sleep with whoever she pleased, nor the fact that many married women were carrying out affairs of their own, Leda’s open flirting and enjoyment of her own figure, and the way men admired it, was the antithesis of polite behavior, and therefore shunned. No doubt many of the whey-faced biddies seethed with jealousy over her flamboyant beauty besides.

Amelia, with her own scandalous secret affair, and a loathing of musicale afternoons, had cheered Leda silently on from the fringes. Why shouldn’t she do as she pleased? Why should she give a single fuck what a flock of pastel hens with teacake crumbs on their lips had to say about her carryings on? Now, with no desire for any sort of affair, and a war to worry about besides, she still harbored no jealousy for the way the gathered crowd had gone goggle-eyed over Leda – which was to say nothing of Connor being an absolute slut with that little open-shirt display. Leda could do as she wanted.

But this was an army camp. They couldn’t afford a distraction of Leda’s scale and flash.

Amelia poured a cup of wine for her guest, and made a quick cup of tea for herself with hot water from the kettle they’d rigged up over the fire; Connor’s deceased first bride would have died all over again to see an iron armature retrofitted to her fine fireplace for something as pedestrian as heating tea and soup. Then she settled in the armchair across from Leda, where she’d propped her feet up on a mismatched stool and ensconced herself like a queen on a throne, eyes glittering with something like mischief and expectation.

Amelia felt very young and out of her depth, suddenly; hoped to disguise the fact with a sip of tea.

The sky was lightening beyond the windows, the glass glowing periwinkle.

Leda took a long, graceful swallow of wine and fixed her in place with a look. All pretense dropped from her voice, her tone brisk and businesslike when she said, “How bad is it?”

Amelia lowered her cup with a frown. “Pardon?”

“My carriage has pulled up to this manor countless times, but never before has it looked positively haunted. And that’s to say nothing of the scruffy, half-dressed masses of unwashed men who met me in the drive. You’re completely outnumbered, darling. Howdoyou stand it?”

Amelia blinked at her, surprised. “I don’t think about it, mostly. It’s a war.”

“A doomed second effort at one, some might say.”