“Amelia Fitzwater!”
Amelia started, her fingers rushing to close around the fragile jewelry box.
Nothing good ever came from Mother screeching her name, and Amelia was not about to allow the woman’s moods to cause her to ruin her most treasured possession in all of the world.
She might have managed to sneak away for the second half of calling hours for today, but her stepmother’s ire kept no hours.
The woman her father married might act the part of the lady in company, but she was a small-minded and self-serving woman in private, and Amelia sighed as she wondered what must have upset her this time around.
Perhaps one of her own daughters needed to borrow something from Amelia, or perhaps her stepsister’s suitor hadn’t arrived as expected.
It could also simply be that Mother merely wished to be angry at something or someone for unfathomable reasons of her own, with that someone invariably ending up being Amelia nine times out of ten.
“Amelia!” The summons repeated itself.
Amelia sighed. Carefully, she tucked away the painted porcelain box into the drawer of her dressing table.
The item might have originally been meant to house jewels more valuable than itself; but to Amelia, the gold-rimmed, fragile white box—with its dainty proportions and painted Chinese ladies—was the true treasure in and of itself.
The box was the last and only thing she had from her real mother—a tangible reminder that Amelia, with her honey skin and almond eyes, with her trim frame and deep brown locks, was different not just because of her appearance, but rather because she had been the only fruit of a love match between an English earl’s son and a minor Chinese princess.
Her mother might have died in childbirth, but her legacy lived in Amelia’s blood. It was a blood that her stepmother seemed to disdain, but at least she knew Papa loved her for it.
Eager to avoid more creative forms of tongue-lashing, Amelia rushed down the stairs to where Mother and her daughters sat in rigid, angry lines in the parlor.
“Your cousin is here, fashionably late,” Mother informed Amelia with a sneer the moment she stepped foot in the room. “And as I am expecting one more caller, you had best clear the street quickly. I would not have an earl’s daughter drawing eyes away from your sisters.”
A light buoyed up within Amelia. She must have counted the days wrong again.
Only two of her cousins could fit Mother’s description, and since Lady Jemima Fitzwater was always needed in Princess Charlotte’s court, it had to be Lady Dorothea at the door—come to fetch Amelia for their promised round of calls.
Her cousins were all older and graceful and every bit the image of a perfect English lady, not at all similar to Amelia’s own more impulsive temperament.
But she knew her cousins loved her, even if she was the less fashionable daughter of the less fashionable third son of the Earl of Aldbury’s clan.
She could not assume the same affection from the sneering Mrs. Fitzwater, a woman that she called Mother only for her Papa’s sake.
Amelia loved Papa dearly, and there was very little she wouldn’t do for him. But she didn’t always particularly enjoy meeting all his requests.
“Go!” Mother snapped. “Mr. Ocham is calling on Sarah today, and you better have that cousin of yours and her fancy dresses out of sight posthaste.”
“Yes, Mother.”
Amelia didn’t have to be told another time.
Their townhouse in Upper Wimpole Street might ostensibly be her home, but Mother certainly liked to act as if it wasn’t.
And while Papa liked to pretend that any differences between Amelia and her stepsiblings and half-siblings was superficial—just a different shade of skin, or a distant birthplace a continent away—their disparities ran somewhat deeper.
Mother and her children aspired to be perfectly poised, perfectly boring members of the ton .
Amelia, though being of nobler birth, liked life a little more exciting.
What good was there in being the very pattern card of poise and precision when one could dream and soar instead?
Of course, one could argue that her cousins Jem and Thea managed to be both: perfectly ladylike and yet spirited in their own way.
But that was a puzzle to solve for another day.
Today, she enjoyed the view of Thea perched beautifully on her high phaeton, the very picture of elegance in her ruby-colored cloak and turban cap—and the promise of a few hours of freedom that came with her.
Amelia smiled as she rushed to take her side by her cousin, almost missing the groom’s hand as he helped her.
Mother might consider Thea’s presence a curse or an insult, a frustrating reminder that Amelia shared blood with the earl while her own daughters did not, but Amelia relished the visit wholeheartedly.
Thea urged her horses forward, and soon they were off.
“Are we going to Cavendish Square today?” Amelia asked as they turned the first corner.
London and its sights and sounds swirled around them as Thea drove.
It was kind of her cousin to come fetch her, given the slightly dubious reputation of her address, located as it was on the edge between nobility and the rapidly-rising middle class, much like her own family.
Papa might have grown up in privilege, but his status as a younger son with eccentric artistic tendencies did not exactly make him a society leader—probably much to Mother’s despair.
“Someone must visit the dowager countess,” Thea said in that knowledgeable way of hers, so much wiser even if she was only a few years Amelia’s senior. “With Jemima so busy with Princess Charlotte’s affairs, it is our duty to see to it.”
“Is old Lady Aldbury doing well?”
“She sent my father word that she’s suffering from palpitations, and her physician recommends a new treatment—a costly regimen of tinctures and pills. She asked Papa to finance it, but of course, he won’t.”
“Poor Lady Aldbury. She is always ill, isn’t she? I do pity her.”
“Yes, she deserves our pity, but don't be fooled. Not all illnesses are equally severe. Her ailments are rarely as serious as she makes out.”
“I suppose that’s true, but it's still horrible, isn't it?” Amelia shuddered. Their phaeton turned a tricky corner. “I cannot imagine being tethered to one’s bed like that. Papa always likes to say that there is so much more to the world than London, or even England. How horribly boring an existence that must be.”
“No doubt he’s right—but I am content with London.”
“Don’t you wish to visit other countries?”
“Why should I? Here we get to have the best corner of the world to ourselves. That should be more than enough for us, shouldn’t it?”
Amelia wasn’t sure if she entirely agreed.
The existence of a woman trapped at home with her never-ending ailments—imagined or otherwise—sounded terribly sad, even if she did reside in one of the best cities of the world.
But Amelia also knew that her cousins tended to know better.
They always did manage to be the very model of fashionable, ladylike living. Even Mother couldn’t argue.
So Amelia smiled and Amelia nodded. One day, she would chart her own future—a future with adventure and excitement, a future fitting for the legacy her mother had left her. She would simply have to manage another quiet, domestic visit for today.