Page 29 of The Mistress (Foxgloves #1)
AMELIA
A melia steeled herself as she made her way down to breakfast. After three days of locking herself in her room, not joining meals, asking for privacy whenever Lydia and Thomas knocked, she finally fought through the onslaught of her grief and anger enough to compose herself. She had to come out. She also knew she had to move on with her life. Move on from Gideon, what he thought of her, how he wanted her. She needed to pick up the pieces and go back to her world before he had been in it. And if that wasn’t possible, she had to continue in this one, where she knew he existed, but was not in her life.
She still felt like she had done the right thing. Her anger was still fresh days afterwards. But the sorrow was moving once again to the forefront, too. She had felt safe with him. Seen. Their connection and match felt pure and true. She had trusted him completely to be her foundation, solid and sure. Now alone, she would once again hold herself up, even if the ground felt soft without him.
Stepping into the dining room, she found Lydia and Thomas already seated and eating.
“Good morning,” Amelia greeted them.
“Amelia,” Lydia exclaimed, rushing over and pulling her sister into a tight gripped hug. Amelia blinked past the tears that came instinctively to her eyes. She had not actually cried in the days since rejecting Gideon, determined not to shed another tear for her broken dreams. But now in her sister’s arms, she felt her throat tighten and the pressure build behind her eyes.
Thomas and Lydia had been so supportive to her these past days. They didn’t begrudge her need to be alone or pressure her to come out. They each simply knocked on her bedroom door once a day to ask after her and see if she needed anything before giving her space. They knew her nature. They had lived together their whole lives. They knew she needed time. Anyone would. And they would be there for her however she needed, just as she always was for them. Just as all three of them had been raised to be.
Still wrapped in Lydia’s embrace, Amelia looked over her shoulder to Thomas. His expression was serious and knowing. “I’m glad you’re here,” he told her.
“Me, too” Lydia agreed, pulling back but keeping her grip on Amelia’s shoulders.
Amelia cleared her throat and blinked the tears back from her eyes. “I am sorry to have kept myself away for so long. I just needed a bit of time to feel like myself again. I am better now, though,” she assured them. “So, tell me, what has been going on while I’ve been acting the hermit?” she tried to joke, but it fell flat.
“We want to know the same, actually,” Lydia replied, smiling, but the heaviness of her eyes told Amelia she knew everything. Giving her sister a kiss on the cheek, Lydia resumed her seat and continued, “Come, let’s eat and catch each other up.”
Amelia moved to the side table and made herself a plate before joining them.
Thomas cleared his throat and spoke first. “I guess we may as well get right to it. I want us to stay in London and you, Amelia, to continue with the Season. Birmingham was not a suitable match after all, but there are plenty of men that are. We’ll also use this time to plan and hold the wedding. Lydia won’t be going back to the cottage when we return to the country, and if you want to stay at the Estate with us, you know it is your home, too.”
“Thomas, you’re being dictatorial,” Lydia commented.
“The wedding?” Amelia repeated, holding her fork in the air halfway to her mouth as she bypassed everything else Thomas had laid down and zeroed in on the announcement. Her eyes shot to Lydia, who was blushing and smiling in happy embarrassment. “You’re engaged?” Amelia very nearly screeched.
“That was what you expected, no?” Thomas challenged.
She dropped the fork on her plate and shot up from her seat. She laughed, “Why did you not tell me?” The heavy clouds that hung on Amelia the past few days dispersed immediately. She pulled Thomas into her arms where he sat and then rounded the table to do the same with Lydia. The tears from before came back fresh and spilled over with her joy. “You should have screamed it through the damned door the minute it happened.” She wasn’t sure if she was scolding them with how full of happiness and laughter she and her words were. “I would have been out that very minute, mess and all. I am so happy for you.”
She sat back down, still laughing in her happiness, one hand clutching her chest while the other wiped her cheeks. She felt teary and breathless.
“We knew you needed space, Amelia,” Lydia’s eyes were gentle and understanding, even as her expression was full of happiness. “We weren’t going to take that from you.”
“For heaven’s sake,” it felt good to roll her eyes, and her words still came out on a happy laugh. “Regardless, that didn’t take long at all. It hasn’t even been a full week since I forced you two to pull your heads out of the sand. Are you happy? Both of you? Truly?” Her eyes bounced between them.
“Yes, we are,” Lydia was beaming. She reached her hand out towards Thomas, and he took it, smiling at her with such love and wonder, Amelia’s chest almost burst from finally seeing it out in the open.
“Tell me everything,” Amelia picked her fork back up, still smiling so much her cheeks were beginning to hurt. “When are you thinking to have the wedding? We need to get started on the planning.”
Thomas answered before Lydia could, letting go of her hand and pivoting to face Amelia on his other side. “Did you hear anything else I said?”
Amelia pursed her lips. “Of course, I did. I’m not deaf, Thomas. You want me to find a husband,” she reached for her tea and took a generous swallow.
“Do you want to talk about His Grace, Amelia?” Lydia asked quietly.
“What is there to say?” Amelia felt her chest ripple in pain, but she put her cup down with a steady hand. Anger was still the primary emotion within her, and she spoke with a hardness to her voice and eyes. “He thought I was a mistress for hire and wanted to employ me. I set him straight and on his way. That’s the beginning and end of it.”
Thomas went rigid in the corner of her eye.
“I should have killed him,” he spoke harshly.
“Don’t be daft,” Amelia scoffed, forcing herself to behave normally about the whole situation. “You can’t kill a peer of the realm.”
“I can if he questions your honor,” he fought to control his voice.
“Amelia,” Lydia continued in the same soothing manner, balancing out Thomas’s brutishness as she leaned forward. “There’s more to it than that. You loved him. You still do.”
Amelia took a deep breath, focusing on her plate and compiling another bite on her fork. “I do, but it does not matter. What matters is he had one vision for our relationship, and I had another. I am willing to continue the Season, Thomas,” she turned to him. “I hear there are some false assumptions circulating about what you and I are to each other. I’d like to set that straight, as well as set them straight about you two.” She nodded at Lydia before lifting her fork and continuing to eat.
“I would, as well,” Thomas unclenched. “I’ve recently learned of that apparent longstanding rumor and have been soliciting the staff’s help in rectifying it. They’ve set to work on getting the truth circulating in various households, but we do need to do our part by attending events, announcing the wedding, and allowing suitors to court you.”
Amelia did not want, nor was she ready, to enter into any courtships. She knew, though, that it was not only necessary to dispel the rumors, but also a part of moving on from everything that had happened. So, she said, “Then, let’s do our part.”
“Amelia,” Lydia knew her sister. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Amelia gave her a reassuring smile, still moving through the motions of having breakfast. “Now, back to you two.”
Thomas and Lydia looked at each other with such undiluted love that Amelia was ashamed to admit a stab of jealousy flared in her momentarily. She was thrilled, beyond thrilled for them. But in another world, Gideon would have been at this table with them, all laughing together, sharing their own story of a proposal, and planning two weddings instead of one.
She brushed the fantasy quickly away before either of them noted her. “When are we having the wedding?” she asked again.
“We were thinking next month,” Lydia turned back to her. “We can plan it as we continue to attend the various social events. Then, we’ll end our participation this Season next month with the wedding before returning home. From there, Thomas and I will leave for a short honeymoon. You would have to return to the country with us, of course, as you cannot stay in London alone. We could also delay the honeymoon and finish the full Season first before leaving if you’d rather. What do you think?”
“Next month is brilliant,” Amelia answered. “Rather fast, but considering the rumors already circulating about the three of us, what does talk about a quick wedding matter? And you deserve a honeymoon right away. I am rather finished with this Season, as well, if I’m being honest.”
“Precisely our thought,” Thomas chimed in.
Amelia was glad she had finally left her room this morning. Talking with them, laughing, being open about the insults Gideon had hurled at her and making light of them, fixing them. She felt more like herself than she had since Perrington’s Ball. It felt like months had passed since then, not a mere week. So much had changed over these few short days, but this, the three of them, that had not. She doubted it ever truly would.
“Will you move to the Coventry Estate after the wedding? You could shift your belongings while we’re away or wait until we return so we can move both you and Lydia at once,” Thomas looped back to the final unaddressed item from his initial proclamation in a hopeful voice. “I don’t like the idea of you alone at the cottage.”
“Certainly not,” Amelia replied. “Three is a crowd.”
“Not with us,” Thomas argued.
“You two will be newly married.”
“That won’t matter,” Lydia offered.
“It won’t help the rumors we’re trying to squash if the alleged ward and previously assumed mistress moves in with the newlywed couple.”
There was a pause as the truth of that sank in. “Damn them and their rumors,” Thomas spat. “I don’t want you alone at the cottage.”
“Thomas,” Lydia voiced what they all knew. “She makes a valid point. All this effort setting everyone right…. It would keep the rumors fresh in everyone’s minds and invite further stories to spread.”
“I will be fine,” Amelia assured him. “I won’t be alone. Walters and Mrs. Nichols will be there. And once you both are done honeymooning and are ready to have a guest, I will keep visiting. You both will come to the cottage often, too, I’m sure. We’ve lived with two of our trio at the cottage for years. This will be the same. Just two of us will be at the Estate, instead.”
Amelia felt the impending change weigh down in the room, and Thomas and Lydia grow heavy, perhaps with guilt. But she wasn’t worried. In this, she was light. She had expected this, hoped for it. This change, of all the changes the past few weeks had brought, this change was beautiful. And it gave her hope. Hope that the part of her that was sad and lost without Gideon’s solid presence would be fine, just as she’d vowed.