Page 19

Amelia was sitting with her sister-in-law when Lord Thornfalcon presented his card the next day. It was not even close to the hour for paying morning calls, so she looked at Sophie in some surprise.

‘Thank you, Kemp, please send him up directly,’ Lady Wyverne told the butler. When the door closed behind him, she said tranquilly, ‘I expect he has come to offer for you, just as we planned. I shall leave you alone. Such matters do not require an audience, in my experience.’

Her heart beating unaccountably fast, Amelia said. ‘Oh! I suppose it must be that. It seems perfectly ridiculous, when it is not real. But perhaps he feels he must make a show of it.’

‘He can hardly announce to the world that you are engaged without telling you first,’ said Sophie reasonably.

‘That would not be at all convenable. Yes, it is false, and yes, you know he means to do it, but it is only common courtesy to tell you when and make sure you are in agreement. And for the sake of the servants and so on, it would look most odd if you had never had any sort of private interview. I am sure Kemp is a secret romantic at heart and is even now most interested in what might be occurring. If I cared for propriety, which you know I do not, I could console myself with the knowledge that Rafe has approved this suit, for he has told me so. I do too, I told him in return. I said nothing of its not being genuine.’

‘Hush!’ said Amelia, agitated. ‘My mind is not easy about Rafe, I know I should tell him, but… He, Lord Thornfalcon, will be here in a moment. Do I look well enough to receive him?’

‘What can it matter?’ asked the Marchioness, amused.

‘Did you not just say that it was all a sham? But yes, of course you do. That dark-red bodice becomes you excessively, and you have been in high bloom these last few days. Perhaps I should not leave you alone, but stay here as a stern duenna. Who knows how far His Lordship’s concern for verisimilitude will take him?

If he tries to kiss you, Melia, you can always stamp on his foot. Or have you a pin about you?’

Provoked by her sister-in-law’s teasing, which she considered to be in poor taste, Amelia feared that her colour was as high as that of her scarlet gown when she greeted His Lordship a moment or two later.

Sophie received him graciously and gave him her hand, which he bent over and brushed with his lips with a fair show of enthusiasm, considering that he could not have been expecting such antique formality.

Then Lady Wyverne took herself out of the room without another word, smiling infuriatingly all the while, and shut the door firmly behind her.

They were alone, and stood looking at each other in silence. It was not their first private interview, of course, and the previous one had not been so very long ago, but somehow, this felt different.

At length, he said, ‘I thought I must call and speak with you. Have you seen the latest print?’

She shook her head wordlessly.

‘It features you – our carriage drive together. It isn’t saying or implying anything to your particular discredit, but you are quite recognisable in it, and so…

The purpose of this exercise we undertook was not to damage your reputation but to enhance it.

Therefore it is time, I believe, to announce our engagement, so that I may give you some protection. If you are not thinking better of it?’

‘Why should I be?’ she prevaricated. Now that it came to it, she felt almost a sense of panic. It had seemed like a light, easy sort of thing to do, almost a game, and now it did not. Especially if this man was still in love, or otherwise involved, with someone else whom he could never marry.

‘It is a grave step.’ His face reflected his words, and no wonder.

‘It would be, if it were real,’ she shot back. She was all on edge, irritated by Sophie and now by him, though she knew that there was no sense in it. He was only doing what she had suggested he do. He was playing his part to perfection, and she must do the same.

‘It is still a grave step, for all the world will believe it is real.’ In her distraction, she’d not invited him to sit down and now he crossed the room to her side and stood uncomfortably close.

It was because he was so very tall and broad, she thought.

Because she certainly was not frightened of him.

‘You were right, it seems, that your scheme was more apt to help me than you. It has already done so, and I am sensible of it. I am not sure you are able to say the same.’

‘That’s not entirely true. The men – I will not say gentlemen – do not harass me so, as you have noticed. They are scared of you, I think. That is an improvement.’

‘I pray it may not be only temporary. Perhaps our engagement should be a long one, so I can offer you some protection from them, at least for the rest of the Season. I wish I could send them all to the devil for their foul impertinence.’ His words were fierce but his tone was gentle, and she found herself blinking away a fugitive tear at the care he showed for her.

This virtual stranger. He took her hand, the lightest of touches; he did not clasp it tightly.

‘Thank you,’ he murmured. ‘You are very brave, Amelia, and I honour you for it.’ He raised her hand to his lips, as he had done with Sophie’s a moment or two ago.

A butterfly kiss, no more, and with no greater significance than a graceful show of thanks. Surely.

Her hand had been kissed before, and more than once, gloved and ungloved – before the pins and the stamping shoes, she had suffered that indignity a dozen times, and hated each one.

This was just the slightest of caresses, a mere brush of the lips across the sensitised skin, and yet at the sudden intimacy of the touch, flesh to flesh, she shivered as she had never done before. Not in revulsion, this time.

He might easily have misinterpreted her movement.

Slight as it was, he must have felt it, for he still held her.

He might have released her and stepped away with a word of apology.

But he looked down at her and his green eyes darkened.

His expression was serious, as it generally was, but not grim, not now.

If anything, he seemed almost dazed, his featured open and softened in a way she had never seen before.

‘It has been almost eight years, Amelia,’ he whispered, ‘since I kissed a woman. Or wanted to.’

‘Do you want to now?’

‘I must confess I do.’

‘I’ve never been kissed,’ she said with disastrous honesty. ‘Not once. It is most frustrating that my bad reputation is entirely undeserved. When men have tried, I have stabbed them with pins. Hairpins. Long ones.’ Why had she started babbling of hairpins when he spoke of kisses?

‘Do you have a pin on your person now? Just in case?’

‘No.’

‘Would you care to go and fetch one? I can wait.’

Was he joking with her again? That made it twice.

‘No,’ she said, not joking, and with a boldness that surprised herself, put her hands either side of his face.

Then she pulled his head down so that she could kiss him.

Her first kiss would be one she chose for herself – he could give her that, if nothing else.

It seemed important, suddenly, to claim this moment.

Apparently, it wasn’t something you needed to learn to do.

Kissing. Or she didn’t, with Marcus, in any case.

You could just do it by instinct and it could be good.

So good. His strong arms came out to hold her, and she melted into them in irresistible impulse and wrapped her arms about his neck, where they seemed to belong.

His lips were not immobile under hers; they were warm, responsive, delicious, and she tasted them with unbridled delight.

It was plain to her that he liked it too.

They tasted each other, and lost themselves in it, entirely absorbed in pure sensation.

It could not have been a concern for the proprieties that prompted Sophie to leave them alone together for only a very few minutes, for she had none.

It might have been an imp of mischief that caused her to return so quickly, or perhaps pure, uncontrollable curiosity.

Or it could have been that her formidable and unwelcome visitor overwhelmed all her best efforts to keep her out.

Sophie was a powerful woman too, but she was young yet, and inexperienced, socially, compared with a dowager at the height of her powers.

She could perhaps have stopped Lady Keswick by the use of ruthless physical violence, but in no other manner.

‘Amelia, here is your Aunt Keswick to see you,’ she said with forced lightness as she opened to door. And then, ‘Oh, merde !’