Page 31

Amelia glanced at Sir Frederick, who was seated beside her.

His laughter had been truncated by his sister’s final flirtatious act and Amelia tapped him on the thigh to whisper, “It’s the spirit of the evening that’s important.

Don’t judge your sister so harshly or by other standards.

I’ve already been proved wrong and really don’t know where I got the idea that Caroline was about to do something so spectacularly foolish, and now I’m ashamed of myself.

But please allow her a little of the latitude you seem to grant everyone else, including yourself. ”

Immediately, he relaxed and smiled across at her.

“Your wise counsel does you credit, Miss Fairchild, and I shall heed it. I’m far too much the overbearing big brother at times, and it’s good to have you remind me of it.

Now, I hear your name being called. Go forth and astound us with your acting skills.

I have every confidence that you’ll be far better than you imagine. ”

But Amelia wasn’t.

She felt wooden as she stepped onto the dais and suddenly, to her horror, struck dumb by the sea of faces before her.

Why, it was ridiculous. She’d played to a company larger than this…

admittedly angled away from them and with a large floral arrangement on the pianoforte, screening her as per her request.

And she’d stood at her father’s side in her earlier years and read poetry. Yes, serious, important words by learned men. And she’d been applauded and politely complimented by the serious, learned men her father cultivated.

Unlike her mama, Mr. Fairchild had had a reputation for being a man of exceedingly moderate temperament. Amelia had always striven to be compared with him rather than her darling pea goose of a mama whom Edward most definitely took after.

But now she had to enact a ridiculous word and the sight of all these houseguests who had been talking and laughing and having so much fun earlier but who’d now gone silent and were watching her, judging her, made her throat dry and her courage drain away.

She tried to suck in a breath, but her airways were constricted.

She felt her panic grow and the earth seemed to fall away.

This was not at all the way she wanted to portray herself, but it was as if she were an insect trapped in aspic and incapable of movement…

Except for the clasped hands at her breast.

Mortification. She’d never felt it so greatly.

“Heart! Something about a heart, Miss Fairchild.”

A murmur went about the room, the activity on account of Sir Frederick’s words suddenly galvanizing Amelia into movement. Air filled her lungs, and she felt vitality seep through her veins.

Directing a grateful look at him, she tightened her clasped hands at her breast and nodded while she tried to shake her brain into similar activity and even remember the word.

Heartbreak.

Yes, Sir Frederick had named the first part, and now she must mime the second.

She must pretend to break something. It would be easy.

She’d just pluck an imaginary vase from the air and toss it to the ground and then everyone would know she’d broken it and her agony on stage would be over in a heartbeat as Sir Frederick would gallantly shout “Heartbreak.”

Feeling a little more confident, she tossed her imaginary vase to the ground, leaping back to avoid the imaginary shards of glass, turning and more than ready to agree when her charade was guessed.

“Angry heart!” someone shouted, and she shook her head, seeking out Sir Frederick with a rather desperate look. However, he did not oblige and, after several more attempts down this avenue, Amelia gave up.

Heartbreak. How could she mimic heartbreak? How had she felt when her heart had been broken? When she’d heard the terrible news proclaiming Thomas’s death.

Oh, that needed no acting skills whatsoever. She was on the spot and desperate, and she knew just how it felt to be heartbroken.

And she just wanted to get off this stage and slink away.

With an unfocused look of shock at the audience, Amelia closed her eyes. Then, covering her face with her hands, she fell to the ground with a wail of despair.

Heartbreak. It was a charade. She was acting, or at least trying to act, when she knew she couldn’t.

But she knew what heartbreak was like. She knew that feeling of aching loss when the knowledge that she’d never know happiness again was surely worse than drowning as she succumbed to the physical manifestations of grief: weeping so hard she could barely draw breath, curled up in a ball on the ground, reaching out, her hands fisted because no hand was ever going to reach for hers again.

She’d lost her only chance for a blessed future with a good and noble man and her heart was truly broken.

It was only after a few seconds that she realized where she was and what she was doing and that she was making a public spectacle of herself.

And how long had she ignored the cries from the audience of “Heartbreak!”?

Sheepishly, she rose to her feet, wiping away what she hoped everyone thought were pretend tears, nodding that the word had been guessed, not making eye contact as she made her way back to her seat.

“Upon my honor, Miss Fairchild, you are an astonishing actress,” Sir Frederick murmured as the next act prepared themselves. “Once again, you decry your abilities, which are so superior to those of the rest of us.”

“Do stop your compliments, which will surely go to my head, Sir Frederick,” Amelia said, feeling the most extraordinary mix of relief, embarrassment—and catharsis.

She couldn’t have said why, but it was as if an enormous weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

“And I am not an actress, I’m a fraud. I was struck frozen up there until you set matters in motion. ”

“Yes, one word from me and you threw yourself to the ground and began to weep like your world was coming to an end.”

Amelia swallowed, for Sir Frederick’s words were lighthearted and he had no idea that they were so deadly accurate. Perhaps he understood, for his eyes suddenly widened and he said, “You were remembering what you felt when your betrothed died, am I not right?”

Looking down at her clasped hands, Amelia nodded.

“Lucky Thomas. To have been loved so deeply by a woman with as much honor as you, Miss Fairchild.”

“His worthiness was what made me mourn him. I have as much or as little honor as the average woman in this room, I dare say. But Thomas was a king among men. His like will not enter my life again.”

“I think you attribute too much to him, at the risk of inciting your ire. Thomas was a good man, but he would not have made you happy. He would not have made you laugh, and you need to laugh, Miss Fairchild. Happiness is just below the surface, for you, but would he have tapped into it as much as you would have needed him to in order to strike the right balance between his gravity and your vivacity?”

“You don’t know what you’re saying!” Amelia burst out. “Why, you hardly knew Thomas.”

“I did know him, perhaps better than you think I did. And I’m sorry if my words offended you,” Sir Frederick said.

“Ah, now what do we have here?” he ended diplomatically as two other young guests stepped on stage.

He patted Amelia’s arm and offered her a smile.

“I’m sorry for your heartbreak and for not coming to your rescue when you’d asked me to.

The truth is, I wanted so very much to learn what heartbreak was for you and how you would manifest it under such circumstances, and in doing so I put you through a very great ordeal that I would not have had you re-live had I known what real pain it occasioned you.

I therefore offer you my humblest apologies. ”

And as Amelia looked at him, she thought she really did believe him.

“Now for cards!” Lady Pendleton announced with a commanding clap of her hands that made several guests start.

“The tables are arranged for whist, and I trust everyone knows their Hoyle,” she added with a meaningful look at some of the younger guests, her ostrich feather quivering.

“Let us form tables for whist. The evening is still young.”

Amelia would have preferred to withdraw, feeling drained after her emotional display, but movement caught her eye.

Sir Frederick had half-risen from his chair, clearly intending to secure her for his table, when Lady Townsend materialized at Amelia’s elbow with the timing of a general deploying troops.

“You’ll join our table, won’t you, my dear?” The older woman’s tone brooked no argument. “Lord Thornton has specifically requested your company.”

Amelia caught Sir Frederick’s slight frown as she allowed herself to be led away. Was he disappointed not to secure her for his own table? But no, that was fanciful thinking, she told herself as she took her place opposite Lord Thornton.

Lady Townsend directed Amelia to a seat that afforded an excellent view of both the room and Sir Frederick’s frustrated expression as he was cornered by Mrs. Perry for her table.

The card tables were arranged in an elegant horseshoe pattern, the better to allow Lady Pendleton to survey her domain from her position at the head table.

From her vantage point, Amelia could easily observe the adjacent table where Mr. Greene sat with young Albert Pendleton and Henry, the former gentleman’s expression watchful, the latter looking uncommonly serious as he shuffled the deck.

The fourth at their table was Colonel Blackwood, a gentleman of military bearing whose florid complexion suggested a fondness for port.

“Your bid, Miss Fairchild,” Lord Thornton prompted. His eyes, Amelia noticed, kept straying to Lady Townsend’s elegant hands as she arranged her cards. “Though I warn you, your partner takes her whist very seriously.”