Author: Tessa Dare
She asked, “Are you certain you don’t mind sharing with Claudia? It’s such a small cottage, only four bedchambers. But if you do mind, we can put someone in the—”
“It’s fine,” Lily interrupted. “I’m grateful for the company. Even the taciturn variety.”
Amelia sighed. “She never talks, does she? I don’t know how to reach out to her.” She felt a pinch guilty for turning Claudia away from the library that afternoon. She wondered if Spencer had ever caught up with her, to find out what she’d wanted. The coaches had arrived so soon thereafter; he might not have had the chance. “I have to admit, that’s why I put the two of you together. Perhaps you can succeed where I’ve failed. I’ve tried and tried making friends with her, but she only becomes more withdrawn.”
She punched down the dough. Her failure to win over Claudia had her frustrated and, yes, a bit resentful. Strolls along the river, pianoforte duets, even trips to the shops—the girl rejected her every suggestion. She didn’t know what more to do.
After setting the bread aside to rise a final time, she clapped the flour from her hands and turned to wash them in the basin.
While her back was turned, she heard Lily say, “What a surprise! I didn’t know you’d be joining us.”
Had the men returned from the river so soon? It couldn’t be Mr. Bellamy—she still heard a haunting melody emanating from the pianoforte. Shaking her hands to dry them, Amelia turned around.
What she saw made her knees go weak.
“Hullo, Amelia.”
“Jack?” For a moment, she thought she was seeing a ghost. The phantom of Jack’s fourteenth summer, when he’d shot up four inches in six weeks and devoured every scrap of food in the house before picking the nearest trees clean of green apples, too. But of course she wasn’t seeing a boy, nor a ghost. This was truly her brother standing awkwardly in the middle of the kitchen, like a stranger in his own house. He looked haggard, gaunt. His clothes hung loose on his frame, giving him that boyish, bony appearance. Dark shadows haunted his eyes, and his last shave had been at least three days ago.
Her eyes welled. The tears streaked down her cheeks before she could get them back.
“Oh, come now. Is that any way to greet your favorite brother?”
“Jack.” She threw her arms around him, hugging him close. What’s happened to you? she wanted to ask. How had he sunk to this low? She was failing him, so miserably. Failing her mother’s memory. Failing Hugh’s. “It’s good to see you.” She clutched him tighter still. No matter what Spencer did or said, this time she would not let Jack go. Not until he told her everything, and together they made some plan to get his life put to rights. She’d lost one brother already, and she couldn’t bear the pain of losing another.
“We’ve a full house,” she said, wiping her tears and striving for a cheery tone. “Can you make do with the attic while you’re here?”
“Of course. Assuming Morland doesn’t—”
A deep voice interrupted. “Assuming Morland doesn’t what?”
Spencer tromped into the kitchen, holding a set of sleek fish. “Three salmon, as ordered.” He flung the fish on the table and turned to Jack.
Amelia’s stomach knotted. She didn’t know how Spencer would react to Jack showing up again uninvited. Even though he shouldn’t need an invitation—not to his own family’s house.
Lord Ashworth followed Spencer into the room. At the sight of the giant, Jack held up his hands in a gesture of truce. “I’m not here to make trouble. I’ve brought the papers from Laurent.”
“Papers?” Amelia asked. “What papers?”
No one heeded her question. Amelia held her breath as Spencer dragged a wary gaze over her brother’s disheveled clothes and sharply angled form. Would he curse Jack? Dismiss him? Welcome him? It seemed too much to hope for the last, but she couldn’t help but dream.
In the end, he didn’t speak a word to Jack. “Ashworth, this is Amelia’s brother. Jack d’Orsay.” He caught Amelia’s gaze. “He’ll be staying with us for a while.”
Tears of relief pricked at the corners of her eyes. Oh, how she loved him. She loved both these men, more than she loved her own life. And she adored Spencer for not forcing her to choose between them. Thank you, she mouthed to her husband.
“Jack, Lord Ashworth is Lieutenant Colonel St. Maur,” she said, clearing the emotion from her throat. “He served with Hugh in the army.”
“Then I’m doubly glad to make your acquaintance, my lord. Your courage was legend, from my brother’s letters.” Jack bowed, then drew a sheaf of papers from the bag slung over his arm. “Your Grace, shall we discuss these in the library?”
“Whatever are you talking about?” Amelia said, inwardly pleased with her brother’s sudden formality. She gave Spencer a merry look, as if to say, See? He’s already reforming. “Dinner will be ready soon. Whatever you need to discuss, it can wait until after we’ve eaten.”
And by then, she would have pulled Spencer aside to learn just what these papers were all about.
“Besides,” she continued, “you’re all of you men in desperate need of a bath. Go on, get out of my kitchen. Go bathe and dress for dinner, and let me finish here.” She briskly shooed them through the door.
Lily rose, too. “If you don’t mind, I’ll rest for a bit. I’m fatigued from traveling.”
“But of course you are. Shall I show you upstairs?”
“No, thank you. I know the way.”
Once she was left alone, Amelia braced her hands on the tabletop. She drew a deep, slow breath. And then she began to weep uncontrollably. Great, racking sobs left her cheeks wet and her throat aching. What was wrong with her? She just couldn’t stop crying, and she had no idea why. Jack was here, Spencer hadn’t thrown him out, and this was her chance to set everything right between them. She ought to be rejoicing, not crying.
From the basin, a salmon accused her with one round, glassy eye. Actually, what she ought to be doing was preparing fillets for dinner. But as she reached for the fish, her stomach gave a wild lurch. Tears forgotten, she grabbed the nearest empty bowl and retched into it.
Oh, dear. Though her head spun, she performed a hasty calculation on her fingertips. Suddenly it all made sense. Her helpless tears, her sudden nausea, her cravings over the past few days—for baked goods and Spencer. All thoughts of her house guests, her husband, even bedraggled Jack and his mysterious papers fled her mind.
She was with child.
When dinner came, Spencer found himself seated across the table from Claudia. He didn’t appreciate the childish manner in which she picked at her food. But he truly hated the way in which she shifted her fascinated gaze from one egregiously inappropriate man to the next: Ashworth, Bellamy, Jack d’Orsay. The last passed Claudia a debonair grin along with the bowl of parsnips, and Spencer began to question the wisdom of placing his ward in close society with three men who could be called his enemies.
He tried to catch Amelia’s eye, but she’d taken quite an interest in her water goblet. It wasn’t like her to be so distracted.
“God’s truth, this room is quiet,” Jack said. “Tell us a joke, Bellamy. Or one of those amusing stories. You’re always the life of the party in Town.”
“We’re not in Town,” Bellamy said. “And I don’t feel so amusing, of late.”
That was an understatement. From the looks of them, Jack and Bellamy were having a competition to see who could closest resemble a wraith. First man to waste to vapor wins.
Amelia took the nudge, rousing herself to make conversation. “Lord Ashworth,” she said, “how do you find the scenery?”
Thick eyebrows knitted in a frown. “I’m not a man inclined to flowery description, but if pressed … I think I might use the word ‘charming.’”
“I understand you have an estate in Devonshire,” she said.
“Yes, in the heart of Dartmoor. The countryside cannot be called charming. Forbidding is probably the word.”
“Oh, yes. I’ve passed that way, when visiting cousins in Plymouth. What a study in contrasts the area is. Such beauty and such desolation.” Amelia turned to Bellamy. “And you, Mr. Bellamy? Where were you raised?”
Bellamy took a slow draught of wine. When he put down the glass, he looked dismayed to see Amelia patiently awaiting a response, fork poised in midair.
“Farthest reaches of Northumberland,” he said. “Middle of nowhere. Don’t suppose you’ve any cousins there.”
Spencer put in, “Actually, I’ve land in Northumberland.”
“Really.” Bellamy’s tone was bored.
“Yes, really. Mines. Did your people work in mining?”
Bellamy said, “What else is there to do, in Northumberland?”
“Coal, I suppose?”
Bellamy gave him a cold, slashing look, and Spencer leaned forward in anticipation. He’d been waiting to catch this fraud in the act.
“No. Copper.”
“Bollocks. There’s not a vein of copper in all Northumberland.” Spencer’s knife clanged the edge of his plate. “And if yours is a Northumberland accent, then I speak like an Ottoman King. Where do you get off, accusing me of crimes? You’re nothing but a petty swindler and a fraud.”
Bellamy’s eyes went to Lily.
Spencer repeated his words, making sure the dark-haired woman could read his lips clearly. “You are a lying bastard, Bellamy.”
“Now look here—”
“Just how have you been spending my money?” Spencer asked. “That massive investigation I’m funding has yielded precious little in the way of results.”
“Perhaps that’s because the killer isn’t in Town,” Bellamy said, his voice tight. “Perhaps that’s because the culprit’s been hiding out in Cambridgeshire.”
Ashworth groaned. “For God’s sake, can we move on from this? Morland isn’t a killer. It’s not in him.”
“How would you know?” Bellamy said.
“Because if he were, I wouldn’t be sitting here. I’d have died fourteen years ago.”
The room went silent.
Spencer stared at the scarred, hulking warrior. “Are you talking about Eton?”
He remembered the way their fight had dragged on, blow after blow, while boys ringed them and cheered and the schoolmasters stood passively by—helpless to stop it, since both he and Rhys were larger and stronger than any adult there. They were both big youths, but Spencer’d had the advantage of age and the force of grief and anger behind his blows. But no matter how many times he smashed Rhys to the dirt, the mad bastard wouldn’t stay down. He’d kept dragging his bleeding carcass off the ground and coming back for more. Until he hadn’t even been throwing punches of his own, just lumbering forward on shaky legs to receive Spencer’s next punishing blow. At the time, he had interpreted Rhys’s persistence as foolish pride, and as he’d been in the mood to keep dealing blows … foolish pride seemed as worthy an offense as any.
But when Rhys staggered to his feet yet again, with one eye swollen shut and his chest hunched over broken ribs—on his last blow, Spencer had heard them cracking under his fist—he just couldn’t stomach the idea of hitting the idiot one more time. It had become a matter of his own pride, to walk away.
Rhys’s expression told Spencer they were recalling the exact same scene. “I wanted you to kill me,” he said.
Around the table, eyes widened. Wineglasses tipped.
“Pardon the bluntness.” Rhys addressed the group in a diffident tone, forking another bite into his mouth. “I never did master the art of genteel dinner conversation.”