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‘Now with the wisdom of distance there is the greatest relief in the realisation that we would never have suited.’
‘I got the impression that she thinks exactly the opposite.’
‘Then she is wrong.’ The distance had returned to his voice. ‘Do you have a ball dress?’
‘Yes. Why?’
‘There is a ball on Saturday night which will be well attended. I hope you might accompany me to it?’
‘Would your family be there?’
‘No. Mama has a slight cold and my two sisters are still young.’ He hesitated for a moment. ‘I thought you might have known all my particular familial circumstances when you made me your choice of groom?’
For the first time he heard Amethyst laugh as though she meant it. She simply tossed her head back and sounded happy. He was mesmerised.
‘I left the snooping to my father, my lord.’
‘And I passed muster?’
‘It was the time you spent with Sir John Moore in La Corunna that sealed it for my father, I think. It was said that you were quite the hero on the heights of Penasquedo and he has always admired those who might lay down their life for crown and country, you see.’
‘And what of your choice?’
The good humour vanished in a second.
‘I no longer trust myself enough to make wise decisions.’
‘Which implies that you have made some foolish ones?’
‘People change on you when you least expect it, my lord.’ She looked at him directly now, the dark of her eyes marked with a softer gold.
‘Aye, that they do. Lady Mackay became a woman I did not recognise, but I wouldn’t say her intransigence was my problem.’
The small show of her dimples heartened him. ‘The blame was hers, you mean.’
‘Entirely.’
‘And you moved on without looking back?’ she asked curiously.
‘I did.’
* * *
This conversation was taking a surprising turn. Honesty was something she favoured and Lord Daniel Wylde had not held back about his past or lied about it.
Unlike her.
Such knowledge shrivelled her good mood, though their kiss of the other day still lingered below each glance and word. A scorching and undeniable truth embracing neither logic nor reason.
Passing into a narrower path, he took the reins of her horse and pulled them both to a stop. ‘Even given the unusual circumstances of our union, Miss Cameron, I want us to be friends.’
Friends. As she had been at first with Gerald Whitely. She hoped he did not see the consternation on her face because what he was offering was honourable.
‘I certainly would not wish for two years of bickering.’
She shook her head. Everything he said made perfect sense and she had come into this betrothal only with the expectation of filling the last months of her father’s life with happiness. But the kiss they had shared had skewed things, made them different and she could not help but hope that he might eschew convention and take her in his arms, here in the most public of places. That he might kiss her again, show her it had not been all a figment of her imagination, fill in the empty fears with a warm certainty.
But of course he did not, he merely called his horse on and challenged her.
‘You ride well, Miss Cameron. At Montcliffe after we are married I would deem it an honour to pit my horse against your own.’
She gave him a smile, her roan shimmying as she let her attention wander. With Montcliffe beside her and the summer breeze in her face Amythest felt the sort of freedom that she had missed for months now.
‘I think for a fair competition you would have to allow me a starting distance. Your mount looks as if he might beat anything he was up against.’
He laughed and the sound was honest and true. ‘Deimos here was well blooded in the Peninsular Campaign in Spain.’
‘Deimos?’ she repeated the name. ‘The Grecian spirit of dread and terror?’
He smiled. ‘Not many would know that.’
‘You took him to the Continent?’
‘I rode with the Eighteenth Light Dragoons under Lord Paget.’
‘Is that where you hurt your leg?’
‘On the last day at La Corunna. The medic couldn’t get the bullet out.’
‘So it is still in there?’ she asked, horrified.
‘And hurting like hell.’ Unexpectedly he smiled. ‘I don’t usually talk about the injury and certainly seldom admit to any pain.’
‘Why do you not simply have the shot removed then? Here, in London?’
‘The surgeon said that it lay near an artery. If they accidentally severed it during the operation, I should lose either my leg or my life, so at this stage the option of doing nothing is the sensible one. Besides, to complete my side of the marriage deal I still need to scare people away from your father, Miss Cameron.’
‘I think you could do that anyway, Lord Montcliffe, with one leg or two.’
‘Do you?’ His demeanour had changed. Now he leant towards her, taking the bridle to hold her mare still. She felt the blood in her cheeks rise as it never had before, so red that her whole face throbbed with the consternation.
‘I like it when you blush.’
Daniel Wylde was lethal. With just a few words he could make her forget everything and believe in fairy tales with happy endings against impossible odds.
Better to remember the way Charlotte Mackay had looked at her with that innate snobbery so prevalent in the English upper classes as she had sniffed out the presence of trade like a bloodhound. Tomorrow when the notice of their intention to marry went into the papers Amethyst could hardly bear to think of what the repercussions would be. But the very worst of it was that she wanted this man before her, wanted his kisses, his smiles and his compliments, no matter what.
‘The ball you speak of, would it be very formal?’ she asked apprehensively.
‘It would indeed. Did they ever teach you how to dance at your Gaskell Street Presbyterian Church School.’
‘They taught me what they knew, though there were times when I wondered just how much that actually was.’
‘Did you learn how to waltz?’
‘No.’
‘A pity, for they call it the dance of love.’ Now his amusement was easily seen. ‘If you like, I would be most happy to teach you the steps.’
* * *
He loved the way she was so easily flustered, this woman of commerce and business and brusqueness, though his attention was caught by a series of heavy pins around the line of her hair that had been dislodged by the movement of the ride.
‘Do you wear a wig?’
Her fingers instantly came up to where it was he looked, pushing the dull brown hair forward in one easy swipe.
‘I do.’ Her hand shook as she tried to secure the loosened clips.
‘Why?’ Surprise at her admission had him frowning.
‘The accident in the carriage that we told you of. I had my head shaved so that the surgeon could drill into my scalp to release the pressure on my brain.’
My God. No simple accident, then, but an operation that could have so easily killed her. He tried to hide his concern and concentrated on the fact that she had survived. ‘What colour is the hair beneath?’
‘Not this shade.’ The lowering sun radiated on her face, altering the plain sallowness of her complexion. ‘It is lighter. And curlier. I did not think it would take this long to grow back, though, so I retrieved this old hairpiece from my mother’s things. Now I regret it. But on saying so I do not wish you to think I am vain, it’s just that....’ She stopped, her teeth worrying her bottom lip and confusion sending her eyes away from his.
Sometimes she looked so unexpectedly beautiful that for the first time since he had met her he allowed himself to imagine something finer between them, his sex swelling with the promise. Amethyst Amelia Cameron was honest to a fault and forthright and direct. She did not simper or lie or pretend. He was so very sick of the deceit of women, that was the trouble. Charlotte Mackay had for ever cured him of liars and his sisters and mother had done the rest with their duplicity and falsities.
He wished they were somewhere else, somewhere quiet and private, some place that he might bring her up against him and reassure her that he did not think she was vain, but the pathways of the park were filling with more riders and the crease on her forehead told him that she was as astonished as he by their candour.
‘We should go back.’
She glanced away from him and nodded, her fingers tense on the leather reins and every nail bitten to the quick. He wondered why she did not wear the riding gloves he could so plainly see tucked into the fold of her belt.
* * *
The dream came again that night of the carriage turning over, the scream of the horses and the cold of the day. Her hand had been caught by her thick woollen glove against a seat that had come loose and she could not free herself and jump to safety as her father had done.
Over and over and over, in the slow motion of fear. She had not lost consciousness when her head slammed against the roof or lapsed into a faint as her wrist had broken. No, she had lain there as the dust settled, the bright stream of blood turning the day to red and listening to the last dying breaths of one of the horses.
Her father had reached her first and by his expression she knew things must have been bad. ‘My broken doll,’ he had whispered, words so unlike his usual diction she had thought she must already be dead.
But the pain came later, as did the fear of heavy gloves, and carriage speed and long-distance travelling. Unreasonable, she knew, but nevertheless there. She had seen Daniel look at her bare hands and wonder.
Her fingers went up to feel her hair. It was finally growing, a good amount of curl now covering the pink baldness of her scalp. She could have almost dispensed with the wig altogether, but it had become a sort of disguise that she liked in the time since she had put it on and now she was loathe to simply do away with it. People did not notice her as they once had. She blended in more, the colour of the hairpiece picking up some tone in her skin that kept her hidden. She could walk amongst a crowd and barely feel a glance.
Her tresses had once been her crowning glory. Gerald Whitely told her that time and time again before she had married him. Afterwards he had barely mentioned it, the long silences between them hurtful and unending.
A light tap on her door had her pulling the neck of her nightgown up.
‘Come in.’
Her father walked forward, the silver cane the only vestige of his fall the other evening, though he leant on it with quite some force.
‘I saw the light under your door.’
‘You could not sleep either?’
He shook his head. ‘You seem out of sorts lately and I keep wondering whether this marriage agreement is the cause of it? Lord Montcliffe is after all quite forceful and if you should wish to nullify—’
‘No, Papa.’ She cut across his words and watched his face light up. ‘I am quite happy with things as they are.’
‘It is just the marriage notice will be in the paper tomorrow and I should imagine after that things might change a little.’
‘Lord Montcliffe said the same this afternoon when we were riding. He asked me to a ball on Saturday evening, a formal occasion with much of society in attendance.’
‘And you agreed?’
‘He made it difficult to refuse.’
Her father sat down on the chair opposite and wiped his brow. ‘I am uncertain of the ways of all this. Perhaps we should employ a chaperone for you, Amethyst, so that we don’t get things wrong.’
‘I do not think it will be necessary, Papa. We will repair to Dunstan House as soon as we are married and then we need not worry at all.’
‘Montcliffe is amenable to that?’
‘He once told us that he would be. Besides, a friend of his, the Earl of Ross, asked if his sister might be able to assist in the preparation for the wedding. Perhaps I could also ask her for a little assistance with the ball as well. It seems she is most creative with these things and I have a few gowns that could be altered to make them more fashionable without too much trouble.’
The smile on her father’s face was bright with relief. He looked happier than he had been in a long while.
‘If we had some notion of how many people would attend your marriage ceremony, that would also be of a help. The contract stated the marriage would take place before the end of July and the weeks will run away if we do not get it all in hand.’
‘It will be a small group, Papa. No more than twenty.’
‘But the Montcliffe family will be there?’
‘I am not sure, Papa. They all seem distant from one another.
‘A shame that, for family is all you have to rely on in the world when it comes down to it.’
‘I am uncertain Lord Montcliffe would agree as he seldom speaks of his.’
‘Well, I shall send them invites, nonetheless, for it is only good manners.’
A sense of dread began to play in Amethyst’s mind. Would the Montcliffes be difficult? Would they accept her? Would they come? Only a few weeks until her wedding and she still had not procured a dress. Tomorrow she would send a note to Lady Christine Howard to see if she might consent to help her.
* * *
