Mr. Cavendish, I Presume

  “Because,” she added, noticeably impatient now, “if I spoke to my mother directly, she would have insisted upon coming outside, and pretty though you are, I must confess to being at a loss as to how I might disguise you as Grace Eversleigh.”

  He waited until he was certain she was finished, then murmured, “Sarcasm, Amelia?”

  “When the conversation calls for it,” she returned, after a beat of highly irritated silence. She looked at him, her brows arched almost defiantly.

  He looked at her, hiding his amusement. If arrogance was the game, she would never win.

  And indeed, after but five seconds of their staring competition, she took a breath, and it was as if she’d never halted her recounting. “So you see why I cannot return to Burges just yet. There is no way I could have gone to Belgrave, visited with whomever it was I’m supposed to have been visiting with, and then gone home again.”

  “Me,” he said.

  She looked at him dumbly. Or rather, as if she thought he were dumb. “I beg your pardon.”

  “You shall have to have been visiting with me,” he further clarified.

  Now her expression turned incredulous. “Mother will be beyond delighted, but no one else will believe it.”

  Thomas was not quite certain why that stung, but it did, and it turned his own voice to ice. “Would you care to explain that comment?”

  She let out a laugh, and then, when he did not say anything, jerked to attention and said, “Oh, you’re serious.”

  “Did I give you some indication that I was not?”

  Her lips pressed together and for a moment she almost looked humble. “Of course not, your grace.”

  He did not bother to remind her to call him Thomas.

  “But surely you must see my point,” she continued, just when he thought she was through. “Do I ever visit with you at Belgrave?”

  “You visit all the time.”

  “And see you for the prescribed ten minutes, fifteen if you are feeling generous.”

  He stared at her in disbelief. “You were far more amenable when you thought I was drunk.”

  “You were drunk.”

  “Regardless.” He bowed his head for a moment, pinching the bridge of his nose. Blast it all, what was he going to do about this?

  “Is your head bothering you?” she asked.

  He looked up.

  “You do that”—she imitated his gesture—“when your head is bothering you.

  He’d been doing it so much during the past twenty-four hours, it was a wonder the spot wasn’t as bruised as his eye. “Any number of things are bothering me,” he said curtly, but she looked so stricken he was compelled to add, “I do not refer to you.”

  Her lips parted but she did not comment.

  He did not speak, either, and a full minute passed before she said, her voice careful, and indeed almost rueful, “I think we shall have to go. To Belgrave,” she clarified, when his gaze caught hers.

  “I am sure you were thinking as I was,” she continued, “that we could simply take the carriage out to the country and while away an hour or two before returning me home.”

  He was, actually. It would be hell on her reputation, were they discovered, but somehow that seemed the least of his concerns.

  “But you don’t know my mother,” she added. “Not as I do. She will send someone to Belgrave. Or perhaps come herself, under some guise or another. Probably something about borrowing more books from your grandmother. If she arrives, and I am not there, it will be a disaster.”

  He almost laughed. The only reason he did not was that it would be the height of insult, and there were certain gentlemanly traits he could not abandon, even when the world was falling down around him.

  But really, after the events of yesterday—his new cousin, the possible loss of his title, his home, probably even the clothes on his back—the ramifications of an illicit country picnic seemed trivial. What could possibly happen? Someone would see them and they would be forced to marry? They were already betrothed.

  Or were they? He no longer knew.

  “I know that it would only hasten a ceremony that has been preordained for decades, but”—here her voice became tremulous, and it pierced his heart with guilt—“you don’t want that. Not yet. You’ve made that clear.”

  “That’s not true,” he said quickly. And it wasn’t. But it had been. And they both knew it. Looking at her now, her blond hair shining in the morning light, her eyes, not so hazel today, this time almost green—he no longer knew why he’d put this off for so long.

  “I don’t want it,” she said, her voice almost low enough to be a whisper. “Not like that. Not some hastily patched-up thing. Already no one thinks you really want to marry me.”

  He wanted to contradict her, to tell her she was being foolish, and silly, and imagining things that were simply not true. But he could not. He had not treated her badly, but nor had he treated her well.

  He found himself looking at her, at her face, and it was as if he’d never truly seen her before. She was lovely. In every way. And she could have been his wife by now.

  But the world was a very different place than it had been this time yesterday, and he no longer knew if he had any right to her. And good Lord, the last thing he wished to do was take her to Belgrave. Wouldn’t that be fun? He could introduce her to Highwayman Jack! He could imagine the conversation already.

  Amelia, do meet my cousin.

  Your cousin?

  Indeed. He might be the duke.

  Then who are you?

  Excellent question.

  Not to mention the other excellent questions she was sure to come up with, most notably—what, exactly, was the state of their betrothal?

  Good God. The mind boggled, and his mind, on the mend but still worse for the wear after a night of drink, preferred to remain boggle-free.

  It would be so easy to insist that they not go to Belgrave. He was used to making the decisions, and she was used to having to abide by them. His overriding of her wishes would not seem at all out of character.

  But he couldn’t do it. Not today.

  Maybe her mother would not seek her out. Maybe no one would ever know that she’d not been where she said she’d be.

  But Amelia would know. She would know that she had looked him in the eye and told him why she needed to go to Belgrave, and she would know that he had been too callous to consider her feelings.

  And he would know that he’d hurt her.

  “Very well,” he said brusquely. “We shall head to Belgrave.” It wasn’t exactly a cottage. Surely they could avoid Mr. Audley. He was probably still abed, anyway. He didn’t seem the sort to enjoy the morningtide.

  Thomas directed the driver to take him home and then climbed into the carriage beside Amelia. “I don’t imagine you are eager for my grandmother’s company,” he said.

  “Not overmuch, no.”

  “She favors the rooms at the front of the castle.” And if Mr. Audley was indeed awake, that was where he would also be, probably counting the silver or estimating the worth of the collection of Canalettos in the north vestibule.

  Thomas turned to Amelia. “We shall enter at the back.”

  She nodded, and it was done.

  When they reached Belgrave, the driver made straight for the stables, presumably, Amelia thought, on the duke’s orders. Indeed, they reached their destination without ever coming within sight of the castle’s front windows. If the dowager was where Wyndham had said she would be—and indeed, in all her visits to the castle, Amelia had only ever seen the dowager in three separate rooms, all at the front—then they would be able to carry out the rest of the morning in relative peace.

  “I don’t believe I’ve ever been ’round to this side of Belgrave,” Amelia commented as they entered through a set of French doors. She almost felt like a thief, sneaking about as she was. Belgrave was so still and quiet over here at the back. It made one aware of every noise, every footfall.

  ??
?I’m rarely in this section,” Thomas commented.

  “I can’t imagine why not.” She looked about her. They had entered a long, wide hall, off which stood a row of rooms. The one before her was some sort of study, with a wall of books, all leather-bound and smelling like knowledge. “It’s lovely. So quiet and peaceful. These rooms must receive the morning sun.”

  “Are you one of those industrious sorts, always rising at dawn, Lady Amelia?”

  He sounded so formal. Perhaps it was because they were back at Belgrave, where everything was formal. She wondered if it was difficult to speak guilelessly here, with so much splendor staring down upon one. Burges Park was also quite grand—there was no pretending otherwise—but it held a certain warmth that was lacking at Belgrave.

  Or perhaps it was just that she knew Burges. She’d grown up there, laughed there, chased her sisters and teased her mother. Burges was a home, Belgrave more of a museum.

  How brave Grace must be, to wake up here every morning.

  “Lady Amelia,” came Thomas’s reminding voice.

  “Yes,” she said abruptly, recalling that she was meant to answer his question. “Yes, I am. I cannot sleep when it is light out. Summers are particularly difficult.”

  “And winters are easy?” He sounded amused.

  “Not at all. They’re even worse. I sleep far too much. I suppose I should be living at the equator, with a perfect division of day and night, every day of the year.”

  He looked at her curiously. “Do you enjoy the study of geography?”

  “I do.” Amelia wandered into the study, idly running her fingers along the books. She liked the way the spine of each volume bowed slightly out, allowing her fingers to bump along as she made her way into the room. “Or I should say I would. I am not very accomplished. It was not considered an important subject by our governess. Nor by our parents, I suppose.”

  “Really?”

  He sounded interested. This surprised her. For all their recent rapprochement, he was still…well…him, and she was not used to his taking an interest in her thoughts and desires.

  “Dancing,” she replied, because surely that would answer his unspoken question. “Drawing, pianoforte, maths enough so that we can add up the cost of a fancy dress ensemble.”

  He smiled at that. “Are they costly?”

  She tossed a coquettish look over her shoulder. “Oh, dreadfully so. I shall bleed you dry if we host more than two masquerades per year.”

  He regarded her for a moment, his expression almost wry, and then he motioned to a bank of shelves on the far side of the room. “The atlases are over there, should you wish to indulge your interests.”

  She smiled at him, a bit surprised at his gesture. And then, feeling unaccountably pleased, she crossed the room. “I thought you did not come to this section of the house very often.”

  He quirked a dry half smile, which somehow sat at odds with his blackened eye. “Often enough to know where to find an atlas.”

  She nodded, pulling a tall, thin tome at random from the shelf. She looked down at the gold lettering on the cover. MAPS OF THE WORLD. The spine creaked as she cracked it open. The date on the title page was 1796. She wondered when the book had last been opened.

  “Grace is fond of atlases,” she said, the thought popping into her head, seemingly from nowhere.

  “Is she?”

  She heard his steps drawing near. “Yes. I seem to recall her saying so at some point. Or perhaps it was Elizabeth who told me. They have always been very good friends.” Amelia turned another page, her fingers careful. The book was not particularly delicate, but something about it inspired reverence and care. Looking down, she saw a large, rectangular map, crossing the length of both pages, with the caption: Mercator projection of our world, the Year of our Lord, 1791.

  Amelia touched the map, her fingers trailing softly across Asia and then down, to the southernmost tip of Africa. “Look how big it is,” she murmured, mostly to herself.

  “The world?” he said, and she heard the smile in his voice.

  “Yes,” she murmured.

  Thomas stood next to her, and one of his fingers found Britain on the map. “Look how small we are,” he said.

  “It does seem odd, doesn’t it?” she remarked, trying not to notice that he was standing so close that she could feel the heat emanating from his body. “I am always amazed at how far it is to London, and yet here”—she motioned to the map—“it’s nothing.”

  “Not nothing.” He measured the distance with his smallest finger. “Half a fingernail, at least.”

  She smiled. At the book, not at him, which was a much less unsettling endeavor. “The world, measured in fingernails. It would be an interesting study.”

  He chuckled. “There is someone at some university attempting it right now, I assure you.”

  She looked over at him, which was probably a mistake, because it left her feeling somewhat breathless. Nonetheless, she was able to say (and in a remarkably reasonable voice), “Are professors so very eccentric, then?”

  “The ones with long fingernails are.”

  She laughed, and he did, too, and then she realized that neither of them was looking at the map.

  His eyes, she thought, with a strange kind of detachment, as if she were regarding a piece of art. She liked his eyes. She liked looking at them.

  How was it that she had never realized that the right one had a stripe in it? She’d thought the irises were blue—not pale, or clear, or even azure, but a dark, smoky shade with the barest hint of gray. But now she could see quite clearly that there was a brown stripe in one of them. It ran from the pupil down to where one would find the four on a clock.

  It made her wonder how she’d never seen it before. Maybe it was just that she’d never looked closely enough. Or maybe he’d never allowed her close enough, for long enough, to do so.

  And then, in a voice as contemplative and muted as hers surely would have been, had she had the nerve to speak, he murmured, “Your eyes look almost brown just now.”

  Amelia felt herself jolted back into reality. And she said, “You have a stripe.”

  And promptly wanted to flee the room. What a pea-brained thing to say.

  He touched the bruised skin of his cheekbone. “A stripe?”

  “No, in your eye,” she clarified, because it wasn’t as if she could take the comment back. She might as well make her meaning clear. She motioned awkwardly in the air with her right hand, darting forward as if to point it out, but then jerking back since she could not touch him, and certainly not in his eye.

  “Oh. Oh, that. Yes, it’s odd, isn’t it?” He made a strange sort of face. Well, no, not really. It would not have been strange on anyone else, but on him it was. It was a little bit modest, almost a little bit sheepish, and so thoroughly and wonderfully human that her heart skipped a beat.

  “No one else has ever noticed it,” he added. “It’s probably for the best, really. It’s a foolish little imperfection.”

  Was he fishing for compliments? She pressed her lips together, avoiding a smile. “I like it,” she told him. “I like anything that makes you less than perfect.”

  Something in his expression warmed. “Is that so?”

  She nodded, then looked away. Funny how it was easier to be frank and brave when he was angry (or, she supposed, tipsy) than when he was smiling at her.

  “You will find many things to like about me, then,” he said, his voice too close to her ear for her comfort, “once you get to know me better.”

  She pretended to study the map. “Are you telling me you are not perfect?”

  “I would never presume to say that,” he teased.

  She swallowed. He was leaning far too close. He probably didn’t even notice the nearness; his voice sounded completely unaffected, his breathing controlled and even to her ears.

  “Why did you say my eyes were brown?” she asked, still keeping her eyes on the atlas.

  “I didn’t. I said they looke
d brown.”

  She felt a completely unbecoming swell of vanity rise within her. She’d always been proud of her hazel eyes. They were her best feature. Certainly her most unique. All of her sisters shared the same blond hair and skin tone, but she was the only one with such interesting eyes.

  “They looked green this morning,” he continued. “Although I suppose that could have been the drink. Another pint of ale and there would have been butterflies coming out of your ears.”

  She turned at that, utterly indignant. “It was not the drink. My eyes are hazel. Far more green than brown,” she added in a mutter.

  He smiled rather stealthily. “Why, Amelia, have I discovered your vanity?”

  He had, not that he was going to get her to admit it. “They’re hazel,” she said again, a little primly. “It’s a family trait.”

  Someone’s family, at least.

  “Actually,” he said quite softly, “I was rather marveling on their changeability.”

  “Oh.” She swallowed, discomfited by his gentle compliment. And at the same time rather pleased. “Thank you.” She turned back to the map, which sat, safe and comforting, on the table before her. “Look how big Greenland is,” she said, mostly because the big blob at the top was the first thing she saw.

  “It’s not really that big,” he said. “The map distorts area.”

  “It does?”

  “You did not know that?”

  His tone was not insulting. It was not even condescending, but nonetheless, she felt foolish. It seemed like the sort of thing she ought to have known. And certainly it was the sort of thing she’d like to have known.

  “It comes from having to spread a spherical object onto a flat plane,” he explained. “Try to envision wrapping this map around a sphere. You’d have a great deal of extra paper at the poles. Or conversely, try to imagine taking the surface of a sphere and laying it out flat. You would not get a rectangle.”

  She nodded, cocking her head to the side as she considered this. “So the tops and bottoms are stretched. Or rather, the north and the south.”

  “Exactly. Do you see how Greenland looks nearly equal in size to Africa? It’s actually less than one tenth the area.”