The Caversham Chronicles ~ the Beginning

Chapter Two-3

A rage rose inside her. Amelia had begun to think of her Sir from the maze as someone within reach of her reduced status. But he’d been using her all along. From where she stood with her back against the wall, Sir’s massive breadth hiding her from her relative, Amelia reached up and slapped him. He backed away a few steps, his hand to his face. She stepped out of the shadowed corner, feeling lower than a Covent Garden strumpet. She advanced on him, jamming her finger into his chest as she hissed at him. “How dare you use me in such a manner? You were hiding from my aunt, so you think to play me for a fool?”

Neither of them saw her aunt close in on them, and just as Amelia raised her hand to slap the man again, her arm was yanked back. The face of her enraged aunt was all she saw as the woman’s palm cracked across Amelia’s cheek. She put the back of her hand to her face to cool the sting.

“You foolish child,” Aunt Katherine hissed. “Do you know who this is? You aren’t fit to wipe the dust from his boots. What have you done to lure him to one as wicked as yourself?”

She turned to Caversham and curtsied deeply. “I apologize for the inappropriate and vulgar behavior of my niece, Your Grace. I have tried to be a model of propriety for her and guide her in learning to behave in a ladylike fashion, but she doesn’t wish to learn. Will never learn.”

She whirled on Amelia, her eyes glaring and her voice so filled with venom she couldn’t help but flinch. “Go to your room and pack. I will have a driver take you to Mrs. Wallace’s Workhouse for Women at first light. You have been nothing but a great disappointment to me since I allowed you under my roof. I warned you.”

Amelia burst out with a cut-off laugh. “How do you do it? Lie so readily? Every word out of your mouth is a lie, so of course you assume everyone else lies like you. I’ll have you know, I had nothing to do with what you just witnessed. This beast accosted me.” She threw an angry stare at the duke. “Tell her I speak the truth, you… you… fiend!”

Insanity must run in the family Amelia thought. First Aunt Katherine and now her. Dear Lord, could she sound any more like a victim from one of those horrid Gothic novels? She’d never used the word fiend before, and here she was calling the most handsome man she’d ever had the good fortune to meet, much less kiss, a fiend! And to top it all off, the man was a duke.

“She does speak the truth, Lady Rawdon. And she’ll not be going to a workhouse, but to my house.”

Amelia gaped at him. “You’re no longer in command of your senses. It must be your age, Your Grace.” Amelia pushed past Aunt Katherine and the duke, intending to leave. “I’ll go nowhere with you!”

“My niece is not marriage material, Your Grace,” Aunt Katherine’s voice became unusually sweet and she spoke of Amelia as though she were not in the room. “She is not gently born, you see. Her father was in trade and she comes with no dowry. She can be of no use to you.”

“Not marriage material?” Amelia turned back around and bore down on her aunt, and wagged her finger in the other woman’s face. “I’m more of a lady than you were when you married your first husband. I’m more of a lady than you are to this day! And I have no intention of marrying, or doing anything else with this…”

She waved a hand back in the duke’s direction, just now noting the jeweled stickpin in his expertly tied cravat and the burgundy coat over the silver waistcoat and blue trousers. “This overly-garnished peacock. I’ve told you I have no desire to marry.”

“I wasn’t going to—” Amelia swung back and slapped him again, quite effectively silencing him.

“Do not even insult me by thinking I’d consider anything less than a respectable position as a wife.” She wagged her finger in his face. “Of course, it will never be with the likes of you!”

Spinning on her heel, she strode from the room, leaving behind both her aunt and that handsome devil who had kissed her. Curses be heaped on both their heads, she thought. They deserve each other.