Кэрол Мортимер – Regency Christmas Proposals: Christmas at Mulberry Hall / The Soldier's Christmas Miracle / Snowbound and Seduced (страница 10)
Damn it, if Gray had found any other man in this compromising position with his ward then he knew he would have had no choice but to either demand satisfaction or an offer of marriage from that man. He had no intention of offering either of those things!
Gray moved back abruptly, taking a grasp on the tops of Amelia’s arms to hold her firmly away as she would have swayed towards him. He had to shift slightly in order to ease the uncomfortable bulge in his pantaloons as she looked up at him in pouting disappointment.
Perhaps Alice Wycliffe’s suggestion was the right one after all …?
Obviously Gray could not remain here alone with Amelia any longer than he absolutely had to. Nor could he leave her to her own devices whilst he went on his way to Mulberry Hall. Perhaps the best thing
No!
Every part of Gray flared up in protest at the idea of introducing Amelia to the St Claire family. Hawk St Claire, the aristocratic Duke of Stourbridge, was as austerely handsome as he was intimidating. Lucian St Claire was considered as broodingly attractive as he was taciturn, and had also been a hero at Waterloo. And Sebastian St Claire, a charming rake before his marriage, had been Gray’s closest friend and companion during those nights in Town when he had reputedly gambled and womanised!
Nor did Gray consider the wives of the three St Claire brothers to be any more of an example for Amelia to emulate. Jane, Hawk’s Duchess of just over a year, was a ravishingly beautiful redhead who cared little for the dictates and restraints of Society. Grace, Lucian’s recent bride, was as wilfully determined as she was beautiful. Sebastian, the wildest of the three brothers, had surprised everyone two months ago, when he had married Juliet, an ethereally lovely young widow who already carried his child.
As for the youngest member of the St Claire family …
Arabella, the young sister of the three St Claire brothers, despite now being married to the devilishly handsome Duke of Carlyne, was also a perfect hellion. And Gray knew firsthand exactly how managing and forthright the beautiful Arabella could be when she chose!
For Gray to take Amelia into the midst of
And he did not believe himself to have been driven completely mad as yet …
Amelia knew just from looking at the hard implacability of Gideon’s expression as he turned to face her that she was not going to like what he said next. Any more than she liked the fact that he had moved away from her so abruptly when it had looked as if he might have been going to kiss her …!
‘You really have no one else to stay with?’ he rasped. ‘No other family? Grandparents? Uncles or aunts?’
Perhaps an old family friend, or even just an acquaintance, who might be persuaded into taking responsibility for her? Amelia inwardly finished with a proud straightening of her spine. ‘There is not even an old family dog who might be brought here to keep me company!’ Her eyes flashed.
Lord Grayson’s mouth firmed. ‘There is no need to take that tone, Amelia—’
‘There is every need if I have correctly understood your reluctance for my company!’ Amelia stood up abruptly. ‘But do not be alarmed, sir. I have my own rooms, and if necessary can easily remain in them for the duration of your stay here!’
She looked beautiful as she stared him down so proudly, Gray acknowledged ruefully. Every inch the lady she undoubtedly was. Every inch of her too beautiful and desirable for his own peace of mind.
‘Do not be so melodramatic, Amelia.’ Gray affected a bored tone. ‘The fact that you no longer have a companion here with you is, I admit, a little …inconvenient—’
‘It is not inconvenient to me, sir.’ She gave a determined shake of her head. ‘You can have no idea of the constraints that have been placed upon me since I first entered your brother’s household.’
A reminder, Gray recognised, of his complete lack of thought or understanding for what Amelia’s life might have been these past years. Or what her life had been before that time …
‘Tell me,’ he encouraged huskily. ‘I know nothing of either your mother or your own life before she and Perry were married.’ Gray’s admission caused him some discomfort as he acknowledged that he should have made more of an effort to meet his brother’s wife and stepdaughter. ‘Where did you and your mother live before you came here?’ He moved to sit in one of the pale blue chairs set beside the fire, crossing one leg over the other as he looked up at Amelia enquiringly.
Her shoulders lost some of their stiffness. ‘We had a cottage beside the sea in a small village on the Devonshire coast. My father’s family came from there originally. He was the son of a vicar, but always wanted to be a soldier.’ She gave a rueful smile at that irony.
A cottage set beside the sea in a village on the Devonshire coast …
The complete opposite, Gray acknowledged, to a manor house set alone in the flat and often bleak Bedfordshire countryside.
Amelia gave a shake of her head. ‘My mother was the daughter and only child of the local squire. He died before I was born, so I never knew him, but according to my mother he had high expectations of his only child making an advantageous marriage. He would not even entertain the idea of her marrying the soldier son of the local vicar! My mother and father ran away together, and were married when my mother was but seventeen. It was a happy marriage.’ Her chin rose defensively, as if she expected Gray to challenge the statement.
Which he had no intention of doing. ‘They returned to the village following their marriage …?’
‘Not immediately, no.’ Amelia gave a smile. ‘My mother accompanied my father on his campaigns for a year or more, and I believe it was only decided my mother must return to England once they knew she was expecting a child. Her father—my grandfather—had been killed in a hunting accident several months earlier, unfortunately without there having been any reconciliation between the two of them, which resulted in his leaving all his wealth to a distant cousin or some such.’ She shrugged delicate shoulders. ‘But, having returned alone to England, it was my mother’s wish to live in the village she knew, with people she was familiar with.’
‘That sounds …sensible.’ Gray nodded, having more of an understanding now of where Amelia had come by her indomitable spirit. With a soldier for a father, and a mother who had known and determined her own heart even in the face of parental disapproval, Amelia had been sure to be of similar determination and courage. That same determination and courage that had enabled her to face down an intruder with a pistol the evening before!
Amelia nodded. ‘I am sure that my mother must have missed my father deeply, but it was an idyllic childhood as far as I was concerned. Months when I had my mother completely to myself, followed by weeks of excitement and outings when my father, now a sergeant in his regiment, was able to join us.’
The wistfulness of her expression told Gray just how idyllic, how happy, that childhood had been.
Her chin rose proudly. ‘My father was killed four years ago. At which time his commanding officer, Major Lord Peregrine Grayson—’ she smiled affectionately ‘—wrote to my mother, expressing his deepest sympathy at the loss of such a gallant soldier as he considered my father to be, and promising that he would visit her in person as soon as he was able.’
That sounded like Perry, Gray acknowledged with sad affection, knowing that his brother had been a man who’d felt the loss of each and every man in his own regiment and, once it had been believed the fighting was over, had tried to visit the close relatives of all who had died whilst fighting alongside him during those bloody years of war.
‘Obviously it was a fortuitous visit …?’
Those blue eyes narrowed. ‘I trust you are not implying—’
‘I assure you I am not implying anything, Amelia.’ Gray held up silencing hands. ‘From Perry’s account of things, he and your mother fell in love with each other on sight.’
‘Yes.’ Amelia sighed sadly at the memory of how her mother’s second marriage to Lord Peregrine Grayson had lasted only for a few brief months before her mother was taken ill with influenza and as quickly died.
‘Which brings us back to here and now, and what to do with you.’
Amelia eyed Gideon Grayson warily. ‘What to do with me …?’
He gave an autocratic inclination of his head. ‘It has been suggested to me, as you are nineteen years of age, that come the spring you might like to have a Season in London.’
‘A Season? Really?’ Amelia eyes lit up with excitement at the prospect of going to London. Until she realised exactly what Gideon had said. ‘Been suggested by whom …?’ she prompted suspiciously.
He glanced down to brush a speck of lint from his perfectly tailored pantaloons. ‘An acquaintance.’
What acquaintance? Amelia wondered with a frown. And when and where had Gideon met this acquaintance? Had it been this morning? Or had this already been decided upon, discussed with a third party, before Gideon even came to Steadley Manor? Perhaps—Amelia felt a pained contraction of her chest—with the mistress in London who currently shared Gideon’s bed …?