Chapter Two
Lord Bishop frowned down at the aristocratic brow of his ancestor in its new, slightly more dignified position on the desk. Amelia waited quietly with her sister. This was hardly their first meeting of this nature. The dark wainscoting of the study had witnessed more than its fair share of Bailey daughter lectures over the years.
“Why always this one?” he asked his daughters. “There are a dozen others in the house. What did Sir Roger ever do to you girls?”
“It’s the nose,” Amelia said. “He has a better bounce than the others.”
“He’s the heaviest, as well. More noise,” Julia added.
A slight smile betrayed Lord Bishop’s amusement. “I keep telling your mother you’ll grow out of these pranks. You seem determined to make a liar of me.”
Julia’s smile was sympathetic. “It’s a matter of necessity, Papa.”
“Oh?”
“Nora called Julia a ‘poor dear.’”
Lord Bishop’s face darkened. He was as sensitive to the treatment of his eldest daughter as the rest of their family. “You must tell me or your mother immediately when these things happen.”
Amelia shook her head. “You’d have let her go.”
“Rightly so!”
“Papa,” Julia admonished. “If we tossed out everyone who misstepped in their early days with us, we would be making our own beds.”
“That’s not true.”
Amelia interrupted Lord Bishop. “The only people who accept employment with us are those without other options. If you let Nora go, she may not be able to find other work.”
“It’s better this way,” Julia said. “I feel vindicated, and Nora has learned not to underestimate me. No one suffers unduly, and we can go about our lives with better understanding.”
“It’s quite humane,” Amelia said.
Lord Bishop stared at his daughters. “If you had been born sons…”
“We’d be impossible.”
“Thoroughly out of control.”
“Far better this way.” Julia lifted the tumbler of amber liquid from Lord Bishop’s desk and up to her nose. She raised a comical eyebrow at their father, who took it away from her and placed it out of sight.
Amelia wasn’t fooled by her sister’s light-hearted response. If they’d been born sons, their lives would have been much different. Julia might have joined society, gone to school, lived a passably normal life. As a woman, the moral impurity associated with disfigurement excluded Julia from the possibility of marriage—the only respectable future for females of their station.
It wasn’t just Julia who bore the cruel consequences of her misfortune, though she certainly bore the worst of it. By nature of having produced a defective child, the moral purity of their parents—and by extension the entire family line—was called into question. Amelia was content to be ostracized by society. It saved her from having to associate with small-minded fools who couldn’t see past Julia’s limp to her sister’s myriad enviable qualities.
“Just so,” Lord Bishop agreed with a smile. He was oblivious to the melancholy undertone. The Bishop sisters had long ago committed themselves to a facade of perpetual frivolousness. Their parents suffered enough regret without being exposed to their daughters’ darker moments. “Now go and see your mother. She had quite the fright thinking something had happened to Julia.”
“Why does no one ever worry something might happen to me?” Amelia complained as the girls left the study.
“Because you are healthy as a horse.”
“Am I?”
“Of course.”
“Shall we put it on my engagement announcement? Perhaps my headstone,” Amelia said while they went in search of their mother. She pitched her voice upward into a formal tone. “Here lies Amelia Bishop. Her constitution was favorably comparable to livestock.”
They were both laughing when they found their mother in the salon, noticeably not riddled with fright or distress. She was also not alone.
“Excellent! I was about to send for you girls.”
Lady Bishop’s companion turned, the curling edges of his black hair catching a stray beam of sunlight. Nicholas Wakefield. Amelia’s heart performed a tiny stutter-step in her chest and she convinced herself she’d mistaken him for her fiancé. His shoulders were broad like Embry’s—far broader than they’d been the last time she’d seen him—and the beginnings of a beard shadowed his jaw, giving a slightly disheveled impression. There was something different about the way he carried himself.
How could two years have changed him so? When he’d left, he’d been a boy of nineteen. Now here he was, looking very much like a man.
“Good afternoon, Lady Julia.” He rose, giving her sister a warm smile as Julia embraced him.
Amelia felt a pang of jealousy that didn’t make any sense. Of course they would be happy to see each other. Julia and Nicholas were friends. Perhaps not as close as Amelia and Nicholas, but very nearly. Amelia had even harbored a not-so-secret hope that Julia and Nicholas might marry someday.
To Amelia, he gave a formal bow. When his eyes met hers, the most peculiar sensation sprang to life in the pit of her stomach. “Good afternoon, Miss Amelia.”
Oh dear.
Amelia’s laugh froze Nicholas in place. Seeing her with her hazel eyes lit and a smile dimpling her cheeks erased two years in an instant. As he’d suspected, distance had not been playing tricks on him. Everything else in a room still disappeared when Amelia Bishop walked in. Why did she have to go and get herself engaged, just when he’d managed to gather the courage to declare himself?
His foolish emotions didn’t care about her engagement. All the distance had done was make him forget how to prepare for being around her. Nicholas used to have an entire routine for keeping his breathing and his emotions under control before he visited the Bishop household. He employed those methods now, taking deep breaths in through his nose and reciting the more boring sections of one of his Latin texts from school in his head.
“I hear congratulations are in order,” he said, once the ladies had settled themselves into seats.
Amelia’s brow furrowed.
“Your engagement.” Julia raised an eyebrow at her sister. “You remember your fiancé, Embry?”
“Oh yes!” Amelia laughed, a blush spreading across her cheeks. “Goodness. We haven’t even officially announced it yet. How have you heard already?”
“Lady Wakefield has eyes and ears everywhere.”
“Isn’t that a terrifying thought?” Julia murmured, low enough to keep Lady Bishop from hearing.
Nicholas allowed himself a small smile. Amelia shot her sister a sideways smirk.
“Have you been back long?” Julia asked, this time at full volume.
Nicholas shook his head. “Just in from London this morning.”
“And the first thing you did was come to visit us?” Lady Bishop pressed her fingers to her lips, blinking rapidly.
“Oh, for God’s sake.” Julia shook her head. “You are not going to cry, Mother.”
Lady Bishop blinked all the faster. “I’m quite touched.”
“You’re certainly something,” Amelia said under her breath.
Nick coughed to cover his chuckle. Their debate over who had it worse—Nicholas with his mother’s imperious interference, or Amelia with Lady Bishop’s love of hysterics—had never been properly settled.
Julia took charge. “Mother, is the laudanum still on your dressing table?”
Lady Bishop’s waterworks dried up immediately. “Are you all right? Is something the matter?” She rang the bell beside her, calling out. “Mrs. Polk! Mrs. Polk, summon the doctor immediately.”
“That won’t be necessary, Mrs. Polk,” Julia called over her. “I just feel a migraine coming on.”
The look Julia sent Amelia said it wasn’t actually one of the headaches that could trap her in bed for days at a time. Nick appreciated the sacrifice. Lady Bishop’s dramatics weren’t quite the backdrop he would have chosen for his reunion with Amelia.
“Still, we should put you to bed immediately. Perhaps a hot bath.” Lady Bishop ushered her eldest daughter out of the room as Mrs. Polk arrived to assist her, forgetting about Nicholas and Amelia entirely. “We can’t have you sick with Lord Montrose’s family visiting.”
The swirling chaos of concern moved down the corridor, leaving the salon in silence. Leaving Nicholas and Amelia alone. Together.
Pull yourself together, man. It’s hardly the first time you’ve been alone with her. Nicholas fell back on his old habits, taking deep, steady breaths.
“…nice to know some things never change,” Amelia was saying.
“Hmm?” Thankfully, Nicholas’s calming ritual went unnoticed.
“Mother. Everything has been so different lately. It’s nice to know some things will always stay the same.”
Nicholas had known her too long and too well not to hear the things she didn’t say. “Are you all right, Amelia?”
She shook off her reverie. “Of course. Everything is wonderful.”
“Truly?”
“Truly.” She smiled.
It was a lie. He could read it in the way she wouldn’t quite meet his eyes and in the tension at the edges of her mouth. Apparently more had changed than Nicholas realized.
Amelia jumped up, breaking the awkward silence. “Would you like to go for a walk? I’ve been stuck inside this house for days.”
Amelia needed space. She needed fresh air to distract herself from the scent of him. Had he always smelled like coffee and oranges and…what was that other smell? Something masculine that made her want to lean over and breathe him in. He couldn’t have smelled like that before he’d left. She would certainly have noticed.
When he asked if she was all right, she’d desperately wanted to tell him the truth, but he wasn’t the gangly youth who’d left her two years ago. The forelock of his hair might fall across his brow at the same boyish angle, but the tailoring of his jacket now hugged muscle and sinew that were entirely man. This new Nicholas was a stranger, and he inspired strange feelings. The fluttering feeling hadn’t gone away, and it was now accompanied by the strangest prickling sensation when he looked at her. Perhaps she was coming down with something.
If he were still the old Nicholas, she would have told him everything in an instant. He’d always been her confidant, her safe harbor in the oftentimes overwhelming chaos of the Bishop house.
Amelia didn’t know if she was all right or not. She certainly wasn’t as happy as she would expect to be under the current circumstances. A girl in her position should be thanking her lucky stars to have caught the honorable interest of a young, attractive earl. Instead she was exhausted.
Without Nick, all of her misgivings had piled up with no outlet. She couldn’t tell her parents she wasn’t certain she wanted to be a countess; it was everything they’d never dared to hope for her. And Julia would slap her silly for second-guessing the opportunity. He was her best friend. When he left, so did the afternoon discussions in the hayloft and the moments of crisis when she’d climbed the tree outside his bedroom. He hadn’t even written her. He was different now. Would the man who’d come back in Nicholas’s place still have time for her girlish insecurities? Would he even care?
She couldn’t say any of that. Not to this new Nicholas. So instead she said, “The continent looks to have suited you.”
“It did. It was a bit of a revelation, actually.” Even his voice was different. He used to sound hesitant, like everything he said was a question. There was no uncertainty in him now.
Amelia tried to make her own voice sound as confident—with dismal results. “How so?”
It was difficult to be confident of anything when one’s organs were flipping somersaults inside one’s body.
Falling into old habits, they started toward the wooded area that straddled the Bishop and Wakefield estates. Nicholas gestured emphatically with his hands while he spoke. That, at least, was still the same. “At first, I was only touring. It wasn’t unpleasant but it wasn’t particularly riveting. But then I met Jasper and—”
“Jasper?”
“Viscount Bellamy. I met him in Caen and went with him to Paris.”
“On a whim?” Amelia asked. “You went to Paris with a complete stranger?”
“I did.” The corner of his mouth tilted up. “I tried to argue, but Jas is extremely persuasive.”
He must be. The old Nicholas would have never behaved so recklessly. Amelia left that development for later consideration. “Presumably Paris had more to offer in the way of entertainment?”
“It did.”
Amelia waited for him to say more. When he didn’t, she realized why and heat flared across her cheeks. A revelation, he’d called it. Well, she should be glad for him. That was how boys became men, wasn’t it? It had clearly worked for Nicholas.
“It’s not what you’re thinking.”
“You have no idea what I’m thinking.”
“Two years hasn’t changed that much, Mia.” Nicholas leaned against a tree trunk. “I can still read you like a book.”
Of all the nerve! Amelia crossed her arms. “What am I thinking, then?”
He leaned in close. Dangerously close. The coffee and citrus smell surrounded her as his eyes met hers and a jolt of awareness sparked between them. “You think I spent the last two years steeped in debauchery, bedding my way through the French countryside.”
The heat in her cheeks tripled. “Hardly.”
“…Mastering the sensual arts with voluptuous young women of questionable moral fiber.” His voice was pitched low, and it sent shivers rippling across her skin.
Amelia breathed in to steady herself, but it only made it worse. “Did you?”
“Master them?” He leaned closer. There was no room left between them. If either shifted, the front of her dress would brush against the fabric of his jacket.
Amelia nodded, eyes wide.
He was staring at her parted lips. She swayed forward, her own lips parting in response.
“Not really, no.” He backed away with a grin. “Mostly I learned about art.”
It was the blush. The pink flush had positively begged him to tease her, but Amelia was an innocent. He shouldn’t have baited her like that, even if she weren’t spoken for. The fact that she was made him the worst sort of cad. Nick forced his feelings back down. It was just friendly teasing. That was all it would ever be.
“Learned about art.” There was nothing friendly about the way she was looking at him now. The breathlessness was gone, replaced by a cutting glare. “Apparently you also learned how to behave like a complete bounder.”
If only. If he were a complete bounder, he would know what she tasted like right now. “It was meant to be humorous.”
“You should stick to art.”
He should stick to safer topics.
Nick couldn’t think about the romance of a true masterpiece without his feelings for her bubbling out in his words. He couldn’t tell her being in Paris had felt like the first time she’d hugged him, setting every nerve ending in his body alight. That had been the plan, but not now. Not when she was engaged to Montrose.
“What?” She watched him, still frowning. “Tell me.”
Nick had to find something else to distract her with so he didn’t end up baring his soul and making a fool out of himself. “We lived with Bohemians.”
Amelia’s eyebrows flew up. “Bohemians? For how long?”
“The entire time.”
Her glare disappeared entirely. She grabbed his hand, dragging him down to sit on the ground with her. “Tell me immediately. Was it exciting? Oh, of course it was exciting. What were they like?”
Once he got over the rush of her hand on his, Nick laughed. Reliving it for Amelia was like being there all over again. Nick told her about the painters and actors and writers he’d met while he was away. He told her about a man from the Balkans who lived with his tiny dog and wrote the most beautiful poetry Nicholas had ever heard. She laughed and called him a liar when he told her about an Irish woman who sang in a deep baritone that somehow made perfect sense.
Sometime in the middle, between missing the midday meal and the sun disappearing behind some ominous-looking clouds, they became friends again. Nick was glad. He might have lost the chance to marry her, but he couldn’t bear to lose her friendship, too. She’d been far too important to him for far too long to be satisfied with polite distance between them.
“How are you not sitting somewhere quiet with a view of the Seine right now, reading modern philosophy or learning to paint?”
“It was lovely. It truly was, but…” Nicholas was beside her, staring at the sky through the tree branches. He couldn’t tell her it hadn’t been enough without her, now that she was engaged, and he didn’t want to talk about what was happening with his father. Not yet. Not until he knew how he felt about it. “It wasn’t for me.”
“What is for you?” she teased.
You. Nick put a stranglehold on his heart so he didn’t say it out loud. “Parts of it were beautiful, but there are so many problems in the world. I’d like to help mend them.”
Her teasing was replaced with genuine curiosity. “How?”
“I’d like to study the law.” Anathema as the idea might be to his parents, Nicholas couldn’t spend his life as just a scion of the house of Wakefield. He’d hoped to spend it as Amelia’s husband, too, but clearly he’d missed his chance at the one thing he wanted most.
“Like your brother, in the House of Lords?”
Nick shook his head. “God willing, I’ll never be a lord. No, I think I’d like to try for barrister.”
Amelia’s eyes went wide. “Barrister. A profession? Would your parents allow it?”
“I doubt it.” There were a lot of things Lord and Lady Wakefield would never allow, but it had never stopped him from wanting them. Or her.
She looked at him with the shy grin that only turned up half her mouth. “Well, I think it’s wonderful. If you can find a way to do it, I think you should.”
For a moment it was hard for Nicholas to swallow. He saw their whole lives stretched out before them. Him in his barrister’s wig. Her welcoming him home after a long day. Tiny children racing around her skirts while he kissed her like he’d longed to for his entire adult life.
It wasn’t to be, though. Amelia would welcome Lord Montrose home. The tiny children racing around her skirts would be Lord Montrose’s children.
He stood up, putting much-needed distance between them. “Well, I think you should find a way to sit beside the Seine and read modern philosophy while you eat pain à la duchesse.”
“I’m not sure Embry would enjoy that sort of thing.” The pause before she spoke was a touch too long.
Was Amelia not certain of her fiancé? The beat of Nicholas’s heart raced a little. A good friend would want her to be happy, but Nicholas had never just wanted to be her good friend. If there was a chance her engagement would be called off, maybe there was still hope.
“Your fiancé’s not one for philosophy? Or perhaps he has an intractable aversion to French desserts.”
“Embry seems to have an aversion to most frivolities.”
“Don’t tell the French he considers their cuisine frivolous. You’ll start another war.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “You know what I mean.”
“He sounds rather serious.” Nicholas pulled a thin branch off one of the trees and tested it against his leg. Serious was not what Amelia needed.
“He is, a bit. He’s not boorish,” she rushed to explain. “He’s quite clever. He’s just…”
“Serious?”
“Serious.” Amelia held out her hand. “It’s going to start raining. We should head back.”
A rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. Nicholas took her hand, ignoring how suited it felt to his own as he helped her to her feet. When she placed it on the crook of his arm and leaned in close against the chill breeze, he certainly ignored the warmth of her body pressed against him and the softness of her hip against his.
Rain fell in waves, like the ocean had been turned upside down above their heads. Amelia stared out the window of the drawing room at a world washed grey. Her breath frosted the glass in great big puffs of fog.
“Don’t,” Julia said.
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
Yes, she was. Her engagement party was only days away and Amelia was sitting in the window seat, moping over the wave of change heading her way. Much as she tried, she couldn’t see how to stop it from coming. “I can’t help it.”
“You’re announcing your engagement. You’re supposed to be thrilled.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“Is it because of Nick?”
“What? No.” Perhaps Nick was a small part of it, but it wasn’t only him. It was all of it; the engagement, marriage, a title, leaving home, leaving her family, Nick coming back unexpectedly… Suddenly feeling a jolt when he did something he’d done a thousand times before.
Julia raised an eyebrow as she worked her needlepoint. “I thought you gave up your Nicholas nonsense when you were twelve.”
“I did.” She had, when he’d openly admired the new dairymaid whose raven hair and bright green eyes were as far from Amelia’s medium-brown-everything as a person could get. “He does look different now, though. It took me by surprise.”
“He’s exactly the same.”
Amelia paced the room. “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed how much broader his shoulders are, or how certain he is when he says things now.”
“Fascinating.”
“What?”
“You’re spoony on Nicholas.”
It wasn’t like that at all. Yes, she’d had an unexpected reaction to him, but they hadn’t seen each other in years. It was completely understandable. Amelia slumped down in her father’s favorite overstuffed chair in front of the fire. She pulled her feet up underneath her, watching the flickering flames. “Don’t be ridiculous. He’s different and I noticed. It’s not a crime.”
“It is when you’re sitting here moping instead of jumping for joy because a handsome earl wants to marry you.” Julia tossed her embroidery back into the box. Amelia was surprised she’d lasted so long. Julia excelled at everything a lady was expected to excel at, but she preferred less docile pursuits.
“What do you think is the matter with me, truly? I should be excited. I’m going to be a countess, for God’s sake.”
“Nerves, most likely.”
“Is there anything to be done about it?”
“I doubt it. You’ll probably die. I hear conditions like this are fatal.”
Amelia flopped onto the settee, sticking her tongue out at her sister. “Very amusing. I wish I could just be left alone for a little while. There has been entirely too much excitement these last few weeks.”
“At least men notice you.” Julia’s soft tone made Amelia immediately regret her wish.
“Jules—”
“Don’t worry about it.” Julia pushed herself off the couch. “We’re lamenting your imminent death right now. We can be sad about my spinsterhood tomorrow.”
It was too late for that. “Tomorrow, then.”
Julia grinned. “Oh yes. Tomorrow, we’ll have a proper bout of pity over it. Hair tearing. Clothes rending. But today, we’ll be sad for you and your terrible judgement.”
“It’s not terrible!”
“An earl asked you to marry him. An earl! And you’re frowning into your lap, giving yourself wrinkles.”
“I blame the weather.”
“I’ll show you weather.” Julia pulled the bell-cord. “Get up. We’re going for a ride.”
Amelia groaned. “It’s wretched outside.”
“It’s wretched in here. A race will do us good. Come on.”
Protesting any further would be futile. While Julia arranged for the horses to be saddled, Amelia went upstairs to collect their riding boots and jackets. A full change would take too long, and Julia was shorter of patience than usual once the thrill of a race was on her.
Outside, their mounts were waiting for them.
“Good afternoon, Tryphosa.” Julia greeted her mount with the utmost formality, in the tradition the sisters had established years ago.
Amelia followed suit. “Good afternoon, Dionysia.”
Dionysia flicked her tail and stamped a hoof in response.
Just seeing the stocky little horse improved Amelia’s mood. She was a cross-bred Arabian, shipped across the Atlantic when Lord Bishop discovered his daughters had a love for the smaller, American-bred sprinters. Amelia and Julia had named their horses after the oldest and youngest of a trio of ancient Turkish sisters renowned for their sprinting prowess in the Roman arenas.
Of the two, Julia’s mount usually proved faster, but Amelia contended that hers possessed more heart and athletic talent. It was only the reckless abandon with which Julia rode that allowed the older sisters to consistently beat the younger pair.
They set off into the rain, letting Dionysia and Tryphosa start out at a moderate walk. Amelia’s thoughts drifted to Nicholas while they picked their way through the mud and out of view of the house. She’d wanted him to kiss her under that tree—there was no denying it. When he’d leaned close, saying those wicked things, she’d wanted him to kiss her more than she’d ever wanted anything else. That had never happened before. Even when they were children and she’d spent a brief summer fancying herself in love with him, he’d never had that effect on her. She’d wanted his attention, certainly, but she’d never needed his touch.
What was the matter with her? It was Nicholas, for goodness sake. He might cut a more masculine figure now, but he was still just Nicholas. Even his shameless flirting on their walk wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. He’d been practicing his charms on her and Julia since he’d come back from Eton with a shameful understanding of exactly how lacking they were. And she was engaged! Embry was widely regarded to be quite handsome. Amelia had no business wanting to be kissed by anyone but her fiancé.
That was another problem. Amelia had never needed Embry’s kiss the way she’d needed Nicholas in that moment. She hadn’t thought anything of it—hadn’t realized there was even anything to think—until her whole body set to tingling at a few wicked, whispered words from Nick. It was still alight and he’d gone hours ago.
Embry was a good man. A good fiancé. He’d brought her books the second time he came to call, for goodness sake. He was perfect. Who was to say these tingles were specific to Nicholas? Perhaps if Embry whispered wicked things to her while smelling like dessert she would react the same way.
Maybe all she needed was for Embry to behave a little less properly. Not that Amelia had the slightest idea how to bring that about. Embry was extremely diligent in his propriety.
Still, she was up for the challenge. She would forget all about Nicholas Wakefield and his wicked whispers, and set her mind to figuring out how to seduce her fiancé. That was the proper course of action. Well, proper enough anyhow. She was a Bishop, after all. She couldn’t be expected to behave entirely.
“Well, what shall it be?” Julia asked. “The forest or the meadow?”
“The meadow stream will be swollen over with all this rain,” Amelia warned.
“You’re right. The meadow it is.”
Of course. Julia wasn’t happy if she wasn’t actively trying to get them both killed—either by genuine catastrophe or parental wrath once they were found out. “Are you certain? You’re not immune to consequences anymore now that I’m the favorite.”
Julia squinted for a moment, like she was pondering it as they urged the horses into a trot. “What’s the worst they might do to me?”
“Ban you from riding.”
“They wouldn’t dare. They wouldn’t be able to stand how morose I’d be.”
Amelia was certain her sister was right, but she played the devil’s advocate anyway. “You never know. They might.”
Julia shrugged. “A lot of things might happen.”
“Yes, but those things aren’t under our direct contr—”
With a shout, Julia and Tryphosa shot off across the field.
Amelia swore, giving Dionysia her head when the mare lurched forward, unwilling to let her sister have the lead without a fight.