As soon as Robert was in the hall, he was filling his chest with air, away from the clogging scent of smoke. He stared at the paintings of men with curly wigs and women in skirts so large they must have had trouble moving. He’d said he was going to join the ladies, and the drawing-room door was just there. But he didn’t open it. Amelia would be there and he had no idea what to say to her, or what to do with the new knowledge she’d given him.

Perhaps he’d go to bed. He could leave tomorrow and forget all of this, ignore the feelings that had been revived and concern himself with ensuring the tulip harvest was good this year. He’d check on Edith. Watching her sleep peacefully always soothed him. He was halfway up the stairs when a door opened.

“Goodnight, Mama. Goodnight everyone.” Amelia’s voice came from below.

He turned in time to see her close the door behind her before she lurched away, tripping on her skirts.

“Amelia.” He took the stairs in four bounds to get down to her.

She regained her balance and pushed past him when he reached for her, wobbling to the bottom of the stairs.

His heart seemed to be beating its way out of his chest via his throat. For a moment he’d thought she would fall. “Wait.” He stayed at her elbow while she determinedly made her way up the stairs. “Let me help you.”

“No thank you, Mr. Danbury.” She gripped the banister tightly and focused straight ahead, chin up, taking the steps with more speed than he’d have guessed her capable.

“You used to call me Robert.” Only an hour ago, she’d asked him why he’d married another woman. Five years ago, her eyes had lit up from beneath her lashes when she’d danced with him and she’d bit her lip when he’d suggested she call him by his Christian name.

“I used to think you cared for me.” Her voice was like a lemon, with a sting but sadness and sweetness too.

In vino-veritas. “I did.” He didn’t add, I do. Because his love for her had lain dormant all these years, waiting for the rains.

“Not enough,” she muttered.

There was no possible retort to that. She was right. His affection hadn’t been enough, he’d wanted hers in return.

They made it to the top of the stairs without incident, which was testament to Amelia’s determination. She held herself upright and focused, and he knew it was partly for him. Before she saw him, she’d flopped with easy, loose limbedness. As they entered her room, she lurched away from him, making for the fireplace.

“Lie down.” He pointed at the bed. A small bed with a pink cover, suitable for a young lady on her own.

“I’m not lying down.” She leaned against the mantelpiece. Her eyes were big and dark, the blue hardly visible in the half-light of the fire and candles. She was going to set her dress alight if she wasn’t careful. The thoughtful maids had left a fire that made her modestly sized room surprisingly warm.

“I’m not arguing with you.” He used his sternest tone.

She laughed.

Even as he relished the sound, he knew this was a terrible idea. Why wasn’t her mother looking after her? Yet, the answer was obvious. Because her mother was busy entertaining and having a good time. She didn’t realize her daughter had imbibed too much alcohol. He could go downstairs and find someone else to look after her, but then there would be all sorts of questions, of a most inconvenient nature. Why had he been upstairs with her? Why was she so scandalously drunk? It would reflect poorly on everyone. It would spoil her parents’ Christmas, discomfit his family, and potentially ruin Amelia’s character over a silly mistake.

He would stay until she inevitably fell asleep, then he’d sneak away to his room. She would wake up with a headache and no memory of how she’d got to bed and hopefully never get drunk again. He’d not mention it. No-one would ever be any the wiser. Easy. “Please. Come and lie down. You’ll feel better. I bet the room is spinning.”

“You’re not lying down,” she said mulishly, swaying slightly even as she gripped the mantelpiece.

“I’ll stay with you.” He understood her failure to deny that the room was spinning as a tacit agreement that it was. Which meant he couldn’t leave her on her own, even if he might want to. He walked over to the bed, deliberately not looking too much at her room, with its samplers on the wall and intricately embroidered fire-guard front. “Come on.”

She looked at him, confused. “You’re in my bedroom.”

“Yes.”

“You should have been here...” She seemed to struggle for words. Presumably, her wine befuddled head was not cooperating with what she was trying to say. “Before.”

Their gazes met. There was a frisson of awareness as well as recognition that it was too late.

She lurched towards him and he leaped forward to catch her. But somehow she made it to the bed before he reached her, collapsing onto it.

“All right.” He breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s better isn’t it.” He sat down on the bed.

“Lie down,” she demanded.

He weighed up the issue in his mind. This was at least as risky as Snapdragon.

She began to struggle upright again.

“No, no, no.” He had to keep her lying down, safe.

She stopped and pinned him with her gaze.

“Just for a moment.” He sighed. He wasn’t sure whether he was telling her or reassuring himself as he eased himself down until he was lying on his side, opposite her.

Even drunk, she was beautiful. Her blonde hair spilled out of its pins, tendrils over her face and neck. It would be soft in his fingers like a camellia petal. He clenched his fists against the impulse to smooth her hair back.

She was watching him and he took the opportunity to memorize her eyes to remember when he was alone, back home at Loudwater. The blue was graded, from a winter clear sky to the deep blue of a summer evening.

“Kiss me.” Her voice was husky and her gaze lowered to his lips.

He shifted minutely towards her, wanting her kiss, wanting the past to be irrelevant. But sanity stopped him. “I can’t.”

She was drunk. A kiss was never just a kiss. She was an inexperienced lady and didn’t know what she was asking for, or the risk they would be taking. And aside from all the ecstasy, tomorrow there would be regret. From her for having given away her innocence so rashly, and from him for having taken advantage of her and for the possible consequences. Probably, she wouldn’t even recall this tomorrow morning. Whatever feelings she might have right now, they were not reliable. An inebriated lady was not a good judge of her own wants or needs. She shifted and on the small bed, risked falling. He put his arms around her, just to keep her on the bed. Not too tight, and he spread his hands over the curve of the small of her back.

Her eyelids drifted closed. She let out a deep sigh. “I wish...”

“I know.” He made circles with his palms, warming and comforting her. Her breasts were spilling out of the top of her dress. He didn’t look. Well, he tried not to. But the moment he shut his eyes, they were there, in naked glory as his imagination supplied all the details her dress hid.

He was hard. Of course. He was hard for her even though she was a nuisance and she was beautiful and he didn’t know which of them had made the biggest mistake. Him by allowing his pride to be hurt by her and mollified by Isabella. Or her for asking him why he’d married another woman, revealing her feelings when it was far too late. He was too fractured from Isabella’s death for anything now. Because whatever else his marriage had been, it had been an education. He wasn’t going to marry again and have another wife die in childbirth, leaving him broken and with a motherless baby.

That thought stopped his arousal, to the point that Amelia was again a person to be protected rather than a partner in lust. She couldn’t reciprocate anything right now. Her breathing was slow and even. Could she really be asleep? “Amelia?”

She made a tiny sound like a disgruntled kitten and burrowed her nose into the linen of his shirt.

Continuing to stroke her back, he stared into the shadows of her room left by the candle on the bedside table and the fire in the hearth. He couldn’t leave. She was drunk and vulnerable and cold. What if she were to cast up her accounts?

“Amelia.” A knock sounded at the door as it opened. “I came to find out how you were...”

He turned in time to see Mrs. Wisbech’s delighted look of horror.

“Oh! Mr. Danbury, what is this?” Mrs. Wisbech exclaimed from the doorway. “You’re in Miss Chilson’s bed!”

Deuce take it.

“Thank you for that invaluable observation.” He extracted himself from Amelia, who was stirring. “I think there are some people in the next county who didn’t hear you.”

“What... What’s happening?” Amelia reached across the bed, with a sensuous movement, as though for a lover.

Mrs. Wisbech gasped.

“This isn’t what you think.” No, that sounded guilty. He took a deep breath. “I was looking after her since she’s not feeling well.” This was what he’d been afraid of, and a moment’s hesitation had made it a reality. Amelia’s reputation would be destroyed.

“Rest assured, Amelia is absolutely safe in my presence.” He strode to the doorway and directed Mrs. Wisbech to leave the room with a hand on the door and one pointing to the hallway. She backed away and he closed the door behind them.

“Safe with a single man.” The light from her candle revealed Mrs. Wisbech putting her hand over her mouth.

“We’re married.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, a desperate attempt to salvage Amelia’s reputation.

“Married?” Mrs. Wisbech’s expression soured and her hand fell. “When?”

“Engaged to be married.” That was as good as married. Not scandalously reputation ruining at all.

“Did you know they were engaged?” Mrs. Wisbech asked the corridor.

What? He turned. Ah. Not the corridor. Mr. Chilson was headed towards them, greying bushy eyebrows in a frown of consternation.

“Mr. Chilson, I’m glad you’re here.” Robert smiled pleasantly, his heart racing. “Perhaps you could ask someone to stay with Amelia. She isn’t feeling well. I realize this engagement will come as a bit of a shock to you.” To him, to Robert, and definitely to Amelia. “I suggest we discuss it in your study tomorrow morning.”

Not waiting for Mr. Chilson’s nod, he opened the door to his bedroom, conveniently opposite Amelia’s. Leaving them in the corridor with matching looks of confusion, he walked away, just as he ought to have done earlier. Before everything was ruined.

What had he done? He repeated the question in his head with every movement as he undressed. He’d not compromised Amelia, he hadn’t even kissed her. But the whole situation had grown out of hand so quickly, like weeds in a spring garden. He tossed his clothes onto the chest of drawers and climbed into bed without bothering to find nightclothes.

It had been cork-brained to lie on the bed with her. But she’d needed comfort and he’d wanted to give it. Telling Mrs. Wisbech it was entirely platonic would never have been believable, even were it completely true. It might have been innocent on Amelia’s part, but his stiffness had revealed his true impulses, even if he hadn’t acted on them. Then he’d gone and said they were engaged, in some impulsive but misguided act of chivalry. If he didn’t marry Amelia, she’d be shunned and he’d never see her again. But by claiming they were engaged to save Amelia’s reputation he had damned her to a marriage without lovemaking or children.

Was this some sort of perverse joke of history repeating? The parallels were uncanny and he couldn’t help but think of the events that had precipitated this, five years ago.

After his failed mistletoe kiss with Amelia, he’d stumbled unseeing to the punch table and downed a glass of tepid wine. Isabella had asked him to identify a plant in the orangery, it had been cool rain on his scorched heart. The plant had turned out to be an unusual species of erica, whose pale-bluey color was a far cry from its heather-type origins. He’d knelt down to examine the low-growing shrub and so had Isabella. The next thing he’d known her lips had been on his, his mouth had opened in shock, and the booming voice of her father had been asking him what was going on.

It was only later that a suspicion had itched at the center of his back. Honor demanded he come up to scratch and marry Isabella, but after the initial horror of the moment had passed, he’d argued. His father had brushed away Robert’s suggestion that the incident had been premeditated. His mother had frowned when he’d admitted he held a tendre for Amelia. Mrs. Chilson hadn’t given any indication that Amelia reciprocated his feelings. That, along with his father’s capitulation about Robert wanting to live at and manage another estate, had decided him. It had been fate. Intense as his feelings for Amelia were, it had been time to put them aside.

Despite everything, his and Isabella’s marriage had been good. He’d never asked Isabella about whether she’d set out to trap him. He hadn’t been sure he’d like her answer or believe it if he did. He’d been determined to make it work, and he had. Until the moment that not only had he been unable to save her, his child had been the reason for her death.

He found himself again approaching marriage after being caught not compromising a lady. To be trapped into marriage once was unlucky, but twice was… Well. It was a choice of sorts. He’d known the risk he was taking and he’d still wanted to be there for Amelia. But just like in 1812, he was unsure of Amelia’s feelings for him. There were more hopeful signs than before and perhaps he could read them better now. He’d been a callow youth, but marriage, death, being the only parent for Edith, and the struggle of making profitable changes to the estate had forced him to grow over the last five years. It had also taught him that life was fragile.

He could lose Amelia if they consummated their marriage. It was only last month that Princess Charlotte had died after giving birth to a stillborn babe. He hadn’t been able to bear all the lurid details in the newspapers. His stomach had churned after reading that the princess had suffered for more than two days. It had viscerally brought back the day that had brought him Edith and taken Isabella away.

The national mourning for Princess Charlotte, with black ribbons and armbands adorned by almost every person in the street, had been a daily reminder of his promise three years before: no sex. French letters were too unreliable, as was withdrawal. He’d sworn when Isabella died that he’d live the rest of his days chaste. He never wanted to put himself or his child through that agony again. If the future queen of England, with all the best physicians, had still died in childbirth, what hope did anyone else have? How else could he protect Amelia?

Guilt crept over his skin. They were in an impossible situation. He had to marry Amelia to protect her reputation. He couldn’t marry her, because he couldn’t allow them to consummate the marriage, not when she might die. If he told her, she’d reject him and be plagued by scandal. He couldn’t let that happen, but neither could he make love to her.

He scowled into the darkness of the bedroom. The only way forward was to not tell her about his vow. An innocent like Amelia might never realize what she was missing.

Tomorrow he’d make a polite request for Amelia to be his wife. He might even convince her because it was better than disgrace. But amongst the warm satisfaction in his chest that Amelia would be his, he knew he couldn’t make love to her as she deserved. And yet, like a plant that had begun to wilt in the heat, it was too late for action now. He ought to have cooled the situation earlier. The damage was done, and all that remained was to see if the flower of his determination would survive.