Chapter 4
After two hours of attempting to sleep, Amelia sat up in her bed and lit the candles on the candelabra on the nightstand next to her bed. With all the excitement tonight, how could she possibly sleep? Being in London, after a decade of absence, brought back so many memories of her mother and Millie.
Memories that burned with resentment and sadness.
Amelia touched the silver necklace around her neck and stroked the stone with her fingers, memories flooding back to her:
"Please, Mummy, I don't want to live with that woman." Her grandmother blamed her mother for everything, including her father's death. Or at least that was what she'd been told by Cook, who was a kind man who let her mummy cry on his shoulders and let Amelia have leftovers in the kitchen when she was too hungry to sleep.
“Hush,” Amelia's mummy said. “That woman you speak of is your grandmother. You'll have everything you'll ever want in this world.”
"I don't want to go to Scotland," Amelia said. "I want to stay with you."
The shouts of laughter and sound of shattering glasses from below caught them off guard. For several seconds, they remained frozen, listening. When quietness engulfed them again, she looked back at her mother.
"Look around you," her mother said. "Is this what you want?"
Amelia looked around the dim, narrow hallway. This place wasn't so bad if she had her mum and Millie. She looked at her mummy again—she always looked so tired . . . so sad.
Her mother lowered herself to her knees and looked squarely at her. Amelia saw tears forming in her mum’s eyes and it began to worry her. Taking off her silver necklace, her mum gazed longingly for a moment at the shiny green stone dangling there.
"Here," her mummy said, putting the necklace on Amelia.
Wide eyed, Amelia touched it with her hand. Her mother never took it off, so why was she giving it to her now? A swell of emotions filled her, as if somehow her mum were making a final gesture.
“You need to go.”
Amelia felt a lump in her throat and she couldn't stop the hot tears from falling. “No, Mummy.”
“You must,” her mother said firmly. “Be strong, you hear me?”
Amelia nodded, touching the cold silver necklace around her neck. She felt a sudden urge to hold on to her mummy and never let go.
"Let no man, no matter who he is, dictate your life. Promise me."
Amelia wiped the tears from her eyes. She understood now why she had been sent away, yet anger and resentment burned in her heart every time she thought of her mother. Partly because of her mother’s lack of interest in her life and the fact that she’d never attempted to visit her.
She touched her necklace again, thinking she should really remove it, but no matter how many times she tried, she couldn’t. It had been on her neck for a decade, and despite the painful memories, she didn’t have the heart to remove it. Besides, it reminded her what she needed to accomplish here in London.
That wasn’t the worst of it. Her grandmother was an angry woman and Amelia couldn’t understand why. She had been told again and again how her mother had caused her father’s death, but her grandmother had said nothing else to elaborate on the accusation when questioned. Because of the son taken away from her, her grandmother had tasked Amelia with making certain she married a respectable man from a proper family with a title. She’d been bred for this purpose.
Thoughts of the stranger materialized in her mind. An introduction would have been proper, at least, but with everything happening so fast, she hadn’t thought of it until now. Did it matter?
For a moment she allowed the romantic notion of the stranger to play out in her mind. Silly, she knew. In a perfect world, she dreamt that he was honorable and strong, and stood for all that was good in this world. She chuckled inwardly at the blind stupidity that still seemed to plague her.
While he may have rescued her and Kate, there was a sense of gravity about him. Maybe even gloom? She wasn’t certain why or how, but she sensed it.
Amelia pulled off the blanket, stepped off her bed, and walked across her room to her desk. There atop a stack of unopened letters sat a parchment containing the list of eligible bachelors in London.
Picking it up, she looked at the list with trepidation. She had folded and unfolded this parchment more than a dozen times since she had arrived in London two weeks ago. And each time she read the names, it ate away the courage she had built up before coming to London. Sickened by the thought of becoming chattel, she braved the list of names again:
Lord Benedict Rowland Grayson
Lord Richard Nickolas Blackthorn
Lord Henry Adam Penn Fletcher
All titled men of impeccable breeding with long prestigious heritages. Grandmamma had reminded her before leaving for London that these men would have no reason to deny her if she conducted herself appropriately and abided by Mrs. Pots' instructions. Her grandmother’s words were: These men expect to marry a lady of good breeding. I require you to conduct yourself as such—a lady. Mrs. Pots will be reporting to me on all accounts of your conduct.
Even in her ill health, Grandmamma was ordering her about. Her grandmother’s personal physician had informed her that she could not travel to London with her weak heart. Amelia was thankful for it; not that her grandmother was ill, but that it gave her the opportunity to carry out the plan she’d had in mind since arriving in Scotland a decade ago.
Her inheritance would be most beneficial to the men of the list and their carefully selected families. But if these families discovered the truth about her birth, they would surely have reservations about the marriage, and that would mean an end to her carefully formulated plan—her plan to be rid of men for good, to live out her life as she deemed fit without orders, without schedules, until her last breath.
Amelia was tired of schedules and tired of pleasing others. She knew all too well that men looked upon their wives as property and treated them as they deemed fit. She told herself she would not allow men, or anyone else, to dictate her life, and she told herself she would gain her freedom one day. If she remained married, she would not have that freedom. Men only wanted her for her inheritance and to control her, as her grandmother did. The only way to ensure her survival was to make sure no man had control over her life and her own funds.
She wasn’t about to be confined to rules set by Society, only to live and die by them. She had other plans. Two months. Just two short months to find out which one of these men was desperate enough to agree to her terms of marriage—or business transaction, rather. Perhaps Lord Blackthorn. With some digging, she’d discovered he had inherited a substantial debt. It would be difficult for him to say no to her proposal. If the debt were called and he couldn’t pay, he’d face debtors’ prison and shame.
Amelia sat on the edge of her bed, not moving. For a single moment, she allowed her mind to wander to a place she rarely allowed herself to go—her mother. It wasn’t that she hated her, no; it was deeper, more complicated than that. She had written to her mother for months, but when no reply came, she had finally come to realize that her mother had no interest in staying in touch and, according to her grandmother, her mother wanted nothing to do with Amelia. After a decade, Amelia had had no knowledge of her mother’s whereabouts at all. And in all truth, she’d rather not know.
She shook her head when emotions brewed inside. Goodness, she’d promised herself she would not do this to herself. Her goal was to find Millie, a promise that she couldn’t break. Millie had somehow managed to write to her, and it was by sheer chance she’d gotten her hands on the letters. Her heart stung at the memories.
The letters were short. Millie hadn’t spoken of her mother. Only mentioned she’d never forgotten about their friendship and that she missed Amelia terribly. She’d also mentioned her father, who had beaten her so badly at one time that she’d run away from home for nearly two weeks. When she’d returned, he’d tossed her out of the house and told her never to come back unless she had money to contribute.
This news had brought Amelia much pain. This was when she’d resolved to help Millie, to find her and keep her promise. She surmised her own childhood would have been unbearable without Millie. She let her tears fall. They trickled down her cheeks, allowing her to sob away the pain she kept deep in her heart and hidden from the world.
Several minutes later, in the quiet of her room, her thoughts turned to the handsome stranger again. She thought of what might have happened to her, Kate, and the young woman in the alley had he not intervened. She knew very well the dangers that lurked in the streets of St. Giles. But tonight had ended terribly because she couldn’t help the poor young woman, whoever she was. She could only hope the young woman would not suffer too much. Deep in her heart, Amelia knew it was a fruitless optimism.
She plopped back in bed and closed her eyes. The self-assuring magnetism of the stranger who had rescued them intrigued her, more than was good for her, and she felt childish lying on her bed thinking about the brave gentleman she was never going to meet again.
During the ride back, she’d had a good deal of time to observe the stranger, and she’d guessed he didn’t lack women’s company. Probably had an inflated ego, too.
She pulled the soft pillow to her and hugged it. She surmised she was so fascinated with the man because it distracted her from her current troubles. Deep loneliness engulfed her again. Kate’s friendship was a blessing, but this feeling was different. Sometimes, the isolation she felt in the evenings was unbearable.