The Wedding Duel (The Dueling Pistols Series) (26 page)

Keene felt a mixture of rage and relief . . . and frustration. There wasn't the slightest hint of a protruding belly. "No, she doesn't. I hate your hair short."

"Well, I shall be about my way, and you shan't have to see it."

"Upstairs, Sophie, or I shall carry you."

She flashed him a defiant look and started down the stairs.

"Damn it, Sophie." Keene caught her arm, looked directly at Victor and pointed toward the morning room, while nodding in Amelia's direction.

Victor placed his hand on the small of Amelia's back and led her into the front room. The heat of her skin reached him through her muslin gown. Victor wanted to both hold her and run away as fast as he could.

He glanced back in time to see Keene tip Sophie over his shoulder and carry her up the stairs.

Victor shut the door on Sophie's protest. He wanted to issue his own protest to have a care for Sophie's condition. Which reminded him of the shared child he had with Amelia. "How are you?"

She ducked her head and stepped away from his hand. "I am well."

"And the baby?"

She drew a swift breath, and looked away. Victor noticed the sheen of moisture in her eyes.

"She is healthy, isn't she?"

"Yes, she is fine."

There were a dozen questions that begged to be asked.
Does she look like me? Is she really mine? Why didn't you tell me?
Instead, Victor gestured toward a chair. "I'm sure Keene won't be long."

"Oh."

There was a wealth of confusion and speculation in Amelia's soft response. And the truth of the matter was, if Keene had an ounce of sense in his head, he should stay abovestairs a long time and let the waters be as murky as possible.

In Victor's opinion, knowing Amelia's child was his made the situation more awkward. If he hadn't known, if George had been a candidate for fatherhood, there would have been only the occasional twinge of uncertainty.

"I should leave. I think Keene has enough on his hands." Amelia swiveled away from Victor.

Why had she turned to Keene instead of him? After all, it was his actions that got her into this brouhaha. "No, sit, Amelia. 'Tis well and good that Keene has a glimpse of the other side."

"What?"

"Never mind." Victor shifted restlessly from one foot to the other. "The child is well?"

"Yes." A hint of impatience colored Amelia's tone. She gingerly sat on the edge of a chair.

"What do you plan to do?"

Amelia's head tipped down. "I don't know. I suppose I might stay with my mother, but she is newly settled in the gatehouse as there wasn't a dower house on my father's property and the estate now belongs to my uncle." Amelia raised her head. "I shouldn't wish to be so far from my daughter, and I had hoped that my mother might stay at our house."

The only thing that occurred to Victor as Amelia spoke was that he didn't even know his daughter's name. "Things have reached a pretty pass, have they not?"

A single tear trickled down Amelia's alabaster cheek. Pain welled up under Victor's breastbone. He stepped toward
Amelia's chair. He had held her once, comforted her once
when she despaired of her situation—and brought her to this catastrophe.

She flew out of her chair, and in an uncharacteristically determined stride, avoided him. She steered toward the drawing room door. Her voice trembled, "I shouldn't have come here. I just thought Keene . . ."

"What did you think?" That Keene would protect her? Shelter her? House her as his mistress? Jealousy tore at Victor.

She shook her head as she reached for the knob. The door opened. Keene stood in the doorway, confronted by Amelia. Both of them froze. She drew a deep, shaky breath as if she meant to halt the tears freely running down her cheeks.

Keene stepped forward and placed his hands on Amelia's upper arms. "Everything will be all right," he soothed.

"Nothing will ever be right," sobbed Amelia, and she stepped straight into Keene's embrace.

A pit of black yawned before Victor. He folded his arms across his chest to keep himself from punching something. Irony laced through him. That night in the carriage, he had wondered if he was a substitute for Keene, a role he knew well. "Very touching."

Amelia backed out of Keene's arms, the graceful downward slope of her neck calling out her own swan song.

"I suppose you should just move in here." Victor heard the words leave his mouth without making a stop in his brain first. "You will stay close to your baby and won't be imposing on your mother. What do you say, Keene? Amelia could stay here, couldn't she?"

Keene looked startled by the notion. He frowned.

"I mean with your
wife
in residence, there is no impropriety, is there?"

Amelia cast her doe-like expression in Keene's direction. Hope glistened through her tears.

Keene looked back and forth between them, crossed his arms and leaned against the door. Victor couldn't fathom what was happening behind Keene's closed expression.

"I daresay it is a good answer for the time being. What do you say, Amelia? Should you prefer to stay in London with my wife and me?"

How she restrained herself from nodding in glee was beyond Victor. But she managed a mild response with that innate grace that was all her own. Her outstretched hand was the only sign of her nervous tension. "Would your wife be upset?"

Victor had learned a few things about Amelia that night in the carriage, more than he wanted to know. Unless he missed his guess, she was desperate to stay here. Why, though? Did she trust Keene to avoid taking advantage of her situation? Or did she hope he would?

Keene didn't bat an eye. "Sophie should be delighted to have a guest."

Victor wasn't so sure.

Keene turned to him with a look as sharp as shards of glass. "We shall have to fetch her trunk from the . . . post inn."

"You let your wife come in on the stage?"

"I don't think
let
had much to do with it," said Victor.

Amelia glanced back and forth between the two men and then ducked her head in the ultimate gesture of humbleness. And why not, thought Victor. She had achieved everything she wanted, hadn't she?

* * *

Sophie rubbed her stomach where it had rested across Keene's shoulder on the trip up the stairs. Not that it hurt, just tingled.

The silent maid held Keene's dressing gown. Sophie slid her arms into the sleeves.

The back of her legs where his hand had rested tingled, too. All of it was for naught. He'd left the room quickly, but not so quickly he hadn't managed to say he was sending her back to the country as soon as possible. He didn't want her here in his home.

That suited her just fine. She wanted nothing more than to leave behind her husband's smoldering looks that led to insubstantial ashes of nothing. She would go back to his father's house with all her fine new clothes and impress the cattle. She'd done what she'd set out to do, see London. So why did she feel so unhappy?

No time to stew, she thought. The play had been fun until Algany got out of hand. But she needed to leave. Now that she was married and capable of moving about with a little independence, she wouldn't stay where she wasn't welcome.

The first order of business was to find clothing to wear. She wouldn't be held back by Keene's refusal to return her dress. Her decision made, she was impatient to be on her way.

 
"I need a pair of scissors, a needle, and a spool of white thread, pins, lots of pins. And a ribbon, preferably red," she said to the maid. She dropped the dressing gown on the floor.

The girl bobbed a lopsided curtsy and nearly stumbled into the door.

Sophie ripped back the covers on the bed where she'd spent a long, lonely night, and wrestled the sheet from the mattress.

A short time later a knock on the door startled her. Was the maid back already? "Enter."

Keene stepped into the room, took one look at her and his step faltered. "What are you doing?"

"Amusing myself."

He took a look at the pile of brocade and silk on the floor and back at her. Leaning against the door his eyes traveled over her scantily clad form. "You object to my dressing gown?"

"Not if you're wearing it."

He picked it up and held it out to her. "Humor me."

She snorted and crossed the room to retrieve it from his grasp. His nostrils flared and his eyes glittered as she drew close, but she didn't miss his fully extended arm and the way he pressed back against the door as if she had some dreadfully contagious disease.

"Sit down, Sophie."

"Shouldn't you be downstairs with your guests?"

Keene rubbed a hand across his face. "Devil take it, yes. But we need to talk."

"I can't see that there is any need."

"Put the dressing gown on and sit down, Sophie."

"I'm not a leper, you know. I assure you I shan't infect you with my nature. It is not contagious."

The knave grinned. "I assure you, that is the least of my concerns. Now, sit, before I have to force you."

"You could at least ask." She flounced toward the bed and perched on the edge of it.

He winced as if she had not followed his directions as he liked. "Please, Sophie, drape my dressing gown around you."

He had at least tacked please onto this command, so she complied, leaning forward and stuffing her arms into the sleeves. Keene closed his eyes and set his jaw.

Sophie sighed. Talk must be Keene's word for a lecture. She supposed one's father's strictures were simply preparation for the rebukes of a husband. Impatient to be done, she turned to the window and stared out at the gray London sky.

"Why did you come to London?"

It was an odd way to start a lecture. She turned her attention back to her husband. In many ways he felt more like her cousin than a husband . . . except for the few kisses they'd shared. Heat crept up her chest. Her dreams of impressing him with stunning gowns and winning his heart were too raw to share.

He remained silent while her hopes for a loving marriage collided with his determination to send her back to the country.

"I needed new clothes," she finally answered.

"Whatever for?"

To make you notice me, want me, love me.
She shifted her eyes away, all too aware of the heat in her face. "For my trousseau. Mama gave me money to buy what I needed in London. You are very fashionable, and I thought you would want me to be so, too."

Keene folded his arms across his chest, his dark gaze spearing her. "What did attending the theater have to do with furnishing your wardrobe?"

"I just thought it should be fun."

"Why would you choose to attend in the company of one of the most notorious rakehells in London? A man known to ruin women for the sheer joy of it."

Each word he added stabbed her. "I thought since Sir Gresham introduced me to him and would be there, it would be acceptable. I didn't ever plan to be alone with either of them."

"Not with Gresham, either?"

She shook her head.

"You're lying."

Had he thought she was seeking a lover? Was that why he was so angry with her?

She wouldn't even know the first thing about how to seek a lover. Besides she wanted
him
to continue her education in that regard, not some stranger. She shivered. "I thought it was a respectable event. I thought that with two gentlemen in the party it was perfectly proper. I thought Victor wouldn't take me alone because that wasn't all right, but with two . . ."

"Never again."

"I am not allowed to attend the theater, or attend a ball or . . ."

"Not in Algany's company, not alone with any man, and especially not in Gresham's company."

"Would you have taken me if I asked?"

"You should not have gone."

It was an evasion of the first sort. But he caught her off guard with his next question.

"Do you want to stay in London?"

To allow him to see how very much she wanted to stay would be like handing him an executioner's ax. "You made it clear you were sending me back to the country."

"Yes, well, I was angry. Now, do you want to stay here with me? For I would like you to."

She stepped toward him, her heart singing with hope. "You would?"

He reached for the edges of the dressing gown and pulled them closed, at the same time pulling her closer. His eyes drifted to the bed and back down to her face. "Our guests are waiting for me. Now, are you willing to stay?"

Her heart pounded and the heat of his hands seared her skin through his dressing gown. "I thought I embarrassed you."

His eyes crinkled. "You do. When you are at a theater in bad company, or wearing Victor's clothes." He drew her closer with every complaint. His voice dropped lower. "Or staying at a hotel."

"Cutting my hair." Her voice was breathless.