A Secret Proposal (2 page)

When he finished coughing and pounding his chest, Thad narrowed his eyes on Amy. Or more correctly, Amelia. Miss Amelia Templeton, his deceased closest friend’s little sister who had somehow grown up into the most enchantingly lovely young woman Thad had ever seen. Her silken, luxurious, blond hair was caught up under a most fetching bonnet with small ringlets left to curl at her rose-colored cheeks. Her cornflower-blue eyes were wide and lovely. Her nose was pert and her mouth petal-pink. And he felt positively indecent for thinking how generously…endowed she was. She looked like a goddess descended from the heavens. He stared at her, his mouth opening and closing in rhythm. For someone who hadn’t been found without words since he’d begun to speak, Thad was struck dumb for the first time in his entire life. He hadn’t exactly been expecting her to ask him for money. Her parents were indecently wealthy. But whatever he’d expected her to ask of him, it
certainly
had not been this.

She was also the only person in entire world who still called him Thaddeus; everyone else, all friends and family members had been sufficiently threatened.

He finished pounding his chest and cleared his throat one last time. “Are you…let me get
this clear…are you asking me to marry you, Amy?”

Her tinkling laughter soon filled the coach. “Oh, no, no, no…no, no.”

He eyed her askance. She didn’t have to be quite
that
emphatic in her denial. “Then I don’t understand. What exactly
are
you asking?”

She blushed beautifully, a light pink color spreading across her pretty, clear skin. “I’m asking you to…” She glanced away. “Oh, I
knew
this would be uncomfortable.”

Thad watched her carefully. She was so open and truthful. There wasn’t a bit of dishonesty about her, a refreshing change from the people with whom he usually kept company. Those who bet on boxing matches; gamers, on the whole, were not known to be open.

“You’ve come this far,” he prompted. “You might as well out with it.” Not to mention the fact that he was damn curious to know what exactly she wanted from him. Spend a wedding night with him? What in the bloody hell did that mean exactly? Especially now that he’d firmly established that she was not, in fact, proposing marriage to him. Not that
that
was any surprise. He would be the last man in the world her mother would allow her to marry, the very last. Not that he wanted to, of course.

Amy was wringing her hands until he feared she’d pluck them off. He caught them and pulled them apart. “By all means,” he said in what he hoped was an encouraging tone. “Tell me.”

“I’ve made a list.” She cleared her throat. “A list of…eligible…gentlemen, that is. And I intend to marry one of them.”

“Go on,” he prompted when she looked as if she wanted to bury her pretty pink face in her
hands.

She bit her lip in one of the most fetching displays he’d ever seen. Thad was used to being around the women who frequented the gambling clubs where he spent his time. Women without a trace of modesty or shyness to their names. He hadn’t realized how long it had been since he saw a woman blush, truly blush. And to his surprise, he adored it. Amy squared her shoulders and faced him, obviously attempting to steel up her courage.

“I intend to marry one of them,” she replied. “But, you see, I was horribly frightened by that pamphlet and I want to not be so frightened on my wedding night. I want to know exactly what to expect.”

His eyes narrowed on her. He still wasn’t entirely sure he understood her correctly, but he bloody well intended to find out before he made a complete ass of himself and assumed a bit
too
much. Why, she’d slap him and toss him from the coach if she knew what he was thinking.

“Did the pamphlet not explain what to expect?” he asked cautiously.

The blush was still firmly ensconced upon her cheeks. “Not…not exactly.” She whispered something that sounded suspiciously like, “Oh, I am simply mortified.”

By God, she
was
implying exactly what he’d thought she was implying. He was in no danger of being slapped. Unfortunately?

Thad ran the back of his hand across his forehead. Was it getting hot in the coach all of a sudden?

“Amy, you don’t mean… You can’t mean…”

Her eyes were squeezed shut, but she nodded rapidly. “Yes, Thaddeus. I want you to spend the night with me. I want you to teach me what a wedding night is like.”

She opened her eyes again and Thad struggled to keep the shock from his face.

Struck dumb for the second time in his life within the span of five minutes. Unheard of. But what in God’s name was he supposed to say to this?

“Amy, I’m flattered. Truly I am, but—”

“No. No. No.” She cut him off. “Please don’t say no. You must hear me out first.”

He flashed her a grin. “Perhaps you should hear
me
out first.”

She sighed and crossed her arms over her chest. “Very well.”

His crack of laughter bounced off the sides of the coach. “My lady, you are not very good at selling things, I see, or you wouldn’t have allowed me to go first.”

She sat forward, pointing her finger and opening her mouth to speak, but he motioned her back into place. “No, you already agreed. I get to speak.” He pulled at the lapels on his shirt.

“First of all,” he continued, lowering his voice a bit. “I hate to be indelicate, but won’t you want to—ahem—save yourself for your
actual
wedding night?”

She shook her head and gave him a triumphant smile. “If you’d seen the list of my potential husbands, you wouldn’t even ask that question.”

He widened his eyes. “By all means then, let me see the list.”

She hesitated a moment before pulling open the strings of her reticule and plucking out a piece of paper. She presented it to Thad with a flourish.

He quickly scanned the small list, his brows drawing together more tightly with each name. “The Earl of Highland. Why, the man must be as old as your father!”

She rolled her eyes and motioned back to the list with her chin. “Keep reading.”

“Bartholomew! He’s
older
than your father.”

She shrugged and Thad’s eyes reluctantly returned to the list. God only knew who else—”The Duke of… You must be jesting. He’s your
grandfather’s
age!”

Wrinkling her nose, Amelia pulled the list from between Thad’s fingers and poked it back inside her reticule. “So, you see, I doubt any of those men will notice if my maidenhead is in place on my wedding night.”

Thad clenched his jaw and stared out the sliver of window still visible between the curtains. They were quickly coming to the end of their ride. He didn’t have much time to try to talk some sense into Amy. “Assuming that
that
is true,” he said. “Why don’t you just ask your mother what happens on a wedding night? There’s no need to go to such an extreme, is there?”

Amy looked absolutely mortified and, for a moment, Thad regretted asking the question.

“I did ask Mama,” she said in a barely discernible voice.

Oh God, he
really
hated to ask this next one. “And?”

“And she told me the pamphlet is true. She told me it’s painful and awful but over quickly if one is quite fortunate.”

Jesus Christ
. Thad clenched his fist, steeling himself against punching it through the bloody door. He’d never much cared for Amy and Paul’s mother but he suddenly had the urge to shake
the woman for frightening her lovely daughter. “ ‘Over quickly if one is fortunate,’ “ he bit out. “Seriously?”

Her cheeks bright pink, Amy nodded.

He groaned and ran his fingers through his hair. He wasn’t about to take Amy up on her shocking offer, but he didn’t want her to go on believing that all conjugal relations were unpleasant either. “Look, Amy, it’s not like that. Um, er, it doesn’t have to be. It can actually be quite…pleasant.” God, he sounded like a bloody fool. “Enjoyable.”

She nodded happily and smiled at him. “Exactly why I want you to…”

He shook his head. No. He needed to go about this in an entirely different manner. “Isn’t there someone, some young man whom you fancy?”

She blinked at that and shook her head. The look on her face was positively forlorn. How could someone so lovely have no young, handsome suitors? Why, Amy deserved a score of suitors, rich, noble, handsome, all with much better reputations than his own.

Thad glanced out the window. They were leaving the park, headed back to the saloon on the other side of St. James.

“Thaddeus, you must understand. Ever since Paul died, all Mama has ever asked of me is that I marry someone with a title. Most of the eligible titles belong to ugly old men. I made an awful mess of things with Lord Colton. It’s my own fault. It’s as simple as that. I must fix my mistake.” She squared her shoulders. “And I will. But I don’t want to be scared half out of my mind this time. I want to know what’s expected of me. You’re the only young man I know. The
only one I can ask such a thing.” She grabbed up his hand. “Please, Thaddeus, you must say yes. You must help me.”

Thad cursed under his breath. Damn it. She looked so helpless and vulnerable. He couldn’t believe it, but he was going to help her. And it wasn’t because she’d pleaded with him. It wasn’t because her blue eyes were beseeching him with tears threatening. It wasn’t even because he’d promised her that he’d do anything for her and he would never break that promise. No. He was going to help her because she’d said the one thing against which he was powerless to resist.
“Ever since Paul died all Mama has ever asked of me is that I marry someone with a title
.
”

Paul had been engaged when he’d died that horrible day three years ago. He’d been engaged to Lady Evelyn Shirley, the daughter of an earl. Mrs. Templeton had been on the eve of getting what she’d
always wanted. A socially connected in-law. And then, Paul had died and those dreams were shattered. Thad cursed again and closed his eyes. All these years, he and Amy had kept up a correspondence, helping each other through the unbearable grief of Paul’s death. He’d been fortunate, Thad knew, to have Amy to talk to through the letters. He’d been more than fortunate that Paul’s sister hadn’t blamed him the way Paul’s mother had. Amy had been a good friend to Thad and he’d meant it when he’d told her he would do absolutely anything for her. But he was going to help her now because he’d never guessed the one thing that should have been obvious from the moment Paul died. How could Thad have been so stupid? How could he not have known? Amy was paying for Thad’s mistake with the rest of her life. Her mother was about to marry her off to an old man for the sole purpose of gaining the illustrious elusive title she’d always wanted in the family. And just like Paul’s death, it was all Thad’s fault.

“I will help you,” he breathed, hardly believing the words coming from his own mouth.

Amy’s hand flew to her throat and relief flooded her pretty features. “Oh, thank heavens.”

“I will help you,” Thad repeated, meeting her eyes as the coach pulled to a stop back in the alley behind the saloon. “On one condition.”

Thaddeus had jumped from the coach as soon as it rolled to a stop in front of his club. He hadn’t even bothered to name his condition or discuss any of the details with Amelia. When would they meet? Where? How? It was all a big question mark lingering in her brain as he’d leaped from the coach and slapped the side of the conveyance, signaling to the coachman to leave at once.

“I’ll be in touch. Soon,” was all he’d said as the coach bounced away down the alley. And Amelia would just have to live with that promise. She had little choice.

She settled back against the seat cushions and replayed the last half hour in her head. In addition to being handsome, charming, and completely inappropriate company, Thaddeus Hammond had a way of making her remember Paul. He used many of the same mannerisms her brother had used, a sprinkling of the same expressions. And no one on this earth (other than Paul) had ever called her Amy. Mama hated that name. Had forbid it from the house, along with Thaddeus’s letters and Paul’s belongings.

Yes. The same week her brother had died, Mama had ordered all of his things packed and removed. Amelia had no idea where all of her brother’s possessions had gone, but his rooms had
quickly been converted to guest lodgings and Mama had made it quite clear that they were to pretend as if Paul had never even existed. “Well-bred people do not grieve,” her mother had declared. And she meant to keep it that way. Oh, they’d done the well-bred thing and publicly mourned. They wore their black-dyed clothing for the requisite six months before switching to lighter grays for the remainder of that first year, but they had never grieved. And that’s why Thaddeus had been such a godsend to Amelia. He was the only person to whom she could mention her brother. The only other person who had truly loved Paul and still acknowledged his existence. Papa was no help to her. He rarely emerged from his study and he never stood up to his determined wife.

Amelia pushed an unruly curl back into her bonnet. She’d never imagined she would call on Thaddeus and ask him what she had today, but then again, life hadn’t exactly gone as she’d planned over the last three years, let alone the last three months. She’d been a disappointment to Mama from the moment she was born. The only time Amelia had ever felt her mother’s approbation was during her brief engagement to the Marquis of Colton. And then she’d managed to go and ruin that too. But this time,
this time,
she would not ruin it. She would do anything to keep from causing a mess of her engagement, wedding, and subsequent wedding night, even if it meant doing something that would cause a hideous scandal if word ever got out. But she trusted Thaddeus to keep her secret.

The coach pulled to a stop in front of Papa’s town house and the coachman handed her down onto the street. Pulling up her skirts with one hand, she made her way quickly up the front
steps and into the foyer. If Mama found her out in the middle of the day without one of the maids, why, she would never hear the end of it. Amelia placed her hand on the cherry wood stair railing, in preparation for her flight up the staircase to her room.

“Where have you been?”

Amelia winced. She slowly turned to see her mother standing behind her, her arms tightly crossed over her chest and a thunderous expression on her face. Not for the first time, Amelia had the thought that her mother would actually be pretty if she wasn’t so angry all of the time.

Amelia bit her lip. How would she talk herself out of this one? She was absolutely dreadful at talking herself out of things.

“Mama, I…” She’d learned long ago, the less talking, the better.

Her mother glared at her, her foot tapping on the marble floor. “You’ve been out?”

“Yes, I…” She nervously ran her tongue over her bottom lip. “Went out for a bit of shopping. I needed a new ribbon for my blue bonnet.”

“You went out, alone?” Her mother’s voice rose steadily. Never a good sign.

Amelia pulled at the collar of her day dress. “I…um. That is to say…”

Her mother’s eyes narrowed. “Stop wringing your hands and answer me!”

“No, Mrs. Templeton, I went with her.” Hannah came scurrying out of the servants’ corridor, fastening her apron around her waist as if she’d just finished putting her clothing to rights after a morning spent on Bond Street.

Mama’s head snapped around to face the poor maid. “You went with her?” Mama raised her
chin. Her voice dripped skepticism.

Hannah’s gaze dipped to the floor “Yes, Mrs. Templeton.”

“I don’t recall you asking my permission to leave.” Mama’s eyebrow remained raised.

“My apologies,” Hannah replied and Amelia’s heart went out to the maid who was only five years her senior. She and Hannah had been together for as long as Amelia could remember. They were best friends and oh, she should have taken Hannah with her this morning, then she wouldn’t have risked her mother’s wrath for herself or the maid.

“See that it doesn’t happen again,” Mama commanded.

“Of course, Mrs. Templeton.” Hannah bobbed a curtsy.

“Now help Amelia off with her gown and prepare her things for this evening. We’ll be attending the Richmonds’ dinner party. The Earl of Highland will be there.”

Thankful for the reprieve from the questions, Amelia took Hannah’s hand and quickly made her way up the stairs. At the first landing, her mother’s voice stopped her.

“Did you find it, Amelia?”

Amelia closed her eyes. “Find what, Mama?”

“The blue ribbon for your bonnet.”

Instead of wringing her hands, Amelia counted to ten. It was a little trick she’d taught herself long ago whenever Mama made her nervous. “No, Mama.” She opened her eyes and shook her head. “They didn’t have the exact shade of blue I was looking for.” She continued up the stairs without looking back to see if Mama appeared to believe that little tidbit.

When the bedchamber door closed behind them, Amelia quickly pulled Hannah into the dressing room to recount the morning’s adventures in a series of loud whispers.

“So, what happens next?” Hannah asked breathlessly, after hearing the entire tale. “What did Mr. Hammond say?”

“He said he’d contact me soon.”

“Contact you soon?”

Amelia shrugged. “It’s not exactly the type of thing one leaves a calling card for, is it?”

“No, I suppose not.” Hannah giggled. “So, what should we do next?”

Amelia smoothed her hands down her skirts. “I thought about it on the ride home and I think the Lexingtons’ country house party next week will be the perfect occasion.”

Hannah’s cheeks turned red. “To…”

Amelia’s cheeks burned too. “Yes.”

Hannah nodded. It was just like the maid to be briskly efficient. “Very well. What would you like me to do?”

Amelia clutched at Hannah’s wrists and stared her in the eyes. “We must convince Mama. Tell her as often as you can how you’ve heard anyone and everyone will be attending the house party next week. She’s already said we’ll go, but I cannot have her changing her mind.”

Hannah nodded. “Consider it done.”

Amelia let out her breath. “Thank you. And I’m sorry to have placed you in such an awful position back there.” She gestured with her chin toward the door. “I should have taken you with
me this morning, I suppose. Only I couldn’t know how Mr. Hammond would react and I didn’t want it to be more uncomfortable than it would be already.”

Hannah gave her a warm smile. “You should have taken
someone
with you.”

Amelia stifled her laugh. “Who? I don’t have any friends. Besides you and Thaddeus, that is.”

Hannah shook her head. “A shame, that.”

Amelia let out a long sigh. She’d had little opportunity to make friends. After Paul’s death, her mother had used her deep pockets and her husband’s connections to Society to secure Amelia a spot in Mrs. Harris’s Finishing School for Refined Young Ladies. It was the most exclusive school in London and while there, Amelia had rubbed elbows with the finest young ladies in the country. But they all kept their distance from Amelia as she was not precisely one of them and her mother strictly forbade her from associating with the young women from her own social strata. As a result, Amelia had become quite lonely and isolated.

“I’m only glad that Mama’s already said you may come with me when I’m married, Hannah.”

Hannah squeezed Amelia’s hand. “I know you didn’t love Lord Colton, but I cannot help but think he was ever so much better than the gentlemen you’re choosing from now. Are you quite sure about this, Miss Amelia?”

Amelia turned around, allowing Hannah to help her off with her pelisse, then she waited patiently for the maid to unbutton the short row of buttons down her back before she slipped out
of her gown.

“It’s true that Lily Morgan may have taken Lord Colton from me, in a manner of speaking, but that lady also gave me an idea.”

Hannah assisted Amelia in pulling her chemise over her head. “An idea? Whatever do you mean?”

“When Lily was married to the Earl of Merrill, he only lived a month beyond the wedding.”

Hannah cocked her head to the side. “But he was old and sick.”

A slow smile spread across Amelia’s face. “Precisely. That’s why I picked Highland, Bartholomew, and Stanford.”

Hannah’s mouth formed a wide
O
. “You cannot mean you wish for your husband to-to d-die?”

“I have no intention of helping it along, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Amelia replied. “But if nature takes its course…” She shrugged. “I’ll be making Mama happy and securing my own freedom at the same time. Once I’m a widow, I can do whatever I want. I shall be entirely free of Mama’s schemes.”

Hannah moved from the dressing room and plumped the pillows on the bed. “If that’s how you feel, then it stands to reason that you would choose—”

“The oldest and sickest of the lot,” Amelia finished.

“The Duke of Stanford,” Hannah breathed.

Amelia allowed the maid to slip the night rail over her head. Her mother always insisted she
take a two-hour nap before she attended a party. Mustn’t have bags under your eyes, Mama would say.

“Precisely.” Amelia slid under the cool sheets that Hannah held back for her.

“Very well. While you’re pretending to nap, I’ll go put a bug in your mother’s ear about the Lexingtons’ house party.”

Amelia relaxed back against the pillows. “And I shall conceive of a way to procure an invitation to the Lexingtons’ house party for Mr. Hammond.” She winked at Hannah. “The perfect opportunity. Where better than a house party to spend an illicit evening with a gentleman?”

Hannah winked back.

“And the Duke of Stanford’s presence will ensure that Mama allows me to attend,” Amelia added.

Hannah stopped in the doorway, hesitant. “Are you quite certain the Lexingtons will agree to invite Mr. Hammond to their house party? I mean”—the maid bit her lip—”he is a ne’er-do-well who owns a boxing saloon, is he not?”

“Indeed he is,” Amelia replied, nestling beneath the soft linen sheets. “But that ne’er-do-well also just happens to be the grandson of a duke.”