Martha Schroeder (5 page)

Stung, Gideon bowed stiffly. “Perhaps I had best take my leave in that case.”

Amelia reached out her hand. Under the fine broadcloth, Gideon’s arm was hard as steel. She sighed. Sometimes his head seemed almost that hard.

“Gideon, do try to remember that this is Amelia, not some little Society miss who has not the least idea how to go on without her darling Papa or brother dear to guide her.” Exasperation mounted as she saw the stubborn, wooden look on his face.

When Gideon assumed that mask, nothing short of a direct command from a superior officer would change his course of action.

“I never thought that of you,” he said stiffly. “I have every respect for your abilities, Amy, you know that.”

“Well, I thought I did.” Amelia removed her hand from his arm and moved away to stand before the window looking out over the back gardens. “Bui all this sudden talk of husbands as necessary appendages sounds as if you have begun to doubt me.” The trees were bare, and the flower beds raked and mulched for the winter. Amelia shivered a little as a sudden feeling of cold and emptiness swept over her.

She could feel Gideon behind her. “It isn’t that,” he said, his voice filled with concern. “I worry, I suppose, because of Eustace—and all the other Eustaces out there waiting for a chance at a beautiful, unprotected girl.”

“I am quite capable of discerning who is interested in me and who cares only for my fortune.” Was she a victim? Was that how Gideon saw her? Amelia’s sense of wintry desolation grew.

“I know that.” His short, crisp words told her Gideon was annoyed. “But persuasion is not the only tool of a man desperate for money.”

Amelia turned away from the dead landscape to look at her friend, smiling at his worried expression. “Gideon, you have a very melodramatic mind. I know one hears of young girls seduced into marriage, but—”

“Seduction?” Gideon’s expression changed. His eyes, as he looked down at her, held an arrested look, as if he were grappling with a new idea.

Amelia felt her face heat. This was not a subject she and Gideon had ever even flirted with before. She was not sure how to answer him. “Well,” she temporized, “one does hear of such things. But I am not a foolish girl, someone who could be swept away by sweet words and—and—”
Do not be missish!
she told herself firmly. “And passion.” She took a deep breath. “I am never less than sensible, Gideon, you know that,” she said firmly, hoping it was true.

He smiled down at her. Gideon’s smile, so different from the social smiles he had perfected over the years, was rarely given, but when it was directed at her it never failed to lift Amelia’s heart. It transformed his face, giving it an easy charm he otherwise never displayed. It always made Amelia long to give him whatever he needed to make that confidence and happy ease permanent.

Helplessly, she smiled back at him. “Please tell me you know I am a sensible female long past the age of foolish indiscretions.”

“Of course you are sensible. And you are your father’s daughter, so you would never care for someone ... unworthy.” Gideon’s smile faded as he took her hand in his large, calloused one. “But you are also intrepid, and so I worry about your safety. Perhaps I have no reason to feel as I do, but nevertheless please humor me. I will remain as close to you as my duties, and Society, will permit. I am at your command, Amelia. For anything, at any time.”

Her heart lifted. Gideon was not angry. “Thank you,” she said. “I don’t know what I would do if you were not my friend.”

The word hung between them. Always before it had warmed her heart to be Gideon’s friend. It had felt like an accolade, a prize won by very few. Now, somehow, something seemed to be missing, but as she held out her hand and watched him smile again, she became even more mystified as to what it could be. She scolded herself. She had Gideon’s regard. He was her friend and always would be. Surely that was all she needed or wanted.

“Amy, you know that you are all the world to me.” His voice was deep and rough as if he struggled with some strong emotion. Amelia’s heart beat faster. “You are all that is left of your father, and as his only child, you are my special care and concern.”

Amelia felt her smile freeze and every warm thought congeal in her breast. She was to be taken to the opera and called upon, rescued from obnoxious relatives and kept safe from fortune hunters. His benefactor’s daughter. Her heart shriveled.

“I appreciate your kindness, Gideon.” She extended her hand with a formal smile. “But I hope that I will not have to

presume upon your good nature too much. I am sure that I can find a few friends who will not find it onerous to escort me here and there. I would not have it said that I hung upon your sleeve.” She managed to meet his eyes, hoping that her anger and hurt did not show. “I will release you from your promise to escort me to Lady Maltby’s soiree this evening. Jane and I will do very well by ourselves.”

He looked down at her gravely. “I would take it very much amiss if you were to break our engagement for this evening. Sir Richard has assured me that he plans to come and engage you and Miss Forrester in conversation, thus avoiding the marriageable young ladies Lady Maltby plans to parade in front of him. You must not disappoint us.”

Amelia nodded briefly. “I thank you for your concern, Gideon. I will be ready when you return.”
But I will find companions of my own when we arrive. I am not so old-cattish that I cannot find a few gentlemen who wish to know me, not my fortune!

Gideon left, wondering why Amelia had withdrawn from him. He always knew when she was angry with him. She would pull away from him, and he swore he could feel cold air when she became formal and chilly with him. Without the warmth of Amy’s special care, he felt bereft and alone as he had when he had lived on the streets all those years ago. He resolved to be as amiable as the uncongenial role of guest at an evening party would allow him to be.

Chapter Four

Gideon sighed as he arranged his cravat that same evening. He had attended two musicales and an opera during the past week, and tonight was going to appear at a rout given by one of the ton’s aspiring hostesses. Gideon loved music. As a result, musicales, where both professionals and amateurs appeared were torture to him. The professional artists were drowned out by the chatter of the audience, and the young ladies who tried to perform on harp or pianoforte were usually without a grain of talent.

The opera was a slight improvement. He had escorted Amelia and Miss Forrester, and they had been blessedly silent. Amy played no instrument. She often laughingly explained that her music instructor had told her father he would not take money under false pretenses, no one could teach her to play. But he had taught her to appreciate music. It was clear that the opera was a rare treat for Miss Forrester.

He surveyed himself in the small shaving mirror, which was all his rooms provided. His dark hair was tidy, the natural wave ruthlessly subdued. His cravat was crisp and still reasonably comfortable. He glanced down at the rest of his sober evening dress and turned away, ready to suffer yet another evening attempting to keep Amy safe.

Gideon knew he was accepted only up to a certain point in the world of the ton. He was invited to the larger parties, those where there would be no dancing. Mothers and fathers of marriageable young girls did not want their darlings losing their hearts to ineligible young men of unknown birth, no matter how handsome or dashing they might be.

Ordinarily, he avoided the entertainments offered by Society’s hostesses, but Amelia was rich and beautiful and Eustace was not the only fortune hunter who would seek her hand and estate. Thus Gideon must be her protector, because he alone would guard her with his life. It almost seemed to him that the duke, who had left him in his will a sum sufficient to provide him with a tidy competence, had done so in order to insure that the heretofore ineligible Captain Falconer would have entree into at least the outer courts of Society’s temple.

Since the places where fortune hunters could meet beautiful young heiresses were the haunts of the Haut Ton, Gideon realized he would have to put in an appearance at as many of these functions as he could arrange invitations to.

So he prepared for another evening of being ogled by matrons seeking excitement outside their marriage vows, giggled at by chits who thought he must be exciting because he was ineligible, and greeted as if he were contagious by matrons with daughters to marry off. In short, an evening as stifling and dull as could be envisioned. For no one but Amy would he have endured it.

Fortunately, he had enlisted the aid of Sir Richard in his duties; otherwise, he would have been helpless to know who was genuinely captivated by Amelia’s charm and goodness and who was in need of her fortune. Sir Richard’s knowledge of the ton was immense. He viewed everyone through a lens of cynicism, but his judgment was infallible. He knew who was solvent and who needed an infusion of gold, who was a true gentleman and who required marriage as a disguise for other less reputable activities. Gideon told him, with the humor that was a recent part of their relationship, that had he not been in the military he would have undoubtedly been an arbiter of the ton.

“The Beau Nash of the London Season,” he had said, naming the dandy who had virtually dictated the social life of Bath for many years.

Sir Richard had winced. “I hope I’m not so frivolous. But if you mean that I no longer have any illusions about Society and am experienced enough to know how right I am in that view, then you are correct.”

Gideon sighed. He had never harbored any such illusions. The ton was the froth on the surface of life. Underneath, where most of the world dwelled, where he had once lived, life was not composed of parties and routs and gossip. He despised the ton. He could not help it. He hated wasting one single evening doing the pretty and being regarded as an exhibit from a raree-show—the duke’s gypsy ward.

Squaring his shoulders, he went off to repay in some small measure the immeasurable debt he owed the late Duke of Doncaster by safeguarding his daughter.

* * * *

Jane Forrester looked around the crowded, overheated rooms of the Countess of Bedlington’s rout. It was a sad crush and even Jane realized that meant the occasion was a success. She glanced down at her simple, dark blue silk dress and hated the fact that she was aware for one single moment of how frumpish and out of place she looked. Her life was concerned with more important issues. She did not care how she looked at a ton party. Her fists clenched. Of course she did not.

“Why did you insist that I come tonight, Amy?” she whispered sharply in her companion’s ear. “I am as out of place as a pig in a palace.”

“Nonsense.” Amelia looked at her friend. “You of all people know how little appearances matter. But if you feel that way, you should have let me transform you into a stylish beauty. It would have been fun and would have been far easier than you think with your height and presence and gorgeous hair. You must let yourself unbend and enjoy a few frivolities, my dear. It is sometimes the only way to bear the misery we see around us.”

Gideon approached them, a small smile touching his lips at the sight of them. He reached them as Amelia said, “Sir Richard Sinclair is also being pressed into service this evening. I sometimes think Gideon believes Sir Richard would be a good husband for me.”

Gideon stood as if” turned to stone. Angrily he told himself not to be stupid, that he should welcome Amy’s thought of Sir Richard as a possible suitor. She had done nothing but protest that she had absolutely no need for a husband. Why, when she had finally shown some slight interest in marriage, did he grow angry at the very thought? Amy should marry. It would keep her safe, give her a family to care for

He knew better than anyone how important a family could be. He had felt its absence for as long as he could remember. At one time he had pretended that the duke and Amelia were his family, but he had known it was only a boy’s fantasy. Lady Amelia Bradshaw was not for him. From the moment when, as a ragged, starving gutter rat, he had first beheld that golden, angelic dream of a girl he had known just how far above him she was. The world did not regard him as half as ineligible as he himself did.

But that some other man, even one as fine as Sir Richard, should take that place in her life was like a knife in his heart. He knew he had her devotion. He would have it forever—as she would have his. Yet her marriage would make that close bond inappropriate. Even the thought of that loss hurt amazingly. Fortunately, military training gave one a fixed and immobile expression that hid anger in a ballroom as effectively as it did fear on a battlefield. He went toward Amelia with a glance as calm and apparently disinterested as any he had cast toward the French cavalry.

“Lady Amelia,” he said, bowing slightly, “I fear that I return with my mission aborted. The waiter assured me that more champagne will be available soon, but for now there is none.”

“Thank you, Gideon.” She smiled happily, looking glad to be in his company. How would she look at Sir Richard when he came?

Her smile softened, seemed intended for Gideon alone. It held a hint of mischief, almost of flirtation. “You have suffered so much boredom in the past few days and weeks at Horse Guards and doing the pretty with me. I wonder how you have borne it. Has anything amused you?”

“I have enjoyed the music. And I wished to see how those in the upper ten thousand actually conduct themselves at play.” He looked at her with disfavor. When had she begun to flirt? When had she developed the habit of fashionable clothing? The pale green dress she was wearing hugged her slender body much too closely. He could see the way it positively caressed her breasts—

“You are looking very lovely this evening, Lady Amelia.” Sir Richard’s voice broke into Gideon’s entirely inappropriate thoughts. The older man bowed over Amelia’s hand, and Gideon found himself feeling alone and frozen out. Was Sir Richard the man who would win Amelia’s hand? Surely, as his friend, Gideon should wish him nothing but success. Two friends marrying should bring him nothing but joy. But he did not feel joy. Instead he recognized anger. Jealousy. Unreasonable emotions. The kind he did not allow himself.