Martha Schroeder (6 page)

He turned to Miss Forrester with a sense of relief. Here was a woman he could talk to—one who dressed appropriately in something dark with a high neckline. No frills or flirting for Miss Forrester. He could depend on her for rational conversation. Maybe she could bring his mind back to calm and reason.

“Miss Forrester,” he began with a smile, only to be interrupted once again by Sir Richard.

“I hope I see you well, madam.” Sir Richard’s voice had changed. It held a chill as he addressed Jane Forrester. “I had not thought to see you at so frivolous an event.”

To Gideon’s surprise, Miss Forrester flushed a painful red. “Good evening,” she said with an evident effort. “Sir Richard, Captain Falconer.”

A silence slightly too long for good manners ensued, ft was Amelia who broke it. She turned and took Jane’s arm, presenting a united front. “I prevailed upon Jane to waste a perfectly good evening coming here with me so that I might more easily hunt for open purses.” She glanced around the crowded room, as if looking for wealthy acquaintances.

Sir Richard’s eyebrows rose. “Miss Forrester is practicing her skills as a cutpurse, perhaps?”

Amelia laughed, a silvery sound Gideon had long thought identical to the chiming of bells. She had laughed with him a thousand times, but tonight he wondered if she were deliberately enticing Sir Richard with that happy, glinting sound. He found he disliked that thought amazingly.

“Lady Amelia is convinced that if she can but talk to every member of the ton and explain the virtues of charitable giving, every one of them will become the kind of person her father was.” Gideon gave her a wry smile. Amelia’s belief in the perfectibility of mankind was one of the things he liked best about her. Not because he agreed with her—he knew from personal experience how wrong she was—but because it was part of the optimism and large-heartedness that was so much a part of her character, of what gave Amelia her special quality.

She looked at him gravely for a moment, then turned to Sir Richard with a smile. “I am naturally on the hunt for a husband, and I find that a pretense of interest in the less fortunate has gentlemen crowding around me,” she said with heavy irony. She looked around the crowded room, realizing that she risked seeming rude if she stayed at Sir Richard’s side. He was regarded as a catch—good-looking and in line for a marquessate.

Sir Richard laughed. “I can see, Lady Amelia, that you have adopted the views of your friend.” He turned to Jane with an entirely false smile that looked more like a shark baring his teeth, Amelia thought. “It is Miss Forrester who carries the banner of the downtrodden. Do you not, Miss Forrester? I believe you were telling me between the acts at the opera the other night that men who spent their lives killing others ought to make up for their bloodthirsty profession by giving at least a tenth of their wealth to hospitals and missions.” He looked down at Jane’s averted face. “I am correct, am I not. Miss Forrester? A tenth was the sum you suggested?”

Goaded, Jane raised her eyes to his. “You found me officiously meddlesome, Sir Richard. I plead guilty. It would have been sufficient simply to tell me so, however.” She looked away, surveying the room as if looking for escape.

Amelia stared at her friend. She had never seen Jane put out of countenance, yet she was now flushed with anger, her hands clenched at her sides and her eyes hot with misery. Angrily Amelia turned to Sir Richard. “And you, sir, do you believe that killing is sufficient public service, that charity would be superfluous?”

He smiled at her, a smile at once charming and cynical. “Why, Lady Amelia, I do believe you are as much of a reformer as Miss Forrester.”

Amelia inclined her head. “I have that honor, sir.”

Gideon looked at the threesome and frowned. It was really quite simple, he thought. One did what one was capable of doing to alleviate suffering, especially of children, and one did it in secret, with as little fuss as possible. He had happened upon a church once when he was a child on the streets and had heard the gospel story of Jesus recommending that one do good by stealth. The minister in that nonconformist church had given Gideon a crust of bread and told him to stay and wait for the parish council to take him to the workhouse. Gideon had run away, of course, but he had taken the bread and the story with him. He had been sorry but not surprised that the minister had not acted like a saint.

Now Gideon interrupted his friends with barely concealed annoyance. “Even I know that such intense conversation has no place at a social function. We must laugh and wait to drink the champagne that should be forthcoming soon, and act as if we have not a care in the world. I am the one noted for displaying an unbecoming seriousness at a party. Anyone watching you would think you had learned your manners from me instead of the other way around.” His faint smile almost took the sting from his words.

Amelia tucked her hand into his arm and said, “Let us simply leave these two to argue to their hearts’ content.” She led Gideon away from the small alcove where they had been standing. “In order to pry money out of these people, I must talk to them. So we will stroll about the edges of the room and see if I can ensnare any unsuspecting peers in my net.”

Gideon looked down at her. She was only joking, of course, but somehow hearing Amy talk of ensnaring gentlemen made the muscles between his shoulders bunch and clench beneath his sober evening coat.

“Why are you frowning, Gideon? You knew this was my reason for coming this evening.” Amy’s eyes challenged his.

Gideon couldn’t lie to her. “I do not like to hear you talk thus. It—it makes you sound as if you are trying to trap—as if you are, in fact, looking for the husband you insist you do not want.” He knew his face was stern, his brows drawn together in the look he sometimes gave to a recalcitrant subaltern. “Your father would not—

“Gideon, I wish you would strive to remember that I am four and twenty and perfectly capable of leading my own life. I do not need—” She stared daggers at him.

As angry as she was, Amelia looked beautiful at that moment with her cheeks stained with rose and an angry glitter in her enormous blue eyes. Her bosom rose and fell rapidly as she struggled to keep her emotions under control. A lady did not engage in angry exchanges in the middle of a rout, and Gideon knew that she was embarrassed by her loss of poise. A strange warm clutching feeling in the vicinity of his heart warned him that strong emotion—something he banished routinely from his life—was about to cause him some difficulty.

It often happened that way when he was with Amelia, or sometimes when he even thought of her. He straightened his spine and drew in his breath. The battle against strong feeling was one he had fought ail his life. The rage he had felt as a child would have gotten him killed had he given full rein to it. A few bad beatings had taught him the price of emotion, and it was a lesson he had learned well. Only in battle could he afford to give full rein to his anger and his love of combat. Control, complete icy command of himself under all other circumstances, had saved his life and kept him sane throughout his military career as well as in his early days on the streets.

“I am simply trying to help Jane raise money for her school. She refuses to let me underwrite it completely.” Her voice trembled but he could see angry sparks still gleam in her eyes. The combination of vulnerability and bravery made the warm tide of emotion threaten him again and once more he beat it down.

“Really?” Gideon crossed his arms on his chest and fixed her with a dark gaze. “What Miss Jane Forrester has to do and what Lady Amelia Bradshaw ought to do are two very different things, and you know it.”

They might have stood toe-to-toe and argued all night if a handsome young man in an elaborately embroidered satin waistcoat had not stopped and smiled at Amelia. She greeted him as if he were her dearest friend, laughed and chatted and introduced him as Percival Sturdevant, and then, under Gideon’s glowering eye, she calmly walked off with him.

“You really must try to hide your emotions if you plan to go about in Society, Captain.” Sir Richard’s voice, light and humorous, reached him from someplace far away, although the colonel stood only a few feet away. All of Gideon’s concentration had been focused on Amelia and her escort, as if by keeping them in view as they walked away he could somehow stay linked to her.

“What emotions?”

Sir Richard’s knowing smile made Gideon’s anger flare. It grew even hotter when Sir Richard replied, “Those emotions you seem to reserve for Lady Amelia alone. The ones that are causing you to glare at poor Sturdevant’s back as if you would like to plant a knife there.”

“Is he a fortune hunter?” Gideon asked abruptly.

“No. He’s not outrageously rich, mind you, but he’s certainly plump enough in the pocket to afford a wife.” Sir Richard raised an eyebrow. “You look disappointed.”

Gideon gestured impatiently. “Is that Miss Forrester talking so earnestly with Lady Maltby over there?”

“Yes, indeed. She, too, is spending the evening trying to talk to people about giving money to her school for superannuated virgins, or whoever they may be.” Sir Richard spoke with his usual acidity but with somewhat less than his usual detachment.

Gideon looked about the crowded room and felt more stifled and breathless than he had in the heat of an Iberian summer. Suddenly it all rushed in upon him—the heat and overpowering scent of fresh flowers and stale perfume, the high-pitched sound of a hundred voices raised in gossip and laughter. He turned toward the tall windows that lined one wall of the long reception room, hoping to find a breath of cold air if he could get near.

“How do you people stand it? The noise is like peacocks screeching, and there is no air in this room.”

“Lady Amelia is over by the long windows.” Sir Richard interrupted him. “Still talking to Sturdevant. Shouldn’t think he’d want to spare much for the widows and orphans.”

Gideon glared at him, resenting both the fact that Amy seemed to be so fascinated by that fribble in the waistcoat and the slighting way Sir Richard spoke of the orphans Gideon held secretly so dear. His friends were behaving with uncharacteristic bad manners—Amelia flirting, Sir Richard mocking the poor, and Miss Forrester monopolizing Lady Maltby, who was clearly trying to escape.

Without replying to Sir Richard, Gideon made his way toward Amelia, who was smiling up at Percival Sturdevant. She spoke but Gideon was still too far away to hear what was said. Sturdevant seemed to find whatever it was delightful, for he bent his head nearer to hers and laughed. Gideon clenched his fists. He started forward when Sturdevant quickly unlatched one of the long windows. Amelia smiled and laid her hand on his arm. Together they stepped out onto the moonlit terrace.

“Careful, old man,” Sir Richard, who had kept pace with him, said. “You look ready to do murder.lt won’t do, you know. If you storm out there, you will cause very unpleasant gossip. She is perfectly safe. There are at least ten other couples taking the air as well as several chaperons.”

Gideon scarcely heard him. He could see Sturdevant take Amelia’s hand and raise it to his lips. A roaring filled Gideon’s ears, and he covered the few feet of parquet floor between him and the door in one long stride.

“Gideon!” Amelia said happily, with a sweet smile. “I am so glad you are here. Mr. Sturdevant has agreed to give fifty pounds to Jane’s school. Is that not wonderful?”

“Wonderful, indeed,” Gideon responded dryly. “I assume that such munificence is the result of a great desire to talk with you at length about the education of the poor.”

Amelia smiled, but Mr. Sturdevant flushed to the roots of his hair. It was obvious that Gideon’s sarcasm regarding the young man’s motives had found its mark.

“I think it is wonderful of Lady Amelia to try to do good,” Sturdevant said earnestly. “She is an angel.”

The look of adoration he turned on Amelia caused Gideon to clench his fists. The silly young clunch! Of course, Amelia was an angel. She was
his
angel, his personal savior. That she worked for others was part of what made her Amelia, but that work was done in conjunction with Gideon. Together they endowed schools to educate poor children in the worst sections of London.

“Oh, really, Mr. Sturdevant,” Amelia began.

“Nonsense, Sturdevant. It will hardly do Lady Amelia’s campaign any good at all for her to be known as some sort of heavenly being. No one thinks an angel needs help.” Gideon spoke in the unnatural tone of an elderly family friend. The tone Amelia had objected to before. She was clearly no happier about it now.

“Gideon, if Mr. Sturdevant thinks I am angelic, I wish you would refrain from disillusioning him.” She smiled at him, but Gideon could see the hint of steel behind the pleasantry.

“Oh, he couldn’t,” Percival Sturdevant said. “No one could disillusion me about you, Lady Amelia.” He took her hand. “I should very much like to call on you and to see Miss Forrester’s school as well. Would tomorrow be acceptable?”

He was as eager and enthusiastic as a puppy, Gideon thought. How young he seemed. Almost as young as Gideon himself had seemed when he had first appeared at Horse Guards with his brand-new commission.

“Tomorrow will be splendid, Mr. Sturdevant.” Amelia turned her back on Gideon. “Until then.” She gave Mr. Sturdevant her hand. When he had bowed and left, she wheeled again to face Gideon. “What in the world has gotten into you, Gideon?” She had begun to walk away, when Jane appeared.

But this was a Jane Amelia scarcely recognized. Her tall, commanding presence had somehow shrunk, and her face was pasty. “I am feeling very ill,” she said abruptly. “I fear I will have to go home now. Please do not think you need to accompany me. I will have a servant call a hackney.” The words seemed somehow to have been jerked out of her.

“Nonsense, we will go together. I have obtained a pledge of fifty pounds. That is victory enough for one night.” Amelia took her friend’s arm. “Would you see us home, Gideon?” She gave him a look that told him she was sure he would always come to her aid.

“Of course I will see you home.” Gideon’s heart lifted. When she needed help, Amelia turned to her oldest, truest friend.