To Tame a Dragon (11 page)

The shops changed from milliners to bakers,
the clientele from haute to housewives on errands. They still
gasped when they saw her expression and stayed well out of her
path, though recognition no longer dawned in their eyes. Jameson
wondered if they were to walk all the way home, and if that was
indeed her plan if he should start steering her in the right
direction.

What she needed was a place she could lay
into him, screaming like a fishwife until it was all out of her
system and she felt in control again. Until she could see the
humor of it.

They couldn’t do that at either of their
homes; no servant, no matter how loyal or devoted, could keep
Jameson’s coming tongue-lashing to themselves. And finding a
spot sufficiently empty in London was too dangerous.

But he did know a spot that was so loud she
could scream without anyone hearing her, including him. And the
more he thought of it the better he liked it. He gathered
the courage to pick up his pace and made his way to her side.

“I don’t think all this walking is going to
help, Amelia. What you need is a good place to let it all out
and I have just the ticket, but I will need to call a hansom. I
promise to take you where you can scream at me all you like
without anyone hearing that foul mouth of yours.”

His attempt at humor was perhaps a tad too
early. But despite a reddening in her face and a worrisome
tightening of her fists, she nodded.

He called the first hansom he could find, not
caring that the condition was exceedingly poor nor that the
driver was more than a little inebriated, and ushered her in.

The stench hit him like a fist and he
wordlessly handed her his handkerchief as he settled in the
opposite seat. He breathed shallowly through his mouth and
watched Amelia as she held the cloth to her face. Her green eyes
shot daggers at him.

She took a breath to begin her tirade but she
coughed and gagged into the handkerchief.

He said, “My dear, I am sorry for the stench.
I would recommend waiting until we have reached our
destination.”

He did not think it prudent, and wouldn’t
Amelia be so proud of his judicious use of
that
word, to
mention the stench was likely to be far worse where they were
headed.

They arrived and Jameson escorted her down,
the slap of shouting men, bellowing animals, and putrid air made
her stumble and he kept hold of her arm. Even he, who had been
expecting the chaos and stench of the cattle market, was taken
aback.

He looked for a spot they would be safe from
being trampled, from either man or beast, and kept a tight grip
on Amelia. Ladies did not come to this hell-hole; gentleman very
rarely. They weren’t likely to be seen by anyone that mattered,
and keeping them safe was his first priority.

He would have grinned if he’d dared open his
mouth. Quite obviously his first priority was
not
keeping them safe or he would never have brought her here.

When he found as safe a spot as he could, he
smiled at her, opening his arms wide and inviting her to begin.

Her eyes showed incomprehension for a moment
and then light dawned. A slight smile began to shine in her
eyes, the only part of her face not covered by his handkerchief,
and he couldn’t help but answer it with his own.

And then the laughter died in her eyes and
she began screaming at him.

The sound of the market was indeed deafening
and he was grateful he couldn’t hear her. Her angry, one-handed
gestures were words enough. The angry timbre to her voice was
all he could hear through the handkerchief, and then only
sometimes. He had been right; this place was exactly what she’d
needed. He would enjoy it while it lasted since he doubted he
would ever get her here again.

He watched her in admiration. Never could he
imagine any other woman with such fire in her, such passion. If
she didn’t look as if she wanted to kill him with her bare hands
he would kiss her until all that passion was funneled into a
different outlet entirely.

She lasted far longer than he’d expected with
this stench. Her grievances must have been great indeed; it had
been a trying few weeks for her, after all. But she eventually
wound down and they stood there staring at each other. Her eyes
had lost that diabolical madness and her fists no longer
clenched. All in all, a worthwhile outing.

They had been mostly ignored during her
diatribe, but one man had stood there watching them nearly the
whole time. He sidled up to Jameson and shouted, “I’ll give you
₤25 for her.”

They both turned to look at him and Jameson
nearly laughed aloud. “I couldn’t possibly let her go for less
than ₤100.”

“She’s fancy, I’ll give you that, but looks
to me she’s got a temper on her.”

Amelia looked at him with all the contempt
she could muster, which was not inconsiderable, and turned away,
making her way back to the street and a hopefully waiting
hansom.

Jameson followed her, waving the man off when
he shouted, “What, you’re not selling her then?”

Their hansom was still there, waiting for
them. Jameson had little doubt the driver had slept through the
stench and din and none had bothered to wake him, he and the
carriage were in that bad of condition. Amelia balked when she
saw him heading toward it.

“I will not get back in that hansom.”

Her voice was rough and he wondered if
tomorrow she would have any voice at all. “It is better than
staying here, isn’t it? I believe we will leave it worse than we
found it, and that is quite an accomplishment.”

She sighed but entered the hateful hansom. “I
hate you, Jameson. Truly, and with just cause, hate you.”

“Yes, my dear. But you must admit my valet
will hate me more once he sees what I’ve done to these togs.”

She eyed his trousers and smiled. “Yes. He
will.”

The next morning, Amelia awoke with her
throat on fire and her voice a croak. She sent for tea and
remained in bed.

Yesterday, when Jameson had taken her to the
cattle market, she had nearly laughed aloud at the proud look on
his face. As if he had brought her the greatest treasure in all
the world. And perhaps he had. She
had
needed that
release; she felt quite a bit more cheerful this morning.

She would not think of the dress or the shoes it
had cost her; she had ordered them thrown away and not to be
brought inside under any circumstance. Nor would she recall the
indignity of having to undress down to her unmentionables right
outside the servant’s entrance behind a hastily erected screen.
She had entered the servants’ quarters only a handful of times
and did not think her slinking through it smelling so ripe was
the best way of keeping anybody happy. Herself included.

But she couldn’t for the life of her wish
their little adventure undone. Despite the smell, despite the
damage done to both her clothing and standing with the servants,
despite her aching throat, she could not but smile at the
memory.

She was trying to maintain her anger at the
rapscallion; he had proposed to her on a
dance floor
. But
he made it deuced hard to. She couldn’t help the chuckle that
escaped her whenever she thought of their adventure.

She remembered Jameson had said that she knew
him, that she would have no hopes dashed as any other woman who
dared to marry him. She knew his faults only too well, although
he could on occasion surprise even her. She knew when he needed
reigning in and when he needed to make an ass of himself.

But the opposite held just as true. He knew
all
her
faults, her eccentricities, her bad tempers. He
even knew how to get her out of them.

She smiled again. Then frowned. Then smiled.

There was a happy little place in her heart
that she didn’t want to look at too closely. To know that
someone knew her that well and still liked her, knew all the
dark recesses that were hidden from public view and still chose
her? Not her money, not her connections, but
her
.

And she knew his. All his dark secrets, all
his fears. And she still chose him day after day. Perhaps not as
a husband, because the idea was just silly, but she still had
chosen him as her friend through more drama than either of them
would care to admit. He was right, it was heady knowing someone
knew
you and still loved you.

She had always loved Jameson. She had grown
up trailing him and Robin around and couldn’t remember a time
without him. But for the first time she felt that just maybe
there could be something more than brotherly love. The thought
of marrying him was not quite so distasteful this morning.

Yesterday she had seen a future with a man
who knew her so well he took her to a cattle market and let her
scream at him.

A cattle market!

Wasn’t that just the most imbecilic thing she
had ever heard of.

But the damn smile just would not go away and
she spent the day in as good a mood as she’d ever been.

After a full day to herself, she felt
sufficiently recovered to resume her normal activities. Her
throat and her mood had so improved that she happily received
callers and she greeted the brothers Underwood with a smile. In
the few short weeks since
the fiasco,
she had become the
problem solver for their little family. She had become quite
used to giving opinions and advice on varying subjects and had
enjoyed being listened to so intently. The brothers Underwood
were quite happy not to have any decision at all to worry about;
it went without saying that Amelia enjoyed her role just as
much.

And while they might have come to harangue
her over Jameson’s proposal and what it meant for Clarice, she
doubted it. They weren’t emotionally sophisticated enough for
that.

Amelia invited them to sit but they shook
heads in unison.

“Lady Amelia, we have something to ask you.”

“Something that might surprise you.”

“But we hope you will not be too surprised.”

“Did anyone bring smelling salts?”

Amelia chuckled. “I can not imagine you have
anything so surprising to ask I will require smelling salts. You
did come to me with a question about breeding dogs.”

They nodded. “She does have an iron stomach.”

“Can’t ask for much more in a wife.”

“Well, don’t just blurt it out!”

“You’ve got to ask first!”

Amelia sat back. This
was
a surprise.
She’d had no proposals in weeks and had hardly expected one to
come from this corner. She watched in fascination as they began.

“Lady Amelia, we know that your exalted
station is far above ours.”

“Yet we hope that the warm feelings we hold
for you makes that irrelevant.”

“We can provide a respectable home, and you
may be assured that all our efforts will go toward your
happiness.”

“We most humbly ask for your hand in
marriage.” And they all bowed to her.

Amelia silently looked from one brother to
another, wrapping her brain around this new development, then
said, “I just want to be clear, which one of you is proposing?”

They all blinked as if coming out of a
trance, then looked between themselves. “That’s a good
question.”

“Hadn’t thought of it before.”

“There is only one of her, and four of us.”

“She seems like more.”

They looked back at Amelia, perhaps making
sure there was indeed only one, then huddled together.

“Well, which one of us?”

“Maybe the eldest?”

One of the boys held a hand to his chest and
looked quite startled. Amelia could only assume he was the
eldest.

“What if we draw straws?”

“I second the straws!”

They turned to her in unison.

“You wouldn’t have four straws of varying
lengths available, would you?”

“Or pencils, sticks, bits of something?”

“Dice?”