Author: Tessa Dare

Amelia quietly reeled on her feet, simultaneously infuriated and exhilarated by the way he’d so easily lifted her and carried her from the room. She wasn’t precisely a wisp of a girl. But as sturdily framed as she was, he was definitely more so. As he’d lifted her, she’d felt his dense shoulder muscles rippling beneath her palms.

Oh, yes. He was powerfully built indeed.

Well, and what now? She’d known she was treading untested ground with her bold teasing. But then, she’d been in the mood to take risks. She’d already lost Briarbank, lost Jack, probably lost any remaining marital prospects after her wild charge across the ballroom to claim His Grace’s hand. She had no reputation or fortune left to protect; why not have a little fun? He was an attractive, enigmatic, powerful man. It had been intoxicating, pushing the boundaries of propriety as she’d never dared before, not knowing what manner of response she might provoke.

Whatever response she’d expected, it hadn’t been this. Bodily abducted from the ballroom? Ha. Let those debutantes giggle at her now.

“And to think,” she said wonderingly, “I defended you against all those rumors of barbarism.”

“Did you?” He made a gruff noise in his throat. “I hope you’ve learned your lesson. Don’t test me again. In the end, I always come out ahead—at cards, at negotiation, at everything.”

She laughed. “Oh, do you?”

“Yes.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Because I possess the singular bit of sense no one in your family seems to share.”

“And what’s that, pray tell?”

“I know when to walk away.”

She stared at him. Light spilled out from the ballroom, illuminating his sculpted, aristocratic profile. With his curling forelock and the marble behind him, he could have been part of a Greco-Roman frieze. Immortally handsome.

And deathly pale.

“Are you feeling well?” she asked.

“Four hundred pounds.”

“What?”

He closed his eyes. “Four hundred pounds, if you leave me this instant. You’ll have the bank draft in the morning.”

Stunned, she blinked down at the paving stones. Four hundred pounds. Four hundred pounds, and all she need do was turn around and leave? Jack’s debt, paid. Her summer at Briarbank, restored.

“Turn those hapless d’Orsay fortunes around, Lady Amelia. Learn when to walk away.”

Good Lord. He was serious. She spared herself a brief moment of self-deprecating irony, that while he wouldn’t think of paying four hundred pounds for her favors, he was eager to hand over the sum if she would simply go away. Vile man.

Oh, but his face had turned a very peculiar shade. In the ballroom, his cheeks had blazed red with anger, but now his complexion was the color of ash. She could hear the air dragging in and out of his lungs. And was it a trick of the moonlight, or was his hand trembling, just a little, where it rested atop the balustrade?

If he were unwell, to simply desert him … it would be to abandon every good principle her dear parents had taught her. She would be selling her conscience and good breeding for four hundred pounds.

And there were some things on which one could not put a price.

She took a step toward him. “Truly, you look very ill. Why don’t you allow me to get you some—”

“No. I’m perfectly well.” He pushed off the marble pillar and paced the terrace perimeter, taking deep draughts of night air. “My sole affliction is a plaguing female in blue silk.”

“There’s no need to be rude. I’m trying to be helpful.”

“I don’t need your help.” He swiped impatiently at his damp temple with his cuff. “I’m not ill.”

“Then why are you so pale?” Amelia shook her head. “Why is it a man would rather swallow nails than accept a lady’s assistance? And for pity’s sake, can’t a duke afford handkerchiefs?”

She unlaced the reticule cinched around her wrist. Now emptied of coin, it was so light she’d nearly forgotten the thing altogether. She loosened the string and withdrew the sole item remaining within: a meticulously embroidered linen square.

She took a moment to admire the stitching she’d finished just a few days ago. Her initials, in dark purple script. Twining around and through the open spaces of the letters, she’d embroidered vines and, in a lighter green, a few curled ferns. A stroke of pure whimsy had spurred her to add a tiny black-and-gold honeybee, buzzing around the apex of the A.

It was, perhaps, her best work yet. And now this treasured, labored-over bit of linen would go to wipe His Grace’s noble brow? Just how much would she be forced to surrender on this terrace? Her brother, her home, her last small accomplishment. What was left? She half expected Napoleon to pop out from the hedges and demand her allegiance.

“Morland.” The curt baritone sounded from the shadows.

Amelia jumped.

The voice spoke again: low, rough. To her relief, most definitely English. “Morland, is that you?”

The duke straightened. “Who goes there?”

A rustling of greenery indicated the stranger’s approach. Impetuously, Amelia went to the duke’s side and pressed her handkerchief into his hand. He looked from her to the square of linen, and then back to her again.

She shrugged. Perhaps it was silly, but … it was simply that he was one of England’s great men, and she did come from one of England’s historically great families, and she just couldn’t allow him to face an unknown challenge looking as if he’d succumbed to malaria. Not when she clutched a perfectly clean handkerchief in her hand.

“Thank you,” he said, hastily wiping his brow and jamming the linen square into his coat pocket as not one, but two men emerged from behind the hedge and vaulted the low rail at the edge of the terrace. The duke edged between her and the strange men. It was a chivalrous, reassuring gesture. She did not regret the handkerchief now.

The strangers stood outside the half-circle of available light, so that Amelia could not make out their features. She saw only two silhouettes: one fashionable, one fearsome.

“Morland. It’s Bellamy.” This came from the fashionable one. “And I know you’ve met Ashworth,” he said, indicating the giant at his side.

The duke stiffened. “Certainly. We’re old school chums, aren’t we, Rhys?”

No answer from the hulking shadow.

“We’ve been waiting for you to make your escape,” Bellamy said, “but we can’t delay any longer. You must come with us at once.”

“Come with you? Why?”

“We’ll tell you in the carriage.”

“Tell me now, and I shall decide if I join you in any carriage.”

“Club business,” Bellamy said.

He eased into the light, and Amelia peered at him. Ah, now she understood why his name was familiar. His face was familiar to her, too. And there was no mistaking the shock of artfully disheveled hair. He was that infamous hell-raiser, the ringleader of that fast group of young bucks Jack would give his eyeteeth to join. The group he’d lost four hundred pounds trying to keep pace with. Was Bellamy involved in that token nonsense, too?

“Club business?” Morland said. “Do you mean the Stud Club?”

Amelia barely checked an unladylike snort of laughter. Stud Club, indeed. Men and their ridiculous societies.

“Yes, we’re calling an urgent meeting,” Bellamy said. “And since you’re now seven-tenths of the membership, you’re required to attend.”

“Is it Osiris?” the duke asked, his voice suddenly grave. “If something’s happened to that horse, I—”

The tower called Ashworth broke his silence. “It’s not the horse. Harcliffe’s dead.”

The bottom dropped out of Amelia’s stomach.

“For Christ’s sake, Ashworth,” said Bellamy. “There’s a lady present.”

“Harcliffe?” she echoed. “Dead? As in Leopold Chatwick, the Marquess of Harcliffe?” As in, the boy who’d been raised a half-day’s ride from Beauvale Castle and gone to school with her older brothers? The golden-haired, fine-featured, good-humored, and universally admired young man who’d been so kind as to dance with her at her come-out ball? Not just once, as the obligation of friendship warranted, but two full sets? “Surely you don’t mean Leo?”

Bellamy stepped forward, tapping his gold-knobbed walking stick on the paving stones as he went. “I’m sorry.”

Amelia’s hand went to her mouth. “Oh, poor Lily.”

“You know his sister?”

She nodded. “A little.”

The duke seemed to recall his social duty, as the only person present acquainted with all parties. “Lady Amelia d’Orsay, this is Mr. Julian Bellamy.” His voice darkened a shade as he introduced the larger man. “And that’s Rhys St. Maur, Lord Ashworth.”

“Under any other circumstance, I’m sure I would be delighted.” Amelia inclined her head. “May I ask, how is Lily coping with her grief?”

“She has not yet been informed of Leo’s death,” Bellamy said. “That’s why we’ve come for you, Morland. As the remaining members of the Stud Club, we have an obligation to her.”

“We do?”

“Yes, we do.”

“What sort of obligation? Imposed by whom?”

“It’s in the code. The Stud Club Code of Good Breeding. As your interest obviously lies purely in the horse and not in the club’s spirit of fraternity, I don’t suppose you’ve taken the care to acquaint yourself with it.”

“I’ve never even heard of such a thing,” said Morland. He looked to Ashworth. “Have you?”

The larger man remained cloaked in shadow, but Amelia could tell that he shook his head in the negative.

“There is a code,” Bellamy said impatiently. “And you are both subject to it. Else you must forfeit your interest in the Club entirely. Now come along, both of you. We must inform Lily of her brother’s death.”

“Wait,” Amelia said. “I’ll go with you.”

“No,” the three men said in unison. They looked around at one another, as if surprised to find themselves in agreement.

“Yes,” she argued back. “Yes, I will. Lily’s parents are no longer living. Leo was her only family, correct?”

“Correct,” Bellamy said. “Unfortunately.”

“Well, you gentlemen may have your clubs and tokens and codes of honor, but we ladies have our sisterhood. And I will not allow the three of you to go trampling Lily’s feelings like so many elephants. Tonight, she will learn that her only brother has died and she is alone in the world. She will need understanding, comfort, a shoulder to cry upon. And I refuse to let her suffer through it alone, while you three dolts stand around, arguing the finer points of your asinine club and its asinine code.”

There was a prolonged silence, during which Amelia began to regret a few of her words. Such as “dolt,” applied to two peers of the realm. And the uninspired repetition of “asinine.” But she would not apologize for the sentiment, and she would not be left behind. She knew what it was to lose a brother. She knew what it was to walk down that particular alley of Hell all alone. What she would not have given for Mama’s presence on the day they came about Hugh.

At last, the duke spoke. “We will take my carriage. It’s readied, and I have the finest team.”

“My bays are warm,” said Bellamy.

Morland firmed his jaw. “I have the finest team. Anywhere.”

A deferential silence followed. It hadn’t even been a command, but with those few words the duke had asserted absolute control of the situation. If he had been feeling ill, he now appeared fully recovered.