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The give and the take of an agreement. Again Daniel Wylde looked at her as if waiting for her to speak. Did he imagine she might stand up and negate all that her father had so carefully planned? Montcliffe had seen just exactly what those who might hurt her father were capable of. Lord, she brought her hand up and felt the scar just beneath the heavy wig at her nape. It still throbbed sometimes in the cold and the headaches had never quite abated.
‘After the nuptials we will repair to my family seat north of Barnet.’
‘No!’ It was the first real alarm Amethyst had felt. ‘I need to be close to Papa and as he is retiring to Dunstan House then this is where I should like us to live...’
‘I am certain we can work something out, my dear.’ Her father now, placating such an outburst.
Again she shook her head, the pulse of her blood beating fast. ‘I want to add a condition that I may live at Dunstan House, though if the Earl wishes to reside at Montcliffe Manor, then he may.’
‘Difficult to fulfil the clause of mutual cohabitation for a full two years if that is the case, Miss Cameron.’ His voice held a timbre of irony.
The clause her father had insisted upon. She glared at Robert, but kept her silence and was unexpectedly rescued by the very one she thought she would not be.
‘It does not signify. We will reside wherever you wish to.’ The Earl’s tone was slightly bored. An unwanted wife. An unwelcomed cohabitation. Easier just to take the money and acquiesce.
‘Then that is settled.’ Her father, on the contrary, looked pleased with himself. The thought that perhaps he had over-exaggerated his own illness came to Amethyst’s mind, but she dismissed this in the face of his extreme thinness. ‘We shall ask if the children from Gaskell Street can be a part of the choir...’
‘A small and simple wedding would be better, Papa.’
‘I agree.’ Lord Montcliffe spoke again. ‘My family, however, are proponents of the High Anglican faith.’
‘Then you bring your man of God and the service can be shared.’ Papa had hit his stride now and the Earl looked to have no answer to such an unconventional solution. In fact, he looked plainly sick.
‘A good solution, I think,’ Robert went on to say. ‘Then we can all be assured that you will be most properly married.’ Standing after such a pronouncement, he walked to the door. ‘But now I shall leave you alone for a few moments. I am sure there are things you might wish to say to one another without my presence to inhibit you.’
Amethyst glanced away, her father’s words embarrassing and inappropriate. What could the Earl and she possibly have to talk about when there was a palpable distrust in the air? Usually Papa was more astute at reading the feelings of others and seldom acted in a manner that she found disconcerting.
When the door closed behind him, softly pulled shut inch by inch, Lord Montcliffe looked straight at her.
‘Why would you agree to this charade, Miss Cameron?’
She asked him another question quickly back. ‘Did you love your father, my lord?’
He looked perplexed as he answered, ‘No.’
That threw her momentarily, but she made herself continue on. ‘Well then, I think you must understand that I truly do love mine. Father, I mean.’ Her voice shook. She was making a hash of this. ‘Papa is ill and his one and only wish is to see me well protected and cared for. He is so ill that I fear—’ She stopped, the words too shocking to say.
‘Then why choose me in particular?’ The tone of his fury was recognisable.
‘You liked horses and you made it your business to save Papa from the attack in the alley when you could have so easily just gone on. I do not wish for a mean husband or an inconsiderate one, you understand. Also the army has made you strong. Another advantage, if you like.’
‘A trade-off, then? Like the timber your father imports?’
‘Exactly.’ This was turning out to be a lot easier than she had hoped.
‘Damn.’ He swore and reached forward to tip her face up to his own.
‘Are you truly as cold-blooded as that, Miss Cameron?’ His green eyes narrowed as if he was listening for an answer and Amethyst was simply caught in the unexpected warmth of them. Paralysed. The darker green rim was threaded with gold.
‘So there is no more to this agreement than the plain and blunt terms of commerce?’ He let her go as she twisted away, uncertain of the words that he was saying and even more uncertain of her own reaction to them.
‘If my father had not been ailing, I should not even be thinking of a betrothal, my lord, but he is fearful and fidgety and the doctor had made it clear that unless he relaxes and stops worrying...’ She swallowed, her bottom lip wobbling. ‘Your estate is falling into pieces about your feet and my father is dying. Our alliance should stave off the consequences of them both, yours for ever, and mine even for just a while. A business proposition, my lord, to suit us both.’
* * *
He turned away and walked to the window. No woman had ever spoken to him so plainly before. Usually the opposite sex fawned about him, the wiles of femininity well practised and honed and saying all that they thought he wished to hear.
Miss Amethyst Amelia Cameron seemed to possess none of these qualities and he was at a loss to know how to proceed.
‘So I could have been anyone?’
When she did not answer, he added, ‘Anyone with a dubious fiscal base and a strong military background?’
She looked over at him then with the directness that was so much part of her, a frown marring her forehead. ‘You needed to be unmarried, of course, and not too old.’ He was about to speak when she took a breath and carried on further. ‘I also sincerely hope that I have not taken you from the arms of someone you love, for if that is the case I should absolve you from all the agreements between us. As a measure of good faith we would throw in the greys as a means to buy your silence on such a sensitive matter.’
He swore again and she flinched. The worth of the greys would not begin to cover the debts of Montcliffe.
‘Why did you not choose a man you have some tendre for or one you had at least some notion of?’ While she was being so brutally frank he thought he might at least discover something of the woman he would be tied to.
Her hand went to brush away the hair from around her face in a feminine and uncertain gesture. Against the window and in the light of a harsh afternoon sun she looked almost beautiful, a strong loveliness that was not much lauded in society these days, but one which caught at him in an unexpected twist of want. Not a woman of the same ilk as his sisters and mother with their constant neediness and fragility.
‘There is no one else.’ She did not even attempt platitudes.
Daniel had no experience of speaking with a woman who would not be cowed by his title or by him personally and for one unlikely moment he thought he might tell her just that. With an effort he gathered himself together.
‘Truth be told, Miss Cameron, I am caught in this ruse as certainly as you are.’
‘Then perhaps it would be wise for us both to make the best of it. I would not hound you for much time or for sweet words, my lord, but what I would ask is that around my father you pretend a tendre, allowing him the contentment he deserves in what little is left of his life.’
‘Would your mother have approved of you being such a martyr?’
A flash of anger came into her eyes, lighting the brown to a clear and brittle velvet. He was surprised by such a quick change. Not quite the demure woman he had imagined, after all. ‘I think you forget, my lord, that I am as much a martyr to my family as you are to yours.’
‘Touché.’ Indeed she was right, the long line of Montcliffe ancestors all looking at him to save the Earldom for posterity. ‘And if your father dies sooner rather than later, are the conditions within our marriage null and void?’
Her face crumbled into sheer distress. ‘I sincerely pray that Papa should not succumb to his malady so readily, My lord. I should also impress upon you that putting aside a marriage so quickly would need to be most carefully handled.’
He almost laughed, thinking that she had no idea at all as to the whims of the ton in their dealings with the protection of large inheritances. Indeed, a hundred marriages that he knew of were conveniently forgotten about in the face of shapely courtesans and willing mistresses. Another thought also worried him. Perhaps in her circle of acquaintances such a truism was not as absolute.
He had never been a flagrant womaniser, but neither was he a man who would want to be bound for years in a union without love or respect.
When Robert Cameron came back into the room Daniel lost his chance to ask exactly what she thought to get from this alliance personally. Her father looked absurdly pleased with himself, a smile from one side of his face to the other.
‘I hope you have been able to find out a little about each other. My Amethyst was the cleverest of all the young ladies at her school, my lord, and won the first prize for academic endeavour for her year.’
‘I am certain he cannot be interested in such things, Papa, and—’
But Daniel did not allow her to finish. ‘Rest assured, Mr Cameron, I am.’
Her father frowned and helped himself to a drink. His bride-to-be stood perfectly still, a statue before the windows, her lustreless hair caught in the shafts of sunlight as she warned her father off saying more. Another darker thought suddenly occurred to him.
‘Have you had trouble with those who waylaid you before?’
Cameron looked at his daughter. God, Daniel thought, had Amethyst Cameron been hurt by the thugs, too?
‘The wheel of a carriage we were in sheared off just under a year ago because it had been cut almost right through,’ she answered, the fright in her eyes visible. ‘Our conveyance overturned a number of times and Papa and I were caught inside. We were out on business, you see, and those responsible knew we would be travelling on that road on that day.’ Daniel did not speak, but waited as she went on. ‘Papa was hurt a little and I was hurt a lot.’
‘Who are these people?’
‘Criminals who prey on those who might afford to pay them. Men who see an opportunity in the threatening of others and who with a great amount of force can intimidate without fear of redress.’ Robert gave him this answer.
‘So you refused their demands?’
‘You pay once and you never get free,’ Amethyst answered, her eyes daring him to criticise things that he knew nothing about. ‘People have been brought in to protect us since, and this was working well until...’ She faltered.
‘Until I found your father in the alley a few moments away from having the life being beaten out of him?’
Unexpectedly she smiled. ‘They were more afraid of you than any man Papa had employed before. It is one of the reasons we offered you the marriage agreement.’
‘I see.’ Did these people always have to be so wearingly honest in their truths? Daniel’s own jaded understanding of principle had long ago been leached from him and there was a sort of brave virtue in such directness. The ton would tear such rectitude to pieces, he thought, and wondered how life could mould people so differently.
‘Have those demanding money ever contacted you in the form of a letter?’
Robert took over the discourse now. ‘Once they did. More normally they just turn up unannounced at the warehouse door.’
‘Do you still have the correspondence?’
‘Yes.’
‘And yet you have not sought anyone to help you in this matter?’
‘Help me?’ Robert’s voice was puzzled.
‘Threaten them back. Make them realise they were playing a game they had no hope of ever winning.’
* * *
The Earl’s tone was weary, Amethyst thought. The utter nuisance of having to deal with people of the trade who had a raft of bullies chasing after them was more than he wanted to consider. Why, he probably thought such inconvenience was par for the course, just another way to show how base and shabby those below him in rank really were.
She wondered if he would simply turn tail and let himself out of this room full of problems, his beautifully cut tailcoat showing off fine shoulders and the breeches long and tapered legs.
A man of reduced means but of great presence, a man whom women would watch with hope in their hearts. Even she had watched him as he had ascended the stairs with her father outside of Tattersall’s and dreamed that she was a different girl with softer hair falling to her hips in luxurious waves as he admired her.
Such nonsense made her smile. She was her father’s daughter with trade flowing through her less-than-exalted blood line, the hunt of a good deal or an unexpected profit making her life...whole. Women like her did not marry for love and men like Lord Daniel Wylde invariably chose the beautiful butterflies who were the toast of a society Season.
It was only lack of money that stopped him doing exactly that and thinking otherwise would lead to disappointment. The marriage agreement held as much fear for her as it did for him, but she needed her father protected and she wanted to see him face the last months of his life with hope.
She had visited his doctor alone on her own accord after her father had told her of his ailment. The specialist had reiterated that there was little more the medical fraternity could do, but had been most insistent on the medicinal value of hope. Miracles had arisen from a happy demeanour or a looked-forward-to occasion that the sick one had no intentions of missing. Aye, he had said in tones that bridged no argument, there were miracles in the benefits of laughter that even the greatest brains of the time had not yet figured out. ‘Keep him happy, Miss Cameron, and he may live longer. That is the only sage advice I can give you at this point.’
Well, Amethyst decided, she would do everything in her power to advance this theory and her papa would have each second of his life tempered with good humour and possibilities. She swore to the heavens above that this would be so.
A few moments later after a general conversation with her father on the merits of a horse that had won a recent race at Newmarket, Lord Montcliffe reached for his hat and made for the door, giving only the briefest of goodbyes to her as he left. A man who was being forced into something he plainly did not want and yet, given his circumstances, could not refuse.
They were so much the same, Amethyst thought, as the door shut behind him and the hollow silence that was left only underlined the awful truth of her musing.
Chapter Four
Daniel sat in his library that evening before a fire that was both warm and comforting. Looking up, he frowned at the portrait of his brother lording it over the room. He would have a servant take the painting down on the morrow and he would find a landscape of Spain he knew to be somewhere in the confines of this town house. Nigel’s foolishness had brought the Earldom to this pass and he wanted no more of a reminder of his brother’s handsome visage smiling down upon his own dire straits.
The cool of early evening moved in about him despite the fire flame in the hearth, his leg still aching with the slightest of movements. Outside a dog called, the plaintive howl answered as he listened and silently counted the hours until the dawn. How often had he sat like this since his return from Europe? Even as he massaged the tight knots in his thigh, others formed in their place, iron-hard against the skin that covered muscle. His leg was getting worse. He knew it was. Would there come a day when he could not bear weight upon it at all? He swore beneath his breath and resolved not to think about it.
A knock at his door had him returning his leg to the floor and when his man came in with a card showing that Miss Amethyst Cameron was waiting to see him, his eyes glanced at the clock. Half past eight. My God. No time at all for a young and single woman of any station in life to be calling upon a gentleman without the repercussion of ruin. Following his servant to the lobby he found his bride-to-be standing there, no lady’s maid at her side and no papa to keep everything above board and proper, either. Glancing around, he was relieved to see a Cameron footman waiting in the shadow of the porch, ready to shepherd her back through the evening.
‘I am very sorry to come at such a late hour, but I need to speak with you, my lord.’
Worry marred her brow and she seemed relieved as he gestured her through to the blue salon, the scent of lemon and flowers following her in. Her dull brown hair this evening was pulled back and fastened with a glittery pin. It was the first piece of jewellery he had ever seen her wear.
‘Carole, one of the little girls at Gaskell Street, made the fastener for me and presented it to me this evening,’ she explained when she realised what had caught his attention. ‘A beaker was broken at the school last week and she fashioned the shards of china into a clip.’ Her smile broadened and it had the effect of making her eyes look bigger in her face than they usually were. And much more gold. Perfectly arched dark eyebrows sat above them.
‘I have just come from the school concert, my lord.’ Even as she said it she removed the clip from her hair and deposited it in a large cloth bag she carried.
‘You work there?’
‘No, I am a patron, my lord, a small recompense for all that they did for me as a child. We are building a new dormitory that will be ready in a matter of only a few weeks and there is much yet to finish and so—’ She stopped abruptly and blushed. ‘But you cannot possibly be interested in any of this. Papa said I should only speak of happy things, light topics and suchlike. Orphans and all of their accompanying poverty, I suppose, do not come into that category.’
He had to smile. ‘I hope I am not quite so shallow, Miss Cameron. The work sounds useful and interesting.’
‘Then you would not stop me being involved? You would allow me the independence that I need after this marriage?’
When he nodded Daniel had the sudden impression that he might have been agreeing to far more than he knew he was, but she soon went on to another topic altogether.
‘Papa’s insistence on a harmonious union should not be too onerous either, my lord. Nowhere in the marriage document is there any mention of how many days a year we would need to reside together. It need not be a trap.’
‘Are you always this forthright, Miss Cameron?’
‘Yes.’ No qualification. She looked at him as if he had just given her the biggest compliment in the world.
‘Clinical.’
‘Pragmatic,’ she returned and blushed to almost the same shade as a scarlet rug thrown across a nearby sofa.
Such vulnerability lurking amongst brave endeavour was strangely endearing and although he meant not to Daniel caught at her hand. He wanted to protect her from a world that would not quite know what to make of her; his world, where the cut of a cloth was as important as the name of the family and the consideration of others less fortunate in means was best left to the worry of others or to nobody at all.
As he had already noted, she smelt of lemon and flowers, none of the heady heavy aromas the ladies in court seemed to be drawn towards and desire ignited within him, as unexpected as it was unwanted. Abruptly he let her go.
‘You must know that it is not done for a lady to visit a gentleman alone, Miss Cameron, under any circumstances.’
‘Oh, I am not a lady, my lord.’
‘You soon will be.’
Again she shook her head. ‘I do not wish to change, Lord Montcliffe. There is just simply too much for me to do. This is why I have come to make certain that you know...’ She stopped, and he got the impression she was trying to work out exactly how she might give him her truths.
‘Know what?’
‘I will marry you, my lord, and my father will in turn nullify the debts of your family. But in exchange I wish for two things.’
She waited as he nodded.
‘I want you to make certain no one will ever bother my father again and I want you to promise that when Papa leaves this world...’ her voice caught ‘...you will let me go.’
‘Let you go?’
‘I will not contest the monies at all, though I will expect a substantial settlement and Dunstan House, of course, and its accompanying lands.’
‘My God. You are serious?’
She nodded her head. ‘I am a business woman, my lord, and astute enough to know that this marriage is only one of convenience. You would never have chosen me without the enticement of great wealth and I accept that, but I do want civility and fairness.’
Each word she said was more astonishing than the last. He had had all manner of women throwing themselves at him for years and here was one telling him to his face that a marriage between them was purely a matter of business, and finite at that.
‘What of your needs in this union, Miss Cameron?’
‘I don’t have any as such, Lord Montcliffe. I simply want my father to be content in the last months of his life. That is all.’
Daniel was not one to turn away from such a gauntlet.
‘And emotion? Where does that fit into this conundrum?’
She shook her head vigorously, the brown tresses marked with no sheen from the lamplight. She had stepped back too, her strange large bag positioned between them like a barrier.
‘I do realise that as a titled gentleman you would require the production of heirs and as such this agreement will give you the time to find a woman you would want as the chosen mother of your children. You are not so old, after all, and gentlemen of the ton have a marked propensity to choose much younger wives from what I have observed.’
Without meaning to he smiled, such direct honesty so very unfamiliar.
His glance went to her lips, full and defined, and he felt a surge of desire. God, it had been years since his libido had been so fickle and months since he had last bedded a woman.
The world seemed to stand still between them, any logic sucked into pure and utter confusion. Any other female of his acquaintance would have simpered and flushed in such a situation, but she stood there watching him, her glance strong and unwavering.
‘I also hope you are of the same opinion concerning this marriage as I am and share the belief that it would require no...no...’ She stopped, searching around for what to say and failing.
‘Intimacy?’ He gave the word in humour, but she paled visibly, reminding him in that moment of a skittish colt, wanting to be reassured on the one hand and ready to bolt on the other.
‘I realise, my lord, that there must be a great many young women in the ton who would jump at the chance of being an earl’s wife in general and your wife in particular. Even with the imminent financial collapse of the Montcliffe estate I feel certain you would still be a good catch. With the Cameron fortune behind you there would be a far better chance of acquiring exactly the sort of woman you would wish for. I could simply disappear and never be seen again, a former spouse who should not be a problem if I was to be thought of as dead. I would be quite happy with such an outcome if Papa was no longer with me. Indeed, I could go to the Continent and settle under a different name.’
‘You are seriously expounding bigamy?’
He began to laugh then, because what she said was becoming more and more outlandish and because he could barely believe that she was saying it.
‘Perhaps I am, my lord, though in the very best sense of the word, of course, and mutually agreed. I would also like to add that I wouldn’t have acquiesced to a union between us if I had not liked your character. I realised, quite early on, that it was most unlikely you would have ever been attracted to me in the slightest, had we met under other circumstances, and there was a good deal of safety in that.’