The Regency Season Collection: Part Two. Кэрол Мортимер

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       Chapter Three

      The note came the seventh day after they had last seen him, a tense and formal missive informing them that Lord Daniel Wylde, the sixth Earl of Montcliffe, would be calling upon them at two in the afternoon.

      Amethyst had been watching for him by the large bay window in the downstairs salon and she stiffened as she heard his carriage draw to a stop on the roadway in front of the house. Lord Montcliffe was here. She looked across at her father, his fingers knocking against his side in the particular way he had of showing concern. It did not help at all.

      There were tea and biscuits already set out on the table and the finest of brandy in an unopened bottle. Every glass had been meticulously cleaned and snowy-white napkins stood at attention beside the plate of food, well ironed and folded.

      ‘Lord Daniel Wylde, the Earl of Montcliffe, sir.’ The butler used his sternest voice and made an effort not to look at anyone. Amethyst had instructed him on the exact art of manners before their guest had arrived.

      And then the Earl was there, dressed in dark blue, the white cravat tied at his throat in the style of a man who hadn’t put too much care into it. Not a fop or a dandy. She was pleased, at least, for that.

      ‘Sir.’ He looked at her father. ‘Miss Cameron.’ He did not even deign to glance her way, the anger on his brow eminently visible. The folder that Papa had made ready with the documents outlining the terms of their betrothal was in his hands. Each knuckle was stretched white. ‘I accept.’

      He threw the deeds on the table where they sat between the fine brandy and the fresh biscuits.

      I accept.

      Two words and she was lost into both method and madness; the Cameron fortune would remain intact and her own fate was sealed. For good or for bad. She felt her heart beating loud and heavy and, placing her hand on her breast, she pressed down, wanting this moment to stop and start again as something else.

      But of course it did not.

      ‘You accept?’ Her father’s voice was businesslike and brisk—a trader whose whole life had consisted of brokering arrangements.

      The Earl nodded, but the expression on his face was stony. An agreement dragged from the very depths of his despair and nothing to be done about any of it. He knew as little of her as she did of him; two pawns in a game that was played for stakes higher than just their happiness alone. She had always known that, since the pounds had begun to roll into the Cameron coffers from the lucrative timber trade to and from the Americas. Great fortunes always came with a price.

      ‘You have signed every condition, then?’ Her father again. She thought he sounded just as he did when he was clinching a deal for the sale of a thousand yards of expensive American mahogany and she wondered at his calm and composure. She was his only daughter and again and again in her lifetime her father had insisted that she must marry for love.

      Love? Unexpectedly she caught the eyes of the Earl. Today the green was darker and distrusting. Still, even with the stark fury of coercion on his face, Daniel Wylde was the most beautiful man she had ever had the pleasure of looking upon.

      Such looks would crucify her, for nobody would believe that he might have freely chosen her as his bride. She swallowed and met his glance. No use going to pieces this late in the game when the joy on her father’s face was tangible. Papa had not appeared as happy for months.

      ‘This is your choice too, Miss Cameron?’

      ‘It is, my lord.’ The floor beneath her began to waver, all the lies eliciting a sort of unreality that made her dizzy.

      ‘You understand the meaning of the documents then?’ he pressed.

      ‘I do.’ A blush crept up her throat as she thought of the clause stipulating the two years of monogamy. Her father’s addition, that proviso, and though she had argued long and hard with him to remove it, Robert was not to be shifted.

      Montcliffe turned away. The stillness she had noticed outside Tattersall’s was magnified here, a man who knew exactly his place in the world and was seldom surprised by anything.

      Save for this marriage of convenience.

      ‘I hope then that the person you placed to look into my financial affairs can be trusted, Mr Cameron. If word were to leak out about my straitened circumstances and this unusual betrothal, I doubt I could protect your daughter from the repercussions.’

      ‘Mr Alfred Middlemarch, my lawyer, is a model of silence, my lord. Nary a stray word shall be uttered.’

      Their parlourmaid knocked timidly at the door, asking if she could come in to pour the tea. The Earl crossed the room to stand by the fireplace and chose brandy for his sustenance. When Hilda filled his glass to a quarter inch from the top Amethyst winced. On reflection, she thought, perhaps such a task was supposed to belong to the lady of the house and she wished she had not instructed the maid to return to do it. It was seldom that they had such lofty visitors and every small detail of service took on an importance that it previously never had.

      Was this how she would live her life from now on? she wondered. On the edge of eggshells in case she were to inadvertently place a clumsy foot wrong? The tutors at Gaskell Street had tried their best with the vagaries of manners, but she imagined they had had about as much practice with the higher echelons of London society as she had.

      To give Montcliffe some credit he sipped his tipple carefully from the top before placing the glass down on a green baize circle especially designed for such a purpose. She doubted her father had ever used them before, her eyes catching circles of darkness in the white oak where errant drinks had seeped into the patina of the wood.

      Blemished, like them, the outward appearance of Papa and herself reflecting a life that had been lived in trade and service, with little time left for the niceties of cultured living. Amethyst wished she had at least gone out and bought a sumptuous dress for this occasion, something that might lift the colour of her skin into lustre.

      She smiled at such a nonsense, catching the Earl’s eyes again as she did so. When he looked away she saw that the muscle under his jaw quivered. In distaste? In sympathy? Usually she found people easy to read, but this man was not.

      ‘I will announce our betrothal in The Times next week, if that is to your liking, Miss Cameron.’

      So few days left?

      ‘Thank you.’ She wished her voice sounded stronger.

      ‘I should not want a complicated ceremony given our circumstances.’ A slight shame highlighted Daniel Wylde’s cheeks after he said this and it heartened her immensely. He was not a man in the habit of being rude to women, then? She clutched at the cross at her throat and felt relieved.

      Her father pressed on with his own ideas. ‘I was thinking we might hold the ceremony here, my lord, with a minister from our Presbyterian church, of course, and any of your family and friends you care to invite. I would have the first of the money promised transferred into your bank account within the week.’

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