“And your mother?” he asked sincerely.
“She passed away some years ago,” Amelia sighed. “My sister and I were separated so as not to be a burden on our families. I went to… I camehere,to my mother’s family, the Willoughbys. Charlotte went to my father’s people, the Nightingales, near York.”
He pondered her words in the rustling evening breeze. “Hmm. I have little memory of my mother.”
Amelia peeked up at him.
He went on, “I grew up in my father’s house. Now mine. A prison to be sure. I strove to escape every day, and he kept me more and more tightly trapped.”
“That sounds… awful,” she frowned, brushing his arm lightly. “Do you have any fond memories of her? Your mother?”
Seth’s keen gaze fell upon her visage. He regarded her for a long, silent moment. He could feel her blue eyes graze him like an icy brand.
“She… she loved to dance.” He broke eye contact first, looking back out over the river. “We would dance on the lawn in the summer, in the evening when the moon was bright. Until myfather put a stop to it. It was anathema to him, said it was frivolous. I should have been learning how to be agentleman.”
Amelia bit her lip. “She sounds very like my mother, I think. I do not remember my father much,” she said wistfully, “my mother once told me that he was an officer and very brave. A hero. I don’t suppose the real man would have lived up to the myth that a little girl built him into. Perhaps it is for the best that I did not know him.”
“Reputation does often differ from reality,” Seth nodded, musing out over the river. “Take mine, for example.”
“A notorious rake?” She raised her brows challengingly.
He shrugged a single shoulder. “I saw first-hand the misery of my parents’ marriage and wished to avoid ever becoming so imprisoned as my mother was. Imprisoned by the expectations of family and duty.”
With that, he tossed the remnants of his meal down into the water, and there came a flurry of feathers and splashing as ducks fought for it before it sank. Amelia laughed at the natural world present even here in the heart of the greatest city in England.
She tossed her own food in next.
“My father would thrash me for patronizing a street vendor and for throwing food to the ducks and swans,” Seth chuckled, though it came out forced.
“Well, he is not here, but I am. What will you show me next?” she asked, swiftly maneuvering the topic while wiping her hands on her dress with little compunction. He grinned at her sincere efforts to lighten his mood.
Abruptly, he vaulted the wall, prompting Amelia to cry out. But he descended only two or three feet before his feet hit solid stone. She peeked over the edge, and he caught a sightly glimpse of her aghast face against the backdrop of the moonlit sky. A rowboat was tethered to a metal ring at the bottom just beneath his platform. He laughed.
“Come on. I know the finest way to see the city and escape the crowds.”
“We are going on the river?” she gasped.
“Of course! Or would you rather visit a stuffed dining room where the servants gossip about you and the other patrons spy on you in order to have something to talk about at tea the next day? What’s it to be?A proper lady or a proper rogue?”
After a breath, she threw her hands in the air, and said, “Oh, bother,” before skipping down the steps after him.
CHAPTER 14
Charlotte lay in the bottom of the small rowboat, the silk of Amelia’s borrowed gown soaked through where it met the damp wood. The gown, no doubt ruined, clung to her skin in a way that should have mortified her. But mortification required the presence of shame—and at this moment, she felt none.
Seth stretched beside her, his presence more comfort than burden. One arm curved possessively around her waist, his chest pressed to hers with every shallow breath she took. Above them, the night sky unfolded in pinpricks of silver, the hush of the Thames carrying them gently downstream.
The boat rocked in a gentle rhythm, soothing and somewhat sensual. The sound of water lapping against the hull was like soft kisses. And Seth—he kissed her as if she were made of moonlight and breath. His mouth traced a reverent path along her jaw, the slope of her neck, the neckline of her gown where skin met silk.
She let her eyes close, her world narrowing to sensation—his lips, the warmth of his body, the rough glide of his coat beneath her fingertips. On impulse, emboldened by the night, she slipped a hand beneath the hem of his shirt. Her palm met the heat of him—taut muscle, bulging beneath her touch—and she felt his breath catch against her throat.
When he dropped his head to the curve of her shoulder, she turned into him, nosing through the unruly gold of his hair. She kissed it, inhaled it, losing track of where he ended and she began.
Then he lifted his head, his mouth hovering just above hers. A cruel breath of distance. His eyes burned into her, waiting. She could not bear the waiting. She curled her fingers into his hair and pulled, closing the distance in a fierce, aching kiss that threatened to undo her completely.
For one devastating moment, she forgot everything.
Who she was.
