“…and a bust done by no other hands than those of the Duke of Ripon.”
Amelia blinked. What was the contessa saying?
She met the duke’s gaze. He simply kept staring at her.
And she understood.
“I…I…” she stammered. “I cannot possibly accept such a”—terrible…awful…horrifying—“generousgift. Perhaps I could donate it—”
“As you English say,pish,” dismissed the contessa. Was that a glint of mischief in her eyes? “The bust is yours, fairly won.”
“But, truly, I cannot—” The rest of the sentence died in Amelia’s mouth when she gazed out upon the gathered. That was definitely mischief shining in Delilah’s eyes. Juliet’s, too. And the other ladies? To a one, they glared at her with false smiles on their mouths and envy in their eyes. This wasn’t a crowd sympathetic to her predicament. Perhaps the duke—
He was no help.
He simply observed her as if from a safe distance.
She was on her own.
She smiled graciously, thanked the contessa, and stepped from the platform, the blood rioting through her veins. She kept going hot, then cold, then hot again as she moved trance-like through the crowd that was now dispersing.
His gaze…it was upon her.
It hadn’t once left her, she knew it. And it wouldn’t until she was gone from the room.
She knew that, too.
Her step quickened. She couldn’t think properly with that man’s gaze upon her.
Delilah and Juliet filed in behind her as they stepped from the contessa’s palazzo and into their waiting carriage.
The dazed feeling began to dissipate, and Amelia’s first clear thought of the evening was allowed entry. She could let the contessa keep her money and beg off, couldn’t she? No one would be the wiser, except for her and the Duke of Ripon. But the way he’d been observing her…
Was that interest she’d detected?
Perhaps he wouldn’t let her beg off.
Strange thought.
And perhaps she wouldn’t want him to.
Stranger thought, still.
The carriage lurched into motion, and her gaze flew up to find Delilah and Juliet staring at her from their bench opposite. They had something to say.
It was Delilah who said it. “Do not even think of begging off.”
Chapter Four
Next evening
“Ishan’t sitfor the bust,” said Amelia with the certainty of one who knew for a fact that she occupied the moral high ground. “It wouldn’t be—”
“Proper!” shouted Archie and Delilah from their end of the long dining table that could easily sit thirty, but tonight sat only five—the Windermeres and Lord Rory Macbeth, current Viscount Kilmuir and future Sixth Earl of Carrick.
Amelia resisted the urge to roll her eyes toward the half-lit chandelier. Those two ever delighted in teaming up against her. Juliet smiled down into her soup, and Kilmuir stared morosely out the window. Apparently, his proposal of marriage had been turned down by Miss Davina Dalhousie, and he was having difficulty reconciling himself to the fact. Actually, thetonbeing the close-knit society it was, the Windermeres and Dalhousies had long been family friends, and while Amelia had never been close to Miss Dalhousie, who was several years her junior, she knew the young lady to be possessed of a clear head and good sense. And Kilmuir…
He’d always been perfectly amiable and pleasant and quite handsome to gaze upon with his top of golden red hair and clear blue eyes—the thought had even crossed her mind that Juliet might harbor a slight infatuation for him—but…there didn’t seem to be all that much more to him. In other words, Amelia doubted not that Miss Dalhousie must’ve had a good reason for refusing a proposal of marriage from such an eminently eligible gentleman.
