Lucas tilted his head. “That is not your responsibility, Hugh.”
“Isn’t it?” Hugh let out his breath slowly. “I have power and I could have destroyed him. It was my pride that kept me from it.”
“Perhaps your pride had some part, but it was the love you feel for your sister that kept you from publicly flaying him. Her well-being and reputation were your main concerns.”
He shrugged. “Either way, I have a responsibility to ensure this man never repeats his actions. So I must do something to stop him now.”
Lucas took a long step closer. “What?”
“I don’t know,” Hugh breathed. “But I will find a way. Iwillstop him, by any means necessary.”
Chapter Two
Miss Amelia Quinton watched in the mirror’s reflection as her maid, Theresa, swept her dark hair up in a pretty style. She smiled at her face, seeing all her happiness reflected there, then reached up to pinch her cheeks and make them even more pink.
“What are you on about, miss?” Theresa asked with a laugh as she continued at her work. “Staring at yourself like you’ve never seen a mirror before.”
“I’m just trying to see if I look different now that I am an engaged lady,” Amelia said.
Theresa’s smile was kind even as she shook her head. “You are lovely, just as you have always been lovely. No man or future could ever change that.”
Amelia rolled her eyes at her maid.
“But Aaron has changed my future, and so very romantically,” she argued.
“So you’ve said.” Theresa’s tone was dry as she slipped a few pins between her lips and mumbled, “I assume you’d very much like to tell the story again.”
Amelia tried to keep from bouncing, but it was nearly impossible. “I know it bores you right to tears, but you must understand how difficult it is not to be able to share with my friends. Papa is very firm that we keep the news private until we make the formal announcements next week.”
“Go ahead then,” Theresa said with a wave of her hand. “I will pretend to listen.”
Amelia laughed at her teasing and then shut her eyes so she might relive every moment of the story she would tell in her mind. “We were out for a walk in the garden,” she said. “The weather had been positively putrid for days, but that morning bright, happy sunshine had pushed through the clouds and was shining so warmly on us.”
“Practically providence,” Theresa said, and gently slipped a pin into Amelia’s locks.
Amelia opened one eye and shot her a look. “It could have been. I was pondering the daisies when I turned to say something and there he was, on bended knee just like the paintings of knights of old.” She clasped her hands together. “He asked for my hand after reciting a…frankly very long piece of poetry, and of course I said yes.”
Theresa nodded. “He knows your sense of romance, that much is clear. I assume your marriage will be only sunshine, flowers and butterflies for the rest of your days.”
Amelia smiled at the apt description of how she pictured a romantic marriage to a man who seemed to understand her very soul. He liked all the same things she did, he shared almost all her opinions—in every way he had fashioned himself to be the man she had dreamed of since she was a little girl.
And yet…
“There was only one thing missing, I suppose,” she mused, almost more to herself than to Theresa.
The maid hesitated. “Something missing? Whatever could it be? You have not mentioned it before.”
Amelia worried her lip and caught Theresa’s eyes in the mirror’s image. “I was trying not to be greedy. Trying not to look for where the moment lacked.”
“And where did it?” Theresa asked, and her face was lined with concern as she moved around to look at Amelia directly.
“A kiss,” Amelia whispered, and bent her head as heat flooded her cheeks.
“Miss Amelia!” Theresa burst out in surprise. “A lady ought not—”
Amelia got to her feet and fled across the room to escape the words coming from Theresa’s lips. “I know, I know what I ought not to want. And I suppose I’d rather he be proper with me. And yet I did want him to do it regardless. When else would a stolen kiss be more expected than when making such a proposal?”
Theresa sighed, and Amelia turned to find a still-troubled look on her face. She shook her head. “There will be plenty of time for kissing after. I’m certain he must want the same things you do. You’ll have your whole life to…learn what those things are.”
