“I said, step back.” He placed himself firmly between her and her father. “Rather than yelling at a girl, why don’t you tell me which of you idiots left her in a carriage alone?”
“She was supposed to be in London, minding her own bloody business,” her father said.
The shouting began again, all three men obstinate and determined to talk down the others. The noise was too much.
For heaven’s sake, stop beating your chests and pour me a hot bath.
She ignored the lot of them and wrapped her arms around her knees, focused on taming her shivers. Taking deep, measured breaths, she closed her eyes and let their words roll over her. Nine. Eight. Seven. She shuffled closer to the fire behind her. Six. Five. Four.
The frigid floor disappeared from under her as the stranger swooped her into his arms as if she weighed little more than a wisp of lace.
“You’re too close to the flames, princess. Wilde, drag that chair over here.”
Did he really just call Edward, Duke of Wildeforde, Wilde?
A muscle ticked along Edward’s jaw, but he did as the stranger asked.
“This argument is ridiculous,” the stranger—Oh, what was his name?—said, lowering her to the chair. “I’ve not compromised her, and you damn well know it.”
The words hit like a heavy reticule swung by a careless debutante. She sat back.Compromised?
Edward fixed the stranger with a frustrated stare. “Of course you didn’t. But you have made a mess of things.”
“I’vemade a mess of things? Why the devil was a lady traveling alone? Where was her chaperone? Where was her coachman? Where were the people who were supposed to be looking after her?”
Edward stared at her. Her father stared at her. The stranger stared at her. Heavens, she was tired.
“That’s not of any consequence.” The voice came from a dark corner of the room. It was loud and low-pitched and seemed to settle on the room like a copper snuffer extinguishing flame. An old man in an overly ornate, embroidered and fur-covered coat, clearly from the previous century, stepped into the light. She hadn’t noticed him earlier and was glad for it.
His lips were twisted into a sneer. “The chit has debased herself. The only question now is what’s to be done about it?”
A chill prickled across her neck. That didn’t bode well. Best to cut that line of conversation short. “I hardly see that anything needs to be done about it,” she said. “Whatever it might look like, we all know—”
“It looks like you are alone in a house, unchaperoned, with him half-naked and you…disheveled.”
The prickles spread as a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold coursed through her.
“Now wait just one minute. Perhaps we should give them a minute to explain.” Finally, her father had caught up to the potential ramifications of this ludicrous situation.
“What we’ve witnessed is explanation enough. We left the comfort of Lord Wildeforde’s library to rescue an innocent girl in peril. What we found was a harlot engaged in a wanton act of lust.” The man turned to Edward, who was rubbing the spot between his eyes. He rarely did that. Only when his mother was particularly trying. Or when Amelia was trying to lock him in to a wedding date.
The man continued. “You have responsibilities to the family name, to your title, and they include choosing a duchess who hasn’t tupped half the county.”
Her chest tightened, and she scrambled to catch the threads that were unraveling around her. “You wretched cur.” She turned to Edward. “How can you let him say these things? You know they’re untrue. I was unconscious, for goodness’ sake.”
He rubbed a hand over his eyes. “I know that.” He sighed, as lost for words as she’d ever seen him. “This is all a confounded mess that looks a sight worse than the truth. But Lord Karstark is right. There’s my family’s reputation to consider.”
“Lord Karstark is a jackass.” He could not do this to her, dash it. After all these years. “We have been engaged since I wasfive.”
“Amelia.”
And there it was, the tone he used whenever he thought she was being irrational.
“Amelia, you need a Season before we wed. Be reasonable.”
“Amelia, we can’t possibly marry in the same year as the Duke of Rushford. Be reasonable.”
“Amelia, we can’t possibly wed at all because your carriage got stuck and you almost died. Be reasonable.”
