This Amelia wasn’t the one he’d spent his days and nights with. This was the elitist aristocrat who’d been mortified at the prospect of a life with a working man. Iron walls began to shutter around his heart.
Benedict drained the glass of claret in one desperate swallow and motioned for it to be refilled. Anything to make the night easier.
Grunt, who should have been holding Benedict’s undivided attention, was prattling on about the velocipede.
“…It’s a darn sight more attractive than Karl Drais’s version. Not a fan of the name ‘hobby horse’ but the wheels are bigger and it’s significantly more efficient.”
Amelia had turned to Wildeforde and was nodding, with that practiced smile that looked charming but hid any sign of what she was truly thinking. He hated that smile. He preferred her laughing or angry or bored—really any expression that showed the wife he’d fallen in love with.
“…don’t you think?”
Benedict turned back to Grunt. “Absolutely.” He had no idea what he’d just agreed to but given his desperation to get the Americans back to the firm the next day, he’d agree to almost anything.
He twisted the conversation back to where he needed it, giving Grunt the full force of his attention. “There are similarities between Johnson’s hobby horse and our next incarnation of the steam train. Small refinements made that deliver significant boosts in efficiency.”
Grunt pushed his food around with his fork, refusing to make eye contact. “Yes, yes. I’m sure.” There was an uncomfortable edge to his voice, and for the umpteenth time that night, he changed the subject. “Tell me more about Lord Wildeforde. He seems like a sensible chap. A bit reserved, but all these English types are.”
Benedict’s inability to pin Grunt down into a serious conversation about the locomotive just put more coal in the furnace. The pressure was building, and every second that slipped away took the contract, the firm, and his people’s security with it.
“Wildeforde’s sensible enough, I suppose.”
“What’s his situation? Moved on from your wife yet?” Grunt asked, the same calculating look in his eye that Benedict had seen during their early business relationship.
“I wouldn’t know. We haven’t discussed it.” Benedict finished his glass and motioned for it to be refilled again. Grunt couldn’t dance around talk of the firm all night.
“I’d be interested to know what he’s looking for in a wife. See how compatible he might be with my girls.”
“Amelia. He’s looking for someone like Amelia.”
Because she was the perfect duchess. She’d spent her whole life training to be Wildeforde’s bride. He’d been a fool to think a few months could change that.
“Hmmm.” Grunt ran his fingers through his beard, more invested in Wildeforde’s marital status than what he’d been brought out here to do.
“We sorted out the issue, today. Tessie is running as well as she ever has. It was a misunderstanding—some miscommunication in the team.”
Grunt sighed. He shifted in his seat to face Benedict directly. “Lad, I appreciate your tenacity. It’ll do you credit along your journey. Business is a tough game and needs a certain level of bullheadedness. But a real businessman also knows when to back away. Try me again in a few years.”
Grunt turned in the opposite direction and started a conversation with one of Amelia’s bloody friends.
Benedict’s hand tightened around his glass. Pushing any further at dinner was just going to cause a spectacle—one that wouldn’t help his case with the Americans at all.
He looked over to Amelia, who was deep in conversation with the young Bradenstock fop. His insides writhed to see her so in her element.
He’d failed again. He’d failed his mother, his firm, his village, and now his wife.
Standing at the foot of the servants’ stairs, Amelia took a deep breath. She’d give anything not to go in. For some emergency upstairs to call her away so that she had a good excuse for not walking through that door.
But there was no emergency, and she had no excuse.
She took another deep breath. Her feet were leaden.
The sudden scrape of chairs and clatter of cutlery on china as the servants stood gave way to awkward silence.
More than one of them refused to look at her. The rest of them held expressions of disgust, disappointment, and suspicion. She didn’t blame them.
She’d practiced this in her head a dozen times over while making vapid conversation upstairs. But not one variation of what she’d rehearsed felt like it was enough.
“I’ve come down to apologize—to you in particular, Peter—”
