Hugh lifted from the seat, stooped and was aside her in a moment. “Hell, I’m so sorry, Amelia.”
But her eyes were bleak, lost in the memories. “A day later, I received a demand for increased rent that I had no money to pay. The monthly stipend ceased. Within a week, I received an eviction notice… I remember the terror of feeling so alone, grieving for my mother, the few servants deserting me, for they could see the way of things.” She turned her head to the darkness of the window. “I called at my father’s townhouse, to find out what was happening, but his son would not allow me to see him or even pass him a note. The son called me a whore’s bastard and slammed the door in my face.” She closed her eyes. “I discovered the duke had in fact been bedridden with the lung disease for quite some while and he died not long after. I don’t think he even knew of my mother’s death. So, the son became the fifth duke. And…and then he sent the bailiffs.”
“That’s not right,” Hugh growled. “Your father must have provided for you, his daughter, in the will? Was there no solicitor?”
She shrugged and turned to him. “If there was, he was employed by the new duke so unlikely to tell me anything, and I could discover naught for myself being a lone by-blow. For all I know, my father bequeathed me nothing or the will was changed. Mama had left no money as she was not one for saving and I could not afford a solicitor of my own to investigate.” Her brow puckered. “The bailiffs were banging on the door, waving documents and saying I had no right to be there, to anything. All at the behest of a man whom I shared a father with.”
“I know of Swanford.” Hugh clenched his fists, knuckles white. “So what did you do?”
“I thought of Mother, how she used to glance into the mirror before leaving the house and… You could see her donning the persona of the Butterfly Courtesan, playing her part to the world. So, I did the same, except I played my own part. I opened the door to the bailiffs with a courtesan’s smile on my face. I told them I was to follow in my mother’s profession, that a rich new protector was collecting me on the morrow. That I just needed the night to pack my clothes. That my protector would settle the debts.” Her shoulders straightened. “They believed me, but as soon as they’d left, I cleared the house – I gathered jewellery, took paintings from their frames and rolled them, anything I could carry or fit in one portmanteau, all the trinkets Mother had been given by her protectors, and I left my home that very night.”
Hugh placed a hand to her cheek. “No one bests, Amelia Lambert,” he whispered. And then, because he had no more words for her ingenuity and strength, he kissed her.
Soft and chaste, but when their lips parted, she shook her head, eyes moist. “It wasn’t like that,” she whispered back.“Because I was a foolish young girl. I was not worldly wise and was swindled out of money at every turn, told certain jewels were paste, paintings fake, given pennies for them. The money dwindled on lodgings and food. I went to some of Mother’s friends but they turned me away. I applied for work as a companion but was laughed at for being a trollop’s daughter. I tried for scullery maid or dressmaker but was sneered at for my smooth hands.”
Hugh ground his teeth. “Amelia, you were so young…”
“Eventually, I was thrown out of my final lodgings with not thruppence upon me. And…and so I went to sell all I had left…”
Anger curled Hugh’s toes and fists. “Your virtue?”
She laughed. But without mirth. “Oh, no, that had no value. No, I went to the Prince with information. I knew of him as my mother used to attend his hell in her later years. So I told him of the swells who had gossiped freely at my mother’s weekly salons. All the unfaithful husbands and gambling wives. I also informed him that whilst I’d been waiting, I’d noticed, a croupier was false shuffling in order to deal an accomplice a favourable hand.”
“I say again, no one bests Amelia Lambert.”
“Well, I’d learned the ways of the world by then and was no longer quite such a foolish young girl. I’d had to. So the Prince employed me to mingle the floor each night. Sometimes as a monied widow, others a silent waitress. Listening. Watching. I worked and had lodgings there for three years until one day, a gentleman handed me a card. The only gentleman to have ever noticed me. Asme.”
“Asher Rainham, perchance?”
“Maybe he saw my aptitude for observing the clientele. Or the Prince told him, I know not.” She shook her head. “But I…I did not wish to leave. I had a…family of sorts there. Kian Finlay and Hannah the coat girl.” She stared to the window. “But thePrince dismissed me, said I should go to Sir Asher, as he was then, and I was left with no choice.”
“Did…did you…” Hugh loathed to ask this, but… “Did you ever have…feelings for the Prince?”
Couldanyone truly have those sorts of feelings for the Prince?
He was too detached from life. Too lost in whatever shadowed him.
“No, not at all. But I was grateful to him. I was fond of him. He took me in when no one else would.”
Breath gusted from Hugh. “Then for that, I am doubly in his debt.”
Amelia smiled. “Not a good position to be in, but…I thought a man such as yourself would not pay much heed to…feelings.”
“A man such as I?”
“The Scandalous Hugh Cadwalader. A gentleman of theTonworld.” She nibbled a lip. “Indeed, it’s a universally acknowledged fact that scandalous scoundrels do not believe such feelings exist at all.” Amelia nodded, quite getting into her stride. “That it’s merely an illusory concept or a product of a female’s fancies. That we mistake it for basic desire.”
“I…” A gasp as Hugh clutched his chest. Wheezed.
“Hugh? What is it?”
“I can’t…”
She lurched forward as he heaved in a desperate breath. “What can I do?”
“Enough,” he cried, “enough of your cruel words! I can bear no more! My poetic soul is rent asunder and shrivelling to naught at your foul notions of my species.” He straightened his cravat and grinned.
Amelia scowled. “You cad.”
