The Seduction of Miss Amelia Bell (5 page)

Lord Essex slanted his gaze to her before her father identified her as the bride and
set Amelia’s heart to racing. She could barely breathe watching those diamond-hard
eyes grow warm on her. Tonight he wore a powdered periwig that gave him a more noble
appearance than an ethereal one. Shadows danced across the chiseled angles of his
sun-bronzed face and his heavy brow, adding depth to his smoky blue eyes.

His clothes were even finer than Amelia had first thought in the garden. He wore a
scarlet embroidered justacorps with a matching bow tied beneath his aristocratic chin.
The cuffs of his poet’s shirt beneath were crisp and white as if rarely worn. He wore
hose over his breeches, boasting strong, muscular calves. His shoes were polished
and bowed, as was the fashion.

He moved more like a panther than a peacock, though; agile, quiet, and dangerous.
Yet he’d walked among them all day, unnoticed. Discreet.

He came to stand directly in front of her table and angled his face to her. After
an endless moment of silence and a frantic prayer from Amelia that he wasn’t deciding
how best to tell her father of her nightly romp, the husky dip of his voice fell across
the hall. “Am I to assume this is the prize the earl has won?”

Amelia didn’t know whether to feel flattered or insulted at being called such a thing.
While she was trying to decide, something cool and wet slithered down her bodice.
She looked down to find her soup-soaked curl dripping over her breast, staining the
fine fabric of her gown.

Oh, damnation, could this evening get any worse?

C
ould his fortune get any better? Edmund’s gaze lingered over the lass rubbing her
palm over her bosom. This was the lass for whom they’d come. The slumbering angel
from the garden who’d lingered in his thoughts all day was the duke’s niece, and with
both her uncle and her future husband gone—the duke no doubt procuring the third signature—she
was free for the taking.

Almost free.

“Ye assume correctly, Lord Essex,” Baron Selkirk said, moving closer to his daughter.
“May I present my wife, Lady Selkirk, and my daughter Lady Amelia Bell.”

Amelia. Edmund said her name over and over in his head. Beautiful, just like her.

Thankfully, he wasn’t moved by pretty faces. He was here for a purpose. Nothing had
changed. Nothing would sway him from his plans, not when it came to Scotland, not
for the land that had breathed new life into him as a boy. Miss Bell was the loveliest
lass he’d ever beheld, but Scotland held ownership of his heart.

Still, that didn’t mean he couldn’t charm her witless tonight. Since the duke and
the chancellor were both absent, Edmund could take his time with the plan, enjoy it…her,
a little. If he played this right, he wouldn’t have to force her to go with him and
she might not hate him so much in the morning. She piqued his interest by sleeping
in the open in her nightdress, barefoot and vulnerable beneath the permanent gaze
of the greatest warrior who’d ever lived. Asleep again at the foot of her father’s
chair, at her own celebration. He’d expected the duke’s niece to be more elegant and
proper; what he got was a peculiar soul arrayed in mystery and mischief. Getting her
to trust him tonight shouldn’t be difficult, but it would be pleasant.

“An honor to meet ye, Lady Selkirk.” Edmund bowed to Amelia’s mother first, then to
her. “Miss Bell, yer beauty is honored in song by traveling troubadours, but the splendor
of yer countenance was grossly underexaggerated.” His eyes smoldered beneath their
glacial veneer as she raised her eyes to his. “Ye are lovelier than anything I have
ever dreamed.”

Miss Amelia Bell could make a man happy, Edmund thought, basking in the delicate smile
she cast upon him, in the sensual sway of her hooded gaze—like horses racing on the
moors. Seafield, traitor to Scotland that he was, did not deserve her. Edmund knew
seducing her out of Queensberry House would be an easy task when her lips parted on
a suspended breath before she addressed him.

He vowed that before the night was over, he would kiss that mouth.

“Do ye speak such painted words to all the ladies ye meet, my lord?”

He smiled, delighted by her boldness and the glint of humor in her eyes. “None have
heard me speak so.”

She graced him with another, more genuine smile that brought a soft groan to Malcolm’s
throat. Edmund shared the sentiment but remained silent about it.

“Well then,” she continued, oblivious to her mother’s horror above her, “as far as
dreaming goes, I share yer sentiment.”

“Amelia!” Clutching one hand to her chest and the other to her chair, the Baroness
of Selkirk gaped, appalled at her daughter. Her husband downed his wine and glanced
heavenward before he stepped to his wife’s side and held her upright. But it was Amelia
who needed rescuing, Edmund thought as a flurry of whispers arose from the crowd behind
him. Her smile vanished and she looked away from him.

“My lord.” Lady Selkirk pulled his attention away from her daughter. “You must excuse
her. She is…”

“Delightful,” Edmund finished for her, and caught the slight inhalation of breath
that lifted Amelia’s bosom beneath her chin.

“If ye would excuse me,” she said in a low voice to her parents. “I need to use the…”
She darted another mortified look to Edmund, then to her mother’s scandalized expression.
“I would like to freshen up.”

“Go,” her father allowed, sounding as disparaged as his daughter.

Edmund’s gaze followed her lithe figure as she made her way from the table and disappeared
through a doorway to his right. A moment later, a serving lass with hair the color
of sunset followed her. She was the same lass Malcolm had eyed earlier. He moved after
her now, sharing a nod with Edmund and no words to the baron.

“Lord Essex.” Selkirk’s gravelly voice pulled Edmund’s attention away from the exit.
He turned to find the baron had also left his seat and had come to stand at his side.

“I will have our finest chamber prepared for ye and yer men. With so many guests attending,
I’m afraid we have no rooms to spare for yer privacy. In the meanwhile”—he reached
up and rested his hand on Edmund’s shoulder—“please share in our feast, if not yet
a celebration, and tell me some news of England.” He motioned for a server to bring
him two cups of fresh wine. “We are all delighted about the treaty. ’Twill help us
recover from financial disaster.”

“Ah, ye stand on the English side then,” Edmund replied vaguely. No revelation there.
Scottish barons kissed the same English arse as the dukes and earls did. They sold
their country and their daughters for the highest offer.

Traitors to so much.

“Do yer daughter and the chancellor share affection?”

“Pardon me?”

Edmund spared him an impatient glance. “Are they in love?” In his line of duty he
asked questions. He needed to know how the chancellor felt about Miss Bell. If he
would keep his name from the treaty for her.

“I…I believe so,” her father said. “The reason he isn’t here has nothing to do with
my daughter, but with his desire to see his holding fit fer his bride.”

“Of course,” Edmund replied with an easy smile that did not reach his eyes. “So then,
she is pleased about the marriage.”

“Most certainly.”

Helpful to know that she agreed with the rest of her family, Edmund thought, while
his eye caught the return of the auburn-haired servant at the doorway. She looked
toward the table at Lady Selkirk, who was sharing a word with a lass who resembled
Amelia, save for her pinched lips and swollen belly, then hurried back in the direction
from which she came. This time it was Lucan who’d caught sight of her and took up
his steps to follow her. Malcolm was nowhere to be seen, likely catching the eye of
some other lass who wasn’t busy spying for her mistress.

When Amelia finally reappeared, she, too, looked toward the table, then decided against
returning to it. She headed off in the opposite direction.

“He loves her.”

“What?” Edmund turned to her father.

“The lord chancellor,” Lord Selkirk repeated. “He loves my daughter. He’s assured
me of it.”

“I’m pleased to hear it,” Edmund told him. Loving her meant that the chancellor would
do as they ordered while she was in Edmund’s custody and not sign.

“Even her accursed ill fortune has not deterred him from seeking to win her favor.
Alas, she has driven off more suitors than I can count.” He sighed, catching sight
of her across the hall. “But they were fools. All but Lord Seafield. He has…”

Edmund stopped listening when Amelia’s path was intercepted by a stern-faced lord
who looked older than her father, but was still fit enough to pose a threat. “Who
is that man speaking with yer daughter?”

Her father peered around Edmund’s arm to have a look. “That is Lord Bedford, my Eleanor’s
husband. She is expecting their first child within the next…”

When Bedford clutched Amelia’s arm, Edmund left her father’s side without hearing
the rest.

He didn’t rush to her side, but advanced quietly, seeking to catch a bit of their
conversation, which seemed to be growing more heated each moment.

“I will return to my mother in a moment, Bedford,” Amelia insisted, pulling on her
arm for him to let go.

“She insists that you return now.” He yanked her forward. “Before you crash into a
candle stand and set the house aflame.”

Amelia dug her heels into the floor, and with a flick of her lashes, her dark eyes
scored his flesh. “Do ye manhandle my sister, as well?”

“There is no need.” He leaned toward her and practically growled in her face. “She
is not undisciplined as you are, and does as she’s told.”

“What a pity for ye then,” she said, somehow regaining her complete composure, or
seeming to. The fire in her eyes still burned, igniting Edmund’s blood.

Her brother-in-law laughed, a haughty, lordly sound. “Where is the pity in having
a dutiful wife?”

“She ends up with a terribly bored husband,” Edmund said, reaching them.

Bedford turned, startled by his sudden appearance. “Lord Essex.”

Edmund clasped his hands at his back and tipped his head. “Lord Bedford,” he greeted
pleasantly. “I’m certain that as tempting the prospect of being dragged across the
length of this hall is fer Miss Bell, she would not be averse to me escorting her
back to her mother.”

“Of course, my lord.” Bedford released her with a smile and scurried off.

Edmund could feel her eyes on him. He’d felt them surveying him from the moment he’d
spoken, driving him mad with the desire to look at her. When they were alone, he finally
did. He kept his breath from falling short.

“Ye robbed these good people of at least a se’nnight of gossip.” Her voice was a light,
teasing caress that made him doubt it was her beauty alone that provoked his thoughts
of kissing her senseless.

“How thoughtless of me,” he said and crooked his arm, offering it to her. When she
accepted, looping her arm through his, he cut her a smirk that twinkled in her eyes
and escorted her to the opposite end of the hall, away from the table.

“I really must apologize for what I said earlier,” she told him while they walked.

“So there
have
been men more comely than me in yer dreams then?”

She glanced up at him and her smile was made all the more stunning by its lack of
guile. “Well, I do sleep quite frequently.”

“And in odd places,” Edmund agreed, surprised at the ease with which she spoke with
him, smiled at him. There was nothing coy or calculating about her, and Edmund found
himself wanting to trace his fingers, his mouth, over the soft blush that spread across
her cheeks. Once he took her prisoner she wouldn’t want to kiss him, and he wasn’t
the kind of man who forced himself on a lass. If he was going to taste the sweet honeyed
nectar of her lips, it would have to be tonight.

“I’m terribly sorry for being asleep during yer arrival.” Her blush passed as quickly
as her repentance. “I barely had a chance to shut my eyes since meeting ye in the
garden this morn.”

“Ye’re not sleepy now, are ye?”

“Nae.” She giggled. “Why?”

“Because I intend to spend the night dancing with ye.”

She cut him a look from beneath the sooty sweep of her lashes. “That would be lovely
but my card is already full. ’Tis my mother’s doing. A ruse to make the other hens
believe I am sorely desired.”

She didn’t need a ruse, Edmund thought to himself when she leaned a bit closer into
his side and tilted her lips to his ear. He bent his head to hear her. “In truth,
I was hoping to steal a moment alone with ye to discuss our early meeting, and then
there ye were, and here we are now. I would call that a fortunate thing, wouldn’t
ye?”

“I would.” His gaze moved over the beguiling curves of her profile.

“What I wanted to ask ye was not to mention finding me in the arcade to my parents.
It would vex my mother terribly to know that I was”—she paused, and veiled her gaze
from his—“wandering about the garden at such an ungodly hour.”

Edmund was surprised to find that he was curious about what she had been doing there.
He didn’t ask though. It wasn’t pertinent to his cause, so why bother wasting thought
on it? In the morning she would hate him for taking her from everyone she loved, including
her betrothed. Tonight, he intended on winning her favor and perhaps something more.
After they had her, he wouldn’t have to speak with her again.

“Why do ye sleep in the garden when ye know yer mother disapproves?” He crooked his
mouth at her. “Are ye rebellious then, Miss Bell?”

“Not particularly, my lord,” she answered. “I simply don’t agree with her reasons
why I shouldn’t.”

Edmund smiled at the limp lock of glossy chestnut hair dangling off her shoulder,
reminding him of Selkirk’s comical expression when he saw his daughter asleep in the
soup.

She cast him a worried look and he winked at her to let her know he saw nothing wrong
with her way of thinking.

“So ye will say nothing?”

“Upon pain of death, ye have my word.”

She gifted him with a grateful grin and then turned to leave him almost before he
could stop her. She paused and turned back to him.

“Did a troubadour truly mention me in song?”

He gazed down at her and thought how many ways his uncle Finn could describe her.
“He did.”

“And what did he say?”

If anything else were at stake besides everything he believed in and loved, he would
have had a hard time keeping his hands off her once he got her out of here. She was
close enough to kiss right now, if he just dipped his head to the right angle.

“He said ye were lovelier than a rose in winter, more radiant than one of God’s own
angels dreaming at dawn.”

The soft blush across her nose accentuated the shimmer in her large sable eyes when
they looked up at him. “Are ye sure ’twas me he sang about?”

He smiled, caught completely off guard by her candor. He was tempted to brush his
thumb over her jaw, her lips, to tilt her face to accept his mouth.

A moment passed between them when Edmund ceased to see or hear anyone else but her.
She smiled as if sharing his thoughts.

“How did ye know what I was thinking earlier?” When he didn’t answer right away, she
clarified. “With Bedford, about being bored with his dull wife?”

“Because ’twould be dull and tiresome fer me.”

Their eyes met again and so much passed between them in the space of that breath that
Edmund felt exposed and open more than ever before. He looked away first, afraid that
if she looked hard enough, she would see his secrets, his true purpose for being here.
But everyone had secrets, didn’t they? Even this tantalizing angel. He could see them
plainly in the shrouded slant of her gaze, the mischievous tilt in the curl of her
lips. What were they? He wanted to discover them all but he would discover nothing
if she was dancing with everyone else.