Page 23 of The Wrong Duke

No... Evan realized then and there that if he was going to put an end to things this weekend, he’d need a new strategy. It wouldn’t be enough to have her behaving in an unseemly manner. He’d need her to drop her guard entirely and transform into the woman he’d met that night in the garden. And not just a kiss either. Something more. Something that would force her to finally admit to who she was and leave his friend alone.

Only what that might be... it was lucky that Evan had an entire weekend to figure it out.

CHAPTERNINE

“There you are.” Amelia spied her sister sitting in the back corner of the library, curled up on a plush couch, the single candle standing on the table beside her providing the only light in the entire room. “I’ve been looking for you.”

Bridget glanced up from her book. “Not too hard, I am sure.”

“And what does that mean?” She swept across the room until she was standing right in front of where her sister was reading.

“Oh, I think you know.”

Amelia’s expression was flat. “Are you going to tell me? Or do I need to start guessing? Although I ask that you give me a clue, otherwise we might be here all night.”

Bridget rolled her eyes and closed her book. “I was going to look for you after dinner, but... but I thought you might have been busy.”

“Busy how?”

“Oh, I think you —”

“Bridget,” Amelia groaned and rubbed her forehead as if in pain, “why do you insist on frustrating me. Do you enjoy it? Do these books not provide enough entertainment?” She gestured to the library: a smallish room, crammed full of hundreds of texts.

“They do, but I find frustrating you infinitely more appealing. And rather easy to be fair. I have it down to a fine art by now.”

Amelia looked flatly at her sister. “I thought you might have joined us in the drawing room after supper?”

“Father denied me,” she sighed. “He said it wasn’t a place for one as young as me.” She scoffed. “He’s perfectly willing to sell me off like a prized horse to a man twice my age, but heaven forbid, I find myself in a room with him and his drunk friends.”

“If only they were his friends,” Amelia said bitterly. “The irony is, if they were, he might have insisted that you be there.”

“If that had been the case, I would have simply claimed I had food poisoning and warned our father that if he was so insistent on my presence that he better be prepared to explain to his friends why his youngest daughter just emptied her stomach all over them.”

Amelia snorted. “That’s one way to avoid a marriage.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that, I have others. These books aren’t just to help me pass the time, you know?” Her smile was sly and knowing, the sense being that she was only half joking about what she said.

As amusing as the image was of Bridget vomiting all over her father’s gambling buddies, Amelia couldn’t find it within herself to laugh. She eyed her sister curled up on the couch, feeling a deep-seated pain as she thought about the life that might become her if things didn’t go as planned. Just seventeen years of age, puppy fat filling her cheeks, a softer body because she still had an inch or two to grow, dark eyes that were smart but wholly inexperienced as they should be for one so young.

Feeling overcome, Amelia indicated for her sister to uncurl her legs, and then she fell in beside her, forcing herself onto the same couch while pulling her sister up, so she was just about sitting on her lap. If their mother was the type of woman capable of standing up to their father, she would be here right now, giving her youngest daughter comfort. But that simply wasn’t the case, and so, it fell on Amelia’s shoulders.

“That won’t happen,” she insisted as she stroked her sister’s hair. “I promise.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“I can.”

“And Father?” Bridget pressed, her voice cracking with worry. “You know how he is — you know how much debt he is in. He’ll never admit it, but everyone knows. It’s lucky we still have a roof over our head.”

Gambling was their father’s greatest weakness. Or perhaps the nasty habit he had of losing when he gambled. That was why he was in such huge debt, and that was why he was so insistent on marrying Amelia to Lord Malnor. Lord Malnor was beyond wealthy, the sort of opulence that would more than cover his debts and then some. And although there were many lords of thetonto choose from, for reasons that Amelia didn’t understand, her father had chosen Lord Malnor. It could be worse, she supposed. And to find herself attached to his arm would solve all their problems in one fell swoop, meaning that when it came time for Bridget to marry, she might be afforded the rare gift of falling in love first, rather than being shepherded into a loveless marriage for the sake of survival.

They both knew what would happen if Amelia was to fail. Their father had many a rich friend who wasn’t a member of theton: no lord, certainly not a gentleman. But wealth and desperation made strange bedfellows, and if his hand was forced, both women knew he would not hesitate to sell his youngest daughter for the sake of peace of mind... and the chance to fall back into debt as he was wont to do.

“Let me worry about father,” Amelia said. “Hopefully, once this weekend is finished, all this will be a bad memory and nothing more.”

Her sister giggled. “Yes, well, I saw you at supper. Well done, by the way. That was quite the performance.”

“Urgh,” Amelia groaned. “Don’t remind me. But it’s a necessity. Father is insistent that I marry Lord Malnor, so if I have to —”

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