Page 37 of The Scandal of the Deceived Duchess
The captain nodded reluctantly. “Yes, please accept my apologies for being so insensitive to your plight.” He swiveled his body in the saddle and issued some sharp orders. In moments, Anna and Amelia were allotted horses. “The column will advance,” ordered the captain when the ladies were mounted.
“Soon you will be on British soil and safe, Ma’am,” said the captain, riding next to Amelia. Without waiting for a reply, he started to tell her all about life in Montreal and how the British would defeat the Americans in the not too distant future.
Amelia heard none of it. Her mind was for Jonathan alone – to have found him only to lose him so shortly after their heartfelt reunion was the cruelest twist in fate imaginable. She regularly stroked Anna’s hand in a gesture of comfort. Yet, although lost and ripped from the warm embrace of her man, Amelia vowed she would see him again.
A little behind their position, Jake and Jonathan and the slaves lay in the shrubbery, watching with dismay as the column moved further and further away from them.
“No, Jonathan, this is a battle we cannot win,” hissed Jake when he saw his friend cock his musket.
“I don’t care; I won’t lose her, not after all that has happened.”
“Yewill if you enter this course of action; there are thirty of them to our ten. All of them are trained soldiers, and we are but two. We’d be dead before the sun truly starts its ascent.Yemust see reason, Jonathan.” Jake begged him with his eyes.
“But…”
“We won’t go back to Fair Weather Heaths’ until we have them – I promise. We will follow them to Canada before then and all the way to England if we must.”
At last seeing reason, Jonathan nodded with a thin smile on his lips. “All right, we wait until they are gone, and we will make our plans.” He looked ahead, venting a deep sigh. Amelia moved away slowly until only a part of her was visible and ultimately, she vanished from view.
Chapter 18
Mother, Leave Me Alone
London, England, May 1814
“Amelia, the season is already in full swing. I am so happy you made it back home in time not to miss all of it. The dresses are so magnificent – the colors, oh, the colors. The dance floor; it’s like gazing at a rainbow, so resplendent is the hue.” For a moment, mother halted her incessant chirruping to catch her breath with deep gasps. “Yes…it is said that this year’s ball season is to be one of the very best,” she continued excitedly.
Amelia’s mother was incessant in her pursuit to regale her daughter with the latest gossip she missed while she was held prisoner (her words) in the United States. Not once had she spent a moment to ask after her daughter’s wellbeing since her return. It was as if now that her daughter was finally back that her position in society was cemented with the betrothal to Lord Templeton French. “Did you know of the most recent juicy gem of blather here in London?”
“No, Mother,” said Amelia, for the first time in her life feeling completely alien in her habitually homely surroundings at her parents’ London home.
Her mother tittered like a girl. “It’s so garishly boorish,” she rolled her eyes. “I don’t know if I have the heart to tell you. You have been away for so long that you might even faint at such news.”
“Oh, Mother, it can’t be that bad. In the Americas, brave men are dying. How can a bit of gossip be as bad as all that?” said Amelia.
Mother rolled her eyes. “Don’t mention that ghastly war. I will hear nothing of it in this household. The serious expression on her face quickly evaporated and was replaced with one of an excited nature. “Well, what I have to tell you is utterly revolting. One of the gentlemen who was recently elevated to the peerage alongside your father at Carlton House last year had the audacity to blatantly introduce himself to the Earl of Wickham the other week while promenading in Hyde Park. Such behavior just won’t do. Gentlemen don’t do such things unless someone else formally introduces them – it is the height of vulgarity and the talk of the town. The poor earl most probably won’t dare to go for a walk again. It is said he nearly passed out.”
Amelia was lost for words. It was just so like her mother to busy herself with such trivial peccadillos. “The thought of approaching a higher peer of the realm and demanding acquaintance of a person of Wickham’s station is a ghastly notion. It is so preposterously colonial.” Lady Carlyle, 1st Baronet of Windom chittered on like a parakeet at full warble. Her daughter sighed at the overindulgence of Regency Britain – it tired her just listening to it.
Strangely enough, before she met Jonathan her home country’s mannerisms among the upper class came as second nature to her. Today, it was tedium. Navigating Regency society was like treading through a minefield. There were just so many things a lady and gentleman must be aware of. Any minor transgression like the one mother mentioned and a person could be ostracized, and in some cases for good.
Behind her, Anna flitted hither and thither gathering discarded clothing considered inadequate for the betrothed of a future duke. She was just Anna the lady’s maid again. At least that was the impression both she and Amelia gave the world.
No one could know what had happened while they were away. No one could know that Amelia was betrothed to Jonathan as well as to Lord Airey Templeton French. In essence, she lived two separate lives and was promised to two different men. Should this information ever come to light, Amelia’s reputation would be ruined forever. She would be ostracized by society and most probably die a spinster.
“I am certain the earl will ‘cut’ the man for his presumption,” continued Amelia’s mother on the aforementioned subject. She referred to the custom of when one man fails to acknowledge another man’s prescribed greeting when on the street after a formal introduction. It was the ultimate snub and reserved for those that did not know how to engage in polite society.
“Mother, can we do this some other time. I am tired. I have been home barely a week. The sea voyage from Canada was long and arduous, and I look forward to some days in the country,” said Amelia. “The air will do me good.”
“The country, the country?” Mother snickered like an exaltation of skylarks at full warble. “This is not the time for the country. No one other than Lord Duncan or farmers would be seen dead in the country at this time of the year.” Mother shook her head in disgust. “And you know what happened to that Duncan fellow?”
“Amelia sighed. She knew that she had to ask the question her mother expected of her. This was her silly way of preparing her daughter for polite conversation with people of their class. “What happened to Lord Duncan?” She placed special emphasis on mentioning his name. Saying ‘him’ would only have invited the retort, “Who’s him…the cat’s dinner?”
Mother seemed pleased that her daughter was playing along. “Lord Duncan is the head of one of Scotland’s oldest peerages.” She huffed in midsentence. “Such a shame really that he is such a bore.”
“Why is he a bore, Mother?” asked Amelia, not really caring in the least who Lord Duncan was and consequently how he behaved.
“Well, he prefers hunting on his estates in the Highlands to attending to his obligations here in London.” Lady Carlyle, 1st Baronet of Windom, pleated her brow. “Imagine hunting out of season and preferring that to finding a suitable woman. The notion is quite preposterous.” She huffed again. “And to think that your father almost propositioned him your hand in marriage” she tittered again. “Thank goodness for Lord Airey, eh? He came through in the nick of time.”
