Page 18 of Look at Her Duke
Emma was sputtering. “Hateful!How dare you! Everyone knows Amelia is an oddity, and you have clearly been having your fun with her!”
Kip’s smile was slow, wicked. “No’ yet.” He nodded to Alistair. “Effinghell,” he acknowledged. “Ladies.”
When he shoved his chair away from the table, Amanda was the one to ask meekly, “And where are you going, Your Grace?”
Kip smiled at Emma when he answered. “To the gardens. To find thatoddwoman, and beg her to marry me.”
Alistair grinned, and Kip felt his heart lighten.
This is what he’d been looking for.
Amelia.
“Charles!”Amelia had never been so happy to see a chicken in her life. “Oh, Charles, there you are!”
She threw herself forward, not caring that the autumn dirt caked her gown as she fell to her knees, reaching for thewhite cock. “You naughty boy, I have been looking for you everywhere!” she declared as she cuddled the bird to her chest.
Well, fine, notreally. The garden wasn’t that big. Effinghell House was larger than most Town homes, but the garden was still only tucked back near the mews. The cook used it for herbs, and Becky and Charles used it to peck for insects.
And for one, horrible moment, Amelia had believed that the cook had used it to scoop up poor Charles and serve him for dinner.
Do not be silly. Of course that would not happen! Charles and Becky are family!
Charles, and Becky, and Amelia’s collection of sea urchins, and the white mice she had to breed to keep her python fed, and the lemurs…
All family.Her family, at least.
The frantic tears which had threatened during her mad rush toward the garden now spilled, even as she felt Becky pecking mindlessly at her slippers.
Her family.
She had Mother, and Amanda, and Alistair and Olivia…and one day, those two would have children and she would become an aunt. Her family, and her animals…
And that was it.
Tonight proved she never had a chance with Kipling. He might have claimed he wasn’t officially engaged to Lady Emma Iverson, but he hadn’t stood up to Emma’s cruelty, had he?
“Come here, Becky,” she ordered, and reached around to scoop up the hen. When she buried her nose in the fancy ruff of feathers, Becky squawked in what Emma chose to believe was comfort. “You are a good girl, are you not? And you, Charles. I am so pleased you are safe.”
“I am too.”
Amelia stiffened. For half a heartbeat, she’d thoughtCharleshad responded to her—thought she was going mad—until the sound of the voice registered.
That soft caramel tone. The Voice.TheVoice.
Kipling.
She froze, even as she felt him moving behind her.
“Safe from the cook’s chopping block,” he murmured as he lowered himself to the dirt beside her.
“Yes,” she rasped, staring down at the birds in her arms because that was easier than looking at him. “I should have known they would both be safe.”
“Are they?” Kipling reached out to brush a fingertip over Becky’s head. “Because, love, I hate to tell ye…but ye’re choking yer chicken.”
A startled laugh burst out of her lips, and she loosened her hold on the birds as she settled back on her heels.
Both of them turned in her arms. Charles jumped down, oblivious to her worry—Men!—but Becky settled into Amelia’s lap.
