The Seduction of Miss Amelia Bell Read Free Page B

are not afforded any silly notions of love.
     It is the price we pay fer nobility. Marrying the chancellor will help my father earn
     him the respect of many nobles and make him less beholden to my uncle. So that is
     what I must do, whether I want to or not.”
    “But I don’t want you to leave Queensberry House, Amelia.” Sarah’s eyes glistened
     as the fears she’d tried to deny spilled forward. “Whatever will I do without ye when
     ye go to Banffshire with yer new husband?”
    What would Amelia do without her ? They were inseparable, friends since they had learned to take their first steps
     and stumbled straight for each other. Amelia’s mother had tried to keep them apart,
     scolding Archie the smith for not keeping a tighter rein on his child. But the truth
     of it was that Lady Millicent Bell was too occupied with kissing her brother the duke’s
     arse and trying to find suitable husbands for Amelia’s three older sisters to do anything
     truly drastic about her youngest daughter’s friendship with a servant. As the girls
     grew older, the hammer came down a bit harder, mostly due to Sarah’s less than modest
     behavior. But if it wasn’t for her friend’s sometimes crude tales of her affairs,
     Amelia would know absolutely nothing about the marriage bed. Her sisters certainly
     would never share their knowledge about what a man enjoyed in his bed.
    “Do not worry over my betrothed, Sarah,” Amelia promised, heartbroken to be leaving
     Sarah, as well. “I will use what ye’ve taught me to convince Walter to send fer ye.”
    Sarah didn’t look convinced as she swiped a tear off her cheek. “I wish ye were a
     servant with me, Amelia. Then ye could choose your own husband. I wish ye could persuade
     yer father to choose someone else. Is there nothin’ we can do?”
    “The betrothal celebration is tomorrow—rather, today,” she corrected looking toward
     the window. “Besides, there is no one else who has offered for me.” Thanks to what
     her mother called her imprudent nature, there was no one else interested in her hand.
     Amelia did her best to avoid it, but misfortune seemed to follow her everywhere she
     went, in everything she did, beginning when she was a child and she dropped her uncle’s
     only son on his head. She had wanted to carry the tiny babe, but her request was denied.
     Undaunted, she’d lifted him from his cradle anyway. The babe didn’t die after the
     terrible accident, but he grew mad. Mad enough to cause his father to lock him away
     for good and her mother to forever blame her for everything that went wrong in their
     lives after that.
    And, of course, she hadn’t intended to leave her embroidery on Walter’s chair when
     last he visited. She had no idea how the needle came to be sticking straight up, poking
     a three-inch hole into his buttocks.
    She certainly hadn’t meant to douse four of her uncle’s men with dirty water last
     week. She hadn’t wanted Sarah to have to clean her shoes after she’d stepped in horse
     manure, so she’d cleaned them herself and tossed the water out her bedroom window.
     How was she to know her uncle’s men were directly below?
    Things just went awry when Amelia was around. She didn’t like it any more than anyone
     else did, but she tried not to let it concern her to the point of distraction. She
     often failed.
    “All will be well, Sarah, ye’ll see.” She patted her friend’s hand and did her best
     to mask her apprehension and misery. She didn’t want to leave Queensberry House, to
     be married to a man she barely liked simply to appease her mother’s desire to see
     her last daughter bound to a man of wealth and position. She didn’t want a life filled
     with no choices, full of obligations, a life without her dearest friend to help her
     forget her duty. But she would not bring her father further shame by refusing his
     choice of husbands before the entire realm. “The hour grows late and I must soon be
     off.