Читать книгу Shall We Dance? - Kasey Michaels, Кейси Майклс, Kasey Michaels - Страница 12

AMELIA HAD SPENT a lovely half hour with her good friend Georgiana before an urgent summons from the queen’s maid had cut their visit short. With promises to see each other again as soon as possible, Amelia had hastened off to the queen’s chamber, expecting to find Her Majesty still abed, still playing at tragedy queen (not that she didn’t have good reason).

Instead, she’d found Her Majesty at her dressing table, her eyes half-shut while a fussing maid applied rouge to her cheeks.

As there was no sign that the bathtub had been employed, or even the pitcher and ewer on a dressing table to one side of the room, Amelia knew that the queen was in some sort of rush—and when the queen was in a rush, personal hygiene took a distant back seat to wherever the woman was in a rush to.

“Your Majesty,” Amelia said, curtsying to the queen.

The rouge pot and brush went flying when the maid, clearly unprepared for Her Royal Majesty’s abrupt about-face in her chair, turned on Amelia to ask in some excitement, “Did you see? Did you see?”

“See, ma’am? I’m sorry—”

The queen fluttered her ringed fingers toward the bank of long windows. “Oh, just go look—look! My people. My subjects! They come to bow to their queen, Amelia, in her hour of greatest need. I will win! You’ll see, you’ll see. For once in my life, I will best him. I will win!”

Amelia had gone to the windows, knowing what she would see below her, in the water. Boats. Boats and more boats, of every shape and size. And then she leaned closer to the glass. “There are banners,” she said. “Signs.”

“Yes, yes,” the queen said, returning her attention to her toilette. “I had someone fetch me a spyglass. See it? Pick it up, my dear, and read to me from the banners.”

Amelia located the spyglass on a table and did as she was bid. “Long Live Our Queen,” she read, peering through the glass. “Hip, Hip, Hooray.” She saw two more: Kick His Arse, Caroline, and Show Us Some Bottom, Dearie, but those she did not repeat to Her Majesty.

“You have so many admirers, ma’am,” Amelia said, sliding the spyglass shut and replacing it on the table. “In England, indeed, in the world. It is so very gratifying.”

“Ha! It’s tweaking that miserable husband of mine, that’s what it’s doing. I can see him now, being told of what’s happening. Stomping his feet, weeping copious tears into the bosom of his latest fat, aged mistress, calling for his leeches so that he can be bled of his ill humors. My heart has not been so light for years! Oh, enough, enough. When I wave from the balcony all they’ll see will be their queen, not her wrinkles,” she said, batting away the maid’s hand. “Amelia, we must keep them coming here, hold on to their loyalty. Feed it.”

Which was how Amelia had ended up donning a light wrap and picking her way down the flights of wooden stairs that eventually led to the small pier where she now stood with three footmen carrying heavy baskets of cakes and fruit, watching a pathetic man being pulled out of the water by the seat of his pants.

“Gently, my good man, gently. We shouldn’t wish to crease him.”

That voice, laden with amusement. Who’d said that? Who would say such a thing?

Amelia tore her frightened gaze away from the unfortunate fellow just now coughing and gasping on the pier, and looked at the gentleman gracefully picking his way to the front of the lightly rocking boat, then onto that same pier. He planted his cane on the dock, pressed both hands on the knob and leaned forward slightly, to look down at the nearly drowned man.

“Gad, Clive, all that spluttering. I warned you to be careful. Or did you think you’d spied out a mermaid?”

The nearly drowned man choked on yet another cough and raised his face to the man. “I coulda drownded.”

“Nonsense, my good man. If you had but stood up, I imagine you could have kept your chin above water. Hmm…perhaps your eyebrows. A pity. If only his legs were straight, he might not have drowned. Correction, drown-ded. How’s that for a sorry epitaph? Good thing I saved you.”

“You did no such thing, sir,” Amelia declared, motioning for the footmen to put down their baskets and help the wet man to his feet. “If anything, I would say you’ve seen this poor unfortunate’s nearly fatal accident as…as some sort of joke.”

The man—he was a man, surely; just a man; not some fairy-tale prince—immediately stepped in front of the wet man, removed his curly brimmed beaver and executed a most flamboyant leg in Amelia’s direction, his startlingly clear green eyes raking her from top to toe even as he straightened up once more, smiled a smile that all but took her breath away.

“A thousand apologies, miss. A hundred thousand apologies. I am a cad, a heartless cad. But I did warn him.” His cool, green gaze still on Amelia, he asked, “Didn’t I warn you, Clive?”

“Not near soon enough,” Clive admitted as he got to his feet on the slippery dock, then turned in a full circle. “My hat! Where’s m’hat? Here, now, somebody fetch up my hat. Three quid that thing cost. Feed me for a month or more, three quid.”

“Control yourself, Clive, if you please,” the gentleman said, still looking at Amelia, who felt a sudden need to cross her arms over her bosom, for she felt stripped naked by that amazingly intense green gaze. “If I might introduce myself?”

Amelia waved her right hand slightly, as though talking might very well be beyond her at the moment. Never had she seen anyone so…so nearly perfect. Like a dashing hero out of her dreams.

“Thank you, dear lady. I, for my sins, am Perry Shepherd, Earl of Brentwood, delirious to be in your presence, as I had been racking my sorry brain for some paltry excuse to wrangle an introduction. You are Miss Amelia Fredericks, correct?”

“I, um, excuse me?”

“Yes, yes, use the oar, man. Snag it up with the oar. Oh, come on, now, lads, put some back inta it, the thing’s floatin’ away. Wait, never mind, it’s comin’ back this way. I can do it m’self. I’ll just…lean…out…and…reach for—”

Splash.

“‘Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more,’” the Earl of Brentwood said on a sigh, quoting The Bard as he turned about to incline his head to the oarsmen.

Amelia bit back a giggle (horrible of her to be amused, but there was no helping it) as the man named Clive was once more hauled onto the dock, this time with his hat upside down, brim clenched firmly between his teeth.

“God-id,” Clive said, then spit out the brim. “Got it.”

“Yes, my felicitations, I’m sure,” the earl said even as he winked at Amelia as if they’d just shared a private joke. “The only wonder is that you haven’t also landed a fish. Shake out the hat, Clive, why don’t you, and we’ll see if you have indeed been so lucky.”

“Not me, M’Lord. Now yerself?” Clive said, trying to brush bits of water weed off the hat. “Yer woulda come up with a turbot, already skinned and cooked, with a lemon stuck in its mouth.”

“Most probably, yes.” The earl bowed to Amelia once more. “You will excuse him, Miss Fredericks, as Clive here feels our friendship knows no bounds.”

Years of maintaining control of her emotions when presented with the oddest of sights came to Amelia’s aid, and she said evenly, “You address me by name, sir. How is that, as I am quite sure we have not been introduced.”

Behind His Lordship, Clive shook himself like a puppy, spraying water everywhere, including on His Lordship.

Brushing at his sleeves, the earl said, “I believe Miss Fredericks has suggested you be escorted to the queen’s residence, Clive, an invitation I strongly suggest you accept while I remain here and stammer out the reason for this quixotic arrival of mine.”

“Wot?”

The earl turned back to Amelia. “Dear Miss Fredericks, much as I abhor such a public confession, I shall answer your question. I could deny you nothing, you see. I…well, this is embarrassing, isn’t it? I chanced to see a broadsheet heralding the glorious and most welcome return of Queen Caroline to our shores, and a female figure was captured in the etching…engraving…whatever those things are called.”

Behind him, Clive coughed into his fist.

“To continue,” the earl said, turning slightly away from Clive. “So…so taken was I by the face the engraver had captured that I knew, simply knew, I had to find a way to meet that face. That face that is so much more than any artist, no matter how talented, could ever hope to capture completely. I begged everyone for a name, until I learned it, then rented that sorry boat on the desperate chance that I might catch a glimpse of you. I did, praise the gods, and demanded I be rowed to shore so I could approach you, hat in hand—”

“Literally,” Amelia said, looking at the curly brimmed beaver he held. She had to say something. It was either that, or she’d burst into hysterical laughter. Did the man think she’d cut her wisdoms yesterday? He was lying, and laying it on much too thick and rare for even a hope of being believed.

“Yes, of course. Literally. In hopes I could somehow wrangle an introduction. If not an introduction, then perhaps as I’ve already said, just a glimpse, a single sight. Forgive me.”

Clive stepped close to His Lordship and whispered out of one side of his mouth. “Pitiful, pitiful. Thought yer could come up with better than that, M’Lord. Crikey.”

Amelia, like the earl, pretended not to hear.

“Clive? I thought you were on your way up the hill, hopefully to be stripped and wrapped in a blanket. Far be it from me to complain, but you’re beginning to smell very much like a wet sheep.”

“I suggest we all adjourn to the residence, My Lord,” Amelia said. “I should like to hear more of how taken you were with the drawing of my most ordinary face. Perhaps you’ve written an ode to my chin?”

“She’s onta yer, sir. I don’t think I can stay here and watch, that’s a fact,” Clive said, then waved for the footmen to lead the way. “Hop-to, you buggers. You heard the lady. Drop those baskets and move yer dew-beaters. March.”

“A military man, you understand. Very colorful language, those soldiers, or so I’m told,” the earl explained as the footmen all but ran into each other in their haste to obey Clive. “It’s that air of command. Impressed me all hollow, I must say.”