Page 9 of An Unexpected Earl

Only tonight, when she was waltzing in his arms, did she realize how much she’d truly missed him. The pain had been simply brutal.

With her buttons undone, Amelia stood as tall as she could in the swaying carriage and gripped the ceiling for support, one hand at a time, so that Maggie could remove her gown. In the darkness, no one could see into the compartment and glimpse her in her stays and chemise, but unease fluttered butterflies in her belly—or perhaps that was a result of the evening. Surely not all of the swaying that gripped her was because of the rocking carriage.

Would she even know him now? Was any of the boy she’d loved still left inside the man Pearce had become?

Things were so different before, when they were children. They’d been brought together only because of the proximity of her father’s town house to his uncle’s inn. He’d been raised there by his uncle after he’d been orphaned, and she’d been allowed to wander unsupervised from the house after her own mother died. After all, Papa had no care or use for her then. That was before he’d made his fortune and came to society’s notice. Before he needed a daughter to marry the son of a peer and launch the Howards into the aristocracy.

Back then she and Pearce had been nothing more than two misfits who belonged nowhere except with each other. Companionship turned into friendship and eventually into affection. For Amelia, it became love. She’d wanted nothing more than to be with him for the rest of her life.

But it had all come crashing down, and nothing could ever be the same between them again.

Maggie slid the blue muslin dress over Amelia’s head and tugged it down into place around her hips and legs. Amelia sank onto the bench.

“You didn’t have the chance to learn anything more at all, then?” the maid pressed as she reached to button her up. “About what Mr. Howard’s been up to?”

“No.” Although after seeing Pearce, her brother had been the least of her concerns.

Maggie pulled pins from her own hair and began to twist Amelia’s into a chignon. “What do we do next?”

“I don’t know.” But surrender was not an option, not when her brother’s career hung in the balance. If Frederick truly had done something illegal—and what MP hadn’t these days?—then he might very well be ruined, thrown out of Parliament, perhaps even arrested and put into prison. And her life would be ruined right along with his. A victim of proximity. If he fell, she’d go tumbling after, and the women her charity helped right along with them. “Don’t worry. I’ll think of something.”

Ignoring the painful hopelessness that panged inside her, she kicked off her red slippers and pulled on a pair of sturdy half-boots. Her normal, not-so-glamorous fare. She turned toward Maggie and pulled her long sleeves into place. “How do I look?”

The woman gave her an assessing glance. “Plain and boring.”

“Perfect.” After all, she had to look as if she’d spent the evening at one of her bluestocking meetings. She trusted no one inside her brother’s house except for Maggie, not knowing where the blackmailer had gotten his information. And if Frederick ever discovered what she’d done tonight and why…God help her.

“Anything else you want to tell me about tonight?” Maggie asked as she folded up the gown and tucked it into the bag in which she usually carried her knitting. They would have to smuggle the dress into the house, then back to Madame Noir, the brothel owner who had lent it to Amelia. For a hefty price, of course. Madame was nothing if not mercenary. “Seems to me that you’re awfully upset just to have run into your brother.”

“Doesn’t Freddie upset everyone he runs into?” Amelia muttered.

The woman shot her a chastising look.

With a long sigh, Amelia admitted, “I saw someone else there…an old friend.”

“Oh?” Maggie arched a curious brow.

“Notthatkind of old friend,” she corrected. Heavens! The last thing she needed was Maggie thinking of love matches for her. No, those kinds of hopes had been dashed long ago. “A childhood friend from Birmingham. I hadn’t seen him since I was sixteen. It was a bit of a shock.”

“I can imagine.” Maggie pursed her lips together suspiciously. “What kind of friend of yours would attend a masquerade like that?”

A brigadier.That’s what Pearce would have answered, what he was certainly most proud of. Not some silly title that was handed down like old linen, but something he had to work to earn. Something that proved his worth.

“A very successful one,” she answered sincerely.

The carriage turned onto Hill Street, and her brother’s town house came into view. The three-bay terrace house perfectly symbolized her brother—aristocratic tastes on a tradesman’s allowance. She’d always wondered how he’d managed to afford the house, belong to so many clubs, frequent the best tailors, and spend nearly every evening at cards, drink, and women on the meager income their father had left him. She’d never dared to question him, knowing that she should be the last person to question how he managed his money, given how foolishly she’d lost hers.

But since finding the blackmail note, she’d begun to wonder… Had he been taking bribes? Was that why his friends had worked so hard to place him into the Minehead seat when he didn’t have the money to buy it himself? Had that been how he funded his lifestyle? Or was he involved with something even worse, like smuggling?

Certainly, there were gambling debts and prostitutes. He’d never cared about hiding evidence of those, despite how he kept all of his other papers under lock and key in his study. Yet there had to have been so much more that he’d been doing that she didn’t know about.

But the blackmailer knew, and whatever Freddie had done now threatened to come crashing down on both their heads if she couldn’t find a way to stop it.

Amelia rapped at the roof of the carriage to signal for the jarvey to stop. “Ready?”

Maggie gave a conspiratorial nod and recited, “It was an evening of spirited bluestocking discussion among the London Ladies regarding Voltaire. And tea. Lots of tea, although I suspect that Lady Agnes Sinclair slipped whiskey into hers.”

Amelia laughed. A perfect alibi!