Servants are not hired for their wits.
Benedict had been a fool to think that the life he’d built had a foundation of anything but sand. For all that his wife had appeared happy and content, it had taken two short days back with her friends for all of that to shatter.
This Amelia wasn’t the one he’d spent his days and nights with. This was the elitist aristocrat who’d been mortified at the prospect of a life with a working man. Iron walls began to shutter around his heart.
Benedict drained the glass of claret in one desperate swallow and motioned for it to be refilled. Anything to make the night easier.
Grunt, who should have been holding Benedict’s undivided attention, was prattling on about the velocipede.
“…It’s a darn sight more attractive than Karl Drais’s version. Not a fan of the name ‘hobby horse’ but the wheels are bigger and it’s significantly more efficient.”
Amelia had turned to Wildeforde and was nodding, with that practiced smile that looked charming but hid any sign of what she was truly thinking. He hated that smile. He preferred her laughing or angry or bored—really any expression that showed the wife he’d fallen in love with.
“…don’t you think?”
Benedict turned back to Grunt. “Absolutely.” He had no idea what he’d just agreed to but given his desperation to get the Americans back to the firm the next day, he’d agree to almost anything.
He twisted the conversation back to where he needed it, giving Grunt the full force of his attention. “There are similarities between Johnson’s hobby horse and our next incarnation of the steam train. Small refinements made that deliver significant boosts in efficiency.”
Grunt pushed his food around with his fork, refusing to make eye contact. “Yes, yes. I’m sure.” There was an uncomfortable edge to his voice, and for the umpteenth time that night, he changed the subject. “Tell me more about Lord Wildeforde. He seems like a sensible chap. A bit reserved, but all these English types are.”
Benedict’s inability to pin Grunt down into a serious conversation about the locomotive just put more coal in the furnace. The pressure was building, and every second that slipped away took the contract, the firm, and his people’s security with it.
“Wildeforde’s sensible enough, I suppose.”
“What’s his situation? Moved on from your wife yet?” Grunt asked, the same calculating look in his eye that Benedict had seen during their early business relationship.
“I wouldn’t know. We haven’t discussed it.” Benedict finished his glass and motioned for it to be refilled again. Grunt couldn’t dance around talk of the firm all night.
“I’d be interested to know what he’s looking for in a wife. See how compatible he might be with my girls.”
“Amelia. He’s looking for someone like Amelia.”
Because she was the perfect duchess. She’d spent her whole life training to be Wildeforde’s bride. He’d been a fool to think a few months could change that.
“Hmmm.” Grunt ran his fingers through his beard, more invested in Wildeforde’s marital status than what he’d been brought out here to do.
“We sorted out the issue, today. Tessie is running as well as she ever has. It was a misunderstanding—some miscommunication in the team.”
Grunt sighed. He shifted in his seat to face Benedict directly. “Lad, I appreciate your tenacity. It’ll do you credit along your journey. Business is a tough game and needs a certain level of bullheadedness. But a real businessman also knows when to back away. Try me again in a few years.”
Grunt turned in the opposite direction and started a conversation with one of Amelia’s bloody friends.
Benedict’s hand tightened around his glass. Pushing any further at dinner was just going to cause a spectacle—one that wouldn’t help his case with the Americans at all.
He looked over to Amelia, who was deep in conversation with the young Bradenstock fop. His insides writhed to see her so in her element.
He’d failed again. He’d failed his mother, his firm, his village, and now his wife.
Standing at the foot of the servants’ stairs, Amelia took a deep breath. She’d give anything not to go in. For some emergency upstairs to call her away so that she had a good excuse for not walking through that door.
But there was no emergency, and she had no excuse.
She took another deep breath. Her feet were leaden.
The sudden scrape of chairs and clatter of cutlery on china as the servants stood gave way to awkward silence.
More than one of them refused to look at her. The rest of them held expressions of disgust, disappointment, and suspicion. She didn’t blame them.
She’d practiced this in her head a dozen times over while making vapid conversation upstairs. But not one variation of what she’d rehearsed felt like it was enough.
“I’ve come down to apologize—to you in particular, Peter—”
He held her gaze, clearly hurt but thankfully prepared to hear her out.
“—but to the rest of you as well.”
Some of their faces softened, just a fraction, but enough to give her confidence moving forward.
“What I said was disrespectful and unkind. Truly unkind, and I am ashamed and embarrassed those words came out of my mouth. Particularly when you were defending me. I repaid kindness and loyalty with cruelty. I do hope you’ll give me the opportunity to make it up to you.”
There. The words were said.
Some of the weight lifted off her. Not all of it—she’d carry the shame around for a long time to come—but she’d started to repair the damage.
“Thank you for your apology, m’lady,” Peter said. “Though I must say, I don’t think much of your friends.”
“An opinion we’re beginning to share,” Amelia said wryly. As desperate as she’d been to have all of these people visit, the reality was far from what she’d envisioned.
Tomorrow would be easier. She’d planned a day of parlor games—how wrong could that go? And the hunt was the following day. Assuming none of her guests shot each other, it should round out the visit in a way that made The Times for all the right reasons.
Crack. Amelia whirled around at the high-pitched sound of ceramic breaking. Benedict was sitting on the floor, one arm hugging an almost-empty bottle, the other wiping at his pants. A broken cup lay beside him. “Bloody hell,” he muttered.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“We ran out of whiskey.” He waved the bottle in his hand in the general direction of the men in the room. “I went to get some more.”
Which explained where he’d disappeared to after dinner. She pressed her lips together and took a deep breath. If they hadn’t been having this discussion in front of their entire staff, she’d strip his hide.
“Generally, one is expected to join one’s guests after dinner rather than leaving them to their own devices.”
“Generally, one expects their guests not to be jackasses.”
Behind her, the servants sniggered.
She crossed her arms and glared at him. “You’ll be pleased to know that, despite your lack of manners, I managed to convince Mr. Grunt and Mr. Harcombe to visit the firm again tomorrow.”
He straightened quickly and then swayed as the movement set him off balance.
“So unless you want to botch this again, I suggest you leave the liquor here and go sleep it off.”