Amelia had managed to keep a smile on her face right through dinner and dessert. Even when the Karstarks showed up uninvited once again. Even when Lady Wildeforde made sly comments as Peter served. Even when Mr. Grunt described all the things she’d love about Boston.
But inside, she was breaking.
Today had been a perfect day. Lady Luella had remained in her bedroom, Nathaniel Bradenstock had remained in the billiards room, and without their cutting influence, Amelia had been able to reconnect with her old friends like nothing had happened.
Yes, the conversation seemed rather pointless in comparison to her conversations with Fiona, but not every woman could be a chemist.
The truth was, she had managed to achieve everything she’d set out to. Her house party was a success, her friends had welcomed her back into the fold, and she’d managed to help save Benedict’s business.
But despite all of that, she still was not enough. Not for him to take her with him.
Which killed her, because against all reason, he was enough for her.
She loved him. How had she not told him that yet?
Benedict stood by the piano, turning the pages for Miss Appleby as she played. It hadn’t escaped Amelia’s notice that, despite how uncomfortable he was entertaining, he paid special attention to the debutantes clinging to the fringes of the room each night.
He was a kind man. Kinder than she deserved, if she were to be honest.
Looking at him—in his stark black and white evening clothes, his hair perfectly done—he looked every part the heir. He would make an excellent earl when the time came, one who would care for his tenants, ensure their health and well-being, and argue for their rights in the House of Lords.
In a room full of men with their bright, fashionable clothes, elegant manners, and lofty titles, Benedict stood above them all.
She was embarrassed, really, to remember how she’d once thought him beneath her.
The music ended, and he looked up from the piano. Their gazes collided, and with it, she tried to convey everything she was too proud to say in person.
I love you. Don’t leave. Please.
She could have sworn his look said all the same things. He opened his mouth as if to speak, taking a step toward her, and her pulse thrummed. But something caught his attention. He turned his head just a fraction, and their connection was lost.
And with it, her hope.
She looked to the door to see what had distracted him. Greenhill had entered. There was a sense of urgency to his movements as he strode toward Benedict. He didn’t skirt around the sides of the room trying to stay inconspicuous. He walked right through the guests to the piano and whispered into Benedict’s ear.
Benedict paled. Something was wrong.
She followed them into the foyer where Fiona stood, drumming her fingers impatiently against her skirts. Her hair was windswept, as if she’d ridden hard to get here. Her face was drawn, and she had the aura of a tightly coiled spring, ready to unleash.
“What’s wrong?” Amelia asked.
Fiona swallowed. Her hands twisted in her skirts. “Trouble in the village. Charles Tucker has them riled up.”
“Damn, damn, damn.” Benedict rubbed his jaw.
“I don’t understand,” Amelia said. “What do you mean when you say trouble?”
Fiona bit her lip. “He told them you’ve invited the Karstarks here again. They’re planning to march on the house in protest.”
The hair on the back of Amelia’s neck lifted. She grabbed Benedict’s hand, gripping it until her knuckles went white.
“This house? Our house?” She couldn’t keep the shrill pitch from her voice.
“They’ve lit torches and are carrying pitchforks.” Fiona’s voice wavered, as if it were buckling under the weight of her words. “I think you need to get everyone out of here.”
Benedict yanked at his cravat. “We can’t send everyone away. If the mood has run in this direction, they’ll be in more danger on the roads. I’ll go. I’ll talk some sense into them.”
Amelia’s stomach churned. If it was too dangerous for her guests on the road, it was too dangerous for Benedict to walk into the maw directly.
“You can’t.” She clutched his lapels, not caring how strangled or desperate she sounded as she begged. This was her family. She’d finally understood what that meant, and there was no way she was going to let it be taken from her.
He cradled her face in his hands. The rough caress of his callused fingers sent shivers of longing through her—longing for a life, a full and long life. Not one cut short by a pack of angry men.
“I don’t have a choice,” he whispered, drawing her closer to him, kissing her gently on the forehead.
“Then I’m coming with you.” She tugged hard at her sleeves. She was Lady Amelia Asterly, and she could manage any situation.
He caught her hands, trapping them between his. “Like hell you are. You stay here. Keep Cassandra safe.” The urgency in his tone, the fear in his eyes—he wasn’t trying to push her aside. He was entrusting the person most dear to him to her charge.
She nodded. Instinct fought against reason, but he was right. Cassandra came first.
She raised onto her toes and gently touched her lips to his. “I’ll look after her. Be safe.” Her voice broke on those last two words, and her control was not far off.
Benedict turned to Greenhill, who was standing nearby, waiting for orders. He’d heard the conversation. His weathered face was grim, but he stood to attention, ready to take on whatever might be needed.
“Find Wildeforde,” Benedict said. “Tell him what’s happened but don’t let anyone hear you. I’ll meet him in the stables.”
“Yes, sir.”
Benedict turned to Fiona, placing a hand on each of her shoulders. “You should stay too.”
Fiona shook her head. “My father is one of the instigators. You’ll never talk him down, but I might.”
He hesitated. Amelia knew that exposing a woman to danger went completely against everything he was. But she also knew he was a pragmatist. He nodded curtly. “Let’s go.”
He gave Amelia a long look, heavy with all of the things they had not said to each other. And then he strode through the door.
By the time Benedict arrived at the village green, almost every man in Abingdale—and a few of the boys—was deep in his cups. A bonfire had been set up with men sitting on logs, crates, and makeshift benches all around it.
Above the roar and crackle of the flame was shouting and swearing. Men staggered. Some engaged in mock fights. Others leaned on scythes and pitchforks, all kinds of everyday working tools turned potential weapons.
Tucker—that bastard—had built a makeshift stage and was bellowing to the audience in front of him. Alastair walked through the crowd, acknowledging the men and turning their attention toward the revolutionary.
“Oh my lord,” Fiona breathed. “It wasn’t half this bad when I left.”
“Hell,” Wildeforde said. He turned to Fiona, grabbing her roughly by the arms. “You go home, now. Stay out of sight and lock the door behind you.”
“But my father—” She strained to see around him, but he held her fast. In all their years together, Benedict had never seen this level of fear on Wildeforde’s face.
Wildeforde shook her. Just hard enough that he had her focus. “Your father is a grown man that no doubt started this cursed mess. Go home on your own, or I’ll toss you over my shoulder and take you there.”
She was going to refuse. She was every bit as stubborn as Amelia—no doubt why the women were fast friends.
Benedict stepped between them, drawing Fiona away. “He’s right,” he said calmly. “Maybe not about the tossing you over his shoulder part, but this is not a safe place for you, and it won’t be safe for us to go into this riot worried about whether or not some drunk bastard is putting you in danger.”
She pursed her lips but didn’t protest. Wildeforde led her back to her horse, talking intensely to her. He held both her hands to his lips and kissed them before helping her mount.
Bloody prick. Hadn’t Wildeforde done enough bloody damage to her over the years?
Oliver approached. He stank of whiskey, but his stride was steady, his eyes were clear, his voice low and hushed.
“I’ve been chatting to some of the older men, convinced them to head home. Some of the boys too—the ones who are still shit-scared of their mothers anyhow.”
That was good. Oliver could always be counted on.
“What are your thoughts?” Benedict asked, his eyes still on the jostling crowd.
“If we don’t calm it down, they’ll march on the house. We’d lose maybe thirty that come to their senses on the walk over there, but that would still leave a large enough mob to cause trouble.”
Benedict cursed. “I’ve sent for the cavalry,” he said as Wildeforde joined them. “But they won’t be here for another couple of hours at least.”
Oliver frowned, shaking his head. “I’m telling you, we don’t have that kind of time.”
Goddamn it. What a fucking disaster. Anxious energy coursed through him, heightening his awareness, making his skin prickle and his heart thump.
Wildeforde straightened and shook out his legs and arms, just like he did when the two of them used to spar in the boxing ring. “Then we’re going to have to do it alone.”
Together they strode toward the gathered men. There was no denying that they were an imposing sight. All three taller and broader than most men and used to wielding power. Perhaps their size would give them an advantage.
Plenty of men stopped their conversation to watch them approach, faces wary. A handful left as the potential consequences of the night became more apparent with each step the trio took toward the mob.
“Tucker!” Benedict bellowed. “What is the meaning of this?” He stopped just short of the platform, trying to keep the confrontation from easy view of the crowd.
Tucker turned and sneered, gesturing toward Benedict and Wildeforde as he addressed the crowds. “Listen as the oppressors come to try to strip you of your rights.” His tone was oily and snide. He faced Benedict. “There is no law against the gathering of like-minded folks.”
“No law against a gathering, if a gathering is all it is.” Benedict crossed his arms in an effort not to tear the bastard limb from limb. How had it gotten to this point? Men he’d grown up with protesting against him?
He stretched his jaw. No good would come from thrashing Tucker in front of this crowd. He needed a calm approach. He took a centering breath. “Why don’t you tell me what the problem is? Perhaps we can solve this here.” Anything to keep this pack away from Amelia, away from Cassandra, away from their home.
Alastair McTavish joined Tucker on the stage. His voice carried clear over the crowd. “Maybe if ye’d been working and drinking with us instead of hobnobbing with them bloody toffs, you’d already ken.”
Benedict swallowed and kept his tone cool. “I’m doing business, Alastair. That’s all. Business this village needs, as you well know.”
“Doing business…with the Karstarks? They put our families—your friends—homeless into the streets and you do business with them?”
“No,” Benedict said roughly, with more heat than intended. “Not with them. Never with them.”
“But they’re at your house, are they not?” Tucker asked. “Eating your food, drinking your wine, waited on by your servants. If not business, why are they there?”
Benedict scrubbed his hand over his face. “It’s complicated.”
Tucker turned to the crowd. “It’s complicated, he says. Too complicated for simple folks like us to understand.”
The crowd muttered and threw dirty looks Benedict’s way. It was evident why Tucker had been at the forefront of so many rebellious outbreaks. He had a gift for rhetoric. A gift for swaying an audience and whipping up the tempers of men.
“Look at him,” the revolutionary said. “All dressed in his fancy clothes. Are his buttons made of moonstone? Or the hopes and dreams of the men he’s supposed to be friends with? How can you trust a man so clearly not one of you?”
It was a solid punch to the gut. He’d grown up with these men. Worked with them. Drank with them. Celebrated. Commiserated. All with them.
He was as much a part of them as they were part of him.
But then he looked down at the costume Amelia had laid out for him. The costume he’d never have worn a bare month ago. A costume he’d put on without thought this evening.
Idiot.
Impatient, Wildeforde climbed onto the platform, holding out his hands as if he could physically quiet the men with his presence. At least he’d had the sense to divest himself of jacket and waistcoat. His cravat was undone and limp around his neck; the pristine white of his shirt was marred by dirt. The duke, striving to seem accessible.
The crowd wasn’t believing it. A bottle thrown from some unseen hand nearly clipped him on the ear. It was quickly followed by another.
Wilde’s shock was palpable. He’d grown up the heir and then the duke. Few people dared to disagree with him. No one threw garbage at him.
Bloody hell. The crowd looked ready to rip him apart. Benedict climbed onto the platform to stand shoulder to shoulder, knocking a bottle aside as it flew toward his head.
“Brandon Stewart, that was a full bottle. Don’t waste good ale. Finish the bloody thing first.” He’d hoped a little humor might bring them back together. A couple of men laughed, but not enough to sway the hostile atmosphere.
Benedict pointed to one of the farmers standing toward the edge of the crowd. He had a grim look on his face but was steady on his feet and less visibly sloshed than much of the crowd. “Clayton, talk to me. What’s this about?”
The farmer shoved his hands in his pockets, pushing out his chest. “It’s those that live in big houses with fancy food not giving a bloody fig for the people that farmed their land and made them money.”
There was a murmuring of agreement from the crowd and a handful of applause.
The farmer continued. “It’s about having no job, no home in three months’ time, while the rich sit there on a pile of money, never having to worry about nothing.”
The murmuring turned into shouting as Clayton’s words spurred another wave of anger.
“You will have a home,” Wildeforde called out, raising his voice to be heard over the crowd. “I’ve been in discussions with Karstark and he’s agreed to hold off his…renovations…until we’ve built suitable alternatives in the village.”
The local pig farmer called out. His eyes were glassed over, and he swayed as he spoke. “Give up our land for a poxy cottage on a tiny block? The hell we will.”
The statement was met by the rhythmic pounding of feet on the ground and a clapping that shook the foundations of the rickety stage on which they stood.
As the mood worsened, Benedict’s chest tightened, viselike. The situation was quickly getting out of hand. He needed to calm them down before they put Cassandra and Amelia in further jeopardy.
“What do you plan to do about it?” Benedict yelled over the din. “Take the land by force? How long before the army shows up?”
Too long, he knew. They were hours away at best. And if they did arrive to such a hostile crowd, the end result would be bloody.
“Bollocks to the army,” came the reply.
“We just need to stand our ground,” came another.
“Stand your ground?” Wildeforde yelled. “You all heard what happened in Manchester. St Peter’s Field ran red with blood not four months ago. Fifteen men dead, seven hundred injured, and for what? Standing their ground.”
The Peterloo Massacre had made headlines for weeks but done nothing to ease the tension between the workingman and the parliament. Women and children had been killed in the carnage, and all for nothing.
Abingdale would not be another Peterloo.
Tucker stepped in front of them. “We’re talking about the liberation of the working class, throwing off the yoke of the oppressors. This isn’t just about today, about the men on this field. This is about men across the country. Sometimes sacrifices need to be made to change the world. Who’s with me?”
He raised his fist into the air, a gesture met by the raising of torches, a terrifying sea of fire in a perfect storm.
And Benedict could take no more.
He grabbed Tucker by the shirt front, lifting him until the Irishman’s toes barely scraped the ground. “You talk about sacrifices, you worthless bastard. You talk about standing together. But where were you when the soldiers charged at Peterloo? Where were you at the Pentrich Rising, Spa Fields riots, or on the streets of Littlefield? You’re a man of many fine words, but somehow when the cavalry charges and the arrests begin, you’ve disappeared.”
He hated this man. Hated what he’d done to Benedict’s community. Hated himself for being the fool that had brought him here in the first place.
Despite hanging in the air, Tucker smirked, as if holding a trump card that would win him the night.
By this point, the crowd had gone eerily silent, desperate to hear the exchange. The only sound was the crackling of the fire.
Tucker spat, saliva dripping down the side of Benedict’s face. “Fine words from a man that turned his back on the cause, married himself a lady-wife, got himself a title, and betrayed those who stood by him.”
The words were a knife to the chest, but it was the muttering of assent from the crowd—the people he’d grown up with—that twisted the blade.
“Bollocks. I’ve done only what was needed. I’ve betrayed no one,” Benedict said, dropping the man to the ground. Tucker fell but stood quickly, brushing the dust from his knees.
“Then where have you been, my lord?” Jeremy had pushed his way to the front of the crowd and regarded him with a look so full of loathing that Benedict barely recognized the boy.
Devil help him, he had made a mistake.
The signs had been there for weeks. He simply hadn’t acted on them, writing off Jeremy’s behavior as youthful petulance—an annoyance that he’d not bothered to address. And now the kid had been twisted and turned into a blunt weapon for two older, malicious, and manipulative men to wield.
“Because it hasn’t been at the firm,” Jeremy continued. “Unless it’s to swan around with some bloody toffs, showing us off as if we were pigs at a show.”
Benedict’s soul ached to see the damage his negligence had wrought. There had to be some part of the boy he knew left. Some part he could reason with. “Jeremy, I’ve been working to ensure the firm has work for everyone.”
“But if a better deal comes along, you’ll take it, right?” Jeremy sneered. “Because jobs for us don’t matter as much as cash in the pocket, am I right?”
The roiling unease that was churning in his stomach started to rise. Started to make its way up his chest, his throat. “They’re big accusations for a boy barely out of the schoolroom.”
“It’s true though, isn’t it? You made the big deal. You got the money. But the jobs will go to some lucky bugger in America, not us.”
There was a collective gasp from the mob. Oliver had been winding his way through the crowd—a word here, a slight push there—slowly winnowing out anyone who might be convinced to go home before it all went bad. He’d worked his way to the front of the crowd, and now put a big hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. “That’s not true, lad. You know it.”
Benedict could try for a hundred years and still never deserve the unwavering faith of his foreman.
Tucker began to laugh. “If you’re so sure of this, why does Asterly look as if he wants to vomit?”
Oliver looked to Benedict. “Just tell them it’s not true.”
He did want to vomit. He shifted from foot to foot, unable to look Oliver in the eye. “It’s been a busy day.” It was all he could offer his friend, and as the words came out of his mouth, he heard how thin and mealy they were.
Oliver’s face slackened. The crowd shifted behind him as he stepped back in shock. “You…I can’t…”
“I have a plan.” But the plea didn’t lessen the look of horror on Oliver’s face. Or the clear betrayal.
This time it wasn’t bottles the men threw, it was mud. A handful of it hit Benedict in the side of the head, splattering his face.
He stared out into the faces of men that he’d grown up with. Men that he’d tried so damned hard to protect. Men that he’d failed.
The crowd pressed forward, hungry for blood, and the makeshift stage swayed under the pressure.
“You’ve got to go.” Wildeforde clapped him on the shoulders and pushed him toward the side of the stage. “You can’t help matters now.”
Benedict stumbled away, flinching as a boot hit square on his back.
Behind him, the war cries started.