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Devereaux waited with Joanna at the fork in the road that was the meeting place he had agreed with Arthur Sudbury half an hour earlier. He was a little surprised that his sister had agreed to join them, not thinking her fond of long walks or of him, but a strange silence had pervaded the air at Roland Park when he entered it, and he found that both his sister and stepmother were in no humour to be left together. They seemed to be ignoring one another, and he fleetingly considered that he might somehow be the cause of this antagonism. He dismissed the thought almost immediately, however, for, whilst relations seemed to be improving with his sister, his stepmother still refused to speak more than mere civilities to him. Even those had been lessened over the most recent days, for she had been attending with ever more fervour to her correspondence. Letters flew from and to her with such regularity that, had Ben a suspicious nature, he might have thought her planning some sort of coup. The answer was on Joanna’s lips before he had even formulated the question.
“You know Mama intends to leave us?”
They had been standing in silence, waiting for their friends to join them. Joanna’s words were uttered so matter-of-factly, apropos of nothing, that Ben turned to look at her, frowning in surprise and confusion.
“How do you know that?”
“She told me.” Joanna pulled her wrap closer, lifting her chin and fixing him with a defiant stare. “When I asked her to tell me the truth about why you left. Or,” Her gaze faltered, her voice dropping to little more than a whisper. “Why she made you leave.” She frowned. “I had no idea anyone could be so unkind, and to have the audacity to remain in your home - for Roland Park is yours now, whatever she might wish. She told me she has no intention of remaining where she is not wanted and was merely using this time to make such plans as would settle her comfortably elsewhere before you revealed your true intentions towards us and had us cast out.”
Now, he saw the reason for her question, as her gaze falteringly settled upon him again. “You will not make us both leave, will you, Ben?”
He might have given any one of a hundred responses, but he saw the sister he had loved and lost in those features, the slightly hopeful turn of her eyes, the lips that trembled a little as they spoke.
“No, Josie. I will not make you both leave.”
A smile - the first real, genuine smile he had won from her since his return - began to creep onto Joanna’s face and she looked for a moment as if she was about to embrace him. Instead, she offered a hand that he, stiffly, shook. He wondered if ever they would overcome the awkwardness of their separation, and decided that this first, frank conversation was the beginning.
“I am sorry,” Joanna whispered, as he let go of her hand. “I believed what she said about you. All these years I have been so angry about what you did, and - and how it affected us.” She smiled, self-deprecatingly. “I can be terribly selfish at times, Benjamin, as I am sure Amelia will attest -”
“Amelia is your friend,” he said, reflexively. “What makes you think she would be anything other than complimentary? Especially within my hearing?” He did not say, lately, I am lucky if she speaks to me at all, but something in his gaze or his voice must have betrayed him because Joanna’s smile grew.
“She may be my friend, but it would not surprise me if you are the one she truly cares to know,” Joanna remarked. “Ah, look, you may discover for yourself: they are coming.” She raised her hand to wave a greeting to their friends, and Ben followed suit, struggling to order his thoughts, which had all sprung to attention after these surprising words from his sister. Did Amelia care to know him? Did he dare to think such a thing possible?
“Here we are, Devereaux!” Arthur called, cheerfully. “Forgive us, did we keep you waiting?”
“Not at all.” Ben bowed, his eyes lighting first on Amelia and then her father. “Admiral Sudbury! I am so glad you could join us. And Miss Sudbury. You are content to walk to town with us? I hope it is not too far.”
“Sir Benjamin, when we first we met I had walked to town and back,” Amelia said, with a mischievous smile. “But perhaps you forget.”
His smile grew.
“How could I forget such a meeting?”
Arthur Sudbury cleared his throat, and Ben, forestalling his teasing or censure, turned back to his sister.
“Well, shall we begin? Let us make the most of this good weather while it remains.”
The party began to walk. They made a merry group, for their pace was leisurely, yet brisk, and the sky shone with pleasant winter sunshine.
“I hope you intend to join us at the upcoming assembly, Captain Sudbury,” Joanna called, disentangling herself from her own brother’s arm so that she might address Amelia’s. Ben was left to walk alone and found himself slowing, matching his pace to Admiral Sudbury’s, while the two young ladies and Arthur discussed, in detail, their plans for the upcoming ball. Ben’s ears were pricked to their conversation, but he did not wish to be seen eavesdropping and opened a conversation with the admiral.
“I trust you are adjusting to having a rather fuller household than you have had for some time,” he remarked, with a cheerful smile.
“Indeed!” Admiral Sudbury laughed. “And yet, Arthur is so often out of doors that we scarcely notice a difference. I trust he is not making a nuisance of himself.”
“I see him even less than you do!” Ben acknowledged, with a frown. “I thought he kept mostly to home, to spend time with the family he has been so long apart from.”
Admiral Sudbury knit his brows, shooting a curious look at his son’s back.
“I expect he is enjoying the freedom to explore, and I dare say he has many other friends hereabouts,” Ben said, quickly, wishing to allay the admiral’s concerns. He made a mental note to extract the truth from Arthur when he next had the chance, for Admiral Sudbury had spoken with such certainty that he felt as if his own name had been offered as an alibi far more than it ought to have. He must remind his young friend what troubles came of untruth before damage was done to a family he had come to care for as if they were his own. His eyes strayed to Amelia, who looked with such reverence towards her brother that his own heart constricted. He could not bear her being hurt by her brother’s behaviour, whatever it was. He knew only too well the damage such deception could do to relations between a brother and a sister.
There was a stile ahead to cross and the party slowed, as Arthur clambered over, reaching back a hand for Joanna. Amelia ought to have been next, but she caught her dress on a bramble and stopped to free it. Admiral Sudbury climbed over the stile next, needing but refusing to take any assistance. Ben stood back, watching to be sure that he could step in to help his friend if needed, but at last, the admiral’s feet were firmly on the ground once more.
“Miss Sudbury,” he called, at last, as the first half of their party continued walking and the distance between them grew. “You must allow me to help you continue on our path.”
Amelia nodded, hurrying up to the stile. Ben held her hand lightly in his, wondering if, even through gloves, she felt the jolt that passed between them. She turned to look at him, then, and missed her footing. Quick as a flash, Devereaux reached up to secure her, and she was saved. Her reticule, alas, was not, and it tumbled to the ground, dropping its contents into the dirt.
“Oh!” Amelia cried, bending to retrieve it. Ben reached for the book, slower this time, but more insistent as his hands closed around the slim volume. Amelia relinquished her hold on it as if the book were aflame, and had burned her. Ben’s eyes fell on the title and a sly smile crept onto his lips.
“Miss Sudbury!” he exclaimed, his tone warm with the affection he was tired of concealing. “You are reading, still. I wonder that you do not feel you have far too many dealings with wicked rakes already that you need to seek them out in literature.”
Amelia reached for the book again but he held it aloft.
“A moment, Miss Sudbury, for I must study the form if I am to embody it accurately.” He patted his chest. “I am already dressed the part, I think, in swirling black coat, and hat, and scowl.” He forced his features to smile no longer. “Yes, that part I have great success at. A mysterious past, too. Well, I am already aware of your acquaintance with my past misdeeds.” His smile cracked. “I wonder what it means for the noble rake if they are proven false?”
“They are?” Amelia’s voice was little more than a whisper, heavy with hope, and when her gaze met his, Ben dropped his charade and grew serious once more.
“They are. But I am not. Miss Sudbury, I know that our acquaintance has been underpinned by suspicion and rumour, but now I stand before you as I truly am. All pretence aside. I am no rake, although I have certainly lived my share of mistakes.” He blinked, but his gaze did not falter. “The worst of which was not telling you, the first moment I met you, how much I admired you. That admiration has merely grown with our acquaintance. I - I love you, Miss Sudbury.” He swallowed. “Amelia. I know it is foolish to ask that you return my feelings, but I dare to hope that one day you might. Am I mistaken?”
***
AMELIA’S THROAT HAD constricted so much that she was not capable of speaking a word at first. She swallowed, opening her mouth at last and forcing herself to make some sound if only to convince herself that she was still alive, that all this was truly happening, and not merely a dream.
“No. Yes. I mean –” She was stammering, watching Devereaux’s reactions and trying, quickly, to remedy them. She took a breath, glancing up towards the heavens as if seeking some assistance. When her lips parted again she managed to speak only a few words, but so succinctly and honestly that both her heart and Devereaux’s were put at ease.
“You are not mistaken,” she murmured, finding she was able only to look at Benjamin or to speak, not both. She dropped her eyes to the ground, to the foot or so of space between them, and found herself able to continue. “I ought not to talk of love –“
“Then don’t,” Benjamin said, swiftly taking a step closer to her. Instinctively, Amelia moved back. The movement forced her eyes upwards and she saw he wore a smile, gentler and more welcoming than any she had seen him wear before. “And I shall not either. We might be friends, at least?”
There was such hope in this, such simplicity, that Amelia wished she could say yes. She knew, though, that she could never merely be friends with Benjamin Devereaux. She bit her lip and his smile faltered before she took a breath and tried again to speak.
“I ought not to talk of love,” she said again, haltingly. “Because it is improper and because it is so unlikely as to end in my making a fool of myself. But as you have spoken of it first...” She took a breath. “It is up to me to be as brave as I can be. Sir Benjamin, I have spent the last weeks listing every reason I could conjure why I shouldn’t care for you. My mind denounced it as foolishness, but my heart refused to listen. I blamed my books for fuelling my imagination, but perhaps it is good they did, for there is no logic to our caring for one another and yet...I do. I do care for you, very much.”
There was silence following this little speech so that Amelia was briefly uncertain whether she had even spoken it aloud, or merely thought it.
“Sir Benjamin?” Her eyes searched his face.
“Do not call me Sir Benjamin as if we are strangers, Amelia,” Devereaux said, gently.
“Then what am I to call you?” She laughed, and all at once the anxiety that had kept them rigidly apart receded. “I shall not call you Devereaux as my brother does, nor Dev like Mr Lennox.” She wrinkled her nose. “Both make you sound so...” She threw up her hands. “Rakish.”
“And Sir Benjamin recalls me to my father,” he said, glowering fiercely and looking, momentarily, the very picture of the villain he had claimed to be. Amelia blinked, and the picture shifted.
“You are not your father,” she said, softly. “You are entirely yourself.” Shyly, she tried the name she had heard Joanna call him but once when she forgot herself in a moment of familiarity that bordered on affection. She was not affectionate, but the name was, and on Amelia’s lips it sounded the very dearest word of all. “Ben.”
This prompted a smile, the same warm, gentle, endearing expression that she had seen only glimpses of before. This was Ben, and there was no cynicism, no manipulation, no anything but sincerity and love. Amelia smiled back, and this time, when he moved closer to her she did not move away.
“Then we are agreed, Amelia?” His voice was little more than a whisper, but he was so close that she could feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek. “Logic or no, we have found one another, and we might, somehow, be happy together?”
He held his hand out to her, this time not to help her over a stile nor to give her anything but the promise of his heart and a future by his side. For the first time with absolute confidence, Amelia laid her hand in his, meeting his gaze and smiling as he leaned closer to kiss her.
“Yes, Ben, we are agreed,” she murmured, their faces inches apart. “And I think we might manage to be very happy together.”