Or hers.
“The earl is attending?” Trepidation panged hollowly in her belly. “Are you certain?”
Her brother grunted in answer, clearly distracted by thoughts of cornering Pearce at tonight’s ball. But from everything she’d discovered about him since the masquerade, he wasn’t the type of man who let himself be trapped. Several thousand dead French soldiers proved that.
“I’ll pull him aside at some point and demand an answer,” Freddie mumbled to himself. “Perhaps in the game room when he’s distracted by cards and drink.” He waved his hand dismissively and once more began to pace. “You know how these evenings are for gentlemen.”
She sighed a bit mockingly. “No, not really.”
“Don’t, Amelia.” He leveled a quelling look at her. “Do not minimize the importance of this. Everything we have is at risk.”
“I am well aware of that.” For heaven’s sake, she was standing right in the middle of it. War widows who depended upon her charity to survive were most likely out in the shop at that very moment, whispering about the two of them and this latest argument they’d gotten into.
“Good.” He tugged at his cuffs, then at his waistcoat. That same nervous gesture that Papa had done whenever he wanted to remind himself that he was a wealthy businessman who had risen so far in the world that he nipped at the heels of the aristocracy. One of her brother’s inherited traits which she despised. “Then we’ve come to an understanding. You’ll do whatever you can to bring Sandhurst over to our side.”
No. She hadn’t agreed to anything of the kind.
He picked up the silk cloth she’d been examining. “You have a lovely shop, Amelia, you truly do.” He released the panel and let it fall to the table. Then he wiped his hands together, as if ladies’ things disgusted him. “But you won’t be able to save it if I’m ruined.”
Was that a threat? All the tiny muscles in her stomach twisted, and for a moment, she feared she might cast up her accounts. Wouldn’t it be a shame if she ruined his shiny new shoes?
“I mean it,” he warned as he moved toward the door. “Do not do anything to dissuade Sandhurst.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” she mumbled as he left.
When he was out of sight, she hung her head in her hands and let her shoulders sag, gulping down mouthfuls of air to calm her roiling stomach. For this one moment only, she let the anguish sweep over her about the mess life had become, the loss of control, that despised feeling of helplessness that was once again descending…
But only a moment. She’d learned long ago that feeling sorry for herself solved nothing.
Gathering her strength with a deep inhalation, she ignored her trembling fingers as she reached for two of the silk panels and spread them out across the table.
That was it—lose herself in her work, just as she’d always done…when Pearce was forced away, when Papa died and she’d been left to suffer Frederick’s anger about the will, then again when Aaron left her. Plans for a better future had always sustained her. Just as they would now.
After this mess was over, once her charity and Bradenhill were both safe, she would never let herself be under another man’s control again.
“Which is better, hmm?” Talking to herself, she turned her attention back to deciding which of the silk pieces to keep in stock and which to rotate out of inventory. “The red roses with their green leaves or the pretty peonies?”
“I prefer the roses myself.”
With a surprised gasp, she wheeled around. Her eyes landed on Pearce as he stood in the doorway, leaning casually against the frame.
“But then,” he drawled with a shrug of a broad shoulder as his gaze wandered over her, “I’ve always been fond of scarlet.”
The silk slipped through her fingers and puddled on the floor at her feet.
Like a cake of a girl, she stared at him, all dusty and rumpled from riding, his posture both rakish and defiant. Good God…he so easily took her breath away.
The dark-green jacket that stretched over his shoulders only served to make him look more dashing than usual, impossibly broader and more muscular, from his shoulders all the way down over the tan riding breeches hugging at his hard thighs. Unlike how other gentlemen dressed, he wore no hat or neckcloth, as if he couldn’t be bothered with unnecessary bits of clothing or dandyish fashion trends. The slightly open shirt collar that just peeked out from beneath