Her brother smiled in question, looking from her to the captain and back again.
Amalie reached over and held out her hand to their guest. There was nothing for him to do but take it in his. “Captain Napier has agreed to take me off the shelf.”
Her father choked on his brandy. Michael looked non-plussed with the precipitous success of his scheme. The Scot held his smile. But she could hear his teeth grind. She bared her own teeth at him. “Isn’t it wonderful? Love at first sight.”
“Here now! What’s this?” Her father had regained his voice. “He only got here a few moments ago. You don’t even know the fellow!”
Amalie turned her lips down in a pout and made the lower one tremble. “But Michael brought him for me all the way from the peninsula. I like him and I want to keep him.”
Her father blanched perfectly white and even Michael looked appalled at the swiftness of her decision.
She pressed on. “I’ve already promised him my whole inheritance from Grandmama, half the estate when we inherit, and—best of all—he’s bringing me his three natural children to raise for my own. Their mothers won’t mind, he says, for we can install them somewhere in the village.”
Her father gaped.
She went on, fabricating to her heart’s content. “Since we can live right here with you, there should be plenty of help with little ones. Please, please, Father, don’t say no. Mother will be delighted with grandchildren!”
In fact, Mother was so disinterested in children, she had paid only scant attention to her own. She was not even down here now, welcoming the one who had just survived a war.
The Scot squeezed her hand until she felt the knuckles grind together. Her father sputtered helplessly. Michael’s eyes were wide, panicked, darting from her to their father. This was too entertaining.
Michael rushed to suggest, “Amie, perhaps you should consider—”
“What, brother? What’s to mull over that you haven’t thought out?” she demanded, trying to retain a cheerful tone. “Surely you considered every detail when choosing him? How much more suitable could he be, I ask you?” She flung out her free hand as if to present the man as the greatest prize imaginable. “Just look at him!”
“Just look at us,” the Scot echoed, surprising her. “Matching bookends.”
The underlying tone of his voice warned her to cease before he lost his temper completely. But Michael’s face was a study in scarlet perplexity and their father was now eyeing her brother with an urge to throttle. She added one more little plea. “Please, Papa?”
At length, her father dragged his attention from the errant Michael and fastened it on her. Suddenly his face softened and his tight lips relaxed into a sad smile of sympathy. No, pure pity.
Oh, dear! Amalie’s heart stuttered. Don’t say it, Father! Do not! Her silent plea went unheard. She had overplayed her hand.
“Of course, my darling girl. You may have anything your heart desires. You deserve it.”
The Scot leveled her with a glare that promised retribution for this attack of insanity. She bit her lip and wrinkled her nose at him, but she had a feeling a look of apology would not be sufficient in this case.
Michael dusted his hands together. “Well, glad that’s settled! I shall go and fetch Mother.”
Oh, no!
“Wait!” Amalie cried, throwing out her hand as if she could grasp his coat. He stopped and turned, eyebrows raised in innocent query.
She bit her lip, her glance skipping from him, to her father and finally to their guest. “Please.” Her voice almost a whisper, she lowered her eyes and sighed. “This was only a jest meant to lesson you in meddling, Michael.”
But that wasn’t the worst of the matter. “Captain Napier, I do apologize for abusing your good nature in such an abominable way.”
Her father’s color returned. He rocked heel to toe for a few seconds, then hesitantly asked the captain, “Did she make up that part about the children and your…The mothers?”
The Scot lowered his face to his hand and pinched the bridge of his nose. He shook his head slowly as if at a loss in dealing with Bedlamites. “A fabrication, to be sure,” he said. “I do have one son, but he’s quite legitimate.”
“Legitimate?” Michael croaked, clutching his chest. “Never say it! You’re married?”
Captain Napier glanced up swiftly, still shaking his head. “No. My wife…passed away.”
Widowed. Amalie felt terrible. “Do say you forgive me, sir. This was a horribly thoughtless thing for me to do. I had no idea…”
“I know,” the captain said, not looking at her, but at the floor. “I’ll have a brandy now if it’s convenient.”
They’d forgotten to offer him a drink! Michael and her father almost collided in their haste to reach the decanter.
Napier graced her with a dangerous look of warning as he spoke in a dark whisper, “If I were not confined to this chair, I would take you over my knee.”
She bobbed her head up and down, noting how his deep green eyes glinted and his expressive lips turned up just a bit at the corners. It was in no way a smile. More like exasperation.
“I’ve confessed, sir,” she told him earnestly. “What more could you ask of me?”
His lips firmed. His nostrils flared ever so slightly with an indrawn breath. Then he spoke. “I’d ask if you’re lying about everything. I happened to notice you just moved your feet.”
Alex had felt an overpowering need to lash out, to hurt someone, just because he’d been humiliated. Now, brandy in hand, his temper cooled somewhat, he hated whatever had possessed him.
She hadn’t answered his cruel question, but he had not expected she would. If she was pretending, it was certainly no business of his. And if she wasn’t, he had gained her enmity for life.
Just because she had moved her feet did not mean she was capable of walking. What had he been thinking? He could move his, too, but still could not depend on that left leg to support him.
Michael had taken a chair across from him and now appeared to be searching his mind for a way to explain his sister’s strange behavior.
The baron had left the room—glad to get away, Alex imagined—and had gone to fetch the baroness. He wondered if she were as daft as the rest of the family.
“Has Dr. Raine been down from London recently, Amie? Is there any improvement in your condition?” Michael asked his sister.
“No change,” she said, her tone defensive. “He should be here the day after tomorrow for his monthly visit.”
Michael gave a resigned nod, then addressed Alex. “I should like him to see you, too, when he comes. See what he thinks. Raine is the best available. Father saw to that when Amie was injured.”
That was all Alex needed, another opinion, when he was clinging so desperately to the only positive one thus far. His own. “Thank you, but—”
“Don’t bother refusing,” Michael warned. “You know I shall only wear you down.”
Alex gave it up. He would talk to the doctor to placate Michael. Nothing more than a conversation. No examinations. No arguments.
“If you insist, I’ll see him.”
Michael jumped up and headed for the door. “Wonderful! I’ll bring his letters of recommendation from Father’s study.”
“What’s the worst