To his own ears his voice sounded a bit clipped, yet for some reason he was decidedly out of sorts. Bennett forced a polite smile before turning on his heel and heading purposefully back to his study. He felt the oddest tickle of awareness, which instantly raised his hackles and made him glance around. He caught Miss Mansfield openly staring at him again and not in a good way.
Bennett was not prone to vanity—he did not have the time required to dedicate to such an endeavour—but he knew that he was considered quite handsome by most women. He was used to female admiration and, on occasion, even blatant flirting. He was a duke, after all, and a very eligible one at that. However, Miss Mansfield was regarding him as if he was some sort of scientific specimen that she did not fully understand. People just did not do that. Not to him. If they did, basic good manners dictated that it was done covertly and he was blissfully unaware of their scrutiny. It was most disconcerting. Bennett scowled as he marched onward towards his study, for the first time in as long as he could remember feeling very uncomfortable in his own skin and ever so slightly offended.
* * *
Amelia had two good frocks that were passable to wear to dinner. Neither filled her with enthusiasm. Out of sheer defiance she picked the one with the lowest neckline, grabbed her finest shawl and pinched some colour into her cheeks and lips to give herself some confidence. The Aveley residence on Berkeley Square was the grandest house she had ever set foot in and she hated the fact that she found it more than a little bit intimidating. From the moment she had walked up the marble steps towards the imposing black double front doors, the sheer opulence of the place had taken her breath away. But inside? Well, that was a completely different level of exquisite altogether.
The floor in the hallway was a striking chessboard of black and white marble. An ornate and sweeping staircase drew the eye upwards to a painted ceiling that had literally left her awed by its beauty. The artist had turned it into a window to Heaven. Cherubs floated amongst clouds, gazing down at the viewer below in angelic serenity. Amelia had really never seen anything like it. If the shock of her new surroundings was not enough, she had blinked in surprise when she had first glimpsed the owner of all of that splendour. The Duke of Aveley looked nothing like the haughty, beady-eyed and paunchy aristocrat she had imagined him to be.
Like the angels suspended above her, this man appeared to have been created from the brush of the most talented of artists. He was broad-shouldered and golden. That was the only word for him...golden. Over six feet of manly magnificence had stood in front of her, completely at odds with the arrogant pomposity that had apparently spewed from his pen. Aveley had thick, slightly wayward blond hair, weaved with threads of wheat and bronze, intelligent cobalt eyes and a tempting mouth that drew her eye just as effectively as his wonderful ceiling did. The female part of her, which she always tried to ignore, had reacted in the most peculiar way. Her pulse began to race, nervous butterflies began to flap in her stomach and her knees felt decidedly weak. If she did not know better, Amelia would have said that she was all aquiver, which was a ludicrous but apt description for the way she’d suddenly felt. He was a square-jawed, straight-nosed delight to behold. Exactly the sort of fairy-tale man she had once dreamed she would live with happily ever after before the harsh realities of life had taught her that there were no such things as fairy tales.
And then he had looked at her as if she was exactly what she was—little more than a servant and nothing of any consequence—bringing her crashing soundly back to earth with a thud. For the briefest of moments Amelia had felt a rush of pure, unadulterated disappointment before she’d shaken herself and reminded herself that she was a fool to have expected anything less. She knew better than to judge a book by its cover, no matter how splendid that cover might first seem, and she was not usually prone to silly fluttering or even sillier ideas that involved a titled man in her future.
At the time, her uncharacteristic reaction to him had bothered her immensely but, after a small period of reflection in her luxurious new bedchamber, she now understood that she had simply been completely overwhelmed. Not just by the handsome, pompous Duke, but by her surroundings and the prospect of being amongst proper society again for such a prolonged period of time. It had been a long journey and she was quite tired. It was hardly surprising that she was a little out of sorts and she had been surprised that the pompous Duke had not looked anything like she had imagined. It was rare that a title did not immediately disappoint. She had not been expecting someone who resembled Adonis, therefore she could forgive herself for her brief moment of disbelief and the understandable nervous reaction that followed. Equilibrium restored, she stiffened her spine and walked with purpose.
A footman directed her down a long corridor to a formal dining room at the end, where she was seated in the middle of a grand table set for five. Sir George was the first to arrive and plonked himself down in the chair opposite her and instructed a servant to fill up both of their wine glasses with a flick of his hand.
‘How splendid, Miss Mansfield, that I have you all to myself. I dare say you are burning with curiosity and have a hundred questions about this house and its family that you want to have answered. Unfortunately for you—’ he took a healthy glug of his wine and grinned conspiratorially ‘—I have a very loose tongue when under the influence of even the merest drop of alcohol; therefore I suggest you grasp the opportunity to take advantage of that fact before the others arrive and I have to behave myself.’
Already he was her favourite person here and she had known him less than a few minutes in total. ‘The house is very impressive. Has it always been in the family?’
Sir George rolled his eyes in irritation at the apparent banality of her question. ‘It was designed for the fourteenth Duke by none other than Robert Adam himself. It is also the biggest house on Berkeley Square. Surely that is not the best thing you could think to ask me about—I, who have an intimate knowledge of this illustrious family and all of their goings-on? Bennett’s father was my elder brother, after all.’
There was a look of challenge in his face that encouraged her to be bolder. ‘Is the Duke a close friend of the Regent?’ If he was, it would confirm all of her worst suspicions about the man.
Sir George took a thoughtful sip of his wine before answering. ‘Bennett is one of his advisers—however, the King’s son is not particularly good at taking his advice.’
‘That does not answer my question, Sir George.’ If the pompous Duke was a great friend of Prinny’s, she would find every second in his company loathsome.
To his credit, he laughed at his attempt at evasiveness. ‘If the point of your question was to find out whether or not the Duke of Aveley holds the Regent in high regard, then I have to tell you that to say that he does not would be tantamount to treason and would place his position in the Cabinet in jeopardy. However, to answer you in a roundabout way, I can say that my nephew, like his father before him, is a statesman and to be an effective statesman you have to be a diplomat. As such, I believe he uses that diplomacy to his advantage in order to get things done for the good of the country. He does not socialise with the Regent very often, if you get my meaning, and when he does it is only at events that are important to the state.’
The fact that her host did not gamble or carouse with Prinny made him only slightly less offensive. It was no secret that Lord Liverpool, the Prime Minister, put a great deal of stock in Bennett Montague’s opinions—which made him her natural adversary. Liverpool was unsympathetic to the plight of the poor and preferred to repress dissenters rather than negotiate with them. ‘The newspapers claim that the Duke will be Prime Minister before he is forty.’
‘Oh, dear!’ Sir George chuckled as he swirled his wine around in his glass. ‘Please do not say that in front of Bennett. He has every intention of taking that office before he is thirty-five and even that is too long a wait for his ambitions for the nation.’
Further prying was prevented by the arrival of the Dowager and Lady Worsted. The Duke’s mother took her seat at one end of the table and Amelia’s employer sat down next to her. ‘Where is Bennett? I am famished.’
Sir George glanced pointedly at the clock on the sideboard. ‘It is still two minutes before seven. He