Cold fingers closed over the cross at her throat. Her father was the one person who had stayed constant in her life and she would do whatever it took to see that he was happy. Anything at all.
‘Your mother made me promise to see you flourish, Amy. They were the last words she spoke to me as she slipped away and I had hoped that you would, but after Whitely...’ He stopped, his voice wavering and frighteningly thin. ‘Lord Montcliffe will make you remember to laugh again. He loves horses and they love him back. Any man who can win the trust of an animal is a good man, an honest man, and I can see that in him when I look him in the eyes.’
She hoped her smile did not appear false as he held her hand, the dearness of the gesture so familiar.
‘Promise me you will try to give him all your heart, body and soul, Amethyst. No reservations. It is how your mama loved me and there is no defence for a man against a woman like that. Such strength only allows growth and wonder between a married couple and I know you have been saddened by love...’
She shook his words away, the reminder of bitterness unwanted. Her choice, cankered before it had even begun.
‘When death claimed Gerald Whitely, my love, I was not sorry. Sense tells me that you were not either.’
So he knew of that? Another shame. A further deceit that had not remained hidden.
‘It was the Cameron fortune Gerald was after, Papa. Perhaps Lord Montcliffe and he are not so unalike after all?’
But her father shook his head. ‘Whitely fashioned his own demise. Daniel Wylde is only trying to clean up after the mistakes of his brother and father and is doing so to protect the family he has left.’
‘A saint, then?’ She wished that the caustic undertone in her words was not quite so unmistakable.
‘Hardly. But he is the first man you have given a second glance to. The first man who has made you blush. Such attraction must account for something because it was the same with Susannah and me.’
Despite everything she smiled. ‘I imagine that Lord Montcliffe has that effect upon everybody whoever meets him, Papa. I was not claiming him for myself.’
‘Because you do not trust your judgements pertaining to the acquisition of a husband, given the last poor specimen?’
Her father had never before, in the year since his death, spoken of Gerald Whitely in this way. That thought alone lent mortification to her sinking raft of other emotions.
Failure. It ate at certainty like a large rat at a wedding feast. Once she had chosen so unwisely she felt at a loss to ever allow herself such a mandate again. Perhaps that was a part of the reason she did not rally against her father’s arguments. That and the yellowing shades of sickness that hung in the whites of his eyes.
Death held a myriad of hues. Gerald’s had been a pale and unholy grey when she had seen him laid out in the undertaker’s rooms. Her mother’s had been red-tinged, a rash of consequence marked into the very fabric of her skin and only fading hours after she had taken her final and hard-fought breath.
Amethyst’s nails dug deep into her thighs as she willed such thoughts aside. A long time ago she had been a happier person and a more optimistic one. Now all she could manage was the pretence of it.
It was easier to allow Papa the hope of joy in his final months, the illusion of better times, of children, of the ‘heart and body and soul’ love her father had felt for her mother and which he imagined was some sort of a God-given rite of passage. Once she had believed in such a thing as well, but no longer.
All she could muster now was a horror for anything that held the hint of intimacy.
Blemished. Damaged. Hurt.
Daniel Wylde would understand sooner or later the payment required for the Cameron fortune and she was sure he would feel every bit as cheated as she did. But at least Papa would go to his grave believing that his only daughter was safe and happy, the soldier earl he had chosen for her strong enough to ward off any threats of menace.
She leaned down and picked up a small coin from a collection on a plate, balancing it in her palm before flipping it over. If it shows heads this marriage will work and if it does not... When the coin fell to tails she chastised herself for playing such silly games.
* * *
When Daniel returned from an outing later in the day his mother was ensconced in the drawing room at the Montcliffe town house, a glass of his finest brandy in her hand and a thoughtful look upon her face.
‘Have you been procuring new horseflesh, Daniel? There is a pair of magnificent greys in your stable and I just wondered...’
‘They were a gift, Mother. I did not purchase them.’
‘A gift? From whom?’ The silk in the gown Janet, Lady Montcliffe, wore matched her eyes exactly, a deep sapphire blue. A new possession, he supposed, thinking of the demand for payment that would come across his desk before much longer.
He could have been truthful, could have simply stated that there was a possibility he would be married and that the greys had been a pre-wedding present, but something made him stop. Anger, he supposed, and shame and the fact that to voice such a thing might make it feel more real and true.
With the Camerons he felt removed from society. In their company the preposterous proposed union made a sort of skewed sense that it didn’t here in front of his mother.
When he didn’t answer, his mother remarked, ‘Charlotte Hughes is back from Scotland. I saw her today at the Bracewells and she asked after you. She is looking a picture of health and wealth and was sporting a necklace with an emerald attached to it the size of a walnut.’
‘I am no longer interested in Lady Mackay, Mama.’ He stressed her married name.
‘Well, she seemed more than interested in your whereabouts. She had heard of the fracas at La Corunna, of course, and was most concerned about the injury to your leg. There were tears in her eyes when I told her of it and such compassion is heartwarming.’
Daniel interrupted her. ‘Is that my French brandy you are drinking?’ Crossing to the cabinet, he found the bottle and frowned as he saw there was barely any left. His whole family had been falling apart for years. His mother with her drink, his brother with his gambling and his sisters with their brittle sense of entitlement and whining. Only his grandfather had seemed to hold it together, though his body was letting him down more and more often.
‘If you are going to lecture me about the evils of strong drink...’
Daniel shook his head. ‘This evening I cannot find the energy to do so. If you wish to kill yourself by small degrees with your misplaced grief for my brother’s stupidity...’
‘Nigel was a good boy...’
‘Who mortgaged the Montcliffe property to the hilt as a payment for his escalating gambling habit.’
‘He was trying to save the estate. He was trying to make everything right again,’ she insisted.
‘If you believe that, Mama, then you are as deluded as he was.’
His mother finished the glass of brandy and stood. ‘The military campaign in Spain and Portugal has made you different, Daniel. Harder. A man of distance and callousness and I do not like what you have become.’
The sound of screams on a march from Hell with winter eating up any hope for warmth. Dead soldiers stripped of clothes and boots by others needing cover in the middle of a relentless freeze, and hundreds of miles left to reach the coast and to safety. Aye, distance came easily with such memories.
‘In less than six months the Montcliffe properties will be bankrupt.’
He