One Dance with a Duke (Stud Club #1)

Jack stood in the center of the darkened tower. His hair was matted to his forehead in thick, pale locks. He scarcely looked surprised to see her.

“I didn’t know, Amelia.” He cast a glance over his shoulder. Behind him, Claudia shivered in the corner, hugging her knees to her chest. “I swear to you, I had no idea.”

“You’re a fool,” she said, hanging the lamp on a candle sconce blackened with centuries of soot. She brushed past him to go to the girl. “Do you think she’d agree to run off with you on the basis of a dashing smile? You’re not so very handsome as that.”

Hurrying to the corner, Amelia knelt before Claudia. The girl’s lips were blue and quivering; her eyes, unfocused. Tears and rain streaked her face.

Amelia untied her cloak and quickly arranged it around the girl’s trembling shoulders. “It’s all right, dear. Everything will be fine. Claudia.” She waited until the girl met her gaze. “It’s all right. I know. I know everything.”

And then the girl fell into Amelia’s arms, sobbing helplessly against her shoulder. Amelia held her tight, murmuring words of reassurance. The poor dear. She’d been needing this embrace for so long, and Amelia had been too absorbed in her own problems to realize all Claudia’s rudeness had been aimed at pushing her away—not because she resented Amelia, but because she was afraid of anyone learning her secret.

Even Amelia couldn’t have possibly guessed the truth until today, after that tearful epiphany in the kitchen. The girl’s aloof demeanor, her strange moods, her wild fluctuations in appetite and illness in the coach …

Claudia was with child.

“You poor thing.” She stroked the girl’s wet hair. “I’m so sorry.” What a terrible burden for a fifteen-year-old girl to struggle under on her own. “Did it happen in York?”

Claudia nodded against her. “My music master. I was so lonely there, and he was so kind to me, at first. He promised I wouldn’t …” The girl’s voice broke, and Amelia held her tighter still. “Oh, Amelia. I was such a fool. And how will I ever tell him?”

Amelia knew she wasn’t referring to the music master.

“I can’t bear it,” the girl sobbed. “He’ll be so furious with me.”

“Shh,” Amelia said, shifting to cradle the girl in her arms. She rocked them both, gently. “I will tell him. And if he reacts with anger, it won’t be anger at you. He cares for you so much.”

“I thought … if I ran away, married—”

“Everyone would believe the child was Jack’s,” Amelia finished for her. “And you would never have to tell the truth.” She rubbed Claudia’s back briskly, feeling the girl warm in her arms. Wet muslin clung to her body, clearly delineating a rounded belly—the telltale sign her high-waisted gowns had heretofore concealed.

“It was all her idea.” From the other side of the small room, Jack spoke up. “I didn’t know she was with child until the rain soaked us through. You must believe me. She just came to me, and I was so desperate …” His back met the stone wall, and he slid down it until he sat on the floor. “I haven’t touched her, I swear it.”

“Yes, but why, Jack? How can you do this to me? Don’t you know how I’ve defended you? Again and again, I’ve helped you, believed in you. And this is your thanks, absconding with my husband’s ward?”

“I’m in a bad way, Amelia.”

“Yes, Spencer told me.”

“It’s worse than even he knows. Exile or death, those are my options.” He buried his face in his stacked arms. “Not sure I’d mind the second.”

His words caught Amelia sharply in the chest, driving a wedge between her ribs and slowly levering them apart. She thought of going to her brother, but then Claudia whimpered. Instead, she tightened her arms about the girl to offer more comfort and warmth.

And then she began to shiver with fear. Between Claudia and Jack, the two of them needed so much. Not only comfort and warmth, but reassurance, assistance, absolution. Amelia wasn’t sure she had enough within her to give them, and even if she did … there might be nothing left. Perhaps she would simply disappear.

“You mustn’t blame him,” Claudia whispered. “He’s right. It was all my idea.”

“Yes, but he should have known better. You’re fifteen years old.”

“Nearly sixteen,” she sniffed.