Chasing Lady Amelia: Keeping Up with the Cavendishes

For my family.

Thank you to everyone at Avon for all their work to get my books out in the world! Thanks to Tony for help scheming and plotting.

FASHIONABLE INTELLIGENCE

BY A LADY OF DISTINCTION

This is certainly the most exciting season in recent memory, thanks to the arrival of the Cavendish family.

If you haven’t heard all about them—perhaps because you have been rusticating in the country, or gallivanting around the Continent—this author shall fill you in on the most shocking turn of events. The new Duke of Durham is
American
. Even more scandalous—yes, do fetch your smelling salts—this American is a horse-thieving horse breeder. Or shall we say
was
; he is a duke now.

How, you must be wondering, could such a thing occur? Once upon a time—a few decades ago—the fifth duke’s younger brother absconded with the family’s prize stallion, married an American and set up a farm in Maryland, where he proceeded to raise horses . . . and four children.

His son is now the seventh duke. His three sisters are of marriageable age. All of them are prone to trouble, but one more so than any other . . .

In which our heroine causes a scandal. Again.

Almack’s Assembly Rooms

London, 1824

Shortly after midnight

I
t was in the illustrious and exclusive Almack’s assembly rooms that Lady Amelia Cavendish, previously of America and presently of England, officially confirmed that having one’s brother inherit a dukedom was not all it was cracked up to be, in part because she was not permitted to use phrases such as
cracked up
.

In fact, there was very little for a duke’s sister to do, other than look pretty, speak about the weather, or get herself married.

These things held no appeal for Lady Amelia, beloved younger sister to the new duke of Durham.

After weeks, and days and hours of biting her tongue and minding her manners, she had officially reached her very last nerve, the end of her rope, her wit’s end.

It was yet another evening in which she and her two sisters, one brother and their aunt, the Duchess of Durham, had spent their time circling the room speaking with Lady This or Lord That—Amelia couldn’t be bothered to learn all the names and titles of the British aristocracy, as it went against her independent American nature.

Of all the balls, routs, soirees she and her siblings had attended, this one had reached unparalleled levels of tedium.

The duchess made a point of introducing the sisters to eligible gentlemen. She had made it her life’s mission to see them all wed sooner rather than later, and to Englishmen deemed “suitable,” which more often than not meant “horrible” in Amelia’s book.

She rather thought that sticking forks in her eye would be a vastly preferable activity. Not that sisters of dukes ever committed such acts, but if they did, they would
surely
use the good silver.

As Amelia loitered along the perimeter of the ballroom, trailing behind the duchess, who was on the prowl for potential husbands, she amused herself (barely) by debating what, exactly, had pushed her toward the edge this evening.

There was the fact that they now spent
every
evening attending at least one or two balls, dinners, soirees, musicales, and the like. The fact that she’d had to spend the day diligently being taught the finer points of etiquette, forms of address, and steps to country dances. There was the fact that this evening alone she had been introduced to no fewer than six gentlemen who wished only to talk about the weather and look down her bodice.

It was enough to make any girl mad with boredom. Or just plain mad.

And now her satin slippers pinched her toes, the whalebone of her corset dug into her skin, and her maid had certainly used an excess of hairpins, all of which seemed to be poking sharply into her scalp. In an advanced state of physical discomfort, she was in no mood to endure the same conversation,
again,
about the weather (it was clement), the social season (it was tedious), her prospective suitors (or lack thereof) and the frequency of attacks from native tribes in America (not nearly as much as the English imagined), and “sly” digs at her brother’s former occupation as a horse breeder and trainer.

Never mind the fact that she and her siblings had been in England for weeks, days, and hours and she had yet to visit the British Museum, stroll through the gardens at Vauxhall, or attend a show at Astley’s Amphitheatre.

But she’d had a
marvelously
thorough tour of the ballrooms and drawing rooms of London.

“Smile, Lady Amelia,” the duchess murmured in her polite do-as-I-say voice. One of her sisters would have punctuated the command with a pointy elbow to the ribs, but the duchess would never do something so crass.

Her Grace, the Duchess of Durham, Amelia had quickly discovered, was Something Else. She was one of those small, frail, wispy, and pale ladies of middle age who seemed like they might be blown away and be dashed to bits against the cobblestones.

And yet.

Josephine Marie Cavendish, Her Grace, the Duchess of Durham, was made of strong stuff, like steel or granite or glaciers. Her gaze was sharp and missed nothing. Her wits were sharper. She was also graceful, elegant, and unfailing polite and proper at every hour of the day. The duchess knew every person one needed to know, and everyone in London seemed to fear her.

One did
not
call her Josie. Amelia had asked and was treated to a frosty “One does not.”

The duchess also had the sort of indomitable will that could command armies. Amelia would have adored her if she weren’t so vexed by her most of the time.

The Cavendish siblings—James, Claire, Bridget,
and Amelia, newly arrived from America—were Josephine’s army.

Her mission: to find husbands for each of the girls and to ensure that James, the new duke, settled into his role, wed, and had an heir, thus securing the dukedom for another generation.

Her one impossibly insubordinate foot solider: Amelia.

The duchess had a sharp mind, but so did Amelia. The duchess had very firm opinions, and by God so did Amelia. The duchess was accustomed to having her way. And as the youngest sibling, so was Amelia.

In order to potentially find a fleeting moment of amusement, Amelia decided to obey the duchess’s command to smile.

She stretched her features into a grin designed to be more comedic than pleasant. It only deepened with genuine amusement when some poncey, overstuffed lord caught a glimpse, dropped his jaw, and turned away. Ha!

“You look like a gargoyle,” James said, laughing.

With merely a glance, the duchess conveyed that dukes did not intimate a resemblance between young ladies and hideous creatures.

“Perhaps try smiling a bit less, Lady Amelia.”

Amelia did her best impression of a simpering English lady. She’d had plenty of occasions to practice the vacant smile, letting her eyes cross
ever so slightly while swaying delicately on her feet, which were presently tormented by these tremendously uncomfortable slippers.

Perhaps she could slip them off under her dress and no one would notice?

She carefully slid one foot out, then the other, and smiled at the relief of being able to wiggle her toes and feel her feet flat on the floor.

“Much better,” the duchess murmured. “Now let us take another turn about the room.”

“A
h, Lady Nansen. Lord Nansen!” The duchess and her charges paused before a couple that looked just like all the others Amelia had been introduced to: they were of an indeterminate middle age, decked in an array of brightly colored silks and satins, and honestly, a bit jowly and gray.

“I haven’t yet introduced you to my nephew and nieces.”

“And we have been dying to make their acquaintance,” Lady Nansen said, fanning herself furiously. “The ton has spoken of nothing else.”

The duchess performed the introductions. Upon meeting James, the new duke, fawning ensued.

Everyone fawned over James these days—but then when his back was turned they whispered about how his father was a horse thief and that James had been raised in the stables and how tragic it was that Durham was now in his hands.

“And Lady Claire.”

Amelia watched as they took in Claire’s spectacles and her distracted, impatient demeanor. She had
not
mastered the slightly vacant look of a simpering miss and with a brain as sharp as hers, never would. Amelia watched as Lady Nansen decided that Claire would never be an “incomparable,” or whatever they called the popular girls of the ton, and flitted her attention to the next sister.

“Lady Bridget.”

Amelia watched as her middle sister glided into an elegant curtsy. The duchess beamed. Lady Nansen judged.

“Your practicing is paying off,” Amelia murmured. She’d caught Bridget curtsying in front of the mirror in the ballroom for an hour last Thursday.

“Do shut up, Amelia,” Bridget said through gritted teeth. Unlike the other Cavendish siblings, Bridget actually cared about fitting in here. She was obsessed with learning and following the rules.

“And Lady Amelia.”

She gave a smile somewhere between gargoyle and simpering miss, but perhaps more on the gargoyle side of the spectrum.

“You must have your hands full, Duchess, trying to make so many matches.”

“It does give one something to do all day,” the
duchess replied, with a tight-lipped smile that Amelia dubbed the One Where I Am Smiling Even Though I Hate What You Just Said. “But I do have every confidence that they will make splendid matches. In fact, I have someone special in mind for Lady Amelia this evening.”

The duchess beamed at her charges, as if they hadn’t been foiling her every effort to marry them off. Amelia began to dread meeting “someone special.”

“I say, Duke,” Lord Nonesuch or whatever began, “do you have an opinion on any of the horses running Ascot?”

The lords always asked James for his opinion on which horse would win a race, so they might win a wager. And then they turned around and made snide remarks about his experience raising and training horses—as if he were beneath them because of this knowledge. Even though he now outranked them.

“I do,” James said, smiling easily.

“Don’t suppose you’d tell a friend who you think will be the winner?” Lord Nansen or Nancy said jovially, with a wink and a nudge.

“I might,” James replied.

This was a conversation he’d had before and Amelia had begged him to do something nefarious, like deliberately suggest a losing horse. But James refused and just smiled like he knew the winner and never said a word.

“I suppose you’re going to build up Durham’s stables,” his lordship said.

“Nansen, he doesn’t have time for horses,” his wife said in that exasperated way of wives. “He must find a bride first.”

The duchess beamed, an I-told-you-so smile.

Then Lady Nansen turned and fixed her attentions on Amelia. Her fan was beating at a furious pace.

“And Lady Amelia, have you found any suitors you care for?”

“After having met nearly all of England’s finest young gentlemen, I can honestly say that no, I have not found any suitors that I could care for,” Amelia said. “But I do have a new appreciation for spinsterhood. In fact, I think it sounds like just the thing.”

Just the thing
was a bit of slang she had picked up. Sticking forks in her eye was
just the thing
(but only with the good silver!). Flustering old matrons with an honest and direct statement
was
just the thing.

Lady Nansen stared at her a moment, blinking rapidly as she tried to process what Amelia had just said.

“Well your sister seems to have snared the attentions of Darcy’s younger brother,” she said, evidently disregarding Amelia and focusing on Bridget, the one who cared about fitting in and finding suitors.

“Are Lord Darcy and Mr. Wright here tonight?” Bridge asked eagerly. Too eagerly. “I haven’t seen them.”

“It’s not a party without Darcy,” Amelia quipped.

Darcy spent the majority of every social engagement standing against the wall, glowering at the company, refusing to dance, and begging the question of why he even bothered to attend.

But that was neither here nor there and no one deigned to reply to Amelia, so she sighed and lamented her choice in footwear quietly to herself. When Lord and Lady Nansen took their leave and sauntered off, the duchess turned and fixed her cool, blue eyes on Amelia.

“You might endeavor to be a touch more gracious, Lady Amelia.”

The Duchess always said everything in perfectly worded, excruciatingly polite phrases.
Translation:
Lord above, Amelia, stop acting like a brat.

“I’m just . . . bored.”

And homesick. And unhappy. And dreading the future you have planned for me. And a dozen other feelings one does not mention when one is at a ball.

“Bored?” The duchess arched her brows. “How on earth can you be bored by all this?” She waved her hand elegantly, to indicate everything surrounding them. “Is all the splendor, music, and the company of the best families in
the best country not enough for you? I cannot imagine that you had such elegance and luxuries in the provinces.”

Everyone here still referred to her home country as the provinces, or the colonies, or as the remote American backwater plagued by heathens, when Amelia knew that it was a beautiful country full of forthright, spirited people. It was her true home.

They operated under the impression that there was no greater fun to be had than getting overdressed and gossiping with the same old people each night, in crowded ballrooms in a crowded city.

She missed summer nights back home on their farm in Maryland, when she would slip outside at night with a blanket, to look up at the vast, endless expanse of stars.

This, no matter what the duchess said, just did not compare.

Amelia shrugged.

“We already met half these people at the six other balls we have attended this week,” she said. “The other half are crashing bores.”

Crashing bores
was a phrase Amelia had read in the gossip columns. The violence of it appealed to her.

“I suppose it would be too much to ask you to pretend to act like an interested and engaging young lady.” Then, turning to Lady Bridget, the duchess said, “I daresay she couldn’t.”

With that, the duchess turned away.

She
turned away
, leaving the words hanging in the air, floating to the ground, just waiting for Amelia to pounce on them.

“Well that was a challenge,” Claire said.

“I’m not certain she could manage it.” Bridget sniffed.

Really?
Really?

“Is that a dare?” Amelia asked, straightening up. Oh, she would pretend all right. She would pretend so well they’d all be shocked. It would give her something to do at least. “Because I will take that dare.”

“I’d like to see you try,” Bridget replied. Then, muttering under her breath she added, “For once.”

Amelia reddened. Admittedly she hadn’t been taking this whole sister-of-the-duke business seriously. But she would show them. So instead of sticking her tongue out and scowling at Bridget, Amelia stuck her nose right up in the air and turned away.