father’s voice was businesslike and brisk—a trader whose whole life had consisted of brokering arrangements.
The Earl nodded, but the expression on his face was stony. An agreement dragged from the very depths of his despair and nothing to be done about any of it. He knew as little of her as she did of him; two pawns in a game that was played for stakes higher than just their happiness alone. She had always known that, since the pounds had begun to roll into the Cameron coffers from the lucrative timber trade to and from the Americas. Great fortunes always came with a price.
‘You have signed every condition, then?’ Her father again. She thought he sounded just as he did when he was clinching a deal for the sale of a thousand yards of expensive American mahogany and she wondered at his calm and composure. She was his only daughter and again and again in her lifetime her father had insisted that she must marry for love.
Love? Unexpectedly she caught the eyes of the Earl. Today the green was darker and distrusting. Still, even with the stark fury of coercion on his face, Daniel Wylde was the most beautiful man she had ever had the pleasure of looking upon.
Such looks would crucify her, for nobody would believe that he might have freely chosen her as his bride. She swallowed and met his glance. No use going to pieces this late in the game when the joy on her father’s face was tangible. Papa had not appeared as happy for months.
‘This is your choice too, Miss Cameron?’
‘It is, my lord.’ The floor beneath her began to waver, all the lies eliciting a sort of unreality that made her dizzy.
‘You understand the meaning of the documents then?’ he pressed.
‘I do.’ A blush crept up her throat as she thought of the clause stipulating the two years of monogamy. Her father’s addition, that proviso, and though she had argued long and hard with him to remove it, Robert was not to be shifted.
Montcliffe turned away. The stillness she had noticed outside Tattersall’s was magnified here, a man who knew exactly his place in the world and was seldom surprised by anything.
Save for this marriage of convenience.
‘I hope then that the person you placed to look into my financial affairs can be trusted, Mr Cameron. If word were to leak out about my straitened circumstances and this unusual betrothal, I doubt I could protect your daughter from the repercussions.’
‘Mr Alfred Middlemarch, my lawyer, is a model of silence, my lord. Nary a stray word shall be uttered.’
Their parlourmaid knocked timidly at the door, asking if she could come in to pour the tea. The Earl crossed the room to stand by the fireplace and chose brandy for his sustenance. When Hilda filled his glass to a quarter inch from the top Amethyst winced. On reflection, she thought, perhaps such a task was supposed to belong to the lady of the house and she wished she had not instructed the maid to return to do it. It was seldom that they had such lofty visitors and every small detail of service took on an importance that it previously never had.
Was this how she would live her life from now on? she wondered. On the edge of eggshells in case she were to inadvertently place a clumsy foot wrong? The tutors at Gaskell Street had tried their best with the vagaries of manners, but she imagined they had had about as much practice with the higher echelons of London society as she had.
To give Montcliffe some credit he sipped his tipple carefully from the top before placing the glass down on a green baize circle especially designed for such a purpose. She doubted her father had ever used them before, her eyes catching circles of darkness in the white oak where errant drinks had seeped into the patina of the wood.
Blemished, like them, the outward appearance of Papa and herself reflecting a life that had been lived in trade and service, with little time left for the niceties of cultured living. Amethyst wished she had at least gone out and bought a sumptuous dress for this occasion, something that might lift the colour of her skin into lustre.
She smiled at such a nonsense, catching the Earl’s eyes again as she did so. When he looked away she saw that the muscle under his jaw quivered. In distaste? In sympathy? Usually she found people easy to read, but this man was not.
‘I will announce our betrothal in The Times next week, if that is to your liking, Miss Cameron.’
So few days left?
‘Thank you.’ She wished her voice sounded stronger.
‘I should not want a complicated ceremony given our circumstances.’ A slight shame highlighted Daniel Wylde’s cheeks after he said this and it heartened her immensely. He was not a man in the habit of being rude to women, then? She clutched at the cross at her throat and felt relieved.
Her father pressed on with his own ideas. ‘I was thinking we might hold the ceremony here, my lord, with a minister from our Presbyterian church, of course, and any of your family and friends you care to invite. I would have the first of the money promised transferred into your bank account within the week.’
The give and the take of an agreement. Again Daniel Wylde looked at her as if waiting for her to speak. Did he imagine she might stand up and negate all that her father had so carefully planned? Montcliffe had seen just exactly what those who might hurt her father were capable of. Lord, she brought her hand up and felt the scar just beneath the heavy wig at her nape. It still throbbed sometimes in the cold and the headaches had never quite abated.
‘After the nuptials we will repair to my family seat north of Barnet.’
‘No!’ It was the first real alarm Amethyst had felt. ‘I need to be close to Papa and as he is retiring to Dunstan House then this is where I should like us to live...’
‘I am certain we can work something out, my dear.’ Her father now, placating such an outburst.
Again she shook her head, the pulse of her blood beating fast. ‘I want to add a condition that I may live at Dunstan House, though if the Earl wishes to reside at Montcliffe Manor, then he may.’
‘Difficult to fulfil the clause of mutual cohabitation for a full two years if that is the case, Miss Cameron.’ His voice held a timbre of irony.
The clause her father had insisted upon. She glared at Robert, but kept her silence and was unexpectedly rescued by the very one she thought she would not be.
‘It does not signify. We will reside wherever you wish to.’ The Earl’s tone was slightly bored. An unwanted wife. An unwelcomed cohabitation. Easier just to take the money and acquiesce.
‘Then that is settled.’ Her father, on the contrary, looked pleased with himself. The thought that perhaps he had over-exaggerated his own illness came to Amethyst’s mind, but she dismissed this in the face of his extreme thinness. ‘We shall ask if the children from Gaskell Street can be a part of the choir...’
‘A small and simple wedding would be better, Papa.’
‘I agree.’ Lord Montcliffe spoke again. ‘My family, however, are proponents of the High Anglican faith.’
‘Then you bring your man of God and the service can be shared.’ Papa had hit his stride now and the Earl looked to have no answer to such an unconventional solution. In fact, he looked plainly sick.
‘A good solution, I think,’ Robert went on to say. ‘Then we can all be assured that you will be most properly married.’ Standing after such a pronouncement, he walked to the door. ‘But now I shall leave you alone for a few moments. I am sure there are things you might wish to say to one another without my presence to inhibit you.’
Amethyst glanced away, her father’s words embarrassing and inappropriate. What could the Earl and she possibly have to talk about when there was a palpable distrust in the air? Usually Papa was more astute at reading the feelings of others and seldom acted in a manner that she found disconcerting.
When the door closed behind him, softly pulled shut inch by inch, Lord Montcliffe looked straight at her.
‘Why would you agree