The Seduction of Miss Amelia Bell Read Online Free PDF Page B

your sisters
     have already arrived with their husbands and insist upon working on yer hair. I bid
     them time to wake ye first.”
    “That was thoughtful of ye,” Amelia thanked her. “I’m not certain I could bear listening
     to how difficult their journey was to get here, or how the weather just doesn’t suit
     their delicate constitutions. Lord, and if I have to sit through one more tale of
     how disagreeable Eleanor’s unborn babe is in her belly, I will scream.”
    “I know, love,” her nursemaid replied, folding the gown carefully over her arm. “That’s
     why I didn’t let them come up. Now, let’s go. Chatting’s over. We have too much to
     do to get ye ready fer tonight.”
    “Alice?” Amelia asked while she dressed. “When will my ill fortune end?”
    “Everyone has a season, gel.”
    “But seasons are supposed to end.”
    “As will yours,” Alice promised.
    Amelia smiled at her. “Aye, it will. I think I would prefer it if Sarah worked on
     my hair today. She knows better than anyone how to get the tangles out.” She was in
     no hurry to see her sisters and have to endure Elizabeth’s clicking tongue every time
     she put a question to her, or one of Anne’s disapproving glances if Amelia dared laugh
     too loudly.
    She wondered if Edmund had arrived with one of her sisters’ groups. Edmund. The thought
     of seeing him again today at the ceremony made her heart accelerate just a little
     and she chastised herself for it. She belonged to someone else, a man who had agreed
     to take her despite all her shortcomings. Mayhap she would tell her father’s bold
     guest what she thought of him for frightening her senseless while she slept. Then
     again, mayhap it would be more prudent not to speak to him at all, to simply forget
     him, put him out of her thoughts and occupy her mind with Walter instead. Lord, if
     she did that, she just might fall asleep again. It wasn’t that Walter was dull…Well,
     in truth, he was. Did he care for her? She doubted it, since he had never professed
     it to her.
    “I’ll send for Sarah and see what I can discover about a guest called Edmund,” Alice
     said, heading for the door with Amelia’s gown in her hand.
    Prudence, Amelia, she warned herself as her mother had on countless occasions. Get your head out of the clouds and cease being so troublesome to yer poor father.
    “Nae, Alice. Ferget I mentioned him. I’m to be married soon. It’s time to get my head
     out of the clouds.”

Chapter Four
    T he celebration was in its second hour, and there was still no sign of Amelia’s living
     statue. There was no sign of her betrothed either. It was announced to Amelia’s father
     that the roof in her soon-to-be new bedchamber in Banffshire had fallen in. The betrothal
     would have to be postponed along with the announcement.
    Amelia shifted in her chair at the high table and groaned softly. The sound drew a
     critical glance from her sister Anne, but Amelia didn’t care. Her arse was bloody
     killing her. She had a terrible ache in her temples from the pearl-encrusted pins
     Sarah had woven throughout the thick knot at the back of her head. She could barely
     keep her eyelids up but was too afraid of snoring to let them close, even for an instant.
     Falling asleep in her chair, in front of her uncle’s noble guests, would surely send
     her mother into fits. And what would the mysterious Edmund think of her if he found
     her slumbering yet again, and during her postponed betrothal feast, no less?
    She’d put no queries about him to her father, but she had spoken with Sarah about
     him, and commissioned her friend to discover who the stranger was. Sarah was more
     than happy to oblige, but so far, she had found out nothing. Edmund had not arrived
     with Lord Lamont, or any guests who’d arrived thereafter.
    He had to be someone! she told herself, sweeping her eyes over the myriad of faces
     below. She found Sarah standing over the table of a French count