Without a word of explanation.
For her.
Oh! How she loved him for that.
She was sure he had broken Venomous’s nose and felt an overwhelming sense of guilt creep over her that she had caused such a distasteful scene.
‘Please accept my apologies, Your Grace. I have ruined your afternoon.’ To her own ears her apology was trite and she sounded emotionless, but really it had all been so wholly unexpected and surreal. How exactly did one correctly apologise for such an incident?
‘No need.’ Amelia turned her eyes towards the Dowager and saw that the woman’s gaze was transfixed on the spot on the floor where her father had lain. There was a note of wonder in her tone. ‘I have never seen Bennett ever do anything like that. He is usually such a reserved individual.’
The very fact that Amelia had witnessed that renowned ducal reserve crack on more than one occasion made her feel both privileged and slightly ashamed. She knew that such displays bothered him and there was little doubt that she had been the root cause of all of them. ‘It is all my fault. I should have told you about my background. If I had, this never would have happened.’
‘Perhaps.’
The Dowager lapsed back into silence and remained that way until the others returned.
They all gathered in the drawing room and Sir George pressed brandy in her hand until, bit by bit, Amelia told them all the truth. Even the parts that she had kept conveniently hidden from Lady Worsted. There seemed to be little point in lying. These people had taken her into their home and now they had been dragged into a scandal. The only omissions she made to the dreadful tale were the parts that were personal to her and Bennett; not only were they too private, but Amelia had no desire to cause the Duke further embarrassment by suggesting that there might have been something between them.
When the sorry tale was done, they all just stared at her. Taking pity on them, she said what needed to be said. ‘I shall pack my things and leave today.’
Amelia went to stand when the Dowager unceremoniously pulled her back down onto the sofa. ‘There will be no packing or leaving, Amelia. Whilst your story is shocking, it is not you who should be punished for what happened. That responsibility lies solely with your dreadful father. Now I understand why Bennett hit him. If I were a man, I would be tempted to punch the bounder myself. As far as we are all concerned, you now live under our protection and that is that.’
Amelia had no idea what Bennett would think, but she was more worried about where he was. Lovett had been sent to fetch him, only to return and tell them that His Grace had gone riding. Hell for leather, by all accounts, and with a face like thunder. As the afternoon ticked by and there was no sign of him, that worry only intensified.
* * *
He needed air.
And distance.
Or he would go back and kill that man for what he had done to her.
Bennett headed straight to the stables and saddled his horse swiftly, allowing the roiling, burning fury to consume him and enjoying the way it felt, hoping the rage would be cathartic. The horse was barely warmed up when he set them galloping across the parkland while his mind ran over every new piece of information it had been assaulted with.
Bray was Amelia’s father.
He had no idea if she was his legitimate daughter or born on the wrong side of the blanket and he did not care. All that mattered was that the odious man had abandoned her to suffer poverty and destitution when she had barely left the schoolroom. He had blithely stood by while she had nursed her sick mother, had refused to give help and protection when she had gone to him and sought it. He had allowed her to suffer the indignity of the workhouse and the slums all alone, when he had the means and power to have protected her from all that. That one of his peers could do that disgusted him. That he had done it to Amelia made Bennett want to seek retribution.
Bray would pay. How? Bennett did not yet know. There were gaps in his knowledge that needed to be filled before he decided if he would murder the man with his own hands, tearing him limb from limb slowly to maximise the agony the monster would suffer, or use his own influence and fortune to simply ruin him and leave him destitute and pathetic in the gutters of Seven Dials, as he had his own daughter. Whichever fate he assigned to the man, one thing was for certain—Bennett would enjoy it.
The trees on the horizon signalled the furthest edge of his land and only then did Bennett slow his frenetic pace. Before he could deal with Bray, he needed to speak to Amelia. But, before he spoke to Amelia, he simply needed to hold her. When she had warned him that she was a scandal waiting to happen, he had assumed that she had been alluding to her years of slum dwelling and all of the depravity that entailed. Now he realised that there was a bigger scandal buried in her past. One so large that she had hidden it from everyone. How could she have been the daughter to a viscount and still live virtually destitute for so long? No wonder the girl had appeared upset at his mother’s ill-conceived tea party. She had had to face that monster unexpectedly and probably felt dreadful for the scene she had inadvertently caused.
And no wonder she had been so vehemently opposed to marrying any man with a title. Her lack of respect for the aristocracy and her reluctance to submit herself to the bonds of matrimony all made perfect sense now. She probably assumed that all men in possession of a title were as selfish and heartless as her father. Bennett needed to reassure her that he put no blame at her door. It was hardly Amelia’s fault that her father was so vile, nor had she requested that Bennett should react so violently on her behalf.
It was regrettable that he had done the deed in such a public forum, but he could not regret the act itself. It had been a pleasure to knock the man out. If the Viscount was stupid enough to still be there when he returned home, Bennett had every intention of punching him again. Only this time he would not stop until all that was left of the odious Viscount Bray was a sticky pile of unrecognisable entrails on the ancient castle floor.
Feeling the anger bubble again, and knowing that he was in no fit state to talk to anyone just yet, Bennett plunged onward. His emotions were running wildly out of control. Not just anger at Bray; that was merely the tip of the iceberg. Before that had happened Bennett had still felt on the very cusp of losing control. Aside from being blindsided by his uncle’s charges about his father and his suspicions about the relationship he had with his mother, amongst all of that angst was the anger that had been created by his visit to Seven Dials.
Yet none of that came close to being the root cause of his current turmoil. The root cause was Amelia. His heart literally ached with the grief he felt at not being able to have her. Andgriefwas the right word. It was like a death, but it was one that he was yet to accept. A tragedy.
A travesty.
He had lain awake all night, replaying all of their conversation, trying to convince himself that she had been right. Several times, he had been so infuriated by her sensible refusal that he had almost gone to her bedchamber to tell her why she was wrong. Once, he had even made it to her door before he had turned around and frustratedly paced his way back to his own room. He knew that he had been born to shape the future. He could not do that outside of the government, his father’s voice cautioned, married to a nobody. But...
At the precise moment he had discovered that Bray was her father, Bennett had realised two things simultaneously. Firstly, the need to punch Bray had been visceral and inevitable because the man had caused Amelia pain. And secondly, and perhaps more importantly, he loved that woman with every fibre of his being and always would. She challenged him, excited him, irritated and amused him. Every time he laid eyes on her, his heart warmed and the sun came out. When he was not with her the world was a little greyer. As his uncle George had suggested, the idea of marrying another woman was now inconceivable when it was only her he wanted. Unfortunately, the obstinate woman was dead against it and that broke his heart.
All in all, his mind was in a mess. Every emotion he had tried for thirty years to ignore was demanding release. Anger, passion, pity, fear, indignation, blinding love and hopelessness all jostled violently for space in the vortex, on the verge of spilling out of him, and he was becoming powerless to stop them. Once those feelings found a breach in his defences, they were relentless and just kept on coming. Bennett felt like a rumbling volcano, like Vesuvius before it obliterated Pompeii. If he did not get a firm hold on his feelings soon, he was doomed to explode and that prospect terrified him more than anything.
