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“I suppose.”
“You do not appear impressed in the least.”
“Should I be impressed, or was his success due to luck? The man is usually idle and—”
“Utterly devoted to you?”
Amelia laughed. “Devoted is not the word I would use.”
Hattie fidgeted with her sleeve. “Whatever word you would use, the fact remains the same. Charles Fremont has the loyalty and devotion of a well-trained bloodhound.”
“And the intellect.”
“That is a compliment. My father’s hounds are utterly brilliant.” Hattie lowered her voice. “Truly, Amelia, I cannot see the faults you do. Charles is a good man. And can you blame him for loving you? You are incredible.”
Amelia’s stomach wound tight, her heart beating rapidly in her chest. Charles had always been so fond of her, mooning over her like a cow would its calf. However romantic Hattie believed it to be, she was wrong. It was draining to have someone so relentlessly devoted when she did not return the sentiment. Amelia could not help that she had never been attracted to him. Besides, she’d known Charles her entire life. It was hard to find a man handsome when she’d seen him in short coats.
Some things did not need lengthy explanations. Amelia had never been fond of Charles, and that was not something she could help.
She tried for a light tone. “Perhaps you ought to marry him.”
Hattie pretended to scowl, but she could not cover the smile fighting her lips. “Perhaps I shall. I suppose we’ll see on Midsummer’s Eve.”
Amelia drove her gig home, carefully avoiding the place in the creek that had sucked in her carriage wheels, her mind distracted by the visit. Hattie had never come to Charles’s defense before. In fact, no one had, that Amelia could recall, not even Mabel—and she had more right than any, as Charles was her cousin.
Not that it was of any consequence. The man had doted on Amelia, it was true, but it was not her fault Charles had never been able to catch her interest.
Leaving her horse and gig with a groom, Amelia stepped inside her house as the butler held the door for her.
“Dr. Mason has requested your presence in the study at your convenience.”
“Thank you, Baker,” Amelia said, handing over her gloves and bonnet. She made her way down the corridor to the study. It had once been Mr. Fawn’s domain, but Amelia had felt no compunction passing it to Andrew when the estate fell into her hands. She had spent the four months of that marriage and the subsequent years following her third husband’s death refurbishing the house to her tastes anyway—with Mr. Fawn’s explicit blessing, of course.
Knocking on the door, she waited for Andrew’s voice to bid her entrance before letting herself inside. “You asked for me?”
Andrew sat at the desk near the tall windows, the drapes mostly drawn against the bright afternoon sun. Light spilled through the narrow openings between the thick damask window coverings, highlighting his concerned brow. “Will you come in for a moment?”
Amelia closed the door behind herself and took a seat across from her brother.
“You are aware of the project Captain Sheffield began last summer to give homes to some of his sailors.”
She nodded. “Vaguely. Mabel did tell me about it, but I have not learned much.”
“But you know that one of the men died about six months ago, a man called Mr. Halpert?”
“Yes, you were fetched to see to him, were you not?” She tilted her head, trying to read her brother’s worried gaze. She’d only remembered that instance because he’d been called away during a particularly fraught chess game, and Amelia had been grateful the night had been forced to come to an end. His pale blue eyes were trained on her, puzzled lines forming on his brow. “What is it, Andrew?”
“His widow is with child, and I will not vex you with the details, but suffice it to say this child is all she has left of her husband. Mrs. Halpert is quite ill and very alone.”
“They had no other children?”
“They were never able to.”
Amelia’s body clenched when the words hit her ears. She had once thought herself to be in this woman’s very circumstance—believing herself to be with child after her husband’s death—but had been mistaken. The grief of realizing she’d miscalculated, that her husband was gone from this earth and she did not carry his child, was still raw and fresh six years later, a throbbing pain pulsing in her battered heart. She would do her utmost to pray fervently that this woman’s child arrived healthy and strong, that Mrs. Halpert was not forced to endure the heartache of losing the babe.
“What do you need from me?” Amelia asked. There was a reason he’d called her in here, but she could see from his fidgeting with the penknife on his desk that he was nervous to speak of it. “You may as well say it now.”
“I want to bring Mrs. Halpert here.”
