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Oh, Amelia knew from where. She couldn’t take her eyes from him. He was tall and his eyes were an icy gray blue, a little like moonlight, a little like mountain lakes, a little like rain. His gaze was arresting and his figure inspiring, but the rest of him was...underwhelming. His beard was untrimmed, his hat a bit worn, and his boots unpolished. Aduke?
“Your Royal Highness, it is an honor.” He said the words as if someone was holding a knife to his back.
“You’re the Duke of Marley,” she said again. But then it dawned on her—this was a joke! Amelia laughed and turned to Lila. “It’s a jest, isn’t it! Tell me it is—he can’t possibly be the duke.” She cast her smile at him. “Confess, sir!” she said gaily.
He merely gazed back at her, one brow arched slightly above the other. She could hear others gasping with surprise. Guests began to flutter anxiously and move like so many birds on a limb, uncertain what to make of this scene.
“Your Royal Highness,” Lila said, her voice low but filled with alarm. “He is indeed the Duke of Marley. You...you must have thought him abroad, hence your confusion. Isn’t that so?” She smiled to everyone gathered around them.
“Iknow who he is,” Mathilda said. “He’s the Grim Reaper!”
“Exactly so, Tilly,” Amelia agreed.
From somewhere nearby, Blythe made a muffled sound of distress. “Lady Mathilda, apologize at once! Lord Iddesleigh? Did you hear what your daughter said?”
“Your Royal Highness, I do beg your pardon,” Lila said. “But I would think that the mention of a...areaperof any sort...is a bit unsettling?”
“Is it?” Amelia asked absently. Her gaze was still on this man, this reaper, this supposedcaretaker.She couldn’t have been more wrong about him. It just went to show that one must never judge a person on appearance alone. “My apologies. Tilly, darling, but he’s not the Grim Reaper at all! If he were, someone here likely would be dead, wouldn’t they?”
“Oh my. Lady Aleksander?” Blythe said, her voice getting uncomfortably high. “Mathilda, darling, come and help your father.”
Amelia hadn’t meant to be rude, but she was taken aback by her mistake. She tried to atone by smiling at everyone around her. “My apologies! I have a very vivid imagination—everyone says so. Please accept my sincere apology, Your Grace. It’squiteobvious you are not any sort of reaper at all, and I have clearly mistaken you for...” She tried to think of a word.
“Death?” the duke drawled.
Precisely.She smiled. “Youdounderstand. In my defense, I’ve only ever seen you dressed in black, riding like the devil himself and leaving bodies in your wake.”
His dark brow rose higher. “I can say without equivocation that I have never left a single body in my wake. It does seem that perhaps one should not accuse others of riding like the devil when one very nearly rides over a picnic.”
“I beg your pardon,” Lila said. “You’re acquainted with each other?”
“If by acquainted you mean properly introduced, the answer is no, not until this moment,” Amelia said. “But he did nearly run me off a road, not once but twice—”
“Twice?” the duke said disbelievingly.
“And attempted to scare me off a footpath.”
“By informing you that you were on private property?”
“Goodness! I was certainly not expecting this,” Lord Clarendon said jovially. He stepped in between them, smiling warmly at Amelia. “Your Royal Highness, may I offer my arm? I understand there is wine, which I think might serve us all. You must forgive my friend the duke. He’s been a bit under the weather. Shall I tell you now that I had the pleasure of meeting your late father once?”
That caught Amelia’s attention, although she did have a few questions for the duke. “Did you, really?”
“I did. Lovely man, he was.”
“Oh, but he was indeed,” she agreed. She took Clarendon’s arm and allowed him to steer her away. But not before stealing another glimpse at Marley, who had already moved away, his back to her, as if the odious task of meeting a royal princess was done.
CHAPTER TEN
LATER,WHENTHISinfernal picnic came to its inevitable and disappointing end, Joshua would delight in forcing Miles to admit that it was pointless and ill-suited to his temperament.
And as forthatone...
He looked at her from the corner of his eye, the woman with the golden hair and ready smile. Imagine, riding up like she was meeting an opposing army and scaring everyone half to death. Although he had to admire her riding skills—it wasn’t easy to bring a galloping horse to a precise halt. He was especially impressed because he’d expected her to arrive in a litter with a dozen troops surrounding her like the pampered soul she surely was.
What was the matter with her, calling him the Grim Reaper for asecondtime? Granted, he did not look or feel himself these days, but surely he didn’t appearthatdespicable. Miles would have told him if he’d looked like death.
Maybe she was a bit off her head? It was a possibility. Everyone knew European royalty married each other so often it had become a family affair.
