Wilson untied his cravat and loosened his collar, arranging Robert on his side so that his breathing was eased.
Amethyst could not move. She was frozen in fear as the numbness spreading across her chest emptied her of rational thought. Was it his heart? Was this the final moment of which the specialist had spoken?
‘Get a doctor.’ Their butler seemed to have taken charge and the man she did not know nodded and left the room. A Montcliffe servant, she supposed, returning her bag. Nothing made sense any more. The housekeeper scurried in with a hot towel and a bowl, the maid kneeling with new wood to stoke up the heat of the fire, Wilson trying to awaken her father from the stupor he had fallen into. The moments turned into a good half an hour.
* * *
And then Lord Montcliffe was there, his voice calm with authority as he took in the situation, a doctor at his side.
Amethyst’s jaw ached from where she held it tightly together, but when he took her arm and led her across to her father, she went.
‘Hold his hand and sit beside him. Talk to him so that he knows you are there.’
When Robert’s wilted fingers came into her grasp she held on. Cold. Familiar. The scar upon his little finger where he had fallen through glass, a nail pulled out by heavy timber. A working man’s hand and the hand of a father who had loved her well. She brought the back of it to her lips, paper-thin skin marred by brown spots, age drawn into years of outside work. Kissing him, she willed him back, willed him to open his eyes and see her. The doctor frowned as he felt for a pulse.
‘Is there other family we can call?’
She shook her head.
Just her and just Papa. The horror of loss ran through her like sharpened swords and her teeth had begun to chatter, shock searing into trauma. For a moment the next breath just would not come.
* * *
Daniel kneeled down before her, hoping the panic he could see in her eyes might allow her more of an ease of breath. ‘Anything that can be done for your father will be, Miss Cameron. MacKenzie, my physician, is the best doctor there is in London. Do you understand?’
Her eyes focused upon him, a tiny flare of hope scrambling over alarm.
‘Already with the blankets and the fire he is becoming warmer and the blueness is leaving his lips.’
This time she nodded her head, one slow tear leaking from her left eye and tracing its way down her cheek.
Both of the Camerons looked as pale as the other and as thin. He had not noticed her thinness until this moment, when devoid of her coat in the bright light he could see her arms and her collarbones and the meagreness of her waist.
She did not court fashion, that much was certain. Her boots were sturdy leather and well worn, as though they had covered many a mile, and still had some life left in them. But sitting there in the grip of tragedy, there was a fineness about Amethyst Cameron that was mesmerising. All he wanted to do was to hold her away from the hurt and make things better. To protect her against a world that was often cruel, complex and dishonest. To shield her from pain, duplicity and scorn.
When the doctor gestured him over he stood.
‘Mr Cameron will need to be watched, my lord, but I think we have passed the worst of it. All his vital signs are settling and I should well imagine that he will recover from this turn.’
Daniel knew Amethyst had heard the given words even though she was a good distance away. He also knew that if he stayed in the house without a chaperone for any longer then tongues would begin to wag. It was late after all.
‘I will leave the doctor with you then, Miss Cameron, and hope your father has a good night.’ He met her eyes only briefly and her countenance was one of worry, no glimpse at all alluding to the kiss they had shared less than an hour earlier. He was pleased for it.
‘I appreciate your help, Lord Montcliffe.’
So formal and distant, he thought, as she escorted him to the front lobby, one of the servants finding his coat and hat. Her hair looked odd too, the front of it hitched askew in a strange fashion. Nothing about this woman seemed to make sense to him and he was relieved to slip through the door and into the coolness of the night air.
* * *
Leaning against the portal and closing her eyes for just a moment Amethyst listened to the Montcliffe carriage pull away. ‘One second, two seconds, three seconds,’ she counted, holding the world back from all that was crashing in upon her. Her mama had taught her this years before, a small space of time in which to collect one’s thoughts or feelings. The feeling of Daniel Wylde’s kiss snaked into her consciousness even as she tried to shut it out.
When at length she gathered herself, Amethyst caught her reflection in a mirror opposite and horror and laughter mingled on her face in equal measure.
Her wig had been snagged at some point and was sitting at an angle on her head, the right side dragging the left down and giving her an appearance of someone out of sorts with the world.
With care she readjusted the hairpiece. Had this just happened or had Lord Montcliffe seen it as well? The whole evening had been tumultuous; her father’s strange malady counterbalanced against the Earl of Montcliffe’s unexpected kiss.
Wiping her forefinger along the lines of her lips, she then held it still, the impression of flesh sending small shards of want into a sense that had long been dormant.
She was known for her composure and her unruffled calm. She seldom let things bother her and always managed people with acumen and honesty.
Unflappable Amethyst. Until Lord Daniel Wylde.
He made her think of possibilities that would not come to pass. She was ruined goods and she was plain. Without the Montcliffe financial problems and the collection by her father of the extensive Goldsmith debts, he would never have given her a second glance.
She could not allow herself to be one of those pathetic women who didn’t see the truth of their loveless marriages and held on for year after year for something that was impossible.
Two years was what she could give him. Two years in which her father would not be sad or worried or unhappy. If he even lived that long, which was doubtful.
The Earl of Montcliffe would not love her and she would not let herself love him. But together they could manage. The kiss had thrown her, that was all, an unexpected chink in the armour she had long pulled about her.
Liar. Liar. Liar. The words ran together as a refrain as she hurried back to her father.
* * *
Lucien Howard, Earl of Ross, sat beside Daniel in the card room of White’s an hour later. Smoke swirled around in curls and the smell of strong liquor filled any space left as some patrons won a little and others lost a lot.
‘I hear you bought those remarkable Arabian greys at Tattersall’s?’ There was a good measure of curiosity in his friend’s query.
‘You know enough about my present circumstances, Luce, to know I could never afford them.’
‘Then
