His Jilted Bride (Historical Regency Romance) (21 page)

She didn't respond. At least not with
words. Her eyes were wide with wonder, her head cocked slightly to
the side, and her eyebrows knit together. She looked almost as if
she'd just witnessed a dog walking down the street, standing
upright on his hind legs and was trying to puzzle out how such a
thing was possible. Unfortunately, for how much time he'd spent
reading people's facial expressions in an effort to know what they
were thinking or planning, he hadn't a single idea what would make
her look that way.

“
Why are you staring at me that way?”

“
Because I just witnessed a miracle.” She set the glass of
lemonade back on the table with a soft thud. “That, or the heat
from that room has baked my brain.”

He grimaced. “I hope not.”

“
I do, too. The prospect of witnessing a miracle is far more
preferable.”

“
And what miracle would that be?”

“
You just issued an apology without the word 'if'.”

Elijah stared at her, dumbfounded.
“How is that a miracle?”

“
A miracle is a rare and inexplicable event that happens only
by some sort of higher power, and that seems to fit the description
of your apology.”

“
No, not a miracle. Sincere.”

“
Aha!” Her silver eyes sparkled with amusement. “I knew you'd
never meant any of those other apologies.”

“
Do you blame me?” He withdrew his handkerchief from his
breast pocket and wiped up the ring of water her glass had left on
the table before she got her gown wet. “My mother used to make me
apologize for the silliest things.”

“
Silliest things, you say? I don't seem to recall finding it
silly when you tied a stick in my hair.”

He couldn't help but laugh at the
memory of seeing her stand up after one of her many impromptu
picnics she insisted on bringing out to him and Henry only to find
a long, thick stick swaying from the end of her braid.

“
Or what of the time when I was fifteen and Henry asked to see
my book and removed a page while you plagued me with ridiculous
questions about why my eyebrows were a little darker than my hair
and if I was sure my hair was naturally this color?” She grabbed a
fallen lock and brought it before her face. “And how could I have
possibly turned my hair this color?”

“
I don't know.” Elijah shifted in his seat. How many times as
a boy had he considered her hair such a mundane color as brown, or
even worse: mud brown. Neither of those adjectives did her
beautiful hair justice. It was a deep, rich mahogany. And truth be
told, his fingers itched to touch it. “If we were so beastly to
you, why did you keep coming around?” He swore under his breath. He
had no right to ask her that. She'd told him the answer to that so
many times back then and it was for his own selfish reasons now
that he'd asked her again. Just once more to hear her tell him that
she loved him then, even if she didn't now. His stomach knotted;
painfully so.“Never mind.”

She offered him a wobbly smile and
looked just past his left shoulder. “I suppose I thought you two
teasing me all the time was better than having no friends at
all.”

The way her lower lip quivered as she
said those words tore at his heart. How could he have been so
careless and cruel to her? Instinctively, he reached across the
table and took her hands in his. “Amelia, I'm sorry. So very sorry.
I—I—I—” He racked his brain for the right thing to say, but nothing
seemed adequate. He'd never dreamed he'd actually hurt her. “I
never meant to hurt you. Please know that. I only did those things
because— Are you crying?” he choked. Gads this was worse than he
thought.

She shook her head, but said nothing;
her eyes glistened with unshed tears.

He had the strangest urge to reach
across the table and pull her onto his lap. He wanted to hold her
and reassure her that he hadn't meant any harm. What had once
started out as boyish behavior had one day turned into something
else. Wait. He scanned her face. Her eyes were red with two
rivulets of tears streaming from the corners now, her cheeks were
red, and her lips were moving as if she were fighting to hold her
composure. Odd, she wasn't sniffling... “You're having me
on!”

Amelia pulled her hand from his and
wiped her eyes with the tips of her fingers. “Yes, I was, and if I
made you feel even a speck of remorse, then it was worth
it!”

“
Oh, you're good.”

“
Thank you.” She brought her hands to her sides and grabbed
both sides of her skirt and pulled it to the side a bit and dipped
her head, as if to do a mock curtsey.

I love
you
. He wanted so badly to say it. It was
little things like besting him and then boasting about it that made
him love her all the more. Instead, he craned his neck as if by
doing so, he'd be able to see Marge in the kitchen. “I wonder
what's taking her so long.”

“
She had to go out back and harvest the cabbage for your
sandwich.”

Yes, indeed, he was the besotted fool
Ian claimed him to be who loved his wife to distraction.

Chapter Twenty

Amelia placed her hand on her stomach
in a futile attempt to make it settle down. All around her, finger
foods were consumed, tea was poured and all the ladies of Elijah's
relation chatted.

But Amelia wanted none of it. She just
wanted to go lie down and pray when she woke up her monthly flux
would have started. As it was, she'd been having all the signs of
the impending condition without the most crucial part.

Tears welled in her eyes. That could
only mean one thing.

“
Are you feeling all right, dearest?” Edwina asked, coming to
sit next to her.

“
Of course,” she lied.

Edwina's brown eyes softened. “Is
there something we might be able to do to help?”

At those words, the entire room grew
quiet. Eerily quiet, to be exact.

Amelia fidgeted. All eyes were on her
now. “No.” She sighed. “It's a female complaint, I'm
afraid.”

A couple of ladies nodded their
understanding and offered her a polite smile before turning back to
their tea.

Edwina wasn't so easily put off.
“Come, let's go chat.”

Amelia hesitated. The last thing she
wanted to do was draw more attention to herself, but the determined
look in Edwina's eyes gave her little choice so Amelia made her
excuses to the room as Edwina looped their arms together and led
her out of the room and down the hall to the library.

“
You owe me, you know,” Edwina said without preamble as soon
as she shut the door.

Amelia's eyes widened. “Owe you? What
do I owe you for?”

“
Saddling me with the nickname of Weenie,” Edwina said with a
stoney face and a bit of a frown.

Amelia sputtered with laughter. “I
didn't do that. You did that to yourself.”

“
I'll grant you I might have overreacted a touch, but it was
because of you and your mispronunciation of my name that it came to
be.” She made a face to show her utter disgust for the nickname her
brothers called her.

“
Sorry, Edw
eee
na,” Amelia said, trying not to laugh. Amelia would never
forget the day Edwina had first joined her brothers outside to
play. She'd been five, six at most, and had insisted her brothers
allow her to join their game. They wouldn't of course. Amelia had
brought over a picnic that day, and trying to emulate the way
Regina had always treated her, Amelia invited Edwina to join her
for a picnic instead. Unfortunately, she'd just popped a blackberry
in her mouth when she said, “Edwina, won't you sit down with
me?”

“
My name's not Ed
win
a,” said the little girl with
golden curls and a pretty pink dress as she put her hands on her
hips and stamped her foot. “It's pronounced Ed
wee
na.”

Like older brothers were wont to do,
Elijah and Henry had laughed at the absurdity of Edwina's reaction
and Amelia had been mortified, rushing to assure her she'd only
mispronounced her name because she'd been eating. That only made
the girl's older brothers laugh more. One of them, Amelia would
never know which, because she was too flustered to pay attention,
said, “Settle down, Weenie, we all know—”

His words were cut off when a little
waif of a girl ran into him, tackling him to the ground. From then
on, she rarely heard any of her brother's call Edwina anything
other than Weenie. She'd wondered once or twice over the years if
the nickname hadn't come from something else, something that had
happened before this incident due to the strong reaction Edwina had
had. But never mind what the real story was or exactly how Elijah
and Henry explained such an unusual nickname to the rest of their
family, as far as Edwina was concerned, it was Amelia who'd been
responsible for the awful fate that had befallen her.

“
Would you like me to tell Elijah to stop?”

“
No. It's far too late for that.” She smoothed her long, blue
skirt. “But you can make it up to me another way.”

Amelia's stomach would have roiled if
it hadn't done so already. She didn't like where this was going.
“What do you want?”

Edwina's face softened, genuine
concern now evident in her brown eyes. “Just tell me what's
wrong.”

“
I already did,” Amelia said between clenched teeth. “I'm
having a female complaint.”

“
No, you're not.”

Amelia snorted softly.

“
You're not
just
having female complaints,” Edwina amended. “I've known you
longer than anyone else here, excluding my mother and brothers. You
were like the sister I never had when we were younger, Amelia. I
used to dream of being as witty and clever as you and besting my
brothers.” A wistful smile took her lips, then vanished. “I know
something isn't right. Just tell me what it is and I'll see if I
can help you.”

“
You can't.” And that was the truth.

“
You don't know that if you don't tell me,” Edwina pointed
out. She clasped her hands in front of her. “Did something happen
on your outing with Elijah yesterday?”

Yes. She'd fallen more in love with
Elijah, a man she could never fully have. “No, nothing like you're
thinking.”

Edwina lifted her brows. “And how do
you know what I'm thinking?”

It was hard for Amelia to
see Edwina as anyone other than the little sister of her only
playmates. But she
was
a lady now, and a married one at that. How ironic the once
young girl Amelia had given her old dolls and frocks to was now the
more experienced of the two. “I don't know what you're thinking,”
she said at last.

“
I didn't think you did.” She found a spot on the settee and
patted the cushion next to her. “Anything you tell me won't leave
this room.”

Oh, her secret would leave this room.
Perhaps not today, but soon enough. Amelia sat down and took a deep
breath. Who could she trust if not her own sister-in-law? She took
another deep inhale. Perhaps telling Edwina would be a good thing.
She'd had a child not so long ago, she'd know what to expect. Not
to mention, she was Elijah's sister. Amelia might have played with
him more as a child than his sister had, but likely Edwina knew him
better and might be able to offer her help.

She bit her lip. Was it worth the risk
of losing Edwina as a trusted friend? Because that was a very
genuine possibility. Edwina might like her well enough now, but
when she learned the truth, and how it would affect someone Edwina
loved, would she dismiss Amelia? It was a risk, one she needed to
take. Keeping it to herself was going to kill her.

“
Earlier,” she started, fidgeting, “when I said I had a female
complaint, I might have been misunderstood.”

There, she'd said it, and now she was
too nervous to even wrap her hair around her finger, let alone look
at her sister-in-law's face! Would Edwina laugh and dismiss her
statement, claiming it was far too early for her to know if she'd
conceived Elijah's child? Or would she speculate and come to the
correct conclusion? If she did, would she cut and scorn her? It
wouldn't be anything less than Amelia deserved.

“
Are you certain?” Edwina's voice reflected her eyes: no
condemnation or pity, only compassion.

Her stomach was unsettled. Her breasts
felt swollen and sensitive. Her emotions went from one extreme to
the other so fast she was certain she was a good candidate for
Bedlam. All the signs that she was pregnant were there and the one
indicator that she wasn't had yet to make an appearance. Tears
stung her eyes, blurring her vision and she nodded. “Fairly
certain, yes.”