“I am not confident you’re thinking lucidly,” he added. “Whole-hearted love is best reserved for a parent toward a child, don’t you think?”
Stunned at his assertion, Amity shook her head. “No, I do not.”
How had they never discussed this? She’d assumed and attributed to him a level of sentiment he might not actually have for her. “Surely you feel love for me if you wish to marry me.”
“I hold you in the utmost regard,” he explained. “I feel tenderness and affection. Your nature, face, and physique, they all please me tremendously. There is very little about you I would change. I also think you would be an excellent mother.”
“But you don’t love me?” she asked, frankly surprised.
“I suppose I do,” he confessed. “As much as any adult loves another.”
She stared at him. “Do you ever experience lightheadedness around me? Does your heart race at my approach?”
He opened his mouth, closed it, and finally confessed, “No.”
“When we kiss,” she persisted, knowing the topic was inappropriate, “do you feel hot inside, as if you were turning to liquid while your skin seems practically scorched?”
“Definitely not,” Jeremy said, his face growing a little red. “Whatever can you mean?”
“At my touch, do you feel overcome with wanting?” She laid a hand on his arm, feeling nothing herself.
“Wanting what?” he asked, staring at her as if she were slightly deranged.
“Wanting me, of course!”
“I look forward to sharing our marital bed if that’s what you mean.”
Amity shook her head, relieved beyond measure to have learned of his tepid nature. “But you don’t yearn for me.”
Jeremy shrugged.
“Then I am doing you a good service, Mr. Cole, by setting you free of our engagement. I assure you that such intense passion is real, and I do think it represents love, enduring and encompassing. I hope you experience it someday.”
With that, she turned from him, walking back toward the house. Over her shoulder, she added, “You’re more than welcome to stay for breakfast.”
Her step light, she felt almost buoyant at being free, which confirmed marriage to him would have been an egregious error. Her earlier guilt at causing him pain had been replaced by a sense of rightness. Even though upon consideration, Amity couldn’t help wondering briefly what it was about her he would change. He’d indicated there was something.
With a sigh of contentment, she accepted that was no longer her concern, and thus, she would never know.
“YOU ARE AS DOUR AS ... as a recently widowed dowager,” Charlotte declared to Amity two weeks later after they had returned to London. They were readying Rare Confectionery to reopen, but Amity couldn’t find her usual joy as she worked, making enough chocolates to fill the shop’s shelves. “I wonder if that’s why they call them such.”
“That’s not the same dour,” Beatrice said with a chuckle.
“Either way,” Charlotte continued, speaking from the front of the shop where she was dusting every surface, “I miss the old amiable Amity. Isn’t that why Mother and Father named you such?”
“Are you of the belief our parents noticed I was amiable from infancy?” Amity asked. Charlotte’s mistaken notion, in fact, did bring a smile to her face.
Beatrice laughed again. She was cleaning the front glass panes with vinegar and newsprint. “Silly goose. They named her Amity after some great aunt and because they wanted her to have a name beginning with A.”
“A, B, C,” Charlotte murmured. “I wonder what D’s name would have been.”
Amity shook her head. How she loved being with her sisters. It would have to be enough.
Unfortunately, she next made an absolutely terrible batch of chocolates, doubling the salt and using sour milk by mistake. Wasting good ingredients, namely a block of Menier’s chocolate, irritated her no end, and in disgust, she slung them all into the rubbish bin. A shiver raced through her — carrying with it the fear she’d lost her spark, and not because of breaking it off with Jeremy Cole.
That evening, as Amity prepared for bed, a tap on her door turned out to be her mother.
“Where is my happy eldest daughter? What have you done with her?” Felicity Rare-Foure asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.
“I am right here.” Amity placed her hairbrush on the dressing table and went over to sit beside her mother.
“But you’re not the same as before we went away. No,” Felicity caught herself, “I should say, you are not as you were before the duke’s proposal party. You aren’t still smarting over Lady Madeleine’s set-down, are you?”
“No.” Truthfully, Amity cared not a whit for Lady Madeleine and hadn’t spared her a thought in weeks.
“And have you sent Mr. Cole away permanently?” her mother asked. Amity hadn’t told her family much more than they’d broken off their extraordinarily short engagement.
“Yes.” Amity plucked at the skirt of her gown, feeling out of sorts.
Her mother covered her hand with her own. “So, are you madly in love with the Duke of Pelham?”
“Yes,” she said and gasped at her frank admission. “Mother!” She had been lulled by the easier questions into a quick confession.
“And he is obviously madly in love with you, too,” Felicity persisted.
“How can you know that?” Amity felt a flicker of joy at the thought.
“Because the man followed you out to the country and toured ruins with you. He bristled every time he looked at Mr. Cole, or you did. He even carried in your breakfast on a tray. Then you hurt the duke’s feelings and he ran away. Clearly, a man in love.”
Amity shook her head. Apparently, her mother knew everything, so what was the point in speaking.
“How did my amiable daughter make a duke turn tail and run? That is my question. And why?”
“That’s two questions,” Amity pointed out and felt comforted when her mother put her arms around her. “The duke does care for me, I believe,” she began, “and I do love him madly, as you say. But he wants me to be his duchess.”
She felt her mother take a deep breath. “Yes, dear. That’s usually the way it works. A duke marries, and his wife becomes his duchess.”
Amity realized she was wringing her hands upon her lap. “That’s precisely it. Don’t you see? I cannot be a duchess. I am a chocolatier!”
Her mother paused. “My poor girl. You are not merely a chocolatier. You are a woman in love. I believe that takes precedence over nearly everything else. I can’t imagine you — or the duke — will let a little thing like chocolate, no matter how delicious, stand in your way.”
“A little thing? Mother, how can you say that?”
“Compared to love, Amity, how can I not?”
HENRY WAITED AT THE bottom of the stairs for his mother to descend. He’d promised to escort her to her favorite ballet at Covent Garden. The nights were becoming colder, and the streets were decorated for the upcoming Yuletide Season. To him, it seemed a little early. He might speak to London’s mayor about it next time he saw him.