A Taste of Desire (15 page)

Thomas stiffened. It was clear in her tone that her statement wasn’t meant as a compliment. The creep of anger
began to steal over him. His affront was for Harry not himself. Hadn’t the poor man endured enough because of her?

“I suggest you watch your tongue. Your father is one of the best men I’ve ever known.”

Amelia’s head jerked back, her eyes widening as if surprised by the vehemence of his response.

“Which isn’t saying much, I daresay. But as far as I’m concerned, the two of you suit each other well. You both care nothing for anyone else unless it’s to your financial or personal benefit. It’s a shame you weren’t my father’s son—how much simpler life would be for everyone involved.”

Thomas schooled his features. This spoilt brat dared to condescend to him. What did she know of money other than listing expenses in the credit and debit column? She’d never had to look his mother and three sisters in the eye and tell them not only hadn’t they money enough to keep up their properties but hardly enough for the barest necessities.

If she had people she considered friends—and that was very much in doubt—who ceased to have anything to do with her, it was because of her surly disposition, not because a lack of funds had suddenly deemed her unworthy of their company. Her father had saved his family from certain financial ruin.

“My heart goes out to your father. God help me should I have a daughter like you.” Contempt laced his every word.

Amelia’s body stiffened on a softly indrawn breath. A look of some indiscernible emotion flashed across her face as she stood motionless, her eyes unblinking.

“When he returns, I’ll be certain to give him your condolences. On the other hand, since you do see him more frequently than I, perhaps you can offer them yourself.” With that, she turned, lifted her skirts, and calmly exited the study.

Thomas made no attempt to stop her. Further conversation might just end in a full-scale war. Raking an unsteady hand through his hair, he slumped back to rest on the edge of the desk, a dull ache radiating in his chest.

The longcase clock in the hall announced the top of the hour with eight strident chimes just as Amelia entered the study the day following. She expelled a small sigh of relief when a quick scan of the room revealed that she was indeed alone.

“I see you managed to arrive on time,” the viscount drawled from behind her, his voice containing no residue of displeasure from yesterday’s unpropitious ending.

Or had been alone.

Amelia turned her head to find him framed in the doorway. He looked remarkably rested—and wretchedly handsome. Never had brown tweed and camel wool had a more strikingly masculine form to cover. Her heart gave a tiny flutter.

“What did you expect? I’ve heard you flog your servants. I like my back unmarred thank you very much,” she replied crisply before taking a seat at her desk. If he could act as if they were at their acrimonious normalcy, as if the kiss had not occurred, so certainly could she.

“Oh, I wouldn’t flog you. I’d paddle your bare behind.”

A gasp escaped her lips as her gaze flew to his. Amusement danced in his eyes, but he looked perfectly capable of carrying out such a punishment.

“You my lord, are the most—”

“Yes I know, arrogant, horrible, et cetera. You needn’t continue. I get the idea.”

Three days ago, she would have bristled at the interruption and seethed over a remark infused with a boredom bordering on insolence. Then she would have delivered him a set-down that would make her remarks at the ball tame in comparison. Today, embarrassment heated her cheeks to blistering degrees. Amelia snapped her mouth closed.

He crossed the room, not coming to a stop until he stood wide-legged in front of her desk. Amelia’s heart had started to beat faster when he’d bypassed his desk; now it galloped along at unheard-of speeds. Yet she still maintained the fortitude to acknowledge him with a supercilious raise of her eyebrow.

“Is my mother hosting a party in your honor?”

Amelia wished she didn’t know of what he spoke. But she did. She treated him to a blank stare anyway.

“Your hair. Your dress. Isn’t it a bit fancy for all this?” A jerk of his head indicated
all this
was the narrow scope of her current existence: the study.

So what if she’d had Hélène take the irons to give her hair some bouncy curls?

Outward beauty, while pleasing to the eye, isn’t enough to hold my attention.

And so what if the pale violet, silk dress with trimmings of puffed ribbon might be more suited for an elegant supper party? It wasn’t a crime that she chose to wear it today.

You could never tempt me.

But as much as she tried to convince herself of that fact, she knew he saw right through to her damaged pride and silently mocked her.

God help me should I have a daughter like you.

He let her stew in her foolishness a second longer before turning on his heel and heading to his desk. “Before you get settled there, I’ll need some coffee.” He tossed the
remark over his shoulder with a casualness meant to give the impression that such a request was a common occurrence.

Amelia gave her head a violent mental shake.
Fetch him his coffee? Has he gone completely daft?

“Then I suggest you ring for one of the servants.”

“And why should I do that when I have you?” He now sat ensconced behind his desk.

“Why should I get you coffee when you employ a team of servants whose express purpose is to cater to your every whim?” He’d now taken his petty vindictiveness to a level of which even he should be ashamed.

The viscount didn’t immediately respond, his attention focused on ostensibly searching for something on his desk. When he spoke, he sounded distracted. “But I want you to do it. Every morning Mr. Wendel’s secretary brings him his morning beverage. It is not an uncommon practice.”

“I do not particularly care what occurs in Mr. Wendel’s office,” she said, bearing down on her back teeth.

Lord Armstrong lifted his head to regard her. “You are correct. The only thing that need concern you right now is bringing me my coffee. Two cubes of sugar with just a dash of cream. And Amelia, make no mistake about it—this is not a request.” He returned his attention to the clutter on his desk, effectively dismissing her.

Amelia silently cursed him in English, French, and the smattering of Italian she’d learned from an Italian governess. But damn it, she had little choice but to do as he said. He had her at a disadvantage. This was his estate, his family, his bloody everything. Here she was nothing but another servant in the guise of a guest. Imprisoned for having a mind of her own and wanting a life of her own.

Although she took pains not to glance in his direction, she felt the intensity of his gaze as she rose and crossed the room to the door, her pride smarting with her every step. Like everything else, she’d attempt to get through this with as much aplomb as she could muster.

In the hall, Amelia immediately located the butler, a dour, portly man with graying hair, who treated her request for the beverage with a monotone “Yes ma’am.” He summoned a footman from the drawing room and dispatched him to the kitchen. The confusion came when she insisted on taking the coffee to the study herself. Puzzled looks were exchanged between the two men until with a nod, the butler permitted the footman to hand her the tray.

The same silence of her leave-taking met her return to the study. Lord Armstrong stopped what he was doing to watch her approach, his expression shuttered.

If she was truly the hoyden he and her father believed her to be, he wouldn’t be drinking the hot liquid; he’d be wearing it.

The sequence of events that followed would make that very thought appear as rehearsed as anything performed in Her Majesty’s Theatre, the execution the stuff of accolades. In trying to find a place for the tray amongst the clutter of papers, books, and various writing accoutrements, one corner of the tray tilted and sent the cup careening like a drunken sailor in a storm. All of her frantic efforts could not prevent what happened next: hot coffee—fixed to the viscount’s specifications—all over his lap.

A roar and a series of blistering curses added to the carnage as he bolted to his feet and toppled his chair to the wood floor. The empty cup landed on the rug but miraculously came through the fall unscathed, leaving only one human casualty.

“I-I-I’m dreadfully sorry.” Amelia gulped, flustered and out of sorts. She stared at him—his wet, coffee-stained trousers an untrammeled horror.

“You little brat, you did that deliberately,” he ground out, and pulled open one of the many drawers of his desk, yanking out a white handkerchief.

“I swear to you, I didn’t mean to—” Amelia abruptly
broke off when her mind fully comprehended what he had called her. Stiffening, she drew her shoulders back.

Brat?

And here she was practically tripping all over herself to apologize. “Well if you’re going to be a boar about it, I shall withdraw my apologies.”

“Milord.” The breathless address came from behind her.

Amelia turned to see a footman hovering anxiously at the doorway.

“I heard—” The footman broke off when he saw the nature of the calamity that had sent a string of colorful expletives echoing down the corridors.

“I will send someone from the kitchen directly,” the young man said, before disappearing back through the door.

“If the desk wasn’t such a mess, this would not have occurred. Where was I to put this?” Amelia gave the tray she still held in her hand a pointed look.

Lord Armstrong growled low in his throat. “You should have taken the damn cup off the tray is what you should have done.” With one last dab of the once-white handkerchief at a wet spot on his upper thigh, the viscount tossed the soiled linen on the floor with a hiss of disgust.

“My lord, you are in the presence of a lady, whether you will admit the fact to yourself or not. Please do keep a check on your tongue,” she reproached him in her frostiest tone.

His head jerked up, and suddenly his green eyes glowed with predatory intent. “Me?
I
am the one who needs to check my tongue?” he asked softly.

Rounding the desk, he advanced toward her, and with each stride forward, Amelia instinctively took one step back. She held the tray in front of her as if tempered silver was enough to ward him off.

Their dance of advance and retreat continued in silence until Amelia saw they were nearing the bookshelves along the south walls—where she would be trapped.

“Milord.” The footman announced his return, and in front
of him stood a petite girl whom Amelia swiftly assessed as the kitchen help by her white food-stained apron. She carried a pail in one hand and a cloth rag in the other.

The footman directed the girl with a motion of his hand. “Anna will clean up.”

Lord Armstrong had stopped, and Amelia took that opportunity to place the tray on her desk and distance herself from him, far enough away that his presence—utterly male and overwhelming—didn’t continue to unnerve her.

“No.” The word emerged clipped and harsh. He strode over to the maid and relieved her of the bucket.

All eyes in the room snapped to him, containing varying degrees of bewilderment. With a solicitousness he’d never once shown her, the viscount removed the cloth from the maid’s hand and set the bucket on the floor. “You may leave. I shall have this dealt with.” At his nod of dismissal, the girl curtsied and scampered from the room.

“As you wish, sir.” The footman bowed before following the maid’s hasty departure.

The soft click of the door closing indicated they were once again very much alone. The viscount directed his attention to her. Only when he extended the hand holding the cloth rag, did she realize what he intended.

Stupefied, Amelia could only shake her head in mute denial. He simply could not be serious.

In response to her vigorous head shaking, he gave a slow, deliberate nod to the contrary. “Oh, yes, you will. And after every single drop of coffee is wiped clean, you may mop the entire floor.”

It would have been thigh-slapping, chortling, snorting funny had it not been quite so apparent he was serious—and obviously as mad as a hatter.

Amelia held up her hand, splayed her fingers for him to take in their unblemished, perfection and manicured nails, and then gestured to her dress, which was a color that could only be described as pale salmon. “If you expect me to get
down on my knees to perform menial servant work, you, my lord, are sadly mistaken.” What would he do, physically force her to her knees? As heinous a man as he was, that seemed several levels beneath his character.

“Oh, I don’t just expect it—I shall relish it.” He tossed the rag in the water and started toward her, his movements lithe and controlled.

Amelia stood her ground, commanding her legs not to move. When he drew within several feet, she balked and stammered, “If you dare lay one finger on me, I shall create so much noise, everyone will think someone is being murdered.”

The viscount came to a smooth stop in front of her, his expression implacable. As if to test the sincerity of her threat, he stroked the curve of her cheek with his finger in a feathery caress. Amelia’s stomach plummeted the same way it had done when she had once lost her seat on her mount. She vividly recalled the terrifying feeling of hurtling forward to meet the hard earth. At least when she had hit the ground unharmed but shaken, the sensation had stopped. In this case, there appeared to be no end to her fall.

Wide-eyed, she regarded him, unable to move, incapable of protest.

He lowered his head until she could feel his breath, lemon-scented and warm, on her forehead. “This is my finger,” he whispered. “Maybe I’ve gone deaf, but I can’t seem to hear your screams.”

It took a moment for his words to register, her thinking having been momentarily suspended by the lull of his dark, silken tones. Amelia took a hasty, if somewhat jerky step backward, breaking the heated contact as she endeavored to collect herself.