A Taste of Desire(100)
“Are you in love with my brother?”
Months ago the question would have catapulted her into peals of laughter at its absurdity. Or perhaps had her elegant little nose turned up in affront at the sheer audacity of it. But months had passed. Time enough to lose her heart. Amelia didn’t laugh. Instead she sat wide-eyed and stricken. Swallowing became a special process only performed by those possessing the coordination to do so. Or those who hadn’t that same lost organ blocking the passage of her throat.
No. No. No. I don’t love him. More important, I don’t want to love him. But as loudly as the words reverberated within her, she could not get her mouth to cooperate and speak them. Why?
I can’t love him, her mind continued to wail. I will never be in control with him. Amelia blinked and swallowed hard, the revelation hitting her harder than gale-force winds.
“I see I’ve discomfited you,” the countess said. “I won’t continue to press you. Perhaps you yourself haven’t realized it as yet. So now you’ll have to think about what I’ve said.” Patting her hand solicitously, she said, “Since we are finished with our meal, would you like to go up to the nursery and meet my twins?”
“I would love to meet your children,” Amelia said, desperate to latch on to another topic of discussion, willing and ready to throw herself into any activity that didn’t require her to see, think, feel, or speak about Thomas.
The countess gathered her skirts and came gracefully to her feet. “Then come with me.”
Amelia spent the remainder of the day with Missy—as she had been instructed to call her when she’d slipped and addressed her as Lady Windmere. The countess claimed the title made her feel ancient coming from a woman her age.
They spent many hours with Jason and Jessica, the four-month-old twins. Sadly, Amelia’s life hadn’t given her many opportunities to be around children, much less babies. But, as she’d always believed, she took to them with the ease of a mother destined to care for her own. She adored everything about them: their rosy cheeks, their chubby little bodies, their gummy smiles, and their innocent neediness. She could have cuddled the babies for hours more had Jason not fallen asleep in her arms. It was at that point she and Missy placed both babies back in their cribs for their naps.
Missy then introduced her to the earl’s sixteen-year-old twin sisters (twins appeared to be aplenty in the Rutherford household), Catherine and Charlotte. The girls were strikingly lovely. Exotic was the word that came instantly to mind as the only way to describe them with their honey-gold tresses and sun-kissed complexions. Their eyes were the same iridescent blue of their brother’s with the same large, dark pupils. Amelia could see their coming out would set the gentlemen of the ton anxiously on their toes.
The sisters greeted her with an initial reserve, all finishing-school politeness and deference. But during afternoon tea, they lost much of that reserve, their liveliness bubbling to the surface.
While sipping her hot cocoa, Catherine revealed another aspect of her character when she cheerfully informed Amelia, she and her sister were in fact the earl’s half sisters, the by-blows of the dearly departed fifth Earl of Windmere. The girl enjoyed a salacious tale. Once learning of their existence the year before, their brother, a saint to rival all biblical saints, had promptly taken them in. Their lives hadn’t been the same since, Catherine concluded with a smile. Amelia expressed the desired surprise, although she’d heard varieties of the same tale through the grapevine some time ago.
Charlotte, on the other hand, seemed more concerned with Amelia’s association with Lord Alex. But she was subtle in her approach. A question and comment here and there. Had they met? Was she aware he’d arrived a day early from London? No, Amelia had not. How nice. Alex and Thomas had been ever so kind to them. Did she know Alex was quite brilliant at fixing things? She’d not met many men with eyes like his. Lovely in the empirical sense. The girl had the vocabulary of a literary scholar. Although she said nothing terribly forward, her feelings were obvious. But the poor girl hadn’t a chance. Her beauty, and even the promise of the diamond she would become in another year or so, couldn’t make up for her youth and innocence.
After tea was concluded, Amelia retired to her bedchamber to rest until supper. What else had she to do? Thomas had made himself scarce throughout the day since he’d stormed out of the house. Nearly the entire day she had waited and hoped to catch a glimpse of him, her breath hanging on every footfall she’d heard out in the hall and her heart fluttering like a hummingbird’s wings. But it had never been him, only the servants going about their daily chores.