A Taste of Desire(17)
“Good morning, Lady Amelia.” His placid greeting rolled off his tongue as smooth as velvet.
“Lord Armstrong.” She managed the address between tight lips, giving a vague nod in his direction before swivel-ing back around.
She hadn’t actually thought he would do it. However, here he was, the dew on the grass barely dissipated by the early morning sun before he’d rushed to tell her father the tale of last night’s incident. He was worse than the gossiping matrons of the ton, she thought, silently railing him with a string of epithets.
Unable to bring herself to look at her father, she cast her gaze about blindly. Unfortunately, no matter how hard she tried to focus on something—anything else—she sensed the moment Lord Armstrong came within feet of her. He approached with the stealth of a jungle cat, but his scent heralded his proximity just as loudly as a blast from a trumpet. Sinking his long length into the armchair beside her, he splayed legs encased in a forest green fabric before him.
“I told you I would apprise you when I found a situation appropriate for you during my stay in America,” her father began, his words commanding her attention with mind-boggling swiftness.
Dread and disbelief coalesced on a wave in her belly.
“And Lord Armstrong has kindly consented to take you on.”
An enraged gasp tore from her throat as she shoved white shaking hands into her lap, her fingers clutching swaths of sky blue pyramid silk.
Take me on! As though she were some—some thing to be managed. She tamped down a cauldron of emotions and stared back at her father while endeavoring to keep her expression void of emotion and make sense of the utterly senseless.
He intended she remain in London and work at the shipping company? The idea was preposterous. It actually went beyond that, trampling unhindered into the completely asinine realm. Wasn’t she to remain in Westbury at Fountain Crest?
“But, Father, really, Wendel’s Shipping? Surely—”
The marquess’s hearty laugh filled the study, his shoulders shaking in mirth. “Good heavens, do you really believe I would send you anywhere near those docks?”
Finding nothing particularly amusing about any of it, Amelia narrowed her gaze. “But this makes no sense a’tall. Lord Armstrong isn’t involved in any other business enterprises—is he?” She addressed the question to her father as if the viscount wasn’t sitting a mere foot away and hadn’t the capacity to answer for himself.
“As a matter of fact, I run a very lucrative horse-breeding farm.”
Humph. Figures it would have to do with breeding. Her caustic observation was accompanied by a sidelong glance in Lord Armstrong’s direction, where she encountered his bland, green-eyed stare.
“In Westbury?” The deadly calm in her voice did not belie the emotion surmounting her disdain, overtaking her, and rendering her insensate with horror.
Harold Bertram drummed blunt fingers against the surface of the desk. “I think perhaps you misunderstand the situation.”
Amelia’s narrowed regard swung back to him. “What am I misunderstanding, Father?” Her tone sharpened with each word.
The viscount cleared his throat, bouncing her attention from her father back to him like a spectator at a tennis match.
“What your father is trying to tell you, Lady Amelia, is that my farm is in Devon and you will be residing there on my country estate with me.”
Chapter 6
Amelia shot to her feet amid the rustle of silk and one rather cumbersome crinoline, nearly toppling the chair.
“I-I cannot live with him at his residence,” she said, struggling to catch her breath and bridle the panic threatening to careen out of control. “Father, it wouldn’t be proper. I will be ruined.”
“I really don’t believe it will come to that.” A flash of dimples denting his chiseled cheeks betrayed the viscount’s amusement.
Amelia hadn’t thought it possible to despise a person more than she did him at that moment. His smile—no, it was more a taunting grin—laid that assumption to rest.
Harold Bertram’s chest swelled beneath his black and grey checkered jacket. “Of course, I would not allow anything not sanctioned proper by society. You will be well chaperoned at Thomas’s estate. Miss Crawford and Hélène will accompany you. In addition, during a portion of your stay, Lady Armstrong and her two teenaged daughters will be in residence.”
His words neither registered nor penetrated her horrified brain. The only thing she knew without an ounce of doubt was that she could not—would not—live with that man.