A Taste of Desire(3)
“I still have another month before my departure. If you should reconsider, please let me know.”
Thomas admired the man’s doggedness, but he’d willingly board a ship of prisoners bound for New South Wales first.
Amelia knew her father was angry.
He’d spoken not one word to her since that loathsome Mr. Ingles had dragged her, quite literally, from the coach not even two miles outside of town. With the crush of conveyances on Piccadilly and Regent Street, she and Lord Clayborough would have been better served if they’d attempted their elopement to Gretna Green on foot.
Thirty minutes gone, her father had requested her presence in the study. Still more than piqued at the unfairness of her three-day confinement to her bedchamber, she’d dawdled, doing absolutely naught before commencing the interminable walk downstairs to meet with her irate parent.
Upon reaching the study, she blithely thrust open the door, only to make jarring contact with a body standing on the other side.
She heard the thwack and a low masculine grunt—the sound a mixture of surprise and pain. Instinctively, she took a quick step back, her hand still clutching the knob. Lord, what was her father doing—?
Before she could complete the thought, Lord Armstrong’s imposing form stepped into view, tapered fingers rubbing a spot near his right temple. He observed her through narrowed eyes, emerald green and ponderously lashed, pinning her with the type of look meant solely to make a person squirm.
Squirming was not in her nature, but her heart performed an odd lurch and her pulse quickened at the sight of her father’s protégé. She was once again unsettled to discover that with each meeting, the golden-haired viscount could elicit such a response in her. But then—she made a surreptitious sweep of his body—he did exude an elegance and raw masculinity she grudgingly conceded might appeal to a less discerning woman—which, thankfully, she was not.
“Pardon me.” Amelia kept her tone level and polite. Easing the door open wide enough to allow for the sheer volume of two layers of stiff petticoats beneath her blue, flounced skirt, she entered the room. She immediately blinked against the glare of the sun pouring through large paned windows dominating the eastward-facing walls.
She caught the clean, subtle whiff of bergamot and rosemary. His scent. She’d recognize it blindfolded and spun around. How she’d grown to thoroughly dislike that scent. She loathed the man with whom she’d forever associate it even more. Inhaling a breath deep and slow, she took up a spot on the area rug, a comfortable distance from both men.
“I didn’t expect someone would place himself so near a closed door,” she added in case he’d misconstrued her statement as an apology.
Her father’s face seized up as if in the midst of an apoplexy. Lord Armstrong’s mouth flattened, his regard narrowing to a squint. Amelia returned his stare placidly. He could stare—or glare, as it were—at her all he wanted. She didn’t give a whit, ignoring her heart knocking a frantic beat beneath her breastbone.
“It is also customary to knock before opening a closed door,” came the viscount’s glib reply.
“Might I remind you, my lord, it is I who resides in this house.” The gall of the man, trying to chastise her. Who told him he should situate himself thus? Hinges on doors were not meant as frivolous ornaments; they did have a purpose.
“Amelia is regrettably sorry,” her father hastily interjected.
Like hell she is. The bloody woman had probably parked herself outside waiting for the opportunity to bash his head in. Thomas wouldn’t put anything past her.
Tamping down his growing irritation, he replied smoothly, “Yes, Harry, I am quite certain she is.”
“I do hope I’m not preventing you from leaving. You were on your way out, were you not?” she asked in dulcet tones, a smile curving her lips.
If it had been any other woman, Thomas could have envisioned many other uses for such a mouth, with plump lips the deep pink of a man’s erotic dreams. And if one were dealing purely in aesthetics, who could fail to appreciate the dark-haired beauty’s jaw-dropping figure, shown to its best advantage in a gown the exact sapphire blue of her eyes, the fitted corsage allowing for the glorious display of creamy skin. But as stunning as she was, he wouldn’t have her if she begged him. Not that he would mind the begging part. That he would relish if only to have the pleasure of refusing her.
“Er … Thomas, thank you for calling. I expect I shall see you again before my departure.”