A Taste of Desire(36)
The only bright spot in her otherwise dreary day was that Lord Armstrong had not come back to check on her progress.
As she straightened her desk, the opening of the door had her turning with a start to view the man himself. He had changed since the morning, a neckcloth, waistcoat, and jacket adding much-needed formality to his attire. Suddenly a clothed version of Myron’s Discobolus came to mind. The viscount would be the same under all that wool, silk, and lawn, all lean, sinewy muscle over golden flesh. Amelia immediately wanted to knock herself senseless for allowing another such image to enter her thoughts. What had come over her? Good looks had never impressed her—did not impress her still.
“How have you managed thus far?” He shot her a glance as he headed toward his desk.
“As well as expected, I imagine,” she said pertly before turning to straighten the last stack of documents. “I shall finish what remains in the morning.” She retrieved a handkerchief from the desk drawer and began wiping herself clean of what ink had gotten on her hands.
He had opened the account ledger and had begun to flip the pages. At her words, the rustling of paper ceased and the room went quiet.
Curious, Amelia darted a look in his direction to find him staring at her, the book suspended in his hand. “Tomorrow? Why tomorrow when you can do it now?”
Amelia blinked rapidly, her eyes widening. “Now?”
“Yes, do you have a problem with that?” He closed the account ledger and placed it on his desk.
Did she have a problem with that? The hour was late, her hands and back ached, and the majority of the day she’d spent sitting. Her bum had grown numb from overuse. Ridiculous man, of course she had a problem with it!
“Surely this can wait until the morning?” Her brittle tone cracked under the weight of her irritation.
Shifting, he propped himself on the edge of the desk and folded his hand across the expanse of his chest. “My dear Princess, there is still the matter of this morning to contend with. An hour and a half to be precise. You didn’t think I’d forgotten your tardiness did you?”
Amelia’s fingers tightened around the handkerchief much the same way she yearned to do to his neck.
“While I may have exercised restraint this morning,” he continued softly with a thread of steel in his tone, “I won’t should there be another occurrence. I will not countenance disobedience.”
Yes, how dare she thwart his expressed orders? A fact that had undoubtedly gnawed at him the entire day and would haunt his dreams tonight. Amelia dropped the handkerchief on the desk.
“So oversleeping is now a capital offense?” she asked, endeavoring to sound as if he hadn’t just managed to set every one of her nerves on edge.
He shook his head, his expression vaguely amused. “We’d be hanging them in droves in the town square. However, for you, while not a capital offense, consider it an offense that carries with it certain consequences.”
Was she now supposed to tremble in fear? She’d simply have to fight to contain herself. “And supper this evening? Am I to join your family or am I to work? You simply cannot have it both ways.”
He pinned her with the kind of look that robbed grown women of breath, reason, and propriety. In that order. “Princess,” he drawled, “you can scarce imagine all the ways I manage to have it.”
Never had the word it sounded so very wicked. A sinful utterance. And for that very reason he robbed her of speech; she had no caustic response primed and ready to cut him to ribbons. She even forgot to bristle at the hated manner in which he addressed her.
But if his intention was to render her mute, he did not linger nor appear to gloat over his victory. “Supper does not commence until eight, and as it’s only six now, you should have ample time to finish.”
He pushed off the desk and came to his full, impressive height. “If you find yourself in need of me”—he paused ever so slightly, but long enough to infuse the words with a breadth of meaning—”ring for Reeves. He will know of my whereabouts.”
While she busily gathered her wits and composure and summoned back some of her suspended indignation, he strode from the room, with the unstudied air of a man who hadn’t just performed a sort of verbal intercourse with her.
Amelia dropped back into the chair, landing on the cushioned seat with a soft thump. She was angry, and agitated that her anger was threefold.
Firstly, Thomas Armstrong was a loathsome man. Secondly, he aggravated her more than any person should have a right or power to. And lastly, but the one which distressed her most, she was angry with herself. That he should have the power to fluster her with not just his words or his regard, but at times with his very presence, was an excruciating blow to a woman who’d always thought herself immune to his overstated charms. Humiliating if she considered just how unaffected he appeared by their exchanges.