A Taste of Desire(5)
“I was told you wished to speak with me,” she reiterated as if he hadn’t spoken.
“Sit down, Amelia.” A sweep of his hand encompassed the newly upholstered leather armchairs by the desk, plush brocade side chairs, and a plump sage sofa situated around the fireplace.
Amelia took a cursory look around before returning her gaze to him. “I would much prefer to stand.”
The color of his face took on the hue of a ripe beet, and his lips quivered when he spoke. “This last antic of yours has not only caused me needless moments of worry and considerable stress, but countless amounts of money.”
Amelia was certain it was the last item that aggrieved him most. Lord forbid she cost him a fraction more than she should. He possessed fortune enough to keep the queen in jewels for life, and his sole purpose in living was to accumulate more. However, any additional funds spent on his only child had him claiming financial woes. Although, she was certain he’d have spent his last sixpence ensuring Thomas Armstrong’s financial recovery without batting a lash.
He studied her, his brows drawn. The lines fanning his eyes and the grooves bracketing his mouth made him look every one of his forty-seven years. “You have left me to deal with you the only way I know how.” His tone was hard and stern.
The year past, her punishment for running off to marry Mr. Cromwell had been a six-month suspension of her pin money. So what would he do this time, refuse her money for nine months? Make her forfeit her next Season? No, it would be a futile endeavor to remove her from the circle of eligible and prominent gentlemen of the peerage—men he hoped to foist her upon so he could wash his hands of her.
“Shall I be locked forever in my bedchamber?” At the coldness of his stare, she masked the flare of pain that commenced in her chest with a bored lift of her eyebrow.
He paused, eyes narrowed and lips pursed. She could tell he was throttling her silly in his mind. When he spoke, it was ominous in its quiet tone, purporting a brewing storm. “I do not believe those scoundrels for whom you regrettably acquire an affinity will think to look for you in a convent.”
Chapter 2
Amelia’s breath suspended on its journey from her lungs. For a second she feared she’d meet the exquisite Persian rug in a dead swoon.
“But we belong to the Church of England.”
“And I believe this is as good a time as any to embrace Catholicism. I’ve heard nuns have a manner about them conducive to obedience.”
Good Lord, he sounded serious. “You are mad!”
Harold Bertram emitted a humorless laugh and polished off his drink. Strolling over to his desk, he dropped the empty glass atop it. “Yes, I must be. But I have reached the end of my tether with what to do with you. Perhaps a year in the sisters’ care will succeed where it is obvious I have failed.”
A year! She nearly gasped at the enormity of the proposed sentence. He had to be bluffing. “Have you forgotten what happened the last time you sent me away?” Amelia asked, forcing herself to display a calm she didn’t feel.
Even as derelict as he’d been in his parental duties, surely he remembered her stay at the boarding school taught predominantly by rigid nunlike creatures had been fraught with nothing but difficulties.
“I believe perhaps some time of quiet religious introspection is exactly what is required in this instance. It appears only the Father himself can curb your rebellious streak, and I welcome him to the task.”
A deep inhalation did little to quell the panic flaring in the pit of her belly. “What of my Season? I’m to miss it to be cloistered with some overly pious nuns?” She despised the insidious creep of hurt in her voice and the sudden clammy feel of her hands.
“What else would you have me do?” Her father asked the question in a subdued tone as he circled the desk to take a seat in his chair. Over steepled fingers, he fixed her with a grave stare. “My presence is required in America for the next several months. If I leave you here, the moment I am gone you will be gallivanting from Cornwall to Northumberland with God knows who, and I will be met with a fait accompli upon my return. Lord only knows which bounder you’ll present me with as your husband.”
“Why is it so important that he has your stamp of approval? I would imagine it should be enough that you will be rid of me.” The words came out more charged and emotional than she would have liked. But that came more from anger than hurt. She didn’t care that her father didn’t want her. Not anymore. That need in her had been exorcised from her not long after her mother’s death.