A Taste of Desire(6)
Amelia paused, unfurled the fingers digging into her palms, and continued in a carefully modulated tone. “I am now a grown woman. Don’t I have the right to choose the man who will, in the eyes of the law, own me for the rest of my life? Won’t you afford me even that small concession?”
“And have you tied to a man like Clayborough?” Her father did nothing to keep the disdain from his voice. “You would find yourself living the life of genteel poverty in too few years. And who do you think your husband would look to when that occurs?” With only a slight pause in his speech, he continued, “Me, that is who. Even that self-serving Clayborough knows I would never permit my own flesh and blood to live in such a manner. Can you imagine, the daughter of a marquess living in a run-down estate with threadbare carpeting and traveling in equipage long past the hackney stage?” He emitted a sound of disgust. “I expect much more for you than that.”
Yes, good heavens, what would society say? The embarrassment, the mortification simply could not be endured by someone of her father’s stature. But living in genteel poverty had to be a vast cry better than being locked in a convent. And he must know she would never descend to ask him for one shilling.
However, Amelia hid any response she might have been tempted to give behind a vacant stare. She lacked sufficient interest to rouse herself from the inertia of arguing with her father over her selection in men.
“Twice in one year, you have run off to marry without my consent. Twice I have been forced to hire investigators to bring you home. You are fortunate that I was able to keep your escapades off every nattering tongue in society, for then there would be no hope of finding you a decent match. Can you not see you have left me with no other option?”
Amelia knew her father did not actually expect her to agree. Leaves would cease to turn color during the autumn months before that miracle occurred. However, a real tendril of fear misted over her like the thick London fog and quite literally had her heart beating double time. Her father had a look in his eyes and an uncompromising mien that she’d never witnessed in his dealings with her.
“Have you forgotten what I endured as a child at the hands of those women at that school? Or don’t you care what becomes of me?” Amelia had no practice in cajolement. She’d never had any particular need of it. Not when she was a connoisseur in the art of guilt.
Harold Bertram sat back in his chair, his gaze thoughtful. For several seconds he watched her, and she wondered if he too recalled the beating she’d received—one which had left her skin bruised and broken. That had been the punishment she’d received after attempting to run away. Away from women who thought the cane the sole recourse for even the smallest infraction. When her father had learned of the incident, he’d removed her from the school in an act charged with righteous indignation.
She’d returned home under the misguided belief his actions had meant he cared for her. It had been a false assumption. The week following her return to their country estate, he’d left for London and stayed away nearly an entire year. Her thirteenth year. During the one time she’d needed him most.
Upon his return, he’d never once inquired of her well-being, how she’d fared during that period without him. He hadn’t cared. That had been about the time he’d taken an interest in the blasted ship-building company. And when that wretched man, Lord High and Mighty Thomas Armstrong, had floated down like the Angel Raphael from up on high to assume a ranking higher than that of a flesh-and-blood daughter—that of his business partner.
“Given the seriousness of your offense, there is only one other option I will consider,” he admitted, after a lengthy silence. “Work.”
Amelia could not help two rapid blinks and one convulsive swallow. Work? It took several long moments for her brain to process the word in its fair context, before it settled with the repugnance of haggis in a bed of potatoes and turnips.
“You expect me to work?” The affront in her voice was neither feigned nor exaggerated. “You mean that I should join a charity of sorts?” Of course. That was the only thing that made one mite of sense.
Harold Bertram lifted his shoulders in a negligent shrug, as if the “what” was of little consequence. “I imagine something clerical in nature. Some bookkeeping and taking dictation perhaps. You needn’t fear my dear. It will not be anything so significantly beneath your status.”
Anything so significantly beneath her status? Someone of her status did not work! Really, the whole idea was simply beyond the pale. She was not going to a convent, and she refused to be put to work like some unfortunate woman of trade. Had her father forgotten she was a lady?