A Taste of Desire(95)
Once again, Amelia stood rooted in place, unable to make herself leave and miss the coming confrontation. Lord, you must be touched in the head. But not even that self-reproach made her go.
“I assure you, it cannot,” Thomas managed to utter despite his locked jaw and clenched teeth.
Thomas’s cavemanlike behavior caused a heady bit of excitement within her, which she valiantly tried to ignore. Her gaze darted uneasily between the two men. Lord Alex had an indolent look about him, currently braced against the balustrade, his feet crossed at his ankles, his arms across his chest.
“You look angry. Are you angry with me?” A perfectly legitimate observation and question if Lord Alex possessed the diseased brain of a half-wit.
Thomas’s eyes snapped and a growl rumbled in his throat. “You will leave Amelia alone.” Each word, distinct and precisely enunciated, exploded from his lips.
Amelia gasped. He had actually said it aloud. She experienced another heady rush. Thomas immediately stiffened and clamped his mouth shut. He’d said too much, but the effects of the blast reverberated throughout the hall, turning the air so dense it seemed to take on a solid form.
Cartwright’s laughter broke the silence. “If you’re staking a claim, I will gladly bow out. But if this is a case of ‘dog in the manger,’ I’ll have to object strenuously.”
Dog in the manger? She’d heard the phrase before and had always wondered at its meaning. She wished now she’d weathered the embarrassment and imposed upon someone to elucidate her.
Thomas’s expression hardened to granite. His eyes seemed to say, Staking a claim indeed! The bowels of hell would be knee-deep in snow first. However, what emerged from her mouth took him completely by surprise. “Bow out from what exactly? Is one mistress not enough for you?”
To this, Cartwright threw his head back, his Adam’s apple bobbing under the bark of laughter loud and raucous.
Thomas scowled at her as if she’d somehow instigated the entire incident. But the glare he saved for his friend invoked an image of a coven of witches leaning over a boiling cauldron casting spells, its victim possessing silver-grey eyes and a dashing dimple in his chin.
“I’m the last person you want to toy with right now.” Thomas uttered the warning with such deathly sincerity, a rash of gooseflesh chased up the length of her arms.
Lord Alex, however, was not a man who cowed easily. His laugh subsided into a cant of rhythmic chuckles. “Whose intentions worry you more, mine or yours?”
In a blur of movement, Thomas had his friend by the jacket, his hands clutching a fistful of dark green wool and satin. Thomas breathed fire and brimstone while Lord Alex maintained the composure of a surgeon wielding a cutting knife.
“Mine don’t worry me one bit, as I have every intention of beating you to—”
“What on earth is going on down here?” A flurry of footsteps—those of the lord and lady of the house—descending the stairs accompanied the feminine voice raised in alarm.
“Thomas, what is the meaning of all this shouting?” the countess asked, halting at the foot of the staircase, her husband at her side. Her eyes rounded as she took in the scene before her: her brother clutching the shiny lapels of Lord Alex’s riding jacket.
“Cartwright.” His friend’s name growled from the earl like an expletive.
In response, Lord Alex spread his arms wide and held his palms up in supplication as he gave an innocent shrug. “You will take careful note of who is holding whom against their will.”
With that, Thomas abruptly released him and took an angry step back. Lord Alex made a grand show of straightening and smoothing his jacket.
“Will someone please tell me what’s going on?” the countess demanded. She stood with her hands akimbo, the azure blue of her gown causing her eyes to flash more blue than grey.
“Go ahead, Armstrong, tell Missy why you came within inches of beating me to a pulp,” Lord Alex instructed in a smooth, unruffled tone.
“Cartwright.” Another warning from Lord Windmere.
Thomas stared back at his sister. Like an overworked motor, his breathing appeared subject to erratic fits and starts, until he seemed to get it under control.
Then there was just the silence. Everyone watched Thomas. With a scowl marring his handsome countenance, he watched them right back. “Oh, bloody hell,” he finally muttered. With one last withering look at Lord Alex, he started toward the front door. Before anyone could protest, he had disappeared through the doorway.