A Taste of Desire Read online

  “That’s quite all right, Harry. I certainly wouldn’t want your daughter to lie.”

  “I’m glad we can agree on that,” she said tartly.

  Not trusting himself to issue her another word—at least not a civil one—Thomas dipped his head in a shallow bow, giving her one final glance. Lord, what was it about her that always had his control splintering under the weight of her acerbic tongue? And just what was her grievance against him? In dealing with him, she was more than merely cold—as was her reputation. She wore the requisite pointed black hat and rode about perched on a broom like her sisters of the dark craft.

  Women, ladies, matrons, the female population as a whole, simply did not despise him on sight.

  Lady Amelia had.

  Many claimed even children were not immune to his brand of wit and charm.

  Lady Amelia most definitely was.

  Annoyed at the direction of his thoughts, as if he gave a damn about her opinion, Thomas turned to address Harry. “I will see myself out. Good day, Harry … Lady Amelia.” He then calmly took his leave.

  If Amelia was one to indulge in tears, she might have wept in relief at the sight of the broad back of Lord Armstrong exiting through the doorway. And then whooped in exhilaration when his long, unhurried strides traversed the polished hardwood floors of the corridor until he vanished from view.

  Arrogant, insufferable swine.

  “You were unconscionably rude to Lord Armstrong,” her father said, disapproval a heavy stamp across his dignified features.

  The clock on the fireplace mantel measured her lack of response in even strokes. When it became evident none would be forthcoming, Harold Bertram emitted a sound of displeasure. Amelia had long grown accustomed to the nuances of that particular sound.

  As he raked a hand through his hair, he made his way to a small circular table in the corner of the room, on which sat crystal decanters containing some of the most expensive port in all of England. After loosening his neckcloth with three sharp tugs and then tossing it on the nearby sofa, he poured himself a drink. It was ten in the morning.

  “Father, you wished to speak with me?”

  He moved to stand in front of one of the windows and tipped the glass to his mouth. For several seconds he appeared to contemplate the yellow azaleas bordering the garden, his face presented to her in profile. Slowly he swiveled to face her, his eyes devoid of all perceptible emotion.

  As Amelia regarded him, it struck her that she hadn’t really looked at her father since her eventful arrival. She’d never seen him thus: his waistcoat unbuttoned, his hair tousled. And his recently discarded neckcloth made his incessantly adorned neck look barren and out of sorts. One could go so far as to say he appeared elegantly unkempt. For a man who was usually groomed in a manner that would have tailors on Savile Row bending at the waist to concede to his superior taste, this anomaly could push the sordid tale of Lady Grable’s affair with her footman off the front page of the gossip sheets.

  “How many times do I have to ask you to please not address me in that tone? It wasn’t so long ago you called me Papa.”

  The latter statement he seemed to make to himself. Perhaps a wistful musing? Amelia dismissed the thought with a self-preserving kind of haste before it succeeded in penetrating the walls guarding her heart. The part of her that had once cared what he felt for her was long gone. Hit broadside by a frigate and shredded by its screw propellers.

  “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.

  Amelia paused, unfurled the fi
ngers 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?

  “Father, this is absolutely ludicrous. Suspend my pin money as you have done in the past. I hardly think there is any reason to go to quite these lengths to prove how exceedingly displeased you are. I can only imagine the scandal it would cause if society ever caught wind that you’d put me to work.” The barest hint of a scandal usually sent her father off to his chambers pleading a migraine. “Moreover, I know absolutely nothing of clerical work and the like.” And she had no desire to acquire that particular bourgeois knowledge.

  “What is ludicrous is your behavior, and not just your last two antics, but the many more you have perpetrated over the last several years.” He eyed her grimly. “Naturally, I will ensure the members of society will not hear of this. It will be during the off-Season. Everyone will have returned to the country by then anyhow. I can only thank heavens that unlike most of those simpletons out in society, you’re at least a young lady of solid intelligence—if not temperance. You know, a head for numbers is very rare in a female. This will be a singular opportunity for you to put that God-given talent to competent use.”

  Her father thought her intelligent? Amelia suppressed an unladylike snort. How odd as he currently did not believe she had the sense to choose her own husband.

  “It’s really quite unfortunate that it has come to this. I promise you this however: you will do one or the other. The choice is yours.”

  Choosing between two ghastly forms of punishment—one only slightly less heinous than the other—was hardly a choice. But Amelia was not a fool by anyone’s standards. She would play the clerk in some dreary back office in Wiltshire before she would willingly spend even a week with some wretched nuns—something her father was well aware of.

  “I am not going to a convent,” she said, her jaw clenched tight, her hands fisted at her sides.

  To Amelia’s fury, his mouth quirked in something akin to amusement, his head dipping in a sage nod. In response, she blindly averted her gaze from the satisfied expression on his countenance.

  Harold Bertram flicked his hand in the direction of the door. “Yes, do go. We are finished for now. I will apprise you of the particulars of this ‘work’ situation once I can secure the position and ensure the man’s absolute discretion in the matter.”

  Amelia quietly quit the room with her head held high, her back ramrod straight, and her dignity lying bruised on the study floor.

  At his residence twenty minutes later, Thomas silently made his way down the corridor, divesting himself of the tailored confines of his jacket. As it was too early to commence drinking, he’d instructed his butler to have coffee brought to him in the library.

  By the time he slumped onto the sofa in the sitting area, he’d escaped the prison of his cravat and loosened the top three buttons of his linen shirt. In his wake lay the dress protocol of society, draped over one Utrecht plush armchair and discarded on an oversized ottoman.

  With his forearms propped on his thighs, he shot a disgruntled glance at the desk at the far end of the room. A reform bill, a stash of receipts from Tattersall’s and various documents from Wendel’s Shipping awaited his attention. But the plague that was Amelia Bertram, made it all but impossible for him to concentrate on his eminently more important tasks.

  He pushed to his feet in a move that marked his impatience. From one wall of book-laden shelves to the other, he prowled the length of the room, finally permitting himself to go back there �
� to his introduction to the current source of his discontent. And the memory came rushing back with the kind of clarity that came with a day passing … not an entire year.

  Thomas had immediately known who she was as she crossed the threshold of the ballroom at her father’s side. Harry Bertram had indicated that his daughter, Amelia, would be accompanying him to Lady Coverly’s Season-ending ball.

  She had looked stunning in a glittering gold gown, her tall, slender length fashioning it better than any woman present could. She had worn her dark mane upswept, silken tendrils wisping the sides of her face. From that distance, however, he hadn’t been able to discern the color of her eyes, just finely arched brows and a slender nose set in an oval face.

  Harry met his gaze over the throng of partygoers and then immediately started in his direction. Thomas took in her graceful walk with nothing short of frank male appreciation.

  “Thomas,” Harry said moments later once he reached his side. With his face wreathed in a smile, the marquess proffered his right hand.

  “Nice to see you in attendance, Harry.” Thomas clasped his outstretched hand and gave it two firm pumps. He then introduced him to his sister, Missy, who had joined him only minutes before.

  After making his acquaintance with Missy, Harry said, “And this is my daughter, Amelia.” He urged her forward with a nudge to her elbow.

  Missy performed a graceful curtsey. Thomas bowed, smiled broadly, and said, “Your father speaks most highly of you, Lady Amelia. I’m delighted to finally make your acquaintance.”

  Lady Amelia treated his sister to a polite smile and then turned to look askance at her father. Harry flushed a crimson red. Like a queen addressing one of her lowly subjects, she turned her attention to Thomas. “Is that so? And I’ve heard you are considered, at best, a rake about town, and at worst, a debaucher of women and maiden sensibilities. I certainly hope you are not going to ply your trade here this evening.”