A Taste of Desire

chapter 6



Amelia shot to her feet amid the rustle of silk and one rather cumbersome crinoline, nearly toppling the chair.

“I-I cannot live with him at his residence,” she said, struggling to catch her breath and bridle the panic threatening to careen out of control. “Father, it wouldn’t be proper. I will be ruined.”

“I really don’t believe it will come to that.” A flash of dimples denting his chiseled cheeks betrayed the viscount’s amusement.

Amelia hadn’t thought it possible to despise a person more than she did him at that moment. His smile—no, it was more a taunting grin—laid that assumption to rest.

Harold Bertram’s chest swelled beneath his black and grey checkered jacket. “Of course, I would not allow anything not sanctioned proper by society. You will be well chaperoned at Thomas’s estate. Miss Crawford and Hélène will accompany you. In addition, during a portion of your stay, Lady Armstrong and her two teenaged daughters will be in residence.”

His words neither registered nor penetrated her horrified brain. The only thing she knew without an ounce of doubt was that she could not—would not—live with that man.

“Father there must be someone—anyone else—whom you could prevail upon so I may work this ridiculous punishment off.” Never before had she pled for leniency, but the circumstances demanded she make an exception.

Her father’s denial came with a hard shake of his head, as final and definitive as a judge bringing down his gavel. Inhaling a restorative breath, Amelia subsided right into the straight-backed chair. Arrowing a glare at the man seated next to her, she noted the barely contained look of satisfaction in his eyes. The urge to snatch up the marble weight from her father’s desk and smash it repeatedly against his skull had her fisting her hands in her lap and clenching her jaw tightly enough to grind her back teeth into enamel dust.

“At Lady Stanton’s ball, you knew that entire time,” she said, her voice fierce and barely above a whisper. While she’d endured his touch and suffered his odious presence, he’d been relishing the prospect of soon having her at the crook of his finger.

Her father’s gaze darted between them, his brow pleated, his expression perplexed. The viscount did not so much as blink at her accusation. “You give me far too much credit. I don’t believe anyone has ever called me a soothsayer. No, I was more than happy to take up the ribbons your father offered.”

“Ribbons? Ribbons! Are you comparing me to an animal—a horse?” Amelia clutched the arm of the chair with white knuckles.

“Never,” he replied too quickly. “I meant no umbrage by that. Please forgive my ill use of that word, but this is what happens when one runs a horse breeding operation.” He sent the marquess a small self-deprecating smile. In turn, her father beamed at the man as if he were the Savior sent down to restore earth to its natural order.

“I will have you know that Thomas initially turned down my request, so I am grateful he has reconsidered.” Her father said it as if it meant something. As if she should also be oh so grateful for such a magnanimous gesture on the viscount’s part.

Amelia yanked her gaze away, refusing to look at the blasted man, to watch the smirk lurking behind his feigned look of innocence. His reference had not been a metaphorical slip of the tongue. He did not intend to put her to work; he meant to break her just as one would do a fractious mount.

Never.

“How terribly considerate of him,” she said in a tone drenched in sarcasm.

“We will return home in three days, and next month you will go to Devon.”

Four whole months with the detestable man. While the knowledge caused her belly to clench in rebellion, Amelia sat erect, her mouth pursed in a tight-lipped, contentious line.

“If you have nothing else to say, Amelia, you may take your leave.” With those words, her father dismissed her, much in the same manner as he always did. His attention withdrawn before she had barely risen from her seat.

She couldn’t get out of there quickly enough, but tempered her strides so as not to appear like some cowed and beaten figure fresh from a sound trouncing. Just as she grasped the knob of the door in her hand, she heard him, his voice low and as benign as a declaration of war. “Lady Amelia, I look forward to your arrival in the coming month.”

Her step faltered. She had to forcibly resist the urge to turn and confront him. To engage him in a war of words would be pointless. Instinct told her it would be best she save her energies for the battles that undoubtedly lay ahead. Amelia glided through the doorway without looking back.


“She is not happy.” Harry asserted the obvious upon his daughter’s exit.

“I believe that is why it’s called punishment. It’s not expected to be pleasant.” Thomas’s dry response came with a casual lift of his shoulders.

“Yes, but when Amelia is not happy, usually neither are those around her.”

Thomas’s mouth curved at one end. “That might indeed be the case in her dealings with others; however, I can assure you, any misery that befalls her will not affect me whatsoever.” He’d barely reached his maturity the last time a woman had caused him emotional distress. And the day some spoilt, snake-tongued brat caused him to lose even a minute of sleep would be the day he’d give up his viscountcy.

“That is why I asked you. I knew if anyone could control her, you could. Unfortunately, since her mother’s death, I have allowed her too free a hand when a firm one was required.”

The warning bell didn’t chime, it created a deafening cacophony in his ears. “Harry, I hope you’re not taking my change of heart as an indication of interest in your daughter.” Well, certainly not an honorable or genuine interest.

There was no mistaking the absurdly pleased expression on the marquess’s face. If Harry was counting on a match between them, he’d be woefully disappointed. His goal was to deliver her comeuppance, nothing more, and assuredly nothing less.

Harry chuckled softly. “Certainly not. A more agreeable daughter is all I am hoping for.”

However, the marquess’s assurance did little to alleviate a sense of foreboding gnawing at his gut. Thomas immediately gave himself a mental kick. What could Harry do from thousands of miles away?

“I have a feeling that by your return, she will be much changed—hopefully for the better.”

“I sincerely hope so. You would think with her beauty and dowry, I would have excellent prospects wearing a tread to my drawing room. Instead, she has completed her second Season with only five proposals from gentlemen too insipid to be borne. Not a handful of sense among the lot of them.”

“I will do what I can with her.” No other female in his association more deserved what he had planned for the little miss.

Ten minutes after bidding Harry farewell, Thomas headed south down St. James Street toward his bachelor’s residence. He must send word to his mother to expect a visitor for the next several months. But should he tell her to ready a space for Lady Amelia in the servants’ quarters or a chamber in the guest wing? Thomas smiled. Tricky business this thing called just desserts.


You will be residing there on my country estate with me.

With the ring of those words playing a most ominous tune in her mind, Amelia had escaped the study to her bedchamber to think … to plot. The urgency of her situation had had her mind working furiously. With her father’s plans for her barreling forth like a coach-and-four with a broken axle—the outcome certain to be a catastrophe of grand proportions—this matter had to be dealt with without a moment’s delay.

She had immediately shot off a letter to be delivered to Lord Clayborough posthaste. He might well have the pitiable distinction of being heir to an impoverished barony in Derbyshire, but what he lacked in funds, he made up for in gumption. Few men would dare cross her father. He’d done so—albeit without success—but the attempt certainly spoke of a strength of character. Certainly more character than the likes of Lord Armstrong, no matter how society appeared to esteem the man.

So at half past ten the following morning, Amelia, accompanied by Hélène and Charles, the first footman, awaited Lord Clayborough’s arrival on the southwest side of Hyde Park.

His reply to her note requesting they meet, which she’d received an hour later, suggested the location of the park by the large elm situated between Rotten Row and the river. Well, she had been waiting at the tree thirty minutes gone with nary a sighting of him or his landau.

Using her hand to shade her eyes from the glare of the August sun, Amelia scanned the vicinity again. She certainly could not have missed his tall, lanky frame. By this time of the year, the enormous crowds, which normally converged on the hundreds of acres of lush greenery and stately trees, had retreated to their homes in the country. At present, only a smattering of ladies and gentlemen were taking their constitutional on Hyde Park’s well-kept foot paths. The baron unfortunately not being one of them.

Another glance down at the timepiece clutched in her hand told her it was only half a minute later than when last she’d checked. Snapping it closed, her mouth stretched into a grimmer line.

“Come along, Hélène,” she said, motioning the woman back into the carriage with a gloved hand. She refused to wait a minute more in this heat. Just as they started toward the door of the brougham, the canter of horses alerted her to an approaching vehicle. Amelia turned to spot Lord Clayborough’s blue and gray carriage cresting the hill up ahead.

The landau had barely come to a stop behind hers before the baron leapt out. Her very own knight, his armor pumice and brown wool instead of tempered iron plate and his equipage in dire need of paint and new springs. Well, better a poor knight than a wealthy, dissolute rake.

He reached her side within seconds, covering the distance separating them with loping strides. Amelia attributed his choppy breaths and flushed visage to anxiety rather than exertion. It wasn’t as if he’d had to make the journey from his residence on foot.

“Good morning, Lady Amelia. Please excuse my tardiness, but a horse lost his shoe in the middle of Piccadilly. Caused quite a bit of confusion. I pray you haven’t been waiting long?” His mouth curved up at the corners, softening the sharp contours of his face, making him appear younger than his twenty-nine years.

At his chagrined smile, Amelia put aside her pique. He could hardly control the vagaries of London traffic. “Good day, Lord Clayborough. That is quite all right,” she said graciously. “Come, let us walk toward the bridge.” Turning to address Charles, who was acting as her groom for the morning, she said, “We shall return shortly.”

From the driver’s seat, the ever-loyal Charles bobbed his head in acknowledgement. Having befriended the fair-haired, ruddy-faced young man when he was just a boy working in the stables, Amelia had received his eternal gratitude when she’d rallied her father on his behalf. Charles had promptly ascended to the rank of a footman. Her father’s paltry effort to appease her after her birthday had come and gone without him offering even a token acknowledgement of the special day.

With Hélène trailing behind just out of earshot, Amelia and Lord Clayborough started down the walking path leading to the river.

They walked in silence for several seconds before she peered up at him from beneath the shallow brim of her bonnet. “My father is sending me to Devon.” She made the announcement abrupt and dramatic in an effort to jolt him from his seemingly perpetual state of bonhomie.

His brows shot up as his brown eyes grew round with surprise. “To Devon? Pray tell, what business have you there?”

Well, it was certainly better than a placating smile accompanied by words of reassurance.

“No business at all. My father’s idea of punishment involves putting me to work.”

Lord Clayborough’s eyes widened another fraction, his strides slowing, only to quicken to keep pace with her when her own continued brisk and unbroken.

“Work?” He uttered the word as if his tongue found it unpalatable. “You cannot be serious.”

First Lady Jane and now him? Did she at all resemble a court jester? “I assure you, I do not sport about such things. For the duration of his trip commencing next month.” This time when his strides slowed to a halt, Amelia followed his lead and turned to face him.

“My dearest Lady Amelia, I can only offer my sincerest apologies.”

“It’s hardly your fault,” Amelia dismissed his apology with a wave of her hand. “My father is, as usual, being quite unreasonable. And this—this punishment is barbaric. In light of these events, it is imperative we wed immediately.”

Pushing his brown hat up with the tip of his gloved finger, he furrowed his brows. “What about your father, your chaperone …?”

Amelia could make out minute beads of sweat dotting the line on his forehead where his hat had recently sat. This would be a most inopportune time for him to start having second thoughts about going up against her father. It wasn’t something that had troubled him before. And really, what could her father do? He hadn’t the power to strip him of his title or entailed properties.

“Miss Crawford returned to Yorkshire early this morning. She received word last night that her mother has taken ill.” Though, surely a distressing ordeal for her chaperone, it had made the task of meeting Lord Clayborough this morning a great deal easier.

“I do hope it’s nothing serious,” he said, with a look of concern.

Amelia resumed walking, Lord Clayborough instantly falling in step at her side. “I don’t believe so. She is expected back next week. Now getting back to the matter of our wedding—”

“Well—”

“We have only ‘til year’s end to marry, given the new law in Scotland.” A gust of wind billowed the skirt of her walking dress. With both hands, Amelia clasped the striped muslin close to her legs until the wind subsided.

“If we have until then, why be hasty? I mean, is that really prudent given the disaster of this past week?” Lord Clayborough asked, trepidation lacing his tone.

“I’m returning home the day after tomorrow. We don’t have the luxury of time.” Amelia wondered if he had heard her. She was being put to work. If that did not necessitate haste, she did not know what did.

Removing his hat, he drew out a handkerchief from a pocket inside his jacket and dabbed his forehead. “Don’t you think it would be to our advantage if we were to wait until after your father leaves for America? I should hate to risk a reoccurrence of Wednesday’s incident.”

Taking his hesitancy as an unacceptable show of weakness, Amelia angled her head and fixed him with a look of reproach. “Well, you must ensure that he does not discover us until after the ceremony.”

A heavy sigh escaped his lips as he returned the handkerchief to his pocket and jammed the top hat back on his head. “If it were that easy.”

Lord Clayborough was the antithesis of her father in the ways that mattered most to her. He’d make a splendid husband, attentive but at the same time undemanding. He had no ambitions of amassing Croesus’s wealth, and he had a manner that told her he’d be a caring, concerned father.

Since they’d become acquainted, rare were the times that she could say that he had vexed her. That he should choose to do so now, the one time she needed him most was in alarmingly bad taste. “We shall just have to be more careful this time. Once I leave London, eloping will be a far more difficult endeavor.”

“But to make another attempt so soon would not only be indiscreet, but foolish.” He spoke in a fierce whisper, his gaze darting about the quiet of the dale.

If he thought they might be overheard, he could put that fear to rest. While the sounds of the Serpentine’s flowing waters created a natural impediment to the breeze carrying their voices, the handful of ladies strolling farther up were well out of hearing range.

In a flash of pure brilliance, the idea came to her. “I will tell him that you have compromised me.”

Madame Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors drew less horrified looks than the one that contorted Lord Clayborough’s paled visage.

“Good God, we’d no sooner marry than you’d find yourself in widow weeds.” His Adam’s apple gave a frantic bob. “Or at the very least, your father would have one of his hired brutes make a eunuch of me.”

The Marquess of Bradford would never resort to anything as base or illegal as murder or maiming. However, knowing the kind of contempt her father held for Lord Clayborough and all gentlemen he considered of his ilk—men of little financial means—he would in all likelihood send her off to a convent … for life. It wasn’t as if she was his heir. Now, if she had been born a male—

Breaking that particular train of thoughts—for they were tracks bound to nowhere—Amelia focused her attention once again on the matter at hand: the cause of the lines of strain etched into the planes of her would-be husband’s face and dark strands of hair plastered wetly to his forehead.

His mouth opened. Before he could continue with a litany of the excuses why what she’d suggested was not sound in its reason, she held up her hand to stay the words. “You are correct, of course. When it comes to the matter of his son-in-law, my father will not be threatened or coerced.” How splendid it should be the one time she’d welcome his disinterest.

Relief appeared to slither down the length of Lord Clayborough’s frame. It was there in the way his shoulders came unhitched, loosening his rigid stance, and the resumption of color in his face.

“I am glad we are in agreement.” He smiled, but he still appeared a trifle uneasy.

“As we cannot marry immediately, you will have to come to Devon after my father has gone. By then I will be in residence at Lord Armstrong’s estate.”

The baron stumbled with his next step, but managed to remain upright. “Armstrong? You will be residing at Armstrong’s estate?”

Amelia shot him a sharp look. Had his voice just cracked upon uttering the viscount’s name? Surely he couldn’t be suffering from anything as preposterous as jealousy, for she’d not tolerate that sort of emotion in respect to her. It conveyed a possession no man would ever have of her. Not even her own husband.

“Yes, who else would you expect? In my father’s eyes, the man can do no wrong.”

Frowning, he raised his hand to his chin and began stroking the line of his jaw. “But Armstrong—”

“Oh please, I beg you, let us not discuss that odious man. It’s enough that I’m in this wretched situation. I’m well aware of the viscount’s reputation, but my father doesn’t appear to hold that against him. Men are allowed most liberties denied women.”

As if he feared the bitterness tainting her words would somehow turn on him, Lord Clayborough’s expression cleared, his hand dropping to his side. “Come, let us start back. I wouldn’t wish for your father to send his men out to bodily retrieve you should you stay too long,” he said wryly, his hand hovering beneath her right elbow as they turned and proceeded back in the direction of their waiting carriages.

“I will contact you after my father has left and I have settled in Devon. By then I should have a reasonable idea of how best to proceed with our plans.” Amelia slanted him a glance. He affirmed her statement with a slow, deliberate nod.

“Have you contemplated what would happen if your father refused you your dowry when we marry?” He delivered the question insouciantly, given the importance of the response.

“My father’s guilt will not allow his only child to live in genteel poverty, as he refers to your unfortunate circumstance,” she said dryly.

A brittle sound emerged from Lord Clayborough—one she presumed he meant to pass off as a laugh. Amelia was well aware that he did not like to speak of those particular circumstances. And she certainly understood his embarrassment, for truly, what self-respecting man countenanced the public airing of what many in the ton considered his rank inadequacies.

If a gentleman could not afford to support a wife and children in the manner befitting a member of the privileged aristocracy, he was a man of little value. The gentlemen in this unenviable situation could only hope to marry well, and Amelia knew that a marriage to her would be marrying very well indeed. Lord Clayborough wanted to marry her for more than just the financial resources she would bring to the marriage. He understood her need to retain her independence. He understood theirs wasn’t a marriage that would be ruled by passion but one built on the foundation of respect and companionship. Truly, the ideal marriage.

They exchanged few words once they reached the carriages, agreeing he would await her communication upon her arrival in Devon. Then with a light squeeze of her hand, he assisted her back into the plush, burgundy interior of the brougham. By the time Charles flicked the reins to set the matched chestnuts in motion, Lord Clayborough had disappeared into his older model landau. There were no lingering looks or longing glances, which was precisely the way Amelia preferred it.