A Taste of Desire

by Beverley Kendall

  “Well, in the future, do not assume.” She didn’t mean to snap her reply, but she was beginning to draw comparisons between Lord Clayborough and the viscount and the baron was coming up wanting—which just wouldn’t do. Again, she did her best to quell further such thoughts. “But as I am in town, all of that may be a moot point.”

  “Begging your pardon, Lady Amelia, but I have left Lord Barnaby waiting for me in the game room. If you’ll give me a moment, I must excuse myself from the game.”

  The baron regarded her as if awaiting her permission to depart, which only succeeded in vexing her all the more. Nonetheless, she assented with an irritated nod. Lord Clayborough executed a polite bow and strode off, soon swallowed by the press of the crowd.

  Conscious of some disapproving stares from certain matrons of the ton, Amelia stoically started toward the refreshment room. Narrowly focused on her destination, which was conveniently situated next to the game room, Amelia didn’t see the person bearing down on her until it was too late. They collided with unforgiving force. Masculine hands grasped her upper arms to steady her and remained long after she’d established her balance was sound.

  “Beg my par—” A glance up caused the words to still in her throat and her heart to give a horrifying thud. Amelia had never seen an emerald burn, but as she viewed the green eyes staring down at her, she imagined it would look exactly like that.

  Chapter 17

  Thomas didn’t breathe a word; he simply retained a firm hold of Amelia’s arm, and began steering her toward the exit. And sadly, there wasn’t a thing she could do to prevent him from hustling her from the ball like a disobedient charge.

  At some point during her unceremonious leave taking, Lord Alex materialized at his friend’s side. He gauged the situation with a single look and then assumed the role of an emissary.

  “Now, Armstrong, don’t go getting all—”

  With neither a break in his stride nor a glance at Lord Alex, Thomas severed his friend’s efforts to negotiate peace. “This is none of your concern. I will handle the matter as I see fit.” He lowered his mouth to her ear. “Where is Miss Foxworth?”

  Ignoring the quaking of her legs and the violent turning of her belly, Amelia swallowed hard and replied in a small voice, “Dancing.”

  “Do you have any idea how much this little escapade will cost you? Do you even have the sense to be terrified?”

  Nothing noisy or dramatic from the viscount, he issued his threat in the kind of dangerous soft tone that undoubtedly had men—or case in point, a lady—hoping the punishment would be carried out swiftly and with minimum fuss.

  Amelia had sense enough to wait until they’d exited the ballroom before trying to free herself, but she was ever conscious of the servants and the guests milling about in the hall.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, do unhand me. You’re hurting my arm, and if you’re not mindful, you’ll cause a scene,” she said in a fierce whisper.

  The only indication he gave that he had heard her was to ease his hold so his fingers weren’t digging into her flesh.

  “Cartwright, please inform Miss Foxworth that Lady Amelia has taken ill and I have escorted her home. When she is ready to leave, please see her safely back to my mother’s residence.” Thomas spoke with a barely controlled kind of rumble in his voice as he peered down at her, his eyes slits and two slashes of red coloring his cheekbones.

  Lord Alex gestured beseechingly with his hand. “Armstrong—”

  “Damn it, man, just do as I ask and don’t interfere.”

  Lord Alex appeared genuinely concerned. She glanced at Thomas. Perhaps, she really did have something to fear.

  Lord Alex halted abruptly. “For God’s sake, do remember she’s Harry’s daughter.” After sending her what she took to be a resigned look, he turned and proceeded back to the ballroom.

  Thomas continued toward the front entrance, forcing Amelia to quicken her pace to what felt like a trot. Trotting was for horses not ladies.

  Within minutes, they had donned their respective outdoor garments, Amelia’s a thick wool cloak, and the viscount’s, a black great coat.

  Outside under the moonlit night sky, cold air nipped at her face, creating visible vapors of air with each exhalation. Thomas curtly dismissed the footman, his hand clasping her elbow as she mounted the step to his brougham. She glared back at him over her shoulder, her mouth drawn, her form taut.

  Near the gothic front entrance with its high gables and iron finials, a movement caught her attention. Lord Clayborough watched them, half hidden behind one of the thick plaster columns. Her heart didn’t know whether to sing with joy or leap to her throat in fear. This was a confrontation she’d never anticipated, the victory leaning heavily in the viscount’s favor.

  Thomas turned and followed the direction of her gaze. By then, the baron had stepped back behind the column. Humiliated, Amelia turned and allowed Thomas to herald her into the coach.

  Lord Clayborough had done absolutely naught to interfere. He had merely watched her with dull, impotent eyes. Even if it would have been a losing cause, should he not have tried? Was she not worth the effort? So much for her knight in silver-plated armor.

  But Amelia refused to give into her disillusionment. Her fury roared forth like a cyclone, to destroy everything in her path. One Thomas Armstrong.

  She sat down and jerked her arm from his hold. “You miserable, sanctimonious bastard.” Those four words encapsulated all the emotions she’d kept in check while he had all but dragged her from the ball. “Don’t you ever lay your hands on me again.”

  The viscount gave a mild start and regarded her with raised brows. Then with great deliberation of purpose, he took the seat next to her, trapping a portion of her skirts beneath him.

  Amelia instantly started to rise, intent on sitting in the opposite seat—the one the gentleman should have taken—but was forestalled with his snakelike swiftness as he yanked her back down beside him.

  “I am this close to tossing you across my knee,” he said softly, holding up his hand, his thumb and forefinger almost touching. “Make another move away from me and you will feel the palm of my hand.”

  Despicable brute. Rage bloomed hot in her face as she freed her trapped skirt with several hard tugs, then moved to hug the cold metal door.

  Thomas narrowed his gaze. “I don’t know how you managed it, but in the span of one blasted day, you’ve corrupted Camille. And for that, you will pay.”

  “Pay! Pay for what? I wanted just one evening in the company of a man I actually like. I hardly think that’s a crime.”

  Lord Armstrong barked a harsh laugh. “Who, Clayborough? I thought he was auditioning to be a ghost the way he tried to melt into that plasterwork.”

  Her head jerked up, and her face flamed in embarrassment. He had seen him too? Another bit of shame to heap on her.

  “What? Did you think I didn’t see that cowardly good-for-nothing? If that’s your idea of character in a real man, then I can see you require very little in a husband.”

  Amelia despised his high-handedness. She hated his derision. She loathed even more that he’d found a fault in her choice of husbands he could use to render any defense of Lord Clayborough as ineffective as legs on a fish. But she refused to concede him a thing. “And what would you have him do? Make a scene and get into a brawling match with you?”

  He met her bristling glare directly and replied calmly, “For the woman I intend to take as my wife? Yes. I would have done so.”

  His response knocked the wind from her, leaving her in disconcerted silence. For the woman who managed to secure his love—if one existed—she could well imagine he’d move heaven and earth. The thought of what that would be like, to be loved by a man like him, evoked an unwanted longing in her. Like a cook with a rolling pin spying a mouse in the kitchen, she bludgeoned the feeling just as swiftly.

  “Your father will never allow you to marry that blackguard.” His low-pitched voice broke the quiet of the ca
rriage. “I will not allow it. Not while you are under my care.”

  “I am not under your care—I am your prisoner.”

  “Then as your warden it appears I have to expand your duties to keep you occupied. Tomorrow you’ll report to the cook. I believe we can use some additional help in the scullery.”

  “You must be mad.”

  “I assure you all my faculties are intact and functioning efficiently.”

  “I won’t do it.” The words were ripped from her throat. “When I tell my father—”

  “Your father will do nothing once I explain the circumstances. He too wouldn’t approve of you appearing in public so soon after the spectacle you made of yourself at Lady Stanton’s ball.”

  Before she took the time to consider the recklessness and futility of her actions, Amelia launched herself at him.

  Thomas instinctively threw up his hands to cover his face. Two women attacking him in the span of a day? Good God, had the whole world gone insane?

  After several ineffectual blows to his shoulders and upper chest, she caught his lower jaw in a glancing blow. He quickly captured her flailing hands before she succeeded in doing any real damage.

  “For God’s sake, get a hold of yourself, you bloody hellcat,” he muttered. Exerting little force, he used one hand to secure hers behind her back, finally ending the attack.

  Thomas held her in a position that left one inhalation’s distance between their upper torsos. And to show him how little his body cared about her insolence, her woeful disobedience to his orders, his loins surged to life, growing hard behind the fall of his trousers. Reflectively, he bore her down onto the seat.

  “Let me go.” Ragged breaths feathered his cheek, while she twisted beneath him, further encouraging his arousal.

  “Stop moving,” he said harshly, his control slipping with the feel of her soft, womanly flesh.

  Amelia stilled. She stared up at him, her blue eyes wide and wary as if she feared even a breath would draw attention to the way their bodies meshed from shoulder to hip.

  “Right now I’m beyond tempted to lift your skirts and take you. Give me one good reason I should not.” His gaze dropped to the pink lushness of her lips and the avaricious hunger that had started weeks ago, threatened to consume him whole. He had to taste her again.

  “Don’t.” The plea squeaked from her throat.

  “Not good enough,” he murmured before lowering his head and smothering her breathy sounds of resistance with his mouth.

  Blood, hot and thick, coursed through him, pulsing strongly between his thighs, his erection near to bursting. Impatient and hungry, he thrust deeply into her mouth. A shudder ran down the length of his frame when his tongue touched hers. He tried to temper his need, but it required only one delicious swipe of the cavern of her mouth before she eagerly, almost helplessly, joined in the sensual tongue play.

  Thomas released her hands, dealt with the buttons of her cloak, and smoothed it from her shoulders without so much as a demur from her. The garment spread beneath her like an altar, with her as the offering.

  Tracing the curve of her hip up past the indent of her narrow waist, he found the underside of her breast. Amelia let out a low moan and wrapped her arms tightly about his neck.

  Lust had him in its grip, making his mind merely a vehicle of his physical needs. Mewling sounds escaped her lips when he angled his head for a more thorough and carnal access to her mouth.

  One hand inched up and palmed the firm thrust of her breast, his thumb swiping repeatedly across the nipple, causing it to pebble against the pale green bodice of her gown. Thomas didn’t only want to feel them in his hand, he wanted to feast on them with his eyes and taste them with his lips.

  A guttural sound emerged from his throat as he lifted his mouth from hers to gaze into her shadowed, flushed face. Taking in her swollen lips and closed eyes, he started on the row of pearl buttons marching down the front of her gown, deftly releasing them to reveal a white silk corset barely containing her breasts … and firm, smooth, creamy skin. He grew harder than he thought possible.

  Slowly, her eyes, dark with desire, drifted open and she gazed up at him. It only took a few moments for her to lose the look of a woman lost in the deepest regions of passion. His fingers were releasing the buttons at her waist when her eyes widened in alarm.

  What the blazes am I doing? Amelia began frantically batting at his hands. “Stop! Do not—don’t touch me.”

  Thomas halted and stared down at her with a dazed expression of unappeased hunger. For a moment she thought he intended to override her weakened defenses, mute every protest she would make. Slowly, however, he removed his hands from her dress and levered his muscular frame from hers.

  Amelia immediately bolted into a sitting position, caught both edges of her cloak, and jerked them together in a desperate attempt to shield herself. There was no time to struggle with her buttons, not with his gaze blistering her with its heat.

  Moving to the opposite seat, Thomas watched her silently, a derisive smile now twisting his mouth.

  In the past when she’d seen him in public, he was usually dressed as he was now, in dark colors that only succeeded in accentuating his goldenness. How well he wore the façade of the honorable gentleman. If his adoring admirers could see him now, lounging back against the leather seat, his legs splayed, his gaze hooded and hair tousled, no one would mistake him for anything less than the rake she knew him to be.

  “Doesn’t it ever get tiring?” he drawled.

  “Pardon?”

  “You want me physically. You’ve already admitted to that. So why the performance of the affronted virgin every time I kiss you? I imagine it gets tiring after a while. I know it does to me.”

  “Per-performance! You believe that I enjoy you taking unwanted liberties?” Her voice rose with every indignant word.

  A dry laugh emerged from his lips. “Taking unwanted liberties, Princess?” he said in that manner she most despised—not that he’d ever said anything in a manner she liked. “Then it’s a very fortunate gentleman who can show you true enjoyment. Do you make the same panting sounds when he kisses you?” His gaze dropped to her breasts. “When he touches your nipples?”

  “I did not,” she croaked, but the memory of the truth shamed her.

  “Would you like me to show you again just how easy it is to make you wet?” His voice was a sultry challenge.

  Amelia jerked the cloak tighter about her in a fruitless effort to halt the tremors wracking her form. “Do not touch me again.” The command, however, sounded as if it came from a woman fighting a losing battle of retaining a semblance of her control.

  It seemed an eternity until Thomas spoke again. He casually gestured toward the window at his side, its curtain closed. “We’ve been stopped well over five minutes now. Something you failed to notice, because you were, er, otherwise occupied. Oh, don’t worry, Johns will only open the door if the curtain is drawn.”

  Swinging her gaze immediately to the window beside her, she pushed back the curtain. Surrounded by high railings of fortifying iron, its tops spearlike in shape, was the viscountess’s red-bricked townhouse.

  Without uttering a word, Amelia threw open the door and scrambled out. In her hasty exit, she caught the hem of her skirt on the carriage step. The fragile material rent under her impatient tug, but she didn’t care. She would have gladly shredded half her wardrobe to get away from Thomas Armstrong and every wretched emotion he elicited in her.

  Chapter 18

  In the morning, Amelia was surprised to see their traveling party had acquired an additional member: one Lord Alex Cartwright. It appeared he too would be a guest at Stoneridge Hall. Thomas had been vague as to the duration, but the time—a day, a week—was immaterial. Anyone who could create a buffer between her and the viscount would be more than welcome.

  Miss Foxworth appeared genuinely disappointed that Amelia had been too unwell to remain at the ball, but did indicate, in that subdued manner of he
rs, that she had enjoyed herself thoroughly. Lord Alex greeted her kindly while Thomas treated her with a studied indifference, which was just fine with her.

  En masse, they departed Mayfair to Paddington Station. The women rode in the comfort of Thomas’s carriage while the men followed in a hired hack. Traveling separately from the viscount was another added benefit to having Lord Alex accompanying them.

  On the train, the men discussed the latest methods of shipbuilding and the merits in acquiring stocks for a steel company lately trading on the London Stock Exchange. On that stretch of the trip, Amelia read a novel she’d brought with her, taking a short break for lunch when Thomas produced sandwiches, biscuits, fruit, and lemonade prepared for them by the viscountess’s cook.

  They changed trains at Newton to go on to Totnes, where upon their arrival at the station, Thomas hired two hacks. At seven that evening, they concluded the ten-hour journey back to Stoneridge Hall.

  “Will you be joining us for supper?”

  Amelia paused on her way up the stairs, shooting a look at Thomas over her shoulder. Given he had spoken precisely five words to her the entire day—Good morning and Are you hungry?—the question surprised her.

  “I think I’m going to retire for the evening.” Feeling travel weary and with her stomach unsettled from the long journey, she had absolutely no appetite.

  Thomas’s gaze flickered over her briefly, his expression inscrutable. He nodded curtly. “You may resume your duties on Tuesday. Take tomorrow to rest.”

  Coldly polite was an apt phrase to describe his manner toward her, yet his abeyance of her duties suggested something else. Something she’d be a fool to examine too closely.

  Amelia turned quickly and made her way up to her bedchamber, where it would require another three hours to find escape in sleep.

  A morning walk had been a mistake. Amelia realized it the moment her belly contracted in the second wave of pain. She should have heeded the signs when she awoke still feeling queasy from the night before. A mug of hot chocolate at breakfast had done nothing to settle it. And when she started to feel warm, instead of getting herself back to bed, she had decided fresh air—cold though it might be—and a quick walk would be the thing. She’d clearly been in denial.