A Taste of Desire (17 page)

Thomas surfaced from his reverie to find her staring expectantly at him. He came swiftly to his feet. A surreptitious glance down revealed no betraying bit of bulges marring the clean line of his jacket, though his erection still lingered about as if hoping for some form of appeasement.

“Will you require a sidesaddle for your mount?” Long strides carried him to her side.

“No, I ride astride.”

Her statement conjured up images of her atop him, her long legs straddling his hips in wanton abandon. He didn’t dare allow his gaze to venture below her neck. “Why is that?”

She paused and cleared her throat before she spoke again. “My mother believed sidesaddle to be unsafe.”

“A suffragette, was she?” he teased. It was either make light of it or take her where she stood.

“No!” Then as if she realized the sharpness of her tone, she continued mildly “Merely a sensible woman.”

Thomas detected in her an unspoken distress and knew there was something far deeper in her simply spoken words than Amelia would ever reveal.

“Come, let us walk down to the stables. It is not far from the house.” And a walk on a crisp, cool autumn day would do wonders for his unflagging libido—or so he hoped.

They completed the walk down to the stables in relative silence. They spoke nothing of the kiss—and again, would not. The viscount had said not a word about her attire. Again, it appeared that was not to be mentioned or discussed.

Minutes after the groom had left them with two of the finest horses she’d ever seen, Amelia stared up at a beautiful
chestnut mare and a black thoroughbred. Now she and the viscount would ride the grounds together as if the kiss had already faded into the annals of time, and the practice of women parading about in leather breeches and riding a horse astride were a common enough occurrence.

While Lord Armstrong affectionately stroked the thoroughbred’s mane, the mare poked its mouth around the pockets of his riding jacket, as if hoping to find some kind of treat. “This is Lightning. You will be riding her today.” He nodded at the mare.

Amelia reached up and gently rubbed the silky, brown hair just above her muzzle. “She’s beautiful,” she said, in a quiet soothing voice. The horse nickered softly, pawing at the dirt with her front hoof.

Securing the thoroughbred’s reins on a wooden post, Lord Armstrong retrieved the mare’s reins. “Lightning is eighteen hands. You’ll require some help to mount.”

“I can manage on my own.” Then she looked at the height of the foot strap for the saddle, which was a far cry higher than what she was accustomed to.

“Don’t be stubborn. I’ve had grown men unable to mount her on their own.”

“Well, I can,” she said her teeth gritted in determination. Jerking the reins from his hand, she raised her leg, and neatly inserted her booted foot into the stirrup, but found she lacked sufficient leg strength to pull herself up. Undaunted, she tried again, hoisting herself a little higher, but not enough to propel her onto the saddle.

Lightning remained perfectly still while she attempted to mount a third time, also to no avail. Amelia sent a fleeting glance in Lord Armstrong’s direction. His expression was blank save a knowing glimmer in his eyes.

He cleared his throat the last time she came back down on one leg, the other still propped in the stirrup, her breath heavy from her exertions. “Will you allow me to assist you
or do you mean to waste away the morning struggling to prove you are more accomplished at this than most men?”

Amelia threw him a disgruntled glare over her shoulder and then jerked her head in an angry nod. “My horse is not quite this tall,” she muttered.

“Then should I locate a mount of a more appropriate height?” He appeared to be holding back a smile.

Why the blazes hadn’t he done that from the onset?
Amelia emitted an indelicate snort. “Hardly.”

“Then let us get on with it.”

His assistance, however, consisted of his hands coming in contact in some form or another, with the entire length of her leg. When she finally sat atop the horse, her flesh was prickly hot and her composure somewhat shaken.

“How is that?” He watched her as he took his time removing his hand from her leather-clad leg. But she was too busy fighting the discomfiting sensations coursing through her body to slap his offensive hand away. Agitated, she hastily tried to adjust her skirt so it covered her leg. However, the movement sent her foot into the mare’s side and sent her off in a canter while she desperately fought to gain full control of the reins.

By the time she managed to halt her horse, Lord Armstrong atop his mount, had thundered up alongside her.

“What the blazes are you doing?” His eyes flashed with fury. “Trying to get yourself killed and maim my horse in the process?”

Amelia turned the mare until she faced the irate, red-faced lord. “There is no need to shout. My leg slipped, that is all.”

“You should have better sense than to jerk your leg like that while sitting atop a horse.”

“Well, if you’d removed your hand from my leg, there would have been no need for me to jerk it.” As soon as the statement was out, Amelia would have given anything to snatch it back. She’d just given him enough ammunition to
arm an entire cavalry. And the lazy smile that replaced the anger on his face told her it was a fact he was well aware of.

“I will remember that for next time.”

“There won’t be a next time,” she growled.

His smile broadened. “Come, let’s commence our ride,” he said, edging his horse forward.

What followed was sure to be the highlight of her stay thus far at Stoneridge Hall. Lord Armstrong took her on a tour of the most picturesque acreage she had yet to see.

Unlike their usual encounters, today they managed to surpass civility to venture cautiously into the unknown realm of mutual cordiality. Ever the efficient guide, the viscount pointed out the various crops growing on the leased properties. They passed through a meadow, rode by a valley, and skirted a pond well stocked with fish.

By the conclusion of the tour, the two hours had felt like a mere twenty minutes had passed. The groom met them upon their return to the stables.

With her inauspicious start with the horse still fresh in her memory, Amelia hurriedly dismounted before Lord Armstrong could offer a hand. She might have required aid in mounting, but she could get down fine on her own. His rueful smile told her he well understood her haste.

“I’ll take ‘em, milord,” the young man said, retrieving the reins from Lord Armstrong, one in each of his sunburned hands. Then he led the horses to the side of the building, where they drank from a large tub of water.

“Come, I imagine you’ll want to clean up some and eat before you resume your duties this afternoon.”

Amelia could only imagine the sight she made. Despite the cool temperatures, she was flushed hot and strands of hair lay wet against her forehead. She could think of nothing better than a long soak in a warm bath.

He, of course, looked no worse for the wear, his golden locks ruffled in a manner that only made his strikingly handsome visage all the more compelling. The light sheen coating
his face didn’t make it shine in an unbecoming manner, but made it glow that golden hue that was so much a part of his Greek god image. It was really quite unfair that he managed to look good after several hours on horseback while she felt as attractive as a dairy maid milking a cow.

On their return to the main house, the viscount led her on a small detour to show her a shedding elm tree he claimed to have planted as a young child.

“Let me show you where I carved my initials.” He grasped her hand and led her toward the tree, their boots crunching the dried leaves around the thick, knotted trunk. Amelia tried to ignore the spread of heat where his hand lightly clasped her arm.

He didn’t release her when he stabbed his finger at the area on the trunk that clearly had the initials
TPA
etched in it.

Without thinking, Amelia asked, “What does the P stand for?” Then she could have kicked herself three times for expressing any interest in him whatsoever.

“Phillip. It is a family name,” he said.

Amelia knew, from her father, that his father had died when he had just reached his maturity, and he had carried his title and the responsibilities that went with it since he was only a young man. It was one of the things her father most admired about him. One of the many, she reminded herself, tamping down an acridness rising silently within her.

“We both lost a parent young,” he continued, holding her gaze.

Swallowing, Amelia could only nod while unobtrusively trying to ease her arm from his hold. She preferred it much better when they were either ignoring one another or shooting daggers at each other. When he was nice to her, she didn’t like how tongue-tied she became, or the way she tensed up at his proximity. And right now he was much too close for her equilibrium.

It was at that moment that Amelia realized that there were
far more frightening things than being on his bad side. And that was being on his good side.

With her hand firmly back at her side, Amelia took a step back from beneath the branches of the towering tree, only to be brought up short when the viscount smoothly slid a small knife from inside his knee-high leather boot.

“Go ahead, carve your initials.” He extended the knife, the metal handle facing her.

“Why ever would I want to do that?” She gave the blade a pointed stare.

Teeth flashed white in his sun-darkened face, and her stomach plummeted in much the same manner as it did when he’d kissed her.

“Don’t you ever do anything just for the sheer enjoyment of it? Wouldn’t you like to know that there is something that will bear your mark for the rest of its life?” His eyes darkened to a forest green as his gaze focused on her mouth, sending an army of heat waves coursing through her.

“Not particularly,” she said, sounding and feeling slightly breathless.

“Then I shall do it for you.” He pulled back the proffered knife and then with great care, etched the initials
ARB
below his. After he finished, he slid the blade back in his boot.

“How did you—”

“Your father. He’s spoken about you at length.”

Suddenly an unaccountable pain washed over her, as bitter as it was debilitating. In that same moment, Amelia recalled, with a clarity that had too often escaped her since her arrival at Stoneridge Hall, not only the reasons, but the intensity of her dislike for Thomas Armstrong, smashing the truce they had reached that morning into pieces no bigger than particles of dust.

Rose was her middle name—her mother’s name. Her father hadn’t a right to share such personal information with the viscount. Especially him of all people.

She found strength in her rage. “Yes, while he cannot
recall my birthday, knows nothing of anything that is of the vaguest importance to me, and has now carted me off to be served up on a bride platter to a man I’d sooner bludgeon than marry, I’m exceedingly grateful he’s somehow managed to remember my full name.”

The viscount’s eyes widened as though he’d been ambushed. Slowly, all vestiges of amiability disappeared, and his expression shuttered to a mask of stone. “Marry you?”

Any other woman might have been insulted at the amount of distaste infused in those two words.

“I don’t know which half-witted jackass has imparted you with the notion that I would ever have you on a plate much less a platter, but I shall gladly disabuse you of it now.”

“Anyone with half a brain can see through my father’s machinations. You’re the son he never had, and if he can’t claim you by blood, then come hell or high water he’ll attempt to do so by marriage. And if you can’t see that, I can tell you right now who that half-witted jackass is.”

A vein throbbed in stark relief against his temple. He held his hands clenched tight at his side.

“Only you could make me regret my gesture of kindness today.”

“Ha! You weren’t being kind, you were conceding to your mother’s wishes.”

His eyes sparked like green bolts of lightning. “Yes, taking my parent’s wishes into consideration, something of which you have no concept. Well,
you
should consider yourself lucky you ungrateful little chit. At least your father would see you married to a gentleman who won’t fritter away every shilling of your dowry at the hazard tables. If I were him—which I thank God every day that I’m not—I’d gladly give you the rope to hang yourself by allowing you to marry that no-account Clayborough. But I’ll tell you this, the Bank of England doesn’t possess enough coin to entice me to marry you, so you can rest easy on that score.”

Amelia swallowed hard, remembering the last time she’d cried. It had been the summer of her thirteenth year. She’d been in bed with the fever awaiting her father’s return. He hadn’t come. Five days she’d cried for him. She’d cried for the loss of her mother the year before. She’d never shed another tear since.

What she wouldn’t give now to be that thirteen-year-old child who’d been able to cry without fear of revealing the depth of her pain and hurt. But she knew she couldn’t. Not here, not with him, perhaps never again.

Amelia mustered up some of her dwindling composure. “You’re correct. Tonight I’m certain to sleep much easier.” She then turned and made the walk back to the house alone.

At the library door, Thomas bid the woman adieu, sent the footman escorting her out a curt nod, then made his way right to his desk and dropped into the high-backed leather chair. He ran a weary hand through his hair and pondered his options with the same concentration a surgeon would wield his scalpel.

Two weeks, ten perfectly amiable women later, and the right chaperone for Amelia continued to elude him. Deliberately, he was almost certain.

“I gather she won’t do either?”

His mother’s voice drew Thomas’s attention to the door. She proceeded in, in a rustle of silk and satin.

“Would you have the woman give notice before she has enough time to put away her belongings?” he asked wryly.