A Taste of Desire by Beverley Kendall Page B

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 tomy 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