A Taste of Desire Page 0,10
and Miss Ashford gaped.
“Surely you jest?” Lady Jane whispered on a sharp inhalation.
Really, would she jest about something of this nature? The man was a rake. So perhaps he did not think it was his duty to bed every woman in town, but who would really quibble over the two dozen or so she had missed in her claim. “You ladies are much too sweet to be taken in by that scalawag.” Which was the truth. He was all that and more.
“Are you much acquainted with the viscount?” Dawn asked, her eyes wide and curious.
“Unfortunately, my father and he are well acquainted, and I have been forced to suffer the man’s presence—though thankfully only briefly—on several different occasions.” Yesterday’s encounter had exceeded the usual scope of their verbal exchanges. She could only pray future occurrences proved few and far between.
“How can you fault a gentleman who treats Mr. Fox-worth’s sister with that kind of magnanimity? Why, ever since Mr. Fox—hmm, I suppose that would be Officer Foxworth now. Well, ever since he joined the navy, it is Lord Armstrong who has been escorting her about town to social events. And if she attends a ball she is not relegated to the wall like some.” Miss Ashford paused to share another look of lament with Dawn and Lady Jane. “I think his loyalty to his friend is commendable. Truth to tell, if not for him, Miss Foxworth would otherwise be wasting away the Seasons in some town lacking proper roads and transportation.”
Amelia refused to mollify her opinion in the light of his altruism toward Miss Foxworth or his apparent dedication to his friend. However, the circumstances did explain why the thirty-one-year-old spinster had one of the most eligible bachelors squiring her about. Their association giving hope to all whey-faced ladies whose petals drooped on aging stems that their princes were not far behind.
“The poor woman is clearly smitten. That is as obvious as the nose on my face.” On the two occasions Amelia had seen the two together, Miss Foxworth had stared up at him with starstruck eyes, a splotch of pink lending color to her waxen complexion. If ever she’d witnessed a woman in the grip of lovesick infatuation, Camille Foxworth had surely been her.
“Well, smitten or not, I think it is kind of him to treat her so.”
Apparently, Miss Foxworth wasn’t the only one smitten, for Miss Ashford defended him with the zeal of a court barrister endeavoring to sway the jury to spare his client’s neck.
“Yes,” chimed in Lady Jane, “the man could have his pick of the most sought-after ladies of the ton.” She then blanched and shot a look of trepidation at Amelia. “Or at least the majority of them,” she corrected.
In the strictest definition, that relatively small, revered group did include her. But her offers had tapered since her first Season, when she’d accumulated twelve proposals of marriage. This Season would conclude with no more than five, all from gentlemen quite new to the marriage market.
Since Lady Victoria Spencer, the youngest daughter of the Marquess of Cornwall, had scandalized the ton by marrying Sir George Clifton, Amelia had gained the dubious honor of being dubbed the new ice maiden. Though, should they ever discover her association with Mr. Cromwell and Lord Clayborough, she’d go from icicle to strumpet faster than a pickpocket in St. Giles could relieve a nob of his valuables.
“And not only is he kind,” Dawn said in her girlish titter, continuing in his relentless praise, “but he is rumored to be an extraordinary lover.”
Amelia’s brows climbed to hitherto unscaled heights as she eyed the furiously blushing blonde. And just when she’d equated Dawn Hawkins with a wilting violet. Proper young ladies did not lend themselves to such discourse. She certainly could, but then she’d never endeavored to fit in with the ladies of the peerage, many of whom were just sheep in a herd where titles, connections, and wealth led with uncompromising rigor.
“Posh, surely a rumor Lord Armstrong himself helped to circulate.”
Once again, three pairs of eyes, all in varying shades of brown, widened and turned on her as if she had just taken over the pulpit and declared to every Sunday worshipper supplicant in prayer that God was just a myth. Blasphemous!
“Men tend to think very well of themselves when it comes to such matters. I am quite certain one is no more proficient than the other, though invariably it’s the handsome ones who like to boast the advantage.” And Amelia