still maintained the fortitude to acknowledge him with a supercilious raise of her eyebrow.
“Is my mother hosting a party in your honor?”
Amelia wished she didn’t know of what he spoke. But she did. She treated him to a blank stare anyway.
“Your hair. Your dress. Isn’t it a bit fancy for all this?” A jerk of his head indicated all this was the narrow scope of her current existence: the study.
So what if she’d had Hélène take the irons to give her hair some bouncy curls?
Outward beauty, while pleasing to the eye, isn’t enough to hold my attention.
And so what if the pale violet, silk dress with trimmings of puffed ribbon might be more suited for an elegant supper party? It wasn’t a crime that she chose to wear it today.
You could never tempt me.
But as much as she tried to convince herself of that fact, she knew he saw right through to her damaged pride and silently mocked her.
God help me should I have a daughter like you.
He let her stew in her foolishness a second longer before turning on his heel and heading to his desk. “Before you get settled there, I’ll need some coffee.” He tossed the remark over his shoulder with a casualness meant to give the impression that such a request was a common occurrence.
Amelia gave her head a violent mental shake. Fetch him his coffee? Has he gone completely daft?
“Then I suggest you ring for one of the servants.”
“And why should I do that when I have you?” He now sat ensconced behind his desk.
“Why should I get you coffee when you employ a team of servants whose express purpose is to cater to your every whim?” He’d now taken his petty vindictiveness to a level of which even he should be ashamed.
The viscount didn’t immediately respond, his attention focused on ostensibly searching for something on his desk. When he spoke, he sounded distracted. “But I want you to do it. Every morning Mr. Wendel’s secretary brings him his morning beverage. It is not an uncommon practice.”
“I do not particularly care what occurs in Mr. Wendel’s office,” she said, bearing down on her back teeth.
Lord Armstrong lifted his head to regard her. “You are correct. The only thing that need concern you right now is bringing me my coffee. Two cubes of sugar with just a dash of cream. And Amelia, make no mistake about it—this is not a request.” He returned his attention to the clutter on his desk, effectively dismissing her.
Amelia silently cursed him in English, French, and the smattering of Italian she’d learned from an Italian governess. But damn it, she had little choice but to do as he said. He had her at a disadvantage. This was his estate, his family, his bloody everything. Here she was nothing but another servant in the guise of a guest. Imprisoned for having a mind of her own and wanting a life of her own.
Although she took pains not to glance in his direction, she felt the intensity of his gaze as she rose and crossed the room to the door, her pride smarting with her every step. Like everything else, she’d attempt to get through this with as much aplomb as she could muster.
In the hall, Amelia immediately located the butler, a dour, portly man with graying hair, who treated her request for the beverage with a monotone “Yes ma’am.” He summoned a footman from the drawing room and dispatched him to the kitchen. The confusion came when she insisted on taking the coffee to the study herself. Puzzled looks were exchanged between the two men until with a nod, the butler permitted the footman to hand her the tray.
The same silence of her leave-taking met her return to the study. Lord Armstrong stopped what he was doing to watch her approach, his expression shuttered.
If she was truly the hoyden he and her father believed her to be, he wouldn’t be drinking the hot liquid; he’d be wearing it.
The sequence of events that followed would make that very thought appear as rehearsed as anything performed in Her Majesty’s Theatre, the execution the stuff of accolades. In trying to find a place for the tray amongst the clutter of papers, books, and various writing accoutrements, one corner of the tray tilted and sent the cup careening like a drunken sailor in a storm. All of her frantic efforts could not prevent what happened next: hot coffee—fixed to the viscount’s specifications—all over his lap.
A roar