London and stayed away nearly an entire year. Her thirteenth year. During the one time she’d needed him most.
Upon his return, he’d never once inquired of her well-being, how she’d fared during that period without him. He hadn’t cared. That had been about the time he’d taken an interest in the blasted ship-building company. And when that wretched man, Lord High and Mighty Thomas Armstrong, had floated down like the Angel Raphael from up on high to assume a ranking higher than that of a flesh-and-blood daughter—that of his business partner.
“Given the seriousness of your offense, there is only one other option I will consider,” he admitted, after a lengthy silence. “Work.”
Amelia could not help two rapid blinks and one convulsive swallow. Work? It took several long moments for her brain to process the word in its fair context, before it settled with the repugnance of haggis in a bed of potatoes and turnips.
“You expect me to work?” The affront in her voice was neither feigned nor exaggerated. “You mean that I should join a charity of sorts?” Of course. That was the only thing that made one mite of sense.
Harold Bertram lifted his shoulders in a negligent shrug, as if the “what” was of little consequence. “I imagine something clerical in nature. Some bookkeeping and taking dictation perhaps. You needn’t fear my dear. It will not be anything so significantly beneath your status.”
Anything so significantly beneath her status? Someone of her status did not work! Really, the whole idea was simply beyond the pale. She was not going to a convent, and she refused to be put to work like some unfortunate woman of trade. Had her father forgotten she was a lady?
“Father, this is absolutely ludicrous. Suspend my pin money as you have done in the past. I hardly think there is any reason to go to quite these lengths to prove how exceedingly displeased you are. I can only imagine the scandal it would cause if society ever caught wind that you’d put me to work.” The barest hint of a scandal usually sent her father off to his chambers pleading a migraine. “Moreover, I know absolutely nothing of clerical work and the like.” And she had no desire to acquire that particular bourgeois knowledge.
“What is ludicrous is your behavior, and not just your last two antics, but the many more you have perpetrated over the last several years.” He eyed her grimly. “Naturally, I will ensure the members of society will not hear of this. It will be during the off-Season. Everyone will have returned to the country by then anyhow. I can only thank heavens that unlike most of those simpletons out in society, you’re at least a young lady of solid intelligence—if not temperance. You know, a head for numbers is very rare in a female. This will be a singular opportunity for you to put that God-given talent to competent use.”
Her father thought her intelligent? Amelia suppressed an unladylike snort. How odd as he currently did not believe she had the sense to choose her own husband.
“It’s really quite unfortunate that it has come to this. I promise you this however: you will do one or the other. The choice is yours.”
Choosing between two ghastly forms of punishment—one only slightly less heinous than the other—was hardly a choice. But Amelia was not a fool by anyone’s standards. She would play the clerk in some dreary back office in Wiltshire before she would willingly spend even a week with some wretched nuns—something her father was well aware of.
“I am not going to a convent,” she said, her jaw clenched tight, her hands fisted at her sides.
To Amelia’s fury, his mouth quirked in something akin to amusement, his head dipping in a sage nod. In response, she blindly averted her gaze from the satisfied expression on his countenance.
Harold Bertram flicked his hand in the direction of the door. “Yes, do go. We are finished for now. I will apprise you of the particulars of this ‘work’ situation once I can secure the position and ensure the man’s absolute discretion in the matter.”
Amelia quietly quit the room with her head held high, her back ramrod straight, and her dignity lying bruised on the study floor.
At his residence twenty minutes later, Thomas silently made his way down the corridor, divesting himself of the tailored confines of his jacket. As it was too early to commence drinking, he’d instructed his butler to have coffee brought to him in