his hands. “Stop! Do not—don’t touch me.”
Thomas halted and stared down at her with a dazed expression of unappeased hunger. For a moment she thought he intended to override her weakened defenses, mute every protest she would make. Slowly, however, he removed his hands from her dress and levered his muscular frame from hers.
Amelia immediately bolted into a sitting position, caught both edges of her cloak, and jerked them together in a desperate attempt to shield herself. There was no time to struggle with her buttons, not with his gaze blistering her with its heat.
Moving to the opposite seat, Thomas watched her silently, a derisive smile now twisting his mouth.
In the past when she’d seen him in public, he was usually dressed as he was now, in dark colors that only succeeded in accentuating his goldenness. How well he wore the façade of the honorable gentleman. If his adoring admirers could see him now, lounging back against the leather seat, his legs splayed, his gaze hooded and hair tousled, no one would mistake him for anything less than the rake she knew him to be.
“Doesn’t it ever get tiring?” he drawled.
“Pardon?”
“You want me physically. You’ve already admitted to that. So why the performance of the affronted virgin every time I kiss you? I imagine it gets tiring after a while. I know it does to me.”
“Per-performance! You believe that I enjoy you taking unwanted liberties?” Her voice rose with every indignant word.
A dry laugh emerged from his lips. “Taking unwanted liberties, Princess?” he said in that manner she most despised—not that he’d ever said anything in a manner she liked. “Then it’s a very fortunate gentleman who can show you true enjoyment. Do you make the same panting sounds when he kisses you?” His gaze dropped to her breasts. “When he touches your nipples?”
“I did not,” she croaked, but the memory of the truth shamed her.
“Would you like me to show you again just how easy it is to make you wet?” His voice was a sultry challenge.
Amelia jerked the cloak tighter about her in a fruitless effort to halt the tremors wracking her form. “Do not touch me again.” The command, however, sounded as if it came from a woman fighting a losing battle of retaining a semblance of her control.
It seemed an eternity until Thomas spoke again. He casually gestured toward the window at his side, its curtain closed. “We’ve been stopped well over five minutes now. Something you failed to notice, because you were, er, otherwise occupied. Oh, don’t worry, Johns will only open the door if the curtain is drawn.”
Swinging her gaze immediately to the window beside her, she pushed back the curtain. Surrounded by high railings of fortifying iron, its tops spearlike in shape, was the viscountess’s red-bricked townhouse.
Without uttering a word, Amelia threw open the door and scrambled out. In her hasty exit, she caught the hem of her skirt on the carriage step. The fragile material rent under her impatient tug, but she didn’t care. She would have gladly shredded half her wardrobe to get away from Thomas Armstrong and every wretched emotion he elicited in her.
Chapter 18
In the morning, Amelia was surprised to see their traveling party had acquired an additional member: one Lord Alex Cartwright. It appeared he too would be a guest at Stoneridge Hall. Thomas had been vague as to the duration, but the time—a day, a week—was immaterial. Anyone who could create a buffer between her and the viscount would be more than welcome.
Miss Foxworth appeared genuinely disappointed that Amelia had been too unwell to remain at the ball, but did indicate, in that subdued manner of hers, that she had enjoyed herself thoroughly. Lord Alex greeted her kindly while Thomas treated her with a studied indifference, which was just fine with her.
En masse, they departed Mayfair to Paddington Station. The women rode in the comfort of Thomas’s carriage while the men followed in a hired hack. Traveling separately from the viscount was another added benefit to having Lord Alex accompanying them.
On the train, the men discussed the latest methods of shipbuilding and the merits in acquiring stocks for a steel company lately trading on the London Stock Exchange. On that stretch of the trip, Amelia read a novel she’d brought with her, taking a short break for lunch when Thomas produced sandwiches, biscuits, fruit, and lemonade prepared for them by the viscountess’s cook.
They changed trains at Newton to go on to Totnes, where upon their arrival at