Regency Society Collection Part 2. Ann Lethbridge

say what I have to say right here.’

      ‘But—I was just—’

      ‘I’m waiting.’

      Angelina could see that Alex was furious. The glacial look in his silver eyes and the stern set of his features sent shivers down her spine. There was certainly nothing soft or lover-like in his tone, as there had been when she had left him in his rooms earlier. On a sigh she frowned. Casting a weary glance at Jenkins, she saw sympathy in his eyes.

      ‘Oh, dear, Jenkins,’ she breathed softly, ‘I think I’m for it.’

      ‘Chin up, Miss Hamilton, and you’ll be all right,’ he murmured, with his back to his ill-tempered master and with all the skill of a ventriloquist, for Angelina was certain his lips never moved.

      She doubted the conviction of Jenkins’s words as she turned and walked across the hall. There was not a single trace of reason in Alex’s expression, only an undeniable aura of restrained fury gathering pace inside him, waiting to be unleashed on her.

      He stood at the door to the sitting room like a soldier on sentry duty, waiting for her to pass—which she did, tilting her chin in a haughty manner.

      Just through the doorway Angelina stopped. The ominous thud of the door behind her was too much for her lacerated nerves. Turning to face him, she was vaguely aware of two people seated at the opposite end of the long room, but she and Alex might as well have been alone—in fact, they should be, and she was angry that he had not chosen to chastise her in private. Her blood froze at the anger burning in his eyes. He had savaged her emotions once already today and it would seem he was about to do it again, but instead of seducing her into submission, she strongly suspected that this time he was about to go to the other extreme.

      With her hands thrust deep into the pockets of her breeches, in a state of grinding tension, for what seemed an eternity she stood perfectly still, glaring at him mutinously, watching as his mercurial mood took a turn for the worst. As his eyes raked over her they opened wide, his sleek black eyebrows climbing higher and higher. Slowly he began walking round her, and she could only surmise that he was contemplating her shapeless flannel shirt and deerskin trousers. She thought to escape and her eyes shot to the door. He saw her intention.

      ‘Don’t try it,’ he said, his silken voice almost turning Angelina’s blood to ice as he continued to walk round her.

      Alex kept his mercurial gaze levelled on her, a nerve jerking at the side of his rigid jaw. Undaunted, she lifted her chin with a small but stubborn toss of her head. It was a gesture of open defiance. Stopping in front of her, he moved closer, the silver eyes boring down into hers. When he could finally bring himself to speak his voice was ice cold.

      ‘I have hired scullery maids better garbed than you. I do not know the meaning of this, Angelina, but you have a propensity to wilfully defy me at every turn. How dare you take a horse out of my stable without my permission and without the animal being approved by me first? Nor you did not take just any horse, but Forest Shadow, the most dangerous horse in my stable.’

      ‘Were you worried about my welfare?’

      ‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ he growled, demolishing the sudden flickering of hope he saw in her eyes. ‘Forest Shadow is also my most valuable horse.’ This was not entirely true. Forest Shadow was his most prized horse, but he’d been worried as hell about her on that powerful beast. However, he would not give her the satisfaction of telling her so.

      ‘You need not have worried,’ she said, with infuriating calm and no hint of an apology for taking the horse without his permission. ‘I took good care of him. I do ride extremely well, you know.’

      ‘So my uncle went to great pains to point out before he went to Cornwall,’ Alex mocked. ‘I have no doubt that he did not exaggerate about the excellence of your prowess. But until I have seen your exceptional skills for myself, the stables are out of bounds. Is that clear?’ he seethed, his blistering gaze sliding over her face.

      Angelina’s reply was to glower at him.

      ‘And another thing I want you to remember, I consider stallions to be unsuitable mounts for females to ride.’

      ‘Why—you conceited, pig-headed beast,’ she gasped. ‘I am just as capable of riding stallions as any man.’

      ‘Be that as it may, but not at Arlington. Now, you will go to your room and remove those outrageous clothes and appear dressed in normal attire. I will see you before me in precisely ten minutes. Is that understood?’

      Angelina glowered at him with stubborn, unyielding pride, her chin pert, her hands balled into tight fists by her sides, sorely tempted to tell him to go to hell. ‘Who do you think you are? I will wear what I please and do what I please.’

      With his hands fixed firmly on his hips, Alex thrust his face close to hers, his eyes glittering with a fire that burned her raw and his eyebrows drawn close, giving him an air of fiendish intensity. ‘I know who I am, Angelina. What bothers me is who you are. While you live in this house—my house—and until my uncle returns from Cornwall, you are under my care. You will do well to remember that and the sooner you accept it the better it will be for us all. You will be accountable to me for your actions. Is that understood?’

      Angelina didn’t even recoil from the blazing violence as she took the full force of his volcanic rage. Fury rose up like flames licking inside her, her face as uncompromisingly challenging as his. ‘You can go to hell, Alex Montgomery, and the sooner the better. I own no man my superior—and least of all you. Ever since I left Ohio I have never been accountable to anyone for my actions. I do not intend to start now.’

      ‘Yes, you will. Someone should have taught you some sense and beat that wilful pride out of you years ago,’ he said, anger pouring through his veins like acid, his fury making him carelessly cruel. ‘I am not daunted by your defiance.’

      ‘You wouldn’t be daunted by a pit of rattlesnakes,’ she spat. In her fury Angelina forgot the man and woman watching them with astonishment and a good deal of interest from across the room.

      Nathan and Verity found it hard to believe that Alex, a man so self-assured and masterful when in the presence of some of the most powerful men in England, had been stripped of his composure and was being baited with such boldness by an eighteen-year-old girl. They were taken aback by the quite unexpected heated altercation between these two. They were such a combustible combination, and it was evident that Angelina, who looked magnificent, glorious and indestructible as she faced the master of Arlington despite the shabbiness of her garb, had a will every bit as strong and stubborn as Alex’s own.

      ‘Go to your room,’ Alex gritted. ‘I will not have you behaving in this disgraceful manner in front of my friends and relatives.’

      ‘Friends!’ she scoffed, breathing hard. ‘You don’t have friends—you have subjects who bow and scrape at your feet. Tell me, does everyone always march to your orders?’

      ‘Always.’

      ‘Not me, Alex Montgomery,’ Angelina flung back. ‘I shall match you stride for stride and be damned to your orders.’

      ‘You little baggage. If you continue to flout my authority and do anything else to inconvenience my staff or myself while you live in my house, I will personally make your life a living hell. Is that understood?’

      ‘Why—what will you do? Beat me?’ she scoffed.

      ‘Out of respect for your sex, I will curb my temptation to resort to physical violence. But if you brazenly defy me one more time, do not depend on my ability to exercise similar restraint. More of this and you will find yourself on your knees begging my forgiveness. You are outrageous, outspoken, as obstinate as a thousand mules and your manners are deplorable—and look at you. You don’t even look like a female and you certainly don’t act like one. You will make a laughing stock of us all if you continue in this disgraceful manner. It is unacceptable. If you think you can go traipsing around my estate dressed like a gypsy, then you would do well to think again. I know females