Joseph rang the bell with a vicious yank.
“My lord?” His butler reappeared.
“Bailey, Lady Millicent needs to wash that color from her hair. Have someone find something to do that.”
“Stop lording about over me!” Her words were spat out vehemently, followed by several curses that had his eyes narrowing.
“Where did you learn to curse like that?”
She glared at him defiantly, with not a trace of shame on her face.
“In a pub, where I washed dishes.”
Joseph squeezed the bridge of his nose, for no other reason than the sharp jolt of pain gave him clarity.
“I can look after myself now, Lord Ellsworth, and I do not need you ordering your servants about on my behalf as if I am not in the room!”
Joseph wasn’t used to people questioning his actions, especially not this woman. But he had seen plenty of evidence since she had reentered his life of the change the last four years had wrought in her.
“You may have set this course,” she added, “however, I do not need to comply with your every whim. Indeed, I will in all likelihood run again, and you will never find me.”
He took off the glasses next, before she could stop him, and it allowed him to see her anger. Milly’s blue eyes flashed as color stormed her cheeks.
“You will not run, Lady Millicent.” Joseph made himself speak slowly, calmly, when inside he felt like a raging beast. “Because you owe it to your father to read what is in those papers.”
“I owe him nothing.”
“Because it was he who set the course you had to take four years ago?”
She did not reply.
They were close; he could see the flare of anger in her eyes, feel the rush of breath from her lovely mouth, and see the rapid rise and fall of her breasts. It stirred his body to life. It was purely a physical reaction, he reasoned, brought on by the savage mood he was currently experiencing. He’d wanted her before, and that had not changed, even with anger.
“Let me take the stage to London.”
“You are a Marquess’s daughter, you will act like one.”
Her fists clenched as she fought for control. He’d never seen this side of her, the emotion that she’d kept carefully locked away inside that polite facade. Was this the woman she had kept hidden from him?
“Go to hell,” she whispered.
“I’ve been there, and have no wish for a return trip, Lady Millicent.”
