Heiress in Regency Society: The Defiant Debutante. Helen Dickson

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.