The Hired Husband

by Judith Stacy

  She did notice the change in the breakfast menu Mitch had asked the cook to make. Both his and Noah’s plates were filled with eggs, bacon, potatoes and hot biscuits. Rachel raised an eyebrow at their meals but didn’t say anything.

  “Excuse me,” Noah mumbled. He rose from the chair, tossed his napkin on the table and left the room.

  “He seems to be trying,” Rachel offered, serving herself fruit and a muffin from the platter on the table. “How did you manage?”

  “I can be a compelling presence,” Mitch told her with a tiny hint of a grin. He nodded toward the tablet she’d brought into the dining room with her and placed beside her plate. “Another project? Something for the luncheon?”

  “Actually, my next project is you.”

  “Am I that big a chore?” Mitch asked, trying to read the list Rachel had written in the tablet.

  “You’ll need more clothing,” Rachel said, sipping her coffee and glancing down at her tablet. “Business suits, of course. Casual suits, too. Formal wear for Claudia’s engagement party. Shoes, hats, coats.”

  “Will I have a say in the colors?”

  “No.”

  “How about the fabric?”

  “No.”

  Mitch glanced down at his necktie. “Is there something wrong with the way I look now?”

  Rachel sat back in her chair and looked across the table at him, her gaze roaming critically over him. Mitch felt a little uncomfortable under her scrutiny; Rachel seemed to enjoy it.

  “Did you pick out that suit and necktie yourself?” she asked.

  He hesitated a moment. “Well, yes.”

  “Actually, you look very nice,” she said. “Better than most men who select their own clothing.”

  For some reason, Mitch felt inordinately pleased by the compliment.

  “I’ll have the tailor come over for your measurements. He’ll bring fabric swatches with him.” She gave him a little grin. “I suppose you can have a look, if you want.”

  “I don’t want to overstep my bounds,” Mitch said, finishing his coffee.

  Rachel glanced at her tablet again and her demeanor changed, as if she were moving on to something else.

  “It’s appropriate that we send out an announcement, of some sort, about your…marriage,” she said. “I’d like to discuss it with you, if you have time.”

  For Rachel and her—red, was it?—underwear, he’d make time.

  They finished breakfast and he followed her into the library and over to the wall of books that rose from floor to ceiling. She leaned her head back, searching the titles, then stretched up to select the one she spotted.

  Mitch moved in, reached over her head and plucked the book from the shelf. He angled close, getting a good whiff of her hair as her skirt brushed his leg. Little things, but he’d take them.

  To his surprise, she didn’t move away, just stood there near him as he handed her the book. Their gazes held for a long moment while Mitch’s mind ran wild with speculation.

  She was thinking something. He could always tell. And when she looked like this, Mitch found he couldn’t wait to hear what she had to say.

  “I said some unkind things to you yesterday,” Rachel said.

  “Is this an apology?”

  “No. I’m not sorry I said them, but I shouldn’t have been so mean about it. You didn’t deserve that.”

  Her honesty disarmed him at times.

  “You didn’t deserve to be abandoned, certainly not by that Blair character,” Mitch said. “And by the way, if you should see him again, I’d be more than happy to punch him in the face for you.”

  Color flushed her cheeks and the most alluring smile spread over her mouth. She dipped her lashes. “I don’t believe anyone has ever offered to punch someone for me.”

  “Believe me, it would be my pleasure,” Mitch told her, managing to hold back his true opinion of the man who’d walked out on her. “I know how hurtful it is for you to be talked about. That story must have made the rounds through the city in record time.”

  “Coming on the heels of the devastating news about my family’s loss, there was mercifully little gossip about Benjamin’s sudden departure,” Rachel explained. “It was a poor reflection on him, rather than me.”

  “Still, a painful memory,” Mitch said.

  She shrugged. “I rarely think of him and when I do it’s with indifference. I suppose that means I never loved him in the first place. Anyway, whatever feelings I had for Benjamin are long gone. When I look back, I wonder why I ever agreed to be courted by him in the first place.”

  “Pursuit of the perfect wedding?” Mitch asked. “Like your friend Claudia?”

  “Perhaps.”

  Another moment passed in silence. Mitch wondered if her thoughts had, in fact, drifted back to Benjamin Blair. Annoyance and anger rose in him with a startling intensity. Rachel and another man?

  She gave herself a little shake as if shooing away whatever her thoughts had been and smiled up at Mitch.

  “Ready to get started?” she asked, holding up the book.

  Mitch saw from the title that it was a book on etiquette.

  “Just one thing first,” he said.

  Then he leaned down and kissed her.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Dinner fork. Salad fork. Both on the left side of the dinner plate. Spoons on the…right?

  Mitch opened his eyes and consulted the diagram in the book lying open on the kitchen worktable. Rachel had used the book this morning to review the procedures—and there were many—required for sending their wedding announcement. She’d explained it all to him.

  Right after he’d kissed her.

  Mitch squinted at the book as the words swarmed together. He’d come here to the kitchen this late at night, when he was certain the cook and her staff had retired for the evening, so he could practice in private. Using the diagram in the book, he assembled all the pieces of china, silverware and crystal he’d need.

  But he couldn’t keep his mind on his task any more now than he had this morning in the library with Rachel. All he could do was think of her and their kiss, while speculating on her undergarments.

  “Damn…”

  Mitch bit off a worse curse and focused on the etiquette book again. Enough of those sort of thoughts. Rachel was keeping to their agreement—the agreement he himself had insisted upon—so he damn well ought to do the same.

  He dragged up a stool and eased onto it, staring down at the diagrams and the explanations.

  He did well enough with table manners. He’d been taught a little; the rest he’d gathered by watching other diners around him. He had no way of knowing whether or not their manners were correct, though.

  He couldn’t bring himself to ask Rachel for help. Not with this. Even though she’d agreed to help him with entrance to the privileged world of the wealthy and powerful, his pride caused him to keep this to himself.

  What would she say…if she knew the truth?

  Mitch forced his thoughts back to the book and its detailed description of a proper table setting.

  A space of sixteen to twenty inches should be allowed for each guest at the dining table, this area being called the “cover.” Mitch shook his head. It needed a name?

  The cover was marked with a service plate, a napkin folded and laid on the left and a place card centered just above the plate.

  Mitch glanced at the plate he’d taken from the cupboard. All right, that seemed easy enough. His gaze skimmed the next paragraph.

  Forks, tines turned up. Knives with the cutting blade facing the plate. All silverware positioned an inch from the table edge. No more than three forks and two knives at any one cover—thank goodness for small favors—and dessert spoons and forks brought to the table when needed.

  Mitch drew in a breath and turned the page. Glassware. The water glass should be placed directly above the tip of the knife, other glasses lined up to the right and slightly below the water glass. No glass—regardless of beverage�
��should be filled more than three-fourths full and they should never—

  Mitch pushed off the stool. Good Lord, how could the simple act of eating a meal generate so many rules? How did diners not come away with indigestion?

  Thank goodness he didn’t have to set the table, only eat from it.

  An old, uncomfortable feeling crept over him. At least setting the table could be done in relative privacy. Eating in the presence of society’s upper crust was another matter entirely.

  Mitch gazed around the kitchen. All this thinking about dining properly had made him hungry.

  He rummaged through the ice box and cupboards, then went to work making himself a stack of pancakes. When he turned the last one out onto the plate, Rachel stepped out of the shadows, startling him. She had on the same lavender robe and nightgown he’d seen her in on their wedding night.

  No underwear.

  “I thought I smelled something cooking. I was in the library looking for a book. Are those pancakes?” She glanced around the room. “Where’s Mrs. Callihan? Did you make those yourself?”

  “I was hungry,” Mitch said as he set the plate on the worktable.

  “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen any of the men in my family cook,” Rachel said, moving to his side. She looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. “You don’t seem like the cooking type.”

  “And what type do I seem?” he asked, adding chunks of butter between the pancakes and dousing them with syrup.

  “Even the financial work you do doesn’t seem right, though you’re very good at it, as you’ve mentioned several times,” she said. “I’d think something more physical. Like the boxing you do. In fact, if I were as strong as you—just for a day—”

  She stopped and, as usual, Mitch had to know what was on her mind.

  “What would you do?” he asked.

  Rachel glanced around the kitchen, then rose on her toes and stretched up. He leaned down and she whispered in his ear, “I’d beat the tar out of everybody who’d ever hurt me or my family.”

  Mitch grinned at the fanciful look on her face.

  “Including me?” he asked.

  “You’d be first.”

  “You’re welcome to try now.” Mitch spread his arms. “I’ll even give you an advantage. I promise not to fight back. You can do whatever you want.”

  Rachel paused, considering it for a moment. Then she uttered a short laugh. “I think you might enjoy that.”

  Mitch couldn’t hold back a wider grin.

  “But it must be nice,” Rachel mused, “being so strong. Never having to be afraid.”

  “There are all kinds of strengths,” Mitch said. “And more than one sort of fear.”

  “What are you afraid of?” she asked, as if she couldn’t imagine he’d have an answer at all.

  “Glassware. Forks. Which one? Used when?”

  The words popped out when he hadn’t meant them to. Something about being around Rachel caused him to lose control. He had to stop letting that happen.

  She gestured to the place setting he’d assembled on the other end of the worktable. “Surely your mother taught you table manners.”

  How naive of her to think that everyone had a mother who would do just that.

  If only it were true.

  “I can help you, if you’d like,” Rachel said, nothing judgmental in the tone of her voice.

  Why had he thought she would be critical or think less of him? Rachel wasn’t like that with anyone. Yet his pride hadn’t let him take the chance.

  He considered his options. She’d offered help. He needed the help. And if he agreed, she’d stay here in the kitchen a while longer.

  “If you have time,” Mitch said.

  In a flash, Rachel assembled a proper place setting—she hadn’t needed to look at the diagram, he noted—and drew two stools together.

  “We’ll practice with your pancakes,” she said, centering the plate between the silverware. “First, I’ll demonstrate the correct way. Then you can do it yourself.”

  She took the stool in front of the place setting and Mitch sat down on her left, their knees tucked beneath the table.

  It didn’t escape his attention that Rachel seemed more relaxed around him tonight, especially given that she was in her nightclothes. When he’d walked into her room on their wedding night she’d thrown on nearly every article of clothing she could get her hands on.

  Perhaps she perceived the kitchen as a safer place than her own bedchamber. That this location somehow made him immune to her allure. If so, she was hopelessly wrong.

  Visions of the two of them atop the worktable, plates and silver crashing to the floor filled Mitch’s head. Was that covered in her etiquette book? He very much doubted—

  “Are you listening?”

  Mitch shifted on the stool. “Yeah, sure. I’m listening.”

  “First of all, the napkin should be draped across your lap.” Rachel placed the napkin accordingly.

  “Got it.”

  She laid her left hand in her lap. “The hand you’re not eating with goes here.”

  He mimicked her action, but she caught his wrist.

  “Your own lap.”

  “Oh.”

  She went on to explain something else about place setting, but Mitch’s thoughts wandered to her profile and the curve of her chin. To her thick hair, gathered in a ribbon and curling down her back. To her small, delicate hands holding the fork.

  Fascinating. Every facet of her being, every curve, every movement. It seemed that each time he looked at her, something new and intriguing caught his eye.

  “Your turn,” Rachel said.

  He hadn’t been listening but he followed along as she rose from the stool. They traded places, Mitch now seated in front of the plate of pancakes. He positioned the napkin, selected a fork—the appropriate one, thank goodness, since Rachel didn’t correct him—and cut off a bite of pancake.

  “Want some?” he asked, holding up the fork. “I’m very good at this.”

  She smiled. “Let’s see about that.”

  He expected her to fetch a fork for herself, but instead she leaned closer and parted her lips. Mitch’s simmering desire ratcheted up several notches as he slid the bite of pancake, dripping with butter and syrup, into her mouth.

  Her lips closed. They slid together as she chewed. Then the very tip of her tongue swept her bottom lip and Mitch thought he’d hoist her onto the worktable right then and there.

  She nodded thoughtfully. “You really are good at this.”

  “You have no idea.”

  “Aren’t you going to have some?” she asked, gesturing to the plate again.

  He cut off another bite, gripping the fork with all his strength, and shoved it into his mouth. If the food tasted good, he didn’t notice. All he could think of was Rachel beside him, close enough to touch. And he wanted to touch her so badly.

  “You’ve got a little syrup on your lip,” Rachel said. But instead of reaching for a napkin, she dabbed at the corner of his mouth with her finger.

  Mitch captured her between his lips. She gasped but didn’t pull away. He caught her hand and drew her fingertip into his mouth, then kissed his way to her palm.

  He burned for her. Wanted her as he’d never wanted any other woman in his life.

  His gaze met hers. She sat stunned, but didn’t pull away. Mitch got to his feet and drew her up against him. She came willingly, locking her arms around his neck as he covered her mouth with a hot kiss.

  He plucked open the top few buttons on her robe and nightgown, then slid his hand inside. She gasped again as his fingers closed over her breast, and to his delight, she arched against him.

  Mitch deepened their kiss as his hand explored her softness, her curves. He groaned as her fingers splayed over his chest, burning hot through his shirt. He shifted, pressing himself against her, wanting her with—

  “Enough of that, you two.”

  Rachel jerked upright and gasped. Mitch, lost in the h
aze of desire, took another second to realize that Noah had come into the kitchen.

  He kept his arms around Rachel and turned her away, sheltering her while she closed up her nightgown and robe.

  “You two are married,” Noah pointed out as he sauntered across the room. He got a glass from the cupboard and filled it from the milk pitcher in the ice box. At the worktable he balanced the glass on the plate of pancakes and picked it up with one hand.

  “So go upstairs,” he said and left.

  Mitch’s heart thundered in his chest as he looked down at Rachel.

  “Shall we?” he asked.

  Chapter Twenty

  She hadn’t gone upstairs with him last night, as Mitch had asked, nor had she been the least bit flattered by his invitation. In fact, for a moment, Mitch had thought she might actually slap him.

  Which he might have enjoyed.

  Mitch closed the ledger and rose from the desk chair making an effort to put last night out of his mind. Once again, he failed miserably.

  After Rachel had dashed from the kitchen, he’d spent hours in the attic attempting to work off his frustration at the punching bag. Then he’d spent several more hours tossing and turning—alone—in his bed before finally dozing off around dawn only to awaken and hear Rachel next door going about her morning routine. The rush of bath water, the creak of her closet door, low chatter with her maid.

  Images played in Mitch’s mind now as he stared out the study window, same as they had earlier this morning. Rachel in the tub. Warm soapy water. Thick towels, pink cheeks, damp tendrils curling around her face. The day’s clothing choice, dress and, of course, undergarments.

  Mitch’s blood pumped hotter at the thought. He hadn’t seen Rachel this morning. She hadn’t come down for breakfast. What clothing had she selected for today?

  Wondering over the color of his wife’s underwear was beginning to take over his life.

  Footsteps behind him interrupted his thoughts, thankfully, and Mitch turned to see Noah enter the study. So far the boy had showed up to help with the family business every day since Mitch had told him to do so. He met with the tutor, also, with no significant problems.