by Nancy Warren
Chapter Five
Meg and Arthur left soon after coffee, promising to stay in touch from the States. Rachel could see that George and Maxine were dying to go up to bed, too. Probably they were being polite and waiting for her and Jack to go up, but she wasn’t quite ready to say good night to the man with whom she’d been secretly-or maybe not so secretly-flirting all evening.
Finally she said, “I think I’ll check on the kitchen. Make sure Mrs. Brimacombe left everything in good order.”
“I’m sure she will have,” said George.
“I like to make a final check of my kitchen. Occupational hazard,” she said. As she rose she said, as though it was an afterthought, “Jack, would you like to come with me? I can show you that local cheese you were so interested in.” Okay, it wasn’t the smoothest line she’d ever thought up, but it worked.
He was on his feet before she finished speaking. “I’d love to. I’ll say good night, then, George, Maxine. Thanks for a great evening.”
“Pleasure. See you tomorrow.”
“Probably not. I’ll head out early to miss the traffic.”
“Right. Give us a ring, then, if there’s anything more on the wedding.”
“Will do.”
Max said good night, but her attention was on Rachel, who sent her sister a tiny wink and hoped she’d mind her own business. Amazingly, for once she did, and suddenly Rachel found herself outside with Jack. Alone. The quickest way to the kitchen was obviously through the house, but they both knew it wasn’t local cheese they were interested in.
The evening was cool, fall slowly fading.
The full moon looked like an ancient gold coin; the sky was haphazardly dotted with stars where the clouds hadn’t obscured them. The air carried the scent of the river, trees, and grass. Their footsteps crunched on the pea gravel.
She tipped her head back and breathed in. “I love it here,” she admitted.
“It’s so quiet after London.”
“And L.A.,” she agreed.
“Do you miss it?”
“ L.A. or the restaurant?”
“Both, I suppose.” From the conversation this evening, he’d learned the sad history of her not-so-brilliant career.
She thought about his question. Tried to answer honestly. “Yes. And no. I miss the work. I loved what I was doing, but I didn’t like the people running the place. So I guess my feelings were mixed. I miss some things about L.A. Being near the ocean is great. I don’t know, there’s an energy there that’s kind of nuts but invigorating, you know?”
“Sure.”
“I really needed to get away, though. I was in a bad place.” She caught herself and laughed. “And if that isn’t a California expression, I don’t know what is.”
She could see his lips curve in the moonlight. She was aware of him in every pore of her body. Felt him looking at her when her gaze slipped away, tingled when his arm brushed hers. “What does it mean exactly?”
“Me being in a bad place?” She sighed. “You really want to know?”
“Of course. I’m…curious about you.”
The notion warmed her blood. Nobody was curious about her these days but her mother and Max. And really, the term she’d use for them would be nosy. Interfering. Bossy! Curious was a balm to a bludgeoned ego.
“My restaurant closing kind of kicked the teeth down my throat. I guess I’d forgotten it wasn’t really mine. I worked so hard, it was like I was obsessed, and when things got bad I worked harder. I’m so tired.”
“There was more to it than that, though, wasn’t there.” His words were soft, encouraging her to blurt more than she’d intended.
“Are you really this perceptive or has my beloved sister been spilling my secrets?”
“Your sister warned me away from you. It’s the only clue she gave me that there’s some mystery. I got my biggest clue from the way you acted with me in the kitchen. You seemed violently antimarriage, which naturally made me curious as to why.”
“I’m sorry about that, by the way. If you hadn’t startled me, and I hadn’t thought you were the cat-”
“No, really. Perfectly understandable mistake,” he said in that smooth, well-bred way that for some reason made her want to laugh.
“I got divorced,” she finally admitted. “It came through a couple of months ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. He was a rat. It’s only that having two such spectacular failures so close together kind of screwed me up. You know?”
“Of course. So now, due to disappointments both personal and professional, you’ve pledged yourself to a life of celibacy, from which all men are excluded and you will only use your considerable cooking talents as a chef for private parties.”
She laughed, delighted with him.
“No,” she said, turning to him. “I’m not giving up on the idea of another restaurant, and I am certainly not giving up on sex.” What the hell? If there was ever a moment to take the initiative, it was this one. What did she care what he thought of her? This wasn’t about courtship or love or any of those old-fashioned notions she’d once believed in. This was about admitting that the blood flowing through her veins was hot, and that she was still a young woman with needs.
The man beside her, drawing her in with the intimate message in his eyes, was reminding her urgently of how much she was a woman with needs.
“I have not taken a vow of celibacy,” she promised him.
“Really?” He sounded as interested as she could have hoped. He moved closer until they were almost touching.
“Really,” she said, and taking his face in her hands, she leaned up on her tiptoes to kiss him.
She brushed his lips softly with her own. She meant it to be a not-so-subtle message saying, I’m available if you’re interested. But the second their mouths met, something happened. Shocks, sparks, shooting stars. All that stuff she no longer believed in showered around her, in her.
He made a surprised sound and pulled her forward, hard enough that she was snapped against him, body to body. He took over the kiss.
Whoo-wee, did he ever. She felt almost lifted off her feet by the impact. His mouth was warm, firm, sexy, and delicious.
Standing there in the golden glow of a harvest moon, in the shadow of a castle, wearing her borrowed finery of velvet and gold and lace, she felt as much a fairy tale princess as any woman ever had.
Why not be swept off her feet? For a few days or weeks, even a few hours? What was the harm? What could it hurt?
So she let herself go, melting against him, the way the beetroot aioli had melted over her medley of autumn vegetables. Opening her mouth to him, to taste his flavor and texture.
Her heart stuttered, her blood pounded. She’d forgotten she could feel so alive.
“I want you,” he mumbled against her skin. “God, I want you.”
“I know. I want you, too,” she admitted, wondering if she’d ever in her life felt this urgent, this desperate. His hands ran up and down her back, over her hips. His mouth plundered and feasted.
She clutched his shoulders, then ran her hands through his short hair. His scalp was hot and she knew he was as feverish for this as she was. When his hand cupped her breast, she leaned into his warmth and touch. Wanting more.
“Where’s your room?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.
“Too close to my sister’s. Yours?”
“In the guest wing. We’ll go there.”
“Yes. Okay, yes.”
“Where are you taking me?” he asked as they continued walking in the opposite direction of the massive front door. “The servants’ entrance?”
“The kitchen.”
“Right, of course.”
She’d told Maxine and George she was checking out the kitchen, and though she suspected they knew it was a ruse, she tried to be a woman who told the truth. Besides, the kitchen drew her, she realized as she walked into the restored order of a clean kitchen between meals.
If
the body had a core, as her Pilates instructor insisted, then so, she reasoned, did a house. Or even a castle. To her, that core was the kitchen. Somehow, walking into the order and efficiency of this place, where she created both art and nourishment, fed her in some indefinable emotional way.
She liked that she’d met Jack in the kitchen. She liked that he was here with her as she walked around, making sure the sink sparkled, putting the basket of eggs in the refrigerator. She and Mrs. Brimacombe were going to come to blows, she suspected, over eggs.
Jack watched her, this elegant, voluptuous woman at her homely tasks. She’d changed subtly when she entered the kitchen. She moved with a sense of purpose and control. Pride, he realized, when she ran a hand across the counter, as though patting it good night.
Arousal was a funny thing, he’d found. The older he got, the more he’d learned to appreciate the finer aspects. More than the blood-pounding urge to take and conquer, he’d discovered the slower, softer pleasures of desire. The subtle shifts in feeling, the myriad ways one woman is so wonderfully different from another. So he could watch Rachel with the fever of impatience to have her, and at the same time hang onto his ability to appreciate all the tiny things about her that added to her appeal.
She was a mystery, this woman he’d known only a few hours. Such a mystery. On the one hand he wanted to treasure the moments she remained a mystery, and yet he was as anxious to discover all her secrets as a boy on Christmas morning, holding that special package from Father Christmas.
The urge to rush forward now, quickly, pulled against the desire to go slowly, take his time, savor, so there was a fine tension inside him.
When she was done with her checking and rearranging, she flipped off the lights, plunging them into darkness.
Wordlessly, they slipped through the door that led from the kitchen into the main house.
It was quiet. The soft night lights that George had installed illuminated the way for visitors who might otherwise end up lost and wandering the old pile until daybreak.
They crept by the marble bust of a Roman emperor, watched on their way by five-hundred-year-old ancestors of George’s looking down on them in various aspects from virtuous nobility to licentiousness. He imagined the naughty ninth earl giving him a nudge-nudge-wink-wink as he made his way, with Rachel’s hand in his, through the long gallery to the guest wing.
Even the tireless Wiggins seemed to have taken himself off to bed, or perhaps was enough of the discreet, trusted servant to make himself scarce when a man took a lady who was not his wife to bed.
They didn’t speak on the way; he felt the warmth of Rachel’s hand in his, heard the slight swish of velvet as she walked.
They entered his room and he noted that the bedside lamp was on, the bed turned down. As in a good hotel, but also, he knew, the way things had been done in Hart House for generations.
Maybe they’d had to downsize the staff, but little courtesies to guests would be one of the last things to go.
Rachel let go of his hand and gazed around, as though surprised to find herself here.
He slipped off his jacket, hung it over the back of one of the wing chairs, and switched on the fire.
She’d walked to the window. Then, obviously realizing she couldn’t distract herself with the view outside, turned.
“Would you like a drink?” he asked her. “No ice, I’m afraid. But there’s”-he looked at the bottles arranged on a silver tray-“port, cognac, scotch.”
“No. Thank you.”
He walked over to her and did what he’d been dying to do all evening. He pulled the pins from her hair. She trembled when he touched her, but didn’t stop him, so he took his time and watched in delighted fascination as the thick curls tumbled around her shoulders. He’d imagined the hair would go on forever, all the way down her back, but no. It brushed her shoulders, thick and wild.
Pushing his hands into it, he found it silkier than he’d imagined, but exactly as sexy.
He gazed down at her, eyeing the mouth he was about to kiss, his body so on fire he could barely think straight, when she said, “I think I would like a drink.”
He noted what he should have seen before. Her eyes were wide with uncertainty, her posture tense.
“Of course,” he said, releasing her. “ Cognac?”
“Yes, fine.”
He poured two glasses, handed her one. She didn’t sip for pleasure; he rather thought she gulped for courage.
He sat in the armchair, leaning back, letting her know in as subtle a way as he could manage that a chat and a drink was fine with him. It wouldn’t be his choice, but he tried to be philosophical. At least he’d seen her with her hair down. It was a start.
She didn’t sit, but wandered the room, touching things. Running her fingers over the bedcover.
When she finally came back to him, she put her drink down on the table. He felt he was losing her, felt he had to make a final try to keep her with him, even for nothing more than talk.
“You have lovely hands,” he said, watching them curled around her glass.
She laughed. “No, I don’t.” She stuffed them out of sight, at her sides.
He reached for her wrist and she let him bring it closer. “I noticed at dinner. You were the only woman not wearing nail lacquer.”
“That’s because I don’t like to draw attention to my least attractive feature.”
“But they’re lovely.” He smoothed the fingers onto his palm and she let him. “These are the hands of an artist.”
“You’re nuts. They’re burned, scarred, banged up by years in kitchens.”
He stroked her fingers. “A warrior’s hands, then.”
“More so than an artist’s.”
“Well, I think you are a little of both.”
He brought her wrist up to his mouth and kissed it, loving the smooth, soft feel of her skin, the skip of her pulse beneath his lips.
He noticed a white scar with a line of Xs emerging from the base of her thumb. He traced it with his fingertip and felt a quiver run through her. “What happened there?”
“I was in a hurry. Tried to core an apple with a carving knife and the apple broke. I don’t recommend it. I think I had seven stitches.”
“So noted,” he said, and kissed the line of Xs.
“Is this one a burn?” He traced the discolored, puckered shininess on the side of her hand.
“Yes,” she said, her voice growing husky. “Industrial oven accident.”
He touched his tongue to the mark.
Chapter Six
He’s making love to my hands, Rachel thought in amazement, my ugly, scarred, chef’s hands.
Jack was bent over her, studying her like a very sexy palm reader. His hair was short, but thick. She glimpsed the back of his neck, the pale skin corded with muscle. She felt the warmth coming off his body, smelled the clean, somehow English scent of him.
“These are your war wounds. Honorably acquired and therefore beautiful.” He kissed the misshapen nail on her left hand and she told him without being asked about the time she’d slammed it in the restaurant fridge. She watched him bending over her hands, so intent on her. So interested. Amazement washed over her along with a wash of lust that left her weak-kneed.
Sex in her marriage had been about getting to the main event as fast as possible, reaching orgasm and going to sleep. She thought she and Cal must have had the most time-efficient marriage bed in the state of California. She’d got to the point where she could slide a batch of cookies or muffins in the oven and go have sex. They’d both have their climax, Cal would be snoring, and she’d be back in the kitchen with minutes left before the oven timer chimed.
Cal hadn’t been much for experimentation in bed-he’d found what worked and stuck with it. Unfortunately, he hadn’t felt the same about marriage in general.
Now, here she was, with a man who considered her scarred hands worthy of kissing. His tongue touched her fingertips and heat traveled through her body. When his
lips brushed her palm, warm and slightly damp, she wanted to whimper. She started to tremble, deep inside. She’d been on the verge of leaving, thinking she was crazy to throw herself into bed with this man she’d only met a few hours ago.
But he’d seduced her by making love to that part of her that was the most accomplished and the least attractive. And somehow, she knew that a man who took this much time over a woman’s palm was not going to beat a batch of cookies to the finish.
“If this was a movie,” she said, “some schmaltzy music would play right now and I’d say, ‘Come with me to bed.’”
“Have you been with anyone since your husband?” he asked her softly.
Her hand jerked within his grasp. “That’s pretty personal.”
“So is what we’re about to do.”
She blew out a breath. He let go of her hands but not of her, tracing the curve of her waist until his palms rested lightly on her hips. She liked the warm feeling of connection between them while he looked up with those wonderful, serious, but not-serious eyes.
And looking back at him she found she needed the truth between them. “Yes, I have. I really needed to get the taste of Cal out of my system, frankly.” She shrugged, dropping her gaze to the ancient table where their barely touched drinks sat side by side. “It was quick and clinical.”
“Sounds rather like mouthwash.”
She thought back to the shortest affair of her life. “More like washing my own mouth out with soap.”
“You don’t have to do this,” he said.
She looked down at him, felt the warmth of his hands against her hip, felt breathless with the anticipation that a man who could appreciate and find beauty in her hands was going to be something very special in bed.
“Yes,” she said, bending over to kiss him. “I do.”
His hands were back in her hair, and he kissed her with such enthusiasm that she lost her balance and tumbled onto his lap.
He tasted of cognac, complex, rich, and fiery.
His fingers played in her hair, rubbed her scalp until she wanted to purr, then he began to undress her.