“You can set those down, since you won’t be doing any painting this afternoon. You have other chores that will be occupying your time.”
“Chores?” She tossed back her head on a light laugh. “How quaint. I am a lady, and as such take part in activities. I do not do chores.”
“Do them or not, you’ll be trying your hand at a few this afternoon. My men and I found most of the tools, by the way. You’ll be helping me locate the rest.”
Fiddlesticks. How could they have discovered them so quickly? And to think of all the effort she and Betsy had gone to last night to hide the pesky things.
“You have me at a loss.” She shrugged. “I know nothing about any tools. Are some missing?”
He delivered a loud, disbelieving snort. “You’re a corker, girl, you surely are, and slick as a selkie with the lies. Go on now and set those belongings of yours inside the house, then we’ll be off.”
She straightened. “I am on my way to the fields to practice my watercolours. If you have misplaced some tools, I wish you luck in finding them.”
“If we’d had luck, I wouldn’t need you to point out their location. So you’ll be accompanying me.”
“How would I know where to find them?”
He fixed her with a long, hard stare that nearly made her squirm. She held out for a full minute. “All right, all right, perhaps I have some idea where they might be. But I fail to see why you’re so upset. If you really consider the matter, I did everyone a favor.”
His brows shot high. “And how do you figure that, lass?”
“By giving your men a day of rest.”
“Is that what you believe? That they’ve been idle? Quite the opposite, they’ve been searching under every bush and rock and tree on the estate, hunting for the tools. They haven’t had a day off, they’ve had a wasted day. And for what? So you could get a few extra hours’ sleep.”
“It wasn’t only for me.”
“Of course it was. No one else of my acquaintance has been complaining about the time except you.”
“That’s because they are used to early hours. And because you keep them under your thumb. Your dictatorial thumb.”
“If I were that, lass, you wouldn’t have gotten so much as an inch out of me. My only fault is that I refuse to let you take a mile. Enough now, you’ve got tools to find.”
“Mr. O’Brien, surely you cannot be serious about having me accompany you to search the grounds?”
“Why not? You didn’t have any trouble traipsing about last night in the dark. This time you’ll have plenty of sunshine to light your way.”
Lower lip puffed out, she crossed her arms. “But I am going painting.”
“You can paint later. After we’ve found the tools.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
She shook her head. “You have no right to insist I do anything.”
“Your antics have given me the right. Enough talk, we’ve work to do.”
Before she could prevent it, he reached out and grabbed the hamper and paints from her hands. She made a desperate attempt to fend him off, but lost her parasol as well for the effort.
Turning, he placed all her painting paraphernalia inside the house, then closed the door with a light bang.
“You are a brute.”
“And you’re spoiled and selfish.”
Her lips quivered. “I am not selfish.”
“Come along, then,” he said, taking hold of her elbow, “and prove it.”
Burning with silent indignation, she allowed him to lead her forward. Knowing there was no point in further protest, she fell into step at his side.
The construction site lay in quiet stillness when they arrived, the usual busy hive of workers absent from the grounds.
“Where are your men?” she asked. “I thought you said they were still working.”
“With all of today’s unexpected disruptions, I sent them home.”
Darragh paused, thinking back upon the morning. Once he’d made the decision to waylay Jeannette and make her pay recompense by ferreting out the equipment she had hidden, he also decided it might be best to do so with a measure of privacy. So he’d sent the men home, telling them to arrive at the site early on the morrow. Luckily, Jeannette’s cousins wouldn’t be looking for her, since he knew Mr. Merriweather spent his afternoons locked inside his laboratory and Mrs. Merriweather usually puttered around in her rose garden on the opposite side of the house.
Jeannette smiled in triumph. “So, the men did benefit from my actions, after all.”
“Not really, since they don’t get paid if they don’t work.”
“They do not receive a salary?” She frowned as if such an idea had never occurred to her.
“Journeymen and laborers are paid for the work they perform. They aren’t house servants, who earn a wage no matter how many or few hours they toil.”
“Oh.”
She looked so chastened that he almost told her not to worry—he was paying the men for the whole day despite the loss. But regardless of the twinge of guilt that crept through him, he remained silent.
Crossing to the small wooden table that held his papers and plans, he leaned over and retrieved an inventory list written out in a neat hand. “This will tell us what we’ve yet to find.”
He picked up an empty wooden toolbox and a pencil before stalking her way. Gently, he urged her forward.
“Lead on, MacDuff.”
“Mac who?”
“MacDuff. It’s Shakespeare. Even a common fellow like me knows that. Now take me to those tools.”
Jeannette huffed out a breath as she walked, O’Brien looming at her back. She did her best to ignore him as she strolled across the verdant lawn, late-summer grass plush beneath her slippers.
“Where do you expect me to begin?” she asked.
“Where did you start last night?”
She scanned the grounds. “I can’t recall for sure. Even with the moon it was rather dark, it being night and all. But I believe I began at that shrub over there.” She pointed toward a large mulberry bush. “Did your men search beneath?”
O’Brien shrugged. “I can’t say, since we spread out to cover as much ground as possible. Appears the best method will be to start the process anew.”
She met his complacent expression with an alarmed one of her own. “Surely you are not suggesting we search under every shrubbery and rock and bit of tall grass in the place?”
“Aye, if you think there’s a chance we’ll find some tools hidden there.” He tapped a finger against his list. “Until everything on here is located, we’ll keep up the search.”
“But…but that could take hours.”
“You’re right, it could. So we’d best be on about it, hadn’t we now?”
Dismay poured through her, together with the urge to tell him to go to the devil. She quashed the feeling and waggled an imperious set of fingers toward the bush. “Very well, look beneath and see if you find anything.”
Instead of obeying, O’Brien shifted his stance and crossed his arms.
“Well, what are you waiting for?” she questioned.
“For you, my lady. Under the circumstances, it seems only right to me you should be the one doing the searching.”
“You expect me to crawl under bushes? But my clothes…” she protested.
“You didn’t worry about your clothes last night. You’ll be fine. Now, you’d best get a move on.”
“But—”
“Don’t fret. I’ll be here to keep tally of whatever you find, and I’ll carry the toolbox as well. I wouldn’t want a delicate lass like yourself taking an injury, after all.”
“You’ll carry the toolbox?” she exclaimed, hearing her voice rise to a high pitch. “Why…you…you…”
Breaking off, she felt herself quiver with indignation. Tears rose up behind her lids but she blinked them away. She would not let him see her cry, nor would she run. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to run, she
did, but knowing him, he would give chase, catch her and bring her back to finish the task!
His blue eyes infinitely patient, he waited for her to proceed. Aware he had her neatly boxed in, she mumbled an unintelligible curse, then paced to the bush, pushed the foliage aside and bent at the waist to search underneath.
And so it went, the pair of them moving from one location to the next, Jeannette locating tools here and there for O’Brien to check off his infernal list and place into the toolbox.
The sun was past its zenith, hot perspiration dampening Jeannette’s face and dotting the fabric of her gown by the time she flung a final tool into the box.
Back aching, she straightened, then pressed a forearm to her moist brow. “There, that is all of them.”
O’Brien perused his list. “Says there’s one last wrench yet to be found.”
This time she didn’t want to cry, she wanted to kill. She restricted herself to a glare. “If you want that wrench found, find it yourself. I’ve looked under my last shrub and I’m not looking further.”
Darragh hid a grin, realizing he’d pushed her as far as she could possibly be pushed. To give her credit, she’d held up better than he’d ever expected, throwing herself into the task with a martyred determination worthy of a saint. Looking at her now, drooping and bedraggled, he imagined she had more than learned her lesson. He seriously doubted she would ever hide another tool in her life, even if she lived to be a hundred.
Bowed but clearly unbent, she thrust her chin in the air. “If you are done torturing me, I should like to leave now.”
“Aye, you should be going on inside before you’re missed. But first you ought to tidy up a bit. You’ve mud on your cheek.”
Without considering the streaks of dirt on her hands, she wiped at the spot.
He hid a smile. “Now you have more.”
Setting down the toolbox, he reached inside his pocket and withdrew a linen handkerchief. “Here now, let me see to that for you.”
He rubbed the cloth against her skin, and although it cleaned away some of the dirt, it didn’t remove it all. Glancing at the ornamental pond only feet away, he urged her across with him, then bent down to wet the handkerchief.
“Let’s try this again.”
Jeannette knew she should have taken the cloth from him and wiped her own face clean. Instead she stood quiescent and let him do the work, vividly aware of his strong yet gentle fingers as they stroked the linen across her skin. She held steady and fought the urge to tremble, assuring herself the need came from weariness and nothing more. After everything he’d put her through today, how could she feel anything except outrage?
Yet she did not pull away when he finished cleaning her cheek. Nor when his hand stilled, his eyelids drooping as a lambent gleam of desire caught fire in his vibrant eyes.
Time slowed, the world narrowing until it seemed nothing existed save the two of them.
Then his mouth was upon her own, his lips taking hers in a series of gentle seductive kisses that left her unable to catch a satisfactory breath. A tiny voice in her brain whispered against him, warned her to resist and pull away. But he tasted too delicious. Smelled too good, the warm, earthy, masculine scent of him muddling her judgment and devastating her senses.
There ought to be a law against such pleasure, she mused in a dreamy haze. No man should have the right to turn a woman as gooey and pliant as melted chocolate with nothing more substantial than a touch. Certainly not a man like Darragh O’Brien. A rogue and scoundrel who seemed to delight in tormenting and teasing her. A man who only minutes before had been marching her around her cousins’ estate like some prisoner, forcing her to labor in ways no lady ought to be forced to endure.
Yet here she was, letting him kiss her, and enjoying it to boot! Suddenly her thoughts pierced through the haze of pleasure ensnaring her, brutally reminding her where she was and precisely what it was she was doing.
“No!” She panted, mustering the strength to wrench her lips from his.
He stared down at her, his features sharp and hungry with passion. Eyelids lowering once more to half staff, he bent to feast yet again upon her mouth.
She forestalled him with a hand. “No.”
He paused. “Why not, when I can tell you’re as keen for it as I am?”
She stiffened. “I am not keen for it,” she lied, deliberately wiping a hand across her lips. “I didn’t like it at all. It’s just…just that you took me by surprise.”
“If you’d been surprised, you’d have let out a protest at the start. Or are you in the habit of letting a man kiss you senseless before deciding to push him aside like a tease?”
Her hand flashed upward to strike but he caught her wrist before she could land a blow.
“There’ll be none of that now,” he chastened. “Admit the truth, since both of us know you like my kisses.”
She twisted in his hold.
He held her steady. “Come on, lass, just say the words. I’m waiting.”
“And you’ll go on waiting. For an eternity would be my guess.”
“I see I’ll have to wring a confession from you, then.”
Before she could utter a sound, he swooped, taking her mouth in a lush, fevered claiming that held nothing back. Crushing her against his rugged body, he plundered her lips with dizzying skill and a determination that sent her reeling out of control.
Jeannette tried her best not to respond this time, holding her body stiff and uncompromising within his arms. She would not give in to his kisses, she told herself. She would not yield, no matter how infinitely sweet his touch. But merciful heavens, he had a way about him that was all but impossible to resist. He was the very devil sent to earth to plague and beguile her.
So despite the cool dictates of her mind, her body began to burn, quickening with an ardor that turned her knees to jelly, her blood to molten lava sizzling through her veins.
She made one last muffled murmur of protest before her mind melted too, whimpering when he swept his nimble tongue between her lips to stroke her teeth and tongue, to caress the sensitive flesh of her smooth, inner cheeks. She quivered and went under like a storm-tossed ship at sea.
Abandoned to the power and pleasure of his embrace, she moaned and arched against him, sliding her hands up to cling tighter to his wide, resilient shoulders. She kissed him back for all she was worth, seeking his tongue as it retreated from her touch, wanting to play with him the way he was playing with her. Their kiss went on for a breathless, impossible span of time before he set her from him, breaking the kiss with a startling, shattering abruptness.
Winded and weak, she peered up into his face, her passion-dazed senses clearing abruptly when she read the mocking I-told-you-so in his expression, the gleam of undisguised satisfaction for a lesson well taught.
Too late she understood. Too late she realized just how splendidly she had been baited into his trap. How, all the while she had been melting against him, he had been in full control and command. How, like a bee lured into a bottle of sugar water, she had been neatly caught. Her stomach somersaulted but not from desire this time, reawakened hurt curdling like sour milk in her belly.
Yet she knew he wasn’t immune to her touch either, not immune by a long shot. His pupils were dilated, large and black as a moonless night, surrounded by narrow rings of bright, bright blue. His colour was high in his fair cheeks, his breath ragged.
“Well now, still claiming you don’t care for my touch?” he taunted. “Or will you be needing a few more kisses to prove the point?”
She wished she had the time and the place to turn the tables. Wished she could teach him the lesson he so rightly deserved. If she applied herself, she knew she could make him beg for her kisses, despite her propensity to lose her head at his touch. But that sort of revenge would have to wait for another day. Right now she would have to settle for other means of wiping the impudent self-satisfaction off his face.
“Maybe I’d like a few more kisses and maybe I w
ouldn’t,” she purred in a silky tone that made his eyes light in surprise. Stepping forward, she subtly encouraged him to take a step back.
She raked the tip of one manicured fingernail down his chest. “But I do know one thing I would love for sure.”
He quirked a skeptical, yet nevertheless amused brow, letting her coax him back yet another step. “And what would that be, lass?”
“This!”
Using the flat of her hands, she shoved at his chest with every ounce of strength she possessed. Normally she’d have been no match for him, but offended pride and the element of surprise worked in her favor. Back he went, his boot heels sinking into the soft soil around the pond’s edge.
Leaping out of reach as he careened backward, she watched him frantically try to catch his balance. He flailed his long arms in wide arcs, feet shuffling, a comical look of shock decorating his bold features as he tried desperately to save himself. Seconds later he hit the water, a loud, messy splash arcing upward before he sank beneath the murky surface.
He came up sputtering, spitting out water and a stream of Gaelic curses she didn’t understand but got the gist of well enough. Wiping his wet face, he shot her a fulminating glower, then slicked his hands over his dripping hair.
She chuckled when he discovered a clump of slimy pond weeds sticking to his forehead. He plucked them off and cast the plants back into the pond with total disgust. Seated chest deep in the water, he paused suddenly before shifting from hip to hip. Dipping in a hand, he yanked out a wrench.
At the sight, she doubled over and giggled with unrestrained hilarity. “Why, you’ve found the missing wrench. How lucky. Shall I retrieve your list and check it off?”
He shot her a glare. “I’ve a better idea. Come over here so you can give me a hand out.”
She shook her head. “You mean a hand in, don’t you? I’m on to you this time, Darragh O’Brien, so keep your distance.”
“And what if I don’t?” he growled, rising slowly to his feet, water sluicing like a falls along his impressive frame.
Deciding she had better escape while the opportunity still availed itself, she hurried toward the house.
The Wife Trap Page 11