by Anne Gracie
She stared hard at his nose, trying not to look at his nipples. Her fingers itched to touch them, just to know what they felt like.
His gaze seared Grace and his eyes narrowed. “I was worried about you, you know. Why didn’t you tell me you were riding for the doctor?”
She instantly felt guilty. “I’m sorry. It seemed the right thing to do at the time. Sir John needed his medicine and the doctor—I couldn’t carry the valise, but I could ride and fetch the doctor.”
“I thought the horse had run off into the storm and you’d followed it. So I went back and rode for the doctor on my own horse.”
She felt guiltier. “I know. I realized what must have happened when I got back to the stables. I’m so sorry. But I thought you’d understand what I’d done. It was the most obvious thing.”
He gave her an incredulous look, but all he said was, “I didn’t know hired companions could ride.”
She shrugged. “Some of us do.” It was very hard to concentrate on the conversation with those nipples winking at her. She stared fiercely at his nose.
He raised his brow. “Astride?”
She shrugged again. “Why not?”
He gave another exasperated look, as if to say it should be perfectly obvious why not. “You should have told me you were going.”
“I know—but it never occurred to me you’d be worried. All I could think of was that time was of the essence. And besides, you’d never have let me go, would you?”
“No.” He frowned. “Is there something wrong with my nose?”
She blushed and looked at his ear. “No. If I hadn’t gone, precious time would have been wasted.”
“Speaking of precious time, I thought I told you to change into some dry clothes! You’ve had time enough to do it.”
She gave him an incredulous look. “You can talk about inadequate clothing!” She looked pointedly at his chest. It was a mistake. Her hands itched to touch that golden expanse. She folded her arms.
He shrugged. “My shirt was wet.”
The shrug drew her attention to his shoulders, so broad and muscular. How had she never known that shoulders could be beautiful?
“Oh, so you think I should walk about nak—” She broke off hurriedly. She should know not to talk at all when she was . . . distracted.
“I would have no objection at all to that,” he agreed instantly.
No, of course he wouldn’t! “This dress is woolen,” she explained to his chin. “Wool holds the heat, whether wet or dry. That’s why fishermen wear woolen jerseys.”
“I have not the least interest in fishermen’s attire,” he drawled. “Nor in the properties of wool. I told you to change and I meant it! Do you need any help with buttons or laces? I’m very good with them, very quick and nimble.”
He was outrageous! She forced her mind off those naked, muscular shoulders and said with dignity, “No, thank you!”
He hitched up his breeches, distracting her again. “If I catch you in that damp dress again, you won’t enjoy the consequences!” He took two long steps down the hall, then paused and turned. A smile hovered around the mobile mouth. “Or maybe you just might.”
His smile reminded her of another grievance. “Why didn’t you tell me when we first met that you were Lord D’Acre?”
He raised his brows. “What difference would it have made?”
“None,” she declared, cross with what she was sure was his deliberate obtuseness. “Except that you are Miss Pettifer’s betrothed, which makes your behavior even more atrocious than I thought it was at the time! Whether a groom or a baron, you are still in need of a lesson in manners!” He couldn’t possibly forget that he’d kissed her twice. She couldn’t.
His eyes crinkled. “You can give me a lesson in anything you like, Bright Eyes.” He made it sound . . . almost indecent.
She sniffed, but it was foolish to encourage such grossly improper talk by acknowledging it. “Which is the quickest way to the kitchen?” she asked. “This house, though charming, is something of a rabbit warren.”
His brows rose. “You think it’s charming?”
“Yes, very. Why? Don’t you?”
“Not a bit. It’s ugly and inconvenient.”
“Hush, do not say so—the gargoyle might hear you and you will hurt his feelings,” she said, shocked.
He raised his brows. “Gargoyle?”
“Never say you haven’t seen him? He is downstairs, in the beams above the entry hall. Carved in oak, I think, with the most wonderful face.”
“And this gargoyle has feelings, you say?”
“Yes, of course. He is the guardian of the house, you see. At the moment he’s covered in dust and cobwebs, so the poor fellow must be feeling a bit lonely and neglected.”
His mouth quirked. “Indeed?”
“Oh yes,” she said airily. “You can tell just by looking at him that he’s not the mean and scary kind of gargoyle, but kind and wise and benevolent. He will bring love to this house, just you see.”
His face changed. “I doubt it.”
She continued, “And your house is not ugly at all—it’s delightfully quirky and a little eccentric and it could be made very beautiful, with just a little care.”
He didn’t look the slightest bit interested.
She pointed to the stone stairway behind her. “Those stairs, for instance. I love the way they’ve been worn away by countless feet through the ages and that you and I can place our feet in the dips made by generations of your ancestors. Doesn’t that thrill you?”
“Not a bit. It makes the stairs dangerous.” He turned away.
“Oh.” She was nonplussed by his blunt response. “The kitchen, if you please,” she reminded him. “Where is it?”
“I have not the least idea.”
“What? But you must. This is your—”
“I’ve never been here before today.”
Her mouth fell open. “But this is your ancestral home!”
“My ancestors’. Not mine. You probably know the house better than I, since you found the bedchamber for Sir John.” He frowned as if the purpose of her question had only just occurred to him. “Why do you want the kitchen?”
“I need hot water,” she said absently, her thoughts caught up in the conundrum of a man who had never before seen the family—his father’s—house. And yet he was the legitimate son—he could not have inherited the title otherwise . . .
“Ah, an excellent move,” he said in quite another tone. Distinctly mischievous.
“I beg your pardon?” His tone made her wary.
“You were going to give me a good scrubbing, remember?” He placed his thumbs in the waistband of his breeches. “So let’s find the kitchen together and you can start scrubbing me straight away.” He winked. “I’ll warn you now, though I am, in general, a fine, strapping specimen, there are parts of me that are . . . delicate and should be treated accordingly.”
She utterly refused to look at where those large thumbs were hooked. She said with dignity, “The only reason I wanted hot water is because Mel—Miss Pettifer wants a cup of tea.”
He immediately looked mournful. “So, you won’t scrub me?”
“I’d sooner boil you in oil!” she told him sweetly.
He chuckled and strode off down the hall. She watched him go, admiring his long-legged stride. The sight of his naked shoulders and back was magnificent.
Scrub him indeed. She sniffed, trying not to smile. What nonsense the man talked.
The whole time she was searching for the kitchen, her mind mulled over the question: how was it possible for a man to grow to his age—he must be nearing thirty, she guessed, and yet never have set eyes on his father’s house? It was a mystery. He was a mystery. One minute all mischief and teasing, the next, withdrawn . . .
And oh, how he appealed to her on every level . . .
EVENTUALLY GRACE FOUND THE KITCHEN AND SURVEYED IT gloomily. A stone-flagged, cavernous room, it was unbelievably old-fashioned. She c
ould easily imagine a medieval feast being prepared here; whole pigs and sheep on spits and huge, bubbling cauldrons. Not any civilized meal. There wasn’t even a proper kitchen range. She would have to light a fire and then sling a pot or something over it.
Her sister Faith had once told her about how the soldiers’ wives traveling with the army on the Peninsular had learned to live off the land to supplement the unreliable army rations. Faith seemed to think it a fine and clever skill. At the time Grace had not appreciated it.
Now, as her stomach rumbled, she realized what a skill it was. Melly, Sir John, and she needed to be fed and there were no signs that Lord D’Acre intended to do anything about it.
She remembered the kitchen garden outside. There would be vegetables there. Vegetables could be made into soup. Could Grace march with an army? Could she provide for her family? She could. She was Grace Merridew, soup maker!
She’d watched Cook a hundred times when she was a little girl, though she’d only ever cut out biscuits or mixed cakes under Cook’s eagle eye. But how hard could making soup be? It was just chopping, boiling, and stirring. Surely.
She hurried out to the walled kitchen garden. At first glance she could see nothing but weeds. Then she saw some were in fact herbs, wildly overgrown and going to seed, but still useable. She picked chervil and thyme and parsley.
An investigation of a feathery clump of green produced a few odd-shaped carrots. Taking heart, she pulled up more sprawling plants and found some potatoes and a turnip. Combined with the barley and the slightly withered onions she’d found in the pantry, these would make a fine soup.
She took the vegetables into the scullery and scrubbed them clean, then laid them out on the table with a feeling of satisfaction.
She looked at the big, empty grate and realized with a sinking feeling that before Grace Merridew, soup maker, came Grace Merridew, fire builder. Bother. The kitchen had no conveniently set fire, all ready to light, as Sir John’s room had. She couldn’t even find a coal scuttle or wood box.
She needed to find some fuel. She hoped to heaven it was not all wet from the storm. She lit a lantern and went back outside to search the outbuildings. The first was horridly cobwebby but in it, to her relief, she found a large pile of dry wood and a stump and an ax. There were a few small chips of wood scattered around the stump, but nowhere near enough for a fire. And the big chunks of wood in the pile were enormous—too big for her to carry.
She looked at the ax in dismay. Then took a deep breath. She was going to travel the world and have adventures. She ought to be able to make a fire. Grace Merridew, wood chopper?
She dragged a chunk of wood over to the big stump, the surface of which was scarred with a thousand ax marks. She put the chunk on the stump, then picked up the ax. She felt the blade. Sharp, but not so sharp it would cut her foot off if she missed. Thank goodness.
She took a deep breath and lifted it over her shoulder in the way she’d seen men do it. Then she heaved it downward with all her might! It came down with a satisfying thunk—and embedded itself in the floor. Bother!
She battled to get the ax out of the floor then tried again, aiming more carefully. Thunk! The ax was sticking into the wood, but otherwise nothing had changed. It obviously took more than one blow.
Grace wrestled the ax out and swung it again. This time it bounced right off the wood, jarring her wrist and arm horribly. It really hurt. She rubbed her wrist and glared at the ax. She would chop wood! She would!
She swung the ax again. Thunk! It hit the wood but didn’t split it. Chop! She tried again. And again. And again. Her wrist was very sore, but she was getting better and finally she got it right, as the wood split with a tearing sound. It was almost, though not quite, in two pieces. Triumphant, she grabbed it and tried to pull it apart but it was stiff and her hand was sore and it slipped. “Owww!” she cried out.
“What the hell are you doing?” a deep voice behind her growled.
Chapter Four
At times it is folly to hasten; at other times, to delay. The
wise do everything in its proper time.
OVID
GRACE WAS TOO AGONIZED TO RESPOND. HER HAND WAS ON FIRE. She found herself spun around to face him.
“Why are you chopping wood? That’s not work for—” He broke off, frowning. “You’ve hurt yourself.” His eyes dropped to where she was cradling her hand and he muttered something foreign and said, “Let me see.”
Irrationally she tried to pull her hand away. He effortlessly prevented her. “Don’t be silly. I can help.” He gently prised her fingers off the injured hand. “It’s a splinter, a big one.”
He lifted her hand, examining it carefully in the lamplight, handling her with exquisite care. Grace bit her lip. The trick with pain, she knew, was to focus on something else.
She glanced around. She could focus on the spider creeping along the beam overhead, or she could focus on him.
She didn’t like spiders. She focused on him.
Mesmerized by the play of lamplight and shadow over his strong, narrow face, she let her gaze skim the sculpted planes of his cheekbones, the sharp angle of his jaw, dark and rough with the promise of a beard. He was so close she could see the fine grain of his skin, smell him, a faint exotic fragrance threaded through with the scent of man and horses. His mouth was set in a hard line, his lips compressed, angry perhaps.
It was a beautiful mouth. Even when she thought him an insolent, raggle-taggle gypsy, she’d noticed his hard, beautiful mouth, sculpted in clear, sharp lines by some divine blade. It was bracketed by two sharp lines, cutting deep. Not laugh lines; despite that wicked gleam she’d spotted in his eye on several occasions, he didn’t look much like a man who’d gone through life laughing.
He pressed the skin around the splinter gently and she gasped as the pain shot through her. “I’ll get it out, don’t worry,” he said in a deep voice that was meant to be reassuring but which reverberated through her in a most unsettling way.
It was bad enough when he was teasing and being scandalous. Now, when he was gentle and sincere . . .
Thank goodness he’d put his shirt back on.
She managed to say in a light tone, “No, it’s all right. You surprised me, that’s all.” Merridew girls knew how to handle pain. And they knew better than to expose vulnerability to any man, stranger or not. At least Grace did. She was different from her sisters.
His gaze didn’t shift; she felt it burning into her for several endless moments. He was so close, she could feel his breath on her skin. For one long instant, she thought he was going to kiss her. She glanced up at the spider on the beam. “Look at all those cobwebs. Your fiancée, Miss Pettifer, would hate this place. She loathes spiders.” That would remind him.
“Does she?” he said in an uninterested voice and returned his attention to her splinter. Her hand throbbed. She stared at his bent head. His hair was thick and black and waved just a little. It was a little longer than was fashionable. One lock fell over his forehead. Her hand lifted, as if to smooth it back, but she caught herself in time.
Good God. She’d been about to slide her fingers into that thick, inky pelt. Would it be soft to touch or springy? She shivered. She didn’t want to know. He was a stranger, her friend Melly’s affianced husband. What had come over her?
Exotic, that was the word for him. Exotic and somehow . . . alluring. What nonsense, she told herself. Men couldn’t be alluring.
The lines around his eyes, they’d been made by sunshine. His skin was tanned, unfashionably dark. And what ancestry had given him those eyes, those strange, compelling eyes. They were—She jumped as the dark sweep of lashes rose and she found him staring back at her. His eyes, his mouth were only inches from hers. Mesmerized, she stood caught in his gaze for what seemed like forever. She swallowed and licked her lips.
His gaze dropped to her mouth and intensified. She could hardly breathe.
“I don’t suppose you have a pair of tweezers on you?”
The golden eyes heated. He gave a faint, fatalistic shrug. “Then I’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way.” Without warning his mouth settled over her palm, over her injury, warm and firm.
The unexpectedness of it caused her to curl her hand involuntarily; she found her fingers cupping his face. Before she could move, he clamped his hand over hers preventing her from moving it away. His gaze locked with hers. She could not break it. She felt helpless, unable to move as she was drawn deeper into that compelling golden intensity.
He was just extracting a splinter, for heaven’s sake. She closed her eyes to shut him out.
It was a mistake.
Without that glittering predator gaze on her, her other senses were free. Free? They ran rampant, though she didn’t move a muscle. His unshaven jaw was hard and prickled deliciously against her soft palm. His tongue explored her skin, delicately, almost sensuously. Every tiny motion rippled through her body and gathered momentum, setting off strange quivers deep inside her. Her toes, locked in her sensible half boots, curled. A long shudder rippled up her spine and her knees felt suddenly weak. She found herself clutching his arm with her other hand.
He moved, angling his body around her, to get a better grip, she supposed, but oh! He was so close. His big, hard body was half wrapped around her.
She tried not to notice, to block it out as she had with the pain—he was just extracting a splinter—but the intense heat of him seeped into her, making her feel helpless, itchy, restless. His skin was cool but it warmed under her touch. Her fingers moved of their own accord against the hard line of his jawbone, testing that delicious abrasiveness again. She willed them to be still.
Dominic moved, bringing her closer. Slender, soft, and unwillingly aroused. He could smell the moist female scent of her. His pulse leapt in response. He clamped down on it, hard. Now was not the time. Not while she was in pain.
This enchanting little freckled companion would be his. There was no question in his mind.