She cleared her throat and looked up at him. “How unexpectedly magnanimous you have become.” Her voice was lower. She spoke, rather than proclaimed. “How glad I am. And now I will match your generosity and respond in kind.” She shook her head, tossing the errant curl back.
He raised one eyebrow.
“I will only require the use of this passage for the span of one week. After that, my own stairs will be complete.”
“What?”
“Yes, that’s right. I’ve just learned, my central stairwell will be ready in far less time than I imagined.”
There was six inches between them, and he closed it. She hit the wall behind her with a bump.
“What idiot promised you completed stairs in a week?” He propped a hand over her head.
“My lead carpenter,” she assured him, staring at his cravat. “I wrote him as soon as we made town. He was kind enough to dispatch a return note this morning. He assured me that new, passable stairs will be installed first thing—in a week, he said, more or less.” She began to inch to the side.
He widened his stance, blocking her with his boot. “One week? Is that so? And what kind of stairs are these? Assembled in one week?”
“Oh, they’re quite grand really. They will rise up from the center of the rotunda with a gentle curve that ends at a landing. The landing goes right and left and hangs above the room. Like the current stairwell, the balcony is rotted, too, but I’ve been assured all of it can be fixed, good as new.”
“Do the stairs, I wonder, rise up from the floor—a solid ramp with walls beneath the steps, supporting them—or does the stairwell appear to float upward, extending from the wall into open space? Supported by beams?”
Piety nodded enthusiastically. “They do appear to float! The rotted stairs are quite dilapidated, but I can tell that, at one time, they were stunning. I wish for exactly the same effect when we restore them. My carpenter, as I’ve said, has assured me he can deliver.”
“Deliver?” repeated Trevor. “Yes. Within a week or even two? Not likely—not at all, in fact.”
Her eyes widened. She scrunched her small, perfect nose. “Oh, and you profess to know?” She arched a brow in challenge.
Her upturned face, the wrinkled nose, the sharp dare in her eyes—it was nearly too much. He growled and shoved off the wall, spinning away. Before he could stop himself, he said, “I do, in fact, profess as much.”
She laughed. “Call me a provincial American, my lord, but it would never occur to me that a nobleman might know the first thing about building a stairwell.”
“You’re not provincial, Miss Grey, merely ignorant about my life.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off. “The earldom may be suffering a handful of financial missteps at the moment, and perhaps the title was never meant to come to me, but the truth is that my grandfather was earl, and I was educated to Oxford.” He turned to face her. “Where I studied architecture.”
She blinked at him and then nodded. “I did not mean to imply that you were not a scholar, my lord. Only that you were not a carpenter. Believe me, if I’d known you were capable, I would have offered you sixty pounds to repair my stairs yourself, rather than bothering either of us with the passage.”
“I don’t want to build your bloody stairs, Miss Piety Grey,” he said firmly. “I don’t want anything to do with you or your doomed home restoration at all.” He strode back across the room, herding her into the wall, and planted his hands on either side of her shoulders. He nearly did it then—nearly descended on her mouth and kissed her until neither of them could breathe. Her face was inches from his. He only needed dip down to taste her.
“Why can they not build the stairs in a week or two?” she whispered.
He snatched his gaze from her mouth and stared at the wall beneath his hands. “They cannot build the stairs,” he said authoritatively, “as anyone with even a cursory understanding of construction would know, because a grand staircase like you described—curved, floating, as you said, above the room—requires cantilevering. Each step must extend deep, deep into the wall beside it, so that it may support the weight of use, so that it won’t collapse when you walk on it.”
“But there are pillars,” she said.
He drew breath to sigh, long and frustrated. “The pillars are not nearly enough. They are more ornamental than functional. Only when the steps are anchored in the wall, will the structure be safe. And the wall itself, mind you, must be secure and strong and entirely free of weakness or decay. To do the job properly, plaster must be removed, and the structural integrity of the wall must be assured. Then the wall must be rebuilt around the long treads. It’s complicated, and that doesn’t even begin to address the curved banisters, which must be steamed and bent in a workshop by a specially trained craftsman across town and transported to the job by carriage.
“Time,” he continued. “Miss Grey, all of this takes time. Much more than two weeks. Perhaps they can stack together some basic tread-and-stringer construction for current use, but not your grand staircase. Do you see?”
He looked down at her, satisfied that, at last, he’d articulated something that might resonate with her.
“But I need it built now,” she said relentlessly. “Right away. Every room, upstairs and down, must be a flurry of activity. I cannot be seen sleeping in the kitchens. I need bedrooms, washrooms, long walls lined with wardrobes for my dresses. I need progress. I need to live in this house.” She leaned back against the wall and slid downward.
To sit.
On his floor.
He blinked, watching her descend. Past his chest. Past his bloody groin. Between his knees. She sat down on his floor, her bare feet and ankles sticking out from beneath her skirt like sweets from a pouch.
Fantastic, he thought, turning to the windows. As if wild-haired, unbuttoned, shoeless, stocking-less, and damp with sweat were not enough.
“Stand up,” he said harshly, “if you please.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I am asking you to stand up.”
“Yes, of course,” she began, collecting her skirts. “How callous of me to sit on the floor, but you have no furniture, and—”
Growling, he reached down, yanked her up, and snatched her to his chest.
Without another word, he lowered his mouth to hers.
It was a hard kiss, full-on and open-mouthed. It had everything to do with proving a firm point and frightening her, and nothing to do with tenderness.
In the beginning.
He hadn’t expected her to melt into him. He hadn’t expected her to grab the sides of his vest in fistfuls. To hold on. To fall closer.
He hadn’t expected her to kiss him back.
Almost immediately, he slowed—not to wind it down, but to prolong it. Kissing her was like taking a hasty bite of something he hadn’t expected to find quite so delicious. Something warm and sweet and too sumptuous to be gobbled up in passing, without giving it its due. Without savoring.
Before he realized the motion, he’d locked his arm around her waist, sealing her against him. With his other hand, he touched her hair—finally, her hair. He lightly brushed the tips of the curls and then he buried his hand in the shiny, disheveled mass of it, reveling in the softness.
They remained locked in an embrace far longer than he knew. Long enough for his hands to leave her waist and hair and roam her shoulders, exploring the hollows of her neck, and then downward over her arms, her back, her small, curved waist.
Long enough to know he wanted much, much more.
But then she was moving, tugging backward, pulling away.
He was loath to let her go—loath to even use his brain to think—but he reared back and stepped away. Two steps. Another.
The retreat made him angry; angry like a thirsty man robbed of water after one sip. Everything about the embrace suddenly seemed wildly insufficient.
He wanted to snatch her back, to toss her over his shoulder.
“That,” he said, breathing heavily, “is the result of your behavior today. In case you were not aware.”
She stilled, and he advanced on her. “You cannot scuttle around, half dressed, your hair unkempt, entering my home alone, inciting me, tempting me. Do I make myself clear, Miss Grey? Because, God help me, I cannot promise that this is the last of it.
“If this be the result of your second-only jaunt through my music room,” he continued, “what will happen next? I’ve given you free rein, but I still live here; I’ll still eat in the kitchens and sleep down the hall. With this liberty comes responsibility,” he said, feeling like a self-righteous prig yet unable to stop. “It . . . it . . . it starts with wearing shoes and goes up from there.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Well how do you like that?
Piety dropped her hand from her mouth. She blinked several times, willing the room to swing back into focus. She stumbled forward two steps. Her back was to him, thank God. He could not see . . .
See what?
She was endeavoring to control her breathing and steady her nerves, but it was not as if she was about to dissolve into tears. She felt no compulsion to slap him or to shake her fists in the air to rail at him, Lord Falcondale, how dare you!
The truth was, she knew exactly why he had kissed her. She’d goaded him, tempted him. She all but dared him.
Why have I even come? She wondered, glancing around. Again?
It had been his first question—an entirely legitimate one—and her excuse had been meaningless blather. She was here because she was curious. About him. Curious about his volatility. About his bitterness. About his refusal to cooperate. And yet, there was something more. Something in his eyes, perhaps. Desire? Yes, yes. She’d spotted that right away. Piety could fill a thimble with what she knew about men, but she could identify a hungry gaze when she saw one.
No, it wasn’t that. Well, it wasn’t only that. There was also deeper yearning, a sort of last-ditch hope. He was suspicious to her, but was it an optimistic sort of suspicion? Did such a thing exist?
She couldn’t put her finger on it, really; there were so many unanswered questions. Perhaps that’s why she was here. Curiosity. If only it were strong enough a term.
The more he spoke—telling her she could use the passage, explaining the bit about the stairs, warning her about propriety, scowling at her with more longing than menace—the more intriguing he became.
And he argued with her. As if she were a worthy and threatening adversary, he fought back. Naturally, she was tempted to argue more. He spoke to her as if she held as many cards as he did. As if she mattered.
She was, after all, a human female, with girlish weaknesses, just like any other twenty-five-year-old, unattached young woman. Unattached by choice, she reminded herself, because, unlike most—ahem—spinsters, she actually believed in distinguishing between one fabulously wealthy man and the next. How ironic, then, that the one man she distinguished to be intriguing happened to be not particularly wealthy nor possess any of the qualities she’d always sworn mattered. No generosity of spirit. No lively conversation. He wasn’t even pleasant.
Well done, Piety, she chided herself. You’ve managed to find yourself intrigued by the one man who can actually make your life more difficult than it already is.
And, finally, most ridiculous of all, the man was stirring. The towering height, the broad shoulders. He wore only a vest and a crisp white shirt—not even a new shirt, not even a nice shirt—perfectly fitted, unadorned, unassuming, yet entirely appropriate for a gentleman. Not flashy. Not vain. Just . . . right.
And he never smiled. Even when she beamed at him. He simply looked back at her. Looked at her as if he dare look away, he might miss something important.
Sometimes, he even looked tempted to smile.
Tempted. By her.
She took a deep breath. Could there be a worse time to succumb to girlish whimsy? To notice crisp white shirts and the alleged desire to smile? Her timing had always been wretched, but honestly, of all the moments to finally experience a proper kiss. A real kiss. She gritted her teeth, remembering her first kiss that was not really a kiss at all, when her stepbrother Eli had first cornered her, restrained her with icicle fingers, and suffocated her with his slug of a tongue and shiny, wet lips.
But this . . . this . . .
Piety suddenly felt compelled to say, “I hope you are aware that I am not afraid of you.”
“Well, then, that makes one of us.” He crossed to the window and stared out into the street.
“In fact,” she said, watching him, “I should like to learn the story of your life.”
“Ha!” He laughed bitterly. “If you aren’t afraid now, you will be.”
“Oh, but I think you want to tell me about yourself.”
He scanned her body again, up and then down. “There is something that I want with regard to you, Miss Grey, but it is not to tell you the history of my life.”
“Then why did you tell me about your education? At Oxford? And your knowledge of what it would take to refurbish my stairs? You must have known I would pounce on that sort of information, considering my need for that very skill.”
“I know no such thing. Every word out of your mouth is more outrageous than the next, and I am in complete and utter shock every time you open it.” He stared at her. “I only told you about my years at Oxford because you’ve been trying to bribe me with money—money that I can only guess you assume that I need. I may be selling this house and leaving England, but it would be a mistake to regard me as destitute.” He cleared his throat and returned his gaze to the street.
Piety’s stomach flipped, surprising her. It mattered to him. What she thought.
“I could hardly think of an earl as destitute, my lord,” she said. “On the contrary, I assumed the specifics of carpentry would be beneath you. I was mistaken, and it made me curious. Why do you know so much about cantilevers and curved banisters and removing all the plaster, as you said?”
He said nothing at first, and she turned to study him.
“Sod it,” he said. “The bit about the stairs is common knowledge.” He backed away from the window, roaming the room.
“But it is not common practice,” she said, watching him, “for an heir to an earldom to build his own stairs. To build his own anything.”
“Oh, mine sounds like practiced knowledge, does it?” He glanced at her. “I haven’t built stairs so much as restored them, shored them up. Similar to what your workmen will do first. Most of the boarding houses in Athens were—are—in horrible disrepair.”
“Athens?”
He shook his head.
Oh, you have no idea, she thought and waited patiently for him to elaborate.
He paced a moment more and then stopped and planted his hands on his hips. He tugged on his collar. He ran his fingers through his floppy hair. He appeared rumpled.
Dear Lord. She wanted to touch him.
Thankfully, before she could reach for him, he spoke.
“My late mother,” he said, “became ill some fifteen years ago. She had always suffered from wheezing—a difficulty breathing—her entire life. She was frail and weak. I have come to realize that this is why my father fancied her. Her fragility made him feel strong. Unfortunately, it did not make him feel motivated to seek out proper care.
“I moved to Athens for her. Hauled her there, sick bed and all, and set up house. The warm sea air was meant to be good for her. I was scarcely out of Oxford then. France was at war, Italy was expensive, and I had studied modern Greek in school. Certainly the ancient ruins above Athens appealed to me. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
He’d wound his way back to the window and propped his hip onto the sill.
“Did the climate in Greece help your mother’s condition?”
“It’s difficult to say. She grew worse in other ways.” He squinted at her. “I’ve said
too much already. I can’t believe we’re talking like this. I can’t believe that you’re still here.”
Piety chuckled. “I’m on my way out, I promise. But you cannot stop now. I’ve never met anyone who’s lived in Greece before. Before I go, won’t you finish?”
“There’s nothing more to tell.”
“What work did you do in Greece? Or did your family support you.”
Now it was his turn to laugh. “There was no support from my family. This, I assure you.”
“So you worked as an architect?” she guessed.
“No, I worked as a lackey.”
“But what is that?”
“Our neighbor had a son who was employed by the wealthy landlord of every house on the street—a man who owned half of Athens. This neighbor saw me making repairs to our house and introduced me to the next in command in the landlord’s hierarchy of thugs. They valued my work, and I was hired to recommend repairs for the landlord’s vast array of properties.”
“You built stairways!” Piety was mesmerized. He might as well have told her that he mined for diamonds.
He rolled his eyes. “Yes, I built stairs. And doorways. And privies, and put support beams in cellars.”
“But that’s not a ‘lackey,’ that’s a builder.”
“Yes, well, I did a little bit of everything, working quickly and cheaply. I taught the landlord’s other laborers modern technique. Within a year, I found myself rising in this wealthy Athenian’s property empire. Soon the man himself wanted to meet me.”
“And he loved you on sight?” she guessed again.
“And he loved the idea of me,” he corrected. “He had come from nothing and was obsessed with rank and aristocratic lineage. He had enough money to buy whatever he wanted and a ruthless reputation to match; however, he could not buy social standing or respect. When he learned of my Oxford education and saw my manners, which I’m sure you have noticed are deplorable by English standards, he was dazzled.”
“You dazzled him?”
“I was as shocked as you are, believe me. I cannot remember the last person I managed to impress, nor wanted to impress, but I suppose it didn’t take much with this man, because he instantly promoted me from carpenter to consigliore.”
The Earl Next Door: The Bachelor Lords of London Page 7