Claire turned her head and glared at the both of them. “Sukey, the silver needs polishing. Alice, mind that the pot doesn’t boil over, or there’ll be no stew for your dinner tonight.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the girls parroted in unison, and hurried onto their tasks.
Gabriel set his tray down on the kitchen counter once again, enjoying the knowledge that Claire could hardly banish him from his own kitchen. “Will you take tea with me?” he inquired, as he dropped a lump of sugar into the sole teacup she’d placed on the tray.
“No,” she repeated more stridently, then called over her shoulder, “Betsy, count the onions in the larder, if you please. If there’s less than four, I shall need you to go to market.” She cast out tasks easily, and though he had no doubt that each of them needed doing, neither did he doubt that they were diversionary by design, tailored to cull their audience.
“Surely you can take a few minutes fortea,” Gabriel wheedled.
“I haven’t got a few minutes.” Exasperated, Claire began preparing a secondary tray with quick, efficient fingers. “I’m taking tea up to the nursery.” She seemed to take a particular sort of pleasure in adding gingerbread to the tray, sacrificing what ought to have beenhis.
“I’ll join you.” Gabriel abandoned his half-finished cup of tea. Briefly they wrestled for control of the tray. Claire’s chin thrust up in stubborn challenge, but a wary glance around her must have told her that they were once more attracting attention. She speared him with a firm stare, the sort that would have made a lazy housemaid tremble with dread. It nearly made him tremble, too—though dread had naught to do with it.
He surrendered the tray to her, conscious of her escalating irritation. While she had borne up beneath his constant presence these past few days with a sort of longsuffering air, he didn’t care to test her ill humor any further.
With a disapproving sniff, she turned on her heel and flounced out of the kitchen, and gave a sigh as he followed along after her.
“Have you nothing better to do?” she ground out, and her footsteps fell heavily upon the stairs as she began to climb, years of training enabling her to keep the tray expertly balanced as she did.
“Not a thing,” he said. “A notable benefit of my position is that I may generally do precisely as I please.” At the moment, it pleased him to observe her at her tasks. Which was wearisome enough—she seemed to be in constant motion from dawn until well after dusk, managing his household with diligence and finesse. He had only followed along, but she had supervised nearly every aspect, effortlessly directing more than a dozen servants, parceling out responsibilities and inspecting the results.
In point of fact, she would make an exemplary marchioness. She seemed to know every facet of running a household, and would surely keep it in order. Once she had agreed, that was.
“Do you know,” he said, conversationally, “Westwood once advised me to get myself an opinionated wife.”
Claire snorted, her lips pursing into a moue of scorn. “You despise Lord Westwood.”
He didn’t, actually—possibly he hadn’t for some time now, though it bore little relevance to the matter at hand. “Andyet, he can occasionally be relied upon to display a modicum of wisdom. Somehow I have the feeling you have a great many opinions.”
“A housekeeper has no opinions, my lord.”
By the pugnacious jut of her chin, he took her for a liar. “Admit it. You’ve enjoyed my company.”
She huffed, her chin tilting up still more, and turned as they reached the landing, down the hall toward the nursery. “I havenotenjoyed being the object of so much speculation,” she said. “The rest of the staff will begin to draw certain conclusions.”
“Which would be irrelevant, if you would simply accept.” He shot a glance around, checking for observers, then brushed a lock of hair that had tumbled from its pins back behind her ear. She had been so flustered lately; his company made her nervous and jumpy, and her disquiet had revealed itself in her slight dishevelment, in the way she chewed her lower lip and sent him inscrutable, baffled glances.
He thrust an arm out before her, blocking her passage, and when she paused he bent to murmur in her ear, “I’ll leave my door unlocked for you. Come to my bed tonight.”
Her cheeks turned a becoming pink and the teacups rattled on the tray, exposing her anew. She swallowed audibly and set her shoulders, gritting out, “I am yourhousekeeper. I have a key to every room. Had I wished to come to your bed, I would have done so.”
“Then perhaps I should come to yours.” As she narrowed her eyes and glowered, he admitted, “No, no, you’re absolutely correct—itdoeshave a distasteful air about it, the master climbing into his housekeeper’s bed. You shall have to come to mine after all.”
“I will not—”
“Claire.” He wrapped his fingers around her wrist, felt the flutter and leap of her pulse beneath his fingertips and knew she was not so unaffected as she might have liked to be. Her resolve was formidable, but with the right inducement he could tempt her back to him once again. And again. For as long as it took to catch her forever. “You took me.Youtookme.”
She gave a little start at his blunt speech, and the cups clattered once again on the tray. Her face washed peach, then red, and she darted a glance about before she whispered, “I thought—was it wrong of me to—”
“No. God, no. It was glorious—youwere glorious.”Bait the trap. “But I was selfish. I was content to let you pleasure me. I should have given you more.” He caught the edge of the tray as it tipped, steadied it once more.
Her eyes, those gorgeous dark eyes, warm and velvety soft, went heavy-lidded with remembered pleasure. “You weren’t selfish. I was…satisfied.”
“But not as you could have been. As youshouldhave been.” He slipped his index finger beneath the tight cuff of her sleeve, stroking the delicate skin of her inner arm. “There’s so much more I should have done for you.”
“More?” Confusion seeped into her voice.
Her husband had been an idiot and a villain if she did not take his meaning. Still he pressed his lips to her ear and lowered his voice to a purr. “Yes,more. Had you not exhausted me, I would have shown you. But you left while I slept.”
