“My true purpose in… what?”
She stood now with one hand splayed elegantly across her breast. Matthew was grateful that the tea-gown was modest, covering even her neck with a fanfare of lace. Conservative as it was, though, it did frame her face quite nicely, he noted regretfully.
“In… engaging me.”
She laced her hands before her, a teasing smile upon her lips as she drifted across the room toward him. How could she move so fast while affecting such languor? Matthew replaced his spectacles. His heart sped up.
“I see,” she purred, pausing an arm’s length before him. “And you… lied, then? So that my brother might remain ignorant?”
He swallowed, and nodded.
“Why Dr. Collier, how very kind of you. Being deceitful against your better judgment? For me?” She turned about, her skirts twirling in her wake. “I confess, I’m quite flattered.”
She walked across the room to a couch and lowered herself onto the center of it, like a monarch alighting upon her throne.
Matthew followed her; it was impossible not to. She reigned here, and he, the penitent peasant, was drawn into her orbit, awash in her splendor. He halted before her, towering over her perch upon the couch. She looked up at him from under her dark lashes, and it so recalled his fantasies of her down on her knees that Matthew almost fell to his own.
“And this true purpose is…?”
Matthew furrowed his brow.
“Only that you wished me to instruct Master Caplin in betting on cards and other games, so that he not be such a mark to his peers. I’m sorry, I thought we both understood—”
“Pah,” she said, waving a hand. “I confess I was hoping for an answer a little more exciting than that.”
“Exciting?” he repeated dumbly, feeling flustered. “What other purpose could you have for me?”
She drew in an audible breath, then released it, looking off to the side.
“Oh, I’m sure I could imagine quite a few…” Suddenly she looked back up to him, her gaze burning through him with its intensity. “Couldn’t you?”
All thoughts of Sir Frederick Catton, of Charles Sharples—hell, even of accompanying young Master Caplin to the museum—vanished. Instead there were only him and her, here, locked in this long, heated moment. How he so desperately wanted to fall to his knees, shove her skirts up about her waist, and bury his face between her legs.
“Of course,” she said somewhat sharply, turning away once more.
He wondered if he ought to respond, but she spoke again, her voice now aloof and disinterested.
“What lie did you offer, then? In lieu of the tedious truth?”
Matthew balled his hands into tight fists to keep them from fidgeting.
“That you enlisted me to examine your library. To make sure it was adequate for Henry’s educational purposes. I apologize, my lady, I never should have overstepped my—”
She laughed, cutting him off. He’d never heard her laugh before—not a true one, at least. A smug chuckle here and there, yes. But this was a joyous sound, the pealing of a bell, the trill of a songbird.
Matthew wished very much to make her do it again.
“Examine the library? Why, how charming, how perfect! For I must tell you, then. I’ve a gift for you.”
“A gift?” Matthew asked with confusion.
He could barely keep up with her; one moment she was looking at him as if she wished he’d tear her fashionable little gown from her person, and in the next she’d burst out laughingat his answer, before suddenly turning about and steering the conversation back to the mundane as efficiently as a flag officer.
“Yes, at first to express my gratitude for Henry’s progress, and now for foiling my weasel of a brother’s attempts at prying into my life.” She leaned back into the couch, more at ease than Matthew could recall seeing her. “For that I ought to gift you an entire country,” she said with a wry smile. “Alas, that likely exceeds my poor dead husband’s fortune, don’t you think?”
Suddenly the atmosphere in the room felt different. More intimate. Lady Caplin had never appeared this relaxed before him, nor spoken about herself or her family so flippantly. He felt uncomfortable discussing money, so he declined to answer, his heart still hammering.
Lady Caplin leaned further back into the couch, draping an arm over its back. “I daresay, though, based on your little white lie, that this gift might be more meaningful to you than an entire country.”
