Staring down at her plate, she swayed as a wave of despair overcame her. But she inhaled and rallied. She had a mission here, one she’d not formulated until the day she’d learned he served Lady Marsden here in Brighton. She would not waver.
She loved him.
And if he were honest with himself and threw over all those rigid rules that kept them apart, he’d see the wisdom of loving her…and marrying her.
* * *
She was everywhere. Everywhere!
He was hard put to go anywhere she was not.
Hell, it was a party and he’d known she would involve herself. But did she have to charm the likes of every man there? Even those whom Simms knew sought the hand of one of the Craymore sisters found his Eliza charming. Trevelyan, too. Even Riverdale whom he’d always trusted…but that was in France when they’d worked together and no woman had ever come between them.
Hell, he was being asinine. Riverdale had no idea he was infatuated with the daring, darling Lady Elizabeth Kent.
Christ, he was losing his mind.
“I say, Simms, are you well?” Griff, the earl of Marsden, approached him frowning.
It neared noon of the full second day of the house party and Simms was busy supervising the laying out of luncheon. The guests were holed up in the house like piglets in a tiny pen because of the snowstorm. None had been able to go out for the planned skating party and so it fell to the staff to ensure they were entertained. Plenty of food all day long laid out on the sideboards. Wine, brandy and champagne available in the dining room, library, billiard room and even the breakfast service. All of them drank like they were living in the Egyptian desert. He hurried downstairs to his wine cellar for another six bottles of Frenchvin rouge.
He extracted his keys from his waistcoat pocket to unlock the door. But when he inserted the key, he heard the tumbler lock. Hmm. He must’ve left the door unlocked when he was down here last night.
He was tired. And distracted.
Eliza was draining his logic. And he must not permit her to—
“Good afternoon,” she chirped in her sprightly manner. She sat at the back of his wine cellar upon his stool. She’d found his pewter candlestick and had lit the large candle he always kept here. She wore a lovely gown of woodland green. The flickering flames cast enticing rays of soft yellow and pink upon her flawless face.
“What are you doing here?” He cocked one hand on his hip, torn between chuckling and scolding her.
“Obvious, I’d say. You are remiss to leave the door unlocked. All manner of folk could invade your domain and make off with hoards of goods.” She gave him her little twinkling shrug of good humor.
“I’m glad you discovered my failure instead of someone else.” She wore the light cologne of ashes of roses that filled his senses with the need to find her pulse points with his lips. “Here for a bottle to take to your room?”
She trilled in laughter, clutching her knee as she leaned back upon the stool. “I thought you’d open one for both of us.”
“Not done, my dear girl.” He should shoo her out the door this minute. But part of him—a greatharddeal of him—wanted her right where she sat. The devil in him, playing with him, he certainly did recognize. “If you need a good splash, I’m the man to give it to you. What is your choice?”
“Hearty flavor. I’ll take your suggestion.”
He busied himself with lifting her candle, surveying his shelves and finding the right bottle to open. What he chose was an old vintage of Burgundy, dust on it so thick he had to extract his handkerchief to wipe down the top. Even in the dark, he saw he had ruined the white fabric. Never to be restored to its beauty, even with bleach. In the service of pleasing Eliza—in the interest of pleasing one of Lady Marsden’s guests—he could justify it. He took his time and care removing the cork. He did keep glasses here in his room for his own tasting of wines he suspected of having passed their prime. He upended one and poured a draught for her, then set it before her on the shelf.
“You won’t join me?”
He shook his head. “Not done.”
She took a long slow drink, the delicate muscles of her throat working like supple lures to his senses. How he longed to put his lips to the hollow of her throat justthere, and the flex of her jawthere. She put down the little glass and met his gaze, dark intent to his own.
“Tell me why you are in service,” she demanded in a straight-forward appeal.
“I’m happy to have an income.”
“That,” she said with tinge of anger, “is not an answer.”
“It is. Do you not see those in the streets in London, begging for a penny? The government was happy enough to have men don a uniform and pick up a gun to march hundreds of miles though mud and ice and sleet and blood. But will they give the poor bastards a pound to buy a bit of bread?”
This was not a topic he ever thought to broach with her.
