He had sounded a mite hysterical, but he wouldn’t relent. His fingers began working the knot of his cravat to prove his seriousness and intent. Stunned expression on her face, she watched, as if mesmerized by his movements. “Well, get to it,” he said.
If that sounded less nanny and more duke, so be it. The woman needed to get out of those clothes.
“I can’t be running around here in the buff, now can I?” she asked, incredulous. “This isn’t the Sandwich Islands.”
Fair point. He snorted and tossed her a blanket. “Any other requirements?”
“Turn around.”
He did as bid, his ears attuned to the sounds of her movement at his back as he removed shirt and trousers before cloaking himself in a musty woolen blanket that the moths had taken a liking to, judging by the number of holes.
“You can turn around now.”
He pivoted and found her wrapped in the gray blanket, her bare toes peeking out. She extended her hand and waggled her fingers. “Hand them over.”
Lucas extended his damp clothes and watched as she draped them all about the hearth. They would be dry in no time at all. He wasn’t sure he liked that idea. He wanted more time with her, not less.
“I’m not much use, am I?” he asked.
“Some, I suppose,” she said, saucy. “The Duke must keep you around for a reason.”
Lucas held his silence. Lie after lie kept stacking up. Soon, they would form a wall too high to see over. And that wall would be impenetrable if he let it happen.
He must tell her his true identity, for what was budding between them held substance.
“You know what I told you yesterday?” she asked, sliding a glance toward him from beneath her eyelashes. “About my dream of a cottage in the country?”
“Yes.” The conversation had occupied the majority of his waking thoughts since.
“This cottage is exactly what I pictured.”
How unaffected she was. For him, this old gamekeeper’s cottage was a useful structure, but mostly an afterthought. For her, she looked at this place and saw a dream unrealized.
“It’s silly.”
He shook his head. “It’s not.”
“I’m an East End girl, and that was a fantasy. Though…” She let the rest of the sentence trail.
“Though?”
“Though, here with us, right now, fantasy is reality, isn’t it?” Somehow, the question emerged both shy and bold.
Could she be hinting at what he thought she was? He went very still so as not to startle possibility away.
“And you, well…” Again, her sentence trailed.
“What about me?”
“You’re the sort of man a woman could see sharing a cottage with.”
“Like fantasy?”
“Exactly like that.”
The look in her eyes… the content of her words… She was, indeed, saying exactly what he thought she was.
He shifted forward on his chair. “But here’s the thing you need to know,” he said, low, intent.
