“Do you have a preference in appearance?”
He blinked. “You aren’t playing matchmaker for me.”
“Why not?”
Because he wanted to bed her. He wanted to tear away her demure silk and find all the places where those coppery flecks adorned her skin. Because he wanted to sink his hand into her cinnamon hair and wrap it around his fist and…
Damn it, no. He couldn’t keep thinking this way.
Brandon shifted on the Moroccan leather squabs, his cock stirring, and cleared his throat. “Because I don’t want you to.”
“Why, Brandon? Surely you agree that I did an excellent job of bringing Sidmouth and Hyacinth together, do you not?”
“I’m not certain I would call it excellent.”
“Well, what would you call it, then?”
He thought for a moment, recalling poor Sidmouth dripping all over his floor, learning the news that he was to be a father before an audience and not from the woman he loved. “Untidy.”
Lady Grenfell gasped. “Untidy?”
She was beginning to give him a headache. The woman was a whirlwind, packed inside a thunderstorm, hidden within a maelstrom.Trouble.She was nothing but tempting, ludicrous, wayward, beautiful, utterly maddening trouble.
“Do lower your voice,” he said. “I’d rather not have your coachman think we’re having a lover’s quarrel.”
“Ha! You would have to be my lover for us to have a lover’s quarrel.”
Oh, how his pride stung at the way she scoffed at the notion.
“Yes, but your coachman doesn’t know that, does he?” he ground out.
“John Coachman knows all my secrets. Who else am I to trust, if not him?” she asked defiantly.
Good God, was she saying that her coachman knew whose bed she was warming at any given moment? And why did he hate the thought of her in anyone’s bed but his? Most specifically, in King’s? Swiftly, he banished all such questions from his mind.
“The coachman of your paramour,” he suggested. “Is that not how these matters are usually conducted? With proper discretion?”
“John Coachmanisdiscreet. You can’t have believed I would allow myself to be at the whim of a lover’s coachman and carriage. I see to myself, as I’ve always done. I trust myself, you see. I trust my judgment, and I trust my loyal retainers. They would go to their graves keeping all my secrets for me.”
There was a note of pride in her voice, and yet he couldn’t help but to hear what she was truly saying—that no man had ever taken care of her. He didn’t know if she was referringto what happened in the bedroom, beyond it, or both. But he wouldn’t—couldn’t—allow himself to care. This magnificent woman and her frank sensuality and bold personality and her freckles and gorgeous hair were not a part of his future.
“No doubt they would go early were they forced to endure a carriage ride with you,” he said uncharitably.
“I ought to box your ears for saying something so wretched.”
Yes, she ought to. However, she was forgetting something.
“I happen to be twice your size, madam. To do so would be inadvisable.”
She raised a brow, unmoved. “It wouldn’t be the first thing I’ve done that was inadvisable. After such rudeness, it would serve you right if I were to rescind my offer. However, because I am good-natured, I won’t.”
Her offer.
For a wild moment, he thought she was speaking about her blatant invitation in the emerald salon, her hand on his cock, knowing, stroking.
Then he realized she was talking about bloody matchmaking, and he regained his senses. “I am fully capable of finding a wife on my own, thank you.”
She raised a brow. “And yet, have you found one?”
