Miranda stiffened her spine. “If you have come with no purpose other than to make light of me, you may go, Your Grace.”
“Ah, and now she dismisses me.” He caught his lower lip between irritatingly even white teeth, considering her with his head cocked to the side. “You are an intriguing woman, Miss Lenox. My lady. Do you know what occurs to me? I seem to recall some recent scandal broth concerning a Lady Miranda Lenox, formerly the Countess of Ammondale. But surely the prim Miss Lenox of this cookery school and the Fallen Countess couldn’t be the same. Could they?”
The Fallen Countess was what the newspapers had begun calling her during her humiliatingly public divorce from the earl. The sobriquet still stung.
“Please leave, Your Grace,” she urged, moving around the desk to escape his unsettling presence, the room itself, and the specter of her past.
“Forgive me,” he said instantly, his expression sobering. “I meant no insult.”
“Then you should not have repeated idle gossip.”
“It was badly done of me.”
“Yes,” she agreed through clenched teeth. “It was.”
Bearing the mockery and scorn she had faced had been worthwhile in her estimation. Anything to escape her unhappy union. But that didn’t mean the wagging tongues, the caricatures, the salacious tales bandied about, didn’t hurt. If her heart had been sufficiently hardened to weather such storms, she wouldn’t have needed to leave Ammondale in the first place.
Whitby startled her by closing the gap between them and taking one of her hands in his. The contact of his bare skin on hers sent a jolt of awareness through her she did not like. The undeniable knowledge hit her that this man was far more dangerous to her than any snake could ever be.
She was attracted to him. Deeply drawn to him in a way she’d never experienced before. And it alarmed her. Because if there was ever a time in her life when she couldn’t afford to make a mistake, it was now.
She tugged at her hand, but he refused to relinquish his grip, and before she knew what he was about, his touch slid to her wrist. Gently but firmly encircling it with his fingers, he startled her by jerking her open hand against his cheek, making her slap him.
She gasped, not just at the sudden motion, but the warmth of his skin, stubbled with the texture of golden whiskers that caught the light and glinted. He hadn’t shaved this morning. Somehow that intimate knowledge didn’t belong to her, and yet she relished it anyway.
“There,” he said, eyes dancing with merriment. “I earned that slap. Please consider it my most sincere apology.”
Miranda couldn’t find her voice. She was shocked, and not just from the blow he’d forced her to give him, but because of the way it had felt to touch his face. Because now she was thinking about other things she ought not. Such as what it would feel liketo have his lips on hers. And because he was still holding her wrist in the same masterful grasp.
She could escape his hold and she knew it, but some foolish part of her liked the way his long fingers wrapped around the delicate bones of her wrist. Liked his hold on her, even in this small way.
“Two thousand pounds,” he said into the silence as he stroked the underside of her wrist with his thumb, tracing over her veins as if they would reveal all her secrets to him.
She blinked, confused. “I don’t understand.”
His touch ventured higher, finding the base of her palm. “I am doubling my initial offer to you. I’ll give you two thousand pounds.”
“For heaven’s sake, Your Grace, why would you pay me two thousand pounds?” Her voice was irritatingly breathless, and her wits were vexingly scattered, her heart thumping madly at his nearness and touch both.
“I am hosting a country house party in Hertfordshire in a week,” he explained. “I wish to have yourcornets à la crèmethere, along with any other confections you find suitable. The house party lasts a sennight. After its conclusion, you are free to return to London two thousand pounds wealthier.”
This was not what she had expected. And Miranda had to admit that it was difficult indeed to concentrate when his thumb was gently, patiently stroking her palm as if he had all the time in the world to touch her.
“How do you know about mycornets à la crème?” she asked, frowning at him.
She had been perfecting the cornets, to be accompanied by cream ice, for weeks now, and although she had allowed several members of her small, inner circle to try them and even serve them at a dinner party, she had yet to settle upon a recipe toinclude in the book of cookery she was assembling. Few people, in other words, knew of their existence.
“A hostess served them to me,” he explained, his voice low and melodious, almost as if he were casting a spell over her. “They were the most delicious morsel I’ve ever had on my tongue, and I can assure you that I’ve had many wonderful delights on my tongue over the years.”
Sinful. There was something sinful about the way he said that. She should be horrified, and yet Miranda couldn’t summon even a modicum of outrage.
“You wish me to provide your house party guests with desserts,” she repeated, trying to keep her wits about her.
It was deuced difficult when he was looking at her as he was, keeping her pinned in his dark-blue stare. When he was saying such wicked things.
“Yes.” He smiled again, the corners of his eyes crinkling in a way she found alarmingly attractive. “Your decadent desserts in exchange for two thousand pounds.”
Her heart pounded faster. Such a feat could be accomplished with ease, and two thousand pounds could solve a host of problems currently facing her. Miranda was tempted.
