“I was not raised as a marquess’s heir,” Lucasta said, stung that he should think her some poor wilting flower who could not abide the elements. The daughter of Laurence Lithwick was much hardier than that.
“I was not raised a marquess’s heir, either,” Jem replied.
They clipped down Piccadilly past the broad new expanse of Melbourne House, with its extravagant pedimented windows. Just past the tidy brown brick of St. James Chapel, Rudyard turned them down a side alley and into a courtyard behind. Securing the horses to a carriage post, he reached up to help Lucasta from the carriage, and she tried not to curl against him for shelter as he swung her down. She and Bertie clung together like bedraggled swans as he produced a key and let them in through the back door of the establishment. They stepped into a cool, dry storeroom that smelled, unaccountably, like fresh-made bread.
“Halloo?” Jem called, his voice carrying down the hallway that led beyond.
Bertie shook off the droplets clinging to her shawl. “It seems quite deserted.”
“I work my lot rather hard, so I don’t imagine they’d miss the chance for a holiday.” Jem hung his greatcoat and hat on a set of pegs, then reached for Lucasta’s cloak. As her cold fingers fumbled with the tapes, he swept her hand aside and, with swift economy, lifted the wet fabric from around her.
“I d-d-dislike being c-c-cold,” Lucasta chattered.
“I’ll build up the fire in the kitchen—it’s that way.” He pointed. “And perhaps we can cadge of a bit of what Mrs. Coolidge has set aside for supper.”
“You’ve never brought me here before,” Bertie announced. “I’m going to pry about.”
“Don’t steal anything!” Jem called as Bertie disappeared down the hall. Her laugh floated back to them.
“A housekeeper? Kitchen? I thought you were taking us to your shop,” Lucasta said. While Jem went to the hearth and banked it with wood, she drew the wet, limp neckerchief from around her neck and unpinned her hat and apron. She steppedtoward the fire, bringing her wet things, just as Jem stood and turned.
His eyes landed squarely on the expanse of bosom exposed by her fashionably cut open robe. It was one of Mlle. Beaudoin’s creations, a creamy chintz block-painted with rose stripes and intertwining flowers. The damp fabric molded to her body, and the white petticoat clung to the shift beneath, which had already attached itself to her legs. He would be able to see the shape of her body and a great deal of décolletage.
Lucasta sucked in her breath as his eyes absorbed every inch of her. She held perfectly still, feeling her heart pound against her tight stays. She ought to cover herself. She ought to shy away. She couldn’t move.
A curious heat flushed through her, raising the soft hairs on her skin. It was rather like the sensation she got when she heard a new piece of music that she would grow to passionately love. Jem’s gaze tracing her body held her in the same breathless state of suspension.
The brown in his eyes turned darker, a beckoning shadow. She stepped toward him, drawn by an impulse she couldn’t name.
“Ahem.” Jem cleared his throat and stepped away from the hearth, letting her near the revived flames. “What did you say?”
Lucasta’s mind had blanked of all but the image of his captivating eyes, the steam rising from the broad shoulders of his coat, the flex of his muscles in the breeches pressed wetly to his legs, the heat drenching her from his body—no, from the fire.Gracious, girl! Take hold of yourself.She looked for a place to drape her wet things.
“I—er, I am curious why your shop has a kitchen. And a housekeeper.”
“My assistants live above the shop, and I have up to a dozen at any one time.” Jem took her sodden neckerchief. Hiswarm fingers brushed her cold ones, a startling touch. “There was always a kitchen of sorts—the building was one of the first houses built here, back when it was Portugal Street. After a while I noticed that my apprentices were spending most of their wages on dinners at the cook shop and saving very little for their own futures. So I expanded their pay to include room and board, and Mrs. Coolidge came on as cook-housekeeper. I’m afraid she can’t resist mothering them now and again—she raised any number of children of her own.”
The delicious smell of stew wafted from the huge pot on the back of the stove, combined with the fresh loaves wrapped in towels keeping warm in the oven, attesting to the fine meal waiting for the apprentices later. Lucasta’s heart squeezed.
Jem was generous to his employees, a benefactor to orphans like Mlle. Beaudoin, and he had taken in his half-siblings as well as supporting his sisters, when surely that was his father’s obligation.
And she had accused him of being a dandy concerned with nothing more than the perfection of his appearance.
“I expect your apprentices are glad for a bit of mothering,” she said.
As if he were a man at ease in a kitchen, he poured water from a nearby pitcher into a kettle and set it on the stove. He raised his fingers to the elaborate buttons on his velvet coat, then caught himself.
“Do you—er—mind terribly if I remove my coat? It’s damp, and I’d rather?—”
“Of course. I mean, of course I don’t mind,” Lucasta hurried to say. She supposed she ought to turn around or look away. It was such an intimate act for a man to disrobe before her. It was this intimacy that kept her eyes riveted as his fingers worked the row of expensive buttons.
Carefully he peeled the tightly fitted fabric from his shoulders, tugging the sleeves over the lace at his cuffs, then arranged the garment over the back of a chair pulled up to the table. He untwisted his cravat as well, draping the length of linen over another chair.
It was such a domestic scene with their clothes steaming before the fire, the cozy warmth of the kitchen chasing away the chill of the rain, both of them in a state of undress. As if they were at ease with one another. As if they were man and wife.
Her heart tapped against her stays. She was not at ease. She couldn’t take her eyes from the breadth of Jem’s shoulders, the skin of his exposed throat, the shape of muscled arms through the sheer linen of his shirt. The way his waistcoat, so broad around his upper chest, narrowed around his waist. He was a splendidly made man.
She was entirely alone with him. “Where did Bertie take herself off to, I wonder?”
