“So we are back to you making rules for me.” Cassie gripped the collar of her pelisse together in one hand and hunched her shoulders. They stood under the overhang of the Bond Agency’s building, but the damn rain blew in sideways and drenched the bottom of his trousers and her skirts. “What makes you think I’ll listen to them any more now than I did when we first met?” she said through chattering teeth.
He unbuttoned his coat, pulled Cassie into his side, and wrapped the heavy wool about her, tucking her under his arm. He ignored the feeling of her soft breast pressed against his ribs. Ignored the curve of her hip under his hand. Most of all, he ignored the way she fit perfectly against him. “A man can hope.”
“Do you think the agency’s carriage will be repaired soon?” She tucked her fingers in between the buttons of his waistcoat. “A broken wheel shouldn’t be too difficult to replace.”
“The entire axel snapped.” According to Hereford, the shaft looked as though a Titan had crushed it in two. He was shocked that a four-inch piece of lumber would break so easily on a London street.
When Cassie was around, no disaster shocked Charles any longer.
“Oh.” She burrowed deeper into his side.
Charles cursed. At this rate, they’d be standing here when the sun showed her face again the next morn. “Come. We’ll go to my place. It’s closer.”
Taking off his hat, he held it over her face as they hurried down the streets. Wind tossed the hem of his coat up and lashed at his ankles. Cassie ‘eeped’ when they stepped into a particularly deep puddle. He handed her the hat. “Hold this.”
“Wh-why?” she asked, teeth chattering, but did as he asked. She ‘eeped’ again when he bent and lifted her into his arms. He was beginning to enjoy her soft exclamations of surprise. It seemed as though she was the one who did all the shocking and disturbing of his peace. It was nice to put her off balance once in a while. And the little sound was adorable.
He trotted to the end of the block and turned left. A typhoon force gale buffeted him backwards a step. “Jesus,” he muttered, and leaned into the wind. “Almost there,” he told Cassie.
She shook against his chest.
He ran faster, ducking under the overhang of a building. It provided a bit of shelter, but when he emerged out the other side, a torrent of water sluiced over them.
Cassie shook harder.
“Damn it, I’m sorry. I’ll get you dry in a minute.” They should have stayed in the office. What the hell was he thinking taking her out in this?
She raised the hat from her face and grinned up at him.
“Are you laughing?” Finally, he reached the building where he let his rooms. He pounded up the steps and shouldered his way through the front door. When it swung shut behind him, closing off most of the sounds of the raging storm, he could confirm that yes, the daft woman was indeed finding the moment humorous. Perhaps the wet and cold had befuddled her senses.
“It’s just so absurd.” She wiped water from her face. “I don’t think you could have gotten us wetter if you’d tried.”
He climbed the two stories to his rooms, grinding his teeth with every squelching sound his boots made. That was some thanks. He unlocked his door, nearly making a mess of it and dropping Cassie while he fumbled for his key, and was rewarded with yet more of her mirth. He set her on her feet, ignoring the chill that seeped into him at their separation, and slammed his door shut.
Cassie gathered up the hem of her dress and wrung it between her hands. “Lydia and I would always get caught out in storms. I would drag her out on walks, insisting we would make it back before the rain started.” She shot him a slight smile. “We never did.”
Charles dropped his gaze from the hint of thigh she exposed trying to dry off. His palms tingled, remembering the feel of those legs beneath his hands. Around his hips. He strode to his small stove and started a fire. Ever since he’d met this woman he’d known she wasn’t appropriate. She didn’t fit into his life, at least not neatly. He had just been starting to wonder if maybe neat wasn’t all it was cracked up to be when he’d discovered just who she was.
And now he no longer worried about her fitting into his life. Now he knew that he couldn’t fit into hers. She was the granddaughter of a baron. A gentleman’s daughter. She was accustomed to balls and leisurely afternoon teas and pretty trinkets. She deserved all those things. The trinkets he could adorn her with. Money wasn’t the issue. But he was the son of a grocer. A man of the working class. And no matter how much money he earned, that would never change.
He finally knew what box to put Cassandra Moore into. And it was one he could never enter.
A boot went flying across the room to land near his stove. A second. Her stockinged feet slapped wetly across the hardwood floor. “This is your home?” Her voice sounded incredulous.
He looked at his apartments with new eyes. Her eyes. It was small. Sparse. Simple. Just two rooms – his bedroom through the door to the left and the main room with a settee, a chair, one bookcase, and a small cooking area. “Yes,” he said gruffly.
She trailed her fingers over the spines of his books. Dripped her way to the tiny kitchen and peered at the pot, plate, and cutlery stacked on a shelf over the cupboard. “It’s so…organized. Everything in its proper place.” She turned his mug so the handle faced the opposite direction. “It makes me want to disorder things a bit.”
He added more wood to the stove, and heat finally penetrated his wet clothing. He stood. “Come here.”
She sauntered over to him, her teeth digging into her bottom lip. “It makes me want to disorder you a bit.” Her voice was breathy, and it hit him right in his gut.
His cock twitched. “The other night was a temporary lapse. It isn’t appropriate for us to mess about.” Not with the granddaughter of a baron. He unbuttoned her pelisse and peeled it off her shoulders. Stepping behind her, he went to work on the buttons down the back of her gown.
“For someone no longer interested in messing about, you seem awfully eager to disrobe me.”
He jerked the sodden material down past her hips more forcefully than needed. He wouldn’t let her teasing nature distract him from his path. Not again. They didn’t suit, and he would remember it this time. His fingers dug into her gown as he knelt behind her. “Step out.”
