“Better feathered footmen than none at all.” She stole another glance down the eerie lane. “They keep intruders guessing.”
“So, I’m right in thinking you live here alone.” Rutland’s comment slipped into his mind: a woman with her intellect and beauty would make the perfect poet’s muse. Damn it, the man was not wrong.
“Is that why you’re here? To play night watchman?”
“You know why I’m here.” He advanced to the door, closed his hand around the barrel, and eased the pistol from her grip. Her fingers resisted for a heartbeat, as though testing his strength, before she yielded the weapon. “May I come inside, Miss Woolf?”
She swallowed hard. “I’m in my nightclothes.”
Must she remind him? He kept his gaze on the weapon inhis hand, not the elegant column of her throat, and tried to recall why he’d come. “Fetch your wrapper. I’ll wait at the door.”
A moment passed before she returned, shrouded in a dowdy grey wrapper she’d fastened in a double bow. The glow of the candle in the chamberstick she carried drew his eyes to her full lips, proud cheekbones, and the copper hair bound in a braid.
Still, this felt like an illicit liaison, and he imagined slamming the door shut behind him, pinning her to the wall, and crushing his mouth to hers.
For heaven’s sake, man, pull yourself together!
For this plan to work, he had to preserve indifference. But the fact he was miles from home late at night proved he was anything but. Damn the devil. God willing, he’d be over it soon.
“It’s rather late.” She stepped back and beckoned him inside. “I trust this won’t take long.”
“Time tarries for no one, Miss Woolf. It buries us all in the end.”
“Then let us not waste more of it at the door.”
He crossed the threshold, stooping beneath the low lintel, and entered the sitting room, a fraction the size of his dressing room at Studland Park. It seemed the fire had died an hour ago, though the open book and blanket on the chair said she had been absorbed in its pages.
He didn’t need to glance at the gold-embossed title. A parrot perched in the corner croaked, “The paths of glory lead to the grave.”
Gabriel found himself smiling. “You’re reading Thomas Gray.”
She glanced at the book as if it were a familiar friend. “Indeed.”
“What passage keeps you up so late?”
Her gaze fell to the dying embers. “The idea that beauty and wealth are meaningless. We all return to the earth in the end. A sobering thought, even for the proudest of men, my lord.”
Her reply sounded much like a veiled attack.
“We all have a place. The mistake would be believing some of us are better than others.” He’d be damned before he felt ashamed of his title. “We all know pain, Miss Woolf. We all know heartbreak.”
Her mouth curved in wry amusement. “Even a man as confident as you?”
“Impressions deceive.” He gripped the barrel and returned the pistol. “I believe you know that better than most. Who are you hiding from?”
A mocking laugh escaped her. She turned away, setting the pistol on the mantel as if she might need it again soon. “Must we revisit the same questions? Surely someone so enigmatic detests sounding like a bore.”
A bore? Of all insults, trust her to pick the worst.
“I’ve been called many things, Miss Woolf. Murderer. Rake. Libertine. But never a bore.”
“Perhapsrelentlessis the better word. Few men possess your intellect for seeing beyond the ordinary.”
Pride stirred despite himself. The King’s praise had never touched him as hers did now. “No one could call you a bore. One minute you belittle me, the next you bestow your good opinion. A man might grow dizzy.”
“You are quite confounding.”
“I’ve been nothing but honest.”
