“Wait for what? It’s your house, for better or worse. Everything is yours. And no one is coming to meet us.”
“But surely Mrs. Reed will give us a tour.”
“Kit,” she said, snapping thet. “Come on an adventure with me.” The fingers hovering in front of me wiggled in invitation.
And that was all that I needed. I clasped her hand and let her haul me off the settee.
“Really?” Davina grinned at me, her smile reaching the corners of her eyes.
“Yes, but you’ll have to getmeout of trouble if we find any.”
“I can do that.” With a gentle tug, she made for the door. At the threshold, she peered both directions before towing me along after her.
The hall was dim with the sconces unlit. I vaguely recalled the first room we peered into serving as a music room. There were sheets drawn over the furnishings and cobwebs in the corners.
“How many spiders do you suppose it takes to make that many cobwebs?” I whispered into her ear from my place crowding her against the doorframe.
She whirled around, brow furrowed. “Ugh, Kit! Why would you say something like that?”
“Curiosity,” I said with false nonchalance. “Dozens? Or perhaps hundreds, do you think?”
She let out what could only be termed a grunt of frustration and stomped on my shoe. It was safe to assume she was holding back. I had no doubt she could make me wince if she really wanted to, but her effort was barely a pressure. I bit the inside of my lip, desperately trying to hold back a smile.
“Be careful there, little menace. I could lose a toe and then where would you be?”
“You would be perfectly fine without a toe. You’re lucky that is all I’ve done for that suggestion. I have tosleephere tonight, Christopher.”
I brushed aside the implied threat to my manhood. Her tone was breezy, surely she wasn’t serious. “Ah, but I’m not overly inclined to help those who cause amputation to my person, even minor ones. So you would be stuck here. In Lincolnshire. In this house inhabited entirely by spiders.”
With an impertinent little pirouette, accompanied by a less delicate huff, she continued down the hall to the next room and peered inside.
The billiards room was in a similar state to the music room and I watched, leaning against the doorframe, as she eyed the cobwebs warily.
I tucked a loose curl behind her ear. “Don’t worry, I’ll protect you from wayward arachnids.”
Her lips parted on a breath as she turned to face me. I couldn’t bring myself to pull my improper hand from her cheek. A pink tongue darted between her heart-shaped lips to wet them. I put forth a formidable fight against the groan the sight induced, but if her breathy gasp was any indication, I wasn’t successful.
She pulled away from my hand and trailed deeper along the hall. “Just remember this moment when I wake you tonight with my night terrors. You’ve no one to blame but yourself.”
“I have no regrets,” I retorted, following at a more sedate pace. Her skirts swished in irritation.
“You say that now.”
I stepped forward and caught her hand on the backswing of a flustered step, tugging her back to face me. “I’ll mean it tonight too.”
In the dim of the hall, her eyes were darker. Or perhaps it wasn’t the light. Perhaps her eyes darkened with the same longing I was sure mine showed. And what on earth did that mean? And what should I do about it if I was right?
“Kit...” I could only begin to guess where she intended to take the thought. Regardless, it was interrupted when that curl escaped from behind her ear. And I couldn’t very well allow it to go untucked again, could I? “You have to stop that,” she whispered, low and silken.
I would’ve found the speech more convincing if she hadn’t chosen that moment to lean into my touch, if her hand hadn’t come up, clutching my own as I tried to heed her.
“We’re on a mission,” she added, lacing her fingers atop mine. My thumb was free to trace the bone of her cheek. “Important investigation to do…”
“All right,” I graveled, but made no move to separate.
“We shouldn’t be able to… do this—here. There should be people—footmen, maids. We should be scandalizing someone like this...” she trailed off when I slipped my hand lower, moving to thumb her jaw.
“’M just a man, touching his wife. Nothing scandalous to see here.”
