“You object to everything about my presence here, M’lord Wolfe.”
If she thought that would be a good time for him to deny it, she was mistaken. As long as he couldn’t see what she was doing behind him, she reached in her pocket for the carrot and handed it to the dog. He took it and jumped off the other side of the bed and immediately started making crunching noises.
She grinned and was still grinning when Dominic said, “What’s he chewing on? If he’s got hold of another one of my boots—”
“It’s just a carrot. You didn’t know he likes them?”
“So that’s how you made friends with him?”
“No, I only found that out just now.”
“And why did you have a carrot to give him? For your horse? You arenotriding off on your own again. You’ll take a groom with you henceforth.”
“Certainly. And I wasn’t—”
She paused when she heard the door to his room open and two servants came in carrying buckets of water. She threw the cloth in her hand at Dominic’s back before she shot off the bed and straight for the door.
“Donotget your wound wet when you take the bath youordered,” she hissed on the way out the door.
She heard a laugh behind her. He actually laughed!
Beyond despicable. He was positively wicked.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
BROOKE MADE SURE NOTto run into Dominic for the rest of that day by simply staying in her room, even taking her meals there. From the sound of so much traffic coming and going from his room, she guessed he wasn’t going to follow her advice to stay off his wounded leg for a few hours a day. She would have thought he’d at least pamper his leg today after so much activity last night and this morning, but obviously not. She even heard him in the corridor later telling Gabriel he was going out to the stable to check on some of his prized horses.
Her run of the house had been brief. And as much as she might be tempted to avoid Dominic and his nasty tactics, she knew she couldn’t or they’d never resolve their issues. Well, she had no issues other than his campaign to drive her away. Would that end once they married? Or was his meanness ingrained? Still, she wasn’t about to follow him around Rothdale like a lovesick puppy. She needed viable reasons to seek him out and spend time with him now that she no longer had an excuse to enter his room. Why the deuce did he have to heal so quickly?
Alfreda joined her in her room for an early lunch, bringing enough food for them both. “Does he love you yet after you spent the night with him?” the maid asked even before she set the tray down on the little table.
Brooke sat down on the love seat, admitting, “He did kiss me several times, but he had an incredible excuse for doing so.”
“Oh?”
Brooke snorted. “He heard our horses breeding during the night. It apparently stirred his own lust.”
“And you didn’t take advantage of that?”
“I tried to,” Brooke mumbled, then growled, “He stopped, claiming I’d never leave Rothdale if he made love to me.”
Alfreda laughed, earning a glare from Brooke across the table. Having coughed her humor away, the maid pointed out, “That was a whopper and you should have recognized it as one.”
“Then what was his real reason? I was willing, he even guessed I was.”
“Perhaps your wolf is more chivalrous than he lets on and simply didn’t want your initiation into the delights of the marital bed to be lacking a bed. And since he’s still hoping you’ll go home, he wouldn’t admit to that, now would he?”
“Maybe.” Brooke remembered her own thought last night that it had been chivalrous of him to try to block the wind from her.
“So now that he’s healed enough to ride through a storm and back for you, which was a magnificently heroic—”
“Donotascribe to him motives he didn’t have. It was self-interest and nothing else that impelled him to find me.”
Alfreda tsked as if she didn’t agree. “In either case, you need to figure out new ways to spend time with him. Your plan could be working and he just won’t own up to it yet. I saw him go out to the stable. Perhaps join him there after you eat? Does he even know how much you love horses?”
“He knows I want to breed them. But that’s a good idea and—” Brooke paused when she heard Dominic in the hall calling to Wolf, heralding his return to the house. “Just as well. I would probably have ended up scolding him today for not resting his leg. I’ll join him at the stable tomorrow if he goes there again.”
“Or ride with him if he starts to exercise that brute he rides. He might even suggest that, not trusting you not to get lost again.”
