“Grandmother can be determined,” he agreed. “I’ll wager that when you go back downstairs, she will have grown tired of her guest list and abandoned the task for the day. She’ll probably have forgotten she sent you up here and will therefore be shocked to hear you were spying on her beloved grandson while he bathed.”
Amelia turned crimson. “You can’t possibly mean to tell her.”
He rolled his eyes. “No, I will not be mentioning any of this to mygrandmother.”
“I… I am more sorry than I can express. I shall leave at once, atonce. I?—”
“Oh, calm down,” he sighed, dipping his hands in the water. Bringing up a handful of shimmering bathwater, he splashed it over his face, shaking his head like a dog. Waterdrops flew off his hair. “You have already seen me in a state of undress, remember? In the lake.”
Of course, she remembered.
Amelia reddened further, if that was at all possible.
“I did not mean to look,” she mumbled. “And it was dark, so I saw very little.”
“So you decided to choose a place with better lighting.” He smirked. “Candlelight was a good choice.”
“No.This is an accident.”
“Your arrival was an accident, to be sure. But your remaininghere… well, that seems like a choice.”
Amelia flinched.Of course. What was she thinking, standing there?
She turned to leave, but he spoke again, stopping her in her tracks.
“Hand me that drying sheet, will you?”
She glanced at the sheet in question, crumpled on the floor just near the door. It seemed rude to deny him, considering how completely she’d violated his modesty.
Not that he was a particularly modest man. This was highlighted rather neatly once she handed him the sheet, being sure not to brush his wet fingers with her own.
At once, he stood up, water pouring off him. Amelia managed to spin around just before the water receded from his hips.
He chuckled quietly to himself. She could hear the brush and rub of the drying sheet as he patted himself down. The bathtub squeaked, and she sensed that he’d stepped out of it. Water dripped onto the tiled floor.
“You can turn around now, if you like,” he murmured behind her, close enough to make the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. “Fear not, I’m modest.”
She turned slowly, and for an instant, she thought that he had lied about being modes. But he had not. At least, if he had, it was only a half-lie.
The sheet was knotted low around his hips, which was better than nothing. However, he’d done a poor job of drying himself. His hair, still soaking wet, dripped freely down his neck. His chest and stomach still glistened with water, his skin flushed from the hot bath.
Had the air rushed out of the room, or was it only Amelia’s lungs that had abruptly emptied? She swallowed hard and dragged her gaze up from the firm V of his hips. He was watching her, his eyes dark.Hungry.
“You baffle me,” he murmured thoughtfully. “You are so shy, so mild. You do not speak sharply to that awful employer of yours. You can’t stand up to my grandmother. You act like a wilting daisy around me half of the time. And yet you were more than capable of standing your ground in that carriage, weren’t you?”
Amelia blinked rapidly. The steam curling around them was beginning to cling to her hair and the tips of her eyelashes, minute droplets glinting at the edges of her vision. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Of course you do. Is this the same woman who leaped on my back in an alleyway and attempted to strangle me?”
“I was not trying to strangle you.”
“It is just as well, considering how poor your technique was,” he retorted, the corners of his mouth twitching. “Do you know what I think, Amelia?”
She chewed on the inside of her cheek, trying hard not to look at Stephen’s lips. It wasdifficult, as they were directly in front of her.
“I don’t know what you think, but I have a feeling that you’re about to tell me.”
Without warning, he reached forward, his fingers curling around her chin. She hadn’t expected the contact and sucked in a sharp breath, her nostrils flaring. He tilted up her face almost thoughtfully.
