Tess bit back tears. “Thank you.”
Mrs. Wells scooted to the edge of her chair. “Now, let’s get you into that pretty gown, and I’ll do your hair.”
Tess reached up to touch the messy knot she usually pulled her hair into. “Oh, we needn’t fuss. It’s just the Walcotts.”
Mrs. Wells tsked. “Nonsense. You should wear those amethyst earbobs of your mother’s. It’s been too long since you’ve had a proper evening out.” Mrs. Wells stood. “Come, Tess. It’s time to enjoy yourself a little.”
“All right, Wellsy. Do with my hair what you like. Make me stunning.”
Chapter Seven
Dom tugged at his neckcloth and ran a hand down his waistcoat to ensure every button was fastened. Yet none of it distracted him from the lady sitting a few feet across from him in the finely turned-out carriage the Walcotts had sent around to fetch him.
When the vehicle wheeled up outside of the Wiggenstow inn, he’d climbed in expecting to find it empty.
What he’d found was Tess Hawthorne, and she was once again transformed. She was no longer the irritated librarian, nor the at-ease country gentlewoman she seemed to be earlier that morning. She looked regal, elegant, and thoroughly bewitching.
He’d climbed inside to sit opposite her and had been thunderstruck. All but speechless. He’d given her a nod, which she’d returned.
And now as they rolled toward the Walcotts’, he snuck glances at her, enchanted with this version of her—bejeweled and garbed in a gown that accented her every curve.
He wasn’t entirely certain what the hell was wrong with him.
In the last decade, he’d been acquainted with—and bedded—his share of beautiful women. When he wanted a woman, he’d never had trouble conveying that desire. And God’s teeth, he wanted her.
But Tess Hawthorne wasn’t like any of them. She was something else entirely. She’d challenged him the first moment hemet her, and attraction, at least for him, had flared into flame immediately. Now that they were partners, he sensed that she wished to maintain a professional, if not friendly, rapport between them.
He should accept that and look forward to the next beautiful lady to cross his path. There would always be another. His life was transitory, his amorous liaisons temporary. Yet he could not deny the effect Tess Hawthorne had on him.
And now he’d seen her family home. He’d met her brother. He’d won over her delightful housekeeper. He’d felt oddly comfortable in that cozy cottage of theirs, almost enough to make him appreciate the desire to make one place a haven—a home. That was a feeling he’d never understood. Lodgings were meant to be as temporary as lovers, no matter how appealing they might be.
But each time he saw Tess, his craving for her grew. Indeed, he’d even dreamt about the damn woman, but he couldn’t sate his hunger. He could not seduce her. He could not bed her. Theirs was a professional partnership now, and he needed her assistance with what might prove to be the most significant dig of his life.
“You look well,” she finally said, breaking the silence in which he’d been twisting with the conundrum of how to stem the ache he felt whenever she was near.
God, what an arse he’d been. He’d yet to tell her how gorgeous she looked, and she certainly deserved every compliment.
“Thank you.” He licked his lips, let himself look at her, felt his heart skitter in his chest. What in the blazes was wrong with him? “You look dazzling,” he finally managed.
She quirked a brow at that. “Do you always do that?”
“Do what?”
“Effusively compliment ladies?”
“Believe it or not, I tempered my compliment to you just now. I wished to be much more effusive.”
She huffed out a breath as if the answer disappointed her. “There you go again. Charming. Flirting.” A hand came up and she laid it against her chest.
Dom adored the neckline of her gown. He stared at the juncture between her neck and shoulder and his mouth watered. He wanted to taste that spot, and the hollow below her throat where a simple pendant hung.
Perhaps it was the fact that he could not bed her that stoked this mad craving.
“Your reputation would certainly dictate that you behave just as you do,” she continued. “But is any of it genuine, I wonder.”
A flirtatious response came instantly to mind, but he quashed it. Perhaps charm was a reflex. Did he do it because it was expected of him? Perhaps. Or in order to live up to the reputation that he’d crafted for himself? Possibly.
Yet even if any of that was true, it had nothing to do with his reaction to Tess.
