Tess glanced back at the open library door, debating whether to seek Mr. Newby’s help to remove the intruder.
“Have you nothing to say for yourself?” the miscreant shouted from his high perch.
“Me?” she scoffed, struggling to form thoughts in the face of the man’s turpitude. “You come into this room and defile Lady Goddard’s property, and you question me? How dare you, sir.”
One dark brow arched, and his square jaw hardened. But there was no apology. No regret. Not even an ounce of shame seemed to trouble him.
Something reared up in Tess then, a spitefulness that was usually not at all part of her nature, but this... this... book abuser, with his thick biceps and dark tousled hair and extraordinarily broad shoulders, had sparked it in her.
“Maybe you deserve to fall to your death for how you’ve mistreated her ladyship’s property.”
Her heart beat a frantic and somewhat guilty tattoo. She wasn’t cruel and never wished real harm on anyone. This man brought out the worst in her.
Then he shocked her completely.
His reaction to the most heinous declaration she’d ever made to any individual in her six and twenty years was to smile. Not just a flicker of amusement. Not a flash of mirth. A genuine, toothy grin.
He suddenly looked impish and unbearably handsome all in the same moment.
And she no longer felt guilty for being mean to him.
“You find me amusing?” she rasped, for the man had so much audacity that it had all but taken her breath away.
“Are you a housemaid?” he called down as if they were now going to engage in a pleasant chat.
Tess made a sound that she’d never heard emerge from herself before. Somewhere between a squeak and a splutter.
A housemaid? She ducked a quick glance down at her day dress. It wasn’t the height of fashion by any stretch of the imagination, but it was well-tailored and of decent quality.
“I,” she said with a proud notching up of her chin, “am a librarian.”
Or at least she had been hired as such two months ago and would be for the next several weeks. Though Lady Goddard might offer an extension, now that she had to undo the mess this man had made.
His grin had eased into something less excessive but was still somehow potent.
“A librarian,” he murmured as he stared at her.
Then he shifted, stepping down closer, then closer, his gaze never leaving hers.
Tess sucked in a sharp breath and a trace of his scent came with it. The man smelled like pine trees and fresh air and—
Heaven help her, what did it matter what he smelled like?
No, no, she was not that foolish, gullible girl anymore. She’d given in to a rogue’s charm once and paid the price. Never again.
She turned away from him. She’d tell Mr. Newby or Lady Goddard, if she was at home, about the man’s atrocious treatment of her books.
“Wait.” A large hand brushed Tess’s upper arm.
She turned but flinched away as if she’d been singed. Then she laid her hand against the spot where he’d touched her.
“Don’t you want to know who I am?” he asked in a warm, deep voice that held far too much humor for the matter at hand.
“Who are you?” Tess said, irritation causing her to tap the toe of her boot against the carpet. She cast a mournful glance at the jumble of books on the floor and was angry all over again.
“You don’t recognize me?” he said, now resting quite casually on the stairs with his thick arms crossed over his chest. He seemed to be posing, as if waiting for some artist to capture all the sharp angles and brooding beauty of his face in oil paint.
What he looked like was a rogue, a man who knew his own appeal. He was an impressive specimen of manliness, even if he was an abuser of books. She tried thinking of an occupation that seemed the least likely for a man such as himself.
