“You should know that I never say anything I don’t mean.” His dark brows rose over blue, blue eyes, their expression clear and warm. A tingle swept down to her toes.
“You never think before you speak, I most certainly know that,” Harriett snapped, desperately trying for a defensive position against his overwhelming charm.
“And sometimes, even before I act.” His words and lazy grin were devastatingly attractive. Her poor, misguided heart beat harder in response.
“I won’t argue with that.”
“Come to the stables. I’ll wait for you.”
“What are you two young people talking about?” Father abandoned his position by the fireplace and walked over to them. “I must say it’s a delight to see youth and beauty, flourish amid such terrible trials.”
Mama shook out her skirts. “Come Harriett. It’s a good thing only your relative has called today. We must attend to that gown.”
It was late in the afternoon before Harriett could escape her mother. She grabbed her bonnet and walked swiftly to the stables. When she rounded the corner of the stable block, she stopped. Working with two farmhands, Gerard stood on the back of a cart, bare chested, forking hay bales onto the ground. She stood and watched the play of muscles across his tanned back and strong arms, as he bent his dark head over his work. He was so beautiful her insides melted and an almost painful yearning filled her. She turned to leave.
“Harry!” He jumped down and came after her, wiping his brow with a red handkerchief. “Where were you going?”
Harriett didn’t know where to look. She studied the sky intently as if a storm approached. Finally, forced to meet his gaze, she said, “You … you are not dressed, sir.”
He stood with legs braced and grinned. “Have you not seen a man’s chest before?”
Mute, she shook her head. She had seen her father’s naked chest and the neighbor’s young son when he played in the garden in the rain, but they didn’t count. Never before had she felt so…. It was all she could do not to reach out and trace her fingers across his broad chest.
“I won’t bite. Unless you ask me to.” He took her arm and drew her away from the gaze of the working men.
He eyed her skirt. “I see you’ve added a frill or two. I can’t say you’ve improved it. I liked it better the way it was.”
She firmed her lips. “If you behaved like a gentleman, Gerard, you wouldn’t mention it.”
His blue eyes filled with mischief. “A sweetly shaped ankle and calf, if ever I saw one. And your skin, how privileged am I to have touched your skin, Harry. It is very soft.”
Harriett sucked in her breath. “If you don’t tell me where you were the night we stayed at Foxworth, I am going straight to my father and reveal all that I know.”
Gerard’s brows snapped together. He glanced back at the men, who had almost emptied the cart. “I went to see Harrison.”
Harriett widened her eyes. “You came to Pendleton?”
“I had to take the dispatch I found in the satchel to him. I hadn’t had a chance earlier, with your arrival. I knew he’d be waiting for me.”
“Did you go inside the house?”
Gerard nodded. “There’s a secret tunnel that leads to the library, used for nefarious purposes years ago.”
“But where is the entrance?”
“You know that small copse on the east side of the house?”
“Where the temple of Venus is, on that grassy mound?”
He nodded. “There’s a tunnel under it that leads to the house.”
“That small cave? I’ve never been inside it.”
“That small cave was designed to represent Venus’s … well, never mind.”
Harriett’s cheeks warmed and she fell silent.
He gave a wry smile. “Apparently, your ancestors were into a spot of smuggling. Port and Brandy most likely.”
