Chapter Seven
Danny stiffened atthe soft knock on her window. Lighting the candle at her bedside, she set down her book and tiptoed to where the moonlight shafted onto the dark floor and parted the curtains to reveal a most unwelcome creature.
Wishing she’d donned her dressing gown over her thin nightgown, Danny pushed the glass open and crossed her arms over her chest, letting her visitor know explicitly how she felt about his presence. “I hope you fall out of that tree and break your lying neck.”
“Come now,” Percy said, looking insufferably well-groomed for a man who’d just climbed a two-hundred-year-old oak. “Is that any way to greet a man who’s come all this way to speak with you? The decent thing would be to invite me in.”
“Decent? That’s a laugh coming from you.” She leaned against the sill, no longer able to keep up that back-bruising posture without her corset. “Believe it or not, you’re not the first gentleman to climb that tree and ask for entry into my bedchambers.”
Smiling eyes turning hard, his tone held a note of danger when he asked too casually, “And have any been accepted in?”
Why did that jealous glint in his eye, the one that promised the slicing of other men, thrill her so? “That’s quite the question. One I believe is none of your concern.”
She heard his teeth grinding and felt a sense of satisfaction. Served him right. First, he’d had the gall to be the heir of Grandfellow, and now he was at her chamber window, at a most unreasonable hour and demanding to know intimate details about the suitors in her life. Ha!
“Smugness isn’t an attractive look, Lady Daniella,” he said.
She smiled, fully aware of how his gaze kept wandering to the untied ribbon at her throat. “Liar.”
His eyes widened, but his lips smiled. “Done with the pleasantries already? Very well, then.” He crouched low and reached for the branches just above his head. “I suggest you step back.”
Danny’s arms dropped in her disbelief. “You can’t possibly think you’d land safely?” It was a good eight-foot jump.
“Worried about my welfare now, Lady Daniella?” He placed a hand over his chest. “I’m touched.”
“You’re touched in the head if you think I will call for aid when you break bones doing something so reckless.”
“Leave me to the wild dogs, will you? The same heroine who secured and bound the arm of a most grateful groundskeeper? I think not.” He readied himself again. “Another step or so back, would you?”
Heart pounding, she grasped the window’s ledge. “Stop this! You’ll kill yourself—”
Tumbling back, the only thing that kept her head from cracking on the floor was a set of hands that came around to cradle her neck. Warm hands, big enough to be a giant’s, and comforting if not for the boulder weight pressing down on her chest.
She gasped and stared up into eyes the color of hard coal and midnight dreams. “You didn’t break yourself,” she said stupidly.
Those eyes smiled. “Disappointed?”
She shook her head, still dazed. He smelled smoky, like the maple wood bonfires they lit at the country fair every week. Truly, was there anything about this man that wasn’t perfect? From those tender hands to those sinful eyes to the hard contours of his figure that was currently pressed all along her barely clothed body.
Her mind cleared and with it came the knowledge of twoimperfecttraits: He was a liar, and he kissed like a devil without so much as a farewell afterwards.
“Remove yourself,” she said, willing her mind not to focus on how his thigh was wedged between her legs and the ache it produced.
Those warm fingers tangled in her hair, seeming to be a different distraction for a different person. “I kind of like it here,” he said. “Is it not cozy for you?”
‘Cozy’ was not a wanton enough word for what it felt like to have his fingers brush against her skin. “You’re heavy.”
Fingers stopping their divine attentions, he glanced down at their pressed bodies, seeming to realize for the first time he’d trapped her beneath him when he’d broken his fall on her person. But he did not move immediately. Instead, he smiled—the scoundrel—and slipped down her body in a most indecent way before coming to his feet and offering her a hand up.
“You’re taking this all rather well,” he said.
Danny came to her feet, releasing his hand as quickly as possible, and smoothed down her nightgown. “I’ve found hysterics unhelpful.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve had a man pin you down as well?”
“Would that make you jealous?”
“Yes.”
