Gideon dragged a hand through his rumpled hair, setting the dark locks on end. Not a lightning bolt, then. No, an entirely different force of nature was the cause of thedeafening din.
Cecilia Gilchrist.
“For God’s sake, Cecilia, you’ve just aged me ten years in a single instant. What happened?” It was a foolish question really, given she was kneeling on the floor in front of the fireplace, her hands already black with soot from her frantic attempts to retrieve the scattered pieces of coal she’d dropped. The scuttle was beside her, tipped over on its side with the few remaining lumps of coal falling out of it.
Her hand froze at the sound of his voice. She remained still for a moment, much like a fox when it realizes it’s been cornered, but then her chest heaved in a caught breath, and she raised her face to his. “I-I beg your pardon, Lord Darlington. I don’t know…” She trailed off, biting her lower lip as she took in the spilled coal in despair. “I don’t know what happened. It just s-slipped out of my hand.”
“Slipped out of your hand.” A sarcastic comment threatened—something about her hands being too dainty for a housemaid—but Gideon held his tongue, if only because he couldn’t quite excuse his own part in this mess. He’d goaded her yesterday about being too frail to carry the coal scuttle. Human nature being what it was, he’d as good as guaranteed she’d drop it this morning.
“Yes, my lord.” There was a sound of scuffling feet, then the clink of coal being thrown piece by piece intothe wooden bin.
“It was an accident,” Gideon allowed, somewhat grudgingly. “Not the sort of accident one would expect from a housemaid who’s served eleven years with Lady Dunton, but an accidentjust the same.”
A brief silence followed this ill-tempered observation, then she said meekly,“Yes, my lord.”
Gideon stared up at the canopy above him with a frown. He never slept well these days, but last night had been a particularly fitful one. He’d lain awake for hours before dropping off at last. Being woken so early, and with such violence, didn’t put him in the best humor, but something about her timid response made his teeth clench. “What’s happened to your sharp tongue this morning, Cecilia?”
The clink of the coal against the bin paused. Gideon waited, but then it resumed again withouther answering.
He peered around the edge of the pillow he’d pulled over his face. Cecilia was crawling around the floor on her knees, gathering up the spilled coal. The blue ribbons and expensive cloak were gone, and in their place was the plain gray dress, white apron, and ridiculous white caps his housemaids wore. Her hair had been scraped back and stuffed underneath it, but a few thick strands peekedout the edges.
It was dark,like her eyes.
She looked so different he wouldn’t have recognized her as the same woman who’d been tossing stones into Darlington Lake yesterday. He thought of the wide sweep of her arm, the flash of white skin where the sleeve of her cloak had pulled away from her wrist, the hesitant half-smile on her lips when she’d turned to face him…
I’ve got excellent aim. Perhaps that might prove useful?
There was no reason she should have made such an impression on him, but when he’d fallen asleep last night, it hadn’t been to blissful dreams of his betrothed. No, instead he’d found himself pondering Cecilia Gilchrist, with her fashionable blue ribbons and fine woolen cloak.
Perhaps it was simply the surprise of finding her there in the courtyard, in the last place he’d expected to find movement, or sound, or anything so…alive. His first instinct had been to chase her away, to banish her from Darlington Castle before it smothered all the life out of her.
But Mrs. Briggs had hired the girl, and she’d come to Kent in good faith to take up the position. His housekeeper appeared satisfied with her, and so the least he could do was give her a chance. God knew he had enough to worry him without quibbling over his servants’ ribbons and traveling cloaks.
He needed a housemaid, and Cecilia washere. He had misgivings about her, yes. Despite the innocent widening of those enormous dark eyes, he knew she hadn’t been truthful with him yesterday. He wasn’t persuaded she came from Stoneleigh, or that she’d ever worked for Lady Dunton, and the accident this morning confirmed his suspicions. No housemaid who’d served in a country estate for eleven years dropped the bloodycoal scuttle.
But he’d allowed her to remain in his employ, and so he was obliged to be as patient with her as he was with all his servants. There’d been a time not so long ago he’d been a considerate gentleman, and a kind employer. He didn’t like to think the bitterness and grief of the past months had bled all the decency from him.
“No need to take all day about it, Cecilia.” Gideon threw his coverlet aside with an irritable sigh, padded across the room in his bare feet, and joined Cecilia in front of the fireplace. He began tossing errant lumps of coal into the scuttle, but paused when he felt her gaze on him. When he looked up, she was sitting back on her heels, staring at him, her eyes wide. “What’s the matternow?”
Her gaze darted between him and his empty bed, the coverlet trailing on the floor. “I…nothing, my lord.”
No doubt she was stunned he’d left his bed to help her gather up the spilled coal. “There’s no need to look so shocked. I’d do the same for any of my servants.” That is, he assumed he would. He’d never known Amy, his other housemaid, to drop so much as a single piece of coal, never mind thewhole scuttle.
Gideon tossed the last piece into the bin and rose to his feet. He was dusting off his hands when he realized Cecilia had gone still. He glanced down at her, and found her staring up at him, her cheeks flaming. “What is it?”
“You’re, ah…” She made a vague gesture toward him. “Your…”
Gideon looked down at himself. He was dressed in the same breeches he’d been wearing when he came upon her in the courtyard yesterday, but before he’d fallen into his bed, he’d shed his boots, stripped off his coat and loosened the buttons at his neck. His white linen shirt gaped open from his throat tohis mid-chest.
It was his bare skin that had flustered her. At least, Gideon thought it must be that, because she couldn’t seem to look away from it. Even as her cheeks went scarlet with embarrassment, her avid gaze slid from the notch in his throat to the long lengths of his collarbones, then down, down, down, her pink lips parting on an indrawn breath as she took in the smattering of dark hair on his chest.
As her dark eyes moved over him like a caress, touching skin so long neglected Gideon had nearly forgotten it was there, he became uncomfortably aware he’d also loosened the buttons at the waistband of his breeches before he’d climbed into his bed last night. Thankfully, the long tail of his shirt covered him to mid-thigh, otherwise Cecilia would have been witness to some unexpected, unwelcome, andungentlemanly…
Twitching.
It wasn’t anything to do with her, specifically. Nothing at all. He wasbetrothed, and to an undisputed beauty. It was just that it had been so long since he’d had a woman in his bedchamber, and longer still since a woman had looked at him with anything other than suspicion or horror. His body was confused. It would have reacted the same way to any woman.
But that didn’t stop heat from sweeping over him, blazing across every inch of his skin. He must have made a sound—a sigh, perhaps, or a choked gasp, butnota groan, certainly notthat—because her gaze shot from his chest to his face and lingered there. Their breaths quickened as moment after moment unfurled, and neither of them was able to look away—
