“You can’t count any but this week. I was also being courted by Mr. Marks.”
Stirring the third, he whipped up an olive green. “True.”
“No to that color. Do not waste your time with it.”
He smiled and eased the dripping brush back into the paint. “I believe you are right.”
I whirled away from the mirth in his eyes. I tweaked my lenses and enjoyed how white and fresh the hall looked.
“So clean, Lord Wycliff. No overturned gaming tables, no broken furniture. Does this place need anything? It is so tidy and bright. No place for shadows to hide. Leave it fresh and white.”
“Tidy is important. It’s not the feeling I want to evoke. But Blaren House needs color. It needs you.”
I wasn’t ready.
Not for his hands to slip about my waist.
Not for the rasp of his beard along my throat.
Not for him to move away and stand so far from me.
My hand rose, and I almost clutched his arm. Instead, I wrapped my arms about me. “You had the sconces cleaned. I don’t remember them being so clean.”
“Doesn’t look the same? I’m surprised you noticed. The last time you were here, you missed quite a lot being tossed over my shoulder. Maybe a reminder is needed.”
“Being tossed over your shoulder? Never.”
“No, a new tour with you on my arm, inspecting things as Lady Wycliff should. It would be a very proper thing.”
“Why do you tease me? I’m not Lady Wycliff.”
“Ruth, this is no tease. I want you to love Blaren House. It’s quite large. The upstairs is fine, with many bedrooms for you to choose from, a nursery and schoolroom for Christopher, and a lonely chamber where I lay my head.”
He took my hand and led me to the stairs. “Everything is up this way.”
It was a grand thing, the curved staircase before me. Painted white and glistening with wax polish, every tread had been lit with beeswax candles set in bronze holders.
“The upper rooms, a stairwell to heaven, Ruthy. I’m a bridegroom preparing Blaren House for its bride. That bride would be you.”
“I’m not your bride.”
“A fixable mistake.”
When I frowned at him, he lifted his hands in the air. “I only mean a special license and a quickly summoned vicar solves all ills.”
My stomach had butterflies, not the kind that floated in love but the ones that fled in terror of little children with nets.
“The paint fumes have gone to my head. I think we should leave. I’m not dining upstairs.”
His loud sigh was humorous. He kissed my hand right above my knuckles. “Somehow I knew you wouldn’t.”
He twirled me a full rotation and then guided dizzy me down the hall.
“The front parlor is being painted, too. It was ghastly yellow and red. Dinner is next door in my study.”
A table draped in a white cloth stood in the center of the room. A silver candelabra burned brightly with two branches and two candles on each. Daisies were strewn about the base and atop the napkins.
Right now, the spot where my heart had gone missing didn’t feel so empty. Gads, I couldn’t stop the smile bursting upon my lips. “Your patience is a wonder.”
