Viola snorted, though it may have been because she was drinking too fast from her teacup.
“And Viola here, she is the darlingest girl in this universe.” Nana’s face softened. “My personal sunshine. I wouldn’t know what to do without my Lola. And now, read to me from the novel.”
Viola’s face brightened. “Gladly.”
It was never still for a moment; he realised. Her face. It was constantly animated. When her mouth didn’t move, speak or eat, her eyes did. Wandering all over him, making him annoyingly self-conscious as she studied him, and apparently filing pieces of information about him away in that chaotic brain of hers. He shifted uncomfortably and wondered for one moment what it was she saw, what it was she filed away.
She certainly had been quick to judge him and his character.
Not that he cared. Certainly not him.
Now her dark eyes lit up.
She jumped up, over setting the tray so that tea sloshed out of the cup. He steadied it with a sigh.
“Yes! Of course. I have brought the book.” Which, no doubt, was now bearing tea stains.
“Let me guess,” he drawled, “it can only be a romance by that Mrs?—”
“Radcliffe!” she beamed. “How did you know? It isThe Mysteries of Udolpho. I believe we stopped at the part wherethe heroine arrives at the castle. I can’t help but think the castle must be very much like Westwood Hall.” She licked her fingers and flipped through the pages.
Sebastian got up. “That is my cue to leave. I am very sorry, Nana, but nothing in the world will induce me to listen to gothic romance.” He pressed a kiss on his grandmother’s papery cheek and gave Viola a stiff bow.
She gave him a brief smile before turning back to her book. Then she crossed her legs so that her skirt hitched up halfway up her lower thigh, revealing stockinged ankles, trim and fetching.
Not that it mattered, for he had already seen them earlier.
Naked.
He looked away hastily and left as her voice rang out in the room, reading from the book.
He fled.
Striding down the wide staircase, he tugged at his necktie, which was tied blastedly tight.
She was the most impossible, vexing, aggravating, and bothersome creature he’d ever had the misfortune to encounter. But he was repeating himself. He’d already thought that earlier, and in the same order.
He preferred the clean, crisp, sophisticated look in a woman. Tidy and orderly. Neat and trim. Combed and washed and not smelling bewitchedly of—lavender?
But she? When she smiled, she had dimples; he thought with proper outrage, revealing a set of small, white, crooked teeth.
She’d even cocked him a cheeky smile, as though they shared a delicious secret, which certainly they did not!
He had no business thinking about her smile.
No business at all.
He made a mental list of all her defects. For that list was certainly long, oh yes, it was!
Everything about her was crooked. From the shawl on her shoulder, the brooch affixed on her chest, her ill-fitting dress.
Her upturned snub nose with her uncoordinated freckles.
He wondered how many there were and how long it would take to count them.
And her eyebrows were too dark and too thick. None of the fine, elegantly arched brows the ladies of thetonhad. Not that he had ever noticed nor cared about ladies’ eyebrows before he’d met Lady Viola, so it was entirely unreasonable of him to suddenly disapprove so emphatically about the lack of finesse of Lady Viola’s eyebrows.
But that was not the point.
