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“This is not gentlemanly behavior.” She swiped the cravat from his hand that he’d been dangling between them, the spot invisible once again. “Allowing me to assume that you...”
“To assume what, exactly?”
“You know very well, what, Mr. Cole. Just as you must know what this sort of behavior could do to my future here. As I’ve already told you, I need work, and I need it here. If you do not cease your marked interest in attempting to cause me trouble, I will be dismissed, and only you will answer to it.”
“So I’ll be solely responsible when you, the maid who refused to clean the coal from my bedsheets, and the maid who spilled filthy water down my breeches, and the maid who just now did not attempt a great deal to escape my supposed advances”—He paused, raising a condemning brow as her cheeks overheated—“Your dismissal would still be my doing?”
“Yes,” she stated resolutely.
She raised her chin, holding the cravat in her hands and wringing it to avoid doing the same to his neck now on perfect display for her. Lean, long, and thick. The ridges of his throat bobbed as he laughed.
“I suppose I had better be on my best behavior then.” He motioned to the cravat. “So long as you promise to return my cravat unscathed.”
An idea planted in her mind, and she couldn’t stop the smile from spreading across her lips. “I wouldn’t dream of treating it with anything less than the utmost care, sir.”
“Excellent. Thank you so much for your kind service, Clara.”
He swept his gaze across her features again, lingering a moment too long on her lips before finally stepping to the side and allowing her to move.
She did so slowly at first, figuring he’d attempt to reach for her and restrict her once more, but he remained back with his hands behind him and a reserved smile on his lips.
His eyes followed her, though he remained where he stood until she opened the door down to the servants’ stairs with his cravat still in her hands.
“I know you like me, Clara,” he called out after her. “I’m certain of it.”
She looked over her shoulder. “I most certainly do not.”
“You do,” he stated resolutely.
She didn’t bother to refute his words again. He’d only fight her harder on the subject. And more than that, she was truly beginning to question her own resolve in despising the man forever.
There was just something infuriatingly charming about him—something that always gave him the upper hand around her.
But she had just the idea to bring him down.
Arriving downstairs, she tucked the cravat into her pocket, strode directly past the laundry, retrieved a coal scuttle, then made to return to the ground floor.
She would return Mr. Cole’s cravat to him before the end of the night. Just not in the way he expected.
Oliver was exhausted. He couldn’t wait to slip into bed and sleep until well past sunrise. Miss Bowles had taken every last ounce of energy from him, and he was utterly spent. What made matters worse was the fact that he had to spend hours with her again the following day, decorating the library with all the greenery they’d gathered.
He reached his room with a muffled groan, closed the door behind him, then rang the servants’ bell for his valet, Smith. He didn’t wait to slip off his shoes, sitting on the side of the bed to do so. Once both were removed, he loosened his new cravat Smith had tied on earlier that evening, then stood to fling back the covers, just as he did each night.
To his surprise, however, not all was in order. Instead of having his sheets stained as they were that first morning, they were stark white.
But his cravat was not.
There, laid out in a perfect folded line, was the cravat he’d given to Clara. How did he know it was the very same? Because instead of a simple stain of white soup, black coal was now smeared across the inside of the fabric. He unfolded it and was instantly transported to Clara and their final words to each other.
“I know you like me, Clara. I’m certain of it.”
“I most certainly do not.”
“You do.”
He unfolded the cravat, revealing the words written out in thick, black coal. “I do not.”
Oliver chuckled aloud.
