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Wise if Ansley could snare this incomparable gem for his housekeeper.

Is that the position I truly want her for?

He booted that intrusive, inconceivable thought, to the rubbish bin where he expediently sent all such troublesome impositions. On the three prior occasions, they had occurred.

“Feel free to ask my opinion on anything.” He selected a shortbread biscuit. “I shall strive to please and dazzle with my acerbic wit and immense store of intellect.”

Fiend seize it.

Listen to him. Blathering on like a nincompoop.

He’d heard young bucks and moon-eyed swains profess cleverer platitudes. Well, to be fair, conversation was not his forte. In fact, come to think of it, this was the longest conversation he’d had in ages with a woman he didn’t claim a close acquaintance. And damned if he wasn’t doing quite well for himself.

“Your knuckles are bruised.” She worked her troubled gaze over his battered hands.

Pausing, he glanced at the abused, greenish-purple flesh and flexed his fingers. “Yes, but none are broken.”

“I’m glad.”

And she truly was. He could see it in the tiniest relaxing of her shoulders and the way her sweet mouth softened. She cared about his wellbeing. Him, a stranger to her.

Ansley could put no name to the unfamiliar sensation pressing against his ribs at that knowledge.

She bit into her biscuit, and an expression of absolute bliss crossed her face as she closed her eyes. “Oh my, this is utterly delicious. It fairly melts on the tongue.” At that precise moment, her dainty tongue flicked out to catch a crumb on the plump mound of her lower lip.

He sucked in a ragged breath, barely stifling a lust-filled groan. His passion-starved body sang with desire, and an unwelcome rush of blood shot straight to his groin. Frozen in place, he couldn’t rip his attention from her. She was altogether exquisite.

Mayhap the housekeeper notion wasn’t such a grand idea, after all.

Of course, it isn’t. It’s a damn imbecilic idea.

How, in God’s name, could he keep from stealing into her bed if she was beneath his roof? How indeed? his baser self crowed. Bloody, bloody hell. He’d be a downright ass if he retracted the offer now, however. His mind raced for a solution.

Did he know anyone in need of a governess? Did Mother or Nicolette? He’d write and ask them at first opportunity.

“Miss Harwood?” A tinny female voice trumpeted. “What, precisely, do you think you are doing?”

Ansley brought his reluctant focus up to observe Mrs. Smitherman bearing down upon them like a Puritan minister who’d caught members of his congregation participating in a ménage à trois upon the sacred church altar. Narrow face pinched, smoke fairly billowed from her ears, and sparks flew from her incensed gaze.

A sequence of unflattering names tripped across his conscience. Shrew. Termagant. Harpy. Virago. Harridan.

“Mrs. Smitherman.” Disconcertment swept across Willow’s lovely face. “I should think it obvious. I’m having tea with Lord Scarborough.”

“Without a chaperone?” the crotchety woman accused. Her pitch rose an octave on the last syllable, making it sound as if a felonious crime had been committed. “You could’ve just as easily met in my tearoom, and I might’ve acted the part of duenna.”

Why, in God’s name?

Willow wasn’t her ward.

Ah, she was peeved Ansley took tea here rather than at her establishment.

“What are you doing here,” he asked with a silky, false calmness. Likely spying on her competition.

She drew herself up, all pompous superciliousness. “I saw you through the window.”

And took it upon herself to enter and chastise a tenant? What unmitigated gall the woman possessed.

Several other patrons had turned their avid regard toward their table, the happenings there much more tantalizing than the tea and dainties upon their own.