well as anything else.
She wasn’t much for fashion, wasn’t even wearing one of her new dresses. Maris felt a little silly thinking they had been a necessary purchase to make her more palatable to Captain Durant. He seemed to like her just fine as she was.
Did it matter what he thought of her? He said he wanted to be friends, and they seemed to have reached some sort of understanding. At least enough for him to make his job look close enough to pleasure.
She hadn’t closed her eyes, but he had, as she’d asked him to that first day. Reyn had been beautiful as he’d strained over her, each perfect, hard thrust accompanied by a near prayerful expression on his face.
If he’d opened his eyes and looked down, he would have caught her spying.
Those eyes were so dark. Penetrating. Maris was afraid he’d see inside her, know somehow the secrets she kept. She imagined he didn’t have to terrier or ferret much. Something about the man made confession almost inevitable.
“You look very respectable, madam.” He began to step into his own clothes with a fluid grace Maris would never manage. “Well then, I propose we share a lunch. Not in that gilded barn you call a dining room of course. I expect Kelby Hall has something more modest—a third or fourth best dining room as it were.”
Maris imagined sitting opposite him in the cozy paneled room where she usually took her daytime meals, sunlight shafting through the windows. Despite its relative informality, there were always footmen about, waiting to jump at her every word. “I-I don’t think that would be wise. We don’t want to engender talk amongst the servants.”
“Don’t you think I can keep my hands to myself? I swear I won’t give you one longing look of lust in public. None of this.” He made a face at her, which was a close approximation of a sleek, worshipful hound.
She smiled in spite of herself. “Maybe I worry about what I might do.”
“Nonsense. You’ll chew your food and pass the peas and be the perfect countess.”
He didn’t know her at all. For one thing, she loathed peas. “Oh, Reyn. I’ve never been a perfect countess. I just don’t think Henry would approve of us eating together.” She caught the look on his face and hurried on. “I know it seems absurd after what we’ve just done. What we’ll do again. The . . . the intimacy. But he was specific about you dining in your suite.”
Reyn looked more annoyed than hurt, but nodded. “All right. I’ll meet you back here at two-thirty. I don’t need two hours to eat lunch, you know.”
“The servants will require the time to prepare and deliver your meal. Cook is very particular.”
“Some bread and cheese and a pickle or two are just fine. I’ve marched on much less.” He was dressed, and did not look as rumpled as she felt.
“Ask for anything you want.”
“I don’t think I can have what I want,” Reyn said quietly, and disappeared through the door.
Maris swallowed. Blast. He hadn’t said the last sentence with any kind of teasing flirtatiousness.
She was not prepared for the man to become serious. Maris was thinking enough for the both of them. Reyn was much easier to deal with when he was playing the boyish ne’er-do-well without a thought in his head.
She reached into her pocket for a handkerchief to blot any trace of his kisses away and came upon the emerald. Hard to believe she could have forgotten about such an amazing find, but she had. Reyn had swept her mind free of everything but the scent of his skin and the sureness of his touch.
What was she to do with the thing? It must be ridiculously valuable. She would put it in her safe before she went down to eat.
Alone.
Chapter 14
Reyn looked at his watch for the fourth time in ten minutes. He’d been at the little table in his sitting room for most of an hour, staring at the empty gold-rimmed dishes. Fancy dinnerware for his requested humble fare, but he wasn’t used to a heavy meal in the middle of the day, particularly after such a huge breakfast. At this rate, they’d have to roll him out of Kelby Hall. Poor old Phantom would buck him right off.
He wondered how the horse was faring in the stable block. Probably eating his head off, too. Everything was first-rate at Kelby Hall for humans and animals alike. Perhaps once he and the