fled the scene on my eighteenth birthday and never looked back.”
His fingers brushed hers as they walked. A pleasant little zing of electricity ran up her arm. He didn’t appear to notice. She wondered with amusement what he’d do if she slipped her hand into his. She liked touching him. Liked the smell of him, and the look of him. Resisting the impulse to twine her fingers with his, she said, “I suspect this house casts a long shadow.”
He gave her a surprised look. “Long and extremely… heavy. This way.”
The room he ushered her to was not yellow, but rather a pale Wedgwood blue complete with white plaster accents and an enormous crystal chandelier. Everything in the room looked expensive—as if there should be a velvet rope preventing visitors from entering. Even though James Connor Thorne, or Connor James Thorne, or Just Thorne, was a thoroughly modern man and should’ve looked completely out of place in a room filled with baroque furnishings and silk upholstery, he appeared quite at home. But then Isis suspected he’d look at home wherever he was. He had self-confidence to spare. It was very sexy on him.
She took it all in, her eye for detail cataloging the furnishings as if she were preparing for a photo shoot. He crossed to the fireplace to stand beneath a large painting, circa seventeen hundreds. The stiffly posed man exuded self-control and moral strength. Like Thorne, he stood, one hand in his pocket, his expression grim as he stared defiantly at the artist as if to say, “Hurry the hell up. I have things to do and people to kill.”
“He looks…” Isis observed. Surly and extremely unhappy. “Important,” she finished.
Thorne flicked a glance upward. “That was painted by Joshua Reynolds.”
“How many Thorne relatives back is this guy?” She crossed the thick area rug to inspect a portrait of a man in formal dress of the period. He had a strong face and piercing green eyes, and his hair was powdered and tied back. He wore a long, wide-collared lime-green frock coat over a silver waistcoat, a froth of white lace at his throat and wrists. His hand, with an enormous emerald ring on it, was on one hip as if to say, “So there, you peasant.”
“Garrett Thorne, sixth Earl of Kilgetty. My great-great—” He paused and gave her a wry smile. “Many greats back. The story is he had two wives, and two mistresses. A pair in town and the other at his country estate.”
She narrowed her eyes at the portrait. “Yes, I can see the exhaustion on his face.” Smiling, she noted, “You don’t look remotely alike.”
“Your refreshments, sir. His Lordship will join you in half an hour.” Roberts placed a silver tray containing a gorgeous silver coffeepot and paper-thin china cup, a carafe of soda and a glass, and a plate of cookies on a side table before bowing himself out.
“I’m surprised it isn’t two hours.” Thorne poured her soda into the glass. Using the silver tongs, he chose two delicate, lacey cookies and placed them on the china plate. Isis could’ve eaten a horse along with the cookies, but she politely took her drink and plate and went to sit gingerly on a slippery powder blue brocade sofa with crocodile feet.
If it were her sofa—which it could never be, because it was quite hideous—she’d paint its toenails fire engine red. She carefully put the plate of buttery cookies on a nearby side table. The fabric would probably stain just by one’s thinking about eating a cookie while seated on it.
Thorne stood beside the massive Carrara marble fireplace, filled with scentless white roses and Queen Anne’s lace. How on earth could he exude sex appeal while holding a teacup with little red flowers on it? He’d propped his simple black cane to the side of the fireplace and stood with his feet a little apart.
Isis wondered how such an unbending man could make her think of sex all the time. Not just sex, but hot, messy sex, sweaty-skin and twisted-sheets sex. Resting her palm on her throat she felt her rapid heartbeat, caused by just looking at him and imagining…
He’s not the One, she reminded herself. She suspected Thorne would be quite happy to take her to bed. And she was pretty sure the experience would be mind-boggling.
Too bad she wasn’t willing to risk sleeping with him and losing her heart to a man who she doubted had commitment on his mind.