belief, Merry Read couldn’t be further from the mark. He’d not been aware of either her presence in his household or any plans his mother had for him… or them? Or any of it. It was an admission, however, he’d not make. As it was, it was hard enough saving face from down on the cold, hard floor. “The countess may have mentioned something of it,” he lied.
Merry opened her mouth to say something, but her gaze lingered on his gaping jacket.
“I trust you are somehow displeased with your assignment?” With as much as a gentleman in dishabille could manage, he buttoned his jacket, or he tried to see to the damned eyeholes. Alas, his senses and motions were dulled by a night of excess, and the task was not made any easier with Merry Read’s eyes on his every movement.
She snorted. “Whatever gave you that opinion, my lord? You see, it is not that I’m…”
Only half listening, Luke struggled with a button. “Bloody hell,” he mumbled through the young woman’s ramblings. “Bloody buttons.”
“Oh, just stop,” Merry clipped out. “Here now. Let me see to that.” Knocking his hands out of the way, she undid his previous work… his previous uneven work. “And furthermore, it’s hardly the buttons’ fault,” she said coolly. “Now, as I was saying…”
Luke knew he should be wholly attending her, but he remained fixed upon the top of her bent head, entranced by the sheer intimacy of her movements. Any other lady would have averted her eyes. Nay, any other woman would have rushed off in the opposite direction. Merry Read, however, had never been like any other woman of his acquaintance. She’d been bold, unapologetic, and spirited, and growing up all the way unto adulthood, he’d not known whether to be horrified or captivated by her.
“…I am unable to see how you might…”
As she buttoned his jacket, her callused fingers brushed the flat planes of his stomach, and the muscles there rippled under the inadvertent caress as his white lawn shirt proved little barrier to her touch. Heat. Pure, unadulterated heat washed through him.
Merry made quick work of what had been an otherwise impossible-for-him task and proved remarkably unaffected through it. “There,” she said with a little nod before taking a step away from him. She stared expectantly at him.
And he, who’d never lost track of any discourse or discussion, found his mind blank, and because of it, a proper response was absent. “Uh…”
Merry narrowed her eyes, and thick black lashes swept down like a blanket upon her cream-white skin. “You weren’t listening.”
“I was.” How easy it had become for the lies to simply roll from his tongue.
“Then what did I say?” she shot back.
However, he was rubbish at the skillful ability to prevaricate. By the sparkle in Merry’s chocolate-brown eyes, she knew it, too.
“You were expressing displeasure with your current assignment,” he ventured.
The young woman’s crimson rosebud lips formed a perfect moue of surprise. So, he was on the mark, then. “Though I did not say as much, I appreciate that you detected those undertones.”
Feeling pleased with himself for the first time since he’d chosen honor over happiness, Luke smoothed his lapels. “You’re welcome.”
“I wasn’t, at any point, thanking you,” Merry said, her expression deadpan. Sticking a foot out, she drummed that serviceable boot on the floor. “I would, however, like to ask what you intend to do about my concerns.”
Oh, blast and damn. This was where he really would benefit from those skills of prevarication. “Why don’t you tell me how you would like me to handle your situation, Merry?” The use of her name slipped out easily, a product of the lifetime they’d known each other.
Nearly five inches shorter than his own six-foot frame, the young woman went up on tiptoes to peer at his face.
Luke resisted the uncomfortable urge to shift under that scrutiny. Being the recipient of disapproval and insolence was as foreign to him as the Latin language had been when his tutor had first set out those books.
Merry sank back on her heels. “You have no idea what I’m talking about.”
Damn, she’d always been more clever than half. “I do know whatever it is has you displeased.” He flashed a sheepish smile.
Her heart-shaped features remained set in an unimpressed mask. “I’m here to decorate for the holidays,” she began slowly, as if schooling a lackwit.
“Which, given your love of the Christmastide season, I should expect would be something you enjoy.” He’d said too much. It was a rare