Lady Derring Takes a Lover - Julie Anne Long Page 0,53
who crept into the rooms, built fires, and ferried away chamber pots, was his best option for getting into it.
But when he arrived on that floor, a woman was already backing out of the room.
“Captain Hardy!”
“Lady Derring. And now that we’ve identified each other, good morning.”
“Good morning.”
And then, for an awkward instant, during which they both missed the appropriate window for bidding each other good-day and getting on with their business, they merely looked at each other as though they’d each happened upon an interesting, somewhat puzzling view.
It was increasingly apparent that the laws of gravity were suspended when she was near. Which perhaps accounted for his reluctance to leave her, or to watch her leave. In her presence, whatever force pressed him down to earth, or settled the weight of responsibility onto his shoulders, relented. Stepping away from her was increasingly similar to stepping back into a cage.
“Perhaps you’ve forgotten,” she said gently, after a moment, “but your room is on the third floor, right above Mr. Delacorte’s.”
“How could I forget, Lady Derring? Were you aware that Delacorte snores like a dragon with a head cold when you put me in that room?”
“You know, I truly wasn’t aware,” she said, with wide-eyed mystification. “I suppose it’s just serendipity.”
He tried, and failed, not to smile at that.
A soft pink flush moved into her cheeks. She looked down, and her hands absently fussed with the keys at her hip.
He savored knowing he could disconcert her with a smile. He could throw smiles like kindling onto whatever was simmering here between them.
She looked up again swiftly. “We can move you to any other available room at a moment’s notice, if it truly does prevent you from sleeping,” she added hurriedly. Remembering she was meant to be hospitable, no doubt.
Speaking of serendipity. He seized upon it as an opportunity and a bit of a test.
“Well, that could be a solution. May I see all the other available rooms before I decide?”
She looked delighted. “Oh, what a fine idea! They’re all a bit different, you know,” she said proudly. “But all equally comfortable. I’ll send Dot to give you a tour if you like.”
One got the sense that she’d been dying to show her rooms to guests who had yet to appear. She didn’t sound the least bit as though she was attempting to hide heaps of contraband cigars.
“Thank you. It would be most appreciated. I’m amazed that you can’t hear Delacorte snoring from where you sleep at the very top of the house.”
“We can, at that, hear it a bit, sometimes. It sounds a bit like Gordon, from that distance.”
A rogue wave of shocking jealousy stopped his breath. Who the devil was—
“Gordon is our tiger cat,” she expounded, “who rumbles when he’s purring, or when the cook has given him a nice bit of liver. He snores, too, when he sleeps.”
He did not one bit like the relief that swept in; he did not one bit like the sense that his emotions seemed to be attached to a pendulum. He was usually compared to a rock, and he’d always found the comparison flattering.
“I haven’t yet had the pleasure of meeting him, but I believe I heard him galloping down the hall. The building shifts and creaks a good deal in the middle of the night, doesn’t it?”
“Isn’t it lovely?” she said in all seriousness. “So cozy, those sounds.”
He was charmed. “It’s a bit like listening to someone attempting to digest a rich meal. I’ve heard a particular muffled thunk. As if the building swallowed something that won’t go down properly.”
She laughed. “Oh, we’ve heard that, too. Once before we all moved in. Once after. We haven’t been able to discover what it is. Perhaps a large r—”
She stopped. Pressed her lips together.
“You were going to say rat,” he said.
“We haven’t any rats, thanks to Gordon.”
He could have sworn she was surreptitiously crossing her fingers in the folds of her skirt.
He gave her a slow, crooked, intimate smile. Amused.
She smiled, too. Suddenly, acutely, he saw her as curves and textures, all as alluring as a crooked finger. Her lips. Her long throat. The skin that glowed like a pearl in this light and probably felt like petals beneath one’s fingertips. The dark hair spiraling against her temple, and her lashes. The swell of her breasts, which looked precisely designed to fit into each of his hands, neatly.
The bands of muscles across his stomach tightened as if they were struggling to contain that sudden surge