eyes widened, and he withdrew.
“We could begin by your telling me what you’ve been doing with your days here,” he said.
“I’ve been trying to prepare the house.”
“I know,” he replied, Mrs. Wells’s admonishment ringing in his hears. “It pleases me to see how hard you’re working.”
“I’ve also helped Mrs. Brown in the kitchens,” she said. “She’s been making bread for my father’s visit.” She cast him a wary glance, as if concerned she’d committed another transgression.
“Would you show me how?” he asked.
Her eyes widened.
“I have some skills in bread-making.” he continued. “Shall we try it together this morning before I see the estate?”
She nodded. “Very well.”
“Then let us attend Mrs. Brown.”
Half an hour later, Dexter stood at the kitchen table with his wife, kneading a ball of dough. He had no idea what had possessed him to suggest it. A whim, perhaps, fueled by the memory of happier childhood times. Mrs. Brown had stared at him, open-mouthed when he asked her to fetch the flour, then she’d shaken her head, muttering about the eccentricities of the nouveaux riches, set out the ingredients and left them to it.
He folded the dough and kneaded with his hands, relishing the once-familiar sensation as it became more pliant, the more he worked it. His wife watched him, surprise in her expression. He buried his fingers in the dough, relishing the silken texture—as silken as her flesh. As he massaged it, he imagined his hands on those soft, round breasts which peeked out of the top of her dress—what it would be like to run his tongue across the top of that creamy white flesh and dip it into the valley between. He flicked his tongue out to wet his lips. She mirrored the gesture, and he wanted her.
Did she know what she was doing to him? Or was she unaware that she had the power to render him hard with a single glance? He inhaled deeply, then swallowed to cool his ardor. The image of her legs open, begging him to take her, was clouding his mind.
She wiped her brow and left a smear of flour across her forehead.
“Here,” he said. “Let me.” He lifted his hand to brush away the flour. Her eyes widened as their bodies touched, and his manhood strained against her stomach.
Any moment, he’d toss up her skirts and take her over the kitchen table. But it wouldn’t do for the servants to encounter their master rutting in the kitchen. He didn’t give a damn about his reputation—but he did care about hers.
With a sigh, he wiped the flour from her forehead and returned to the other side of the table, and continued working on the dough.
Disappointment shone in her eyes, and she lowered her gaze and resumed her kneading.
“How did you acquire such skills?” she asked. “In making bread?”
“When I was a child, my best friend—John Farrow—taught me how to make bread at his father’s bakery.”
“I didn’t expect…” she hesitated.
“You didn’t expect me to exhibit prowess in a kitchen?” he asked. “I grew up in poverty, Margaret, in the village surrounding the Alderley estate. Our backgrounds are the same.”
“Except, I’m a bastard.”
Irritated, he reached over and took her hand. “Margaret, how many times must I tell you not to take such words upon yourself? Your origins are of no consequence.” He gestured about the kitchen. “You’re the mistress of this house and of the estate which surrounds it. That makes you a person of consequence. And you must behave as such, no matter how much you miss your life before you came here. We can never go back. We can only look forward.”
She wiped her hands on her apron and sighed. “I can’t help it if I miss my former life,” she said. “I never wanted to be mistress of a big house.” She lowered her gaze. “I didn’t want to marry.”
He took her hand. “I know,” he said. “I never wanted to marry a…” he hesitated. “I mean…you were just as reluctant as I.”
A tear splashed onto her cheek, and he cursed himself.
He’d meant to give comfort, but, instead, had only reminded her that he’d wanted to marry another—the woman arriving tomorrow, who would be their guest for the next seven nights.
Chapter Twenty
“The carriage is here, ma’am.”
Meggie set aside her mending. “Thank you, Sarah,” she said. “I’ll be down directly. I wish to fetch my shawl first—it’s turned rather cold.”
“You must come now,” the maid replied. “The master said he wasn’t to be kept waiting.”
“Very well.”
Better to weather