The Valet Who Loved Me - Valerie Bowman Page 0,34
her voice was noticeable.
He turned back around and scowled. “What else is there?”
She put her hands on her hips. “You’re not going to ask me my real name? You’re not going to tell me yours?”
A grin spread across his face. “I assumed you didn’t want to tell me your real name, but if you’d like to, I’m more than willing to listen.”
She blinked at him. “Are you going to tell me your real name?”
“No.”
She nearly stamped her foot. “That’s not fair.”
“I’m perfectly willing to continue calling you ‘Marianne.’”
She shook her head. “Well, then…why are you ‘playacting’ at being a valet?”
“Why are you using a false name?” he countered.
They stared at each other. Détente. Clearly neither of them wanted to be the first to reveal anything to the other.
Marianne crossed her arms over her chest again. “So that’s it? We’re simply going to pretend as if we don’t know anything else about each other?”
Nicholas shrugged. “I don’t see any alternative.”
“What about last night?” she finally ground out.
His grin was unrepentant. “What about it?”
She leaned back against the small desk and forced her voice to remain calm. “It meant nothing to you, did it?”
Nicholas leaned back against the door and crossed his arms over his chest. “I never said that. I simply don’t see what the two have to do with each other.”
“You’re mad,” she blurted.
His brows shot up. “Am I?”
“You’re not the least bit curious what my real name is?”
His lips hitched up in a half-grin. “Of course I am, but at this point, I’m not in the least bit certain that if I asked it, you’d tell me the truth.”
She rubbed her bare foot against the floor. “What if I promised to tell you the truth?” she offered.
“Why would you do that?” His eyes narrowed and his voice dripped with suspicion.
She lifted her chin. Why was he making this so difficult? “First name only? If I tell you mine, will you tell me yours?”
His smile returned again. “Hmm. That’s an interesting proposition. But it also could be dangerous.”
“How so?” First names were simple. She didn’t understand his objection.
“We’d be halfway to knowing each other’s full names,” he pointed out with a chuckle.
She flipped a long curl over her shoulder. “I’m willing to tell you mine if you’ll tell me yours, but you must go first.”
His lips pursed. “That, my love, takes trust.”
The words ‘my love’ made her heart beat faster. “And you don’t trust me?”
“Not as far as I could throw you.”
Clenching her fists and steeling her resolve, she sauntered over to him and put a hand on his shoulder, then let it move down to his bare chest. She traced a finger along the line of hair that made its way beneath his breeches. Oh, how she longed to follow it. His muscles jumped in reflex. She trailed her hand to his hip and then moved it around the back to cup the top curve of his buttocks.
The entire time, Nicholas had a look on his face like he seriously couldn’t believe she’d walked over and begun touching him this way.
“Come closer,” she whispered, quirking her forefinger on the opposite hand so that he would lean down to her.
He did lean down and his lips were a scant inch from hers. “What is it?” he breathed.
She took the opportunity to pull open the door behind him. “I don’t entertain men whose names I don’t know.” She pushed him into the hallway and closed the door.
Chapter Seventeen
Beau didn’t have much time. He was busily rifling through the writing desk in Lord Copperpot’s bedchamber, trying to find some sort of handwriting sample. He’d studied the handwriting from the Bidassoa letter so long and carefully that it was burned in his memory. He’d even outlined it and rewritten it time and again in order to remember exactly how the letters were formed. He already knew that Lord Copperpot’s own handwriting wouldn’t match, but perhaps the man had some other correspondence from the letter’s writer in his care.
His concentration was not on his task, however. Instead, it was on the memory of Marianne last night, standing in front of him in her night rail, her gorgeous silken hair falling in luscious locks past her shoulders like molten red lava. The thin outline of the material had revealed her nipples, and he’d wanted to taste them again. It had taken every ounce of strength he possessed to keep from pulling her into his arms and taking her to bed.
She got a bit of her