When a Rogue Meets His Match - Elizabeth Hoyt Page 0,21
grin was quick and dangerous as he stepped closer to her. “Oh, I can make a man piss himself with fright, have no doubt, but is that really the same as your uncle manipulating Parliament?”
She pursed her lips. “No. You’re quite right.”
His eyebrows winged up as if he were surprised she’d agreed. His black eyes were suddenly intent as he watched her.
“Never forget,” he said softly. “No matter the duke’s power, I will keep you safe. You are…important to me.”
Her lips parted as her heart gave a silly jolt.
Then she came to her senses. “My money is important to you, you mean.”
“No, I meant what I said. You…” He touched the bottom of her chin with his fingertips, a line between his wicked eyes almost as if he were puzzled. “I can’t look away from you. Your bravery, your pride, the desire that sometimes whirls in your eyes.” His nostrils flared as if he were inhaling her. “The way you laugh—from your belly, unrestrained. With all your heart. No matter how I try, my gaze returns to you. Always you.”
She couldn’t breathe. His words sounded as if they’d been drawn from the very depths of his being. All thought fled. He was dangerous. Dangerous and evil.
Yet she still felt his pull.
“You must be lying,” she whispered desperately.
“I am not.”
She closed her eyes so that she could no longer see his lips, his wicked eyebrows, and those damned black eyes.
But she couldn’t shut out his voice, low and rasping. “Messalina.”
“No.” She raised her eyelids. “We agreed on waiting for—”
“Bedplay,” he interrupted. “I’m not talking about that.” He sighed. “Come. Let’s eat supper.”
She nodded at once. Placing a table between him and her was a very good idea indeed.
He bowed, waving his hand toward what must be the dining room. Inside was a small table by the fireplace set with various dishes.
Messalina stopped short. “Where did this all come from?”
“A very mysterious place,” he murmured as he pulled out a chair for her. “It’s called the kitchen.”
Well, she supposed she deserved that.
Messalina sat in the chair, very conscious of Hawthorne standing behind her. For a moment she could’ve sworn she felt his breath on her neck.
She shivered.
But he was already seating himself to her left at the head of the table.
She carefully set the little notebook on the table. “You do have a cook.”
“Mm.” He cut into one of the pies. “Yes.”
She scoffed. “A cook seems so ordinary.”
“Does it?” His look was ironic. “I hired him for you.”
“Oh.” She flushed. “But when?”
“Before I went north to fetch you.” He thumped a plate down in front of her. It was filled with a gently steaming savory pie. “Naturally I prepared for when you’d be my wife.”
She shivered. That he’d done this when she was still at a house party, innocently unaware that he was laying the ground to marry her, was…disconcerting.
She swallowed and found a different subject. “I was beginning to wonder if your cook could bake.”
“Why?” Hawthorne poured the wine.
“Because we’ve only had bread and butter all day.”
“What?” Hawthorne looked up at that, frowning.
Was she about to get the cook in trouble? She certainly didn’t want that.
She replied more carefully, “Bread, butter, and some tea.”
“I’ll talk to the cook,” Hawthorne said, and then grudgingly, “He worked in a tavern before I hired him. I doubt he’s ever made a breakfast or luncheon for a lady.”
She knitted her brow. “Why not hire a properly trained cook? Surely that would be easier than trying to instruct a—a barkeep?”
He glanced at her as he passed her a glass of wine. “Easier, yes. But I think my barkeep cook will learn well enough, given time. Besides, hiring a society-approved cook would be more expensive.”
“Even with my dowry?” she asked pointedly.
He hesitated a moment, then said, “I have better uses for your dowry than hiring an expensive cook.”
Yet Hawthorne wanted to enter London society, she mused. Did he not know that in order to receive invitations he also had to invite people to his house?
But why would he? Hawthorne might lurk on the fringes of the aristocracy, but he wasn’t one of them. He’d never moved in their social circles. He was trying to enter a foreign land without learning the language. Strange to think that a man otherwise so capable—so arrogantly sure of himself—might have this one Achilles heel.
She watched Hawthorne as he pushed the side of his fork into the slice of pie on his plate. His hands were long-fingered, deft, and strong. And competent,