“Then let me tell you: She’s wrong. Mine is better than all the others. It’s bigger and stronger, and more handsome and more noble.”
“All that!” She opened her eyes wide. “Magical too, I suppose?”
“It can do tricks.”
“For example?”
“It can sit up and beg.”
She groaned with what sounded like amused horror. A moment later, she broke: She covered her face with her hands and laughed, her shoulders shaking. He was half out of his seat to cross the carriage to pull her into his arms and kiss her until she had stopped laughing and was breathless with desire instead.
But he couldn’t do that, so he settled back in his seat and enjoyed watching her. Enjoyed the way her laughter washed over him, rippled all the way to his groin. It took him by surprise, that desire could flare up, so hot and intense, simply from the pleasure of her company.
Chapter 13
By the time they were inside and peeling off their outerwear, Cassandra was once more the polite, well-behaved lady. Joshua could not decide if he was irritated that she hid her playful, bawdy side, or thrilled that he alone knew her secret.
Either way, it was irrelevant. It had been an entertaining interlude, and now he had work to do.
He turned to tell her precisely that, only to see her hand off her bonnet and gloves to the waiting footman and take hold of the fat tassels fastening her pelisse.
“You called me ‘darling’,” he said instead.
“He was annoying me.”
“You kissed him, I suppose.”
Her head jerked up. She glanced at the footman, who disappeared so quickly he almost sprained something.
“Bolderwood,” he clarified.
“Not today I didn’t.”
“But before.”
“We were engaged. So yes.”
She tugged at the tassels, untied the bow. As he anticipated, the pelisse fell open and she briskly slid it off her shoulders.
As for kissing Bolderwood, she apparently felt no need to elaborate. Fair enough: Nothing to elaborate on. The whole matter was settled and of no interest whatsoever. He had work to do.
“Anyone else?” he asked.
Finally, he had her attention. “Are you jealous, Mr. DeWitt?”
“Be dreadful for me to be chatting with some fellow, and the whole time he knows he has kissed you and I do not. I did you the courtesy of telling you about my liaisons.”
“That was a courtesy, was it?” she muttered, and stood before the small mirror to check her hair. “No one else. Except Hugh Hopefield, but I was only fifteen and he kissed everybody.”
She looked at him then, and the entrance hall filled up with everything that lay between them: Her longing—His desire—Their new camaraderie—Her secrets—Their kiss. She had that look on her face, the one she got before she made an impossible request. He had to stop it now.
“Right, I’ve wasted enough time today.” He clapped his hands once. “I have work to do.”
Success! She did that trick again: She pasted a polite smile over whatever she had been about to say. He had seen her use politeness as a sword and as a warship; now she used it as a wall, and if he was shut out, it was all his fault.
“Quite,” she said.
And as if he were already gone, she started shuffling through the cards and letters on the salver, sorting them into two piles. She paused at an unsealed note, unfolded it, and began to read.
“Right,” he said again.
She did not look up, so he turned and headed for his study. But after only three steps—
“Joshua!”
He spun around. “Yes?”
“This note is from Sir Gordon Bell. He says he will learn what he can about Lord Bolderwood’s case and call on us here tomorrow.”
“You already wrote to him?”
She held out the piece of paper. “Before I went to the warehouse.”
He ignored the note. “Before you asked me.”
“I should not want to waste time,” she said, an edge to her voice. “After all, you are always so busy.”
She tossed the note onto one of the piles. It tumbled straight off but she ignored it. Instead, she picked up the other, smaller pile and brushed past him for the stairs.
Joshua stood where he was until her skirts had disappeared from view. Right. His study was straight down the hallway, with all the work that awaited him.
Yet somehow his legs took him up the stairs too.
Joshua looked about the drawing room with mild curiosity. As he had no need for drawing rooms, he had never entered this room; Cosway had overseen its furnishings. Airy—Feminine—Blue walls and carpets—Useless ornaments—Pianoforte. Ah, so that’s