Etiquette With The Devil (18 page)

“Do you think Cook will mind you fussing about in the kitchen?”

Bly faced Clara, pulling the cork free from the claret bottle with his teeth—the savage. There was a large pop, and he spat the cork onto the counter. She watched as it bounced across the counter and tumbled to the floor.

“Do you think I care?”

She shook her head and laughed, feeling herself grow a little warm. He poured two glasses of claret and handed one to her before he began chopping vegetables. Each slice was perfectly uniform.

“Get off your foot,” he said, as he ran the knife through a bunch of carrots. “You’ve been limping all day.”

She was struck that he had noticed amidst all the chaos of the day. Clara attempted, with great awkwardness, to pull herself up onto the work surface, but her heavy skirts proved too much to lift up and she only succeeded in making a small squeak as she slid back to the floor.

Bly turned, placing his hands around her waist, and lifted her onto the work surface without a word. He hesitated for a moment, looking rather dazed with his hands on her.

She closed her eyes and let out a soft breath as the ghost of his hand prints radiated heat around her middle and spread throughout her body.

“How’d you hurt it?” he asked, still close.

“It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

His fist gently knocked against her chin, drawing her eyes open, drawing her closer to his torso—always drawing her closer, like the surf to the shore. “You are always fine, aren’t you, Clara? Even when the world turns against you.”

She forced out a laugh, ignoring how thoroughly he had pinpointed the cause of her discomfort.

The rough pads of his fingers skirted over the line of her chin before his touch was gone completely, and he sank to the floor in front of her. “If you’ll allow me, I can help.”

The lacing on her corset was suddenly too tight. “It’s not necessary, I’m—”

“Fine,” he finished, his eyebrow quirked at her. “Hit me if you wish, then.”

Before she could question why, he placed her foot against his bent knee. Then both of his hands slowly hiked up her skirts until her ankle was revealed.

“Please.” The breath in her throat burned, as did her lungs. She winced as his fingers applied more pressure against her foot.

“You have a bad sprain.”

“And what do you know of medicine?” she asked, torn between clobbering him over the head with her fist and melting back against the work surface. “This isn’t appropriate. I can manage.”

“I’ve had to manage for myself a long time, often well away from medical care. Call it life experience.” Bly eased off her slipper and cupped her heel, turning her foot to the right. A sharp, ragged breath escaped her lips. “I’ll ring for the doctor if you’d like, but something tells me you’ll complain against that as well.”

“There is no—”

His fingers pressed into her foot as if he were playing a chord on the piano. She issued another sigh with the soft cadence of pressure. His touch was gentler than she had expected. It was equally as confusing, as well.

“Limp along if you like, but you should be staying off of this for a few days.” He stretched, grabbing a clean rag from the work surface, then removed his knife from his boot. With a quick upright motion, the rag was torn into two long and narrow pieces.

Clara drew her foot back, staring down at him and his knife, at a man she should not be allowing to touch her person…so freely.

“Afraid of my knife?” he asked, his devilish grin returning. When she didn’t supply an answer, he sheathed it back into his boot and he held her foot once more, his touch gentle and tentative.

Clara could have sworn his fingers trembled as he secured one end around her stocking before wrapping the length over the ragged end. He wound the cloth around her foot and ankle until the pressure somehow erased the sharp ache she had been nursing all day as she limped along.

“This will help keep down the swelling.” He spoke to her foot, his voice low. “And help with the pain, as well.”

She nodded to the top of his head, her thanks trapped somewhere inside her chest, for surely that was why her heart had suddenly picked up its pace, why she felt as if she were floating rather than alone in the kitchen with her employer. His hands tenderly knotted fabric around her sprained ankle as if she were made of glass. She reached her hand out, wishing to comb it through his hair or place it upon his shoulder. She wished to touch him, to ground herself in the silence that ballooned around them and dragged her further into her spiraling thoughts of Bly. Of his kindness. Of the way her body hummed because of his touch.

Bly slipped on her shoe, then stood, backing away, his eyes focused over her shoulder.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

His eyes met hers briefly before he gave a curt nod and turned, focusing his attention once more on chopping vegetables.

With each slice, she felt her body flush at the reminder of his hands upon her. “Where did you learn to cook?” Clara asked. It would be best to focus on the present and not to get swept up in silly daydreams.

“I was in the military for a time. Now I’m something of an antiquarian.” He ran the blade through the last of the carrots and swiped them to the side of the old butcher block top. “I spend a lot of my time away from what others consider civilization and fend for myself.”

“So you collect antiques for museums?” The thought of Bly working hand in hand with the country’s museums was rather funny. She doubted he had ever stepped foot into one. For that matter, neither had she.

“That’s a kind way of saying what I do.”

Clara leaned forward, her weight resting on her arms as she sat on the counter, her head tipped to one side. She shouldn’t want the answers to her questions, but she found herself asking all the same. “Then what would you say you do exactly?”

“I chart the world. I discover the unknown,” he said, his back still to Clara.

Discovering the unknown
.

What a romantic notion to be able to set off in the world with no destination. Clara hadn’t known the destination of her life, but it had never proved fruitful. She went from an attic to being an outcast at a boarding school in London, then the lonely companion to an elderly recluse. Besides standing on the beach by Hyclffye House, she had never decided her journey—fate had had a hand in that. And now she sat in a darkened kitchen, trying her best not to be spooked by the shadows that edged around the room like a spider web.

She was stuck in Yorkshire, at Burton Hall, as well.

“It must be wonderful to have such adventure in your life.”

His shoulders sagged as he held out a bean pod toward her. “I find and claim items for the highest bidder, Clara. I’m nothing more than a thief.”

The bean pod snapped between her teeth, its crispness sprayed into her mouth, bright and fresh. “That does take some of the romance out of it, I suppose.”

He gave a deep, throaty laugh, smiling at her before he turned around once more. She enjoyed the way his shoulders moved beneath the linen of his shirt while he cooked for her.

That small drumming beat within returned. Clara tried to block the troublesome voice that had taunted her since earlier that morning; he would be leaving soon. Maybe he would make his goodbyes tomorrow, as Barnes had suddenly today. Maybe it would be at the end of the week, or perhaps in another two weeks. Either way, he was leaving.

“You have no idea how well the Chancellor of Germany pays for a relic buried at the heart of a dangerous country. There are those who’d say there’s a great deal of romance in the payday he offered.”

She had never paid much attention to it before, but his accent was muddled. It was the world’s orphan, unclaimed, yet cluttered by years of never knowing the confines of remaining within one country’s borders.

“It is not proper to discuss matters of money.”

Why could she never enjoy a moment with Bly without correcting him on his lack of manners? She wished she could keep her mouth shut. Certainly, he would not find himself enamored with a governess who always nagged. She dropped her head into her hands, certain that she had just made another error in being a friend to Bly. That is, if that was what she was doing there in the kitchen. Clara did not trust that that was the sole reason she allowed herself to be alone with her employer.

“You help balance the ledgers, and just yesterday we spoke of budget matters for repairs. Are you really going to insist on what’s proper?”

Clara swung her feet back and forth, eying her glass of claret judiciously. She never had cause before to contemplate drinking such wicked spirits. All she did know was that by doing so, she would be breaking another rule. She was beginning to break them at an alarming rate while in the company of Bly Ravensdale.

“Everyone’s gone to bed,” he insisted when she did not answer. “You’re free to be yourself around me. I’m in no position to judge if you happen to forget your bloody rules for a moment.”

This was a terrible idea. She should get up and retire to her new room and unpack her few belongings. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize either.”

Clara gazed down into the full glass of claret, contemplating a string of excuses so she could make her escape.

“Is there something wrong with your drink? You’re supposed to drink it, not stare at it.”

“No,” she said with a nervous laugh. Nothing was wrong with
that
. It was only how she felt around Bly that was wrong.

“I was under the impression that nothing frightened you.”

That couldn’t be further from the truth. She was afraid of everything. Fear drove her to Burton Hall. Fear kept her from exploring the feeling she harbored for Mr. Ravensdale. Fear reminded her she was no one.

Clara wrapped her fingers around the stem of the glass a little tighter as his eyes remained fixed on hers. She thought to confess she was afraid of everything, including him—especially how he made her feel as though she were caught between flying and disappearing. Bly was transforming from an irritating man to something of a human being. Heaven help her if she discovered the man had a heart in that broad chest of his. There were certainly times when she wondered.

“Will you take a sip of the damn claret?”

“I wish you would stop speaking with such vulgar language.” She shook her head, knocking away an image of him leaning forward to kiss her with that dirty mouth of his. Those novels of hers had rotted her brains.

He placed two pieces of meat in a sizzling skillet with a pad of butter and some herbs, taunting her no more. The kitchen filled with a wonderful smell and Clara found herself with the glass at her lips, pausing to acknowledge the corrupting influence of Bly, and more importantly, her own secret wickedness. Because in truth, Clara harbored her own wildness, her own desire to live and be a woman free from the cage the men of her life had locked her into.

She took a sip and made a sour face. Without making her distaste known, she drained the glass and set it onto the counter next to her.

“Thirsty, Dawson?”

Clara licked her lips. Her body, her mouth, her heart hummed with anticipation as Bly’s breath caught in his throat. “Apparently so.”

*

A log on the fire fell, sending a sparking shower of embers up the chimney flue. Even in the dim light of the drawing room, Clara glittered like a Roman coin in the sun. Her hair was falling out of its pins, framing her face with twisted wisps. Bly wondered if she would reach up and release the rest of her tresses, but it remained pinned, just as she remained on the cusp of propriety and free-will—half undone.

Clara was a mystery he did not understand. She was like the Aka-Bo dialect of the Andaman Islands. It was similar to Ongan, but they did not translate at all. He could identify the sounds and listen, but he would not comprehend the words unless someone taught him the dialect. He would never learn Clara unless he studied her. He could never put her out of his mind if he did not kiss her.

He was losing his touch as a thief and had all but lost his edge as a spy. He couldn’t get a slip of information from her about what had happened before she arrived at Burton Hall.

“Bly?” she asked, as they sat picnicking on the floor of the laughably empty library.

He blinked a few times before clearing his throat. He no longer had the upper hand. Clara had stolen that from him earlier tonight by agreeing to his invitation. No, if he was being completely honest, she had taken that from him some weeks ago. He could not remember when exactly, but it was too late to matter now.

Bly pulled at the collar of his shirt. The damn thing was choking him. The sight of Clara licking her lips after another bite of dinner left him undone, as though he were hours deep into chasing after the dragon. She erased the world around him; she erased the thoughts swirling in his mind, as well.

“My compliments to the chef,” she said, wiping the crumbs at her mouth away with the back of her hand. It was so unlike her to do something so…impolite.

He smiled.

“I was much hungrier than expected. Thank you. I should not eat like this in front of you, it is—”