Leslie Lafoy (20 page)

“I’m going to put her on her own bed, place her in the care of her maid, and walk away. Feel free to tag along to vouch that being kind and considerate needn’t compromise a woman’s reputation.”

“You’re besotted,” Aubrey accused as they started up the stairs.

Drayton ignored him, deciding that the longer-term interests of friendship probably lay in keeping his comments to himself. If caring for a woman’s physical comfort and rest was a sign of being besotted, then, all right, he was. And if it was a sign of being besotted to be genuinely appreciative for all the effort and sacrifices she made to make his house more livable and the opinions others held of him higher, then, yes, he was guilty. About a hundred times over.

And if wanting, in his heart of hearts, to say to hell with appearances and carry her into
his
room and lie down beside her on
his
bed and hold her while she slept was a sign of being besotted, then he was hopelessly and happily gone around the goddamn bend and he didn’t give a bloody fig if it took an entire month to come back.

CAROLINE OPENED HER EYES AND STARED UP AT THE
ceiling. Either the house was on fire or . . . She turned her head on the pillow and sighed dreamily. What a wonderful life she’d fallen into. A soft, warm bed, a flickering
fire in the hearth, a tray of food sitting on the tufted footrest just in case she should rouse from her ease and find herself hungry.

Which, now that she thought about it, she was.

Her back protested as she sat up and pushed the covers aside. It was only as she slid to the side of the bed that her mind clicked fully awake. The last thing she remembered with any sort of clarity was sitting down in Drayton’s study. And she definitely recalled having been wearing considerably more clothing then than she was wearing now. She glanced around the room and, not seeing her dress or stockings anywhere, concluded that it likely
hadn’t
been Drayton who’d stripped her down to her corset and tucked her under the comforter. No, more likely it had been Dora. And only Dora would have thought to lay her wrapper on the foot of the bed; it was the sort of thought that would occur only to a female mind.

She pulled the cover on, tied the sash around her waist, and padded on bare feet to the chair in front of the hearth to take inventory of the foodstuffs. A cloth-lined basket filled with crusty hard rolls, a little pot of soft cheese, a pair of apples and a delicate silver knife to cut them with, a towel-wrapped silver pot of . . . She tipped back the lid and inhaled the tendril of steam. Oh, dear God, chocolate!

“Just let me eat this,” she said, gazing up at the ceiling and grinning, “and then you can strike me dead and I won’t say a word.”

She’d finished one roll, eaten half the cheese, slurped down a good three quarters of the hot chocolate, and was tossing the apple from hand to hand when she laughed and looked back up at the ceiling. “Whoever had this brought in here . . . Sainthood. Honestly, they deserve—”

The clock on the mantel chimed and she listened,
prepared to count the hours. There wasn’t another sound. “One?” she gasped, vaulting out of the chair to check the clock face. Yes, one. She looked at the inky darkness on the other side of the window. She’d slept for how long? Fourteen, maybe fifteen hours? No wonder she’d been so hungry.

Of course now she was full and rested and the only one in the entire house even thinking about what to do with the day. It would be at least another four hours until the kitchen staff began to stir and they were the very first to rise. They’d probably want to kill her if she carried her dishes downstairs and rolled them out this early.

No, she should probably stay in her room and find some quiet activity to pass the time. It had been ages since she’d had the luxury of time to read something other than fashion books. Which, she had to admit, were always more visual fantasies than any true intellectual stimulation. Surely there had to be a book somewhere close at—The sitting room. Yes, she remembered seeing a small bookcase in there.

Pulling a strand from the hearth broom, she lit it and carried it to the lamp on the bedside table. The light was soft and pleasant and in it the cabbage roses on the wallpaper grew huge and seemed to eerily dance.

“Euw,” she said, shuddering and carrying the light into the smaller adjacent room. The paper on the walls in there was the same as in the bedchamber, but in the confined space they didn’t so much dance as they loomed and pulsed with unnatural life. Caroline put the lamp on the secretary, turned up the wick and focused on the contents of the bookshelf.

Botany. Seven books and every single one of them was on flowers. She glared at the wallpaper, silently threatening
to tear it all off and throw it away the very first chance she got.

“Oh,” she whispered, grinning and stepping close to the doorjamb. “Just how . . .”

The edge lifted easily, cleanly. “Oh, yes!” she cried happily, pulling a bit harder, a lot more deliberately. The paper separated from the plaster behind it and age-old paste crumbled away, falling to the floor and dusting the tops of her feet. It was only toward the top of the room that the paper began to tear and resist her effort to remove it. Caroline paused, considered the problem, and then smiled. It was a matter of angles and leverage; all she needed to do was stack up some of the furniture so that she could reach higher. She could have every last shred of it gone before dawn.

DRAYTON SCRUBBED HIS HANDS OVER HIS FACE, FROWNED
, and worked the kink out of his neck. He was thinking that his days of comfortably sleeping in chairs—no matter how overstuffed—were long over when the sound came through the wall beside his head. He looked over at the plum-striped wallpaper. A rat? The sound came again. A rat the size of a small pony? He scowled, decided against the rat possibility, went to the door that led into Caroline’s sitting room, and yanked it open.

He didn’t mean to gasp, it was just the sound that came out when his heart slammed up to the base of his throat.

“Hello, Drayton. I didn’t—” The pile of furniture under her swayed toward the window on her left and she threw her balance forward to compensate. The back edge of the chair hit the plaster wall with a resounding thud.

“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded, threading his way toward her through the maze of furnishings.

“Tearing down,” she answered, tugging the half-loose sheet of wallpaper and sending the stack swaying again, “the world’s most god-awful wallpaper. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Jesus Christ, Caroline! Come down from there before you fall through the window.”

“I’m not going to fall.”

“Yes, I know,” he declared, reaching her and instantly throwing his arm around her waist. “Because you’re coming down,” he added, hauling her back against him.

“Drayton, no!” she squeaked as the paper tore free along a ragged edge. “Oh, damn!”

Off balance, but otherwise infinitely relieved, he pivoted just enough to fall into the chair with her. “Daughters of dukes do not pull down their own wallpaper,” he informed her as she glared up at him from his lap. “They order it done by others and then go for a carriage ride.”

She threw the sheet of paper on the floor. “How boring.”

“How safe.”

“I was perfectly safe,” she declared, yanking her satin robe closed over her breasts and then flipping the length as best she could to hide her legs.

He grinned and drew the satin over her lower body until all that showed were the tops of her cute little dusty feet. “Do you ever have a waking moment in which you do nothing?”

“No.”

“Well, it’s time for you to cultivate the skill.”

Her breath caught painfully in the center of her chest, Caroline forced herself to look away from the sparkling dark eyes. It was the middle of the night and she was sitting—no, reclining comfortably—half-naked, in Drayton’s lap. If she could manage to get out of this predicament
with just a tiny little shred of dignity intact . . . “Speaking of cultivating,” she began, trying to sound as though she found herself in this sort of situation all the time, “did Mr. Henry get the planters done on the front steps?”

“Yes,” he said, obviously fighting a smile. “They were in place by the time Coleman arrived. They look lovely. As does the foyer, by the by. You’ve been nothing short of a creative dervish since you walked through the front door.”

“What about the hedges?” she asked, wondering if it would be possible to just accidentally fall to the floor. Probably not, she decided. Not with his arms around her like they were. “Has the planting begun yet?”

“Henry and his crew were still working on them at sunset. It may take a day or two longer, but the overall pattern is starting to emerge and it’s stunningly attractive.”

“Has he placed the fountain yet?”

“Fountain?”

Oh, well, sooner or later, his legs would go numb and he’d be forced to ask her to get up so the blood could flow back into them. “It’s beautiful. Five scalloped tiers with a simple round finial. Why it was in storage, Mr. Henry couldn’t say. It’s been there as long as he can remember. We designed the entire Irish knot around it as the centerpiece.”

“You’re amazing.”

Well, so was he. Handsome. Chivalrous. Sweet to little girls with kittens. Generous. And nothing short of breathtakingly intuitive in bed. She cleared her throat softly and deliberately put her mind back on a safer track. “Actually, all I’ve done is give people permission to do what they’ve wanted to for ages. Mr. Henry practically danced when I asked if he could do something to improve on the front landscaping. That’s when he showed me the fountain.”

“Which would explain why there isn’t a single drapery left on the windows downstairs.”

“Mrs. Gladder has had them torn down already?”

“She’s had them burned, too,” he said, nodding and smiling. “All of it with a great deal of enthusiasm, I might add.” His smile broadened. “And yes, before you ask, the drive has been reshelled. Late this afternoon. And it’s deep enough that Aubrey turned an ankle in it when he came back from the village pub this evening.”

Well, there was a side to him she hadn’t seen yet. “You seem to be rather pleased by that unfortunate event.”

He shrugged. “Simone’s right, he’s a prig. I have no idea why I consider him a friend.”

“What’s he done to test your temper?” she asked, suspecting that Aubrey had objected to the free rein he was giving her in spending his money.

His smile weakened and his eyes darkened as he stared across the room. “He warned me to stay away from you.”

And sitting on his lap was just the sort of thing that Aubrey was worried about. “Wise counsel, Drayton,” she pointed out, sliding her feet to the floor and easing out of his embrace. “We should listen to him. He is a good friend.”

“A true friend would care about my happiness,” he countered, as she perched on the edge of a footstool and told herself that being careful was better than being comfortable.

“What did the girls do with the day while I slept it away?”

He cocked a brow. “You’re changing the subject.”

“Quite deliberately,” she admitted. “What did the girls do with their day?”

“Lessons in the morning,” he supplied, stretching his legs out and leaning back to cradle his head in his hands.

“You’re right about Mrs. Miller being the grandmotherly sort. I like her. After luncheon, Aubrey, Haywood, and I took the girls out so she could have a hard-earned nap.”

“And what did you all do?”

“Simone had her first fencing lesson. She’s very good.”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“And Fiona found an injured squirrel in the stable.”

“Oh, no. I hope she wasn’t heartbroken.”

He laughed softly and his eyes twinkled. “She splinted its leg and made Haywood find her a cage to keep it safe should Beeps ever rouse enough to have a moment of bad manners and feral instinct.”

She laughed and then the implication settled in her brain. “The squirrel is in the house?”

“In her room,” he said, nodding as though every home had a squirrel in residence. “It’s name is Scutter. Just so you know.”

“What if it’s diseased, Drayton?”

“Aside from the leg, he looks just fine. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with his appetite. Have you ever seen, at close quarters, a squirrel eat? They’re the most incredible little machines. It’s really more fascinating than you’d think.”

She’d missed it. She’d missed standing beside Drayton and laughing with him as they watched Scutter gnaw away at a nut. The loss of that moment, that chance, hurt. Just as it hurt to sit apart from him now and want so badly to climb back into his arms. If only she hadn’t been so brave the one time. If only she didn’t know just how much she was giving up for the sake of protecting their all-important social reputations and financial prospects.

“What is it, Caroline?”

“I was just thinking,” she answered, scrambling for a plausible lie, “that you sound as if you enjoyed the day.”

“It was more entertaining than swabbing down cannon barrels ever was.”

“Are you missing the military at all?”

“Command is command,” he said after a moment. “The satisfactions are different, but also similar in many ways.” He shrugged and pushed himself to his feet. “All in all, I’d have to say that I’m adjusting to the sudden change in my circumstances far more quickly and smoothly than I expected.”

She stood, too, hoping they could get through parting without too much awkwardness. “You seem to be a much happier man than the one that walked through the door of my shop two days ago.”

“Three days,” he corrected with a wink.

“You know what I mean.”

He nodded and tilted his head to consider her. “You seem to be a much happier woman, too.”

Well, yes, but admitting it would just give him too much satisfaction. “I was perfectly happy with my life.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes, I do.”

He reached out and trailed a fingertip slowly along the top of her nose. “Could I talk you into coming to bed with me, dear Caroline?”

“No,” she whispered as her heart insisted that it would be wonderful if she did.