A Dangerous Expectation (The Gentlemen Next Door) (4 page)

He threw open the master bedroom door—but it was empty, the bed not even slept in. But the clanging grew louder.

Gray moved toward the sound, searching it out. The bathing room.

He rounded the open door.

The sight stopped him in his tracks.

His Cassandra was lying on the bathroom floor, littered with bits of metal, in naught but her thin nightgown. Her blond hair fell in waves around her shoulders. She was inspecting a bit of coil, pursing her lips in concentration.

"Are you mad?" Gray asked, thinking of her insane namesake.

"Quite," Cassandra said as if this were a perfectly normal situation. "I had no idea the Willoughbys were in possession of such advancements." She pointed to an iron intake pipe. "This adjustment is elegantly ingenious."

"I appreciate the compliment, but would prefer you’d given it while well rested. Have you had any sleep?" He surveyed the dark circles under her eyes.

"Compliment? Do you mean—"

"And you haven’t eaten!" He’d half a mind to carry her down to the kitchen for a bite—or to bed—or perhaps he was just making excuses. He’d spent an entire sleepless night himself. Not that the cottage wasn’t comfortably appointed, because it was—but because a nervous vibrato had thrummed through his veins.

"Sleep and food can wait." She scrambled to her feet, holding out the wrench and swinging it about her head as she spoke as though it were a pen. "Are you implying you are the one who thought to route the plumbing through the heating coils and apply pressure via the heat, not only to warm the water, but also to create force?"

He blinked. Had she really deduced all that from studying the design? Lucas had mentioned she was an engineer—but to this degree? "The added pressure from the heat was an unforeseen side effect," he admitted. "I was only going for heat. I’m not even sure how I accomplished the former."

"That explains it, then," she said with a triumphant nod.

"Explains what?"

"Your hands," she said simply, with a quick incline of her head.

He self-consciously glanced down at his scarred palms. When he’d first embarked on being a professional houseguest, he’d been unable to accept an offer without offering something in return. Sometimes it meant getting his hands dirty. But he refused to be ashamed of trying to be useful.

"Blast. Unintended side effect, was it?" she said, crossing her arms and turning back towards the plumbing rig to study the intersecting metal pipes. "If only we could figure out how it works. I could use this on my next ship design to force steam through to the engines."

He found himself staring at the curve of her neck as she leaned over the heater. Goosebumps prickled across her shoulders. "You’re cold."

"Nothing a warm shower wouldn’t fix!" she said delightedly. She banged the wrench against the heated coils with a clang.

His mind was quicker than he admitted. Already he was picturing her in the shower, water tracing its way down the curve of her back.

With a muffled curse, he turned and went to the bedroom, violently yanked the bedspread into a bundle in his arms, and returned to her.

"What in blazes—" she began.

He billowed the blanket out around her shoulders, securing it at her neck. She grabbed the fabric, pinning it there and surveying him with wide eyes.

Gray realized he was standing in a bathroom with his near-naked wife studying plumbing. Laughter bubbled its way to his lips.

Cassandra’s brows knit with concern.

He laughed, a laugh that took over his whole body and soon Cassandra let out a giggle and she was laughing, too, although she couldn’t possibly know why.

But then she drew a deep sigh and pulled the blanket closer. "And they say that I’m the mad one."

"Perhaps while married to me, I shall bear that honor," he said affectionately.

"It is a strange situation, I admit."

It was then he realized she knew exactly how he felt. That she likely felt the same way. And how strange that he should feel in perfect harmony with a complete stranger. "I’ll prepare a breakfast plate for you."

"Oh, but—" her gaze shifted to the pipes.

"I meant, to bring up here," he said. "So you can continue your work."

A wide smile spread across her lips. "I would like that."

* * *

Cassandra’s gaze strayed once again out the glass pane of the bathroom window to the front yard. Gray Abernathy had climbed the apple tree in front of the cottage. He was boyishly charming as he did so, the wind ruffling through his hair. She could see his strong, broad back as he lay against the trunk and reached one muscled arm toward the branches. He pulled the early red fruit and let it drop into the basket perched on the branch at his side.

The housekeeper stood her ground beneath him, barking that he should get down, straying beneath his feet like a dog while her husband next to her motioned for Gray to pick the larger fruit closer to the tree’s crown.

Cassandra bit back a smile. He’d come up with a plate of ham and toast for her then sheepishly said he’d been summoned to help around the house.

She supposed she should find it emasculated him, the way he had succumbed to manual labor. But she did not. In fact, it was quite the opposite. She’d made absolutely no progress on studying his pipe design as she’d listened to him dragging the carpets outside and hanging them in the sun for the housekeeper to beat, and now she was staring at him as he picked apples.

Best of all, that anxiety she’d been expecting—that awkwardness—had yet to make an appearance since the wedding, ever since he’d said he did not find it untoward that she preferred to fend for herself. Now she understood why. He was a man who fended for himself as best he could.

If only she could figure out why his design forced pressure through the pipes. She had reconfigured the piping a half dozen ways since last night. Each had resulted in hot water, but only a trickle. How was it that his supplied the added benefit of force through the pipes?

Shrill female laughter drew her eyes back to the window. It was the housekeeper, who was now guffawing as Gray swung upside down, his legs anchored over the branches like a little boy, to hand her the basket of apples.

Cassandra felt an ache deep inside her chest—she couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so carefree. It had been before her father made his money, when she and Chastity still lived in the slums and would play hide and seek and other games to pass the time.

She glanced back at the pipes and, quite decidedly, put her wrench down and went to dress.

* * *

"Please, milady," the housekeeper said. "Not you, too."

"It’s far too dangerous," her husband agreed.

But Gray grinned at her while swinging upside down from the main bough of the apple tree and lowered his arm, apple in hand, as an invitation.

"Are you the serpent come to tempt me?" she teased, plucking the apple from his fingertips and dropping it in the wicker basket overflowing with early fruit that now rest on the ground.

"That would cast you as the original temptress," he said.

Cassandra smiled, feeling carefree—with her words, with her spirit. The housekeeper rolled her eyes as her husband bustled her away so they were alone.

She took Gray’s hand and climbed the first few steps up the trunk, but then his strong arms wrapped around her waist and he pulled her up next to him on the branch. He righted himself to sit next to her.

With the trunk supporting her back and the breeze in her hair, she breathed in the scent of crisp apples and the sweet aroma of freshly cut grass.

"You seem happy," he said, studying her carefully.

She took in a breath and, as she exhaled, considered his observation. "I am happy. It surprises me."

"Please, don’t spare my feelings," he said dryly.

"Oh—I’m sorry," she said. "I didn’t mean—I should…forgive me." She shrugged. "I say terrible things. I always have."

"No, no, don’t be sorry," he said. "I was teasing. It’s refreshing. Someone who says what she thinks."

"It is?"

"It is," he agreed. "I wish I could feel as free."

"You? But you’re…" She pointed to him. "A man. And a duke’s son. You’re as free to speak your mind as anyone."

He gave a rueful smile. "I’m a pauper, as you’ve guessed, and my fortune is tied directly to how easily I am tolerated."

"So you’ve never shared a dark mood," she guessed.

"Never to someone with the spirit to treat me kindly."

"And you must feel like a puppet," she said, remembering how it felt to be paraded at society events. "Constantly performing."

"Constantly amusing," he said, leaning close. "It’s a small price to pay for a roof over my head."

"You needn’t pay it with me."

His tawny eyes darkened to stormy and she realized just how precariously she was placed, with nothing but a slim branch beneath her and the trunk at her back, while he loomed large at her side. He dipped his head, shadowing her face, and she could smell him, some scent of man and warmth.

His eyes searched hers and he leaned closer still—his lips an inch from hers.

Tension coiled in her stomach, tighter and tighter, but he made no move.

"Kiss me and be done with it!" she cried.

Shame and dread warmed her cheeks and on a gasp she stared past her toes to the ground below. She’d made the greatest mistake of all—she’d assumed she was safe. That was she was free here in the countryside, even with this stranger—but no—she knew better than anyone that she should keep her mouth shut at all times.

She felt him shaking next to her. His arm trembling.

Of course he was livid. He’d married the lowest of commoners.

Then she heard his bark of laughter.

She glanced up in surprise and was even more shocked to see he was barely containing his mirth, cheeks wide with a grin, a tear streaming down his cheek from laughing so hard.

"Are you mocking me?" She had half a mind to strike his chest if the other half wasn’t so terrified of upsetting her perch.

He let out another laugh with a shake of his head, but then his tawny eyes met hers and he stilled. His warm palm cupped her cheek, and he leaned forward, this time his breath fanning across her forehead. "Let’s promise never to censor ourselves with one another."

"Never?" she asked, disbelievingly.

"Never," he insisted.

"Even if…even if I were to tell you again I’d very much like you to kiss me?"

"Especially not then," he said, pressing his lips to her ear.

"Even," she said breathlessly, "If I were to say your mouth on my ear feels deliciously warm in places that are not my ear?"

She felt his lips quirk up in a smile as he dragged his mouth down the length of her neck. "Definitely not then."

"Or," she murmured, leaning into him, "If I were to say I wanted your mouth much lower?"

He froze. She blinked, the sensation of being drugged by sensuality giving way to a moment of awareness. Had she gone too far? But then he was hauling her over his lap, bringing them into close contact so that her thigh brushed over his leg. With nothing holding her up but his arms, she almost felt like flying. His lips blazed a trail across her collarbone so her breath came in hot gasps until finally his mouth closed over hers and she found, for once, she had very little to say.

Chapter Five

Gray bolted up in bed, throwing his covers off his legs. He jumped up to dress, eager to make his way next door to the main house, where Cassandra would likely already be dressed and deconstructing his pipe design.

Her quest to understand how to scale it for one of her engines had all but consumed her these past few days. Well, that and kissing.

The latter of which he understood too well.

Cassandra Drummond loved to kiss, and she loved to speak while she did so.

He did not mind. He loved her gasps and sighs. Loved her soft mewls. Loved her frustrated cries when he passed over her lips for the soft dip of her neck or even the inside curve of her elbow, not to mention the sensitive skin at her wrist.

What he did not love was how she always reached that point where she blurted out that she was frightened or nervous and he had to pull away. Had to summon every ounce of willpower to dampen his desire.

Fortunately, talk of engineering helped, and Cassandra loved to talk about engineering more than anything else in this world.

After dressing, he made his way to the house, stopping by the kitchen for a modest breakfast that she would certainly have forgotten to eat. He winced only once at the sound of crashing from upstairs. He had now learned that the sound, if anything, was a sign that she was not hurt. Quiet was surely the only noise to fear when she was at work.

"You were right!" she announced as he walked into the bathing-room.

Not that she’d seen him, as she was on her knees, bent underneath the tub.

"I usually am, but pray, what about this time in particular?"

She snorted, but took the time to set down her tools and sit up. She took a piece of the toast he offered, ripped it in half, and hurriedly chewed it. "That the force is an unforeseen side effect of the number of coils from the heater. The tighter they are, the more force they impart. So the question remains—what dimensions would I need to create a forced steam effect on an engine large enough to power one of my father’s ships?"

"We’ll have to build two scale models to measure the effect," he said. "And to determine whether a scale in size results in a direct correlated effect or an exponential one."

Her green eyes lit up and her nose twitched, almost with delight. "A man after my own heart."

"And what if I am?" he asked.

The toast slipped from her fingers to drop onto the floor. He picked it up, not letting himself dwell too long on what her reaction meant. He’d only meant the remark in jest—hadn’t he? But if so, why was he hurt by her shock?

"My sister would be amused to know you outdo me for saying astonishing things," she said, smoothing her skirts.

"Is it so astonishing?" he asked.