Mischief by Moonlight (10 page)

As much as Edwina loved London, she was beginning to wonder if it wasn't working some unpleasant spell on everyone.

Her normally buoyant sister, for instance, seemed more subdued every day, which was strange, considering that Josie's long wait for Nick was almost over. But when she'd asked Josie if she wasn't delirious with happiness that her fiancé would likely return in a week or two and carry her off to the altar, she'd said “of course” in a snappish voice.

Perhaps Josie's peevishness had something to do with her friendship with Colin, who, now that he'd astonishingly become the gentleman about whom all the Town ladies were talking, seemed not to have much time for her anymore.

As Edwina wandered distractedly from the sitting room to the garden one afternoon, then plopped down to take tea with Josie and Maria, she knew that she herself didn't feel quite as she should either. In fact, she was becoming the tiniest bit tired of London.

This made no sense, especially now that Mappleton seemed likely to propose when he returned to Town. But there was getting to be a dull predictability to the social whirl, and she didn't want to think that dullness had anything to do with the way a certain arrogant, blue-eyed man made her feel lit up inside.

She'd wasted all those years at Jasmine House feeling sorry for herself, but that was behind her now. No longer content just to accept what fell to her, she meant to seize her future with both hands, and it looked to be a brilliant future: a family of her own with the best possible husband.

She would be eternally grateful to Ivorwood and Maria for making her London visit possible, because it would not be an exaggeration, she was fairly certain, to say that it was going to change her life.

The ladies were to go to the theater that night, and before Edwina left she sent her broken jewel box down to Whitby with a peremptory note. She told herself that reminding him how far beneath her he was would stop him from being impudent. And stop her from thinking about him.

But after the ladies returned from the play, she'd had an almost overwhelming urge to talk to Josie about Whitby and the way he made her feel. She could only be glad that her sister had gone straight to bed, which had saved her from putting into words what she shouldn't even be thinking.

She tossed in her bed all night. When the first streaks of dawn began creeping across the carpet, she rose and dressed and rang for a maid to bring a tray to her room.

The bread and chocolate were some time in coming, as it was so early and the servants were just stirring, and after she ate, she wandered the house aimlessly. Maria and Josie would likely not be awake for an hour at least.

Deciding to get a book, she went into the library and didn't at first realize that anyone else was in there. But shortly she became aware of a soft sound coming from the room's large, exquisite desk, and noticed a distinctive, not unpleasant smell, and she went over to look.

Jack Whitby was crouched behind the desk, rubbing a cloth over the dark wood of the desk.

He flicked a glance at her but said nothing and kept working.

“I should think the maids would be responsible for the polishing,” she said.

“I'm not polishing, I'm repairing the finish.”

She ought to leave right then; to be alone in a room with a man and the door closed was highly improper. And Jack Whitby, with his persistent lack of deference and his air of mockery mingled with vigor, made it seem all the more improper. But she couldn't make herself go. She told herself it was only her usual contrariness keeping her there and moved away from him, making for the bookshelves.

They existed quietly in the room together for several minutes, the only noise being the sound of his cloth and the rustling she made as she pulled books off the shelves. She poked through a collection of novels, but the silly heroines in their pages irritated her and she moved on to a group of scientific books.

She couldn't have said how long she stood lost in a book that finally engaged her when she noticed that the polishing sounds had stopped. She looked up from the book, and there he was at the end of the shelf.

“Oh—you scared me.” The stupid words spilled out without her volition. She wasn't
scared
of him, though he did unsettle her. But she certainly didn't want him to know that.

The corner of his mouth inched back. “I find it hard to believe you are so easily scared, Miss Cardworthy. Though I'm certain there are any number of men who might be afraid of
you
.”

She expelled a little breath of outrage. “How dare you make such personal comments to me!”

He shrugged. “You only dislike them because they're not flattering. But that doesn't mean they aren't also true.”

She blinked at him, her lips pursing. She could feel herself growing tighter, as if a rope were being wound around her, drawing her further into herself, to a lonely place. She didn't like herself like this—tight, closed-off—but it always seemed to happen when she felt threatened. She wasn't afraid of Whitby though, she reminded herself. She didn't have anything to lose here. She straightened her spine.

“And who are you to tell people who they are?”

“A man who earns his own way. Perhaps you'd like me to be faceless and voiceless and without opinions because I work with my hands. But I can read and write, same as you, and I've got a brain in my head, and skills most of the men you know do not.”

A shiver ran down her spine at his prideful words. At the suggestion that he might have all sorts of talents she couldn't imagine but that a woman might appreciate.

Stop
this
. She was not some ninny, to be beguiled by a handsome face and a forceful demeanor.

His gaze drifted down to the cover of the book she held below her chin. “
The
Mathematical
Repository
,” he read. His eyes flicked to hers. “I like mathematics. Are you partial to them?”

“Why, yes,” she said, her irritation momentarily forgotten. She did love mathematics, with their clear answers and the order they brought to her sewing and knitting, but it wasn't often she met someone else who liked them. People always thought mathematics were dull. “They're the best sort of puzzle.”

“I, too, prefer things that need measuring and pondering to solve,” he said. But then she realized he was trying to get a rise out of her.

She gave him a bored look and opened the book and stared down at a page full of calculations. “Don't you have somewhere else to be, Mr. Whitby?”

Out of the corner of her eye she could see that he was smiling—why did she so want to wipe that smile off his face?

“I should have that box of yours repaired by tomorrow.”

“Well, good.” She closed the book and turned purposefully away to put it back on the shelf, a dismissal. She needed him to go, because she was strangely afraid she might say or do something she didn't mean to. He ought not even to register in her awareness beyond the useful help he could provide. But he did, and she didn't trust herself.

“You're welcome,” he said to her back.

“Really!” she said tartly. She looked over her shoulder, thinking to cow him with her hardest look.

He only laughed. “You might be used to saying whatever you like, Edwina Cardworthy, but don't think I'll let you walk all over me.”

Something softened in those icy eyes, making her skin prickle. “Sweet Edwina. There's a velvety soft woman underneath that sharp exterior, but you're afraid to let her out, aren't you?”

His words threw her off balance. It was as though he'd seen through the beauty and the demeanor that distracted everyone else, seen the person she was underneath.

But she shouldn't be listening to such appallingly familiar talk. She reached for maidenly outrage, but something else came with it, something exciting and unfamiliar. “How dare you.”

“Easily,” he said with a grin and turned to go. But she hadn't had the last word, and she grabbed his arm and tugged. And knew immediately that she'd just asked for more than she could handle. He easily broke her hold on his arm and moved toward her, backing her into the bookshelf.

“What is it, Edwina Cardworthy?” he asked in a soft voice. “What is it you want?”

She couldn't think with him so close. He smelled of wood shavings and the varnish he'd been rubbing on the desk, and the warmth of his body brushed against her skin, making her want to lean into it. The squareness of his jaw was fascinating her almost irresistibly. Everything about him was as chiseled and hard as the wood on which he worked. He didn't have the refined elegance of a gentleman, and yet he was not coarse. But he was too direct, and blunt, and everything she did not look for in a man. He
worked
for a living.

“I—nothing.” She was stumbling over words, but she felt stupid and overwhelmed. Jack Whitby standing so close to her was incredibly exciting, in a way she'd never been excited in her life. “Excuse me,” she said in a husky voice she hardly recognized. “I shouldn't have grabbed you. It was only a reflex.”

A glimmer of amusement twinkled in his eyes and broke the spell.

“Move back, Whitby,” she said, annoyed with the quaver in her voice. “You are crowding me.”

But instead he leaned closer. “Giving orders again? I don't think what you need from me is obedience.”

Her mind might be struggling to assert that she needed to get away from him, but his nearness was doing something else to her. Turning her brains to porridge, apparently. Definitely making her heart race.

“You are impertinent,” she said, but it wasn't the scold it should have been and instead came out breathy. Flirtatious. “Unbelievably arrogant.”

“Agreed.” He moved closer, though so slowly that she could easily have protested. But she didn't, and then there was nothing between them but a wisp of air. The sound of his breathing sent a thrill through her.

Along with the scent of wood shavings and varnish now came a more personal scent that she knew was his skin, a warm, salty, human scent. There was some force in him, a unique and fascinating force, and she wanted to touch him, to accept it.

He leaned still closer and his lips touched hers, nudging her, coaxing with a deft and tender arrogance that undid her. She parted her lips.

His mouth surprised her, so supple as it was on hers. But firm at the same time, and purposeful. The intention and force behind his kiss intoxicated her. His tongue stroked along the soft skin inside her lips and encouraged her to stroke him back, and she did, leaning in to him and stealing a shaking hand up to touch the front of his coat. The fabric was rough, the sort of cloth she would have passed over as utterly unacceptable for anyone she knew.

He was the first man she'd encountered who hadn't focused on her beauty, and she couldn't resist that about him.

He slid his hand along her neck, the rough drag of his calloused palm telling a history of strength and effort. It made her skin spark.

He kissed along her jaw and down her neck.

“You smell amazing,” he said in a voice that sounded like a groan. “Like clean linen baking in the sun, and lavender flowers.”

He was talking to her, seeking more of her just because he liked who she was, and she loved that.

No
, an ugly voice whispered,
it's a mistake. He's only kissing you because of your beauty, the beauty that draws all men.

“I'll be twenty-eight in August,” she gasped out as his hot mouth moved lower. Deep in the secret heart of her, desire gushed like a spring river escaping its banks to flood parched plants.

“I'll be twenty-seven,” he said with a dark chuckle that turned into a groan as his lips reached the plump, upward swell of her breast. “Are you thinking of a party to celebrate?”

“Oh God, you're younger,” she moaned. Her knees wobbled and her back slid a little way down the bookshelves. He caught her around the waist.

“What, do you think you're on the shelf? You couldn't be more wrong.” He pressed slow kisses on her cheek in a line heading toward her mouth. “Any man would be a king if you chose him.”

Her heart skipped a beat at his words.

And then the click of the library door opening made them spring apart.

***

“Edwina?” Josie said in astonishment. It was hard to believe her own eyes, but as she'd moved into the library, what she'd seen was her sister with her arms around Whitby, the carpenter. And she'd been kissing him.

They stood apart now—Edwina had moved quickly away from him, and she looked pink and flustered.

“Josie,” she said in a hoarse voice but then seemed at a loss for words.

Whitby was apparently the only one who didn't feel overwhelmed with awkwardness. “Miss Cardworthy,” he said to Edwina, inclining his head to her as politely as any gentleman might have. “Come by my workshop anytime to collect your box.”

He took up his bag of tools with a sweep of his arm and moved toward the door, tipping his head to a speechless Josie as he passed her on his way out of the room.

She quickly shut the door behind him and rushed over to Edwina, who had slumped back against one of the bookcases.

“Edwina? What on earth is going on?”

“I…don't know,” her sister said. But then she seemed to gather herself and stood up straighter. “I made a mistake, that's all. That man.” She gestured toward the door. “Whitby—”

“Did he force himself on you?” Josie asked, even though the way Edwina had been pressed against him had looked very much like permission.

“No,” Edwina said firmly, though the blush of pink in her cheeks suggested she didn't feel as in control as she wanted to be. “He didn't force anything on me. I think he simply benefitted from a sort of…curiosity I hadn't realized I had.”