The Perfect Kiss (8 page)

He laid the final pieces of kindling. “I agree. But where did you get the knife?”

“I had it with me, of course.”

He gave her an incredulous look. “You carry a knife?”

She raised her eyebrows disdainfully. “Yes, I try never to travel unarmed.”

He frowned. “But ladies don’t—” He broke off. She wasn’t a lady. She was a hired companion, no doubt used to fending for herself. Probably needing to fend for herself. Look how she’d tried to chop the wood.

But she knew what he’d been going to say and took him up on it. “Ladies do so travel armed. My mother always did. So do two of my sisters and my great aunt, and several other ladies I know.”

He doubted very much whether the women she spoke of were
ladies
at all. The only ladies he knew who routinely went about armed were ladies of the night. But all he said was, “Not with knives, I’ll wager.”

“No, they prefer pistols. But my sort-of-sister-in-law and another friend of the family both carry knives.” She frowned and corrected herself. “Actually, Elinore’s is more of a, a stabbing pin. Cassie’s is a proper knife, though.”

A
stabbing pin
? Good grief! But he had a clearer idea now of the sort of background Greystoke came from. Some hired companions were women of good family, fallen on hard times. Others, especially the younger variety, were making an attempt to better their situation. Greystoke was of the latter variety, he decided: such small details gave her away. He would be doing her a great favor in removing her from the company of such unsavory women.

He had a sudden vision of her running through the rain, her wet clothes clinging to her body. He could see no place she could have carried a knife. Was she teasing him? “Where did you carry it—your knife?”

“In my boot,” she replied carelessly. “Do you need the tinder box now?”

Wordlessly he put out his hand for it. In her boot? He glanced at her feet. The toes of a pair of boots were peeping out from the mud-spattered gray hem. He could just flip the hem up and see if she was teasing or not . . .

“You don’t believe me, do you? Well, see for yourself.” She thrust a foot out and pulled back her hem just enough for him to see a bone handle protruding from her half boots.

Good God! She did carry a knife in her boot. She also had lovely calves. “That’s interesting,” he began.

She gave a satisfied nod. “I told y—”

“Not a single freckle on your leg at all.” He struck the flint.

She crossly twitched her hem back into place.

“Of course the other leg might be covered with hundreds of them. Unpredictable things, freckles. Pop up in the most interesting places.” He struck the flint again.

She made a huffy noise but refused to rise to his bait.

He struck the flint a third time. His fingers felt like thumbs. He was too aware of her. Clamping down on his instincts, he finally got a flame going and lit the fire.

“You’re very quick at lighting fires,” she commented.

He darted her a glance to see if she was speaking metaphorically. She wasn’t. He made a few last-minute adjustments to the fire, and then straightened.

“That should last the rest of the night.” He turned toward her with a purposeful expression.
“Now.”

Grace was startled out of her brooding reverie. “What do you mean,
now
?” She didn’t trust the look in his eyes.

“I told you to get out of that damp dress.”

“And I will, as soon as—”

“I’m not accustomed to having my orders disobeyed, Greystoke.”

Grace skittered away, intending to put the big kitchen table between them but like lightning, he reached out and snagged her wrist. “Come with me, Mistress . . . Greystoke.” He towed her out of the kitchen and back to the entry hall.

She fumed silently. High-handed wretch. She was getting fed up with being dragged places by him. She had to run to keep up with his long strides.

He stopped in front of the mound of baggage. “Which of these is yours?”

“That one.”

He snatched it up and marched her with it back to the kitchen. He dumped it on the kitchen table and flipped it open. Ignoring her protests, he rummaged through her valise, pulling out everything she would need for a complete change of clothes. He didn’t even hesitate, but pulled out a pair of lace-trimmed drawers, a muslin chemise, and a lacy petticoat without the slightest qualms. He lifted the lacy white underthings in one big, tanned hand, dangled them in front of her, and raised an eyebrow. “Pretty fancy for a paid companion. I can’t wait to see them on you. Or off, as the case may be.”

Grace was scandalized. She snatched at the underclothes, but he jerked his hand away and she missed. A wicked look on his face, he held her underclothes high above his head while he rummaged with his other hand for stockings.

She was furious. “Have you no shame?”

The golden eyes glinted. “Not a lot. Do you?”

Blushing enough for both of them, she snatched her unmentionables from him. He laughed softly.

“Now, which dress do you want to wear? This gray thing or this other gray thing. My, my, what a lot of gray. Tell me, do you wear gray because of your name or—”

She slammed down the lid of the valise. He managed to pull his hand back in time. “I can choose my own clothes,” she muttered, still furious with him, but a little shocked that she’d almost trapped his fingers.

“Yes, but you didn’t,” he said with silky menace. “I don’t know how many times I told you to change, but—”

“Three.”

“What?”

She shrugged. “You told me three times. It might have been four. I forget.” She gave him a sweet, mocking smile.

“Then why didn’t you change?”

She shrugged again. “You can’t tell me what to do. You’re not my master.”

He placed his hands on the table and regarded her from under lowered black brows. “No, and you’re not my mistress—yet! I am, however, the master of this house. And I ordered you to change. And you will find, Little Miss Bright Eyes, that my orders are to be obeyed.”

“Oh, stop fussing! And don’t call me Bright Eyes! My name is Greystoke. And I told you I never catch cold. I told you I’d change as soon as I have time. But in case it has escaped your attention, Sir John is extremely ill, and this great barn of a house of yours is without servants of any kind. So someone had to make up a bed for Sir John. Someone had to light a fire. Someone has to provide hot water for tea. And that someone is, apparently”—she bared her teeth at him—“the hired companion!”

She waited, expecting him to apologize. He pulled a watch from the pocket of his breeches and flipped it open. “You have ten minutes. I will wait outside while you change.”

She stamped her foot in frustration. “Did you hear nothing I said? Sir John is—”

“Being attended to by the doctor. And nobody will expire from lack of tea. Nine minutes,” he said calmly and strolled toward the door. “If you are not in dry clothes when I return, Mistress Greystoke, I will strip that ugly gray thing off you, and whatever you are wearing underneath. Then I will dry you . . . thoroughly. Then—eventually—I will put you into those delightful white lacy things and finally, and most reluctantly, I will cover you in another ghastly gray dress.”

“Y-y-you wouldn’t dare!” His words had conjured up shockingly explicit images in her mind—visions of big, brown gypsy hands smoothing white lace over her bare skin . . .

She shivered.

He turned and shot her a glinting gold look. “Oh I’ll dare, Miss Freckles, and having not a shred of shame in me, I will enjoy the exercise very much.” His gaze roamed over her. “I’ve never seen freckles quite like yours, and my mind keeps speculating about whether you have freckles all over your body. Or not. And if not, where do the freckles stop?”

Grace’s hands flew defensively to her chest.

His eyes followed their movement. “There, you think?” His gaze trailed insolently down past her middle. “Or lower down? Not as far as your ankles—I know that already.” He gave a lopsided, wicked grin. “Well, we shall see.”

“Over my dead body you will!”

He laughed softly. “Oh, you won’t be dead. You’ll be very much alive, Greystoke. Eight minutes.” And he shut the door.

Chapter Five

Go to your bosom; Knock there,
and ask your heart what it doth know.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

 
 
 
 
FOR FULLY THIRTY SECONDS GRACE DEBATED WHETHER TO PUT his threat to the test. He wouldn’t really strip her. Would he? He couldn’t possibly behave in so scandalous a manner. She was a Merrid—! She stopped in midthought. She was not Miss Merridew, of the Norfolk Merridews. To him, she was just somebody’s hired companion. And to many gentlemen, servants were fair game.

He would enjoy it, too, the scoundrel! Her fingers flew to unbutton her wet dress.

Keeping a wary eye on the closed kitchen door, she rummaged in her valise. She refused to wear any of the clothes he’d touched. The mere thought of his strong brown fingers rifling through her lacy underclothes made her hot with—with fury! Her skin prickled with it.

She stripped off her damp clothes and scrambled into dry ones, cursing him with every rude word she could think of. She did not know nearly enough bad words to do his perfidy justice.

She fastened the last button with a mixed feeling of triumph and . . . anticlimax? No, relief. The door had stayed shut. She’d never dressed so fast in her life. She even had a minute to spare, she thought.

She forced a composed look on her face and looked around for something to do. She was not going to give him the satisfaction of knowing he’d flustered her. Soup!

She scraped carrots and chopped them into chunks. It was a bit awkward, cutting with her sore hand. The carrots were quite woody. They’d soften in the cooking, she hoped. She chopped the herbs. Luckily the splinter had gone into her left hand. She picked up the onion and was about to behead it, then put it down. If that black-browed devil saw her with red eyes, he’d think he’d made her cry and she would
not
give him the satisfaction. He did not have the power to make her cry. No man did!

She found a small pot, and transferred some of the hot water into it. She waited until it came to the boil, then tossed the carrots in and stirred them around. They bobbed woodily. She covered them with herbs.

It must be well past fifteen minutes! The fiend! She returned to her vegetables.

After another ten minutes, the kitchen door opened and the black-browed fiend sauntered in. He’d changed into a fresh shirt and coat and another pair of buckskin breeches—thankfully! They didn’t cling to his form nearly so much as the wet pair had. His hair had been combed back, but it was overlong and a lock of it fell over his forehead. A drop of water glimmered at the end of it. Not that she cared.

“Miss Pettifer was wondering where her cup of tea is, and the doctor would like his with no milk and two spoonfuls of sugar.”

Grace glowered at him. She’d forgotten all about the tea Melly had craved. She seized a brown earthenware teapot and banged it down on the table. He hadn’t even mentioned her dress or . . . or anything.

He sauntered toward her like a lazy big predator. Her pulse leapt but she didn’t turn a hair. She ladled tea into the pot with as serene an expression as she could muster. She would not let it show, she would not.

A muscle twitched in his cheek. “I gather Miss Pettifer likes her tea extremely strong.”

Bother! She’d lost track of how much tea she’d put in. Grace gave him a limpid look. “Yes, she does,” she lied. That drop of water was very distracting.

“Twelve spoonfuls is very strong.”

“Is it?”

“The doctor prefers his tea weak.”

“Does he?”

“But then, I’m sure you’d know how to make tea better than I would. Coffee is more my brew.”

It was infuriating, Grace thought, how the right things to say never came when you needed them. She ought to say something clever and cutting about the devil’s brew. But she couldn’t think of anything clever and cutting, not with that lock of black hair falling over his forehead like that.

“Your hair is about to drip.”

He pushed back the lock of hair indifferently. “How is your hand?”

She thrust it into the fold of her skirt. “All right.”

He nodded at her soup pot. “What is that you’re making?”

“Soup?”

“Really? How enterprising.” He strolled over and glanced into the pot. His mouth twitched. “Made soup before, have you?”

“Frequently,” she lied. “In any case, there is not much choice, is there?” Hah! That was pretty cutting.

He stood watching her chopping at the turnip. “Would you like me to do that?”

“No, thank you. I can manage perfectly well.”

He nodded at her hand, wrapped in his handkerchief. “Is it still hurting?”

“No, it’s much better. Thank you.”

He gave her an enigmatic look. “You’re not cross with me?”

“Good heavens, no,” she assured him in a gracious tone. “It’s not your fault you were brought up a mannerless wretch with no moral standards whatsoever! For the fire and the wood, I’m quite grateful.”

White teeth gleamed. “I don’t want your gratitude, Greystoke,” he said softly. He prowled two steps closer and before she knew it his hands were on her waist and he was pulling her against him. “I want you,” he purred and covered her mouth with his.

Grace stiffened and tried to pull her head away. He took no notice. His lips moved over hers gently, with lazy assurance, as if she were his for the taking. She tried to push him away, but he simply wrapped his arms around her.

She tried to kick him: her brother-in-law Gideon had taught her where to kick a man who was annoying her, but Lord D’Acre blocked her cunning move with ease. Without breaking the kiss he pressed her back against the kitchen wall, covering her body with his in a shockingly intimate move. She could feel every hot, hard inch of him, his mouth firm and demanding, his broad, hard chest crushing the softness of her breasts, his long, hard horse-man’s thighs pressing against her. His heat soaked into her.

She tried to say something, to protest, but the moment she opened her mouth he took shameless advantage, deepening the kiss, his mouth seeking, demanding a response she hadn’t known was in her. She was melting under his heat, spinning, clutching onto him as if he could stop her from falling.