He raised his brows. Those legs deserved something better, assuming the one tucked beneath that horror of a skirt matched the elegant limb on show. They demanded heels. Stiletto sharp and high, to emphasise the luscious curve of her calf. Ankle straps. Ribbons, sexy enough to tease a man till he took them off and moved on to other pleasures.
Alaric shook his head. He’d bet all the jewels in the basement vault the owner of this shoe would be horrified at the extravagance of footwear designed to seduce a man.
A tingle of something dangerously like anticipation feathered his neck as he watched her leg swing and her foot arch seductively. This time the little wriggle of her toes seemed deliciously abandoned as if the drab clothes camouflaged a secret sybarite.
Alaric’s mood lightened for the first time in weeks.
‘Cinderella, I presume?’
The voice was deep and mellow, jolting Tamsin out of her reverie. Warily she lowered the volume enough to peer over it.
She froze, eyes widening as she took in the man gazing up at her.
He’d stepped out of a fantasy.
He couldn’t be real. No flesh and blood man looked like that. So mouth-wateringly wonderful.
Numb with shock, she shook her head in automatic disbelief. He could have been Prince Charming, standing there in his elaborate hussar’s uniform, her discarded shoe in one large, capable hand. A bigger, tougher Prince Charming than she remembered from her childhood reading. His dark eyebrows slashed across a tanned face that wasn’t so much handsome as magnetic, charismatic, potently sexy.
Like Prince Charming’s far more experienced and infinitely more dangerous older brother.
Eyes, dark and gleaming, transfixed her. They were…aware.
Meeting his unblinking regard she had the crazy notion that for the first time ever a man looked and really saw her. Not her reputation, not her misfit status but the real flesh and blood Tamsin Connors, the impulsive woman she’d tried so hard to stifle.
She felt vulnerable, yet thrilled.
A lazy smile lifted one corner of his mouth and a deep groove creased his cheek.
Stunned, she felt a squiggle of response deep in her abdomen. Tiny rivers of fire quivered under her skin. Her lungs squeezed her breath out in a whoosh of…of…
The book she held shut with a snap that made her jump. Instantly the other volumes in her lap slid and she grabbed for them. But they were cumbersome and she didn’t dare let go of the precious herbal in her hands.
In dry mouthed horror she watched a book tumble out of her grasp. It fell in slow motion, turning over as it went. Even knowing it was too late to save the volume she scrabbled for it, barely keeping her precarious perch.
‘Don’t move!’ The authority in his voice stopped her in mid lunge.
He strode forward a step, stretched out his hand and the book fell into his grasp as if it belonged there.
Dizzy with relief, Tamsin shut her eyes. She’d never have forgiven herself if it had been damaged.
How had he done that? The volume was no paperback. It weighed a ton. Yet he’d caught it one-handed from a fall of twelve feet as if it were feather light.
Tamsin snapped her eyes open and saw him turn to place the book on the desk. The indigo material of his tunic clung to his broad shoulder and muscled arm.
That formidable figure wasn’t the result of tailored padding.
She swallowed hard, her gaze dropping to long powerful thighs encased in dark trousers. The crimson stripe down the side drew attention to the strength of those limbs.
No pretend soldier. The straight set of his shoulders and the contained power of each precise movement proclaimed him the real thing.
Abruptly he turned, as if sensing her scrutiny. His gaze pierced her and she shivered, overwhelmingly aware of him as male.
She worked with men all the time, but she’d never met one so undeniably masculine. As if testosterone radiated off him in waves. It made her heart race.
‘Now to get you safely down.’ Was that a glint of humour in his eyes?
‘I’m OK.’ She clutched the books like a lifeline. ‘I’ll put these back and—’
‘No.’ The single syllable stopped her. ‘I’ll take them.’
‘I promise you I’m not usually so clumsy.’ She sat straighter, annoyed at her stupidity in examining the books here instead of taking them to the desk. Normally she was methodical, logical and careful. It was no excuse that excitement had overridden her caution.
‘Nevertheless, it’s not worth the risk.’ He walked to the foot of the ladder and looked up, his face unreadable. ‘I’ll relieve you of your burden first.’
Tamsin bit her lip. She couldn’t blame him. She’d almost damaged a unique volume. What sort of expert took such risks? What she’d done was unforgivable.