At his entrance, she gave him a quick glance before taking up a book from the top of the steps. “Is something wrong, Mr. Carsington?” she said. “Has the brewhouse caught fire? Or perhaps you have at last discovered where all those vast hordes of rats you promised us are hiding. Poor Daisy is bored.”
Darius dragged his gaze away from the lady’s arse and ankles and focused on the dog. Lying near the foot of the steps and busy with some object, she looked up hopefully when her name was uttered.
He stared at the article between her paws. “Is that—was that—a book she’s eating?” he said.
“Fordyce’s Sermons,” said Lady Charlotte.
Darius sucked in air and let it out, then advanced into the room through a narrow path between crates. “That’s not one of mine,” he said. “There are no sermons in my collection.”
“And why does this fail to surprise me?” she muttered.
Though his hearing was sharper than most, he feigned otherwise. “I beg your pardon?” he said, drawing closer to the steps.
“Certainly it isn’t yours,” she said more distinctly. “I should never let Daisy chew one of your books. That would be discourteous. The book is one of mine. But Daisy gets so much more enjoyment out of it, you see.”
Something clicked in the back of his mind, but the shapely bottom practically under his nose was muddling his thinking processes.
“Then is it safe to assume you’d consider it discourteous as well to let her piss on any of my books?” he said.
She made a small, choked sound. Laughter? Or had she merely inhaled dust? He moved a little to one side of the steps, trying for a better view of her face. He detected no sign of amusement.
“I should never permit that, either,” she said.
He let his gaze sweep upward again. He could not make her out—but then, his brain was not working very well. He saw how pink her cheeks were. He saw a few wisps of blond hair stuck to her temple. He saw the sheen of perspiration slicking her face and neck.
It was not unusual for a gentleman to see a highborn woman in a sweat. But most usually he saw her—above him or below him or beside him, as the case may be—in such a state during a lively bout of lovemaking.
Darius’s temperature climbed, and a jolt of not unfamiliar sensation shot to his groin.
Don’t waste your time, he told his reproductive organs.
They weren’t listening. They were fixed on a warm, moist female. His mind wasn’t helping matters. It conjured images of this female, hot and tousled, amid tangled sheets.
“What are you doing on those steps?” he said irritably. “There seem to be a thousand servants in the house. Aren’t you supposed to be sitting in a chair, sipping lemonade and ordering them about?”
“I did supervise them,” she said. “The London servants merely swiped the room with a duster and called it cleaning. I had our lot do it thoroughly while I sorted your books. But cleaning is one thing and putting away books is another. The servants cannot all read very well, some very little. It was simpler to do it myself.” She rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand, leaving a streak of grime there.
“It is hard work,” he said. “Your face is red, and you are sweating.”
“Gentlemen do not notice such things,” she said.
“Where did you get that mad idea?” he said. “That is precisely the sort of thing men notice.”
“I said gentlemen,” she said.
“Gentlemen are men, too,” he said. “But I believe you meant that I should have pretended not to notice. One of those absurd social rules.”
“And you do not believe in rules,” she said.
“No more than you do,” he said. “I know it is against the rules for a lady to perform any sort of manual labor. Yet you are putting away all these books by yourself.”
“I wanted it done properly.” She came down the steps. She held a volume of Homer’s Iliad. He wondered if she knew what it was.
He doubted she’d been taught Greek. Except in rare cases—such as his sister-in-law Daphne’s—the classical languages tended not to be included in a lady’s education. In his experience, the higher a lady stood upon the social ladder, the less erudition—or even intelligence—mattered. There was an easy way to find out.
“Where is the right place to file the erotic Greek poetry, I wonder?” he said.
She glanced down at the book, and her reaction told him she could no more read Greek than he could read ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs: Her flushed face deepened from pink to rose. So did her neck.
She wore a high-necked dress with a great many ruffles about the upper part. However, she’d undone several fastenings in front, leaving a narrow line of her throat and an area below plainly visible. The bodice material, once crisply starched, hung limply. She pulled this droopy cloth away from her skin and fanned herself with the damp fabric. The action revealed the swell of her bosom, and the fine line of sweat trickling between her breasts.
“Under F,” she said.
“F,” he said blankly. At the moment he could think of only one topic belonging under that letter.
He was aware of a musky fragrance, not at all unpleasing. Quite the contrary. It was precisely the sort of thing that, in the animal kingdom, drove male dogs to burrow under fences and bound over tall walls: the scent of a heated female.
He pulled out his handkerchief. “Perhaps you’d like to wipe off the—er—not-sweat,” he said.
“Thank you.” She took the handkerchief.
He turned his gaze to the shelves behind her. He saw something wrong, very wrong, but his brain was too sluggish to name it.
He tried desperately to concentrate. “F,” he said. “Greek begins with a G. Poetry with a P. Erotica with an E.”
She dabbed her forehead with his handkerchief. “F for foreign,” she said.
“F for foreign,” he repeated.
She nodded.
He looked about him. He blinked once, then stalked to one of the shelves and stared at the books.
“You’ve put them in alphabetical order,” he said hollowly.
“Yes,” she said cheerfully.
“By title,” he said.
“Yes, except for the foreign ones. I considered doing the others by author, but I thought you’d remember titles more easily.”
He turned to look at her. Apparently thinking him otherwise occupied, she had pulled the bodice open and was mopping the space between her breasts with his handkerchief.
I have to kill her, he thought.
This was beyond anything. This was diabolical.
He set his jaw and focused on the shelves.
“There are a great many books under T,” he said levelly. “The Elements of Law, Natural and Political. The Practical Husbandman and Planter. The Sceptical Chymist.”
“Yes, it is amazing how many there are,” she said brightly. “But you will find a prodigious number under A, as well.” She moved away to a set of bookshelves and read: “A General System of Nature. An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals. A Treatise on Ruptures.” She waved at another set of shelves. “There are a fair number of O’s, too. On this or that. Observations of something or other.”
“And F for foreign,” he said.
“Yes.” She beamed at him.
“Lady Charlotte,” he said.
“Pray do not thank me,” she said. “It was my pleasure, I assure you.” She gave him back the handkerchief, set the volume of Homer on top of a crooked stack of books nearby, and left him.
He watched her go, hips swaying, dress clinging.
When her footsteps had faded, he looked about him. Open crates, some empty, some partially filled, crowded the room. A few of the empty crates stood upside down. On top of them teetered towers of books. In the A, F, and T sections, books crammed the shelves. Elsewhere, they held only a volume or two.
“Her pleasure, indeed,” he said.
He looked down at Daisy, who had remained. At the sound of his voice, sh
e looked up from her chewing.
She was not pretty. Bulldogs were not bred for looks but for ferocity and fearlessness. One of the bulls or bears she was bred to bait must have sat on the face of one of her ancestors. Bowed legs projected from her barrel-shaped—and overweight—torso and crooked teeth from her drooly mouth. On the other hand, her brown and white coat was sleek and clean, and her temper was sweet—perhaps because she was small, even for a young female. The runt of the litter, he guessed.
Yet runt or not, young or not, she must be fast as well as fierce to catch rats. Despite appearances—the mashed-in face and the crooked teeth protruding from her drooly mouth—she was intelligent.
Sweet and well behaved. More intelligent than she appeared. Yet dangerous.
Like the lady who’d departed a moment ago.
“F for foreign,” he said.
Daisy gave a little grunt—and returned to her chewing.
Darius looked at the damp, crumpled square of linen in his hand. “Plague take her,” he said. He brought the handkerchief to his face and drank in the scent of hot female.